Margaret Alice Bell (1870-1954)
Margaret Bell was my great grandmother. She is my only family link
outside of Georgia for about two centuries. The following is a few pages
written in her own hand on stationery headed
“Austin, Texas”:
To my
friends this is a Sketch of my Life
I was
born Margaret Alice Bell. But first I must tell you something of my
background. My Grandfather came from
Tennessee in an early day to Texas. Brought his slaves
established a home at Richmond Texas in Ft. Bend County. Got settled
under Austins Claim where he might be
protected. But joined Sam Houston to gain their
freedom from Mexico.
My Father was born at Richmond Texas in Ft Bend County in 1845. Then
when Old Abraham Lincoln and Jeff Davis got up their Nations trouble he
volunteered to fight for his country. After the Civil War was over
George Donald Bell married my dear Mother in 1866. But I must tell you
my mother was Margaret Jane Brown. My Sister
Talitha Earning Bell was born in 1868 in Old Mexico where my
father had migrated to get away from the carpetbaggers and in 1870 I was
born in Old Mexico not far from Mexico City. and
as I told you I was Margaret Alice Bell. There my Dear Mother died. Then
my father with two baby girls came back to Richmond Texas in Ft Bend
County. By this time his mother and Dad has passed on but my Father was
glad to get back to civilization. Now the earliest of my recollection,
Father lived in Waco, Texas. Step Mother insisted that Father, then in
total darkness from the wound he got in the Civil War, take Sister
Tabitha and me to an Orphanage below Houston down the Bay in a little
boat every other day. That was a sad experience for me to kiss my Father
good bye and to know that I wouldn’t see him any
more for years maybe never. I was heart broken of course. I was
young but had a horror of being left among total
strangers. There for the first time in my young life I remember
seeing the tears roll down my blind Daddy’s face. Sister
Talitha and I were in school there from 1879
until 1886. I remember there was a widow lady came to
the home to teach school. She had a
beautiful little daughter. We children loved the child very much. But
the little girl happened to a terrible accident. She swallowed a Tin
Whistle it cost the child her life. The mother Mrs.
Dorhety was grief stricken. Well Mrs.
Dorhety the childs
mother took a liking for my sister Talitha
and persuaded Sister to go to her home with her in Galveston. Sister
went to Galveston, joined the Catholic Church, took
up nursing. I never did see her any more. In 1886 Father came for me.
Then my sister was lost the Galveston Flood in 1900. At that time my
father lived near Corsicana in Navarro Co. There I met a young man Mr.
Hiram Peters. In 1887 he and I were married. To this union were born
three children. George Donald Peters was born in 1891 died in 1893
Savannah Bell Peters was born in 1894
William
Hugh Peters was born in 1897
(end
of Margaret’s document)
Savannah was my Grandmother. She died in October 1933.
Margaret Bell Peters lost her first husband to typhoid pneumonia in
1899. She remarried Charles Arrington, but apparently divorced a few
years later (1901-1903). She married again to Joe M. Berry in 1911.
Leonard Berry, one of her children from this marriage provided more
information about Margaret’s active life.
Left to Right Clockwise: Hugh, Savannah,
Margaret, and Joe Arrington 20 September 1907
Margaret’s father George Donald Bell fought for the 2nd Texas
Infantry. I was able to obtain his pension records from the Texas State
Archives. They state that he enlisted on
12 September 1861 and was assigned as a private in Co. H
of the 2nd Texas. George Bell was discharged from this
regiment June 1862 at Camp
Priceville (Mississippi). He had been
wounded “in one eye” during the battle of Shiloh.
This
pension was applied for by his widow “Mary Ann Bell” (who would have
been Margaret’s step mother she mentions in her account). The form
doesn’t ask for her maiden name, but it states she was born in
Missouri and moved to Texas when she
was one year old. Mary Ann had married George on 4 July 1872 in
Navorra
County, TX. It also states that George Donald Bell died on 14 February
1897 in Dewitt County, TX. Mary Ann died on 25 September 1922. The $14
pension was collected by her daughter, Mrs. G.A. Carrington that year.
Margaret was 2 when her mother, Margaret Jane Brown, died while they
were in Mexico. George and the two daughters moved back around 1872 and
lived near Corsicana. George remarried and moved to Waco about 1878
where he went totally blind. Margaret and Talitha
were sent to Bayland Orphans Home near
Lynchburg, TX east of Houston. The sisters attended school for about
five years here (there were no free public schools in Texas at this
time). Margaret rejoined her father and stepmother after school, but
Talitha became a nurse in a Catholic
hospital in Galveston. All trace of her was lost after the 1900
Galveston hurricane which destroyed much of the island. Margaret also
became a nurse. She had two more children from her brief marriage to
Charles Arrington, one pictured above. Margaret worked as a nurse in
private homes and worked in the State Home for the Insane for about a
year. She also worked for the State Orphans Home, was a hostess in the
Robinson Hotel in Frost, TX, and operated a boarding house from 1917
until 1929.
Margaret Alice Bell Berry died in Austin May 1, 1954 four months before
I was born. The surnames Bell and Brown are both
Septs of MacMillan. I also have a
Baxter ancestor from another family branch which, I guess, makes me a
“triple MacMillan” in addition to the
Colquhoun and Cameron connections. As all you other amateur genealogists
know, the final answer is never achieved. My next step in this
genealogical puzzle is to find out who was Margaret Bell’s grandfather
who originally came from Tennessee to settle in the soon to be Republic
of Texas, and maybe before that who came over from Scotland.
Margaret Bell in August 1931
