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- A STORY ABOUT ELIZA JANE RECTOR
AS WRITTEN BY THELMA RECTOR DAVISON FEBRUARY 6, 1986
My grandmother, Eliza Jane Rector was a young woman during the war between the North and South. She lived in North Carolina and had brothers in the war. Her mother would send food to her sons who were several miles away. One day she asked "Granny" as we called her, to take some food to her brothers.
In that day, the women wore gathered skirts and underskirts with big pockets in them. She put the food in the pockets of her underskirts in case she got stopped by any enemies. As she was walking through the woods, she heard a lot of horses coming towards her. She was so afraid and didn't know what to do. She jumped over the path in the road and fell down behind a fallen tree. She said her heart was beating so loud that she knew if any soldiers passed by they could hear it beat. The soldiers passed by without seeing her. She got up and finished her journey. She said that was the most scared she had ever been.
Note: I wonder if it was her uncles that she took food to instead of brothers, the only brothers I have listed seem like they would have been fairly young during the Civil War. Perhaps there were older brothers of which I am not aware.
Madison County, NC Census records for 1870 lists her as 17 years old and keeping house. Joseph and Eliza live next to Franklin Bradburn and David Roberts.
1880 records list her as 26 yrs, wife keeping house.
1900 records list her as 47 with birth date Dec. 1852.
1910 Madison County Census lists her as the head of the household. Her name is listed as "Liza". Her age is 59. She is listed with son, Jona, age 22; son James C., age 21; daughter Lottie, age 12; granddaughter, Minnie, age 17; grandson, Dewey, age 9; and one non relative.
According to these records, she was born either 1849, 1852, 1853, or 1854. Census data is only as accurate as the person giving the information, the person writing the information, and the person who later transcribes the records from the original handwritten documents. But this does serve to narrow the field.Her death record lists her as 100 Years old, at the time of her death in 1941. Her age was not known, so the family estimated her birth date as 1841 for the death certificate. vol.008, cert.03721.
Some time between 1910 and 1920 Eliza Jane moved to Balkan, Ky to live with her daughter Lottie and her husband Hal Massey. She lived with them there until Lottie's death in 1931 and then she moved in with her son James Rector (Balkan, KY) and his family and lived with them until her death in 1941.
great-grandaughter: Earlene Guglierano e-mail: earlene@zeus.ia.net (2001)
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1854 - 1941 (86 years)
