An Accidental Namesake

My first year of college was at Louisiana Tech in Ruston, Louisiana.  Tech/ Ruston is somewhat of an ancestral home for my McBride clan.  Both my parents did undergraduate at Tech.  They met there.  Dad's father lived there in his earliest years.  His father, my great grandfather John Sherwood McBride, built a house  on Mississippi Street. That house is long gone.  My grandmother was at Tech in the early 20's and often spoke fondly of her time there.  Today, all of these folks are buried in Ruston.

My time in Ruston was short.  I was only there for a year but it was a great year.  I had no car so my entertainment options were limited.  One Sunday afternoon I wandered off campus and into the city's Greenwood Cemetery.  I knew I had people there and eventually found the "McBride" plot containing my grandfather, William McGinty McBride Sr.  As I recall, there was a stone for my grandmother, Annie Lou as well, but the death date was blank as she was still with us.  Next to them was a stone that read, "John Sentell McBride son of McGinty McBride and Annie Lou Sentell"  with the dates of 1935-1939.  I was a bit surprised to see my full name on a tombstone.  The next time I called home, I told mom I had seen this stone.  She told me about Wacky.

Mom named me.  She chose to use her mother-in-law's maiden name "Sentell" for my middle.  Maybe she just liked the name "John" or maybe it is from Dad's grandfather, John Sherwood McBride.  At any rate Mom was not aware that there had already been a John Sentell McBride.  Dad, apparently, didn't realize it either.  Dad was only 9 when his younger brother died.  Dad had known him as "Wacky."  The original John went by the name "Jack" but he was called "Wacky" because of his older siblings' difficulty pronouncing "Jackie".  His death was a major blow to the family.  I have granddaddy's diary from those years and the entries after Wacky's 1939 death are heartrending.  Granddaddy was a doctor and it is surmised that Wacky died of an illness that granddaddy brought home "from the office."  Dark dark days.

As much as she liked to talk about her past, I don’t remember my grandmother ever mentioning Wacky.  Mom says Grandmother was upset when she heard what I had been named.  By then it was too late.  Mom felt terrible about upsetting Grandmama. Had she known, she would have named me something else.  So, I was not called Jack, Jackie and certainly not Wacky.  I was simply John.  That must have been ok with Grandmama eventually.  I only have wonderful memories of my time with Grandmama Lucy.  She was funny and fun and not a little bit mischievous.  She was full of stories and interesting observations.  I'm sorry she had to suffer the tragic loss of Wacky but I think she overcame it.

This week, Uncle Wacky would have turned 90 years old.  Wouldn't it have been great to have had a whole 'nuther crew of McBride cousins running around Louisiana? 

The two Marjorie's of Church Street

 On one of my last visits with Mom we were sitting at her kitchen table and she asked me if I knew how she got her name.  I was surprised that I never thought to ask her that.  I'd never heard the story and told her so.  She then told me the doctor who delivered her was their across the street neighbor.  He had a teenage daughter who begged and begged for the Keller's to name their new daughter after her.  So they did!

After Mom's passing, I've been trying to recall some things we talked about.  I thought about that naming story and got to wondering who that girl was for whom my mother was named.  From mom's story, I knew a couple facts.  Obviously, her name was Marjorie.  She would have been a bit older than the Keller girls.  She lived across the street.  I bet she babysat for mom's older sisters. 

It's a sickness, I know, but I started digging.  Mom was born in 1931.  I went to the 1930 census for Oak Grove.  It would tell me who the neighbors were back then.  The Census taker was there on April 4, 1930.  The Keller household was well represented--  a 35 year old William H. and his wife Elizabeth, daughters Marian, Sara Jane, and Virginia Ann are all listed on Church Street at the 42nd household enumerated by that census taker.  Two households down the page I found Daniel W. Kelly (Physician) with his wife Ethel, son Joe, daughter "Margery D." and mother, Lillie.  So, here was the Doctor that delivered my mother and our mystery Marjorie! (though not spelled correctly). She was 13 years old in 1930, born in Louisiana.

After January 19, 1931, Church Street in Oak Grove had a 14 year old Marjorie Kelly and an infant, Marjorie Keller.  No relation, but interestingly similar names.  The elder Marjorie was probably around the neighborhood for another couple years then would have moved off to college or marriage.  I know that the Keller family, at some point, moved a few streets over to North Horner where the house I remember as Popaw's still stands today.  

To find out a little more about Marjorie Kelly, I started a separate tree for her based on what I found in that 1930 census.  Within five minutes I found that the new tree was superfluous.  Marjorie Dan Kelly, the mystery girl who wanted the Keller baby named after her, had an older sister, Ethel Campbell Kelly who was already in my "Wholefamdamly" tree.  Ethel had married Cyrus McGinty Jr. of Winnfield, Louisiana.  Cyrus is my first cousin twice removed (on Dad's side). Cyrus and Ethel were married with a daughter before my mom was born.  There would be nothing significant about this McGinty/ Kelly match until years later, when Mom married a McBride who was the grandson of a McGinty.  This happy coincidence allowed me to legitimately include the mystery Marjorie into my one big working tree.  I should make a list of all these "out of the blue" connections. One more personal testament to how small our world is.

Marjorie Dan Kelly, I found out, went on to Louisiana Tech, studied home economics and was a member of Kappa Delta sorority-- exactly the path mom would take 15 or so years later.  She did post-graduate work at the University of Iowa and then came back to Oak Grove to teach Home Economics and Science at the High School.  Mom was still too young at that time to have had classes under her.  By 1943, she had taken an internship in dietetics at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago. She also married that same year at the First Methodist Church of Evanston, Illinois.  Her husband was John Tillman Lomax.  The bride and groom were both children of doctors.  He was from Waynesboro, Mississippi and had finished at the University of Alabama.  At the time of their marriage, he was elbows deep in the technical school of the US Army Air Forces at Scott Field, Illinois.

Later, John became an automobile dealer. He and Marjorie raised four boys in Waynesboro, Mississippi.  A newspaper article I found describes the Eagle ceremony of their youngest son.  All four boys were boy scouts and achieved their Eagle rank.  The marriage went 34 years until John's death in 1975.  He is buried in Waynesboro.  

Mrs. Marjorie Dan Kelly Lomax passed away in 2015 at 98 years and is buried next to John in Waynesboro Cemetery.  By all accounts a lovely lady.  My impression is that Mom didn't know what became of Marjory Kelly, but I'm sure she would have been glad to have heard what I was able to find out about the girl who insisted they share a name.

Marjorie Dan Kelly Lomax (1917-2015)