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Clara Belle Williams Franklin 1856 - 1945  The
1880 census shows the Williams-Franklin families in separate households
in Denison and Sherman. George and Clara had moved in with her
mother, Rebecca, at 703 W. Bond Street in Denison. Although it
had been Rebecca's home for many years, George was listed as the head
of the household. It is noted in column 11 that Rebecca is
"divorced."  Also
liking there was Clara's 16-year-old sister, Ida Williams.
Eight-year-old William Franklin was listed as the son of
George and Clara. Whether he was the biological son of
both, or either, is open to question. When William was born in
1872, Clara was only sixteen. She would not marry George for
another six years. The two of them had a brand-new baby, Chester,
born June 7th, a week before the census taker came to their house on
June 14th. Chester's name is not listed on the census form
because he was born six days after the June 1st cutoff date.
Years later his biography woul say that he was "the only child"
of George and Clara. William Franklin may have been George's son
from a previous union. What became of him after 1880 is unknown. On June 1st the census taker came to David Williams' house on N. Travis Street in Sherman. He found Ida WIlliams there and recorded her age as 15. Thirteen days later it was recorded as 16 when she was counted again at her mother's house in Denison. Also living with David in Sherman was Ida's 11-year-old brother Clarence and 4-year-old sister, Trassa, A 24-year-old housekeeper, Celia Banfay, was at the same address. In columns 9 and 11 David is listed as "single" and a "widower."   Although
the News wrote in January of 1880 that Dave Williams would soon be
moving back to Denison, the census found him still in Sherman five
months later. He did eventually move back to Denison.
Newspaper stories and city directories place him there between
1887 and 1893, although he probably returned earlier than that.
He apparently never moved back in with Rebecca.  Rebecca
lived with Clara and George Franklin on Bond Street until they moved to
Omaha, Nebraska in 1887 or 1888. After that she moved in with Ida
and her husband, Isaac "Ike" McCracken, at 616 W. Morton Street.
Ida had married Ike sometime before October of 1885. She
was listed in The Sunday Gazetteer that month as Ida McCracken, along
with Clara Franklin, among the faculty of the "colored school."
Ida died in 1893 at the age of 29. Her mother may have gone
to live with another of her children at that time. Horace had
moved to San Antonio a couple of years earlier. Dave also left
Denison after 1893. By the mid 1890s the Williams and Franklin
families had largely, if not entirely, cleared out of Grayson County. City directories and newspapers during the next 15 years placed an African-American barber named David or Dave Williams in San Antonio, El Paso, and Carlsbad, New Mexico. A newspaper story from 1908, contributed by Dr. Mavis Anne Bryant to the Grayson County TXGenWeb site, reported that he was "conducting a barber shop in the City of Mexico." He would have been 81 years old at the time.  Biography Index African-American Biography Index African-American Research Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson County TXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |