Bleimes Family History
Chapter 7. Bertha - (Momoo)
Bertha Rose Smith [1860 Smith Census Record] was born in the boondocks of western Kentucky in the little river coal town of Caseyville, Union County, population 400-500. Her parents were immigrant Germanic types, the mother Emelie Ruser Schreeder, said to have been from Schleswig-Holstein, and the father Adam Smith, shown as an immigrant from 'Germany' on the census. My guess is that he anglicized his original name from Schmidt or something similar.
Adam has been an elusive character to research. All that has been found is that he and Emelie married in Metropolis, Massac County, Illinois 14 November 1857, and the one 1860 US census in Kentucky. On that record he is shown as a carpenter and age 49, born in Germany.
Also in this record are the names of three small children with ditto marks under the Smith name to indicate their surnames. Their given names are: Louisa, age 6, Emma, age 3 and Katy, age 1. Nothing else has been found of the latter two. Louisa's surname was really Schreeder - which is another story.
Filed with the deed records in Massac Co., there is a document naming a Margaret E. Margelum, born in 1853, as an apprentice to an Adam Smith 4 January 1856. It is not conclusive evidence, but it would seem to reference our Adam. Nothing further on this subject.
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Back to Bertha - she had the nickname of Bettie, but I never heard it used. Believe that goes back to her earlier century. Born in 1864, just after her sister Mary, we next hear of her in Memphis, Tennessee about 1870 along with her mother, Mary and half-sister Louisa. Adam's trail has disappeared, along with Katy and Emma. Family stories tell that Emelie had nursed people who were victims of a yellow fever epidemic and thereby earned enough to open a grocery store. One quote said, "-and the store was burned down by a negro." Then Emelie bought a piano and took it with them to their new home in Argenta, Arkansas. "The first piano in Argenta." Before the move Louisa had married and stayed in Memphis, so the migrating party was down to three ladies. |
Argenta, (City of Silver) was a small town, formerly named Huntersville, just outside of Little Rock. Its name has been changed to North Little Rock. There Bertha met Peyton Mercer Robinson at a park picnic. Later he came to call on her on his horse, whose name was Julia. My cousin "Babe", who wrote down some of this lore while talking to Grandmother, said that the Robinson family baled cotton, made some flour and had a gin mill that was run by horses. Probably, they had a cotton gin, fed by their slaves. Anyway, the courtship led to marriage on the day after Christmas 1878. The Pulaski County civil certificate shows the bride's age to be 16 and permission to marry given by her mother. However, a bit of basic math (1878-1864=14) indicates that she was but 14.
As the primary researcher I need to comment at this point: There is conclusive evidence that most of the main females in this line, starting with Emelie, doctored dates of events and some names to suit their purposes. As one generality - birthdates seem to have been adjusted to be more in line with the spouse. And the name Schmidt was sometimes used in place of Smith or Schreeder, possibly to influence a German person, and possibly to blot out the name Schreeder.
Back to Bertha - Most of her relatives other than my mother's side called her "Momoo" - (pronounced mah-moó ), as did Babe in her notes. It is an odd name and never had any meaning for me, though I had heard it often. Later I found reference to a word used in the delta area, apparently of French origin - m'amour - a colloquial term of endearment meaning 'my love'. My guess is that Peyton started calling her that name and it endured.
Bertha and Peyton had two children - Edward Fenton "Eddie" in 1882 and Bertha Louise "Birdie" in 1883. Fenton was a name from the Robinson family and Louise may have been from Louisa Schreeder, or from Peyton's mother, Louisa Roberts. Peyton died four months after Birdie's birth. Babe's story says he fell from his horse - his obituary gave the cause as dysentery.
The years between Peyton's death and Bertha's marriage to Jacob are cloudy, but it likely was the period when she took up nursing. Supposedly she attended a nursing school in St. Louis and later served at the insane asylum in Little Rock. I still have her cased hypodermic syringe.
After her marriage to Jacob, the addition of Eva and Floyd to the family and the turn of the century, daughter Birdie got married and son Eddie ran off to join the Army. When Floyd died only Eva was left at home. Then Jacob died, leaving only the two ladies.
In the last summer of the World War Bertha married David Seville, a painter, and established a home on Sycamore Street in Columbus. He was six years younger but she 'adjusted' her age to even things up. The marriage lasted about seven years, ending in divorce. This would have been around the time of the move to North High Street with Eva and George.
Probably, most of the management functions of the tea-room and room rental business fell to Bertha. She hired the help and cooked, as well. The cooking leaned to southern style (fried chicken was my favorite) but not too spicy. Age never kept her from participating and I can see her yet, sweeping up the leaves from our large yard.
Her son Eddie died in 1936 - her daughter Birdie in 1943, so she lost three of her four children before losing her own battle with pneumonia at 89 in 1953.