Bertha Elizabeth (Franklin) Childers (abt.1877-1942)

Bertha Elizabeth Childers formerly Franklin aka Lambert

Born about 15 Apr 1877 in Swain County, North Carolina, USA

Ancestors

Daughter of Joseph Columbus Franklin and Louisa Jane (Reece) Edwards

Sister of Laura Ella (Franklin) Rhodes [half], Darco Lambert [half], Claude W (Lambert) Edwards [half], Sarah Cordelia (Franklin) Gibson [half], Lucinda L. (Franklin) Owens [half], Lorena Gertrude (Franklin) Partridge [half], Dallas Augustus Franklin [half], Flora E. Franklin [half] and Mary M. (Franklin) Pruett [half]

Wife of Thomas Clingman Childers Jr — married 28 Jan 1893 in Oconalufty Township, Swain, North Carolina, United States

Descendants

Mother of Francis David Childers, Joseph Ezekiel Childers, Edna (Childers) Roberson, Emma Childers, Naomi (Childers) Ayers, Roy Arthur Childers, Ruth Lee (Childers) Bartlett, Bonnie Thelma (Childers) Plemmons, Henry Childers, Edmund Childers and Carlos Childers

Died 23 Jan 1942 at about age 64 in Haywood County, North Carolina, USA

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Dwight Childers

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Profile last modified 2 Jan 2022 | Created 5 Feb 2014

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Biography

Bertha Franklin Childers' birth year is uncertain. Her death certificate and grave stone indicate that she was born in 1876. Her marriage license (see image), however, indicates that she was fifteen years old when married on 29 January 1893, yielding a birth year of 1877. The first census in which she appears is 1900, citing her age (as of the census listing date of 2 June) as "22", which yields a birth year of 1878.^[1] For the purpose of this profile, while awaiting other evidence, we are splitting the difference and using the marriage record information indicating 1877, reasoning that lively event to have presented fewer distractions than later in life.

Bertha’s mother was Louisa Jane Reece, whose recorded marriages were to Andrew Jackson Lambert in 1884 and, after his death, to J. Samuel Edwards in 1890. Identifying Bertha’s father has been a challenge because of conflicting evidence. While “Franklin” was inscribed on the tombstone, and her death certificate indicated “Joe Franklin” as her father, there has been evidence to the contrary, suggesting that her father may have been Andrew Jackson Lambert (Lambert-42).

When Bertha married Thomas Clingman Childers, Jr., her name was recorded as “Berthie Lambert”. Many years later, in the mid 1900’s some of her children’s delayed birth certificates identified their mother’s birth name as “Lambert”. Others designated “Franklin”.

Now, as of late March 2018, DNA tests have provided a clear link between Bertha’s descendants and Joseph Columbus Franklin, while no such tests have pointed to Andrew Jackson Lambert. Joseph C. Franklin married Dicie Vashtie Parker in 1879.

Andrew Jackson Lambert, who married Louisa Jane Reece in 1884, was thus Bertha’s step-father for, at least, the two years when Bertha was of age six to eight, more or less. On 4 July 1886 he suffered the tragic and notorious fate of being hanged for a murder which he denied having committed and to which another man later confessed.

In a 1976 interview, Bertha's eldest son, Francis David Childers reported the following:

"This Franklin feller, the next ‘n’ she married, I don’t know anything about him. That’s my mother’s father, Franklin."

[And then, a sentence or two later] "My mother and Claude Lambert now was from Jack Lambert. My mother was from Franklin . . . . Franklin was a fiddler. Fiddled all his life, and made ‘em and sold ‘em and lived that way. Greatest fiddler ‘t had ever been they said. That means he was a skilled mechanic, to do that. All them fiddlers that goes to dances and things are really ramblin’ men; they don’t settle much. I know that by my own experience. Joe, Joe Franklin." For the full audio of Francis David Childers’s discussion regarding his grandparents, go here: "His Grandparents" - or (Facebook).

In 1893, Bertha married Thomas Clingman Childers, Jr. They lived and raised their large family much of the next two decades in a remote cove of Oconaluftee Valley called Couches Creek. (See Space:Couches Creek).

For a touching account of his mother by her first son, Francis David Childers (a video presentation of an audio interview from 1976) see: "His Parents" - https://youtu.be/BlwXsmuq3HE or [1] (Facebook)

For more information about how and where the family lived time by time, see Thomas's profile Childers-487.

According to her NC Death Certificate (see image), Bertha Franklin Childers died of "Apoplexy" (aka stroke) due to hypertension. ^[2]

Sources

↑ "United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-DC5S-1VX?cc=1325221&wc=9B7J-RM5%3A1030551601%2C1034807601%2C1034816801 : 5 August 2014), North Carolina > Swain > ED 109 Oconalufty Township (part west of river) > image 2 of 6; citing NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
↑ "North Carolina Deaths, 1931-1994," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FPP4-78T : 10 February 2018), Thos. C. Childers in entry for Bertha Childers, 23 Jan 1942; citing Buncombe, North Carolina, fn 2366 cn 24, State Department of Archives and History, Raleigh; FHL microfilm 1,943,218.

Marriage Record for Thomas Childers, Jr., and Bertha Elizabeth Lambert:

"Childers, Thomas, 21, son of T. C. and Emilie Childers, to Berthie Lambert, 15, d/o Jennie Lambert, on Jan. 29, 1893. Performed by J. H. Queen. Ocona Lufty. Wit. J. S. Edwards and William Hensley." - Elise Jones Bryson, Marriages of Swain County 1871 - 1905, Swain County Geneological Society, Bryson City, NC. 2002.

DNA tests for Stephen Childers, Dennis Childers, and Dwight Childers, and one other person: AncestryDNA, March 2018. (NOTE: Need to provide gedmatch.com kit numbers for the triangulated group match members after all permissions are obtained.)
1900 United States Federal Census Author: Ancestry.com Publication: Ancestry.com Operations Inc APID: 1,7602::0
"North Carolina Deaths, 1931-1994," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FPP4-785 : 10 February 2018), Joe Franklin in entry for Bertha Childers, 23 Jan 1942; citing Buncombe, North Carolina, fn 2366 cn 24, State Department of Archives and History, Raleigh; FHL microfilm 1,943,218.

Memories: 1

Enter a personal reminiscence or story.

Dwight Childers

I interviewed my uncle (and Bertha's eldest child) Francis David Childers in Asheville, NC, in December 1976. He described his memories of his mother in an audio recording, transcribed here below. (To hear the audio version click his profile-ID above and choose the link in his bio for "His Parents" - either youtube or Facebook, as you wish.)

His Mother at Church

"Well, she was a great shouter. We went to the Bradleytown Church one night and Thad Watson was the preacher, and he could really preach the old time Bible. And Ma shouted. She couldn’t go much. At that time they had to walk about eight miles. At that time she went down the creek and up to the Bradleytown Church at night. I think he [Pa] went with her. I don’t know. But I was there, lookin’ through the window. Now, I was just a boy, like others. I didn’ go in much. I was outside. I saw her shout. I ain’t never seen nothin’ like that. They slap their hands; they jump up and down, they look up all the time. They’re as happy as they can be. You can’t understand ‘em hardly. They’re talkin’ out of this world, I call it.

Well, they went on back home after that. Ma never did talk much. She had a lot to think about. She kept it all goin’ along very well. Her part of it went along fine. She made all our clothes. He would do what she told him to, buy the stuff. We had the money, and we raised sheep, sheared ‘em. Took the wool to Whittier, and bought jeans cloth, and made our clothes. . . . Sewed ever’thing with her fingers. [Jeans cloth] was red. Gray and red lookin’. Now that was all the clothes we had . . . . what she made our coats with, a pattern she’d borrowed somewhere, from some other person . . . . the coats and pants. Underwear was made out of plain factory cloth . . . women, girls, and everything. The’ was no fancy panties then. No. If you want to hear that one. For nobody.

This mother of ours – I ain’t a braggin’ because it was our mother – was a woman. I ain’t never found a woman like her yet. And I’ve been around some, buddy, more’n you think. How she lived, what she done, I know. I was there the first one. How the men was with her. They was men there, but they never bothered her. We had men, they was men, loggers, rough, mean as the devil . . . they never bothered her. I’ve never found a woman yet in my circulation, boltin’, and stayin’ ever’where. Like that. I watch ‘em, know what they do, pretty well.

It was the will to do the right thing to all humans. It’s born in her to do that, I reckon.

Walking to Whittier with His Mother

"That was when I left there, where I said, to the Loftus place on Mingus Creek. At that time . . . me and my mother took a trip to Whittier to get some medicine for one of the kids. Pa was so busy he didn’ have time. It was about thirty miles.

Well, I was the first one, six years old at that time. There was Edna and Emma, and Joe. Now as I said, we started on that trip, to Whittier, thirty miles, to walk, down the rough, muddy, rocky road. And I remember there was a gang of sheep down there that belonged to Mr. Dowdle. My mother loved to tease, an’ them sheep was friendly with her, an’ they come up to her and lick her hands. I was back -- I wouldn’ come up. She got me up where the sheep was and he licked my hand, an’ it scared me to death. I was about eight at that time.

Well, now we walked to Whittier and got the medicine from Dr. Reeves ‘t used to be at Canton, years after that. We walked back then ‘til we got to Cherokee; we come through the Nick Bottoms and around by Shoal Creek, Birdtown, and got to Cherokee. There was only one store there then, Mac Jenkins, to the right of the road, comin’ in to the river, comin’ down ‘that way, from Birdtown. We went in the store and she asked me what to eat, an’ I told her it didn’ matter, whatever she wanted. She got a little money --she sold eggs and bought . . . and she got a can of peaches, one of them big ‘ns . . cost fifteen cents, I remember. An’ we bought a chunk of cheese, as big accord’in’ an’ that long [gestures] for a quarter, back there. Well, we eat that under a big sycamore tree, and I’ve always tried to find the tree, as I went through there; it [wudn] there, all gone. Everything’s different. The only landmark the’ is there, close to where we eat, is them posts, cement posts was there at the first beginning of Cherokee, Yeller Hill, they called it. Must have been a hundred years ago that that happened, that started.

Well, we went on back home from there, up to the Loftis place, where we lived.

His Mother Teaching a Preacher

"Now, the’s a little story right here I’ll tell ‘t my mother witnessed. Haynes Queen used to be a preacher. He was one of the prominent families on the river. The’ was a few, wealthy, pretty wealthy, at that time, not much, but they called ‘em wealthy. He used to be a preacher.

Now you can think this over as I go along, and see what happens. I’ll let y’ be y’ own judge.

Well, he was haulin’ lumber . . . he had fine mules, rollin’ fat and sassy, y’ know. He worked three. He worked with one in front – spike team, they called it. He loaded a big load of lumber on the wagon, and got stuck in the creek, right at our bars. Now he was a preacher, but he commenced beatin’ them mules with a whip he had. Now a mule’s skin, or a horse’s skin is tender. Bull’s skin don’t matter. He can’t feel nothin’. It scares him, the lick of it. But horses’ skin are tender, and them mules are really raisin’ cane. And Ma went down to the bars and told Mr. Queen, she said, “Don’t you know ‘t ain’t good to be doin’ that?” He stopped. He said, “Well . . .” and quit. She says, “Now you get out of the wagon, and go up to them mules’ heads, pat’em a little bit, let’em rest, and they’ll pull it out.” Well, he done that. He got back up in there and they led it right on out.

Well, now here’s what happened later. This is the sad part of it. When that happened I do not know. He went on to Whittier with his load of lumber that same day, and he was comin’ back through Shoal Creek, empty. And them mules was still alert to that beatin’ they got, remember. Well, he got off to get a drink at the spring – I know exactly where the spring was – it was up beside the road. Pa got off there many a time.

While he was drinkin’ water, them mules got scared. Something happened; we never did know what. They started r’arin’ you know. I believe he tied them ropes to his feet thinkin’ he would hold them mules. How ignorant a man can get. He didn’ know the power of them mules when they got mad or scared. He hadn’ ever thought of it, had he? Well, I’ll always believe ‘t the Indians stopped them. They run three miles with him by the feet, over them rocks, draggin’ him. He still lived, a little while. They took fence rails, they’as playin’ ball, they grabbed fence rails, they knew what to do, them old Indians did, only way to stop’em. They was flyin’, them mules was. After they’d run three miles, they was fixin’ to go through the ford, there at Nick Bottom, ‘t the river. And they stuck them rails in the ground and held them to stop them mules with ‘em. They run into ‘em. I don’t know what they done to the mules, not much. Well, they got him up and took him on, brought him home. Ma went down there that night, and she asked me if I . . . she said she wanted me to go with her. The froth, where he was beat so bad in there, was workin’ out o’ his mouth. He’d done died. But he lived long enough to get home. Couldn’ say nothin’."

posted 5 Apr 2018 by Dwight Childers [thank Dwight]

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