Isabella (Holmes) Anderson (1852 - 1910)

Born 1852 in King and Queen, Virginia, United States

Wife of Benjamin Anderson — married 28 Dec 1869 in King and Queen, Virginia, United States

Descendants

Died 2 Apr 1910 at about age 58 in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Biography

Mary (Holmes) Anderson is a part of US Black heritage.

Notes

Isabella Holmes, also known as Mary, was the grandmother of world-renowned opera singer and civil rights activist Marian Anderson. She was born in 1852 in King and Queen County, Virginia, died on April 2, 1910 in Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, and is buried in Eden Cemetery, Collingdale, Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

Following is an excerpt from the book, The Sound of Freedom - Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America by Raymond Arsenault: "Anderson's parents and paternal grandparents were recent migrants to Philadelphia. All four of her grandparents had been born into slavery in Virginia. Benjamin Anderson, her paternal grandfather, was born and raised on a plantation in King William County, in the lowlands of the Virginia Tidewater. His wife, Mary Holmes Anderson, whom he married in 1869, was a native of nearby King and Queen County. During the first two decades of their marriage, the Andersons lived and worked on a small, hardscrabble farm in King William, bearing eight children along the way. Five children-four sons and a daughter-survived into adulthood. The oldest son, John Berkley Anderson, born in 1876, would become Marian's father.

Benjamin and Mary (also known as Isabella) Anderson moved to Philadelphia sometime in the early 1890s, settling into a large ramshackle house on Fitzwater Street. The surrounding neighborhood, part of South Philadelphia's Seventh Ward, was both predominantly black and ethnically diverse. It was there, among a tumultuous mix of inner-city African, Italian, Irish, and Jewish Americans, that John Anderson courted and married Annie Delilah Rucker in i895. A schoolteacher in the Appalachian hill town of Lynchburg, Virginia, Annie Rucker met John in Philadelphia while visiting her older sister, Alice Ward. Grant Ward, Alice's husband, introduced the couple, who decided to marry after a whirlwind courtship, despite denominational differences. John was a devout Baptist who "neither drank, smoked nor chewed," and Annie was a lifelong Methodist. Annie's parents, Robert and Ellen Rucker, were both natives of Boonsboro, a small town nestled in the foothills of Bedford County just west of Lynchburg.

During Annie's childhood, her father was an up-and-coming businessman who eventually became the co-owner of a livery stable in downtown Lynchburg. A leading figure in the local black community, he could often be seen transporting passengers to and from the train depot. Although the family achieved only a modicum of financial success, all four of the Rucker children harbored strong ambitions and respect for education, including Annie who attended the all-black Virginia Seminary and College. While she did not remain long enough to acquire full teaching credentials, under Virginia law Annie was certified to teach in the state's black schools. This was not the case, however, in Philadelphia, which required full credentials for all teachers.

Had Annie Anderson been allowed to teach in Philadelphia, Marian's childhood and the family's circumstances might have been substantially different. But, as it was, her mother had little choice but to find employment wherever she could. Prior to Marian's birth, she provided day care for a number of small children, but she eventually supplemented her husband's income by taking in laundry, working in a tobacco factory, and scrubbing floors at Wanamaker's department store. John Anderson was, by all accounts, a hard worker, but like most black men of his day he had little formal education. One of the few steady jobs open to a black man with his limited skills was as a laborer at the Reading Railroad Terminal in central Philadelphia. Working long hours for low pay, he shoveled coal, sold ice, and performed a variety of odd jobs, some of which were dangerous. While he also moonlighted as a small-time liquor dealer, his total income did not amount to much.

During the first four years of their marriage, the Andersons lived in a tiny rented room on Webster Street, but when Annie became pregnant for a second time they were forced to move in with John's parents. Both of Marian's younger sisters were born in her grandparents' house-Alyse in 1900 and Ethel May in 1902. Only after the addition of Ethel May did the Family of five find the resources to rent a house of their own on Colorado Street, just a few blocks from Benjamin and Isabella Anderson's residence. "It was a small house," Marian recalled years later, "but big enough for our purposes. The living room contained a minimum of furniture. Behind it was a little dining room, and behind that a shed kitchen ... This house did not have a real bathroom, but Mother was undaunted. We were lathered and rinsed at least once a day, and on Saturday a huge wooden tub was set in the center of the kitchen floor. After sufficiently warm water was poured in, we were lifted inside. Mother would kneel and give us a good scrubbing with Ivory soap. Then we were put to bed."

The modest amenities of the Colorado Street house were hardly shocking when judged by the standards of the rural South. Indeed, many black families in the Deep South, or for that matter many families in Philadelphia, would have leaped at the opportunity to live in a two-story house with three bedrooms and an indoor kitchen. It was also clear, however, that the Andersons' standard of living fell far short of middle-class respectability, and that their prospects of moving up into the middle class were dim. As long as John and Annie Anderson remained healthy enough-or lucky enough-to earn a steady income, they could maintain a measure of working-class solvency. But, like most black Philadelphians, they lived in a racially circumscribed world that fostered more insecurity than opportunity."

Sources

• "Virginia Marriages, 1785-1940," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XR36-DLL : 5 December 2014), Benjamin Anderson and Belle Holmes, 28 Dec 1869; citing King & Queen County, Virginia, reference Image 264; FHL microfilm 2,048,458.
• "United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MC5X-7V1 : 15 July 2017), Isbella Anderson in household of Benj Anderson, Buena Vista, King and Queen, Virginia, United States; citing enumeration district ED 36, sheet 424C, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 1374; FHL microfilm 1,255,374.
• "United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M37B-WQW : accessed 11 December 2017), Mary Anderson in household of Ben Anderson, Philadelphia city Ward 30, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 755, sheet 2B, family 47, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL microfilm 1,241,472.
• "United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MG74-TVY : accessed 11 December 2017), Mary B Anderson in household of Benjamin Anderson, Philadelphia Ward 26, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 698, sheet 2B, family 49, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 1400; FHL microfilm 1,375,413.
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/183749541/mary-isabella-anderson
• Washington Post excerpt from The Sound of Freedom. Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert that Awakened America by Raymond Arsenault, Bloomsbury, July 5, 2009 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/thesoundoffreedom.htm)