Photo: Aunt Helen Shirley
Joan, the relative who sent me the photographs of my third great-grandparents, Thomas A. Lovelace (1812-1876) and Quincy A. Shirley Lovelace (1828-1898), recently sent another photo.
This one is of a woman her mother always called “Aunt Helen Shirley.” Joan’s mother had given the photograph to Joan’s daughter, along with a table that once belonged to this family member.
Joan did not know exactly where Aunt Helen fit into our family, but I love a genealogy mystery, especially one that comes with a photograph. This one actually came with two photographs, because the charm on Helen’s brooch also includes a tiny picture.
After a quick search, I found a little more information about the Shirley family. My first hunch was that Aunt Helen might have been the wife of one of Quincy Shirley Lovelace’s brothers. Another possibility was that she was a paternal aunt who never married and kept the Shirley name.
I found several old message board posts from people looking for more information on Quincy’s parents, Uriah Shirley (c. 1789-before 1843) and Unity Wells Shirley (1794-1869). Unfortunately, most of the posts were more than a decade old, and the emails I sent asking for information came back as no longer valid.
Then I found a website for the Shirley Family Association, which focuses on discovering and preserving Shirley family history.
I emailed Ken, who quickly responded and asked a few questions. Not only did he help identify Aunt Helen Shirley, he also helped me fill in several blanks on this branch of my family tree. Even better, Ken created a page on the Shirley website that spotlights Uriah and Unity Shirley, my fourth great-grandparents.
So who was Aunt Helen Shirley?
First, an interesting detail about Uriah and Unity: Ken points out that Unity’s last name was Wells when she married Uriah on July 14, 1814, in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. That does not appear to have been her maiden name.
Years later, one of their sons, Norfleet B. Shirley (c. 1817-1894), named his “Wells half brother” in his will. That means Unity was likely the Widow Wells when she married Uriah. She was also a young widow. Uriah was about 26, and Unity was just 20.
Uriah and Unity eventually had nine children:
Norfleet B. Shirley (c. 1817-1894)
Thaddeus C. Shirley (1826-1907)
Berry J. Shirley (1820-1861)
James R. Shirley (1821-1905)
William W. Shirley (1828-1867)
Lunsford W. Shirley (1818-1884)
Quincy A. Shirley Lovelace (1828-1898)
John F. Shirley (c. 1830-before 1889)
Mary M. Shirley (1821-unknown)
That brings us back to Aunt Helen.
Aunt Helen Shirley was Helen M. McCormick Shirley (1833-1911), the wife of Thaddeus C. Shirley, Quincy’s brother.
In the 1860 census, Helen McCormick was living with her parents, William C. McCormick (1792-unknown) and Dorcas Irwin McCormick (1805-1876), and her siblings, Mary A. McCormick and R. B. McCormick, in Spring Hill, Maury County, Tennessee.
Helen married Thaddeus on Feb. 20, 1866, in Maury County. By the 1870 census, they had made their way to Haywood County.
From what I can tell, Thaddeus and Helen never had children of their own, but they raised William Melville Sullivan from the time he was three. Dave Parks uploaded William’s clipped obituary to Find a Grave, along with several photos of McCormick family headstones.
According to the obituary, “Will had his faults, but a better-hearted boy never lived. God forgave him and he rests in peace.”
That obit makes you wish you knew the whole story of W. M. Sullivan.
Helen’s mother, Dorcas Irwin McCormick, died March 23, 1876. Her obituary, also uploaded by Dave Parks, noted that she spent her final months with her daughter and had suffered what the writer called “paralysis of the brain.” The obituary says her mind had been almost entirely gone for 12 months, but that she had one clear moment when she spoke to her devoted daughter “only as a Christian mother could talk.”
Thaddeus died Oct. 30, 1907, and was buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Brownsville. Helen died in January 1911 and was buried beside him.
Mystery solved.
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