Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong (Jr.)--An Old Woman is a Young Woman in Disguise

When I met my then-boyfriend's great-aunt in 1975 or so, I was impressed by this small-of-stature woman's gentility. Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong had never married. White-haired, kind, very Southern, with a mischievous and childlike sense of humor, she seemed to represent my idea of a Southern gentlewoman from an earlier era. I remember Mimi's always being impeccably dressed in a jacket and a skirt, often with a hat, the epitome of a certain class of Southern woman from the 1940s or so. Only after she died and we inherited letters written to her by old boyfriends and by a male first cousin who lived in New Orleans, only after we inherited all the photographs and the newspaper clippings, did I realize that this seemingly very proper Southern woman had lived a rich and full life. An old, unmarried woman she might have been, but a stereotypical old maid she wasn't. Because I knew her only in old age, I didn't realize how active "Mimi" had been as a younger woman--hiking in the mountains of Colorado, going on trips around the world with her teacher friends.

Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong was named after her mother. If she had been a man, "Jr.," would have followed her name. Her father, Baker White Armstrong, had left Virginia in the 1880s for Texas. Not long thereafter, he married a young woman from the state he had left behind: Mary Ophelia Nugent, daughter of Perry Nugent and Amanda Mariah Keep Cook. Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong was the couple's second child and second daughter. The first child and daughter was my husband's grandmother, Katherine Armstrong. The third child was another daughter: Helen Armstrong. (Helen was epileptic, and from letters that I've read, the family spent much time and effort providing the best care they could for their beautiful third daughter.) The fourth and final child was a son: Baker White Armstrong, Jr. Of the four children of Baker and Mary Armstrong, only Katherine had offspring.

If you click on the images for a larger view, you will be able to read the text of the newspaper clippings. The photograph at the top of the page of "Mimi" in graduation regalia has a note on the original, written in my mother-in-law's hand: "Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong 1916. Grad. Liggett School, Detroit, Michigan."

Paul Cook--Sugar Refiner in Louisiana in the 1800s

Paul Cook is my husband's great-great-great grandfather. Born in 1808, he was married to Elizabeth Simmons (born 1814), who is recorded to have died in Salem, Virginia, in 1886. He died in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on February 4, 1893. The obituaries reveal a few more details about Paul Cook. Somewhere in the family letters there may be more information, and I'll provide it as I find it. For a better view, click on the images.  

Years ago, I went searching for the grave of Paul Cook and found it in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a serendipitous discovery. In one of the family letters, someone mentioned the grave's being in Baton Rouge, and the writer included descriptions of how to get to the grave from one of the gates to the cemetery--but the name of the cemetery was omitted. I guess the recipient of the letter already knew what cemetery to go to, just not how to locate the grave once she arrived. My best friend and I decided to begin with one of the oldest cemeteries in Baton Rouge: and we struck gold... or dirt....or something. Somewhere in the boxes of my own stuff, there are pictures of me posing at the grave in a cemetery on Florida Boulevard in Baton Rouge.

 

UPDATE, 28 February 2013:

 I discovered the photos I had taken of Paul Cook's grave. The grave is located in Magnolia Cemetery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, located at 422 North 19th Street, bordered on the north by Main Street and on the South by Florida Boulevard. When my friend and I went looking for the Cook cemetery site, we had only some vague directions in a letter from 1946; the cemetery was not identified. We decided to begin with one of the oldest cemeteries in Baton Rouge, Magnolia Cemetery. Following the directions in the letter, we were surprised to discover the grave immediately. 

Cook cemetery lot, Magnolia Cemetery, Baton Rouge, LA

Magnolia Cemetery, Baton Rouge, LA, Paul Cook's grave

These were the directions we followed, from that 1946 letter to my husband's great-aunt, Mary ("Mimi") Armstrong, from Kitty Cook (Mrs. B. W. Cook, Baton Rouge, LA): "....if you will enter the cemetery, pass one water faucet near the entrance and go until just before you reach the second faucet, get out, turn right, the Cook lot is about the second one. Next to the Paulsen lot. Mrs. Cook's name is on the tomb, at the left is Grandfather Paul's grave, at his feet is Mr. Cook's and his daughter Sally in the same tomb--at Mrs. Cook's feet is Vaughn Wax, two years old, son of Maud Cook Wax, who is Bennie's sister."

Paul Cook's wife, Elizabeth Cook Simmons, is buried in Salem, Virginia, where she died while visiting their daughter (and my husband's great-great grandmother) Amanda Maria Keep Cook Nugent.

Amanda Mariah Cook Nugent

Amanda Mariah Cook is my husband's great-great grandmother, the mother of Mary Ophelia Nugent (who married Baker White Armstrong) and the wife of Perry Nugent. She was born on October 31, 1834. Her father, Paul Cook, was born in Rhode Island.

I don't know much about Amanda Mariah Cook Nugent, however, beyond what is revealed in the photos we have and the obituaries. However, as I organize and read the letters she wrote her daughters in the 1870s through early-1880s,  I will learn more and post that information. To read the obituary, click on the image for a larger view. Click on the photograph for a close-up.

Perry Nugent--"The Loss of Wealth was his Trial"

Below is a memorial to Perry Nugent, my husband's great-great grandfather. Perry was the father of Mary Ophelia Nugent, my husband's great-grandmother. He married Amanda Mariah Keep Cook, daughter of Paul Cook and Elizabeth Simmons.

From the obituaries of the Christian Advocate, Thursday, November 1, 1900 

Perry Nugent

It is never to late to remember the dead.  What does “In Memoriam” say?

        “O sorrow, then can sorrow wane?

        O grief, can grief be changed to less?

        O last regret—regret can die?

        No, mixed with all this mystic frame,

        Her deep relations are the same,

        But with long use her tears are dry.”

And Washington Irving?  “Sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced.”  This introduction is suggested by the fact that the man, brother, and friend of whom this paper shall treat, passed away from earth as much as five months since, and only now have the request and certain material together reached the writer, finding a ready response in his own heart.

Brief funeral services have their reason, but yet, on the other hand, reverence and affection do often want to linger about the dust in sight; and when we are gone ourselves we do not want ever to be forgotten.  I have never forgotten Perry Nugent, the subject of whom I write, since I was his pastor in New Orleans from 1871 to 1874, although while yet he lived, I had not seen him more than one time; and now that he has gone still farther away, I still remember him.  “Who is it puts that twenty-dollar gold piece in the basket?” I asked at last, when at each separate collection for missions, for Conference Fund, for education, and so on, there was the regular gold piece.  Perry Nugent, they told me.  I marked him for the man to call and count on for a contribution in case of any distress, private or public, a poor widow, or a Galveston flood, and the twenty-dollar gold piece or its just proportion was produced.  I called on him to pray in the congregation, but after one or two trials concluded to relieve his evidently great embarrassment.  No doubt if he had thought of it he would have come to me as Stonewall Jackson went to his pastor, who had similarly excused him for his difficult and halting speech; “Pastor,” said Jackson, “it is your duty to call on me; it is mine to do the best I can.”

Perry Nugent was born in Washington, Miss., January 20, 1831, and died in Greenville, Miss., May 14, 1900, in the seventieth year of his age.  One great-grandfather was Thomas Hardeman, for whom Hardeman County, Tenn., was named; his mother’s father was Seth Lewis, for twenty-seven years Circuit Judge of the Opelousas District, Louisiana.  His Methodism came through two generations of Methodists.  His boyhood was amiable, singularly without reproof or punishment.  He advanced rapidly in learning, and early developed the ability which made him afterwards a successful merchant.  He grew up a praying and Bible-reading man, and I found him a member and steward of the Carondelet Street M. E. Church, South, New Orleans—a worthy member, a faithful steward.  He was married December 1, 1853, to Amanda Keep Cook; the children were seven—Elizabeth, Anne, Helen, Perry Hardeman, Mary, Catherine, and Paul Cook, the last a man of letters.  The mother, now deceased, was a worthy companion for so good a man, and the reverence the sons and daughters had for their parents was as beautiful as it was just.  It is worth recording what the son, Paul C., says of his father in a letter to me, as follows—viz.: “I can express only a small part of the admiration which I have always felt for my father’s character.  To me he has seemed the perfect ideal of strength, of integrity, and of truthfulness.  I would as soon have thought of the reversal of every law of nature as I would of doubting his word in any matter.  To the strength and beauty of his nature were added a sweet affection and a noble liberality.  He was possessed of intelligence in a high degree, and I have many times been struck with the force and clearness of his conclusions.  Add to these qualities a love of nature that made communion with it a delight, and a deep appreciation of all that was beautiful in art, and you have my father as I knew him.  His whole life was a sermon on the stirring words of the text, ‘Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, . . . . . think on these things!’”

I found Perry Nugent a member of the firm of T. H. & J. M. Allen & Co, New Orleans, to which position he had arisen from being bookkeeper in the same house.  The following tribute was paid him by Mr. Ashton Phelps, in the New Orleans Times-Democrat:  ‘A dispatch from Greenville, Miss., brings intelligence of the death of Perry Nugent, sometime President of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange, and one of the most prominent merchants in the South.  The house of T. H. & J. M. Allen & Co. stood in the very front rank.  Mr. Nugent was noted for the strict integrity with which he safeguarded the interests of his firm’s correspondents.  A Christian who carried his religion into every relation, a citizen without fear and without reproach, a man of the most refined manners and the kindliest sympathies, Perry Nugent was a living illustration of the fact that the loftiest code of morality may be practiced to the letter amid all the storm and stress of the commercial life.  Although the deceased merchant’s declining years were spent in the shadow of impaired fortunes and absence from the scene of his early activities, time had no power to touch the pure gold of his nature.’

Another friend, Rev. J. A. B. Scherer, pastor of St. Andrews Lutheran Church, Charleston, S. C., writes of him: “I think the first thing about Perry Nugent was his soldierliness, a quality deeper than bravery.  I saw him during the bitterest battles a man ever can fight, and the sight was an inspiration.  I think the next thing was his sweet kindliness.  He saw the foibles of men as keenly as anybody, but he had that charity which covers the multitude of sins, and was a true gentleman.  Altogether, the impression he made upon me was most profound.  To sum it all in a word, he was the knightliest man I ever knew.’

So also another man, far from New Orleans, and in the presence of strangers, said of a certain other man, Perry Nugent: ‘Why, sir, he was the most honorable man I ever knew, the only one who would unhesitatingly sacrifice his best business interests for a principle.’

There are such men, as others have known, but Nugent was one, by above testimony.  A case in point may be quoted here: He was an assignee in a case in Greenville.  The head of the firm that assigned said: ‘Mr. Nugent, you have made a mistake.  You have not taken out all that was due you.’  He answered: “I took out all I was entitled to.’  The other: ‘No, you have not.  The law allows you so much.  It is yours and nobody else’s; you must have it.’  He said: ‘No; I know the law allows it; but I have taken enough to pay me a reasonable amount for my work.  If I had taken any more, I would have felt like I was robbing the creditors.’ 

Having lost an ample fortune, in the later years of his life he was employed by others.  His last employer made him a present of money, saying that it was a tribute to his fidelity and given so that he might visit his children in Salem, Va., whom he had not seen for some time.  Instead of spending the money in that way, however, he denied himself the pleasure of the trip, and paid the sum to a creditor to whom he had been in debt for some time.  Such actions speak louder than words of affectionate eulogy.

The loss of wealth was his trial, and the fire was hot; but eventually the gold of his faith came out refined and precious.  He died in great peace, and this paper is written con amore by the pastor who enjoyed his friendship and often admired his gentle spirit.

  W. V. TUDOR

Note: Perry Nugent's parents were John Pratt Nugent (1792-1873) and Anne Lewis Nugent (1807-1873). John Pratt Nugent married Anne Lewis in 1827.

Marriage and Deaths--Armstrong-Nugent

Beside me on my desk are two or three piles of newspaper clippings, old letters, an Applicant's Working Sheet for the National Society of Children of the American Revolution, and pamphlets. There is no order to these materials which were contained in two or three large manila envelopes. In one envelope were obituaries from newspaper clippings with dates spanning from the 1880s to 1986.

From this pile I've found the marriage announcement of Baker White Armstrong, my husband's great-grandfather who moved from Salem, Virginia, to Texas in the 1880s, as well as Baker Armstrong's obituary.  With these first two entries in my Left for Texas blog, I illustrate the fleetingness of the life of man. Between that marriage announcement and the obituary lie the details of one life long forgotten except in the fragments that we own. Here, perhaps, over the next months as I catalog these fragments, the life of Baker White Armstrong may flesh out once again--metaphorically speaking--in cyber space. With that life are fragments of other lives that will also be revealed "through a glass darkly."

According to that Applicant's Worksheet, Baker White Armstrong was born December 10, 1858, in Keyser, West Virginia. After leaving his family home in Virginia for Texas, he married a young woman whom he had known in Virginia: Mary Ophelia Nugent, born January 3, 1864, in Prairie Lea, Texas. Mary's being born in Texas was an accident of history, as her family had been misplaced there by the Civil War--more on that in a future post.

Baker and Mary (or "Boggy" as her children called her years later) married on July 14, 1892. Baker died first, in Houston, Texas, on February 20, 1937; Mary died in Houston, Texas, on April 10, 1943. Later posts may be confusing, as Baker and Mary named their  second child (and daughter) after Mary; that daughter never married, and thus she, also, was until her death, Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong. We knew her as "Mimi," my husband's great-aunt who taught first grade in Houston for many years. But that's for another post.

Left for Texas: The Beginnings

Anything labelled as "the beginning" is done so arbitrarily. Can any beginning be definitively assigned? Especially when that beginning relates to the history of a family. Here we have a family: four people, a father, a mother, two children--son and daughter. Where does the family begin? With the parents? grandparents? great-grandparents? great-great-grandparents? And what about the ancillary branches: the sisters and brothers of the father and the mother, the offspring of those sisters and brothers, the in-laws? And so the tree branches.

A little over twenty years ago, someone died in my husband's family, and then someone else, and then someone else, and before we knew it, we had inherited boxes and boxes of family letters, cards, magazine and newspaper clippings, pamphlets, family Bibles, photographs, photograph albums. My husband and his sister divided the furniture and objects that had immediate value and use; we ended up with boxes, files, diaries, and photographs going back to the early 1800s. For years we hauled around this stuff, weighed down by history and someone else's lack of organization. When a great-aunt who had taught first-grade in Houston, Texas, for thirty years died, she left behind hundreds of greeting cards her students had given her over the years, even valentines with candy still inside. Each of us has more than enough detritus from our own lives; imagine inheriting the detritus of the lives of people who kept everything.

A couple of years ago, I began some attempt at organizating all this stuff by creating seven photograph albums, one for each of my and my husband's children and my husband's sister's children. I included photographs from one line of the family, going back to the late 1800s, a few newspaper clippings, a sampling of greeting cards, and other bits of interest. Yet boxes remain. Who has the time to go through every box, pick through every letter (each with its own eccentric handwriting), sort through every newspaper clipping or magazine cutting and put it all in order? So here, I'll attempt an order of a different kind. I'll pull something from the boxes and post it here. The order will be in the index. Everything else will be haphazard, a surprise, a treasure hunt.

And so we begin with a family Bible, one owned by a Mrs. L. T. (could be "J") Armstrong, living in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1878. This is my husband's great-great grandmother. Somewhere in the boxes are obituaries of various members of this family from the 1800s. At some point, those obituaries will appear on this blog--as I come across them again. Here, however, we have the family Bible of a mother who worried about two sons who decided to go to Texas: Baker (my husband's great-grandfather) and Robert. On the inside pages of the family Bible, the mother records these departures. Later she was to write the sons. We have some of the letters sent to Baker. Those, also, shall appear on this blog as I re-discover them.

"Baker left for Texas, Oct. 8th 1884," the mother writes. And so the son leaves Virginia behind and begins a new life in Texas.