50 years since a significant Bodie publication

It has been more than a year since I last updated my genealogical research site. Today, I noticed that it was 50 years ago (1956) that Eytive Long Evans published A Documented History of the Long Family, 1578-1956. That particular book was one of the first books that got me started on working on the Bodie family line. Evans especially covers them on pages 230 through 249. She references another source I have frequently used regarding the family: John Bennett Boddie's Seventeenth Century Isle of Wight County, Virginia, which was published in 1938. So far as I'm aware, the two books constitute the only significant published genealogies of the South Carolina branch of the Boddie/Bodie families.

J.B. Boddie refers, on page 389 of his book, to Jane (born 1845), who married Wyley Long. Evans, on page 237, also refers to Jane in a list of the children of Nathan Bodie and Mary Edna Eidson.

It is this same Jane Bodie who appears on my grandfather's SS-5 as his mother ("Janie Belle Body"), and who, according to members of my family still living at the time I began working on genealogical research, was the wife first of Wiley (Wyley, Wylie) Long, then Edmund (Edmond) Manley Martin, and then John C. Farmer. The descendants of Jane by her first two husbands (she had no children by Farmer, who she married much later in life), together with the descendants of Edmund Martin by his wife, often held joint reunions near Lake Greenwood in upstate South Carolina at least until the late 1950s.

Perhaps someday, when my work on this line is complete and is published, it will be cause for a new reunion.

Jane Belle Bodie in 1900

Jane married her third husband, John C. Farmer, sometime after the death of her second husband (my great-grandfather) and prior to 1900. I was able to find the household in the 1900 census using my grandfather, George Martin, as the index term. Most things match, but there are some discrepancies. John Farmer and his wife Jane appear in the household with his step-children George Martin, Cora Martin, Jannie Bell Martin, and Hammitt Martin. I clearly remember my great-uncle Hammitt. Cora is the same as the Chicorah Lee Asbill who is buried next to Jane.

The discrepancies relate to Jane's age and the number of children. Jane's gravestone says that she was born in 1848, but the 1900 census indicates 1852. Vanity? Also, the census indicates that she has had a total of 7 children, with 5 still alive. She certainly had 5 living children from her second marriage to my great-grandfather, Edmund Manley Martin, and it's certainly possible that she lost 2 children at an early age for them (who would fit gaps in the calendar).

But the count should have included her children by her first husband, Wiley Long. Perhaps this situation is more complicated than it looks.

Jane Belle Bodie's grave

Jane Belle Bodie (whose name appears as Janie Belle Body on my grandfather's SS-5) was married three times, first to a man named Long, then to my great-grandfather (a Martin), and then to a man named Farmer. She had children with the first two husbands, but not the third, and she was also helping to raise her Martin husband's children from his previous marriage. My mother remembers attending several Martin-Long reunions, held at a park near Lake Greenwood in South Carolina.

One of the high points in my genealogical research was finding Jane Belle Boddie's grave. Fortunately, I was aided by an extremely helpful librarian at the Laurens County public library, who was actively working on a second volume of the cemeteries of that county. She allowed me to view her notes, which included the listing for Jane's grave, located in the Laurens Mill (Northview) Cemetery. Buried next to Jane are her third husband, John C. Farmer, and a daughter, Chicorah Lee Martin (who had married an Asbill).

Next, I'll trace Jane backwards in time using census records.