Mary Elizabeth Higgins Nee. Rackley (212.2)

Born: 10/12/1893 Blytheville, Mississippi County, Arkansas

Died: 5/31/1966 Memphis, Shelby County, Tennessee

Parents: *(DISPUTED)* Robert Rackley and Louisa Hogan Rackley

Spouse: Arthur Alexander Higgins (Tipton County, TN - 8/29/1911)

Children: Francis “Lena” 1914-1988 / Mable Higgins 1916-2000 / Mary “Thelma” 1919 - 1992 / Threat “Happy” William 1922-1969 / Vada “Louise” 1925-2001 / Fannie “Hazel” 1927-2000

Bio:

Young Mary with Fannie Dunn and Family

Second from the right, next to her sister Mattie, Barefoot

Born to farmers in the recently founded Blytheville, Mary was living with her aunt in Tipton County, Tennessee by 1900. The head of the household, 36-year-old widow Fannie Dunn, has six of her own children to look after as well as Mary and her little sister Mattie. Also at the farmhouse is Mary’s 30-year-old cousin Miles Hogan. Not much is available about him other than he worked a s farm laborer on the farm that he lived on. All of her neighbors are farmers, and most people around can read and write. Cotton would have been the dominant crop around young Mary, with multiple large cotton gins located in nearby Tiptonville. Their crops were likely loaded onto the nearby Illinois Central Railroad tracks for shipment North. In 1901, a large fire would devastate Tiptonville, impacting the surrounding farms like Mary’s. By 1910, not much has changed in Mary’s life when it comes to set and setting. She still lived with her aunt and cousins and sister, all of whom attend school although cousin Threat Dunn is listed as not being able to read and write. All are still working on the lived farm. By the early 1910’s, Mary would have been able to see the effects of the upcoming war on Tipton County. Racial segregation was increasing tensions and wartime patriotism built up ever-so efficient work practices, including farming.

Mary and Arthur

Holding daughter Hazel

Sometime in 1910 or 1911, Mary would meet Arthur Alexander Higgins, a tall lengthy farmer near to her age who was from Northern Mississippi. They married in Tipton County on August 29, 1911. By 1920, they live on Munford and beaver Road in Tipton County, Tennessee with their three kids, including Mary’s namesake. Arthur is a sharecropper, likely in cotton and/or corn of livestock, namely hogs. The census is dominated by farmers, mostly all indicated to be sharecroppers, and there are recognizably few kids that go to school. it says all can read and write, but I would assume at a poor proficiency as most kids aged eight and above are not at school. None the less, Mary and Arthur would have three more kids over the next seven years, all born in Tipton County. Not much changes by 1930 other than the number of kids at home. Arthur still farms, they still live in the same area, presumably the same house, and the people around them have likely not changed. They are near to the bustling and every changing Memphis but live in the farms that act as the city’s breadbasket.

Arthur and Mary as newly weds

Wedding photos, taken is St. Louis

Mary and her son Threat

He is dressed for wartime service

The area of Munford and Beaver Street would be included in the area that would be collectively known as Munford, although the census does not designate it as so. Munford was a settlement based around the construction and congregation of Mt. Zion Methodist Church, although this church, now called Munford First United Methodist Church is a few miles from the farm. As the settlement grew, they attempted to be incorporated and built a post office with the name Mt. Zion Post Office. In order to have their application approved, they were required to change the name of their post office due to a conflicting name in Pennsylvania. There was an established post office in Mt. Zion, Pennsylvania, and the abbreviation for Tennessee at the time was Tenn. while Pennsylvania’s abbreviation was Penn. This similarity was likely to cause concerns, so the town renamed their post office based on the opinion of the current Postmaster General’s daughter, Lola Sale, naming their office after Confederate Colonel Richard Henry Munford, of Covington, Tennessee. They were officially incorporated as Munford in 1905.

Mary and her daughter Hazel

Hazel is likely holding Ron

Arthur will pass away at the young age of 44 in Brighton, Tipton County, Tennessee. She would then move in with her daughter Thelma and her son-in-law Jessie White, who are both in their early twenties, as well as a two-year-old niece of Jessie named Norma Lawrence. Jessie workers as a farm laborer, likely on the rented farm that they live on in the “Flatwoods Beaver” area of rural Tipton County. He makes $270 a year for 36 weeks of work while Mary makes around $50 dollars a year for miscellaneous labor, likely housekeeping or keeping children. The is little publicly available information for Mary between the 1940s and 1966 other than the fact that she moved to 820 E Gage Ave. in Memphis at some point, where she would pass in May of 1966.

The Memphis that Mary spent her last days in would have been an interesting one in retrospect but was likely convoluted. Mary’s lineage is somewhat disputed, and it is a possibility, if not a likelihood, that Mary had some ancestor of color (I say this because Mary’s mother, Louisa Rackley, may have been a child of William H. Hogan, the son of a wealthy planter and slave owner in Orange County, North Carolina who seems to have fathered children with his and his father’s slaves). Jim Crow laws would have been in blistering effect in Memphis. Although Mary passed as a white woman for her entire life, she would have seen oppression in every part of the city. While these brutal and barbaric segregations were taking place, Mary would have also heard whisperings of a new talent performing for ever larger crowds around the city, Elvis.