Bettie Ferebee Sanderlin (1863-1925)
My Maternal Great Grandmother, married Gideon Marchant Tillitt
Elizabeth “Bettie” Ferebee Sanderlin, the oldest daughter of Caleb Sanderson Sanderlin, and Hulda Frances Ferebee-Carter, was born in 1863. Her family history was filled with sadness and tragedy but she found a life of happiness when she married Gideon Marchant Tillitt.
Bettie’s grandmother, Delia Carter, was addicted to laudanum. Delia gave birth to to two daughters, Ann (1834) and Hulda Frances (1845), out of wedlock. Their biological father, Samuel Williams Ferebee, did not live with Delia or their children, and neither Hulda nor Ann bore his name.
Delia’s daughter Ann Carter married at the age of 16 to Benjamin MacPherson and the couple had seven children. When she was pregnant with their 7th child in 1862, Benjamin was murdered by the Yankees. According to family legend, his corpse was tossed into bed with her while the heartless soldiers plundered their home. Ann married a second time to John Anderson McKimmey, and she gave birth to another five children.
Delia’s daughter, Hulda Frances Ferebee Carter was only 14 years old in 1860 when she married 35 year old Caleb Sanderson Sanderlin. Caleb was a wealthy man– in the 1860 census he had real estate worth $50,000 and $6,000 in personal property.
[Photo: Bettie Ferebee Sanderlin]
In 1863 Hulda gave birth to my great grandmother, Bettie Ferebee Sanderlin. Two years later another daughter, Ann (named after Hulda’s sister) was born. When Hulda got pregnant a third time in 1867, the birth was difficult. Six weeks after her daughter was born, Hulda died of complications related to the birth process. The poor baby, who was named Hulda Francis after her mother, only lived for three short months. Caleb was a captain in the Confederate army and suffered as a prisoner of war at Balfour Hospital. By the end of the war he was heavily in debt. Caleb couldn’t handle it, and after his wife died, he abandoned the girls and went to live with his brother Maxey.
Three year old Bettie and one year old her sister Ann, were sent to stay with their Aunt (her mother’s sister Ann McKimmey), who raised them with her own 12 children. According to the 1870 census Ann, in the bottomless goodness of her heart, also took in her 60 year old mother Delia Carter. Tragically, in 1873 Bettie’s little sister, Ann died before reaching her 8th birthday.
[Photo: Baby Hulda Sanderlin’s Gravestone 1867]
Bettie’s father, Caleb never remarried and died in 1887. They may have been torn apart during life but in death Caleb, his wife Hulda, and all three of his children are buried side by side in the Tillitt Family cemetery.
Aunt Ann was the family member that selflessly nurtured the other members of her extended family. When Ann died in 1915 her obituary said she was “an excellent woman known for her sunny, congenial disposition and many acts of kindness.” It seems fitting that her grave marker in the McKimmey family cemetery is a tree trunk over six feet tall and the footstone a one foot tall stump.
Despite a tumultuous childhood and family history, Bettie was fortunate in having the support of her beloved supportive Aunt Ann and in her selection of her husband, Gideon, who provided so much joy in their household for the forty years of their marriage. Bettie outlived her husband by 6 years and died in 1925. Gideon and Bettie are buried together in the Tillitt Cemetery in Camden County with three of their children.
[Photo: Aunt Ann McKimmey grave marker.]
