Margaret Little Langley (1878-1916)

My Paternal Great Grandmother, married Thomas Blount Ricks, Sr

Margaret Little Langley, the daughter of Thomas Hatton Langley and Frances Elizabeth Daniel, was born on September 24, 1878 in Pitt County, North Carolina.  In 1895 at the age of 18 she married 25 year old Thomas Blount Ricks and like her parents before her, she settled into farm life with her new husband. Thomas’ brothers, John and Leon, worked as laborers on their farm in the 1900 census. Before the next census in 1910 Thomas had a new career working as a lumber inspector in a sawmill.

In  the fall of 1898 Margaret and Thomas produced their first child, Robert David Ricks. Robert left home in his teens and moved away from home. In the 1920 census Robert and his young 18 year old wife,  Alma Rebecca Garris, were living in Pennsylvania with their two sons. One son, Robert James  was born in January of 1919 and the other, Thomas Eugene, in December of 1919. Robert was employed as an electrician in a silk mill.  During the next decade  their world was torn apart.  In the 1930 census Rebecca was listed as an “inmate” in Norristown State Hospital. She had contracted a strange disease called “encephalitis lethargica.” Her husband divorced her, and her two sons moved in with her parents. Poor Rebecca died in 1932.

[Photo: NC Abandoned Farm House Image]

An epidemic of this bizarre disease swept through Europe and America during the 1920s.  The affliction caused muscle rigidity, tremors, psychosis, and overwhelming lethargy which in many induced a coma like state.  Patients were “conscious and aware yet not fully awake, they would sit motionless and speechless in their chairs, they neither conveyed nor felt the feeling of life, as insubstantial as ghosts, as passive as zombies.”  Norristown Hospital, formerly known as the Norristown State Lunatic Hospital, was built in 1880.  It viewed itself as a compassionate facility: in 1881 it added a library and a billiard room and in 1909 a dance hall for its “inmates”, but is has a checkered reputation.  In 1892 it was accused of removing the ovaries of six female inmates as a “cure” for their insanity. Ironically the doctor accused of performing these operations, Dr Alice  Bennett, was politically tied with Susan B Anthony.   Nearby Trenton Hospital removed the teeth of inmates in another cruel and senseless attempt to “cure” insanity. Serial killer Dr. Holmes, who killed 27 women during the 1893 World’s Fair, was briefly employed at Norristown as  a “keeper”  but fortunately quit after a few days. During the 1930’s electroshock therapy and lobotomies were introduced.   In short, it was not a shining time for psychiatric medicine.

Remarkably, some patients who contracted lethargica during the 1920s pandemic lived in a catatonic state until the 1960s, when an experimental drug called L-Dopa was introduced by Dr. Oliver Sacks.  The drug successfully “awakened” the patients who were astonished to find a changed world. Unfortunately the drug had only a temporary impact on most of the patients, but some were able to enjoy the possibilities of life.  Sacks wrote a memoir about his work, and it was made into a movie starring Robin Williams called “Awakenings” in 1990.

[Photo: Movie Poster of “Awakenings” ]

Robert David decided to give marriage a second change and in 1933, at 35 years of age, he married Odie Pauline Delp. The couple had no children.    She worked for a time as an x-ray technician and died in 1960.  He worked for Sun Oil prior to his retirement and died in 1964.  Despite the tragedy that struck his poor wife Rebecca, their children appeared to live normal lives.

Robert and Rebecca’s first son, Robert James, worked as a machinist for a newspaper company. In 1939 he married Dora Cullis, a packer in a cereal plant, an they had three children.  Robert served in the army in World War II in Asia and the Pacific and later as the Chief of the Brookhaven Pennsylvania Fire Department.  He died in New Jersey in 2004.

Robert and Rebecca’s second son, Thomas Eugene, lived with Rebecca’s parents until at least 1940.  He served his country in World War II, married Lucille Manning, and had six daughters and a son.  He moved to Florida and opened a successful restaurant. He died in 1993 in Delaware.

[Photo: Margaret Little Langley’s grandson Robert James]

In July of 1900 Margaret and Thomas had their second child, Annie Laura Ricks. At the age of sixteen Annie got pregnant, left home and married 24 year old William “Willie” Dunn Cavanaugh.  Three weeks after they tied the knot, she gave birth to their son, William David.  Willie was employed  as a clerk in a furniture store.  The couple had two more children, Annie Laurie, named for her mother in 1921 and Louise Caroline  in 1923.  In 1928 Annie underwent heart surgery. It was unsuccessful and she died three days later.  Her husband Willie got a job selling cars and hired a servant to care for their children. He remarried Ruby Jones, had two more daughters, Gwindolyn who died in infancy and Elizabeth who was born in 1934.  Willie died of kidney disease in 1941.  As for Annie’s three children: William Jr. married Eula Pleasants, had four children and worked as a line type operator for a newspaper company.  Annie Laurie Jr married a barber named William Batts and together they had three children.  Louise married but later divorced and died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1984.

{Photo: 1920 ad for maternity clothing published in Vogue magazine. Although I suspect Annie Laurie had bigger concerns that being pretty and stylish in pregnancy. ]

In March of 1902 Margaret and Thomas produced a third child, Hugh Ward. In 1918 when Hugh registered for the draft he reported that he worked for Sun Ship Company in Pennsylvania as a ship fitter and in the medical section that he had two stiff fingers on his left hand.  In March of 1920 Hugh married 20 year old Sarah Martha Allen, who worked in a cotton mill. Hugh worked with his father in a sawmill as an inspector. 

Hugh’s wife gave birth to three children before their marriage fell apart.  Their first child, Frances Louise (born 1921) was named for his younger twin sisters,  he named his second child Hugh Jr (born 1922) for himself and his third child Thomas Allen (born 1925) for his youngest brother. 

In 1929 Hugh married a second time to Ruby Cribb.  Together they had six more children, two of whom were named after his older siblings Robert (born 1931) and Ann Laurie (born 1933).  When that marriage fell apart in the 1950 census his children stayed with Ruby. 

Hugh married a third time to Laura Heath Jones (she for her second time) in 1955.  In 1962 he was alone on his fishing boat on the Tar River when his foot got tangled in a drift net.  He fell into the water and drowned. Based on the fact he named his children after all of his siblings, clearly family was important to him. So it is sad that this “three times a husband” man is not buried with any of them. I found it odd that no one bothered to inscribe his third wife’s date of death on their tombstone. I discovered that she married one year after Hugh’s death and when she died in 1986 she is buried next to this man instead.

[Photo: Gravestone of Hugh Ward Ricks.]

In August of 1904 Margaret gave birth to a set of twins, Frances and Sophia Louise. Frances was named for her grandmother, Frances Daniel Langley. Frances, known all her life as “Fannie,”  is my grandmother, and her story is told in a separate blog post.

Louise dropped out of high school in her third year. In 1922 just months after her 18th birthday, she married 28 year old Luther Carl Williams.  Luther had a 7th grade education and worked as a sawyer in a lumber mill. In 1923, in her 8th month of pregnancy, she gave birth to a stillborn baby.  A year later she had better success when she gave birth to baby boy who was named Luther Carl Jr after his father.  

Luther Jr made it through his 3rd year of high school and was drafted to serve in World War II on his 18th birthday. After the war in 1947 he married Elizabeth Doyle, whom he affectionately referred to as “Bunny” and they had two sons Matthew and a baby boy who died 27 hours after his birth. Luther Jr was employed for 30 years as a salesman in a building supply store and died of a heart attack in 2028.  

[Photo: Margaret Little Langley’s grandson Luther Carl Williams, Jr.]

In 1926 Louise’s second son, William Thomas Williams, was born. Nicknamed “Tommie” he served in the navy in World War II and after the war worked with his father at the sawmill.  He was 37 when he married a 47 year old widow named Jessie May Taylor in 1963. At the time of their marriage he was a grocery clerk.  When he died in 2000 his obituary said he had three stepsons, twenty step grandchildren and a number of step great-grandchildren.  

In 1931 Louise’s third son David Dalton was born. He was 23 when he married his 17 year old  bride Bettie Blue Farris. They had one daughter, Mary Lou. David served in the army in Korea War. He died in 2010.  His obituary said he worked as a salesman in the wholesale grocery business.

Louise’s first daughter Virginia Fay was born in 1937.  She married Jasper Harrell in 1953, and they had three children. Her husband served in the Korean War and worked as a postal worker after the war. He died instantly of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at the age of 45 in 1975.  His obituary simply stated that he “died at home.” Virginia died in 2020.

Louise gave birth to one more child, Fannie Langley, in 1939. She married Elmer Gary Starke, and gave birth to a baby boy who die of respiratory failure 17 hours after birth.  They divorced after 20 years of marriage. Four months after the divorce in 1979 she married Howard Rae Gage, a divorcee with two children from his first marriage.

[Photo: Inspiring military recruiting poster. Louise’s sons, grandson and son-in-law all proudly served their country.]

Margaret’s last son, Thomas Blount Jr was born in 1910.  He worked at the same sawmill as his father, and later as a foreman in a box mill and an electrician at a lumber retail store. Thomas married Ruby Bartlett, who worked as a hospital switchboard operator, and they had four children. Their daughter Martha Anne had one child, worked in a radiology department and received a humanitarian award for her civic service. Their son Philip fathered nine children, was a US Navy Korean War Veteran and owned an electrical business.  Their son Paul Marvin had two children, was a Vietnam veteran and was inducted into the South Carolina Fox Hunters Hall of Fame. No information was found on their son Joseph.  Thomas died in 1983, a year after his wife Ruby.  Thomas Jr was the only sibling my grandmother ever talked about.

[Photo: Standing, Left to right, My Grandmother Fannie Rocks, her twin sister Louise and her younger brother Thomas Blount Jr.]

Margaret’s last child was born in 1913 and named Margaret Langley after her mother. In 1930 when she was 17 years old, Margaret Jr married Harry Bratcher, a truck driver, and they had three children. Their daughter Billy Jean was born in 1931; married Bill Sandlin and they had three children. She died in 2010. Their son Robert, born 1935, joined the navy at 17 and served in Korea and Vietnam.  Robert died in 2016. Their son Harry Dean was born in 1940.  Margaret Jr died in 1987.

[Photo: Margaret Langley Ricks’ grandson Robert Bratcher, joined the navy at age 17]

 On March 24, 1916, when her youngest child and namesake, Margaret Langley was only three years old, Margaret Little Langley contracted bladder cancer and within a few short m

onths she was gone. She was only 38 years old. Her obituary said she was “devoted to her children and gave them the attention and training worthy of motherhood.” Two of her children, Annie Laura and Thomas Blount Jr are buried with her.

Her husband Thomas Ricks Sr waited less than a year to find a new wife, Mattie Murray, who was 21 years younger than he was. 

[Photo: Margaret Langley Ricks weathered gravestone in Rockfish Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Wallace, NC]