Celia Martha Spivey (1858-1899)

My Paternal Great Grandmother, married William Edward Cobb

Celia Martha Spivey, the youngest child of Scottish parents Whitmel Hill Spivey and Mary Celia Cherry, was born in Bertie County, North Carolina in 1859. When she was born her father was 34 years old and her mother 40. The family made their living by farming and in 1860 their real estate holdings were worth $6,000.

In April of 1877, when Celia was only 18 years old, her mother passed away. Soon after her father married another woman, Philanda, who was 10 years younger than he was. Celia graduated from St. Mary’s College, Carolina’s finishing school for “proper young ladies”, the same school that Robert E. Lee’s youngest daughter attended. In the 1880 census, an unemployed Celia and her brother James,  a merchant, were still living at home but her other siblings had moved on.

Celia lived at home until her marriage at age 25 to William Edward Cobb, who from all accounts appears to have been quite the catch. He was friendly, likeable, kindhearted, and given the post-Civil War economic times - remarkably successful. A match made in heaven. Their first son, John Edward, was named after his father, their second son, Thomas Spivey for her brother. After a brief three year marriage in 1888, when the boys were still toddlers, tragedy struck. Celia’s husband unexpectedly became ill and died of pneumonia. Poor Celia’s world turned upside down. Finishing school had landed her a husband but had not prepared her for coping without one.

[Photo: Celia Martha Spivey]

Celia’s sister Mary Winne Spivey married John Grant in 1873. John must have been a man of some means because in 1880 the census  reported two male “servants” and a young girl aged 13 named Athe Pritchard who is listed nebulously as “one of the family.”  The couple had one son named James Whitmel Grant who died in 1883 before he reached 6 months of age. When Celia asked for their help, they opened their doors and happily shared their household with Celia and her children. When the two boys came of age they helped John by working as farm laborers. John lived until 1914 when at age 72 he died of “unknown causes” (his death certificate says the cause of death was “no physician attended”). John’s obit said he was a “born confederate soldier” who always attended the old soldier meetings and was said to be one of the county’s best farmers. Four years after her husband passed away, Mary died of heart and kidney disease.

[Photo: Confederate Soldier Reunion in the town of Sylva, Jackson County, North Carolina in 1915]

Celia’s brother James William was her husband, William Edward Cobb’s, partner in the merchandising business until William’s untimely death. James married Lucy John Clark, and together they had five children. Lucy kept an extensive photo album. I am fortunate to have it in my possession and am delighted to be able to make her photos available to you.

[Photo: Lucy “Johnnie” Clark, James Spivey’s wife]

James and Lucy named their first born son, Whitmel Hill Spivey, Jr after James’ father. Whit was a handsome lad but never married and died young of tuberculosis at the age of 30 in January of 1914.

[Photo: Whit, born in 1884, as a boy]

[Photo: Whit as a young man]

James named his second born son after himself, James William Spivey  Jr.  James Jr lost his life fighting in the Navy during the Mexican Revolution. He died in Vera Cruz, Mexico in October of 1914 at the age of 27.

James named his third son, Franklin Cobb Spivey, after Celia’s husband. Franklin was a farmer, never married and died in 1916 at the age of 27. Sadly, his death was listed on his death certificate as suicide by gunshot wound.

{Photo: Franklin on the left and James Jr on the right]

James and Lucy’s first daughter, Florence Estelle, was born in 1891.

[Photo: Florence Estelle, at age 6]

Florence Estelle, married Frank H. Garris, a doctor who had served in World War I. They never had children, although my father’s Uncle Tom lived with them in the 1920s. Florence died at the age of 54 of breast cancer in 1946. Frank remarried a year later to Louise Norfleet and died in 1961 of a cerebral blood clot.

[Photo: Florence and Frank at the beach]

James’ last child, Mary Grant Spivey, was named for his sister Mary and her husband, John Grant. Mary Grant Spivey never married and although she lived modestly as a piano teacher, she carried on airs of living a genteel life. When she heard my mother and father were getting married she checked up on my mother’s background to ensure she was good enough for him (she passed the test). Once when they came to visit she left them waiting outside the front door while she took 20 minutes to put on make-up and properly present herself. She was a bit eccentric and set the table with multiple settings of fine china even when dining alone. My father was always very fond of her and when I was born, it was decided my middle name would be Grant. Mary Grant outlived all her siblings and died of breast cancer in 1975.

[Photo: Mary Grant Spivey, my namesake.]

Celia and her boys lived with the Grant family until she died in 1899, eleven years after she had lost her husband. When she died her sons were teenagers - Ed was sixteen and Tom thirteen. Her brother-in-law John Grant handled the probate documents. Celia left an estate worth $1,400 which was given to her two sons when they turned 21 years of age. She was laid to rest with her husband in the episcopal cemetery in Lewiston-Woodville, North Carolina along with her parents, three of her siblings, (Mary, James and and Alfred) and her son Thomas.

[Photo: Grace Episcopal Church in Lewiston-Woodville North Carolina circa 1854, where Celia and many of her relatives are buried]

In 1900, the year after Celia died, the tiny town of Woodville had only 163 residents. The town boasted the presence of a private school, the Bertie Academy in Woodville but it has long since been torn down. In its day the Academy held dances between 1913 to 1914 that according to the local paper “were famed for their charming entertainment and gracious hospitality” by drawing together the “beauty and chivalry of the adjoining towns.” Celia’s brother James was instrumental in establishing the first public school in Woodville in 1903. His daughter Florence was a teacher there and his daughter Mary Grant taught piano lessons there. Sadly, the town has not faired well over the years. In 1981 it merged with a neighboring town Lewiston. In 2000 census a third of its 613 population was below the poverty line. By 2020 the residents had declined to 426. Today, its largest employer is a Perdue Farms processing plant.

[Photo: Map of the town of Woodville, North Carolina