Booker, Elsie H. (Elsie Hudson), 1923-2017

Elsie H. Booker (1923-2017) of Durham County, N.C., collector of antiques, artifacts, and family papers.

The collection is comprised of papers of three related family groups--Markham/Leigh, Durham/Lloyd, and Pope/Hudson--and one group of unrelated families. The Markham/Leigh family and Durham/Lloyd family are distantly related by blood and marriage to Elsie Hudson Booker, the collector. The Pope/Hudson family is directly related to Elsie Booker. Her mother was Edna Pearl Pope and her father was W. Curtis Hudson. As best as can be determined the families under Other Families (see subseries 3.1.) are not related either to the Markham/Leigh, Durham/Lloyd, or Pope/Hudson families.

The Markham and Leigh families were related closely by geography, business associations, and marriage throughout the nineteenth century. For much of the period members of the families lived within several hundred yards of each other in a portion of southern Orange County, N.C. that became part of Durham County in 1881.

The Markham and Leigh families owned considerable lands, much of which was worked by slave labor prior to the Civil War. After the war they rented the fields and field dwellings to laborers--some of whom had been slaves on their plantations--for shares of harvested crops. Members of the Markham and Leigh families also participated in commercial, legal, educational, and other business enterprises.

Several generations of Markhams' papers are included in this collection. (The following summary of the Markham lineage traces only those people whose names are mentioned prominently in the collection.) Thomas Marcom, 1752-1839, was born in Virginia and moved to Orange County, N.C. with his father John Marcom, c. 1717-c. 1798, and the rest of his family. Thomas married Fannie Herndon in 1773, and together they had 14 children. He fought during the Revolutionary War and received a 500-acre land grant for his service.

Thomas and Fannie Herndon Marcom's eldest son Isaiah Marcom, 1776-1863, married Jane Stovall; they had at least nine children. Isaiah and Jane Stovall's eldest son Benjamin A. Marcom, 1803-1866, was born, raised, and lived most of his life in Orange County, N.C. Benjamin A. Marcom married Rhoda Pritchard, and their eldest son Felix., 1845-19??, was born and raised in Orange County, N.C., and became sheriff of Durham County, N.C., for twenty to thirty years in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Thomas and Fannie Herndon Marcom's daughter Polly married Henry Shepherd, the son of William Shepherd (1750-1821) and his wife Susannah. Henry died about 1816, leaving his wife Polly Marcom Shepherd and three minor children, Thomas, George, and Frances. Polly's brother Isaiah was appointed guardian of the children.

George M. Markham, 1819-1869, another son of Isaiah and Jane Stovall Marcom, was born in Orange County, N.C. and lived most of his life in Oglethorpe County, Ga. He married Mary E. Raiden, and they had seven children. Their second child George P. Markham lived much of his life in Memphis, Tenn., where he was a businessman.

Henry Stovall Markham, 1806-1893, also one of Isaiah and Jane Stovall Marcom's sons, was born and raised in Orange County, N.C., and lived most of his life in Orange and Durham Counties, N.C. Henry Stovall Markham operated a small plantation with slave labor prior to and during the Civil War and by sharecroppers after the war. He first married Margaret (Peggy) Carlton, and they had seven children, including Isaiah Pressley, Mary Hasseltine, George Dallas, and William David. Henry Stovall Markham later married Elizabeth C. Yancey, a prominent merchant and storekeeper of Chapel Hill and Durham, N.C. They had no children.

Isaiah Pressley, 1834-1862?, eldest son of Henry Stovall and Margaret Carlton Marcom, was born and raised in Orange County, N.C., and enlisted with the 6th N.C. Regiment in May 1861. Six months later he was released for disability. He apparently re-enlisted a short time later and received wounds that proved fatal near Richmond during the Seven Days Campaign. Prior to the war, he had married Elizabeth C. E. Norris; they had four children: George P., Theodore, Peyton (Pate), and Caldenna (Enna). George P. Markham married Ada (?), and they lived in Moore County, N.C. Pate Markham, 1859-1890, married Minnie (?), and they had at least two children, Zuba and Peyton. Enna Markham, fl. 1880-1908, married Alsey Thomas Olive. They lived most of the time at Olive's Chapel, Wake Co., N.C. and had six children: Lula, Walter, Bunn, Gordon, Rachel, and Nellie.

Mary Hasseltine (Tiney) Markham, 1840-1934, only surviving daughter of Henry Stovall and Margaret Carlton Marcom, was born, raised, and lived most of her life in Orange and Durham Counties, N.C. She never married.

George Dallas Markham, 1844-1922, son of Henry Stovall and Margaret Carlton Marcom, was born, raised, and lived most of his life in Orange and Durham Counties, N.C. He married Isabelle Johnson, and they had five children who survived to adulthood; including Numa Ralph, 1883-19??, who lived in Durham for most of his life and who married Bertha Cole. Their adopted son Harold Cole Markham, circa 1920-1992, was an X-ray technician with the U.S. 101st Airborne Division during World War II.

William David Markham (see subseries 1.1.1.), 1848-1928, was the youngest son of Henry Stovall and Margaret Carlton Marcom. A few years after the Civil War he moved to Missouri where he worked as a merchant. From the 1880s to the 1920s he lived in the Indian Territory, Arkansas, Texas, and New Mexico, where he was a teacher, merchant, and farmer. He married Josie (?), and they had at least six children who survived to adulthood.

The papers in this collection represent nine generations of the Leigh family of Orange and Durham counties, N.C. Sullivan Leigh (1777-1854), the son of John Leigh (1742-1824) and his first wife, Leah Bingham Leigh (17??-1787), was a planter in Orange County, N.C. He married Nancy Shepherd, daughter of William and Susannah Shepherd and sister of Henry Shepherd, in 1809. Following her death, he married her sister, Catherine Shepherd Clifton. He later married Mary Herndon Lambeth. He and Nancy Shepherd had at least five children, including Richard Stanford Leigh, 18??-18??. He first married Nancy Carlton, and they had 15 children. (Nancy Ann Carlton Leigh's sister Margaret (Peggy) married Henry Stovall Markham.) Nancy Carlton Leigh died in 1860.

In 1864, Stanford Leigh married Leathy Hudgins, with whom he had five children: Walter (1865-1867), Rose (1869-1943), Ida (1873-1943), Anna (1866-1943), and Kate (1870-1946). Anna Rebecca Leigh (1866-1943), daughter of Richard Stanford and Leathy Hudgins Leigh, was born and raised in Orange County, N.C. She received her education from a small boarding school located south of Chapel Hill, N.C., and later was a teacher. She married James William Markham, with whom she had six children.

Katie Frances Leigh and Henry Quinton Hudson had four children: Walter Curtis (1892-1988), who married Pearl Pope; Oliver Wendell (1895-1970), who married Cleora Quinn Boling; Nellie Edith (1897-1993), who married Dr. Brodie Banks McDade; and Stanford Leigh (1901-1971), who married Lillian Cole. Walter Curtis Hudson and Pearl Pope Hudson were the parents of Elsie Hudson Booker and grandparents of Curtis Richard Booker, the donors of these papers.

Series 2 contains the papers of the Durham-Lloyd families of Chapel Hill, N.C. Henry Lloyd was the father of Lizzie Durham and perhaps of W. A. Lloyd, although the latter familial relationship could not be established from the materials at hand. W. A. Lloyd (d. circa 1942) was a grocer and general merchandiser in Chapel Hill, N.C. Lizzie Durham, the wife of Demetrus Ward Dee Durham, was the mother of Demetrus Dee, Jr., Bettie, Bruce, and William Thomas Billy. Lizzie had rather extensive real estate holdings in Orange County, N.C.

Series 4 contains the papers of the Pope-Hudson families of Durham, N.C., and related families. The Pope and Hudson families are related through the marriage of W. Curtis Hudson and Edna Pearl Pope. Their daughter, Elsie Hudson Booker (1923- ), and grandson, Curtis Booker (1948- ), are the donors of this collection.

Frances Shepherd, granddaughter of Thomas and Fannie Herndon Marcom, married Erasmus Pope, the son of Josiah and Lucy Kennon Pope, in 1838. They were the parents of at least seven children, including Sidney M. Pope (1848-1935). Following Frances Shepherd Pope's death (circa 1863), Erasmus Pope married Frances's cousin, Jane Marcom (1819-1915), daughter of Isaiah Marcom. Jane Marcom Pope had no children.

Sidney M. Pope married Nannie C. Leigh (1850-1881). They had at least five children, including Charles Richard Erasmus Pope (1876-1957) who married Lenora Genevrette King (1873-1952). Charlie and Genevrette were the parents of two daughters--Pearl (1898-1976) and Ruby. Following the death of Nannie Pope, Sidney Pope married Rebecca McLennon, the half-sister of Genevrette King Pope. Sidney and Rebecca Pope were the parents of Anna, Nonie, and Vernon.

Pearl Pope, daughter of Anna Pope, married Walter Curtis Hudson, son of Henry Quentin Hudson and Katie Frances Leigh Hudson, in 1918. Pearl and Curtis Hudson's only child, Elsie Hudson, was born in 1923. She attended Lowes Grove School in southern Durham County and graduated from Hope Valley High School in 1941. She entered the University of North Carolina in 1941 and graduated with a degree in pharmacy in 1945. During World War II, Elsie Hudson corresponded extensively with servicemen pen pals stationed in the European and Pacific Theaters and stateside. Her fiancee, Marine Corps Pvt. Arnold Ellis (1925-1944) of Durham, was killed on Saipan Island in June 1944. In 1946, Elsie married John Gates Booker of Chapel Hill, N.C., another Marine with whom she had corresponded during the war. Together, they had one son, Curtis Richard Booker (1948- ). Curtis Booker, a public school teacher, married Mary Gail Mize in 1973. They are the parents of Anna Leigh Booker and John Carlton Booker.