The Bootheel Wife: Elizabeth Lewis Romine Zint

My great-grandmother through her daughter.

On July 27, 1900, Elizabeth Minnie came into this world in Marrs Township, Posey County, Indiana. This area is wedged between the Ohio and the Wabash Rivers, which divide the state from Kentucky and Illinois. She was likely brought into this world on the Lewis farm on Caborn Road. Her parents Nathaniel Lewis and Lena Benner had four daughters before her.

After her, many more daughters and only one son were born. Based on Elizabeth’s brother’s birth and death records, the Lewis family moved to Missouri sometime between 1913 and 1917.

Many Lewis daughters with Elizabeth third from left, mother Lena next to her, Lewis sons seated. About 1911.

Elizabeth married Albert Clayton Romine on August 16, 1917 in Parma, Missouri. The Romines were part of the population boom in the town at the time, surging from 900 in 1910 to over 1200 in 1920. I’ve yet to discover why the town grew by 33% over that decade. Unfortunately, Elizabeth raised their three children there, including my grandmother, seemingly without Clayton’s help.

In 1920, Elizabeth lived with her parents in Parma, Missouri. She has a toddler, and husband Clayton was nowhere in the records even though his draft card says he worked in town for his father.

Clayton Romine of Parma was brought to New Madrid Saturday…and lodged in jail to serve a sentence of six months for wife abandonment… Sikeston (MO) Standard, 2 Sep 1921.

I assume Elizabeth and Clayton divorced because Elizabeth married John Zint on 17 June 1926, and Clayton remarried in 1932. I haven’t found a divorce record yet.

Marriage License, John Zint and Elizabeth Romain both of Parma. Sikeston (MO) Standard, 25 Jun 1926.

Elizabeth was six months pregnant with a daughter at the time she married John. They lived a peaceful life in Parma. Elizabeth was a homemaker and John was a bus driver and hardware store clerk.

Unfortunately, their daughter Betty died in 1955 of a heart attack complicated by ovarian cancer at 28 years old. A month later, the Sikeston Standard reported that Elizabeth traveled to Detroit, Michigan, to visit her father, Nathaniel. In my mind, those two facts are related.

Guests this week of Mr and Mrs John Zint are their grandchildren…Sikeston (MO) Standard, 5 Aug 1955, p11.

Elizabeth lived with John in Parma until her death on 11 Sep 1984 at the age of 84. She passed six months after her son Wilfred died. She was survived by her husband and her two daughters from her first marriage.

(l to r) Mary Lou Romine, Delana Smith, Nathaniel Lewis, Mary Lou’s other daughter, baby boy, Elizabeth Lewis Zint, girl. 5 Aug 1955

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Sources

Certificate of Birth
Elizabeth Lewis, Woodrow, Lewis. Posey County Health Department, Mt Vernon Indiana, Record #2040257, Personal records. Received from State of Indiana Vital Records 13 Oct 2016.

US Federal Censuses
(1910 – 1950)
Posey County, Indiana; New Madrid County, Missouri. Accessed on Ancestry.com and Familysearch.org.

Application for Social Security Account Number
Elizabeth Minnie Zint: 486-46-5886. Personal Records. Received from NARA.

Missouri, County Marriage, Naturalization, and Court Records, 1800-1991
U.S., Marriage Records, 1911-1914. New Madrid County, Missouri; Albert C Roumine [sic] and Elizabeth Lewis, p 418 of 493. Accessed on Familysearch.com.

Missouri, County Marriage, Naturalization, and Court Records, 1800-1991
New Madrid County, Missouri; John Zint and Elizabeth Romaine [sic], p 275 of 950. Accessed on Ancestry.com.

Missouri Certificate of Death.
Elizabeth Minnie Zint as reported by John Zint. Personal records. Certificates, 124-84-020680: New Madrid (Missouri). Woodrow Lewis as reported by Nathaniel Lewis.

Jailed for Assault

Very glad that Thee Porter, the victim, was reported as recovering. These clippings do not mention motive, but the situation of two white men, including my 3rd great-grandfather, disappointingly and embarrassingly, Nathaniel Lewis, against one “old” Black man certainly suggests racism.

“Jailed For Assault,” Evansville Courier and Press, Evansville, IN, 7 Aug 1912, p. 3, col. 4, par. 3; accessed on genealogybank.com Sep 2015

Transcript:
Jailed For Assault
Farmer Held for Attack on Man Found Almost Beaten to Death
Mt. Vernon, Ind., Aug 6 – (Special) – Nathaniel Lewis, a well known gamer of Marrs township was arrested today charged with assault on William Bell, the man who was found almost beaten to death yesterday two miles south of Caborn. G. V. Menzies has been retained as attorney for Lewis. Lewis is out on $1,000 bail.

“Jim Willis…,” Evansville Courier and Press, Evansville, IN, 12 Aug 1912, p. 3, col. 3, par. 1; accessed on genealogybank.com Sep 2015

Transcript:
Jim Willis as bound over to circuit court in the sum of $5,000 by Squire Weir this afternoon. Willis is charged jointly with Nathaniel Lewis with beating up the old negro, Thee Porter, near Caborn Station last week. Willis was arrested by Sheriff Joe Causey near Alzey, Ky., this morning. Porter is at the county infirmary, and is reported as being bale [sic] to sit up. Unless complications set in he has good chances for recovery.

“West Side News,” Evansville Press and Courier, Evansville, IN, 24 Feb 1911, p. 7, col. 5, par. 3; accessed on genealogybank.com Sep 2015

Transcript:
The case of the state vs. Nathaniel Lewis, charged with assault and battery with intent to kill is being heard in circuit court. Lewis is charged with beating an old negro at a school house in Marrs township this summer. Triplett and Wade represent the state and Major G. V. Menzies the defendant.

I did not find further reporting on this case, and I haven’t researched jail records yet. The reporter seems to have sympathy for the victim.

Source for featured image: Caborn Chapel in Caborn, Indiana, Chris Flook, Wikipedia Commons.

The Woman Who Died More Than Once (Updated)

For a few reasons, I’m thinking about relatives I’ve never met. This post is an updated version of a post from 2015 about my grandmother, Mary Louise Romine.

In 1951, my father was 7 years old and his brother and sister, the twins, were 6. They were living in Vassar, Michigan, and then Millington. Mary Lou worked as a cook in a restaurant; their father Ralph worked as a bartender. They both drank a lot.

Because of their work schedules, Mary Lou had family friends take care of them. A little babysitting became a lot of babysitting. Those friends got tired of taking care of them, so the kids were shipped to their Aunt Eva’s house. She took care of them until one day Ralph picked them up and took them for ice cream at Harriman’s Dairy. After that, he dropped them off at the juvenile home. Most likely it was a legal arrangement the kids weren’t aware of.

Eventually, social workers placed the kids in three different houses full of strangers: foster families. I imagine on his third or fourth night in the new house my dad realized his parents weren’t coming back for him. That was Mary Lou’s first death.

In 1983 or so, a call from a stranger marked Mary Lou’s second death. It went something like this:

“This is [my dad’s] Aunt Loretta,” a woman said by way of a greeting. “I’m calling to tell him his mother is sick with cancer and is asking for him. She doesn’t have much time left.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but where was she all the time [my dad] wanted and needed her?” my mom said. Mom had known Dad since high school, so she knew the family history.

“Oh, I don’t know nothing about that! Will you tell him?”

Mom agreed. Later, Dad said he hadn’t known he’d had an Aunt Loretta. From then on, Dad believed his mother was gone. Mary Lou’s second death.

In 1989, another phone call. No one remembers who told him she had died, either his half-sister Delana or her daughter. It went something like this:

“Hello, this is your sister/niece.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I thought you should know your mother died last night.”

“Thanks for telling me. I’m sorry for the people who care for her, but I am not one of them. Goodbye.”

In 2013, I connected with a relative of his sister and niece on Facebook. We got together for dinner one night. I was nervous; she was the first relative on that side of my family I had ever met. I wanted it to go well. I wanted her to answer questions I’ve had simply with her presence. At some point during dinner, I started describing my dad, her grand-uncle, but she stopped me mid-sentence. She told me she’d met my dad at a wake, Dad’s mother’s, in 1989. I didn’t know he’d gone to her funeral.

My mind reeled to think what I was doing that day. I would have been 15, preoccupied by marching band practices and pool parties at friends’ houses. Too young to understand his need to leave his past alone, to give his sons a less complicated family life.

I know facts about my grandmother now. I know Mary Lou was born in Parma, Missouri, in 1918. She was the oldest daughter of Clayton Romine and Elizabeth Lewis. She married Del Smith in Missouri in 1934 and had three children. She moved to Flint, Michigan, sometime around 1940 and eventually became the head cook of Higgins Restaurant on Corunna Road. She had three more children with my grandfather, Ralph James. She was with Rollie Fletcher and James Harvey as well. She died on November 18, 1989, near Otisville, Michigan, and she was buried near Clio.

From r to l: Mary Lou, Delana Smith, Nathaniel Lewis, Donna Smith, child, Elizabeth Lewis, child

I’ve been given pictures of her. She is the woman on the far left of the picture in the polka dot dress. She is the woman who died not twice, but three times. She is the woman who profoundly hurt my father, but she is also the woman who directly shaped my father’s attitude toward his own family, made him want the opposite of what he had. She is a key reason I had a stable and loving childhood, and for that I begrudgingly thank her.

 

 

 

 

My Longest-Living Ancestor

TRANSCRIPT from The Flint Journal (Flint, Michigan), 6 Jan 1963, p. D7:
Still ‘Farming’
Flint Man Marks 97th Birthday

Nathaniel Lewis, who is 97 today, has been a farmer all his life. Last summer he cultivated a small plot of corn and berries.

Lewis lives with his daughter, Mrs. Nora Miley, at 1482 Alberta St. He was born on a farm near Mount Vernon, Ind. and has lived in Flint since 1951.

He has a son, Nathaniel Jr., Parma, Mo.; five other daughters, Mrs. Mattie Hicks, Flint, Mrs. Dora Alley and Mrs. Alice Spanick, both of Dearborn, Mrs. Lillian Myrick, Dexter, Mo., and Mrs. Elizabeth Zint, Parma; 18 grandchildren, 40 great-grandchildren, and six great-great-grandchildren.

***

I am one of Nathaniel Lewis’s many great-great-grandchildren born after he passed away in 1964 at age 98. Our common first name is a coincidence; my parents didn’t know there were Nathaniels in the family when they named me.

Writing this for Amy Johnson Crow’s #52Ancestors. This week’s prompt was “longevity.”

Jailed For Assault

I never thought I was descended from saints or anything. Still it’s difficult to see proof that your forebearers were abusive, racist, or felonious. My two-times great-grandfather, Nathaniel Lewis, turned out to be all three. I’ll post more about this story soon.

Click here for source info.

Mr. Lewis’s Love Affair

“What does your father do while you and Ben are working?” my neighbor asked me.
“Read, watch television, I suppose.”
“I don’t want to alarm you, but when the windows are open I hear him talking to someone. He calls her sweetie.”