I chose this ad because it to me was a little happier than the others I came across. Instead of an ad that has people searching for each other I noticed it was about two people having found each other by chance. I noticed that the elderly woman Mrs. Fry went out to see went by “Aunty” Strong and she claimed to be 106 years old which is crazy, especially back then. I wonder if she went by Aunty Strong because that’s what she wanted to be called or if that is just what she had been referred to by the white people around her. https://maryklann.wixsite.com/hist110/post/module-9-race-and-violence-in-the-new-south
What was crazy to me was that Mrs. Fry didn’t meet up with “Aunty” Strong because she thought the woman could have been her mother. To Mrs. Fry Aunty Strong was just an older woman who hailed from the same village in Virginia she'd been born to and had just wanted someone to reminisce about the past with. I wonder how many people who put out ads and went looking for relatives were actually able to find them.
Mrs. Fry and her mother had been separated at the close of the Civil War when the slaves in their area were liberated. I’m not sure how they had gotten separated, but they didn’t meet each other again until 1908. That’s roughly forty some years between being separated and meeting again and for having been a chance encounter it is an amazing thing. Though they had both come from a small village in Virginia the daughter had ended up in New Jersey and the mother had settled in Philadelphia. I’m assuming they moved to new states, ones that were not strictly southern, that may have been safer for them during the Reconstruction period. https://via.hypothes.is/https://daily.jstor.org/revisiting-reconstruction/ Rather than choosing to stay in Virginia where they had the chance of being picked up by their old owner or another Plantation owner in that area. http://www.americanyawp.com/reader/reconstruction/jourdon-anderson-writes-his-former-master-1865/
This ad showed two people who came from the same area in the south that when separated and both going through the Reconstruction period did choose to move out of the more southern areas to areas that were more likely to give them a better chance with a less southern attitude when it came to the color of their skin. A common trend during that time was that a lot of African Americans would move out of the southern states looking for a fresh start or to escape poor treatment and to live a slightly safer life in middle or northern states. I cannot answer how many people got to be reunited with loved ones like these two ladies were. I can however note that I feel it would have been difficult to reconnect with others even with the newspaper ads. Many people searching though ads or wanting to post ads would have had to rely on others who could both read and who cared enough to read or write for them. I wonder just how many more people would have been reunited if slave owners had felt that educating their slaves had been a worthwhile thing to do.
Question: Were there any places, people, or services that would read/write these ads for those who were unable to do so?
Bonus question: What is the secret to living to be 106 years young?
Link to ad:
http://informationwanted.org/items/show/3221
I think most people may have known someone that could read. There were more educated Blacks in the North than the South.
This article is really remarkable! I think the experiences of Mrs. Fry and her mother go to show how significant it was for formerly enslaved people to seek out community and how much effort must have gone into reconstituting families and old neighbors and friends.
To respond to your question, I think people who were unable to place their own ads relied on community leaders, people from their churches and organizations, or others in their networks. Another classmate's post that analyzed a longer article had the example of a woman who was searching for her parents and ended up hearing about their whereabouts from a church leader in their community (in a different state). I think this shows that the newspaper ads were just one method out of many to locate people.
From reading your ad and what given context you proved I find it very engaging, reading through, and I do question on how they were able to have these ads in the paper, and if there were people that could help in this sort of way.
Good Question! I was wondering the same thing! I'm not sure if there actually was a service to help people write these ads, but i'm assuming there was. A lot of the ads I read seemed as though it was someone writing them for a very elderly person seeking family.
And i'm pretty sure the secret to living to 106 is a balanced diet of southern bbq and soul food...so delicious! 🤤