The following information about Mary Matilda ("Mane") Stevens Godfrey is quoted from information compiled by her great-grandson, Carl Franklin Cannon, Jr. (1928-1994) of Williamsburg, Virginia:
Mary Matilda (Mannie) Stevens, youngest child of Noah Stevens (1829-1865) and Sarah (Sally) Gregory Stevens Sanderlin (1837-1892), was born on the Gregory/ Stevens farm on February 10, 1864, in Camden County, North Carolina, a mile west of the prosperous little village of Shiloh. Times were difficult. North Carolina was, at that time, one of the Confederate States of America. Camden County, located as it is between the Pasquotank River and the State of Virginia boundary line, was the scene of a low-key struggle between Confederate and Northern sympathizers, recurrent forays of U.S. troops from the Tidewater Virginia area, and strikes by renegades.
Noah and Sally had a prosperous farm with a neat farmhouse and sturdy outbuildings which Sally had inherited from her father. The property had been deeded to Noah and he had extensively remodelled the house and repaired the outbuildings. There were several slaves to cook and serve at table.
Mannie Stevens grew up on the Stevens farm where she was born in 1864. When she was a year old, her father died. Shortly afterwards her mother remarried, at 29, their farm helper, Enoch Sanderlin. She and her three older brothers, Butler, John, and Samuel Stevens, were soon joined by five Sanderlin half-brothers and -sisters: Lillie, Mark, Enoch, Sue, and Sarah (Sally). The Sanderlin household must have been bursting with children at times.
Except for the first six years of her marriage, Mannie Godfrey lived on "the old home place." She was born there; she died there at an elderly age. There was a superb view of the Pasquotank River across the half mile of open fields to the river.
Little is known of Mannie's childhood. It is thought that she attended the older one-room schoolhouse nearby at Billett's Bridge. While she was still unmarried, she purchased a sewing machine and thereafter made her own living taking in sewing. She did this all of her life.
Her stepfather, Enoch Sanderlin, had a reputation of being difficult, particularly with his stepchildren. He was supposed to have "run off" his three stepsons. Mannie Stevens may have been having problems, too, because "Mr. Bob Williams" went to her mother, Sally, and told her to keep Mannie at home with her and not to find her a home, saying that if anyone should be run off, it should be Enoch Sanderlin. So, Mannie Stevens stayed after her brothers left.
In spite of Enoch Sanderlin, the Stevens house was a favorite gathering place for the entire neighborhood, possibly because of all the young people in the family and because of the wide porch which spread across the front of the house under the great sheltering oak trees in the front lawn.
If her later appearance is any indication, Mannie Stevens was a handsome, elegant woman with dark eyes, hair, and eyebrows. She had an erect regal carriage. And a firm generous mouth. Her clothes were beautifully made.
When she was in her early twenties, Thomas B. Godfrey returned to the immediate neighborhood. He had been gone almost ten years, having run away from his guardian, Dempsey Burgess, who lived at the Burgess Place (later the Jordan Place). Tom Godfrey was good-looking. He lived at the old Walston farm (later the Hetty Wright house, torn down in the 1950's or 1960's). He was probably in the group which gathered at the Sanderlin home. The young couple married on January 6, 1885, at home.
During the first year, Tom and "Mane" (as he always called her) lived in a small house on her Uncle Billie Stevens' farm, behind the Sanderlin house on a side road. Nearby was the Billy Stevens house, similar in size and character to the Stevens-Sanderlin house. It, too, had a "piazza" room at the end of the porch. Tom and Mannie's little honeymoon house consisted of two rooms and a separate kitchen. While still in this house, Mannie Godfrey miscarried of her first child.
Sometime before their first child, Luna, was born on June 17, 1887, Tom Godfrey and Mannie moved to the old Clarkson place which had been owned by her grandmother Mary B. (Sawyer) Lewis Gregory Clarkson's third husband, Alpheus Clarkson. The house stood on the Camden-Shiloh highway just beyond Billett's Bridge. (The old two-story frame house was later moved back and used as a farm building when the Burgess family built a new frame house there around 1900. The new Burgess house was destroyed by fire in the 1950's, but the Clarkson house disappeared unnoticed).
Tom and Mary Matilda stayed at the Clarkson place only about a year. Tom did not take to farming and spent much of his time with the boys, hunting and fishing. Often he would be gone a week at a time, taking a bucket of biscuits and corn bread with which he and his cronies supplemented with fresh fish and game.
Mannie supplemented the family income by her skillful sewing and by the sale of her chickens and eggs.
No doubt, Mannie Godfrey's mouth took on an even firmer look as she grew older, dealing with her children and her never-to-grow-up husband. Tammy, as she often called him, played a hand accordian skillfully and was a favorite because of his jovial wit.
Luna Stevens Godfrey was born June 17, 1887, while her parents were still at the Clarkson house. Will Stevens Godfrey was born on August 17, 1889, in the Warren house back towards Shiloh on the curve just beyond the Stevens-Sanderlin house and the Walston house. Then they moved next to the John Joseph Hughes place, then a one-story house, then to a small house on Cousin Mark Gregory's farm nearer Shiloh. All of these houses were within eyesight of the old home place.
Tom and Mannie and their two children moved to the Stevens-Sanderlin home shortly after Mannie's mother died in January, 1892. There was a family squabble over the house and farm because following (Mannie's parents') marriage in July, 1854, (her father) had his wife's farm placed in his name in case he died and she remarried, so that their children would inherit. (He was only 35 when he died and she did remarry and have more children).
Enoch Sanderlin, who had lived at the old homeplace for 25 years, and his children were upset, but the property went to the Stevens children alone. Butler had died, and Mary Matilda bought out her brothers, John and Samuel. The last child (of Tom and Mannie) was Harry Stevens Godfrey, born October 29, 1901. Tom farmed the property until he died. It was a small farm. After his death in 1946, the farm was rented to Mac Sanderlin.
Before the Godfrey house was remodelled, apparently by Noah Stevens, it was said to be a duplicate of that on the next farm which survived until the 1960's. The Cartwright house next door was a two-story house with a Dutch gambrel roof. It was probably built between 1740 and 1750 by one Samuel Williamson, who owned a plantation of 600 acres. His will was written in 1750. In 1781, John Griffin, another owner and elderly widower, gave this house with 150 acres, a windmill on the river, and 10 slaves to young Amy Burfoot in order to win her for his bride.
Luna, the oldest, not only went to nearby Billett's Bridge school, but attended private school at the Shiloh Academy until shortly before she married. Her brother, Will, too, was well-educated for his day. Luna dressed beautifully, fitted skillfully by her mother. The evening wedding of Loyal and Luna Godfrey in 1906 was elegant by lamplight with many guests and supper.
Will learned to plow by the time he was 10 or 12. Tom Godfrey, still going out with the young people, continued to fish and hunt both for sport and to feed the family. Until he was old and too infirmed with a hernia, Tom Godfrey went.
Until her death, Mary Matilda Godfrey wore her dresses long and her sleeves to her wrists. She was sometimes irrascible and cranky. Her later life was marked by playing favorites with her children. Loyal and Luna lived with her several times, the last time being shortly before her death when a housekeeper was hired.
Mannie Stevens died suddenly on July 5, 1949. She became angry over washing dishes and went out to her garden in the boiling sun to work. She became overheated and came back in the yard, dropping dead in the shadow of the great oaks which grew high and large as she grew older.
She is buried in the cemetery at Shiloh Baptist Church beside her husband (who died three years earlier) in the brick-walled family plot.
Her tombstone reads:
Mannie S. Godfrey
1864-1949
Gone but not forgotten
This ends Mr. Cannon's information.
Below is a caption from a local newspaper beneath a photograph of Uncle Tom and Aunt Mane that was taken for their 60th wedding anniversary in 1946:
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas B. Godfrey of Shiloh celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary on January 3. They have three children, Mrs. Loyal [Luna] Godfrey, Will and Harry Godfrey; ten grandchildren and six great grandchildren. Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey live in the house where Mrs. Godfrey was born, reared, and married. Both are very active and they live alone doing all the work about the home. J.E. Williams, who recently celebrated his fiftieth wedding anniversary, was present when the Godfreys were married. He and his wife also attended the Godfrey celebration.
Below is Aunt Mane's obituary from "The Virginian-Pilot" of Norfolk, Virginia:
Mrs. Mamie Stevens Godfrey
Elizabeth City, N.C., July 5--Mrs. Mamie Stevens Godfrey, 85, died at her home at Shiloh at 11:30 Tuesday. She was the daughter of the late Noah and Sally Gregory Stevens; a native of Camden County and a member of Shiloh Baptist Church.
She is survived by one daughter, Mrs. Loyal [Luna] Godfrey, Shiloh; two sons, W.S. Godfrey, of Shiloh, and Harry Godfrey, of Norfolk, Va,; five [incorrect--ten] grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be conducted by the Rev. E.A. Higgenbotham, and burial will be in the family cemetery near the church.
Mary Matilda (Mannie) Stevens, youngest child of Noah Stevens (1829-1865) and Sarah (Sally) Gregory Stevens Sanderlin (1837-1892), was born on the Gregory/ Stevens farm on February 10, 1864, in Camden County, North Carolina, a mile west of the prosperous little village of Shiloh. Times were difficult. North Carolina was, at that time, one of the Confederate States of America. Camden County, located as it is between the Pasquotank River and the State of Virginia boundary line, was the scene of a low-key struggle between Confederate and Northern sympathizers, recurrent forays of U.S. troops from the Tidewater Virginia area, and strikes by renegades.
Noah and Sally had a prosperous farm with a neat farmhouse and sturdy outbuildings which Sally had inherited from her father. The property had been deeded to Noah and he had extensively remodelled the house and repaired the outbuildings. There were several slaves to cook and serve at table.
Mannie Stevens grew up on the Stevens farm where she was born in 1864. When she was a year old, her father died. Shortly afterwards her mother remarried, at 29, their farm helper, Enoch Sanderlin. She and her three older brothers, Butler, John, and Samuel Stevens, were soon joined by five Sanderlin half-brothers and -sisters: Lillie, Mark, Enoch, Sue, and Sarah (Sally). The Sanderlin household must have been bursting with children at times.
Except for the first six years of her marriage, Mannie Godfrey lived on "the old home place." She was born there; she died there at an elderly age. There was a superb view of the Pasquotank River across the half mile of open fields to the river.
Little is known of Mannie's childhood. It is thought that she attended the older one-room schoolhouse nearby at Billett's Bridge. While she was still unmarried, she purchased a sewing machine and thereafter made her own living taking in sewing. She did this all of her life.
Her stepfather, Enoch Sanderlin, had a reputation of being difficult, particularly with his stepchildren. He was supposed to have "run off" his three stepsons. Mannie Stevens may have been having problems, too, because "Mr. Bob Williams" went to her mother, Sally, and told her to keep Mannie at home with her and not to find her a home, saying that if anyone should be run off, it should be Enoch Sanderlin. So, Mannie Stevens stayed after her brothers left.
In spite of Enoch Sanderlin, the Stevens house was a favorite gathering place for the entire neighborhood, possibly because of all the young people in the family and because of the wide porch which spread across the front of the house under the great sheltering oak trees in the front lawn.
If her later appearance is any indication, Mannie Stevens was a handsome, elegant woman with dark eyes, hair, and eyebrows. She had an erect regal carriage. And a firm generous mouth. Her clothes were beautifully made.
When she was in her early twenties, Thomas B. Godfrey returned to the immediate neighborhood. He had been gone almost ten years, having run away from his guardian, Dempsey Burgess, who lived at the Burgess Place (later the Jordan Place). Tom Godfrey was good-looking. He lived at the old Walston farm (later the Hetty Wright house, torn down in the 1950's or 1960's). He was probably in the group which gathered at the Sanderlin home. The young couple married on January 6, 1885, at home.
During the first year, Tom and "Mane" (as he always called her) lived in a small house on her Uncle Billie Stevens' farm, behind the Sanderlin house on a side road. Nearby was the Billy Stevens house, similar in size and character to the Stevens-Sanderlin house. It, too, had a "piazza" room at the end of the porch. Tom and Mannie's little honeymoon house consisted of two rooms and a separate kitchen. While still in this house, Mannie Godfrey miscarried of her first child.
Sometime before their first child, Luna, was born on June 17, 1887, Tom Godfrey and Mannie moved to the old Clarkson place which had been owned by her grandmother Mary B. (Sawyer) Lewis Gregory Clarkson's third husband, Alpheus Clarkson. The house stood on the Camden-Shiloh highway just beyond Billett's Bridge. (The old two-story frame house was later moved back and used as a farm building when the Burgess family built a new frame house there around 1900. The new Burgess house was destroyed by fire in the 1950's, but the Clarkson house disappeared unnoticed).
Tom and Mary Matilda stayed at the Clarkson place only about a year. Tom did not take to farming and spent much of his time with the boys, hunting and fishing. Often he would be gone a week at a time, taking a bucket of biscuits and corn bread with which he and his cronies supplemented with fresh fish and game.
Mannie supplemented the family income by her skillful sewing and by the sale of her chickens and eggs.
No doubt, Mannie Godfrey's mouth took on an even firmer look as she grew older, dealing with her children and her never-to-grow-up husband. Tammy, as she often called him, played a hand accordian skillfully and was a favorite because of his jovial wit.
Luna Stevens Godfrey was born June 17, 1887, while her parents were still at the Clarkson house. Will Stevens Godfrey was born on August 17, 1889, in the Warren house back towards Shiloh on the curve just beyond the Stevens-Sanderlin house and the Walston house. Then they moved next to the John Joseph Hughes place, then a one-story house, then to a small house on Cousin Mark Gregory's farm nearer Shiloh. All of these houses were within eyesight of the old home place.
Tom and Mannie and their two children moved to the Stevens-Sanderlin home shortly after Mannie's mother died in January, 1892. There was a family squabble over the house and farm because following (Mannie's parents') marriage in July, 1854, (her father) had his wife's farm placed in his name in case he died and she remarried, so that their children would inherit. (He was only 35 when he died and she did remarry and have more children).
Enoch Sanderlin, who had lived at the old homeplace for 25 years, and his children were upset, but the property went to the Stevens children alone. Butler had died, and Mary Matilda bought out her brothers, John and Samuel. The last child (of Tom and Mannie) was Harry Stevens Godfrey, born October 29, 1901. Tom farmed the property until he died. It was a small farm. After his death in 1946, the farm was rented to Mac Sanderlin.
Before the Godfrey house was remodelled, apparently by Noah Stevens, it was said to be a duplicate of that on the next farm which survived until the 1960's. The Cartwright house next door was a two-story house with a Dutch gambrel roof. It was probably built between 1740 and 1750 by one Samuel Williamson, who owned a plantation of 600 acres. His will was written in 1750. In 1781, John Griffin, another owner and elderly widower, gave this house with 150 acres, a windmill on the river, and 10 slaves to young Amy Burfoot in order to win her for his bride.
Luna, the oldest, not only went to nearby Billett's Bridge school, but attended private school at the Shiloh Academy until shortly before she married. Her brother, Will, too, was well-educated for his day. Luna dressed beautifully, fitted skillfully by her mother. The evening wedding of Loyal and Luna Godfrey in 1906 was elegant by lamplight with many guests and supper.
Will learned to plow by the time he was 10 or 12. Tom Godfrey, still going out with the young people, continued to fish and hunt both for sport and to feed the family. Until he was old and too infirmed with a hernia, Tom Godfrey went.
Until her death, Mary Matilda Godfrey wore her dresses long and her sleeves to her wrists. She was sometimes irrascible and cranky. Her later life was marked by playing favorites with her children. Loyal and Luna lived with her several times, the last time being shortly before her death when a housekeeper was hired.
Mannie Stevens died suddenly on July 5, 1949. She became angry over washing dishes and went out to her garden in the boiling sun to work. She became overheated and came back in the yard, dropping dead in the shadow of the great oaks which grew high and large as she grew older.
She is buried in the cemetery at Shiloh Baptist Church beside her husband (who died three years earlier) in the brick-walled family plot.
Her tombstone reads:
Mannie S. Godfrey
1864-1949
Gone but not forgotten
This ends Mr. Cannon's information.
Below is a caption from a local newspaper beneath a photograph of Uncle Tom and Aunt Mane that was taken for their 60th wedding anniversary in 1946:
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas B. Godfrey of Shiloh celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary on January 3. They have three children, Mrs. Loyal [Luna] Godfrey, Will and Harry Godfrey; ten grandchildren and six great grandchildren. Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey live in the house where Mrs. Godfrey was born, reared, and married. Both are very active and they live alone doing all the work about the home. J.E. Williams, who recently celebrated his fiftieth wedding anniversary, was present when the Godfreys were married. He and his wife also attended the Godfrey celebration.
Below is Aunt Mane's obituary from "The Virginian-Pilot" of Norfolk, Virginia:
Mrs. Mamie Stevens Godfrey
Elizabeth City, N.C., July 5--Mrs. Mamie Stevens Godfrey, 85, died at her home at Shiloh at 11:30 Tuesday. She was the daughter of the late Noah and Sally Gregory Stevens; a native of Camden County and a member of Shiloh Baptist Church.
She is survived by one daughter, Mrs. Loyal [Luna] Godfrey, Shiloh; two sons, W.S. Godfrey, of Shiloh, and Harry Godfrey, of Norfolk, Va,; five [incorrect--ten] grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be conducted by the Rev. E.A. Higgenbotham, and burial will be in the family cemetery near the church.
The following information about Mary Matilda ("Mane") Stevens Godfrey is quoted from information compiled by her great-grandson, Carl Franklin Cannon, Jr. (1928-1994) of Williamsburg, Virginia:
Mary Matilda (Mannie) Stevens, youngest child of Noah Stevens (1829-1865) and Sarah (Sally) Gregory Stevens Sanderlin (1837-1892), was born on the Gregory/ Stevens farm on February 10, 1864, in Camden County, North Carolina, a mile west of the prosperous little village of Shiloh. Times were difficult. North Carolina was, at that time, one of the Confederate States of America. Camden County, located as it is between the Pasquotank River and the State of Virginia boundary line, was the scene of a low-key struggle between Confederate and Northern sympathizers, recurrent forays of U.S. troops from the Tidewater Virginia area, and strikes by renegades.
Noah and Sally had a prosperous farm with a neat farmhouse and sturdy outbuildings which Sally had inherited from her father. The property had been deeded to Noah and he had extensively remodelled the house and repaired the outbuildings. There were several slaves to cook and serve at table.
Mannie Stevens grew up on the Stevens farm where she was born in 1864. When she was a year old, her father died. Shortly afterwards her mother remarried, at 29, their farm helper, Enoch Sanderlin. She and her three older brothers, Butler, John, and Samuel Stevens, were soon joined by five Sanderlin half-brothers and -sisters: Lillie, Mark, Enoch, Sue, and Sarah (Sally). The Sanderlin household must have been bursting with children at times.
Except for the first six years of her marriage, Mannie Godfrey lived on "the old home place." She was born there; she died there at an elderly age. There was a superb view of the Pasquotank River across the half mile of open fields to the river.
Little is known of Mannie's childhood. It is thought that she attended the older one-room schoolhouse nearby at Billett's Bridge. While she was still unmarried, she purchased a sewing machine and thereafter made her own living taking in sewing. She did this all of her life.
Her stepfather, Enoch Sanderlin, had a reputation of being difficult, particularly with his stepchildren. He was supposed to have "run off" his three stepsons. Mannie Stevens may have been having problems, too, because "Mr. Bob Williams" went to her mother, Sally, and told her to keep Mannie at home with her and not to find her a home, saying that if anyone should be run off, it should be Enoch Sanderlin. So, Mannie Stevens stayed after her brothers left.
In spite of Enoch Sanderlin, the Stevens house was a favorite gathering place for the entire neighborhood, possibly because of all the young people in the family and because of the wide porch which spread across the front of the house under the great sheltering oak trees in the front lawn.
If her later appearance is any indication, Mannie Stevens was a handsome, elegant woman with dark eyes, hair, and eyebrows. She had an erect regal carriage. And a firm generous mouth. Her clothes were beautifully made.
When she was in her early twenties, Thomas B. Godfrey returned to the immediate neighborhood. He had been gone almost ten years, having run away from his guardian, Dempsey Burgess, who lived at the Burgess Place (later the Jordan Place). Tom Godfrey was good-looking. He lived at the old Walston farm (later the Hetty Wright house, torn down in the 1950's or 1960's). He was probably in the group which gathered at the Sanderlin home. The young couple married on January 6, 1885, at home.
During the first year, Tom and "Mane" (as he always called her) lived in a small house on her Uncle Billie Stevens' farm, behind the Sanderlin house on a side road. Nearby was the Billy Stevens house, similar in size and character to the Stevens-Sanderlin house. It, too, had a "piazza" room at the end of the porch. Tom and Mannie's little honeymoon house consisted of two rooms and a separate kitchen. While still in this house, Mannie Godfrey miscarried of her first child.
Sometime before their first child, Luna, was born on June 17, 1887, Tom Godfrey and Mannie moved to the old Clarkson place which had been owned by her grandmother Mary B. (Sawyer) Lewis Gregory Clarkson's third husband, Alpheus Clarkson. The house stood on the Camden-Shiloh highway just beyond Billett's Bridge. (The old two-story frame house was later moved back and used as a farm building when the Burgess family built a new frame house there around 1900. The new Burgess house was destroyed by fire in the 1950's, but the Clarkson house disappeared unnoticed).
Tom and Mary Matilda stayed at the Clarkson place only about a year. Tom did not take to farming and spent much of his time with the boys, hunting and fishing. Often he would be gone a week at a time, taking a bucket of biscuits and corn bread with which he and his cronies supplemented with fresh fish and game.
Mannie supplemented the family income by her skillful sewing and by the sale of her chickens and eggs.
No doubt, Mannie Godfrey's mouth took on an even firmer look as she grew older, dealing with her children and her never-to-grow-up husband. Tammy, as she often called him, played a hand accordian skillfully and was a favorite because of his jovial wit.
Luna Stevens Godfrey was born June 17, 1887, while her parents were still at the Clarkson house. Will Stevens Godfrey was born on August 17, 1889, in the Warren house back towards Shiloh on the curve just beyond the Stevens-Sanderlin house and the Walston house. Then they moved next to the John Joseph Hughes place, then a one-story house, then to a small house on Cousin Mark Gregory's farm nearer Shiloh. All of these houses were within eyesight of the old home place.
Tom and Mannie and their two children moved to the Stevens-Sanderlin home shortly after Mannie's mother died in January, 1892. There was a family squabble over the house and farm because following (Mannie's parents') marriage in July, 1854, (her father) had his wife's farm placed in his name in case he died and she remarried, so that their children would inherit. (He was only 35 when he died and she did remarry and have more children).
Enoch Sanderlin, who had lived at the old homeplace for 25 years, and his children were upset, but the property went to the Stevens children alone. Butler had died, and Mary Matilda bought out her brothers, John and Samuel. The last child (of Tom and Mannie) was Harry Stevens Godfrey, born October 29, 1901. Tom farmed the property until he died. It was a small farm. After his death in 1946, the farm was rented to Mac Sanderlin.
Before the Godfrey house was remodelled, apparently by Noah Stevens, it was said to be a duplicate of that on the next farm which survived until the 1960's. The Cartwright house next door was a two-story house with a Dutch gambrel roof. It was probably built between 1740 and 1750 by one Samuel Williamson, who owned a plantation of 600 acres. His will was written in 1750. In 1781, John Griffin, another owner and elderly widower, gave this house with 150 acres, a windmill on the river, and 10 slaves to young Amy Burfoot in order to win her for his bride.
Luna, the oldest, not only went to nearby Billett's Bridge school, but attended private school at the Shiloh Academy until shortly before she married. Her brother, Will, too, was well-educated for his day. Luna dressed beautifully, fitted skillfully by her mother. The evening wedding of Loyal and Luna Godfrey in 1906 was elegant by lamplight with many guests and supper.
Will learned to plow by the time he was 10 or 12. Tom Godfrey, still going out with the young people, continued to fish and hunt both for sport and to feed the family. Until he was old and too infirmed with a hernia, Tom Godfrey went.
Until her death, Mary Matilda Godfrey wore her dresses long and her sleeves to her wrists. She was sometimes irrascible and cranky. Her later life was marked by playing favorites with her children. Loyal and Luna lived with her several times, the last time being shortly before her death when a housekeeper was hired.
Mannie Stevens died suddenly on July 5, 1949. She became angry over washing dishes and went out to her garden in the boiling sun to work. She became overheated and came back in the yard, dropping dead in the shadow of the great oaks which grew high and large as she grew older.
She is buried in the cemetery at Shiloh Baptist Church beside her husband (who died three years earlier) in the brick-walled family plot.
Her tombstone reads:
Mannie S. Godfrey
1864-1949
Gone but not forgotten
This ends Mr. Cannon's information.
Below is a caption from a local newspaper beneath a photograph of Uncle Tom and Aunt Mane that was taken for their 60th wedding anniversary in 1946:
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas B. Godfrey of Shiloh celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary on January 3. They have three children, Mrs. Loyal [Luna] Godfrey, Will and Harry Godfrey; ten grandchildren and six great grandchildren. Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey live in the house where Mrs. Godfrey was born, reared, and married. Both are very active and they live alone doing all the work about the home. J.E. Williams, who recently celebrated his fiftieth wedding anniversary, was present when the Godfreys were married. He and his wife also attended the Godfrey celebration.
Below is Aunt Mane's obituary from "The Virginian-Pilot" of Norfolk, Virginia:
Mrs. Mamie Stevens Godfrey
Elizabeth City, N.C., July 5--Mrs. Mamie Stevens Godfrey, 85, died at her home at Shiloh at 11:30 Tuesday. She was the daughter of the late Noah and Sally Gregory Stevens; a native of Camden County and a member of Shiloh Baptist Church.
She is survived by one daughter, Mrs. Loyal [Luna] Godfrey, Shiloh; two sons, W.S. Godfrey, of Shiloh, and Harry Godfrey, of Norfolk, Va,; five [incorrect--ten] grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be conducted by the Rev. E.A. Higgenbotham, and burial will be in the family cemetery near the church.
Mary Matilda (Mannie) Stevens, youngest child of Noah Stevens (1829-1865) and Sarah (Sally) Gregory Stevens Sanderlin (1837-1892), was born on the Gregory/ Stevens farm on February 10, 1864, in Camden County, North Carolina, a mile west of the prosperous little village of Shiloh. Times were difficult. North Carolina was, at that time, one of the Confederate States of America. Camden County, located as it is between the Pasquotank River and the State of Virginia boundary line, was the scene of a low-key struggle between Confederate and Northern sympathizers, recurrent forays of U.S. troops from the Tidewater Virginia area, and strikes by renegades.
Noah and Sally had a prosperous farm with a neat farmhouse and sturdy outbuildings which Sally had inherited from her father. The property had been deeded to Noah and he had extensively remodelled the house and repaired the outbuildings. There were several slaves to cook and serve at table.
Mannie Stevens grew up on the Stevens farm where she was born in 1864. When she was a year old, her father died. Shortly afterwards her mother remarried, at 29, their farm helper, Enoch Sanderlin. She and her three older brothers, Butler, John, and Samuel Stevens, were soon joined by five Sanderlin half-brothers and -sisters: Lillie, Mark, Enoch, Sue, and Sarah (Sally). The Sanderlin household must have been bursting with children at times.
Except for the first six years of her marriage, Mannie Godfrey lived on "the old home place." She was born there; she died there at an elderly age. There was a superb view of the Pasquotank River across the half mile of open fields to the river.
Little is known of Mannie's childhood. It is thought that she attended the older one-room schoolhouse nearby at Billett's Bridge. While she was still unmarried, she purchased a sewing machine and thereafter made her own living taking in sewing. She did this all of her life.
Her stepfather, Enoch Sanderlin, had a reputation of being difficult, particularly with his stepchildren. He was supposed to have "run off" his three stepsons. Mannie Stevens may have been having problems, too, because "Mr. Bob Williams" went to her mother, Sally, and told her to keep Mannie at home with her and not to find her a home, saying that if anyone should be run off, it should be Enoch Sanderlin. So, Mannie Stevens stayed after her brothers left.
In spite of Enoch Sanderlin, the Stevens house was a favorite gathering place for the entire neighborhood, possibly because of all the young people in the family and because of the wide porch which spread across the front of the house under the great sheltering oak trees in the front lawn.
If her later appearance is any indication, Mannie Stevens was a handsome, elegant woman with dark eyes, hair, and eyebrows. She had an erect regal carriage. And a firm generous mouth. Her clothes were beautifully made.
When she was in her early twenties, Thomas B. Godfrey returned to the immediate neighborhood. He had been gone almost ten years, having run away from his guardian, Dempsey Burgess, who lived at the Burgess Place (later the Jordan Place). Tom Godfrey was good-looking. He lived at the old Walston farm (later the Hetty Wright house, torn down in the 1950's or 1960's). He was probably in the group which gathered at the Sanderlin home. The young couple married on January 6, 1885, at home.
During the first year, Tom and "Mane" (as he always called her) lived in a small house on her Uncle Billie Stevens' farm, behind the Sanderlin house on a side road. Nearby was the Billy Stevens house, similar in size and character to the Stevens-Sanderlin house. It, too, had a "piazza" room at the end of the porch. Tom and Mannie's little honeymoon house consisted of two rooms and a separate kitchen. While still in this house, Mannie Godfrey miscarried of her first child.
Sometime before their first child, Luna, was born on June 17, 1887, Tom Godfrey and Mannie moved to the old Clarkson place which had been owned by her grandmother Mary B. (Sawyer) Lewis Gregory Clarkson's third husband, Alpheus Clarkson. The house stood on the Camden-Shiloh highway just beyond Billett's Bridge. (The old two-story frame house was later moved back and used as a farm building when the Burgess family built a new frame house there around 1900. The new Burgess house was destroyed by fire in the 1950's, but the Clarkson house disappeared unnoticed).
Tom and Mary Matilda stayed at the Clarkson place only about a year. Tom did not take to farming and spent much of his time with the boys, hunting and fishing. Often he would be gone a week at a time, taking a bucket of biscuits and corn bread with which he and his cronies supplemented with fresh fish and game.
Mannie supplemented the family income by her skillful sewing and by the sale of her chickens and eggs.
No doubt, Mannie Godfrey's mouth took on an even firmer look as she grew older, dealing with her children and her never-to-grow-up husband. Tammy, as she often called him, played a hand accordian skillfully and was a favorite because of his jovial wit.
Luna Stevens Godfrey was born June 17, 1887, while her parents were still at the Clarkson house. Will Stevens Godfrey was born on August 17, 1889, in the Warren house back towards Shiloh on the curve just beyond the Stevens-Sanderlin house and the Walston house. Then they moved next to the John Joseph Hughes place, then a one-story house, then to a small house on Cousin Mark Gregory's farm nearer Shiloh. All of these houses were within eyesight of the old home place.
Tom and Mannie and their two children moved to the Stevens-Sanderlin home shortly after Mannie's mother died in January, 1892. There was a family squabble over the house and farm because following (Mannie's parents') marriage in July, 1854, (her father) had his wife's farm placed in his name in case he died and she remarried, so that their children would inherit. (He was only 35 when he died and she did remarry and have more children).
Enoch Sanderlin, who had lived at the old homeplace for 25 years, and his children were upset, but the property went to the Stevens children alone. Butler had died, and Mary Matilda bought out her brothers, John and Samuel. The last child (of Tom and Mannie) was Harry Stevens Godfrey, born October 29, 1901. Tom farmed the property until he died. It was a small farm. After his death in 1946, the farm was rented to Mac Sanderlin.
Before the Godfrey house was remodelled, apparently by Noah Stevens, it was said to be a duplicate of that on the next farm which survived until the 1960's. The Cartwright house next door was a two-story house with a Dutch gambrel roof. It was probably built between 1740 and 1750 by one Samuel Williamson, who owned a plantation of 600 acres. His will was written in 1750. In 1781, John Griffin, another owner and elderly widower, gave this house with 150 acres, a windmill on the river, and 10 slaves to young Amy Burfoot in order to win her for his bride.
Luna, the oldest, not only went to nearby Billett's Bridge school, but attended private school at the Shiloh Academy until shortly before she married. Her brother, Will, too, was well-educated for his day. Luna dressed beautifully, fitted skillfully by her mother. The evening wedding of Loyal and Luna Godfrey in 1906 was elegant by lamplight with many guests and supper.
Will learned to plow by the time he was 10 or 12. Tom Godfrey, still going out with the young people, continued to fish and hunt both for sport and to feed the family. Until he was old and too infirmed with a hernia, Tom Godfrey went.
Until her death, Mary Matilda Godfrey wore her dresses long and her sleeves to her wrists. She was sometimes irrascible and cranky. Her later life was marked by playing favorites with her children. Loyal and Luna lived with her several times, the last time being shortly before her death when a housekeeper was hired.
Mannie Stevens died suddenly on July 5, 1949. She became angry over washing dishes and went out to her garden in the boiling sun to work. She became overheated and came back in the yard, dropping dead in the shadow of the great oaks which grew high and large as she grew older.
She is buried in the cemetery at Shiloh Baptist Church beside her husband (who died three years earlier) in the brick-walled family plot.
Her tombstone reads:
Mannie S. Godfrey
1864-1949
Gone but not forgotten
This ends Mr. Cannon's information.
Below is a caption from a local newspaper beneath a photograph of Uncle Tom and Aunt Mane that was taken for their 60th wedding anniversary in 1946:
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas B. Godfrey of Shiloh celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary on January 3. They have three children, Mrs. Loyal [Luna] Godfrey, Will and Harry Godfrey; ten grandchildren and six great grandchildren. Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey live in the house where Mrs. Godfrey was born, reared, and married. Both are very active and they live alone doing all the work about the home. J.E. Williams, who recently celebrated his fiftieth wedding anniversary, was present when the Godfreys were married. He and his wife also attended the Godfrey celebration.
Below is Aunt Mane's obituary from "The Virginian-Pilot" of Norfolk, Virginia:
Mrs. Mamie Stevens Godfrey
Elizabeth City, N.C., July 5--Mrs. Mamie Stevens Godfrey, 85, died at her home at Shiloh at 11:30 Tuesday. She was the daughter of the late Noah and Sally Gregory Stevens; a native of Camden County and a member of Shiloh Baptist Church.
She is survived by one daughter, Mrs. Loyal [Luna] Godfrey, Shiloh; two sons, W.S. Godfrey, of Shiloh, and Harry Godfrey, of Norfolk, Va,; five [incorrect--ten] grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be conducted by the Rev. E.A. Higgenbotham, and burial will be in the family cemetery near the church.
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