Mariah (Mamie or Marie) was the fifth of nine children of Asa Adams and his second wife Jane Elizabeth Newsom. In family trees online, her identity is often confused with that of her sister Martha Susan (Mattie) Adams, who married Lemuel Lewis Yarborough. Mamie married James Elmos Yarborough in Dec. 1895 in Greensburg, St. Helena Parish, LA. The couple had five children before James' untimely death in 1917: Bessie Mae (1897-1981), Vivia D. (1899-1916), Gladys (1900-before 1910), Eva B, (1902-1910), and Alphonse B. ( 1904-1962). As the dates indicate, Mamie not only became a widow quite early, but lost three of her five children when they were very young.

In 1900, James and Mamie farmed near Greensburg with their first two children, Bessie and Vivia(n). In 1910, they are still there, now with four children - Bessie, Viva, Eva and Alphonse. James works as a "feeder" for a "barn." By 1920, James has died and no 1920 census that I have been able to find lists Mamie, though her two surviving children are listed in that census. Bessie is married, with a young family, and living in Columbia, MS, by then; and in 1920, Alphonse is living in Kentwood, LA, with his aunt Lonie Yarborough Watson, his cousin Willie J.B. Watson, and his grandmother Winnie Pearson Yarborough. I also have not located Mamie in a 1930 census.

Mamie, industrious and resourceful, appears again in the census for 1940 in Ward 1, St. Helena Parish, as Marie Yarborough widow, 59 years old. She had been educated through the seventh grade. She lived in the same house in 1935 and is employed as the Foreman of the WPA Sewing Project. In 1937, she had acquired a social security number. The WPA Sewing Project in LA was started in January 1937.

I can find no certain death record for Mamie but a Marie Adams Bales, age 74, died on 16 Dec. 1954 in St. Helena Parish and this may be her death record.