This is the headstone for both Cornelia (Ford)and Maria Bluitt. Photo taken July 17, 2011

     Mariah Bonner was born in 1830. She was born in slavery. Her parents are unknown. Mariah's place of birth was Alabama, as recorded in the 1870 census. She was married to Jarriet Bluitt. Three of their five children were born in Alabama. Mariah and family were brought to Texas about 1857. 
    When emancipation was declared in Texas in 1865, Mariah and her husband with their children moved to Freestone County, and subsequently to Limestone County, Texas. The family had been in the county for six months in 1867 --  her husband signed his 1867 Texas Voter Registration indicating that he had been in the county for six months and in the state for ten years.
     Mariah was left a widow shortly after her husband signed the Voter Registration. Also, she was listed as head of the household with five children in the 1870 census. Her family included: Horace, Stephen, Benjamin, Lymus, and Babe (child unnamed). The oldest child Emma was no longer at home; she was married. And Babe was not identified in the 1880 census -- presumed dead.
     About five years after the death of Jarriet, Mariah married Alfred Connor (Kanner on marriage certificate) in November 1874. Her second husband died in 1891 and she relocated to Dallas residing with her son Dr. Benjamin Bluitt. Records showed that her name had been changed to Maria. She became a nurse and supported her son with his patients. Also, Maria took on the task of raising her granddaughter Minnie McIntyre after her daughter Emma passed.
     Mariah "Maria" Bonner Bluitt was born in slavery, but she overcame adversity to rear a family and acquired nursing skills to help others. She lived to be 73 years old. Although Mariah did not live to see her son's dream realized for a sanitarium for African Americans, she did lived long enough to see her daughter Emma with a family of four children, oldest son Horace with a family of eight children, two sons became medical doctors, and the second son became a school teacher with a family of five children. She died in 1903 while living with her son in Dallas.