Ancestors
Martha Jane Branham
1853-1934 · Virginia
Born 1853, Russell County, Virginia
Died 1934
Father: Tandy Branham
Mother: Elizabeth Robinson
Children include Ida
Martha Jane Branham was born on 1 December 1853, the daughter of Tandy Branham and Elizabeth Robinson. She was called Patty, and in some records Patsy, Pat or Lady Jane. Her father was a farmer in Wise County. In September 1863, when she was nine, he was killed by bushwhackers while home on furlough from the Confederate army, and her mother raised the children alone.
In December 1874, at 21, she married William J. Fleming in Wise County. The clerk wrote her as M. J. Branham, the daughter of Tandy and E. Branham. William was the son of John J. Fleming and Mary Jane Mullins of Holly Creek, and the couple settled at Flemingtown, on the edge of Clintwood.
She bore a large family there: Tandy Jackson, named for her father, Robert Emmit, Cladius Pridemore, Isaac Clinton, Ida May, Hibert Burns, Elizabeth Ayers, Clara June, the twins Fremont and Freddy, Mary Mosby, Walter C. and William Banner. Ida May, born on 18 April 1880, married John Henry Mullins in 1896, and when she died in 1928 her death certificate named her mother as Pat Branham. Her sons' records call her Patsy Branham. Her mother Elizabeth spent her last years at Flemingtown too, and died there in 1916.
William became a preacher. A photograph of the two of them in old age shows Patty in round spectacles, her hair drawn back, in a dark dress with a light collar and a string of beads.
William died in June 1921. Two of their sons served as sheriff of Dickenson County, Pridemore as a Democrat and Tandy as a Republican, and Patty outlived them both. In August 1926 Sheriff Pridemore Fleming was killed in a gunfight with a prohibition officer in front of the courthouse at Clintwood.
Patty died at her home near Clintwood on Tuesday 11 December 1934, ten days after her eighty-first birthday. An infected finger had turned to blood poisoning. Cold weather and almost impassable roads kept most of her family from reaching her bedside. Her certificate names her parents Tandy Branham and Elizabeth Robinson. The new Dickenson Forum printed an editorial tribute that called her one of the county's "finest and most lovable citizens". She was buried in the Flemingtown Cemetery at Clintwood, and her stone reads "Sleeping till the resurrection morn."
Sources
Find a Grave memorial 205891971, Rev William Jefferson "W. J." Fleming, Flemingtown Cemetery, Clintwood; photograph added by Charlotte Guthrie, 1 January 2020, captioned "W. J. and Patty Fleming".
Virginia death certificates 1912 to 1987, Dickenson County, registered 11 November 1928; FamilySearch ark 1:1:QVRW-FKNG.
Virginia, Bureau of Vital Statistics, County Marriage Registers, 1853-1935, Wise County, 1874, FamilySearch ark 61903/1:1:81W4-2F6Z (groom) and 1:1:81W4-2FPZ (father of the bride); Virginia, Marriages, 1785-1940, ark 1:1:X5YJ-3KL.
Virginia, Death Certificates, 1912-1987, Patty Fleming, Dickenson County, registered 12 December 1934; FamilySearch ark 61903/1:1:QVR4-Z7YH.
Dickenson County Herald (Clintwood, Virginia), 28 January 1943, page 1, "Pioneer Citizen Dies at Home Near Pound"; Virginia Chronicle, Library of Virginia, page DCH19430128.1.1.
Dickenson Forum (Clintwood, Virginia), 14 December 1934, page 2, "Aunt Patsy Fleming"; Virginia Chronicle, page DFO19341214.1.2.
Crawford's Weekly (Norton, Virginia), 21 December 1934, page 6; Virginia Chronicle, page CW19341221.1.6.
Crawford's Weekly (Norton, Virginia), 9 August 1926, page 1, "Officers Die in a Duel at Clintwood"; Virginia Chronicle, page CW19260809.1.1.
Dickenson Forum (Clintwood, Virginia), 26 June 1936, page 1, "Weavers' Forgotten Art to Be Revived Here by WPA Workers"; Virginia Chronicle, page DFO19360626.1.1.
Dickenson County Herald (Clintwood, Virginia), 11 October 1928, pages 1 and 4, Skeetrock news; Virginia Chronicle, pages TDCH19281011.1.1 and TDCH19281011.1.4.
Virginia death certificates, Dickenson County, Patty Fleming, 1934, FamilySearch ark 1:1:QVR4-Z7YH; Virginia death certificates, Dickenson County, May Mullins, 1928, ark 1:1:QVRW-FKNG; Virginia county marriage registers, Wise County, 1874, ark 1:1:81W4-2FPZ; Virginia death certificates of her sons Tandy J. Fleming, ark 1:1:QVRQ-TLXC, and Robert Emmit Fleming, ark 1:1:QVRC-RRQ4; Find a Grave memorial 70685595, Martha Jane "Patty and Lady Jane" Branham Fleming, Flemingtown Cemetery; memorial 205891971, with the photograph of W. J. and Patty Fleming; Dickenson Forum (Clintwood), 14 December 1934, page 2, "Aunt Patsy Fleming"; Crawford's Weekly (Norton), 21 December 1934, page 6; Crawford's Weekly, 9 August 1926, page 1; Dickenson Forum, 26 June and 25 September 1936, page 1; Dickenson County Herald, 28 January 1943, page 1.
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Cite: Heirology, "Martha Jane Branham (1853-1934)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/martha-jane-branham-1853-1934-5a8340.