Ancestors

Martha Jane Duggar

Martha Jane Sims, called Mattie, was born in 1859, the daughter of John Sims and Nancy Shook. Her memorial gives her birth as 24 October 1859 at Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia. Her death certificate gives 24 August 1859 at Nashville, Tennessee. Her son's death certificate spells the family name Simms, and her own spells it Simes.

Her first child, William A. Sims, was born on 13 August 1882. He died on 25 December 1885, aged three. The Nashville record of his death names him William Sims and gives the family's home as the wharf, in the city's Seventh Ward. He was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Nashville under the surname Sims. According to her memorial, her later son Charles Alvin Duggar was always told that this boy was his brother, "Willie Anderson Duggar." A memorial stone in Alabama names him "Willie A. Duggar Brother".

She married Sam Duggar. Their son Charles Alvin Duggar was born on 4 May 1894 in Nashville. Sam died in June 1898, leaving her a widow with a young son.

By 1910 Mattie had moved with Charles to Stevenson, Jackson County, Alabama, a cotton mill town on the railroad just south of the Tennessee line. That April the census taker found them in the house of Thomas Houchins, a night watchman at the cotton mill. Mattie, 51 and widowed, was listed as his sister-in-law. His wife Mary L., 47, had been born in Georgia. Her maiden name was Simms, as the 1947 death record of her son Tomie Houchins gives it, so she was Mattie's younger sister. She had married Thomas Houchins in Nashville about 1880, when he was 21 and she was 17. Mattie told the enumerator she had borne two children and that one was living. Her son, 15, was already at work in the mill as a twister.

In May 1917 Mattie was living at South Pittsburg, Tennessee, keeping house. She had been ill with tuberculosis for about a year. A doctor attended her from 13 May, and she died at half past seven on 23 May 1917, aged 57. Her son Charley gave the particulars for her death certificate, naming her parents as John Simes and Nancy Shook and saying he did not know where either had been born. She was taken across the state line the next day and buried at Stevenson, in the Stevenson City Cemetery, under a flat marker reading "Mattie Jane Duggar, 1859 - 1917". The same cemetery holds the memorial stone for Sam Duggar.

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Cite: Heirology, "Martha Jane Duggar (1859-1917)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/martha-jane-duggar-1859-1917-301160.