V. H. Brumfield Obituary

More Brumfield Information

Last week my Aunt Judy sent me Brumfield information that she had collected.  It’s a lot of good stuff.  I now have my mother’s marriage license, Ira Dalton and Velma Brumfield Dalton’s license,  John Foreman Brumfield and Eliza Dalton Brumfields license and Vincent Henry Brumfield  and Matilda Bobbitt Brumfield’s statement from the minister that was also recorded in Pittsylvania County.  Counting me that makes five generations of proof, but that is still not good enough to get me to the Revolution.  I have two more to get me to that  which is Isaac Brumfield and his wife and William Brumfield and his wife.  Can I do it?  I sure hope so.

Now back to Aunt Judy’s information.  She sent me John Foreman Brumfield’s marriage license and she also sent me his death notice which was in the paper.  Now if you will notice, I posted Vincent and Millie’s gravestone   in Brumfield Grave Matters on February 9, 2012.   They both have the same birth year which is probably wrong, but we will examine that further on, but the date of death is March 30^th for Millie and March 31^st for Vincent.  For years I have heard the story about Millie dying and then Vincent dropping dead while he shaved himself for the funeral on the next day.    Below is what was reported in the Times Dispatch on April 3, 1905.

Chatham, Va.,   April 3, 1905 Obituary

Vincent Brumfield of Brights, this county, died suddenly Saturday night from heart disease.  He retired for the night. In a short while his daughter was aroused by his peculiar breathing and going to his bed found him in a dying condition, death resulting in a few minutes.  Mr. Brumfield was a farmer and seventy-three years old.  On Friday, his wife, who was of the same age, died of pneumonia.  Six sons and two daughters survive them.

Now let’s examine this obituary.  First of all the tombstones  are inscribed with the following:  V.H. Brumfield born 1836 died March 31, 1894.  Millie Brumfield born 1836 died March 30, 1894.  If these dates are correct then why did they put the obituary in the Times Dispatch eleven  years later.  I looked at the calendar for 1905 and March 31^st falls on a Friday and April 1^st is a Saturday.  I also looked at the calendar for 1894 and Friday is the 30^th of March and Saturday is the 31^st.   Now I have a statement  from the Minister Samuel L. Shelton stating the he solemnized a wedding between Vincent and Millie Bobbitt in 1855 and that they were both 21 years old.  That would make their birthdate 1834.  Well, the tombstones were not far off or they could have lied about their age.   The obituary states that they were 73 years old at the date of their death.    I have also gone back to look at the census.  I didn’t look for a 1900 census because I thought they had already been dead for six years, but I went back and found a 1900 census report for Vincent H. Brumfield age 66 born January, 1834 living with his wife Mildred 65 years old born November 1834 in the Pigg River District, Pittsylvania County, Virginia.  They had been married 45 years.  They had had fourteen children and nine of them were still surviving in 1900.  They also had a son George W living with them.  He was 21 years old and he was born June, 1878.  I also went back and checked other census years.  In 1850 Vincent’s birth year would have been 1834; in 1860 it would have been 1837; in 1870 it would be 1834 and in 1880 it would have been 1835.

I believe that I can say with certainty that Vincent and Mildred were probably born sometime between 1832 and 1834.  His birth month in January and hers in November.  They married in 1855 and both of them died within a day of each other in 1905.  I was wrong about their birth years not being the same year.  It looks like they may have been separated in age only by ten months, but the same year.   I still am baffled about why they put 1894 on the tombstone.