Bernice Emma "Bennie" Hall - Holt

Bennie Hall was born in April 1865 in Cass County, Texas.  The Hall family had settled into the Northeast Texas area approximately 15 years earlier as verified by 1850 Census records for Bennie's father, Benjamin Franklin Hall.  Prior to the move, the Hall family had resided in Georgia.   Bennie married Daniel Hardy Holt in 1883 in Cass County, Texas.  The couple had 10 children:  6 girls and 4 boys.  Bennie and Daniel slowly moved eastward before finally settling in Hazen, Arkansas.  The first 4 children were born in Cass County, Texas while the remaining 6 were born in Arkansas.  This movement to Arkansas is consistent with the Holt family migration patterns.  Most of Bennie's siblings remained in Cass County and are buried there.



Bennie died in 1926 in Hazen, Arkansas.  Within three months, her husband died.  In the next year, her son Seth and daughter Erma also died.  The reasons for families to move into Texas during what is called the Antebellum Era are outlined in an article on the Handbook of Texas website.   During Bennie's life, she witnessed the Reconstruction, the invention of electricity and the automobile.  Areas in her homestate of Texas and Arkansas saw rapid economic booms due to the discovery of oil and the expansion of cotton growing.  She rang in the New Century.  Events that took place include the election of Ma Ferguson as governor of Texas, the sinking of the Titanic, WW1.  As a child, Bennie probably lived in a house without running water or electricity, but by the time of her death, the possibilities existed that she lived in a more modern home.  Prohibition was the norm during the latter part of her life.

3 of her sons (William Bert, Edward Gus and BurnisHardy) and 3 of her sons-in-law (Erik Sundeen, Ode Harris and Roy Cramer)all fought in WW1.  I suspect that two additional sons-in-law also served in WW1, but I have been unable to prove this yet. Her three sons then fought in WW2. Several of her children are buried in Walter's Chapel Cemetery, Lonoke County, Arkansas, but I have been unable to find interrment for Bernice Emma Hall.



This in one of my family lines that is full of holes.  I am in touch with another genealoger on the Holt side, but we have similar roadblocks.  The Holt line which Bennie married into does not have a very good reputation and has been reported to be full of horse thieves and drunks.

But, this is not about the Holt line............it is about Bernice Hall.  Her parents raised a large family and were Methodists.  Bennie's father Benjamin Franklin Hall helped build the Methodist church in Troup, Texas.  Her mother, Harriet Hollingsworth immigrated from England. My grandmother, Olga Berneice Sundeen is probably named after her grandmother.  My mother only recalls the name "Bernie" used when talking about Bernice Emma.  In fact, she went by "Bennie".

As a final note of interest:  two of Bennie's children (Isca and Burnis Hardy), did not raise the 1 child born to them.  My grandmother was raised by her paternal grandmother (Charlotte Blomberg).  I found information about Burnis' daughter (Wanda Claire Holt) through her obituary in 2003.  Wanda Claire spent most of her childhood in an orphanage.  She went on to graduate from college and become a teacher.  Wanda Claire is my grandmother's first cousin and the two share so many similarities.  I continue to develop this line in my family. 

As Mother's Day looms just a few days away, I reflect on the legacy that Bernice Emma Hall left.  I am not sure you truly can ever measure the potential legacy of a person.  And then like a whisper waiting for years to be heard, some piece of information makes it way to you and you have to realize that legacies exist.  I receive a message from a former student of Wanda Claire's a couple month's ago stating that she had truly touched his life.  He described her as a good teacher and very well liked.  Wanda Claire contributed to the community in which she lived.  In contrast, my grandmother struggled with alcoholism and depression.  It would be too simple to dismiss it there, to pass judgement and assign character to 2 cousins.  It's not simple.........the legacy of each woman who descended from Bernice Emma Hall is survival...........consistent survival.