6

These documents are from the Warren County, Mississippi probate records of Mississippi Emily (Strong) Folkes. The administratrix was her daughter Ida W. (Folkes) Smith.

This Administrator's Bond reads (in part):

KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS:

THAT WE, Ida W Smith, as principal and L. A. Campbell as surety of the County of Warren and State of Mississippi, are held and firmly bound unto the State of Mississippi, in the penal sum of Five Hundred Dollars current money of the United State,) which payment, well and truly to be performed, we, and each of us, do hereby bind ourselves, our heirs, executors, administrators and assigns, jointly severally and firmly by those presents.

The document is signed by Ida W. Smith and L. A. Campbell:

enter image description here

The next page of the record refers to "The above named L.A. Campbell and Ida W. Campbell". I don't know if the latter is a mistake, written in place of "Ida W. Smith" or refers to a third individual.

enter image description here

I also don't know whether L.A. Campbell would be a friend or relative of the family or someone with a business connection to them.

For context, the parents of the deceased (M.E. Folkes) were Lyman Jairus Strong and Martha H. Green.

enter image description here

Her late husband was Edwin Warren Folkes, and their living children were Ida (Folkes) Smith (b.c. 1855), Lina Folkes (b. 1868) and Charlotte "Lottie" Folkes (b. 1871).

Who were L.A. Campbell and Ida W. Campbell (if the latter existed)?

Harry V.
  • 18,850
  • 5
  • 46
  • 98
Ellen Spertus
  • 2,219
  • 9
  • 28
  • What other records have you found for this family so far? Are there any Campbell families close by to them in the census? – Jan Murphy May 06 '16 at 16:24
  • Can you clarify the statement on who the parents of the deceased were and their name? I can read M.E. Folkes but not sure if that is a maiden name or married name.. especially with the deceased Husband being Folkes... I got a little turned around. I also added images of the second page and it looks like S.A. Campbell to me vs. L.A. Campbell – CRSouser May 27 '16 at 00:03
  • I'd be inclined to think that "Ida W. Campbell" is a clerk's error. That name appears to be written by the clerk (J. W. Bourne? or perhaps Bovine :) in a very different hand from either of the signatures in the first image. It's also crammed in to a small space, as if hurriedly correcting an omission. – AndyW May 27 '16 at 09:34

1 Answers1

4

The first Campbell in this document is a man with the initials of "S.A." and close family or personal ties to Ida W. Smith. You can tell that S.A. Campbell is a man because in the second image the clerk has edited all of the pre-printed plural language to read as singular masculine. The signature could easily be mistaken as "L.A.," but as @CRSouser mentioned in the comments, the name is clearly "S.A." in all instances where the clerk has written the name.

S.A. Campbell has close family or personal ties to Ida W. Smith because he is agreeing to be held liable for a large sum of money if Ida does not properly perform her duties as administratrix of the estate. Usually brothers and sons are likely suspects, but since the surnames are different you are probably looking at a brother-in-law or son-in-law. Other likely suspects would be cousins. If Ida is a widow, there is the possibility that S.A. was her soon-to-be-husband.

The second Campbell in this document is the administratrix Ida W. Smith. As @AndyW mentioned in the comments, the Campbell surname is almost certainly a clerk's error. If the second occurrence was at a later date within the probate file, then you would have to consider that as evidence that Ida had remarried, but since the name is on a page with the same date as the bond (probably the other side of the same sheet), it is more likely an error.

Joshua Hodge
  • 56
  • 1
  • 4