Our Unique Stories

lettie ann ware chapman

1900-1981

Life Story

Early Life in Newton County, Mississippi

Lettie Ann Ware was born on September 16, 1900, in Newton County, Mississippi, to Richard David Ware and Laura Cooper Ware. She spent her childhood on the family farm in the Lawrence community of Beat 4 alongside her older siblings Arthur, Horace, Ardee, Richard, Jr, Addie, and Ruby.

Growing up during the early years of the twentieth century, Lettie experienced the demanding rhythms of rural farm life. Like many African American girls in Mississippi, she balanced school with household responsibilities and agricultural work. Census records indicate that she attended school and learned to read and write, skills that reflected her parents’ commitment to education despite the limited opportunities available under Jim Crow.

By 1920, Lettie was still living with her parents and working as a laborer on the family farm.

A Family Mystery

One of the most intriguing chapters in Lettie’s life occurred while she was still a teenager.

A January 1918 birth announcement published in a Mississippi newspaper records the birth of a child to Lettie Ann Ware. The child was identified as William Marshall.

Two years later, the 1920 federal census records William Marshall living in the household of Richard and Laura Ware, where he was identified as their grandson.

The circumstances surrounding William’s birth remain one of the enduring mysteries of the Ware family.

Only months before William’s birth, Lettie’s father, Richard David Ware, shot and killed James Marshall during a confrontation that became one of Newton County’s most widely reported criminal cases. Whether William Marshall’s surname reflects a family relationship to James Marshall has not been established by surviving records. While the timing naturally raises questions, no known document has yet identified James Marshall as William’s father or directly connected the homicide to Lettie’s pregnancy.

For that reason, William Marshall’s parentage remains an unresolved question rather than an established historical fact.

Marriage and Building a Family

Around 1920, Lettie married Mack Chapman (also recorded as Chatman), beginning a marriage that would span nearly three decades.

The couple settled near Ellisville in Jones County, where Mack worked to support the family while Lettie devoted herself to managing their household and raising their children.

Together they became the parents of a large family that included:

  • Bernice Chapman
  • Celestine Chapman
  • Arnelza Chapman
  • Lester Chapman
  • Horace L. Chapman
  • Dane Chapman
  • R. Loretta Chapman
  • Clyde Chapman
  • Florence Chapman

Like countless African American women of her generation, Lettie’s work centered on maintaining the home, caring for children, preparing meals, preserving food, sewing clothing, and providing the stability that allowed her family to thrive.

Widowhood and Independence

Following Mack Chapman’s death, Lettie entered another chapter of her life.

The 1950 federal census records her as the head of household on East Third Street in Laurel, Mississippi, where she continued raising four of her younger children—Horace, Dane, Clyde, and Florence.

For many widows of her generation, becoming head of household required remarkable resilience. Lettie successfully guided her family through this transition while continuing to provide a stable home during a period of significant social and economic change.

Final Years

Lettie Ann Ware Chapman died on September 3, 1981, only days before her eighty-first birthday.

She was laid to rest in Currie Cemetery in Jones County, Mississippi, near the community where she had spent much of her married life.

Legacy

Lettie Ann Ware Chapman’s life illustrates both the ordinary and the extraordinary experiences of African American women in twentieth-century Mississippi.

She raised a large family, endured widowhood, and devoted decades to caring for her children and grandchildren. Yet her life also preserves one of the Ware family’s most compelling historical mysteries.

The appearance of William Marshall in the Ware household, combined with the events surrounding James Marshall’s death in 1917, leaves unanswered questions that continue to invite careful historical research. Whether future records will solve that mystery remains uncertain.

Even if those questions are never fully answered, Lettie’s life deserves to be remembered on its own merits—as the story of a woman whose quiet perseverance carried her family through changing times while leaving a legacy that continues through generations of descendants.

Resting Place

Currie Cemetery in Jones County, Mississippi

Photos/Albums

Sources

  1. 1900 U.S. Census, Newton County, Mississippi, Beat 4, Enumeration District 93, sheet 10B, dwelling 189, family 189, Richard Ware household; Lettie Ware listed as born September 1900 in Mississippi.
  2. 1910 U.S. Census, Newton County, Mississippi, Beat 4, Enumeration District 102, sheet 6B, Richard Ware household; Lettie Ware listed as attending school and able to read and write.
  3. Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 582–601; Leon F. Litwack, Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), 3–29.
  4. 1920 U.S. Census, Newton County, Mississippi, Beat 4, Richard Ware household; Lettie Ware listed as a farm laborer residing with her parents.
  5. The Newton Record (Newton, Miss.), January 1918, vital statistics column reporting the birth of William Marshall to Lettie Ann Ware.
  6. 1920 U.S. Census, Newton County, Mississippi, Beat 4, Richard Ware household; William Marshall listed as the grandson of Richard and Laura Ware.
  7. The Newton Record (Newton, Miss.), July 1917, reports concerning the shooting death of James Marshall by Richard David Ware; Newton County, Mississippi, Circuit Court records, State of Mississippi v. Richard D. Ware (1917–1918); Governor Theodore G. Bilbo Pardon Files, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Mississippi.
  8. Although William Marshall bore the Marshall surname and was born approximately six months after the death of James Marshall, no surviving primary source has been located that identifies James Marshall as William’s father or directly links William’s birth to the 1917 homicide. Accordingly, any relationship between James Marshall and William Marshall remains an unresolved genealogical question rather than an established historical fact.
  9. 1920 U.S. Census, Jones County, Mississippi, Mack Chapman household; Lettie Chapman listed as wife.
  10. 1930 U.S. Census, Jones County, Mississippi, Mack Chapman household.
  11. 1940 U.S. Census, Jones County, Mississippi, Mack Chapman household.
  12. Tera W. Hunter, To ‘Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors after the Civil War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), 127–165.
  13. 1950 U.S. Census, Laurel, Jones County, Mississippi, East Third Street, Lettie Chapman household; Lettie listed as widowed and head of household with sons Horace, Dane, Clyde, and daughter Florence.
  14. Mississippi Death Index (or Mississippi Death Certificate), Lettie Ann Ware Chapman, September 3, 1981.
  15. Currie Cemetery, Jones County, Mississippi, gravestone of Lettie Ann Ware Chapman (1900–1981).
  16. Deborah Gray White, Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South, rev. ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 154–171; Hunter, To ‘Joy My Freedom, 189–210. These works provide historical context for the domestic labor, motherhood, and community leadership of African American women during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Leave a Reply