Elizabeth Grace (Winter) Tinley b: May 1865 d: Mar 28,1940

Elizabeth Grace Winter was born in May of 1865 in Georgia (most likely in McBean, GA).  Grace was the daughter of John Winter and Indiana (Indie) H. Dove.  I have intentionally chosen Grace to be the first female I write about for several reasons.  1. There is very little information out there about females because we were such a  patriarchal society, but I do have some information about Grace. 2. Grace was a single mother in a time when there were not very many. and 3. Because she is Annie Mae Tinley's "Granny's" mother.  Since many of you knew and loved Granny, I thought it would be helpful to give you a glimpse into her story to better understand where she came from. 

Grace was born at the end of the Civil War in May of 1865.  Her father John Winter had been a 2nd Lieutenant for the Conferate Army (Company I, GA 48th Infantry) beginning in Nov of 1861 and mustering out in March of 1862.  He married Indie on November 5, 1863. John Winter seems to have been a successful planter/farmer based on the number of slaves he owned (19 before the war).  Grace grew up in Richmond County.  She could read and write and helped her mother "keep house" according to census documents.  She was married to John J Tinley on 13 June 1889 in Richmond County.  This has been a huge mystery for me for sometime because there was no 1890 census record for Grace and suddenly she popped up in 1900 with two kids, the last name Tinley and widowed???  I looked for a long time and finally, yesterday I found a marriage record and his middle initial "J".  When I googled it, I found a website for the Tinley Cemetary (http://www.thegagenweb.com/garichmo/cemetery/Tinley.html) in Richmond Co.  There is a grave marker there for a J.J. Tinely born 15 Jan 1866 died 10 Sept 1893, since the timeline and other family member match up, I feel that this has to be him.  I still have no idea how John died. 

John and Grace had three children, two survived a son Thomas (b 1892) and a daughter Annie Mae (b: 8 Nov 1893) which means that Granny never knew her father, he died two months before she was born.  Grace moved back in with her parents John and Indie Winter and was there with them with her kids through the 1900 census. 

In 1910 however, Grace and her children (now in thier teens) were living with the Byrd family.  Grace was the house servant for the Byrd family Thomas "Walker" (her son) was a serviceman for the telephone company and Annie Mae was a spooler at the local cottonmill.  In a strange twist of fate, the family have left the rural life for the more suburban life of Augusta to live with the Byrd family on Hicks Street, right down the way from the Roberts family, who also lived on Hicks Street.  Hicks Street in Augusta, GA is like ground zero for our family name. Generations of the Roberts family lived and were raised on Hicks Street.  I did look on Google hoping to find Hicks Street and while there are some houses from the era still standing, half of the street was turned into a highway and the houses that are there are in pretty bad shape.  The homes that our ancestors lived in were on the side of the street they turned into a highway. 


Hicks Street Augusta today

Grace lived the rest of her life in Augusta.  I have years worth of phone address books always listing her as Grace Tinley, widow of John.  She had various addresses over the years, but she eventually moved in with William and Annie Mae to help them keep house and raise thier 4 children.  Grace never remarried after her brief 4 year marriage to John.  It seems like she devoted the rest of her life to working for her family and raising her children.  Though she had been living in Fulton County with Mage and Granny as recently as 1930, she died in Richmond County, GA on March 28, 1940.