Fannie Smith Fox truly was my representative 19th and 20th century woman.  She lived under the most unreasonable circumstances women of her era and station experienced when finding themselves widowed with minor children.  I only knew her as my great grandmother, and by then she was an old lady and looked pretty fragile.  I wouldn’t learn until many decades later, the hardships she endured in her life as a young, single mother, her strength or the sacrifices necessary for all of them to survive.

I remember her only vaguely, as Granny Fox.  By today’s measure of age, she wasn’t such an old lady, only in her seventies, when she and I, for ever so briefly, occupied the same space and time. I discovered her extended encounter with the paternalistic court system overseeing women and property, long after the fact, while researching her family history.

My grandmother Emma, the second of Fannie’s seven children, told me that her father, Joseph Fox, had died suddenly one day out plowing his fields, when Emma was only eleven years old. She said that he had just turned thirty-six, and had been having bad headaches before his death.  Fannie would have been thirty-three years old.  That is all my grandmother told me about her childhood, other than commenting about having to work so hard growing up, how she would plow all day in the field like a man.  As the child I was at the time, I didn’t have the forethought to question her, to pick away at every little detail the way I would now.  Youth truly is wasted on the young!

Fannie passed away in 1951, and my memories of her faded, leaving only today’s vague image of her in my mind.  One day in the late 1980’s while searching through courthouse records, I discovered the reason Fannie left no property, owned no land when she died. Like her counterparts from neighboring farms, all of them from early pioneer families who had settled in the southern part of Hopkins County, Texas (many before the Civil War like mine) had established large farms, had worked many acres of land.  I had seen the land records, had discovered the early land deeds my grandmother’s grandparents had owned, and I wanted to know what became of it all.

I discovered the court documents filed on behalf of Joseph Fox’s minor children, upon his death, declaring them wards of the court.  Since young Joseph had left no will expressing his wishes for the welfare of his children upon his death, the court appointed trustees on his behalf, to oversee their welfare, under the court’s supervision.  Had Joseph died without any property, no such concern for the children’s well-being would have ever come to the court’s attention. Fannie inherited nothing of her husband’s property, and the law recognized only the children as his legal heirs. She had no rights, not even when it came to administering her own business affairs.  The court took charge of all her finances, approving the sale of the land, bit by bit, and doling out the funds received for it, as approved by the trustees, for the feeding and clothing of her children. The family worked the land, in decreasingly smaller portions, as it was sold off over the years the children were growing up.  By the time they were adults, all the land was gone.

It was 1906 when Fannie was widowed. There was no such thing as “community property”. Women could not vote.  When a woman married, she might as well have died, as far as her own legal presence and personal voice "in the affairs of men" was concerned.  And that was the way it had always been. Fannie knew nothing else.  She had no choice. She had no recourse.  She had no other expectation.  It would be fourteen years after her husband’s death, before Fannie would have the right to vote.  I wonder if she ever did. Somehow, I doubt it, although I cannot be sure. I do not even know if either of my grandmothers voted.  If they did, it would have been as my grandfathers instructed.

Fannie remained faithful to her husband, living the rest of her life in rented property. She died a short distance away from the family’s original homestead, leaving nothing of value to her children, if you measure value in money and possessions.   But, I’ll just bet you, if you could ask her today, Fannie would deny that, saying she left them very well off—rich in dignity, pride, respect for hard work, and the good name of their father.

We have come a long way, Fannie!  Rest in peace.