Lena Brown & Eva Frazier

Lena and Eva are the only two of this generation born after emancipation. Lena was born in the dead of winter 1872 in Red Oak, South Carolina. Lena’s parents had been enslaved by the local Glover landowners. As members of the First Baptist Church, Lena would know Joe...

Margaret Wirth Zuppinger

Not every pioneer woman made it to the New World colonies. Some had to prepare their children to go, knowing they would never see them again. Such was the unenviable fate of steadfast Swiss mother, Margaret Wirth Zuppinger. Born in 1666 and raised less than twenty...

Howard A.C. Hensel & Clara M. Updegrove

In the summer of 1858, Andrew Guise Hensel and Catherine Workman Hensel welcomed their fourth son and named him Howard Andrew Carson Hensel, using an atypical four names. Howard’s name celebrated his father and grandfather, both of who were named Andrew. The Carson...

Mary Curry & Lucy Alston

Hardeeville, Georgia was a challenge for anyone, but much more so for a newborn baby girl who parents were enslaved. Mary arrived into this unforgiving world about 1820. Although we do not know her family’s owners, we know life was horrid and cruel. Mary would muddle...

Rainey Brown

American Pioneer Chronicles: Southern Women: the heart, sweat, soul—the foundation of our Nation Rainey was born about 1800 in Africa, forcibly brought to Georgia and sold to William Hardwick, a local farmer sometime before 1830. She met George Brown and had several...

Magdalena Neuffer Gruber

American Pioneer Chronicles: Colonial Women: the heart, sweat, soul—the foundation of our Nation Blessed by starting life in a prosperous Palatinate family of learned folks, Magdalena Neuffer was better educated than most her neighbors. Her father and uncle were both...