Geer Cemetery-Katie Lillian Brown

Shared From: Friends of Geer Cemetery - Durham, NC
October 12, 2021 5:34pm

According to her headstone, Katie Lillian Brown was born this day, October 12, in 1905. Sadly, she died at the age of only 8 in July of 1914, within a few days of her 4-year-old sister Jennette.

While no death certificates could be found for either sister, four other souls buried in Geer all died of Tuberculosis within a few weeks of them, suggesting a possible cause of death.

Unfortunately, we know little else about either Katie or her sister. Both headstones read “daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Brown”. Durham City Directories at the time listed a Henry and Tena Jones Brown - Henry from Florence Co., SC and Tena from Cumberland Co., NC.

However, the couple doesn’t appear to have had any children together (Tena had 3 daughters from a previous marriage) and Katie is not listed with them in the 1910 Census on Proctor St. in Durham’s vibrant Hayti neighborhood.

Thus, we can’t say for certain if Henry and Tena are the individuals referenced on the headstones of the young girls.
It was not uncommon for children to be unofficially adopted by family or friends when life circumstances necessitated, a phenomenon that speaks to both the challenges of the African American experience as well the resilience of the African American community.

It is possible Katie was not Henry and Tena’s biological child, but instead adopted and cared for as their own, including with the provision of a headstone in what appears to be a family plot reading “gone but not forgotten”.

Despite her short time in the world, she was shown great love to be memorialized in Geer by those who called her their daughter.

Henry died from a fall from a train in Virginia in 1930 while working as a boiler fireman on the Southern Railroad, while Tena passed away in 1945 in Manhattan, NY.

Both of their remains were relocated back to Durham; however, a headstone couldn’t be located either in Geer Cemetery or Beechwood Cemetery.

Two of Tena’s older daughters (Fannie Jones Hurley and Julia Jones Snipes) married and had families after leaving Durham.

It is possible their descendants hold more keys to the stories of young Katie Lillian and Jennette.