Chesta’s Children
A piece of my grandmother’s birth certificate from 1926. She was originally named after her grandmother.
Chesta Anna Powell (July 19th, 1886 - August 10th, 1921) was my maternal grandmother’s maternal grandmother. My mom’s mom’s mom’s mom. The youngest of my 8 great-great grandmothers. The first genealogical story I ever heard, was that she was shot dead while cooking in the kitchen. The bullet came through her window from the gun of one of the drunken men fighting outside. That’s all I was told, but there’s so much more to her story.
She was born in Clay County, Georgia to Mary Terrell (aka Mary Mason) and Benjamin Reynolds. Chesta Anna was the oldest of 14 children born to the couple, who married on October 31st, 1885. It is relatively clear that her name was pronounced as a confluence of the male name ‘Chester’ and the female name ‘Anna’, said so fast that it was often written as one word. Many of her sisters’ names were also unusual, such as Era, Louatra, and Iell, but her brother’s names were more conventional, such as Sylvester, Robert, and William. When Chesta Anna was a teenager, her father moved the family to his birthplace of Early County, Georgia. She married Arelius McLendon just before her 17th birthday in 1903. She had already given birth to a girl named Mary, and under wedlock followed a boy named Bernice, a girl named Bennie Lee, and finally a girl named Annie Mae. Arelius McLendon was supposedly deceased by the 1910 census, making Chesta Anna a 24 year-old widow. It is believed that she had plenty of help raising her children. Her sister Ethel and brother-in-law Tyson Hutchison were her next door neighbors. Tyson’s parents and siblings were on the other side and nearby.
Three of Chesta Anna’s children; L to R: Bernice McClendon (1905-1992), Bennie Lee Thornes (1907-1945), and Annie Mae Hill (1909-2001).
The family appears to have remained close until 1918. Chesta Anna and Ethel’s parents got divorced. Their father, Benjamin, remarried and had at least one other child. Their mother, Mary, continued to raise her youngest children, who were the same age as Chesta Anna’s children. Chesta Anna remarried twice and eventually moved away from the Hutchisons. Her third husband, Charles Powell, was a cousin of the Drinkard family, one of the black families that owned land in Early County. His first cousin John Drinkard was the great-grandfather of Whitney Houston.
A photograph I took of Chesta Anna’s marriage license at the Early County Courthouse in Blakely, Georgia.
On July 31st, 1920, Chesta Anna and Ethel’s younger sister, Leola, was killed by her husband, Joseph Hamilton. On August 10, 1921, Charles Powell accidentally shot and killed Chesta Anna Powell. The drunk man fighting outside was her own husband. On July 9th, 1923, Benjamin Reynolds died at the age of 59 from heart problems. On November 30th, 1925, Ethel Hutchison also died from heart problems, at the age of 38. On December 30th, 1925, Mary Reynolds died.
The 20’s were a disastrous time for this family. Charles Powell was arrested for murder. He was found guilty of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter in October of 1921. He served his prison term from 1922-1926. Chesta Anna’s children were split up after her death. The oldest, Mary, ran away, and was never seen again. The youngest, Annie Mae, was only 12 years old. She was sent to live with Benjamin’s younger brother, William M. Reynolds. ‘Uncle Billy’, as he is affectionately known, was a tall and fair skinned man that lived in Clay County. When Benjamin’s second daughter Ethel died, Uncle Billy sent Annie Mae to the Hutchison’s home to help out Ethel’s widower, Tyson Hutchison. Annie Mae was 16 years old, already able to cook and clean in a masterful manner. Most of the Hutchison children were younger than her, but they were her first cousins. A certain series of events are quite unclear at this point, but within a month of Ethel’s death, Annie Mae was pregnant, and Uncle Tyson was the father.
William M. (Uncle Billy) Reynolds (1866-1936)
Uncle Billy raised my great grandmother after her mother’s death and sent her to live with the Hutchisons four years later.
The child was born in August of 1926. She was named Chesta Ann McLendon, after Annie Mae’s mother, and Tyson’s sister-in-law. This little girl was my grandmother. She may have been born into confusion, into a family grieving multiple murders, into a family grieving other untimely deaths, and into a mixed race family in Southwestern Georgia only 60 years after emancipation, but my grandmother grew up to be one of the most loving human beings on Earth. She used her strength to make a difference in the lives of so many people, and she taught my mother and I how to do the same. She left her birth name in Georgia when she moved up north, but she kept her birth certificate with her until the day she died in 2017. I started genealogy research on this side of the family at the end of 2016. I was able to show my grandmother the death certificate of her grandmother, where it states Charles Powell was the killer. She couldn’t believe what I found after all those years. My grandmother died two weeks after I visited Early County, Georgia for the first time. I was able to attend a Reynolds Family Reunion, hosted by the family of Chesta Anna’s father. I even met Uncle Billy’s youngest two daughters, who are Chesta Anna’s first cousins.
Chesta Anna’s Death Certificate
I’m still gathering information on my great-great grandmother. The newspaper article about her death that also explained what happened to Leola was actually just discovered in September of 2018. Chesta Anna’s story will not be forgotten. She was taken from the world in such an unfair manner, but would be so proud to see that her name lives on, and that her family was still able to triumph through all the tragedy.
