It feels like we’re getting close.
This is Edith who worked for Sugar’s grandmother at the house at 122 East Taylor Street, Savannah, Georgia.
We’re looking for more information about Edith. Sugar doesn’t even know her last name, but he knows that once his family drove her home, and it wasn’t far from his grandmother’s house. He has a vague, shadowy memory that it was east of his grandmother’s, perhaps between Price and East Broad, on an east/west street.
I found an entry on ancestry.com for Edith Barnes who lived at 547 East Charlton Lane, and that address fits exactly with his memory.
I can’t find a death record for Edith Barnes in Savannah, so perhaps she was buried back in South Carolina where she was born. Truly, I can’t find a death record anywhere, but this is not an obstacle, only a challenge.
East Charlton Lane doesn’t exist any more. We drove aroundaroundaround and couldn’t find it. If only we had a good map.
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I remembered that there are the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps for Georgia, and, glory hallelujah, they are online. They are not user-friendly, so it involves a lot of panning left/right/up/down and zooming in to read the street names. And some cursage on my part.
I discovered that I can save the image to my computer for your viewing pleasure here on the blog.
Because I found East Charlton Lane on the map. The most recent one was for 1916, and there’s 547 East Charlton Lane.
A little zoomage showing East Charlton Street. East Charlton Lane is just south.
If the Edith that we want is truly the Edith that lived at 547 East Charlton Lane, we know that she most likely didn’t live here in 1916. She was born approximately in 1908 in South Carolina. It’s POSSIBLE that she moved here with her family.
And you know what, even if she’s not our Edith, she was SOMEBODY. She was a person that lived and died even if we can’t find her death record.
So it’s time to go by Edith’s house.
We find where East Charlton Lane should be, but it’s an alley now.
Right about where Edith’s house should be, there’s nothing.
Except a sunbeam through the afternoon trees to say hello.
Don’t give up, Edith. We’re still looking for you.
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