Annie Eliza Haynes Fultz

I am ending Women's History Month with my great-grandmother Annie Eliza Haynes Fultz. Annie was born 14 March 1885, the daughter of Willis and Margaret Mellard Haynes. She was a teacher for Berkeley County School District.  Annie first taught school in 1901 at the Oliver School, and old fashioned one room school near the Carnes Cross Roads which had grades one through seven. She taught grades 1-5 and her salary was $25 a month.  After two years there, she attended Winthrop College between 1903-1905. Due to illness in the family (probably her father), Annie had to leave college, however later she completed her hours through extension courses offered by Carolina, summer sessions at Winthrop, the Citadel, College of Charleston and Carolina and earned her degree. After completing college, she was employed by her father Willis Haynes in his law office.  She married Lewis Fultz, an attorney in Moncks Corner, in 1907, and after raising her family, she returned to teaching in 1920 at Ebenezer School in Whitesville where she taught grades 1-7.  This school has been moved to the Berkeley County Museum and restored. Annie taught at Ebenezer from 1920-1922. After Ebenezer, Annie taught grades 1-4 at Appii school near Cooper’s Store in the Longridge area between 1922 and 1923. At the close of that school year, the school consolidated with the Moncks Corner School System and Annie transferred to Berkeley Elementary School in the fall of 1923 where she remained for 40 years teaching the 4^th grade. In 1961 Annie was named Teacher of the Year. A former student, Dr. Pete Myers, stated “….Mrs. Fultz was a ‘stickler’  for proper manners, respect for elders, and discipline in her classroom, without making the classroom a drudge…..Her neat, attractive, yet dignified appearance through the years has only been an outward manifestation of her inward nature, and all of these she has attempted to pass on to her pupils….I consider it an honor to recommend this Christian lady to you as teacher of the year”.   On 30 May 1963 Annie retired from teaching after 45 years of service and continued to live in Moncks Corner where she died 15 January 1977. 

Women's History Month

March is Women's History Month. My first female ancestor I am posting on is my 3rd great-grandmother, Emily Rebecca Lynes. Emily was born to George and Lizzie Lynes on 12 December 1840. Her father George was an overseer at several different plantations, and she and her siblings were born at these plantations. Her father eventually inherited Foxbank Plantation in St. James' Goose Creek Parish. She married Robert Haines and they had two children. Willis was born in 1858 at Foxbank and Emma was born in 1864. Robert served in the War Between the States. I assume Emily lived with her family at Foxbank during his service since Willis would have been a toddler and Emma a newborn. At one point during the war she, her mother and her sisters were sent to Georgetown to stay with one of her sisters. Emily died 15 April 1890, 14 years after her husband Robert. They are both buried at Bethlehem Baptist Church/St. James' Goose Creek Chapel of Ease near Foxbank Plantation.

The Chosen

We are the chosen.  In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors.  To put flesh on their bones and make them live again....  It goes beyond just documenting facts.  It goes to who am I and why do I do the things I do?  It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying I can't let this happen.... It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish.  How they contributed to what we are today.  It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family.  It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought and some died to make and keep us a nation.  It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us.  It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth, without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach.  That we might be born who we are.  That we might remember them.  So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the sum of who we are. 

So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family.  It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers.

That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before.

Author Unknown

Robert Haines

My 3rd great-grandfather Robert R. Haines was born 12 December 1838. I don't know anything about his life prior to him being listed on the 1850 Census as a cadet at the Arsenal Academy in Columbia, SC at the age of 16. The one record of the academy that I was able to locate stated he was from Charleston. He married Emily Rebecca Lynes of Foxbank Plantation, St. James Goose Creek Parish. They had two children, Robert Willis and Emily (Emma). In the 1860 Census he and Emily were living in Rantowles, SC.  In June of 1862 Robert enlisted in the Civil War at Fort Sumter. He was an overseer at Castle Pinckney in Charleston Harbor. After the war he and the family lived at Foxbank Plantation. He died 7 December 1876 and is buried at St. James, Goose Creek Chapel of Ease.