Talk:Mary Weston Fordham

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Biographical info for Mary Weston Fordham[edit]

The bio info here is simply wrong; the sources cited apparently pulled numbers and "facts" out of thin air.

Just comparing the claims in the first few lines of the article should give some clue that something's badly awry: Mary Weston Fordham is claimed to have been born in 1862, but nevertheless taught school "during the Civil War". If she was born in 1862, she will have been all of 3 years old by the time the Civil War ended.

Her parents were Louisa Potter Bonneau and John Firman Weston, both members of Charleston's elite antebellum Free Persons of Color.

Her father was not the Rev. Samuel Weston. Samuel's wife was named Sarah, not Louise, although she was Louise's sister. Samuel and Sarah did indeed have a daughter named Mary, but she was born in 1852, still far too young to have taught school during the Civil War.

The subject of this article was hired in 1865 to teach at the Saxon Institute, which would later become the Avery Normal School.

The most thoroughly-sourced reference for the life of Mary Weston Fordham is Smith & Phelps, _Notable Black American Women: Book 2_, pp. 231-5. The sources for their claims are contained in the text of the article. Mary Weston Fordham is on my wife's family tree, so I've had the occasion to research her life, and can say that Sandra Govan, who wrote the article in Smith & Phelps, has the measure of the issue.

My apologies, but I have no idea how to edit the Wiki page itself.

Geeceem49 (talk) 16:55, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

71.191.145.253 (talk) 23:48, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]