 1872 - 1937 (65 years)
-
| Name |
Florence Malcolm Eveleen Mesney Murrow |
| Nickname |
Mer |
| Residence |
1872 |
Queen Street, Lurgan, Co. Armagh  |
| Birth |
7 Jan 1872 |
Lurgan, Co. Armagh, Ireland [1] |
| Gender |
Female |
| Baptism |
2 Jun 1872 |
Church of Christ the Redeemer [2] |
| Residence |
1920 |
35 Peachtree Circle, Atlanta, GA [3] |
| Residence |
1937 |
818 Morningside Drive, Atlanta, GA |
| Burial |
6 Nov1937 |
Westview Cemetery, Atlanta, GA |
| Death |
5 Nov 1937 |
Atlanta, Fulton Co., GA |
| Notes |
- Letter from May Weltner Norwood to Murrow Morris 1996:
Dear Murrow:
I am going to tell you as much as I can about your Mer--and my Auntie. My knowledge will probably not be very helpful because I was only 16 when she died and at that springtime of my life I didn't pay much attention to the important facts of life.
I can dredge up in my mind's eye the way she looked: I would now call her a stately lady. She held herself very proudly--in fact, I think she was a very proud lady. I remember mostly the beautiful hand work she did, and I think she actually worked as a decorator for specially picked people. I know she made lamp shades--silk and fine. And I own one beautiful piece of her work. When Catherine Carson, who was Callender [Weltner Dorsey]'s good friend and her freshman roommate at Randolph Macon, got married Auntie gave her a table runner with exquisite crocheted lace around it. A few years ago Catherine brought it to me and I cherish--and use--it. I also had a sheet and pillow slips that Doctor [Marion McHenry Hull] gave me as a wedding gift that had her crochet insertions, and those I gave to Jeanette [Lummus Buffalo] many years ago.
As to Aunt Nan [Linthicum Hull]'s estimate of her--I guess they were the classic daughter-mother-in-law duo.
I do know that Mother and Tattie lived with your grandfather and Auntie when their parents died, and although it wasn't a love match--and you can understand that it would not be--they were always appreciative of her mothering them.
Now about the Hulls resenting her and Doctor's marrying her. I guess it's hard for us to understand how the immigrant Irish were considered in those days. Who is it who has written the book about the "shanty Irish and the lace curtain Irish" both classes of which were looked down upon? It was Grandma [Marion McHenry] Cobb I think who particularly took a dim view of her beloved favorite marrying "beneath" himself. I also am amazed at what a matriarch she was. Just think--she had three daughters, each of whom named her first-born son for his MOTHER. Marion Hull, Jackson, and Smith. I wish my children thought so highly of me! Well, not only was Auntie an Irish girl but she was also a working woman, and Southern aristocrats preferred starvation to the stigma of working outside the home. It took us a long time to overcome that feeling, didn't it?
I have one sad memory. When Tom [Thomas Cobb Hull] and Nan's first son died from the scalding coffee he spilled, Auntie was crushed. For some reason at that time I had learned the LITTLE BOY BLUE poem--you know, "the little toy dog is covered with dust," etc. and for some reason I recited it to Auntie--she cried and asked for me to say it again. Sounds maudlin, doesn't it? but I think she was really bereft over that baby's death.
It must have been a terrible blow to her when Doctor lost his money in the depression and they had to sell their Peachtree Circle home and move to Morningside. That was a real come-down for her, and then when he became such an evangelical sort of person and left the North Avenue [Presbyterian] Church--I totally understand how she must have felt. I think Auntie May was critical of her in those latter years for not supporting Doctor all the way, but he would have been hard to deal with! He was a complete autocrat--there was never but one right side and it was always his. Dick (Richard Louis Hull] knew that and at one time countered Doctor's remark that God had told him what to do with the remark that "Isn't it amazing, Father, that God always agrees with you?"
Times were different, and those foibles and thinkings of the late 19th century and the early 20th century have to be understood to be forgiven.
The house on Peachtree Circle was very fine and whenever we Weltner children went there we were warned to keep hands off and be quiet. I have one funny memory of being there with my father and he was smoking a cigar. He dropped the ashes on the oriental rug, and apologized and tried to brush them up, but Auntie--very graciously--told him to forget it, that those ashes were "clean dirt." I spent days trying to figure out that oxymoron.
I wish I had some hard facts for you, but I don't. So often I find myself wishing that Tattie were still alive because I need to ask her questions about the past, which is now irrevocably lost.
[other family news]
Love, May
***
Other memories of May Weltner from a telephone conversation:
worked for her...really good to her...clipped eyelashes...really attractive...sweet voice, accent...shot steeple off church...grandfather sobbing when she was dying...looked Irish...father was a piano teacher...uncles commissioned to make linens for the royal family...woven into damask!...Uncle Dick named for her brother Louis.
She and Doctor went to a home where the wife was expecting a child, and she waited with the wife while Doctor and the husband went off to get something. When they came back, the baby was born, and she had taken care of the mother and child.
***
From Murrow Brice Morris:
My grandmother's full maiden name was Florence Malcolm Eveleen Mesney Murrow. Her oldest grandchild, Nancy Hull, nicknamed her Mer. She always thought of it as myrrh and was highly flattered, according to Nancy.
Mer met Grandfather in New York when she was a nurse and he was a resident physician at Charity Hospital in 1897-98. She had come to this country to join her sister, Mrs. Orr, who lived in New Jersey. I have a photocopy of Grandfather's diary from July 1, 1893, to July 31, 1896. Miss Murrow is first mentioned on January 21, 1896, and by April 25 they were engaged.
I have two silver spoons--a gravy ladle and a sugar shell--engraved Murrow Brice, my name (my two grandmothers' maiden names), and on the back 1877-1936, her birth year and mine--except that she was really born in 1872. Mer died the year after I was born, so I never knew her.
I also have eleven silver goblets engraved with an H that Grandfather had given her one at a time on Christmas and birthdays. Many of the goblets have the gift date engraved around the foot.
I also have beautiful linens that Mer embroidered. Her uncles owned a linen mill in Ireland, and they sent her whatever damask or other linens she wanted. She used to win prizes at the fairs for her needlework. Among the linens I have are my mother's trousseau linens, which she used only once or twice, including monogrammed sheets, pillow cases, bath towels, hand towels and table linens. There is also Mer's petticoat, which is beautifully embroidered--and tiny.
Other things of Mer's that I have, some of which were from the Hull family:
A silver punch ladle, 1814
A silver plated 14" footed vase decorated with grapevines in repoussé
A Sheffield footed waiter, ca. 1820
12 oyster plates
Haviland Limoges coffee and tea cups and saucers
Three small oriental rugs
In front of the fireplace, I have a long, low stool that is a copy of one in Mer's home in Ireland. She and her older brothers used to kneel on it for family prayers, and they would see who could spit farthest into the fire.
Another story is that, coming home from school one day, the children ran into the Catholic church and threw mud in the holy water. The guilty brother was promised a caning as soon as his father's piano student left. When the father and his student played the piano, the resulting crash led them to the cane, which the boy had hidden inside the piano. Then, when his father told the boy to pull down his pants, he had another pair on underneath.
In 1910, Mer was homesick for Ireland, so the whole family traveled there and through Europe. I remember Mother's scrapbook of postcards and a camera from the time. Oddly enough, I don't recall her ever saying anything about the family in Ireland. She was only ten years old, though, and may not have remembered family members. She did, however, remember all the meals they were served on the ship. It's also possible that there were few family members left in Ireland. Mer's mother died in 1878, five years after the birth of her fifteenth child, but her father lived in Belfast until 1898. When I visited Northern Ireland in 1997, there were no Murrows in the telephone book.
I found Grandfather's 1910 passport application, which included Mer and the three children. The dates and places of birth were listed for all family members except Mer. Because she was married to a U.S. citizen, she was automatically a U.S. citizen herself; therefore the facts of her birth and naturalization were irrelevant.
Not long before her death, Mer longed to return to Ireland, but was too ill to travel that far. They went to New England, which they felt would be similar to the coast of Ireland. In 1937 she died of cancer of the stomach.
***
Funeral Notice, Atlanta Constitution, November 6, 1937:
HULL--The friends of Dr. and Mrs. Marion McH. Hull, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas C. Hull, Birmingham, Ala., Mr. and Mrs. Richard L. Hull, Dr. and Mrs. S. L. Morris Jr., and the grandchildren are invited to attend the funeral of Mrs. Florence Murrow Hull, wife of Dr. Marion McH. Hull, this (Saturday) afternoon at 2:30 o'clock from North Avenue Presbyterian Church. Dr. Richard Orme Flinn will officiate. The following gentlemen are requested to serve as pallbearers and assemble at the chapel of Awtry & Lowndes at 2 o'clock: Mr. J. M. Caswell, Mr. R. W. Harvey, Mr. B. M. Hughes, Mr. James M. Reeves, Dr. Paul F. Brown Sr., Mr. S. M. Carson. Interment, West View Cemetery.
***
- Mr. and Mrs. William G. Orr
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their sister,
Florence Evyleen Murrow,
to
Dr. Marion McHenry Hull,
on Wednesday morning, June the second,
eighteen hundred and ninety seven,
at eleven o'clock,
Madison Avenue Reformed Presbyterian Church,
entrance on Fifty-seventh Street
New York City
***
From marriage certificate:
Ages: 25 and 24
Clergyman: Abbott E. Kithedge [Kittredge]
Witnesses: A. Stanley Pike and Mrs. Ellen A. Baird
***
From the Athens, Georgia, newspaper:
HULL-MURROW
Dr. Marion McHenry Hull and Miss Florence Murrow were married Wednesday morning at 11 o'clock, at the Madison avenue Reformed Presbyterian church, in New York city.
Miss May Hull, a sister of the groom, and Hon. Hoke Smith, his uncle, were present to witness the ceremony, besides the relatives of the bride and other friends.
After the church ceremonial the bridal party was entertained at an elegant breakfast at the residence of the bride's brother and sister, Mr. and Mrs. J. K. Orr.
Dr. and Mrs. Hull have left New York, and will reach Athens tomorrow where they will stop with their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Augustus Longstreet Hull, with whom they will spend the summer.
In the autumn the young couple leave for China where Dr. Hull in his work as a medical missionary, will have a true helpmeet in the noble young woman he has won for his wife.
***
|
| Person ID |
I0007 |
Hull |
| Last Modified |
19 Nov 2016 |
| Father |
Richard Lewis Murrow, b. 8 Jan 1834, 2 Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin, Ireland d. 1 Dec 1898, Belfast, Co. Antrim, Ireland (Age 64 years) |
| Mother |
Louisa Jane Mesney, b. Abt 1829 d. 10 Aug 1878, Belfast, Co. Antrim, Ireland (Age ~ 49 years) |
| Marriage |
17 Jan 1853 |
St. Saviour's Parish, Devon, England [4] |
| Family ID |
F073 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Family |
Marion McHenry Hull, b. 9 Feb 1872, Athens, Clarke Co., GA d. 28 Mar 1950, Atlanta, Fulton Co., GA (Age 78 years) |
| Marriage |
2 Jun 1897 |
New York, NY [5] |
| Notes |
- Mr. and Mrs. William G. Orr
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their sister,
Florence Evyleen Murrow,
to
Dr. Marion McHenry Hull,
on Wednesday morning, June the second,
eighteen hundred and ninety seven,
at eleven o'clock,
Madison Avenue Reformed Presbyterian Church,
entrance on Fifty-seventh Street
New York City
***
From marriage certificate:
Ages: 25 and 24
Clergyman: Abbott E. Kithedge [Kittredge]
Witnesses: A. Stanley Pike and Mrs. Ellen A. Baird
***
From the Athens, Georgia, newspaper:
HULL-MURROW
Dr. Marion McHenry Hull and Miss Florence Murrow were married Wednesday morning at 11 o'clock, at the Madison avenue Reformed Presbyterian church, in New York city.
Miss May Hull, a sister of the groom, and Hon. Hoke Smith, his uncle, were present to witness the ceremony, besides the relatives of the bride and other friends.
After the church ceremonial the bridal party was entertained at an elegant breakfast at the residence of the bride's brother and sister, Mr. and Mrs. J. K. Orr.
Dr. and Mrs. Hull have left New York, and will reach Athens tomorrow where they will stop with their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Augustus Longstreet Hull, with whom they will spend the summer.
In the autumn the young couple leave for China where Dr. Hull in his work as a medical missionary, will have a true helpmeet in the noble young woman he has won for his wife.
***
|
| Children |
| | 1. Thomas Cobb Hull, b. 17 May 1899, Atlanta, GA d. Feb 1977, Decatur, GA (Age 77 years) |
| | 2. Marion Lumpkin Hull, b. 22 Sep 1900, Atlanta, Fulton Co., GA d. 6 Apr 1956, Atlanta, Fulton Co., GA (Age 55 years) |
| | 3. Richard Louis Hull, b. 7 Jul 1902, Atlanta, GA d. 16 Aug 1953, Mackinac Island, MI (Age 51 years) |
|
| Photos |
 | 1903 (c.) Hull Family Gathering
In front row, Marion Hull holding Dick; behind him, from left, Thomas, Callie Hull holding Marion, Callie Hull, Florence Hull, A. L. Hull. |
| Histories |
 | 1904: The Hulls of Georgia
Augustus Longstreet Hull's history of the Hull family of Georgia, Athens, Ga., 1904
|
| Family ID |
F004 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Last Modified |
25 Oct 2010 |
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| Sources |
- [S11918] Lurgan No. 1 Civil Birth Register.
- [S15106] Baptisms solemnized in the Parish of Shankill in the County of Armagh, in the Year 1872, Page 37.
June 2. Jany 7th 18782. Florence Malcolm Eveleen. Richard Louis & Louisa Jane Murrow. Lurgan. Accountant. Robt. D.
- [S07851] 1920 Census Georgia Fulton County ED 126 Sheet 16B.
- [S17082] Marriage Certificate.
RLM age 20, Bachelor, Draper, Christ Church, Dublin, Richard Murrow, Draper
LJM age 23, Spinster, -, St. Saviours, William Mesney, Revenue Officer
Witnesses W. Mesney, Mary Mesney
GRO Jan-Mar Volume 5b Page 307 No. 173
- [S07607] Bureau of Records, Health Dept., City of New York, Certificate No. 8361.
Recorded June 4, 1897
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