“People disappear all the time. Ask any policeman. Better yet, ask a journalist. Disappearances are bread-and-butter to journalists. Young girls run away from home. Young children stray from their parents and are never seen again. Housewives reach the end of their tether and take the grocery money and a taxi to the station. International financiers change their names and vanish into the smoke of imported cigars. Many of the lost will be found, eventually, dead or alive. Disappearances, after all, have explanations. Usually.”
― Diana
Gabaldon, Outlander, Prologue
For generations, men seemingly appeared in the lives of the women in my mother’s family, unknown and seemingly unencumbered by the baggage of family, of a past. Yet, they stayed, married, raised a family, and died, but conveyed little about who they were or where they came from. But in one instance, we lost a man born into the family, who seemed simply to disappear without a trace.
Genealogists will tell you that people (often their ancestors)
indeed disappear all the time. Some disappear
in a blink -- here one day but gone the next.
Others move slowly, fading away from family, leaving few tantalizing
clues behind. Sometimes the disappeared
don’t want to be found. They adopt new
identities, and for some, they change their race, passing for white. But regardless of how they leave, it is when
they die, when they truly have left this mortal coil, that concrete records
bring most of them back to life, at least in the memory of those who lost
them.
Clarence’s
Story
In the years before the internet, before arm-chair access to
local records, my family searched for my maternal grandmother’s long-lost
uncle, Clarence Burris Potts. Born and
raised in the family home just blocks from the city limits of Zanesville, Muskingum
County, Ohio, Uncle Clarence assumed the mantle of the underachieving brother
who had little direction or purpose. About
1905, he supposedly accompanied older sister Sarah to New York City, where she attended
Pratt Institute in the first decade of the 20th century. His two surviving nieces (one of whom was my grandmother) recalled
that sometime before the First World War, Clarence had joined the U.S. Army, followed
by a stint in the U.S. Merchant Marine. He
was known to be in Los Angeles in 1924, the year his mother Margaret died. The last address his family had for him (before
1944) proved to be a transient hotel in post-war San Francisco, after which he
dropped from the family radar.
Clarence Burris Potts was born 26 October 1888[i],
in Springfield Township, Muskingum County, Ohio, the third child of George
Westover Potts and Margaret Gant. His
father, an 1878 graduate of Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, now
Hampton University, managed the farm owned by his father-in-law Nelson Talbert
Gant. The family included 9-year old
half-sister Mariah Neal Williamson[ii]
(Margaret’s daughter from her failed first marriage to Henry Williamson) and 2-year
old sister Sarah Ann Elizabeth. Older
brother George Jr. had died of typhoid on August 10, 1888 less than a week
after his first birthday.[iii] The family had moved up from Hampton,
Virginia earlier in the year. By 1891,
when Royce Houston was born[iv],
George had moved his growing family (which now included Norman Tolbert born in
1890[v]) closer
to town to live just down the street from grandfather Gant. The last of the Potts children, Margaret
“Aunt Shug” Potts was born 18 March 1895.[vi] It appears this Potts-Gant union also had
been blessed with one or two other children who, sadly, did not survive.[vii]
What’s in
a Name. One’s identity often begins at birth, when the new babe in arms
is given the name by which he or she largely will be known for the rest of his
or her life. Inspiration can literally
come from anywhere -- friends,
family, religion, ethnic background, famous people. George and Margaret were
no different from many other parents of their day. In 1888, Clarence was the 17th
most popular name for baby boys.
Some names obviously are carried across generations but others
are a mystery that once addressed might be used to help identify family
connections. For this family:
- George Westover Potts – “Westover” came down from his mother, Ellen Westover Green and maternal grandmother, Mourning Westover.
- Mariah Neal Williamson – “Neal” was the maiden name of her step grandmother, Lavenia Julius Neal who had married the widowed N.T. Gant the year before Mariah’s birth.
- Sarah Ann Elizabeth Potts – named “Sarah” for her maternal aunt Sarah “Sadie” Gant [Mc]Norton; “Elizabeth” for her maternal aunt Elizabeth Gant Manley. However, the double middle name of “Ann Elizabeth” also could be a nod to Charle Ann Elizabeth Jane Russell, who had owned Nelson's wife Maria, their maternal grandmother in Loudoun County, Virginia.
- George – this firstborn son obviously named for his father.
- Norman Tolbert Potts – “Tolbert” was the middle name of his maternal grandfather Nelson Tolbert Gant.
- Margaret Potts – named for her mother.
 |
| George W. Potts 1856-1930 |
Like
Father, Like Son.
An examination of Clarence’s early years shows a
young man seemingly without direction. While his siblings all finished high school
and went on to college, Clarence took a different, somewhat meandering path
that seemed to reflect the disjointed journey taken by his father.
Although not much is known about the early life of Clarence’s
father, “Papa” George Westover Potts, we do know that on January 17, 1876, at the age of
18, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy at the Naval Rendezvous Enlistment at Norfolk,
Virginia, for what proved to be a single cruise aboard the iron-clad Montauk. That fall, George enrolled in the Hampton
Normal and Agricultural Institute at Hampton, where he was prepared to be a
teacher; he graduated in 1878. In his “graduate’s
correspondence” to the school in 1889-90, George explained that after teaching
for two years he had:
“… been
doing different things for a living: from ’81 to ’84, I kept a general grocery
and provision store in Williamsburg, and did quite well, until drawn into
politics; then negligence of business, and activity in politics caused the
former to suffer and the latter to prosper.
In ’81, I was elected member of the Common Council of the great city of
Williamsburg on the Republican ticket and was re-elected in ’82. The position being only honorary, I thought I
did not fit in. So, in ’83, I ran for
Commissioner of Revenue of the city of Williamsburg, and was elected for four
years over two competitors. The
emoluments were so small that I again sought, and obtained an appointment under
the U.S. Government, as Deputy Collector and Inspector of Customs at Yorktown,
Va., and served from May ’84 till Sept. ’86 when the Democratic hatchet shied
my way. I then moved to Hampton, and
served as butcher and hotel waiter. In
’88, with my family, I moved to Zanesville, Ohio and now live on and manage a
150 acre farm of my father-in-law, Mr. N.T. Gant, raising principally stock,
wheat, and grass. I am getting along
nicely and try to “adapt myself to circumstances,” a principle I learned at Hampton
and which has been a great advantage to me since graduating.”[viii]
George was a seeming “disappointment” to both his wife and
father-in-law who according to oral history, grudgingly supported Margaret’s
marriage to George, if only that it meant she was no longer at the mercy of her
abusive first husband. In 1911, George
and several investors attempted to start a pottery works that employed “colored
people.” The enterprise failed within 18
months. In 1916,[ix] George was
no longer in the family home, laboring instead at odd jobs and living about a
mile away near the historic Y-Bridge. In 1920, he worked in a glass factory and
lived a few blocks from his wife. After her
death in 1924, George moved in first with son Royce and his family in Brooklyn, New
York, and then to Chicago with son Norman, where he eventually died.
Clarence appeared to have inherited his father’s
wanderlust. By 1905, the nearly 17-year
old Clarence had quit high school after two years[x]
and begun working as a bellboy at the Clarendon Hotel[xi],
located at the corner of Fourth and Main
streets in downtown Zanesville. The
Hotel was popular among businessmen and politicians traveling to the area, and was
well known for its fine dining. Within a year, young Clarence accompanied
his older sister Sarah to New York City, where she (followed later by younger
brothers Royce and Norman) attended Pratt Institute. Sometime before 1910, 21-year old Clarence
was back in Zanesville, a laborer working odd jobs,[xii] seemingly
without any apparent direction, unlike his siblings who became, in succession,
a teacher, a physician, and an engineer.
And, so, like his father before him, Clarence turned to the military for
his next career opportunity.
He’s in the Army Now. On 21 April 1913, 25-year old Clarence Burris
Potts enlisted in the United States Regular Army[xiii] where he
joined the 25th Infantry stationed at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii
Territory. The 25th was one of the racially segregated units of the Army known as
Buffalo Soldiers, established by Congress as the first peacetime all-black
regiments in the regular U.S. Army.
Clarence’s regiment had a storied history.
The 25th served from 1866 to 1946, seeing action in the American Indian
Wars, Spanish-American War, Philippine-American War, and World War II. The 25th Infantry was transferred
from Fort Niobara/Lawton, Oklahoma to Schofield Barracks, in Hawaii Territory
in January 1913. During World War I, the
25th was noticeably absent from combat, remaining assigned to garrison duty in Hawaii. It is said that the 1906 race incident in Brownsville
Texas became the basis for excluding the 25th from action during
WW1.
In order to receive credit for continuous service, and the dollar-a-month
additional pay that went with reenlistment, a soldier had to sign on within
30 days of his discharge.[xiv] Many men often took advantage of this
month-long waiting period to visit family and friends. Not so Clarence. Within hours after his honorable discharge on
20 April 1917, Private First Class Potts was reenlisted[xv]. Beyond the obvious fact that Clarence was on
an island in the middle of the Pacific with no family nearby, perhaps he
thought he could do better in the Army than in civilian life.
While in
Hawaii, Clarence may have joined in a pickup game with the regimental baseball
team, the Wreckers, from which spawned future Negro League greats, Walter
“Dobie” Moore, Wilbur “Bullet Joe” Rogan, Lemuel Hawkins, and Heavy Johnson.[xvi] The 25th
Infantry baseball team rose to prominence after it was stationed at Schofield
Barracks where it established
itself as the best team on the island of Oahu, and began to compete against
college teams and teams of the high classification Pacific Coast League.
When
Clarence was discharged from his second Army stint in March 1919, Black
soldiers were returning from having served their country abroad during the war,
only to become the objects of savage encounters. Race riots erupted in nearly 3 dozen cities
and one rural county across the nation that summer and late autumn, dubbed the Red Summer. Perhaps because of the chaos that seemed to
be exploding across the south and Midwest, Clarence chose to stay in Los
Angeles after returning to the mainland.
Transitioning. Now
a civilian, Clarence returned to his old ways of hopping from job to job, first
as a porter to a private family, followed by a stint as a machinist.[xvii] He first shows up in the 1920 U.S. Census in
mid-January. In 1921, he is listed in the Los
Angeles City Directory living at the same residence. The next year, he is listed among the voters
for Los Angeles County. California's voter
indexes were published every two years and are great records to help track individuals over time and place. In
the case of Clarence, indexes for Los Angeles are missing for 1920 and 1932
(among other years). Records for San
Francisco, where he moved to next, are missing 1933 and 1942.
Sometime
between 1923 and 1925, Clarence started living under the name of Lawrence B.
Potts, although it appears he briefly used his birth name a decade later in San
Francisco. He moved from Los Angeles to Sierra Madre. At sea, he was Lawrence, while on land during the 1930s he had moved up to San Francisco and registered to vote as Clarence.
In
1942, Lawrence Burrs Potts, registered for the draft,[xviii] in accordance with the Fourth Draft Registration, often referred to as the "old man's
registration," conducted on 27 April 1942 -- for men born on or between 28
April 1877 and 16 February 1897. Surprisingly, Lawrence lists as point of contact a “Mrs. Mary Potts" of the same address, a woman who remains unknown to the family. Lawrence lists his employer
as the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union of the Congress of Industrial
Organizations (MCS), a Communist-backed labor union that represented servicemen on the West Coast. Many of the workers were gay and black. The MCS was the first union in the United States to not discriminate against workers based on sexuality or race.
 |
| 1942 WW2 Draft Registration Card for Lawrence Burrs Potts |
Lawrence’s merchant service spanned pre-World War II through the Korean
War. During WWII, his deployments
appeared to skirt most of the action.
One ship, the Benjamin Ide Wheeler, on which he served in early 1943,
later was involved in the late 1944 Leyte landings. During the Korean War, Lawrence served aboard
several ships, only one of which appears to have been
in the war zone. Our Mr. Potts was
engaged aboard the Sioux Falls Victory on 29 March 1951, when it arrived back in
Seattle on 24 June 1951 from Pusau, Korea.
Although the Sioux Falls Victory appears on the U.S. Navy 1956 list of
Merchant ships in the war zone which entitled its mariners to the Korean
Service Medal and the United Nations Service Medal for their support of the United
Nations forces in Korea, it is not clear whether Lawrence applied for or
received his medals. I can only assume that Lawrence did not do so because in
1956 he had already begun living again as Clarence.
Lawrence/Clarence
served more than 30 years in the Merchant Marine, rising from Messman to Chief
Cook. As his grew in position, so did
his waistline, adding nearly 40 pounds to his 5'6" frame. His ports of departure also migrated over
time, moving from Los Angeles to San Francisco to Portland and Seattle. During that time, Lawrence served on ships
with international crews, but never on what Captain Hugh Mulzac, the first African-American merchant marine naval
officer to command an integrated crew during World War II, termed a “Jim Crow vessel.”[xix]
Back on Shore. The
last record found of Lawrence returning to a U.S. port is aboard the Washington
Seafair which docked in Seattle on July 22, 1955. It appears soon thereafter he retired from service, reverted back to his birth name, settled in Portland, and worked as a
cook. Portland also was home to his
former employer, the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union of the Congress of Industrial
Organizations.
On
31 July 1952, Clarence, under the name Lawrence Burrs Potts, registered his
Ohio birth in the Portland, Oregon court.[xx] The new decree for birth registration states
that he was born in Zanesville, Ohio and names his parents as “George Westever
Potts” and “Margaret Gant."
A name
change was not the only aspect guiding Clarence’s (now Lawrence) disappearance. At birth, Clarence was listed as “colored,”
not surprising since his maternal grandfather was often called the richest Negro
in Ohio. While it’s not unusual for
light skinned Negroes to be listed as white in an occasional census record,
Clarence’s race changed progressively over time, inching closer and closer to
passing for white. The variability of
his race going from Negro to mulatto to white in Merchant Marine records varied,
whether inadvertent or intentional. We
likely will never know whether these dalliances with white designation was
because a lowly officer relied on personal knowledge of the sailor who "looked exotic" or crewman
records. However when Clarence
petitioned the State of Oregon to register his Ohio birth, he knowingly declared
his race as white. The transition to was now complete. The family looking for Clarence Burris Potts, a negro mn, would not have looked twice for a Lawrence Burrs Potts, a white man.
Sometime
in late May 1959, Clarence was hospitalized briefly in the Good Samaritan
Hospital in Portland, Oregon. On 1 June
1959, he was transported from the hospital by ambulance to the Multnomah County
(Oregon) Poor Farm.[xxi] For friends and relatives, the admission
records list the American Legion Post, an obvious nod to his military family. On 18 January 1961, Clarence was voluntarily discharged
from the farm and transported to the Orient Nursing Home. Eventually, Clarence moved to Sandy, Oregon, a small town located in the extended suburbs of Portland. Throughout this, Clarence continued to live
as a white man.
Clarence
Burris Potts died on 11 December 1966 of a short illness in Sandy, Clackamas
County, Oregon. His obituary in the
Sandy Post said that he “came to the
Portland area after being discharged from WWI.
He worked in Portland as a cook for a long time before retiring in
Sandy. He has no known relatives.”[xxii] Yet, Clarence must have built a family of sorts because, at his death, someone took the time to publish an obituary and someone ensured that he was interred in the Willamette National Cemetery for veterans.
MAKING THE CONNECTION
“Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without
becoming what you pretend to be.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
So, what makes me confident that Clarence Burris Potts and Lawrence Burr[i]s
Potts are one and the same? The phonetic
similarity of the names aside, there are several clues that when
cross-referenced, supports this conclusion.
Clarence Burris Potts versus Lawrence Burris Potts
|
|
Birth date
|
Although
issued in the name of Lawrence Burris Potts, his 1952 Delayed Birth
Registration matches the birth and parental
information for Clarence Burris Potts.
This was not a name change as that section of the petition was left
blank.
|
Social Security
application
|
The original Social Security application, issued in 1936 to
Lawrence Burris Potts matches the birth date and location and parental
information for Clarence B. Potts.
|
Military
|
The Willamette National Cemetery veteran’s
burial record for Clarence B. Potts matches the official military record of
Clarence B. Potts of Zanesville, Ohio.
|
Addresses
|
The
1952 Delayed Birth Registration shows Lawrence living at an address that
matches the address shown for Clarence in the 1959 Portland City Directory.
|
Death
|
The death date and burial location for Clarence B. Potts matches the death date and location recorded for
Lawrence Burrs Potts in the Social Security Death Index.
|
CONCLUSION
“Some people seem to fade away but then when they are truly gone, it's like they didn't fade away at all.” ― Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Vol. 1I found Uncle Clarence in 2003, solving the puzzle of when and where he died and was buried. Although I had not yet fleshed out his story, I was able to close this chapter for the last two family members who had known him, themselves passing in 2004 and 2006. Despite his brief obituary, Clarence had a family who, although unknown by the friends who surrounded him in death, never forgot him.
Uncle Clarence has been found, yet his story remains unfinished. Questions remain as to why he changed his name and race:
- Was he running from something? Had he committed a crime, witnessed a gangland murder in 1920s Los Angeles, been arrested or was jailed? Remember that at this time, Los Angeles's police department suffered problems of lawlessness, corruption, and graft that took on more institutional forms in the 1920s and 1930s.
- Was his disappearance part of a larger plan to pass for white?
- Was he gay? Could he have been arrested or avoiding arrest, choosing instead to live in plain sight under a slightly different name? California anti-sodomy laws were particularly strict in the early part of the 20th century, when Clarence was "coming out" of the Army and embarking on a new life.
- Who was the Mrs. Mary Potts with whom he lived in 1942? Was she his wife or perhaps a relative from his father's unknown family?
- Where did the Burris middle name come from? Who was he named after?
Questions
also remain as to why Clarence stopped communicating with his siblings, with whom he regularly corresponded -- they and their children knew he had joined the Merchant Marine but knew nothing about his life at sea or afterward. Next steps include (1) locating his Merchant Marine enlistment and service records, (2) ordering a copy of his death certificate -- it will be 50 years in October! when I can finally file the request, (3) locating any extant Los Angeles arrest records for 1923 to 1930 to see whether Clarence is in them, (4) learn more about Mrs. Mary Potts, and (5) locating records of the now disbanded labor union.
It
appears that Uncle Clarence never married or had children. Given his career choices, some may say that
he never settled down. I prefer to
believe that he settled into a life that ultimately provided him with a sense
of family, sent him around the world on adventures he would not get to experience
had he become an educated professional man like his brothers, or provided him with opportunities to live
beyond the constraints of being a light skinned, possibly gay, black man in
America.
SOURCES
[i] 26 October 1888, Muskingum County, Ohio Record of Births, Probate
Court, Volume 3, page 141, line 16
[ii] Register of
Births, Muskingum County, Ohio, , Volume 2, 1876-1887, page 293
[iii] Death
Records, Muskingum County, Ohio, Volume 2, page 207. Birth date based on George’s age at death (1 year and 6 days).
[iv] 21 November
1891, Muskingum County, Ohio Record of Births, Probate Court, Volume 4, page
182, line 47
[v] 28 July 1890, Although his birth record has
not been found, Norman’s 1890 birth year is inferred from his being
consistently positioned as being 1 year older than brother Royce, for whom a
birth record confirms a November 1891 birth.
[vii] According to 1900 U.S. Census, Margaret Gant
had birthed 10 children, with only 6 living.
Records have been found for seven children (Mariah b 1880, Sarah b 1886,
George b 1887, Clarence b 1888, Norman b 1890, Royce b 1891, and Margaret b
1895). It is likely that at least one
additional child was born to the Gant-Williamson union (1878-1884) while at
least one additional child was born to the Gant-Potts union (1885-1924) before
1900.
[viii] Twenty-Two Years Work of the Hampton Normal
and Agricultural Institute at Hampton: (1893), page 113. https://archive.org/stream/twentytwoyearswo00hamp#page/114/mode/2up
[ix] 1916 Zanesville City Directory, George Potts,
colored, living at 442 W Main, occupation laborer.
[x] 1940 U.S. Federal Population Census, San
Francisco, ED 38-604, sheet 1A, family 1, line 3.
Entry states that the highest grade Clarence had completed was “H-2” or two
years of high school.
[xi] 1905 Zanesville City Directory, page XXX
[xii] 1910 U.S. Federal Population Census, Falls
Township, Muskingum County, Ohio, ED 59-14, sheet 12B, line 98.
[xiii] United States Registers of Enlistments in the
U.S. Army, 1798-1914," index and images, FamilySearch, 130-131,
1909-1913, L-Q > image 648 of 682; citing NARA microfilm publication M233.
[xiv] U.S. Army Discharge bonus
[xv] Official Roster of Ohio Soldiers, Sailors and Marines in the World War,
1917-1918. Vol.
I-XXIII. Columbus, OH, USA: F.
J. Heer Printing Co., 1926.
[xvi] Green said, “During my connection with the team, it has played against players in
different parts of the United States and foreign possessions and who have
become famous in both the National and American Leagues, not mentioning the
minor leagues at all…” <http://research.sabr.org/journals/dobie-moore>
[xvii] 1920 U.S. Federal Population Census, Los
Angeles Assembly District 74, Los Angeles, California; Enumeration District:
412; sheet 18B.
[xviii] “United States World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942,”
Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.
[xix] An all-black crew <
http://www.usmm.org/african-americans.html >
[xx] Decree for Registration of Birth, No
11259/35903; In the Circuit Court of the State of Oregon for the County of
Multnomah; In the matter of the registration of the birth of Lawrence Burrs
Potts, 31 July 1952.
[xxi] Records of the Clackamas County Poor Farm,
admittance number 16919.
[xxii] Obituary of Clarence B. Potts. Sandy Post, 22
December 1966, page 4.
