165th wedding anniversary
For members of the Mitchell family
Tolbert Wallace Norris and Thekla Patten Dobbs were married exactly 165 years ago, on March 8, 1860.
These are my 3rd great-grandparents, maternal ancestors of my paternal grandfather, Richard Mitchell. Thekla Patten Dobbs was the daughter of Thekla Nübling, whose immigration voyage letters have been previously shared in this newsletter.
Tolbert Wallace Norris was born in Mississippi in 1830, but by 1850 he had moved with his parents and siblings to rural Franklin Parish, Louisiana. He married his first wife, Laurena House, in 1854 in the nearby town of Tallulah. T.W. and Laurena had two or three children together, but the only one to survive to adulthood was their daughter Elizabeth “Lizzie” Norris. Laurena passed away sometime between 1856–1859.
Thekla Patten Dobbs was born in 1838 in or near Lake Providence, Carroll Parish, Louisiana. Her father died when she was a toddler and her mother died when she was a young teenager, so Thekla and her younger sister were taken in by a philanthropic widow who made a habit of fostering unfortunate children, Elizabeth Dilsey Savage (née Norris) of Salem Plantation. Mrs. Savage just happened to be the aunt of T.W. Norris.
T.W. and Thekla were married on March 8, 1860; T.W. was 29 years old; Thekla was 21 years old. They soon settled together on Buckridge Plantation on Tensas Bayou in Franklin Parish, where they would have a total of twelve children together… though only seven of them would survive to adulthood. After the Civil War, the Norris family moved to Texas.
We are lucky to have a decent amount of information about the lives of Tolbert Wallace Norris and Thekla Patten Dobbs, thanks to the diligent efforts of their descendants. But, as is most often the case for ancestors who have passed out of living memory, we know very little about their most intimate, personal selves — like whether this marriage was a fulfilling one for both partners. I hope that it was.
Happy 165th, T.W. and Thekla.