Lorenzo Dow Turner took this image in Raccoon Bluff, Sapelo Island, McIntosh County, Georgia while doing research in the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia between 1931 and 1933.
Biographical:
Mary Bell was born on May 22, 1887, at Raccoon Bluff, Sapelo Island, to William Bell and Chloe Handy. Her family was part of the group that moved to the Raccoon Bluff settlement in Sapelo Island when it was developed by three African American men in 1871. She married her first husband, William Green, on March 4, 1905, when she was 18 years old. She had five children from this first marriage: Alfonzo and Nellie, born 1907; Clara, born 1908; Thomas, born 1912 and Lula, born 1915. Her husband William worked as a longshoreman in Savannah, Georgia, and passed away there on February 23, 1922.
Around 1924-25 she married Eddie [Edward] Hall. Her daughter Mary L. Hall was born on November 17, 1925. Mary passed away on September 3, 1958. She was buried at Behavior Cemetery in Sapelo Island.
Mary E. Hall spent her life taking care of the family and working on the family farm. She passed away on February 7, 1959, at 71 years of age. She was also buried at Behavior Cemetery in Sapelo Island. Eddie Hall would survive his wife for almost ten years, dying on January 29, 1968, in Savannah, Georgia.
When Curator Alcione Amos was at Sapelo Island in 2011 researching to identify photographs taken in the Island by Dr. Turner in 1933, she was surprised when she saw how Mrs. Hall was dressed. She was by far the best-dressed person in the photographs Ms. Amos had seen. Mrs. Cornelia Bailey, who knew Mrs. Hall, as a child, explained that her daughters had migrated to New York and would send her packages of clothes, shoes, and other gifts. Mrs. Bailey remembered that the arrival of these packages was a time of great excitement for the children.
General:
Mary E. Hall [aka Mary Bell and Mary Green].
Collection Restrictions:
Use of the materials requires an appointment. Please contact the archivist to make an appointment: ACMarchives@si.edu.
Lorenzo Dow Turner either took or collected this image while doing research in the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia between 1931 and 1933.
Collection Restrictions:
Use of the materials requires an appointment. Please contact the archivist to make an appointment: ACMarchives@si.edu.
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; acquisition made possible through partial Federal support from the Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center
