Bronis Suadrey Reid
5 June 1909 - 28 January 1981
Featured Ancestors
Bronis Suadrey Reid, 1909 - 1981
Bronis Fitzpatrick, born Bronis Suadrey Reid, was my paternal grandmother. She was born on 5 June 1909 in the Sartinville Community, Marion County, Mississippi. She died on 28 January 1981 in McComb, Pike County, Mississippi, not many miles from where she was born. But she was well-traveled during her lifetime. She lived in New Orleans, Mobile, up-state New York and Southern California. She had a husband, Earl Fitzpatrick, who was not my grandfather and whom I never met. She had two children, my father, Walter Singleman Jones, and my Uncle Mike, Patrick Michael Fitzpatrick. She had five grandchildren named Jones and at least eight named Fitzpatrick. I'm not going to try to count her great-grandchildren or her great-great-grandchildren.
Of those thirteen grandchildren, probably only the three oldest Joneses were old enough when she died to remember her well. I was the first grandchild and I remember her very well. She was a very good cook. I'm not sure who would take first place in cooking in my estimation, Grandma or my mother, but since my father's mother taught my mother most of what she knows about cooking, I guess we can give Grandma top honors. She loved to read and she loved books and she taught me to love them both as well. She never talked much about her childhood or her life as a young woman. In fact, other than hearing her talk about climate changes during her lifetime (which she blamed on men walking on the moon), I can't remember ever hearing her talk about her life or her family history. But she always kept me up-to-date with current goings-on in the family -- she wrote long, newsy letters. I always knew who was getting married and who was having a baby while my grandmother was alive. I wish I had saved some of those letters, but when you move every eighteen months or so, something has to go. If I'd known I was going to become the family historian, I would have gotten rid of a kid or two instead (just kidding, boys).
Meeting Miss Bronis
You can meet Bronis through the memoirs her son and grandchildren have written about her or through her photographs.
Memoirs
Bronis Fitzpatrick by Robert Paul Jones
Grandma in Mississippi by Brenda Jones Clesi
Memories of My Grandmother by Patricia Jones Dumond (Your everloving webmaster)
Bronis Suadrey Reid by Walter Singleman Jones
Photographs
Bronis Suadrey Reid and Walter (Doc) Jones, Jr., early 1930s.
Bronis Suadrey Reid and Walter S. Jones, 1935, Sartinville Community, Mississippi.