Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2023/Fall/Section18/Lena Cash - Octogenarian

Early Life
Born on July 4th, 1850 in New Orleans to John and Matilda Smith, Lena Cash had a turbulent childhood. Cash was kidnapped from her home by a stranger that she had little memory of shortly after her parents died from her home in New Orleans. When she was three, Cash’s aunt and uncle sent for someone to retrieve her, and shortly thereafter adopted her. They renamed her Gilmore, and christened Cash as a Methodist, although she converted to Catholicism later. Cash moved 25 times throughout her lifetime, including to Little Rock, Alabama with her aunt and uncle when she was 8. However, Cash claims that she always ended up in Mobile, Alabama.

Working and Later Life
While living in Mobile, she met Mr. Cash (no name mentioned) and they got married when she was only 17. Lena had her first son, Will, when she was 18, and had 4 more children afterwards. However, only 3 of them survived into adulthood. Her two sons need Will and Cicero, and her daughter Nora. Cash was exceedingly proud of her children who all had found stable work. Nora cleaned a church and Will and Cicero owned two companies, Ark Grocery and Fine Grove Ice Company. Although her area of work was unclear, Cash was skilled at growing plants from seed. Mr. Cash was a Confederate Soldier, and although he died around 1923, Cash lived off of her husband’s Federal Army Pension.

The Orphaning of Children in the 1850s
Adoption practices were established by early in the colonial era in the United States but did not become an established, legal occurrence until about 1850. This was largely because “European-derived legal traditions imported to the United States strongly resisted formalizing such relationships…”. The European tradition of adoption was focused on ideas of apprenticeships and indentureships that applied widely, especially in the Southern United States. In 1851, adoption practices started to change. Laws and other governmental processes started to take a role in helping orphaned children. Practices were developed to push legal adoption as well as methods such as the famous orphan trains, which helped transport orphaned children were used for the first time. However, it was still common for adoptions to be a “legal proceeding but a socially understood contract”. These types of adoption usually occurred inside of a family, with some adoptions resulting in the orphaned child taking a new name and functioning as a biological child of the family and others in a dated, indentureship style adoption.

Child Mortality Around 1900
Rates of infant mortality are a direct reflection of a mother and child’s health, but can also be more largely related to other factors such as social and economic status of a person or community as a whole. For example, in the United States in 1900 “up to 30% of infants died before reaching their first birthday”. This number was largely due to the standard of living, with urban areas especially experiencing difficulties with sanitation and economic disparity. However, the correlation between economic status and infant mortality may have not been as relevant in the United States as it was in other similarly develop countries. For example, in a study conducted by The Journal of Economic History, “results revealed more inequality in mortality and income across social-class groupings in England and Wales than the United States”.

Kidnapping of Children between 1850 and 1870 in New Orleans
Although there is no documented pattern of regular kidnappings of children between the 1850s and 70s, there are several prominent examples. One is the kidnapping of Mollie Digby from her home in New Orleans. This seemingly random kidnapping occurred by the hand of two women, in a neighborhood that was deemed “the back of town”.

At this time New Orleans experiencing a period of tension because of the reconstruction period which was caused by tensions remaining “from the fierce struggles that took place between the immigrants and native-born for jobs and political power” which may have contributed to the occurrence of kidnappings. Although kidnappings may not have been very common, it may not have been uncommon for a child to go missing for several days. In Digby’s situation it did not raise alarm at first as it was “several days before the public made up its mind that the child was really stolen”.