Missouri McElmurray was born in 1868 in Georgia, the daughter of Fox and Mary McElmurray. Her father was 51 and her mother was 33 when she was born. Growing up in a large farming family, Missouri spent her early years in Crawford County before the family moved to Bibb County in the late 1870s.
Early Life
As a child in the 1870 census, 7-year-old Missouri lived with her parents and nine siblings, including brothers William, Cicero, Henry, and Amos, and sisters Ann, Jane, and Frances. Her father Fox worked as a farm laborer and had been born in Virginia. By 1880, the family had settled in Bibb County, where Missouri, then about 15, continued to live at home.
Marriage and Family
On February 3, 1885, Missouri married Joshua Calhoun in Bibb County. Over the next fifteen years, she gave birth to nine children, all of whom survived to adulthood - a remarkable achievement at a time when infant mortality claimed nearly one in five Black children in the rural South:
Aquilla (1890)
Early Lee (1891)
Noah Sr. (1892)
Ernest (1894)
Mamie (1896)
Sophia (1898)
Gertrude (1900)
Dr. Emory Martin (1902)
Lilla Beatrice (1905)
The McElmurray Land
When Missouri's father Fox lost his 50 acres to foreclosure in 1890, her husband Joshua purchased the property for $191, keeping it in the family. By 1909, deed records show this land was in Missouri's name. The 1900 census shows Missouri's widowed mother Mary, then 75, living with Missouri, Joshua, and their seven children on what had once been Fox's land.
Later Years
Missouri outlived her husband Joshua by six years. When she passed away on July 14, 1943, at age 75, her children placed a memorial in the newspaper that captured their devotion: "It's hard to forget you mother, Who lie sleeping beneath the hill... You moved, oh yes, you moved, You moved at God's command, But what console our minds, You have a home in Beulah land."
The memorial was signed by her surviving children: Lilla Beatrice Davis, Dr. E.M. Calhoun, Sophia Slocumb, Mayme Jones, Rev. E.J. Calhoun, and Gertrude Bree, along with Early Calhoun Jr., her sons and daughters-in-law, and grandchildren.
Legacy
Today, Missouri's name lives on through Missouri-McElmurry Drive and Missouri Road in Bibb County. Through her, the original McElmurray land stayed in the family for generations. She served as the bridge between two landowning families - the McElmurrys and the Calhouns - helping to preserve and expand a legacy that would benefit her children and grandchildren for years to come.
