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MARY ?SAMANTHA? CAMERON AND HER THREE HUSBANDS
Pauline Heitzmann, last surviving child of Samantha Cameron, said her mother?s full name was Mary Samantha Cameron, but she was usually referred to by her middle name, Samantha. She was also known as ?Mantha,? a short version of Samantha. A publication, called ?Hunting for Bears,? lists all Hancock County, MS marriages from 1853 thru 1895 alphabetically. It has ?Martha Cameron marring Mathias Green on March 9, 1865.? Pauline told us that her mother never went by ?Martha.? We went to the Courthouse and looked at the original handwritten name on the marriage record, and it is clearly ?Mantha? - the people that published the marriage index simply read it wrong. Various records on Samantha show her using ?Mary? as her first name, middle name, or the initials ?S. M ? Samantha went by the last name of ?Rhodes? until the time of her death. Even after her third spouse, Giuseppe ?Joseph? Catenaro, died, she went by the Rhodes name as evidenced by her death certificate and obituary. Her daughter, Pauline, told us that her mother used the Rhodes name because her children (from the Rhodes marriage) carried this name. She also told us that her mother was born in Marion County, MS in or near the city of Columbia. Census records, as well as Samantha?s death certificate, all indicate that she was in fact born in Marion County, MS.
According to Pauline, Samantha died three days before her 70th birthday. Her date of death is June 19, 1917, according to her death certificate. With Pauline?s information, one can easily determine that Samantha was bom on June 22, 1847. Samantha?s death certificate verifies the June 22 date, but the year of birth is off. This record says she was age ?54? or ?64? at death (it is not clearly written). Whichever age it is, it does not match with the information Pauline gave us, and she insisted that her mother died just before her 70th birthday. The ?informant? on the death certificate was not Pauline, but rather her husband - George Heitzmann. Probably George had forgotten exactly how old his mother-in-law was. The 1847 birth year matches with the 1850 Marion County census where Samantha is shown living with her parents at age 3. The 1910 Bay St. Louis, MS census shows her age as 63 (bom in 1847) living with her daughter and son-in-law, George and Pauline Heitzmann. Next we have Samantha?s obituary found in the June 23, 1917, issue of the Gulf Coast Progress newspaper. It says she died at age ?72? (or born in 1845), and she was a ?native of Marion County, where she was bom.? We are sure this age 72 figure was an error, possibly supplied by George. With the above information, we will use June 22, 1847, as the correct date of birth for Samantha. Pauline told us her mother had dark eyes, dark hair, was about 5?5? tall, and weighed about 125 pounds in her prime. Pauline had a large photograph of Samantha with her son, Joseph W. Rhodes, as a small child sitting on her lap. We have a good copy of this photo in our file. In 1973 she gave this picture to her cousin, Myrtle Rhodes, who was married to David Smallwood and lived in Bay St. Louis, MS. Pauline also said her mother was born a Baptist but converted to the Catholic faith in Bay St. Louis in her old age with her (Pauline?s) encouragement.
According to her death certificate, Samantha died from ?Gastroenteritis? while the contributory cause was ?Pulmonary T.B.? Pauline also said that her mother is buried in an unmarked grave in Cedar Rest Cemetery in Bay St. Louis next to her husband, George Heitzmann. According to Samantha?s death certificate and other records, her parents
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