Roots

These are the children of Clara and Billy Blue: Of the seven listed, only one was not the offspring of both Clara and Billy. That was Will; he was the child of Clara and someone who has not been named to this day. Thus,Will was the half- brother to all the others. Will's father was probably a white man, because he was said to be of very "fair skin" and so were most of Will's children. Many of them were ostrasized because they looked white and could actually "pass" for white. To some colored people, they were too light to be fully trusted. This writer knew all but one or two of Will's children and at least three had reddish blond hair, blue eyes and very light skin. Neither of them was proud of it. They,in fact,hated their appearance because they were in a strange sociological place between the two races.
As stated in the introduction, there were three childen born to the union of Katie and Billy but we have not been able to find any traces of their lives to this point. The list:

BRANCHES OF THE TREE

JAMES	JOHN
WILL	JANE
MARGARET	MARYANN
SAM	HENRY
ELLA	DAN

Little information is known about Margaret Blue, daughter of Billy and Clara. However, we do know that she was married to an Oscar McVay whose whereabouts is unknown. They did have children whose names are also not known to us. Margaret lived in Cleveland, Ohio for many years before she relocated to Chicago. She died there some time between 1946 and 1959. Today, the third generation of Blue's still living are the children of Ella Blue Womble, namely; Lula Overton and Flora Alice Luke of Philadelphia.

All except Margaret settled in the Carthage area or in the immediate vicinity of Carthage. Most of them were of the Presbyterian faith. John Hall Presbyterian Church, Carthage, NC, which still struggles on in the face of diminishing membership, was the unifying force for the family. Will Blue and his sons and grandsons were caretakers of the ediface from its construction in the early thirties until the early fifties.

Send comments or suggestions to:

James F. Blue Jr., jblue@gte,net