Robert Hoey Family

This is my great-grandfather, Robert Hoey, my great-grandmother, Mary Slay Sumrall and their children. My grandfather, Robert Wesley Hoey is the young boy in the front. I estimate this photo to have been taken around 1914, assuming that my grandfather is about 8 years old in this photograph. Of course, I'm not a very good judge of ages so I could be off by several years. My mother left a scrap book full of old photos like this and even though I don't have memories of most of these people, because they were long gone before I was born, I still think it is important to record who they were so that future generations won't look at the photos, like I have done with many of them in the scrapbook, and say, "Huh? Who is that?" My great grandparents had six children, all of which are in this photograph. They are, from oldest to youngest, Samuel, Mary Ann (Annie), Julius, Sarah (Sadie), Virginia (Virgie), and my grandfather, Robert Wesley. I think, based upon their ages, it is obvious who is who in this photo. This photo was probably taken in Lumberton, Mississippi where my grandfather was born and raised.

Although the memories are few, I do remember some of the names in this family. When we would visit my grandmother's house in Bogalusa, Louisiana, I would hear these names all the time especially the names, Annie, Sadie and Virgie. I do have a fuzzy memory of visiting Annie's house one day. We were walking down a sidewalk which was all distorted from the growth of tree roots beneath it. Huge trees, of all sorts such as pine and fig, grow abundantly in this area and it seems that they provided a canopy over the sidewalk. Usually the trees have green moss growing on them because of the humidity. There always seems to be a musty smell from all the humidity, plant growth and decay. It was a small house with a little fence in front of it. I remember we went in and she was sitting there in a chair. I want to say a rocking chair but I really am getting into fuzzy. She was tallish and skinny. It seems like she said a few things to or about me and then I scampered off because the whole experience got boring as the adults all sat around and talked. I was pretty young so I don't remember much more than that.

The Hoey family has always been an intrigue for me and somewhat of a mystery. Robert's father came to the U.S. from Ireland in the late 1840s. He located in New Orleans but has been very difficult to track from there. To the best of my knowledge, Robert is the only child he seems to have had because I just can't find any siblings for him. Even Robert is a mystery and difficult to track between the time he was born and when he got married. He was a painter at one time. Somewhere, I have an old business card from him. Even his parentage is somewhat of a mystery. I have an LDS baptism record for him which claims his parents to be James Hoey and Catherine Williams yet I also have his funeral home record which lists his parents as Robert Hoey and someone else (can't remember at the moment). I suspect that James is the correct parent because that would have been an original record by him whereas the funeral home record information would have come from someone else. However, I have to wonder why the family would have thought that it was someone else. Is there a story there? Some kind of intrigue? I have, for over 20 years, on and off, been trying to track this story down but all I usually end up with is more questions and plenty of dead-ends. I may never know until after this life but I'm sure it will be an interesting story when I do find out.