Tragedy Strikes Our Family

Our grandmother, Carrie Mae Merritt, was born on April 1st, 1910, in Bickley, Georgia; the last of nine children born to her parents, George and Mary, who were then 43 years old. She is counted there May 4th on the 1910 census, one-month-old, and, strangely enough, named Lucile. No one knows why. 

Zilpha (Musgrove) and Joe Merritt

When she was thirteen, her older brother, Joe Cecil Merritt, married Zilpha Marie Musgrove, sister of our grandfather, Willis Edgar Musgrove. Our grandfather was thirteen at the time as well. Six years later, on June 13th, 1929, our grandparents wed.

Carrie Mae (Merritt) and Willis Edgar Musgrove

Growing up, I heard Grandma Musgrove's youngest child, Freddie, was accidentally shot and killed while playing with guns. I didn't know until my search for our family's past that the boy who fired the gun was his older double first cousin, our great aunt, Zilpha, and uncle, Joe's boy, Willie.

Freddie Musgrove

Freddie was just shy of nine years old. It was December 26th, and he was shot with a shotgun his cousin Willie got for Christmas. According to my Uncle Joe, Freddie's brother, just a few years older;

Uncle Joe and Freddie Musgrove

“Willie was playing a game with us to see if we could guess if the gun was loaded or not. Then he would throw up the gun and pull the trigger. Sometimes it would shoot and other times it wouldn't. I suppose he forgot it was loaded, and he pointed it at Freddie and said, 'It's your time to die' and pulled the trigger.”

Freddie’s grave marker at
Mount Green Cemetery 
in Ware County, Ga.

Note: Relationships, such as grandmother, 2nd great, etc., are expressed from the perspective of the grandchildren of Willis Edgar and Carrie (known as) Mae (Merritt) Musgrove.