A friend asked me recently if I ran into funny articles when searching old newspapers. Well, I run into all sorts of articles – some funny, some interesting and some really tragic. I will share some of each as I am moved to do, but today I’ll share one I find amusing. While articles I find don’t always involve my own family, this one happens be about a relative known to me as “Uncle Gus” who was the Jetersville postmaster.

Uncle Gus appears to have had a good sense of humor. This watermelon stunt took place early in Gus’s tenure as Jetersville postmaster and fortunately was well received by the Postmaster-General!

Uncle Gus’s real name is Augustus Rives Morris, and he is my 2x great uncle. His older brother is my great grandfather John Stewart Morris who I introduced in my inaugural blog post A May-December Romance (and a June wedding) in Jetersville, Virginia. Named for his father, Gus was born on 2 February 1871 in Richmond, Virginia, the second child of John Augustus Rives Morris and Ann Octavia Vaughan. The family, including Gus’s older brother [and my great grandfather] John Stewart Morris, age 3, were living in the City of Richmond, Virginia at 26^th and Main Streets. Their father was working at a tobacco stemmery called Walkers’ Factory located on 17^th Street.[1] A few years later, the family moved from Richmond to Amelia County, Virginia where Ann Octavia Vaughan owned Creekland farm, which she inherited from her father in 1851 when she was just seven years old. This is where Stewart and Gus would grow up and spend their lives.

Uncle Gus kept a store in Jetersville and served as Postmaster there for many years. On 8 March 1893, 22-year-old Gus Morris married 35-year-old Ella C. Rowlett who had been his teacher.[2] Their only child, a son they named Henry Preston Morris “called Preston” was born in 1895. “Aunt Ella” died on 4 April 1922 at the age of 65.[3] On 24 June 1924, at the age of 53, Uncle Gus married his second wife, Mary Ella “Mamie” Clark, age 45, and widow of Richard Farrar. They had one child; a daughter named Jane Rives Morris born in 1925. Uncle Gus died on 16 December 1958 at the age of 87. Aunt Mamie died on 7 June 1960 at the age of 80. Uncle Gus and both of his wives are interred at Jetersville Christian Church Cemetery in Amelia County.

Jane Rives Morris, Uncle Gus’s and Aunt Mamie’s daughter, married Charlie Reed. I remember them both of them well as we used to see them when visited my grandmother’s sister Ann (Morris) Lindsey. They lived in Virginia Beach.

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[1] Richmond, Virginia City Directories, 1871, 1873

[2] Virginia, Select Marriages, 1785-1940, Ancestry.com

[3] Virginia, Death Records, 1912-2014, Ancestry.com

• Amelia County Connections