Hemings

Jillian Atkin Sim

Posted on December 9, 2022 by -

Jillian Sim, a writer and mother of two, was raised in the white world. Her grandmother, Ellen Love, an actress, told her many family stories heard from her mother, Anita Hemmings Love. She mentioned connections to Jefferson and an English sea captain, but never spoke of descent from enslaved people. Jill Sim learned of her African American ancestry only after her grandmother’s death in 1994. She published an account of her discovery in American Heritage, which tells the story of Anita Hemmings, who made headlines around the world in 1897 when it was revealed that she was passing for white at Vassar College.

Jill Sim believes, but cannot yet say with certainty, that she is descended from Elizabeth Hemings’s son Peter Hemings, a Monticello cook and brewer who worked as a tailor after he became free in 1827, purchased by a relative at the Monticello estate sale.

Gloria Roberts

Posted on December 9, 2022 by -

Gloria Roberts, daughter of Pearl Hinds and Frederick Madison Roberts, graduated from the University of Southern California and studied at the Juilliard School of Music. She lived most of her life in Europe, where she pursued a career as a concert pianist and accompanist, specializing in African American spirituals and the music of George Gershwin as well as European classical composers.  She lived as a child in the household of her grandmother Ellen Hemings Roberts and remembers her well.

Patricia Roberts

Posted on December 9, 2022 by -

Patricia Roberts, daughter of Pearl Hinds and Frederick Madison Roberts, attended business school at St. Louis University and returned to live in Los Angeles.  After years in business and as an executive secretary and insurance agent, she took great pleasure in retirement as a teacher of young children.

Mabel Hall Middleton

Posted on December 9, 2022 by -

Mabel Hall Pittman Middleton, writer and teacher, grew up in Lexington, Virginia. After serving in the Women’s Army Corps in World War II and graduating from Fisk University, she taught English in Mississippi. She obtained her doctorate from Southern Illinois University and chaired the English Department at Jackson State University. She was appointed to the Mississippi Humanities Council in 2000.

Dr. Middleton, who married and had three children, heard from her family of her connection to Monticello but did not hear of her ancestor Brown Colbert’s emigration to Liberia.