Hume, Cora Owens, Journals, 1863-1866

Held by The Filson Historical Society

Creator: Hume, Cora Owens, 1848-1939

Title: Journals, 1863-1866

Rights: For information regarding literary and copyright interest for these papers, contact the Collections Department.

Size of Collection: 3 original volumes, two volumes of transcripts, and one photocopied family scrapbook (0.66 cu.ft.)

Location Number: Mss. A H921 1-3

Scope and Content Note
Private journal, January 19, 1863-June 5, 1866, kept by Cora Owens, of Louisville, Kentucky. It contains a record of events in Louisville during the Civil War from the perspective of a Confederate sympathizer. Also includes notes on her schooling at Miss Marsh’s school in Louisville, at Ingham University in Leroy, Canada, and at Patapsco Institute, in Patapsco, Maryland. Journals have been fully transcribed. Collection also includes a scrapbook kept on the family of Cora Owens which gives more information about her later life, including her marriages and children.

Biographical Note
Cora Owens was born on June 21, 1848 in Tennessee to William Owens, Jr. and Martha Baldridge Owens. In 1859, the Owens family moved to Columbus, Kentucky when Mr. Owens gained employment as the cashier of the Bank of Kentucky, Columbus Branch. Owens and her father were visiting relatives in Mississippi when the Civil War broke out; Cora remained cut off from her family for some time in Mississippi. In April 1862, Mrs. Owens and her daughters, along with the four enslaved people (“Uncle” Minor Hawkins, “Aunt” Letty Hawkins, and Ann and Fannie Owens) moved to Louisville, where the Owens lived northeast of the city, in the Crescent Hill area. Later, Owens moved to New York State and Maryland where she attended boarding school until 1866. After returning to Louisville, Cora Owens went on to marry Edward J. Pope, an ex-Confederate, in Louisville in January 1869, and had a son in October who died a few months later. Cora’s husband died of tuberculosis in 1871. Cora married again in 1874, to William Garvin Hume, and had 3 children, William Garvin Jr., in 1875, Edith, in 1879, Martha, in 1880. Cora’s second husband died in 1881, also of tuberculosis, and she struggled financially to raise her three children. Cora Owens Hume died on January 2, 1939 and is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.

Folder List

Vol. 1 1863, Jan. 19 – July 23, 1864 (click to read transcript)

Vol. 2 1864, July 28 – Aug. 27, 1865 (click to read transcript)

Vol. 3 1865, Nov. 3 – June 5, 1866 (click to read transcript)

Scrapbook (photocopied) (click to view scan)