RBD
Adell (Bryant) Ross
June 21, 1897 to October 18, 1978
Adell (Bryant) Ross is better known as "Big Mama," a name her grandchildren called her. Big Mama was born on June 21, 1897 in Mount Enterprise, TX and had 12 children--her first from Landon Isaac, two from her first husband Homer Tatum, a soldier who died while they were married, and nine from her last husband Rev. Enoch Elijah Ross, Sr., who died in Dallas in 1949. After Enoch, Adell remained unmarried 29 years until her death in Los Angeles in 1978.
In Her Honor
Under the leadership of the eldest Ross child, Corene Riley, Adell's children started an annual reunion in their mother's honor in Los Angeles the year after her death. Corene said among her mama's last requests was to "keep my children together." If you know Big Mama you know she also prayed for this! The reunion ran for more than 10 years at parks including Griffith and Cheviot Hills in Los Angeles and Centinela in Inglewood. We stopped holding it after the pain of losing so many more family members was too much to bear. Click here for our 2013 reunion website.
Our First Reunion in Texas
Our Adell Family Reunion in 2024 in Texas will be the first time Adell's descendants will hold a reunion in her honor since we stopped holding them in the Los Angeles area. It will also be the first time we will meet in Texas! The historic family gathering will be held at Skyline Ranch in Dallas and several family sites in East Texas. Other family activities include Facebook and Instagram groups, a virtual reunion, and this website. Thank you to all family members who contributed.
Adell's Story
Rev. John and Mary (Hartsfield) Bryant -- Adell's parents
Adell's parents Rev. John and Mary (Hartsfield) Bryant owned the 80 acres of land in Mount Enterprise, TX where they raised their children as farmers. Family history tells of John saying he "worked from sun up to sun down" to raise the funds to buy his property in the late 1800s. John's parents, Charlie and Emaline (Miles) Bryant, were slaves when freedom came in 1865. Charlie was enslaved on a Bryant farm in East Texas while Emaline was held in Arkansas by the Miles family. Family history says that Emaline was nine years old when slavers brought her from Africa to the United States in 1849 after the Transatlantic Slave Trade was outlawed. DNA test results from several family members have traced our Bryant bloodline to the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria.
Charlie and Emaline (Miles) Bryant -- John's parents
Charlie and Emaline bought their own land in Garrison, TX, working as farmers raising their children. While Emaline lived till her 80s in East Texas, Charlie was reportedly lynched. Family history says that his eldest son Edmond "lost" the land over a small debt after his father went missing. The family was able to keep some of the land for the church, Egypt Baptist, Charlie and Emaline helped found on their property. The church exists today as New Liberty Baptist Church with family members still attending and raising funds to rebuild after the original building had to be demolished. The church is next to a cemetery with the graves of John, Mary, Emaline, and other family from the Bryant and Hartsfield lineages.
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Henry and Josephine Hartsfield -- Mary's parents
Mary's parents were Henry and Josephine Hartsfield. Nothing is known as yet about Josephine, other than that she was African American. Henry is said to have been a full Cherokee with five wives and a long black ponytail like his daughter, Mary. We have not found any records on either Henry or Josephine having been enslaved. They likely lived on a reservation before moving to East Texas where many Cherokees received land grants from the government.
Adell's Move from Dallas to Los Angeles
Adell's husband Rev. Enoch Elijah Ross died in 1949 while sitting in his chair in the home they owned on Toronto Street in Dallas. The family had moved there after living as sharecroppers for many years on the Griffith League Farm in Chisholm, TX, where most of their children were born and raised. Adell lived in Dallas as a widow, raising her youngest kids while some of her elder children and their spouses lived with her to help with expenses. Adell moved from Dallas to Los Angeles in 1957 to live with her daughter Corene (Ross) Riley who had moved there in the 1940s when the military stationed her husband in the city after the Pearl Harbor bombing. The rest of Adell's nine Ross children, except for the eldest son James, followed her to Los Angeles, many staying first with Corene and her husband at their house in Watts. Meanwhile, Adell traveled the country as a Christian evangelist before serving as church mother at Greater St. Paul COGIC in Los Angeles where her son, Rev. Horace C. Ross, was pastor.
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Through many successes and challenges, Adell's family has grown with hundreds of grandkids and other generations from Texas to California and beyond in her Isaac, Ross, and Tatum families.