My great grandmother, Mattie Heck Hatchett, was born on February 23, 1878 in Arkansas to Louis and Nancy Heck. She was the wife of Evva Hatchett and the mother of 12 children. She lived in Jackson county Arkansas until her death on August 23, 1924.

I remember a large photo of her hanging on the wall at my PawPaw’s house when I was young. That may be when my love of family photos started because I remember just staring at her photo wondering about her life. So when I started my research journey, I was excited to be able to finally put a story with the photo I remember seeing as a child. But my research of her has been more difficult than I thought it would be. The first hurdle in my research of my great grandmother, Mattie was figuring out how her maiden name is spelled. I have seen it spelled Heck, Hack, Hecht, and Hetck. But I have her parent’s names, so my hope is that I will be able to find them together as a family unit on the 1880 US census, and then I will get more information about her parents to find them on the 1870 US census. I have a research plan, now I just need to find the time to actually do it. Wish me luck.