Mary Leticia Kirkman Call

11 July 1801 – 28 February 1836

     Mary Leticia Kirkman Call was born in Rockfield, Ireland on July 11, 1801. Her family immigrated to America when she was young and were settled in Nashville, Tennessee by 1809.[1] It was there she met Richard Keith Call while he was working under then Senator Andrew Jackson in 1819. She and Call eloped in 1824 and moved to Tallahassee in 1825, where Call purchased 640 acres of land. The family originally lived in a likely wood-framed house before construction on the Call-Collins House by enslaved craftspeople began around 1835. During her time in Tallahassee, Mary gave birth to eight (Ellen, Mary Rachel, Laura Randall, Mary Ann, Richard Jackson, Mary Laura and two unnamed twins) children. Two of her children, twin girls, died after their birth in 1826. Mary Rachel Call died at four years old, while Laura Randall, Mary Ann, and Richard Jackson died in 1834 from malaria. Four of these children are buried in three graves in the Call-Collins Family Cemetery. It is not certain where the twins are buried. The Call family welcomed their last child Mary Laura in 1835, but a year later Mary Kirkman Call passed away. Following her passing, Call wrote to Mary’s grandmother, Barbara Kirkman, to inform her of Mary’s passing, in which he expressed immense grief at their shared loss.[2] Her eldest child, Ellen, was at school in Maryland at the time and little Mary Laura was sent to live with her maternal grandmother.

 Letter from Richard Keith Call to Barbara Kirkman on the death of Mary Kirkman Call.

[1] Menton, The Grove, 116

[2] Letter from Richard Keith Call to Barbara Kirkman on the death of Mary Kirkman Call, 1836-03-03 https://floridamemory.com/items/show/180799