Mary “Mamie” Sherwell Bridges (1867-1898) was the daughter of Francis “Frank” Ephraim Bridges (1842-1885) and his first wife Annie K. Williams (ca. 1845-1868). Frank E. Bridges married second, Sarah Elizabeth Anthony (1844-1934) in 1870, and they had five children. Frank E. Bridges died in 1885 from tuberculosis.

Mary “Mamie” Sherwell Bridges and her older sister, Alice C. Bridges (1866-1949) stayed with relatives Van [Evander McIver Speights 1840–1904] and his wife Clara (Baggott) Speights 1839–1921 during the 1880s in Hendersonville, Colleton County, SC while attending Greenville Female College (GFC).

Mary “Mamie” Sherwell Bridges married George T. Barr (1858-1956), having met through George’s sisters, her GFC classmates, Bessie and Annie Barr. They had five children; Clara Speights (1888-1964), George Daniel (1891-1979), Marjorie McIver (1894-1964), Evander Speights (1896-1898) and Mamie Sherwell (1898-1938). Mary Sherwell (Bridges) Barr died in December 1898 of tuberculosis. Marjorie’s father married second Leila Hollis and they had a daughter, Marjorie’s half-sister, Annie.

Marjorie attended Greenville High School graduating in 1911 and then attended Winthrop College. On October 18, 1914, she eloped with William T. O’Steen (1894-1966) and on November 26, 1915 their only daughter, Marjorie “Boots” Barr O’Steen was born in Morganton, N.C.

After living in Griffin, Ga. for a few years in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the O’Steen family returned to Greenville in 1934. Marjorie (Barr) O’Steen had a regular general interest column in The Greenville News beginning in 1936, “Telling You” and then “The Whatnot.” Beginning in 1941, O’Steen wrote the regular general interest column “Of This and That” under the pen name of “Josett Reedy” and her sister “Roberta Reedy.” At the end of 1946, O’Steen started using her real name and continued the column until 1963.

O’Steen lived in New York for one year during the time that her daughter was at Vanderbilt (1933-1937), and wrote “Unto These Hills,” a historical fiction novel describing the lives of families who came down from the mountains to work in the cotton mills in the upstate, but the 700-page book was never published.

O’Steen became ill in 1961 and moved in with her daughter after treatment at Vanderbilt Hospital. She died on January 9, 1964.

William “Bill” T. O’Steen was a veteran of WWI and had been associated with the F. W. Poe Manufacturing Company of Greenville, and had served as a manufacturing agent for the Textile Division of the A.E. Staley Starch Company of Illinois. William T. O’Steen died in 1966.

Daughter Marjorie “Boots” Barr O’Steen attended Vanderbilt University from 1933-1937 where she was a member of the Theta Sorority and received a B.A. degree. On October 8, 1938, she married Dr. John Kilgo Webb, a graduate of Wofford and a surgeon, and they had four daughters: Marjorie (1939-2019), Mary, Laurie (1943-2008), and Jane.

Dr. John Kilgo Webb died September 10, 2007 and Marjorie Barr (O’Steen) Webb died October 18, 2007.