Uncovering Queer Ancestors – Bachelor Jack Edition

Both of my maternal grandparents were pack rats, which is how I came to have a lot of old family photos, many of people or places no one living can identify. Years ago, I started bringing the unknown ones to family gatherings, especially when I knew older relatives would be present. It helped put names to some faces, but plenty remain mysteries, like this one that has long puzzled me.

This photo of two men sitting cheek to cheek, one with his arm around the other, is the one in question. It appears to be from the early 20th century. No one in the family has been able to identify either man. It was among my maternal grandfather’s photos, and many agreed that the man on the right bears a family resemblance.

The body language stood out to me the first time I saw it. I’ve never been certain whether it’s queer-coded or if I’m interpreting it through a more modern lens, but others I’ve shown it to have also said it struck them as unusual.

Coming up with a possible identity for the man with a family resemblance was what set the wheels in motion. Even before coming out myself I took notice of the odd “bachelor uncle” in the family tree and speculated on the reasons they might not have married. But on my Mom’s paternal side, I couldn’t think of any likely candidates. Not only were there no bachelor uncles, I thought the man in the photo was probably older than my grandfather.

That sent me back another generation. On my grandfather’s father’s side there were no bachelor uncles and at first I thought that was the same for his mother’s family but my great grandmother had one brother who was a blank slate. I assumed he died young because there were no details about his life other than a birth year. Dying young in the 1800s was common enough I had never looked deeper.

Armed with the genealogical and newspaper records of the modern internet, I discovered an interesting story. The third of eight children to survive to adulthood, my great, great uncle Evander Bennett Jackson was born in 1853 in south Alabama.

Unlike the rest of his family who remained in south Alabama, he appears to have moved westward in his younger years. He shows up in Texas in the 1880 census, but by 1900 he is living in “Indian Territory,” in what is now the state of Oklahoma. That same year, “E.B. Jackson” begins to make appearances in the newspapers of Coal County. Most of the mentions are unremarkable: notes about him coming to town with farm produce or sharing news from a nearby farm community. It gives the impression that he may have been an eccentric, a friend of the writer, or possibly both.

He also appears to have been active in politics running for local office in his community between 1910 and 1916 as a member of the Socialist Party! There were multiple mentions of offices he had his eye on but I’ll share this one because it’s also where the nickname “Bachelor Jack” makes an appearance.

From The Centrahoma Record – May 20, 1916

It doesn’t appear he won any of the offices he ran for, but it’s striking that an ancestor, queer or not, was aligned with the Socialist Party in early 20th-century Oklahoma. The party then was a home for farmers and laborers pushing back against corporate and political power, but it also tended to attract people who were on the margins in other ways. For someone like “Batchelor Jack,” who didn’t follow the prescribed path of marriage and family, it may have offered a sense of purpose or belonging he didn’t find elsewhere. It adds to the impression that he walked a different path than the rest of his family.

E.B. Jackson appears to have died around 1920. The last newspaper mentions I find of him are related to his estate, appearing from April through December of that year. The first is his brother petitioning the court to name an A.M. Stuart as the estate’s administrator. It’s clear that if a brother in Alabama knew where he was, knew that he had died, and took steps to settle his affairs, Evander wasn’t entirely estranged from his family of origin.

Was Bachelor Jack a queer ancestor? From the records I have, it isn’t possible to say for certain. But I’ve read that queer history often requires reading between the lines and noticing the clues that wouldn’t have been recorded outright. My great, great uncle moved west without any close family, which echoes many known queer narratives, both past and present. There are stories about queer people in the 1800s who reinvented themselves in new places. Even his involvement in socialist politics, while far from definitive, suggests someone who may have felt out of step with the mainstream. And not just being a bachelor but being defined by it as a nickname suggests he was marked out as a bit different.

But there’s no way to know for certain if Bachelor Jack was a gay uncle. No records remain that tell the story of who he may have loved or whether anyone was with him when he died. I can’t even say for certain that he’s the man in the photo my grandfather saved. The photo itself just became the vehicle for digging into the history of a forgotten relative.

Regardless I hope this little essay honors the memory of these people. Part of the push for me to write this down was that it’s Pride Month and a podcast I recently listened to started the little wheels turning.

On this episode of the Q-MindBody podcast the host Darren Main and guest Peter Goddard discussed the concept of Queer Ancestors which I found intriguing. It made me realize I had noticed family members who didn’t quite fit, but never paused to be more curious about their stories. That conversation, combined with this small sliver of family history, made me realize I should write down what I do know. It’s a way to remember someone whose life might otherwise be lost to time.