While we have found no records to date, of Pap’s first wife, there are records that indicate he had a daughter, Linnie Smoote, who was born on June 14, 1950, in Ruleville, MS, outside of his marriage to Fannie Lou. Regardless of this infidelity, Fannie Lou loved Linnie and spoke of her in her letters to her good friend, Rose Fishman. 

During her first few years of marriage to Pap, Fannie Lou had at least two miscarriages. This could have been a result of Fannie Lou suffering from polio as a child, and because she suffered from polycystic ovarian syndrome. Fannie Lou often complained of a “knot in her stomach”, and the pain eventually became so severe, that Pap insisted she seek medical treatment. While she was hospitalized to remove the uterine tumor, the white doctor performed a hysterectomy on Fannie Lou without her knowledge or consent.

Despite that, the Hamers loved children and eventually adopted four daughters, all of them family members of Fannie Lou’s.

Dorothy Jean was eight-months-old when she was given to the Hamers by her mother, Fannie Lou’s sister, Maebel, shortly after they wed. Ten years later, they took in Vergie Ree, another Townsend relative, who had been badly burned when she was five-months-old. Her parents had 17 other children and were unable to adequately provide the care she needed. She was allegedly abandoned in a plastic bag in a car. Vergie’s uncle found her and brought her to the Hamers in a desperate attempt to save her life. Once they nursed her back to health, Vergie’s mother, Mary Lou Townsend Taylor, wanted her back. Not long after she was returned to her large family, the same uncle noticed the baby was being neglected, yet again, and he returned Vergie to the Hamers, who insisted she was there to stay.

When she was 21, and while her mother, Fannie Lou was on the road working with voter registration, an unwed Dorothy Jean became pregnant with her first child, Lenora Aretha. She was born on Oct. 29, 1965.

Eleven-months later, on September 22, 1966, Dorothy had her second child, Jacqueline Denise. A “sickly baby”, Dorothy had been born with aplastic anemia, meaning her body did not produce enough new blood cells. As a result of that, and other health issues, Dorothy passed away on May 24, 1967, at the age of 22.

Dorothy Jean had married the father of her children, Sylvester Hall in the Spring of 1966.  But several months after her death, he was drafted to fight overseas.

When he returned from Vietnam with injuries so severe, he required kidney dialysis for the rest of his life, his parents struggled to care for him and his two young daughters. They told the Hamers, who had been helping to care for Lenora and Jacqueline, they could only adopt one of the girls and see after their injured son. They made their plea for Lenora who was healthier than Jacqueline.

Knowing her daughter, Dorothy Jean, would not want her children separated, Fannie Lou and Pap consulted a lawyer and with Hall’s consent, officially adopted Jacqueline and Lenora in 1969. The Hamers raised Jacqueline and Lenora, whom they affectionately called, Cookie and Nook, as their own, and periodically, Pap’s daughter, Linnie.

After Fannie Lou’s death on March 14, 1977, Pap continued to raise Cookie and Nook with the help of neighbors and female relatives.   

Linnie died at 47 on May 13, 1998. Vergie, Lenora and Jacqueline all eventually married and had children. Vergie passed away at the age of 64 on Oct. 25, 2017. Lenora on July 13, 2019 at the age of 53. And Jacqueline on March 27, 2023 at the age of 56.

(Content in this section compiled by Maegan Parker Brooks and the Hamer family)

Vergie Hamer Faulkner

The second child adopted by Pap and Fannie Lou Hamer, Vergie passed away two weeks after attending a celebration of her mother’s 100th birthday on Oct. 6, 2017 in Ruleville, MS.

Vergie had also just appeared in the MPB special, “Fannie Lou Hamer: Stand Up.”

In a tribute to her, MPB released this video of Vergie talking about her life with the Hamers.