What Did Willie Do?

He robbed a bank.  He robbed his guardian.  He was the get away driver during an armed bank robbery.  He murdered someone.

That’s the list of crimes that Willie’s siblings have said their brother might have done to deserve being in prison.  They don’t know what he did.  Or at least the younger ones don’t.  Perhaps Bernita, who was 2 years younger and lived near Willie knew but it seems she didn’t share the details with the others.  Apparently, the siblings didn’t talk of Willie as is evidenced by the fact that most of the nieces and nephews didn’t learn they ever had an uncle Willie until they themselves were grown, which was after he died.  All the nieces and nephews understand that Willie was in McAlester in Ardmore, Oklahoma where he contracted tuberculosis and was released to die at Bernita’s house.

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Who was he?

Jacob and Eva Lineberry’s first born child was William Seibert Lineberry who went by Willie and he was born May 12, 1902 in Hobart, Indian Territory.  That was only 4 months after Jacob and Eva married.  Jacob had wanted a family, he talked about it in his letters to his brother.  Over the years as Jacob continued to write to his brother he mentioned only his first three children and Willie was mentioned the most.  That actually seems odd to me because sometimes his letters were written within days of when a child was due or had just been born.  Here’s what Jacob says:

Hobart, Oklahoma
February 2, 1903

Alex was asking about my wife and baby. Tell him that her name was Keithley Eva of Carterville, Mo and our baby is a fine boy nine months old tomorrow he has been sitting alone since he was four months old and could crawl at six and has been so he could climb up by chairs for along time will send send you picture some time in the future. I suppose that some of your children is old enough to go to school.

July 5, 1903
Dear Bother and Family

I will try and answer your kind letter Rec’d to day. was glad to hear from you but sorry to hear of the death of your little boy. I realize it to be a Sad affair to loose one of our loved ones. I was always fond of children but never knew the real love and sympathy for a child as I now do. Our little boy taken very sick last night and has been sick all day but seems to be some better now. though I have been very uneasy about him. I think it is his teeth and hope he will be well in afew days, the only thing that we can do is to be in Peace with the Father that we may meet where we will.

July 8, ‘06
Dear Brother

Well Leander I am getting very anxious to come back home and see you all once more I will try and come this fall if I possibly can as I am not fixed to come now as I was afew yrs ago. but I kept neglecting and putting off and now I have a wife and babys to leave. If I come I will bring our boy with me did I tell you we had another boy he’s about 4 months old and a fine big boy.

…Well it hardly seems that is has been 13 yrs since I left Va but it has and I suppose things has changed wonderful since I left. All our sisters and Brothers grown since I left. I expect I would be surprised to come back I know there has been quite a difference with me. our oldest boy is 4 yrs and has been going school this summer he thinks it is a big trick.

Jacob included this in his letter to his brother, Spring 1907

Oklahoma City Okla, 9/5 1914

Mr. Leander Lineberry
Monarat Virginia

Dear Brother, I will try and write you afew lines as I have not heard from any of you for some time, I wrote you and sister Linia but have not heard from either of you, but nevertheless I hope this will find you all well as it leaves us. just now, our eldest boy has been sick for some time with Typhoid Fever but is well now, or at least I hope so as he had two back sets that kept him down for weeks, which caused me to loose about two months work I had just traded for a stock of goods when he took sick and had to dispose of them as the stock was at another Town, this is the first sickness that we have ever had in our family but we will have to bear our burdens as they come.

When I saw a photo of the young man I asked my grandmother Virginia who he was and she said matter of factly, “Willie, my oldest brother”.  She didn’t seem particularly sad or embarrassed rather there was an absence of connection, which was undoubtedly because she only knew him for the first 7 years of her life.  She did meet him again when she was 16 and visited him in prison and again when she was 17 when was dying of TB at their sister’s home.  Many years later when Virginia was about 86 years old she began writing in long hand some of her recollections, which included Willie:

Willie was never at home. I remember Mama getting him out of jail once. I also remember one time he came down the street riding on a horse. He had on a beautiful blue shirt. It was silk and blowing in the wind. He waved at me. I thought he was beautiful.

Editorial note: After their mother died the younger children were sent from Oklahoma to live with different family members in Virginia.

…Anyway I don’t remember anything about our trip to Virginia until we were in Pulaski, and our trip through the snow to Uncle Jake’s house, Feb. 14, 1922.  I remember Willie took us to Uncle Tommie’s they were a big family.  Then we went to Uncle Alex’s, then Uncle Lee’s, then to Uncle Ab’s.  Then to Uncle Dave’s. They wanted me so I could be with Ethel. Then Willie and the boys left me.  I only know that Joe and George went to Uncle Harve Bryant’s and Aunt Viola. I didn’t see any of them for a long time.

We went to McAlester to see Willie after we moved to the City (ca 1930). He was very sick with TB so Bernita talked to the warden (Mr. Phillips, he and all his family were friends of hers) and he let Willie come home. He only lived a few months. He had so many plans, because he wanted to live and teach Junior to play the sax.  We were very happy that we had him for a little while.

Editorial note: Virginia indicated that Willie learned to play the saxophone in the prison and played in the prison band.  She remembers a photo of him with the band but to date we have not found it.

Our Research

Willie’s youngest sister, Virginia, was my grandmother.  Since she was 12 years younger than Willie she was only 7 years old when their mother died and the family was split up.  When Virginia moved back to Oklahoma in 1929 the family visited Willie in prison.  Willie and my grandmother could not have known one another very well and she was just a child at the time he committed his crime.   However, she does have a few recollections of what her siblings told her happened.  Willie and a friend Ben Blue (Blew, Ballou, or sounds like that) probably committed their crime near Oilton, Creek County, Oklahoma in or soon after 1922, which was where Willie was living.  He may have robbed a bank or robbed a guardian or possibly was the driver of the get away vehicle in a bank robbery.  Grammy says that he was sentenced to 25 years at McAlester State Prison in Oklahoma.  He was released to either his sister, Bernita Curtess, or his brother Johnnie Lineberry, both in Oklahoma City, because he had tuberculosis.

Willie’s half-sister’s descendants have been told that he was imprisoned for murder.  The half-siblings share the same mother but after her death the half-siblings were raised by their father, Mr. Fox.  There may have been enough emotional distance that the truth was more freely shared with them.  Or, since there seems to have been some marital problems  just prior to their mother’s death, Mr. Fox may have been inclined to embellish the truth.

According to Willie’s death certificate he died at 202 SE 23rd St in Oklahoma City, which was his sister Bernita’s home.  Dr. Harper Wright was the attending physician who cared for Willie only from March 22, 1931 until March 26, 1931.  He said he last saw him alive on March 25 and that Willie died at 2:00 am on March 26, 1931 after a battle with tubercle tuberculosis for 18 months.  The undertaker was Watts & McAtee located at 1301 N. Robinson and Willie was buried in Fairlawn Cemetery on March 28, 1931, which is the same cemetery where his father was buried and later his brother, George.

In 1997 my mother, her cousin and I began writing & visiting various places to learn more about Willie.  Here’s a list of what we’ve done.

1. My mother and I went to the Oklahoma Historical Society Library and read through the Oilton newspapers for any mention of Willie and his crime but there was nothing.  My mother, her cousin and I went to the court houses of the contiguous counties to Creek county looking through the records they suggested and found no leads.
2. Received in March 1997 a letter from the Oklahoma Department of Corrections saying they have no record of Willie based on the information I provided.
3. Received in August 1997 a letter from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in response to our Freedom of Information Privacy Acts (FOIPA) request on Willie.  The letter said they have no records that indicate Willie had “ever been of investigatory interest to the FBI”.
4. Received in October 1997 a letter indicating that “a search revealed one possible record, although the information in the files is slightly different from that provided in your letter”.  They provided me with the address of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections to write to again.  The letter indicated that the OSBI was not created as a state agency until 1925 so it was not surprising to them to not find a record.  They also suggested that the offense may have resulted in an investigation by the FBI.
5. Received in November 1997 a letter from the Oklahoma Department of Corrections saying they searched their files again for me and again found no record.  They also suggested that the crime may have been under the jurisdiction of the federal government and suggested contacting the FBI.

This past September 2009 several of the cousins got together and one of the topics was Willie.  Through the conversation, which I’ve transcribed below, it’s clear how little the family knows of Willie.

ST:	Do you boys know what Willie was in prison for?
WL:	Murder
RL:	I heard it was armed robbery
WL:	He was an accessory or something like that.
MW:	He was in the get away car; he was supposed to have been the driver of the get away car.
DB:	That’s what mother (Virginia) said (referring to what MW said).
RL:	Did they plan an armed robbery and somebody got killed?
WL:	Apparently so.
RL:	Was it in Oklahoma City?
WL:	I don’t know.
MW:	I don’t know where.
RL:	Well, he was in McAlester.
ST:	Well we have, a few years ago DB, KB and I took a journey to Oilton and some various places in between to court house, court records, something. And looked through old newspaper clippings cause you would have thought it would have made the news somewhere. Creek County is where Oilton is. We never saw anything that was in the newspapers.
DB:	We also looked through all of the booking sheets.
KB:	We also contacted the
DB:	Prison system
KB:	Yes. State and Federal and (shakes her head no)
ST:	I had written to Corrections or something some years ago about William Seibert Lineberry asking for. We knew he was in McAlester, we knew that. Well, they couldn’t find any history, any record of it but there was a fire or something and they wrote back and said probably the record was destroyed in that.
RL:	When did he commit the crime?
ST:	Well, we don’t know.
RL:	And then when did he die?
ST:	He died March 26, 1931 at Grandma’s house (Bernita), at my Grandma’s house.
RL:	Well, I can remember when I was old enough to understand that there was a Willie
ST:	I didn’t know for years, I thought Grandma was the oldest.
RL:	Yep. I remember my Dad (Johnnie). Getting information out of my Dad was like talking to a totem pole sometimes. He was very, very quiet you know. How are you doing? Fine. What’s going on? (motions like he’s knocking to see if anyone is there). He was just quiet, didn’t talk much. So, he never had much to say about Willie other than, the main things that I remember was that he just never fit in the family. Was just always on his own. Was just like he lived in another family all his life. He was never there, he didn’t want to come home. And that was about all my dad ever said.
ST:	Well, you know, I asked Uncle Joe one time over at their house when we still had questions about Willie and cause I asked him if he remembered anything and he said no. But he also said something that was very significant he said “We didn’t have to know anything Sis (Bernita) always knew it. Grandma. (Everyone nodded in understanding). He said we didn’t have to know anything Sis always knew it.
KB:	I’m sure she did (everyone nodded in affirmation). I have no doubt she was the keeper.
DB:	Yeah (others also said yeah) in charge of that.
KB:	But whether she ever wrote it down or it just remained
ST:	I think it did because like I said I never knew. I thought Grandma was the oldest till for many years
RL:	I think I did too until I was old enough…
DB:	Yeah, I did not know about it either.
ST:	So, it wasn’t discussed (other shake heads indicating no).
RL:	It was not discussed.
ST:	It was never discussed.
DB:	I mentioned yesterday that I thought, based on Mother’s conversations, that it must have been the family secret (others indicate yes) and you just didn’t talk about it.
RL:	The family scandal or whatever.
ST:	I mean, CN, did you about Willie until…?
CN:	No, Mother told me. Daddy. You know I was going to nominate RL or WL to talk for me because Daddy never would say a word and he would go like this (she was off screen so I don’t know) if you even started it. If your mother (looked at DB she was referring to Virginia) tried to bring up something. You just didn’t talk about it. So, I really know nothing other than what tiny bit Mother may have known.
RL:	And he died of tuberculosis.
All:	Right (and nodding in affirmation).
ST:	On the couch, I understand. I don’t know maybe this was something. I don’t know why that sticks in my mind there. Oh no, maybe
DB:	I think there was a bed in a small room.
ST:	A bed, you know I’m thinking of something else that my Daddy had said that he can just remember him laying on the couch there at that particular house. Yeah, that must have been it.
TH:	Well, who was Willie?
All:	Laughs in recognition that Willie remains unknown family.
DB:	Good question, TH.
RL:	Nobody knows.
KB:	He was Uncle Joe’s brother.
TH:	Okay.
CN and DB:	The oldest
CN:	He was the oldest boy. Like they said none of us really even knew about him.
TH:	That’s what I was thinking it was. But
ST:	He was born in 1902, April the 12th. My Grandma was born May 5, 1904. Like I said, if you guys certainly didn’t hear of Willie as a child or teenager, I never did. Did you WL?
WL:	Dad probably talked about him in the 50s, I’d say. That’s when Dad was getting heavily into genealogy and I’ve got some of his notes talking about Willie.
KB:	Oh really?
WL:	Yes, it’s on your CD. (Note: WL scanned all of Leonard’s genealogy research and gave KB a CD of them)
DB:	Does he talk about it in the stuff you scanned? I read about 18 pages last night.
KB:	And that’s where you’re remembering that he was involved in a murder, there was a murder that took place?
WL:	Yeah
DB:	Huh? (as in that’s interesting)
RL:	That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that.
KB:	Grandma just said something…
DB:	Mother seemed to think it was an armed robbery.
KB:	And she didn’t know, she would just say I don’t know.
DB:	She would said, yeah, that he was. Mother seemed to think he was driving a get away car for a robbery.
WL:	Yeah.
KB:	I always got the impression she was trying to think the best of him so she was saying that he was the get away driver. That’s the way I perceived it.
JKB:	Sounds better than trigger man (everyone laughs).
RL:	Or, mastermind.
ST:	Did your Dad have more details than that?
WL:	Not that I can remember. No further than that.
KB:	You know, speaking of Uncle Leonard he was a story teller.
All:	Oh, definitely.
KB:	You know
WL:	He made up for Joe and Johnnie (everyone laughs)
RL:	He delegated it all to Leonard

I find Willie’s legacy so sad.  My hope in sharing this information is two-fold:

1. to show that he was loved by his parents and siblings
2. learn from others what additional steps that I might take to learn what crime Willie committed.  Can you help?

This is my contribution to Black Sheep Sunday where geneabloggers discuss their black sheep ancestors. The International Black Sheep Society of Genealogists (IBSSG) is an Association of Genealogists who have found “blacksheep ancestors” in their direct family lines, or under the “One Degree Rule” of the Society.

Further Readings

• McAlester State Penitentiary
• Lineberry Legacy – more about Jacob Lineberry, Willie’s father
• Jacob Lineberry’s letters
• Learning Uncle George’s Story – Willie’s siblings

Casing, Mining or…

Can you help me identify any aspect of these photos?

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I believe that these four photos are a series, which were among the photos in my great uncle George Lineberry’s photo album.  Unfortunately, they have no information on them to help identify the who, where or what.  However, here are a few facts & items that I have that may help solve this mystery.

According to my Grandmother Virginia by November 1929 her brothers George and Joe worked for their brother-in-law, Edson Curtess, on a casing crew in Oklahoma City.  I have a few family photos showing a Jennings Casing Crew sign.

In November (1929) we moved to the City. Edson bought a big house (it had 9 rooms, 5 bedrooms). It was at 202 SE 23 Oklahoma City. Edson had casing crews, so Joe and George worked with him. (The men 4 to 5 roomed with us.) Bernita and I did the washing and house cleaning. The men ate out always.

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Items dated October 1936 show that George worked for Carter Coal Company in Caretta, West Virginia and that he went to a doctor and used the bath house, which were deducted from his earnings.  By January 1937 he paid $2.00 for the State Road Tax in Caretta, West Virginia.

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Also among George’s things is an “Attendance Card U.M.W. of A. Local Union No. 5996 Amonate, Va”.  He was a member of the United Mine Workers and the card has two punches denoting that he paid his dues during the month of July, no year is noted.  Amonate is not very far from Caretta, WV so I imagine he was a member of this union before or after his employment at Carter Coal Company.

Then several months during 1940 George was unemployed based on George’s identification card from the Oklahoma State Employment Service.  At that time he was living in Oklahoma City and listed his occupation as puller casing.  Perhaps he had again been working for his brother -in-law.  A casing puller controls power hoisting equipment to pull casing, tubing, and pumping rods from oil and gas wells for repair and to lower repaired equipment, testing devices, and servicing tools into well: Attaches cable clamp to top of pump rod or casing and starts winch or hydraulic jack that raises rod or casing. (Webster’s Online Dictionary).

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It is plausible that the four unknown photos are from a place where George worked.  The photos are clearly in an area with mountains and trees and while Oklahoma is known for its flat lands it does have some mountains and trees in the eastern portion of the state.  My first inclination, however, is to think that the photos are from about 1937 when George was in Virginia, which has lots of mountains and trees.  I’m interested in hearing from others who can provide information to help determine what type of operation is depicted in the photos.

Further readings:

Appalachian History discusses metal scrips

Coalwood, where Carter Coal Company was located

Trapezoidal Sphinx – Treasure Chest Thursday

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Our ‘wall of mortality’ consists of old watches and clocks displayed on shelves that are attached to our living room wall.  Many of the timepieces are family heirlooms.  The Westclox Sphinx, pictured above, is one of those.  My uncle Mickey, knowing how important family history is to me, gave me this clock, which belonged to my maternal grandparents, Tommy and Virginia.

My mother said that sometime between 1953 & 1955 my grandparents purchased a new blond bedroom set that included a bookcase bed, a chest of drawers, a vanity type dresser with a fabric-covered stool, and this clock.  I suppose my Grammy liked the blond furniture in the Art Deco style because they also had a blond console TV, a beige sectional sofa and chair with blond end tables for the living room.  Every year for Christmas, my grandmother’s brother Leonard, gave her a subscription to Life Magazine, and according to my mother, there were always the most recent issues of Life Magazine on the sofa arm or the end table.  My Grammy was quite Hollywood in her fashion style and I imagine when she flipped through the June 1953 issue of Life and saw the Westclox ad (below) that stated “Clocks should be fashion-right, too” with the image of the glamorous woman, she would have been convinced that the Sphinx was for her.

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This cute, electric alarm clock has brass claw feet, is a trapezoidal shape and measures about 4 ” high.  The hour hand is a lighter color than the minute hand and the clock has an AM/PM indicator.  According to the Westclox Electric Clock Motor History patents 2,537,093 (which is on this clock) and 2,704,432 were used from 1948 through the early 1960’s.  Also on the Westclox website it indicates that the Sphinx (Springworld) was introduced in 1952.  This information supports my Mother’s recollection of when the clock was purchased.

After my grandfather died my Grammy married again and at that time gave the bedroom furniture to my Mom.  Over the years the furniture was refinished and moved across the nation many times.  Today, only the chest of drawers remains and it is still in use in my mother’s bedroom (pictured below).  The clock stayed with my Grammy and then with my Uncle until recently and now it’s on our ‘wall of mortality’.

Part of the original bedroom set purchased circa 1953

Travel Across The River

View 1: Noble Bridge on the South Canadian River

In 1896 Charles Edwin Garee, his parents and younger sister were new to the town of Noble, Oklahoma Territory. Twenty-three year old Ed, as he was called, purchased a block of land and was ready to build a house down the street from his parents, then return to Missouri, marry and bring his new bride back. While in Noble, which is situated near the South Canadian river, it became apparent to Ed that safe passage across the South Canadian was a necessity. The river was difficult to cross due to the sand bars and the sometimes treacherous flow, which resulted in loss of life. At that time, travel across the river was often done by locals using a horse-powered, cable-drawn ferry.  Ed was a wizard at mathematics developing his engineering knowledge on his own by reading books then designing and building bridges in Kansas and northern Oklahoma for the previous two years.ⁱ Knowing that his skill could help his new community and allow him to prosper, he postponed building a home and he and his new wife lived with Ed’s parents while he focused on designing and building a suspension bridge.

In Ed’s own words:

We existed along for a while, built one bridge in Logan Co. at a fair profit (before we moved) and finally got the big bridge at Noble done in August of 1898. It was a promotion affair. We had sold about enough shares in it to buy the material, and did most of the work ourselves, two men and four mules, with the help of a few sturdy fellows who had subscribed a share or two on the “work it out” basis. At the conclusion, we owned a controlling interest in the $7,000.00 structure for the near three years till the Canadian cut a new channel and left it proudly spanning a sand bar and a mudhole. Tolls from the bridge always paid some, but never as much as we had hoped. The town wanted us to turn the river back under the bridge, but we knew better, so they bought us out at a low price and tried it. After their failure, they went down river a quarter mile and built a beautiful leg bridge, using most of the material from the old one. As they were starting to paint it, came the largest rise of all time (1904) – two miles wide from the first of the Noble hill. It took every vestige of the new bridge and all of ours except the end that was anchored into the rocky hillside. That ended the bridge efforts for Noble. As the town workers removed all the usable material from the remaining part of the old one, a couple of my old friends brought me one of the 270 pound tower caps, and laid it in my front yard as a keepsake. It still lies there.

The red bridge was a suspension-type bridge that had a center span of 264 feet in length and two 400-feet approaches on the east side of the river.ⁱⁱ The approach must have included the road that led to the bridge since the total length of the bridge was 402 feet.

The dedication for the bridge was on August 11, 1898 with an estimated 4,000 in attendance (click the link to read the front page article).  A few short weeks later, on September 26, 1989, Ed and Eva welcomed the first of their five daughters, Rubi.  When Ed sold his shares of the bridge he cleared enough money to build a home, moving there just in time for their second daughter, Stella, to be born on September 11, 1900. Their other daughters (Elizabeth, Frances and Lucy) were also born in that house.

Ed had crossed another bridge in his life that contributed to the history of the county.  The next one, for Ed, was using the money from the bridge to enlarge his nursery business that went on to leave a “living mark throughout the state.”ⁱⁱⁱ

Charles Edwin Garee was my husband’s great grandfather (his maternal grandmother’s father).

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Photos of the Bridge

I have three photos of the bridge, obtained from the Cleveland Historical Society, which show three different angles from two different days.  After comparing the photos I surmise that two of the photos (views 1 and 2) were taken on the same day while the third has been identified as being taken on opening day, August 11, 1898.  Since the trees are in full bloom in all three they were all likely taken during the summer.  Views 1 and 2 show the buggies and horses crossing west on the bridge and clearly show pilings that were incomplete and the river was up and flowing so these were probably taken before the official opening.  Also, in those photos there is a herd of cattle on the other side, not a likely activity for a dedication event that included a picnic and baseball.  View 3, has been identified as being taken on August 11, the day of the dedication.  In that photo the pilings are fully boxed in on the top and sides.  While there does not seem to be a lot of activity in the background, two of the women on the bridge are carrying a basket, probably for the picnic described at the dedication.  All of the pedestrians on the bridge are clearly posing for the photograph, something you would expect in a dedication photo.  There are no shadows which suggests it was noon and I wonder if the photo was taken before the crowd arrived for the events of the day.  Each of the photos depict different means of transportation our ancestors used during this era: foot, horse and buggy.

• View 1
• View 2
• View 3

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Fascinating Interview with Ed Garee in 1964

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End Notes

i Jo H. Hoskinson, “Garee To Get National Garden Council Citation,” The Norman Transcript 11 May 1966: 11

ii Bonnie Speer, Cleveland County: Pride of the Promised Land: An Illustrated History (Norman, Okla.: Traditional Publishers, 1988), 57

iii Elviretta Heon, “Young Garee Helped Build a Suspension Bridge,” The Norman Transcript 13 September 1964: 11

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Additional Resources on C.E. Garee:

• K Bauman Tree House genealogy of C.E. Garee
• “Dedication of the Bridge,” Norman Transcript, 12 August 1898: 1
• Oklahoma Historical Society’s Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture
• Noble Chamber of Commerce
• ODT Memorial Highways and Bridges
• Ed Garee’s Stories
• Garee Family – on My Family Tree House
• Costume – photo Ed and his sister Elda when they were children

This post is my submission to the 18th Edition of Smile For The Camera, which is “Travel.”  Planes, trains and automobiles. Horses, mules, carts, and wagons. Bikes or on foot. Show us your family and how they traveled.

Mellie’s Birthday

November 8, 1879 in Fayette, Alabama Mellie Jane Welch was born.  Mellie, was my great grandmother who I never knew and since she died 2 years before my mother was born she didn’t know her either.  Sadly, we have no information on what she was like or what her interests were.

I have been told that my maternal grandfather loved her dearly and did not believe that his father treated her very well.  We only have 6 photos that Mellie was in and none of them have her smiling, and to me she looks sad in all of them.  So what do we know about her besides her birth date?

• She was the first born child of William Thomas and Mollie Mouro Welch nee Sanford.
• She had 8 siblings
• She married Zedic Hamilton Willis,who went by Hamp, on November 19, 1900 in Fayette, Alabama, he was 14 months her junior
• Hamp and Mellie had 9 children, 7 of whom lived to adulthood
• Their children were born in Fayette, Alabama and the Fulton or Tilden, Mississippi area
• Apparently, she and Hamp moved around a bit living in Lexington, Noble and Purcell, Oklahoma as well as Smyer, Texas and Itawamba County, Mississippi.
• She had 19 grandchildren 12 of whom she would have known, the oldest was 11 years old at the time of her death.
• She and Hamp were living in Noble at the time of their deaths, where they are buried.

Dragon Mug Heirloom – Treasure Chest Thursday

My husband, Keith, recalls:

As a child I can remember that these mugs were my absolute favorite to drink from. I was often helping my grandmother Elizabeth Bullard with landscaping and minor house repairs. It was always a treat to escape the heat of the Oklahoma summer by having a mug of freshly brewed iced tea. The pewter would be cold to the lips and the outside quickly became dripping with condensation. I would wipe the mug across my forehead in order to cool off a bit.

When my mother was young and living at home her brother Robert and their cousin Charles Peters were responsible for milking a Guernsey cow, one would milk in the morning and one in the evening. The milk would be brought into the house in a clean milk bucket. My mother would often wait until the cream had risen to the top of the bucket and skim some of that off into one of these pewter mugs. She would then add some sugar to the cream and then place a hand powered crank mixer into the mug. She would mix the cream and sugar with the mixer until the cream would become whipped cream like you would use for topping a pie. She would then eat the fresh whipped cream. Mom relates that the milk and cream from a Guernsey cow was of the very best quality. The cream would have a very sweet taste even without the addition of the sugar.

This pewter mug is one of the family curios in our cabinet. It stands about 4¾” tall, measures 3¼” across the top and 3⅞” across the bottom. Engraved around the side of the mug is a dragon.  There is a full handle attached at both the top and bottom of the mug.  Stamped on the bottom of the mug in a circular form are the words “Kuthing” and “Swatow”.  Across the circle formed by these words is the word “Pewter”.  Research indicates the manufacturer was Kut Hing and they were located in the town of Swatow in China.

This is one of three mugs sent back from China by my mother’s father, Elvin Bullard, while he was in the merchant marines. My uncle Robert Bullard has the other mug and the location of the third mug is unknown.

The dragon depicted on this mug is an Earth Dragon (Ti-Lung) and it rules all of the earth’s waters and rivers.  All of these dragons have the head of a camel, the horns of a deer, fiery eyes and a long beard. Its ears are like those of a cow, its paws like the tiger’s and its claws sharp like an eagle’s and it has 4 legs and 4 claws on each paw. Its neck is serpentine; it has the belly of a frog and has nine times nine (the extreme of a lucky number) scales of a carp. On each side of the dragons mouth are whiskers, under its chin or floating just out of reach is a bright pearl.   The earth dragon is a a symbol of happiness and good luck, an all around good dragon.

Dunaway and English Marry

One hundred seventy seven years ago today, November 1, 1832, my husband’s great, great, great, grandparents, Lewis (Louis) Tarwater Dunaway and Jane English, were married.  They were both born in Tennessee in the early 1800’s but were in Ray County, Missouri when they married.  They had 11 children and my husband descends from their son, William Franklin Dunaway who went by the name Ben.

What little the family knows of them is from Jane English Dunaway’s book entitled Dunaway – Allder – Pyle Family when she talks of them, her grandparents.  She said:

…they were of pioneering sturdy stock, who homesteaded and bought enough land at $1.25 per acre to give each of their seven surviving children a good farm.

…Jane English, was of the line of Englishes that goes back to the voyage of the Mayflower.  Her father, Thomas English, and mother, Letitia Campbell with her uncles, brothers, and her sister’s families settled in the territory which became Cedar County, Missouri, in 1832.  Cedar County was organized in 1847 with Thomas English as one of the three first judges or commissioners… About three or four generations back Letitia Campbell English had an ancestor, Alexander Campbell, the founder of The Disciples of Christ Church, often called the Christian Church.  For three or four generations afterward this bigoted family seemed to think they had a corner on the path to heaven, they were so intolerant of the other religious sects.  All they could think or talk about was baptism by immersion and communion every Sunday.

…Louis Tarwater Dunaway, born in 1809, had three half-siblings each had a different father, the mother being Eve Tarwater.  Apparently all were born in Tennessee but later moved to North Missouri.  One half-brother was Riley Blythe; one was a Fletcher; one, a Roland (or a half-sister who married a Roland).

Just why Eve Tarwater never married any one of her common law husbands is a matter of conjecture.  It could have been that there were no ministers around or Justices of the Peace, but that seems unlikely in the late 18th century.  Perhaps the reason was the one a colored woman gave for not marrying: ‘She did not want a lazy good-for-nothin’ man round eatin’ up her chillin’s food’.  However it was, Eve Tarwater was quite a character; her children when grown were reliable, responsible, and respected people, all of them solid citizens of Missouri.  So far as the family legend goes Ben’s paternal grandfather (Jane Dunaway’s father) was out of the blue, no record from whence he came or whither he went.

Other pieces of information I have found:

They moved from Ray County, Missouri in 1835.  “They settled on Sac river and farmed there until 1850, when he sold out and moved to Crisp Praire, east of Dadeville. …Lewis T. Dunaway was an outspoken and fearless Whig in politics,…” (Source: History of Dade County and Her People: from the date of the earliest settlement to the present time)

L.T. Dunaway was one of the first names for land entries in Dade County (1840 TWP 32, Range 26; 1845 TWP 33, Range 25).  By one account he eventually owned 1700 acres in Dade County.

Apparently L.T. was in charge of supplies for the Union Army during the Civil War and he died of dysentery at Wilson’s Creek battlefield in 1861.

Lewis Tarwater Dunaway purchased the following land patents:

Date	County, State	Acres	Location (all 5th PM Meridian)
1833-12-05	Ray, MO	82.7	Sect 23; Twp 51-N; Range 29-W
1838-09-07	Ray, MO	40.0	Sect 1; Twp 51-N; Range 29-W
1838-09-07	Ray, MO	40.0	Sect 12; Twp 51-N; Range 29-W
1844-09-10	Cedar, MO	160.0	Sect 24; Twp 33-N; Range 26-W
1844-09-10	Dade, MO	80.0	Sect 35, Twp 33-N; Range 26-W
1844-09-10	Dade, MO	80.0	Sect 34; Twp 33-N; Range 26-W
1844-09-10	Dade, MO	160.0	Sect 34; Twp 33-N; Range 26-W
1845-10-01	Dade, MO	73.4	Sect 4; Twp 32-N; Range 26-W
1848-08-03	Dade, MO	80.0	Sect 31; Twp 33-N; Range 25-W
1848-11-01	Dade, MO	40.0	Sect 28; Twp 33-N; Range 26-W
1852-11-01	Dade, MO	40.0	Sect 31; Twp 33-N; Range 25-W
1852-11-01	Dade, MO	40.0	Sect 14; Twp 32-N; Range 25-W
1852-11-01	Dade, MO	36.6	Sect 4; Twp 32-N; Range 26-W
1852-11-01	Dade, MO	40.0	Sect 11; Twp 32-N; Range 25-W
1852-11-01	Dade, MO	40.0	Sect 35; Twp 33-N; Range 26-W
1853-04-15	Dade, MO	40.0	Sect 11; Twp 32-N; Range 25-W
1853-12-01	Dade, MO	40.0	Sect 14; Twp 32-N; Range 25-W
1854-12-15	Dade, MO	40.0	Sect 10; Twp 32-N; Range 26-W
1856-03-15	Dade, MO	46.5	Sect 6; Twp 32-N; Range 25-W
1857-05-15	Dade, MO	36.6	Sect 3; Twp 32-N; Range 26-W
1857-05-15	Dade, MO	40.0	Sect 36; Twp 33-N; Range 26-W
1857-05-15	Dade, MO	40.0	Sect 34; Twp 33-N; Range 26-W
1859-06-01	Dade, MO	40.5	Sect 3; Twp 32-N; Range 26-W
1859-06-01	Dade, MO	40.0	Sect 31; Twp 33-N; Range 25-W
		1396.3

From the Ancestry.com U.S. General Land Office Records, 1796-1907 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2008. Original data: United States. Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records. Automated Records Project; Federal Land Patents, State Volumes. http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/. Springfield, Virginia: Bureau of Land Management, Eastern States, 2007.

I would love to learn more about Lewis’ parents but, to date, I have not had much success.  Do you have information to help find his parents?

Halloween, Crosswalk, and Our Mother’s Dresses – Saturday Night Fun

One Halloween, when I was about 4, I was with my Mom, my friend Stephanie and her mom walking around the neighborhood.  Stephanie stepped into the street from in between some parked cars and was hit by a car.  She was apparently thrown a good way but not seriously hurt, I don’t even think she was taken to the doctor but it left a fear of crossing the street in me that is still present today.  Ever since that time, I put my arm out to cause whoever I am crossing a street with to pause and look before stepping out.  I’m sure it looked a bit odd when I was little because I was doing that for all ages including adults.  It doesn’t seem as odd today except I’m likely to realize I’m doing it for strangers too, if I don’t force myself to stop.  I have only a couple of photos of me dressed up for Halloween, one my mom posted at DonnaB’s Weblog tonight and the other was in 1985 when I wore my mother’s 1958 high school prom dress to work on Halloween.

Kay wearing her mother's 1958 HS prom dress in 1985

A few years later, in 1988, I wore my Mom’s prom dress again and this time to a Halloween party where I met my future husband.  We were both wearing our mother’s dresses!  He wore a baby blue work dress with panty hose, high heels, a very padded bra, painted fingernails, and makeup (no wig, as I recall).  My husband is over 6′ tall as is his mother so he was quite noticeable to me and perhaps I was to him because we soon began talking and then dating.  Just last month we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary.  The 51 year old prom dress is safely tucked away in my cedar chest.

Up close of the glasses

There’s A Nice Ring To It – Treasure Chest Thursday

Click to enlarge

The size 5 sterling silver Cub Scout ring sits in our curio cabinet along with a photo of Keith wearing it and a postcard from him to his Grandmother.  In describing the history of the ring, Keith says:

Another of the family curios in our cabinet is a Cub Scout ring that I have owned since I was maybe 6 or 7.

It was given to me as a parting gift by my den mother of the Cub Scout pack I belonged to when we lived in Las Vegas, Nevada about 1966.  Dad had received orders that would take us to Honolulu, Hawaii.

I cannot remember the details of the organization such as pack number or anything like that.  I do remember our den mother was named Mrs. Regetti, that spelling is phonetic but her named rhymed with Spaghetti.  She lived in a very nice house with a pool in the back.  My mother told me that Mrs. Regetti’s husband was employed at one of the casinos.  I do remember my Cub Scout den all piling into her convertible to go Christmas caroling.

I wore the ring when we lived in Hawaii until I outgrew it.  Miraculously it did not get lost over the years like so many things like that will.

Click to enlarge

Keith’s mother managed to also save a postcard that Keith sent to his Grandmother Bullard while he was living in Hawaii.  It’s postmarked July 12, 1969 and Keith talks about his activities in Boy Scouts as well as his aunt, uncle and cousins’ visit with them.  He can’t imagine that his hunt and peck typing skills at the age of 10 managed to do this good of a job but he doesn’t recall who typed it for him.   Keith remembers that the typewriter they used was his Grandmother Bullard’s, which she used to type her thesis in 1928 before she married. (Garee, Elizabeth, “The relation of the Oklahoma inspection bureau to cities in Oklahoma.” M.S. Thesis, University of Oklahoma, 1928.)

Click to enlarge

Once Upon A Time…

Albid Nigh Bauman and his family migrated to New Orleans with some neighbors and the neighbors moved on to Grand Saline, Texas while Albid and his family moved to Shreveport, Louisiana by 1840.  Later, Albid still missed a neighbor girl who had moved to Grand Saline so he moved to Grand Saline, Texas and married that girl, Rebecca Stephenson.

The Family Bible photo courtesy of Larry Johnson; click to enlarge

On October 26, 1852 when Rebecca Stephenson was 16 years old, she and 21 year old Albid Bauman married in Upshur County, Texas.  Over the next twenty one years they had eleven children.  Then at the age of 37, while pregnant with their twelfth child, Rebecca contracted the bloody flux (something like severe diarrhea) and she and the baby (possibly named Molly) died.  They are buried together at Mechanicsville Cemetery also known as the Robbs/Bauman cemetery, near Mt. Sylvan, Texas behind a farmhouse and barn.  The inscription on Rebecca’s headstone reads “A devoted wife and Mother and a lover of the Lord Jesus.”

I have no images of Rebecca but I do have one of Albid taken on his wedding day with his second wife.  Within 6 months of Rebecca’s death, when Albid was 42 he married 24 year old Julia Ann Angeline Martha Clementine Higgins.  The photo is of a tintype (which are reversed) and their faces don’t seem very happy.  Martha (also called Julia) had married Robert Lowry first and they had 2 children together.  Over the next 17 years Albid and Martha had ten children.

Click to enlarge

Albid, fathered 22 children, counting the one unborn child, and of those, 20 lived to adulthood.  His last child was born almost 9 months after he died at the age of 60 in 1891.

I have been working for years to learn of all of his children’s children and am still working on it.  My husband descends from Albid and his first wife, Rebecca’s 8th child, George Washington Bauman.

My Posts about Albid:

• Wordless Wednesday – Albid’s business card
• Albid Nigh Bauman
• Tombstone Tuesday - stories about Albid as a father included

Further Information:

Mechanicsville -  on page 9 & 10 of this pdf is information about Albid and his wife Rebecca with some photos