Santa Claus

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 44 

#52ancestors
Prompt: Bearded 

It was a dark  and stormy night.

 I've always wanted to start a story with that line, and it really was a miserable night with snow steadily coming down.  A young girl answered the door late on Christmas Eve.  To her shock, Santa Claus stood in the door covered with a light sprinkling of snow.

 Well, it wasn't really Santa Claus, but he had a big bushy white beard and that was her first reaction.  It was really her Grandpa, Mitchel McCarley, who had come to visit.  He rode a horse from Carter County, Oklahoma to their house in Nocona, Texas in the freezing sleet and snow.  

Over the next few days, he became very ill with what was probably pneumonia.  He passed away almost 3 weeks later on January 16, 1916. 

His granddaughter remembered him being laid out in her bedroom for the few days that it took to get warm enough to have him buried in Nocona Cemetery.

When I heard this story it made me realize how traumatic it must have been on such a young girl to first think that Santa Claus had come to see her and then for him to  die and be laid out in her bedroom.

I have heard this story from a couple of different distant cousins. I'm not positive who the granddaughter was. I was told but just don't remember right now.  I thought it was Wanda but in checking records, she was not born until well after this date.  I suspect it was Loda Mae Stout, daughter of Sarah Alice McCarley and Henry Clay Stout.  Loda would have been about 5 years old when her Grandfather died and her family lived in Nocona in 1920.  If you know who it was, let me know and I will update this story. 

Mitchel Wilburn (Walter) McCarley,
born September 1846, Mississippi
died 16 January 1916, Nocona, Montague Co., TX

Finding our Native American Ancestor

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 35

Aug 26th-Sept 1st
#52ancestors
Prompt: Unforgettable

The most unforgettable thing happened in the National Archives in Fort Worth.  This was before the new building and the research room was small, dark, and cramped. It was lined with microfilm machines and cabinets of microfilm.  All of the previous times that I had been there, I spent hours searching microfilm.

 Before I arrived on this particular day, I had used PERSI to request a copy of an article from a genealogical society journal. The article talked about a Indian court case and mentioned my 2nd Great Grandfather and Great Grandfather McCarley.  My Grandmother had told me that we had Cherokee blood, but I was rather skeptical.  This was the first time that I found anything that might support her statement.

 I dutifully searched the Dawes rolls on microfilm to find the McCarley file. I didn't find it in the Cherokee Rolls, but in the Chickasaw rolls.  It was there but it was stamped cancelled.  At the time, I didn't know that there were families that had applied for and received their membership in the tribes and were placed on the Dawes Roll that were cancelled later. 

 The McCarley/McDuffy file was not on microfilm. It was an actual file of papers, lots of papers. The archivist took me to another room that had several copiers and some big tables. One wall was a window where I could see staff members working and they could watch what I was doing. They brought out the file box and I begin to go through it. The more I read the more excited I got. There was an affidavit of marriage that I had been searching for over 20 years. Affidavits of birth from the time period before birth certificates were recorded. There were documents that detailed relatives that I had never found information on before. Many of the pages had original signatures and I touched each of them in awe, thinking of my ancestors who sat down to sign these papers.

 I went to the archives that day with about $3.00 in change because I rarely found more than a few pages that I needed to copy. But I needed every page of these files so that I could spend the time needed to get every detail. I even went out to my car and went thought the seats to find more change.  I was able to copy about 128 pages from the files, not every page but almost.

 It turns out that the McCarley family had applied for membership on the basis of Nancy McDuffie, wife of Mitchel Wilburn McCarley being the granddaughter of Nancy Frasier, a full blood Chickasaw. The U.S. Government gave them their membership card but 3 years later it went before the Chickasaw Council. They hired a lawyer and there were three witnesses. Two of the witnesses were white and testified that Nancy Fraiser was a full blood Chickasaw and these were her grandchildren. One witness was a full blood Chickasaw and he testified that she was a full blood Chickasaw from the Big House Clan, but these were not her grandchildren.  The council ruled to cancel their membership cards.  Personally, I feel like the attorney didn't do a great job of representing them, but the court case produced records that I would never have had otherwise.

 As I copied the pages, I slowly became aware that as people passed me, they were grinning at me. There was just too much excitement to be contained. I didn't realize that as I waited for each copy to exit the machine, I was doing a happy dance.

Mitchel Wilburn (Walter) McCarley (Sept 1846 - Jan 1916)
Nancy R McDuffie (McCarley) (1848 -14 Oct 1899)
Nancy Frasier (?)

Mitchel & Nancy McCarley lived in Indian Territory by 1898 in Love & Carter County.  Their family eventually moved to Stephens County, OK.

Always Read it a 2nd time

I just realized in reading the obit again that there are some other things of interest in it.

It states that M.W. McCarley arrived in Texas in 1856. I knew from census records that he arrived before 1859 and after 1855, but this really pins the year down. It also lets me know which of his brothers and sisters had passed away before him.

The obit has his birthdate as March 16, 1846. That is a change from the Sept 1846 date found on a census record. And I should be able to figure out his exact death date once I find a calendar for 1916. Then I can update the Jan. 1916 date.

I guess it was too much to ask for them to list his grandparents.

Mitchel W. McCarley is my great great grandfather.

MITCHELL W MCCARLEY obit

January 21, 1916
The Nocona News
MITCHELL W MCCARLEY

Mitchell W McCarley, 69years old, died at home of his sister, Mrs S. M. BITER, Sunday evening. Funeral services were conducted by Rev J HENDERSON Monday morning and interment was at Nocona cemetery. Mr. McCarley was born near Holly Springs, Marshall County, Mississippi March 16, 1846. He came to Texas in 1856, settling near Tyler, Texas, then moved to Bowie, Montague County, then to Healdton, Oklahoma, his home at the time of his death. He came to Nocona in December to visit relatives and while here, he was taken with la grippe and pneumonia, ill for two weeks. He was a member of the Baptist church for 40 years. He is survived by nine children, one brother, S.A. MCCARLEY of Nocona, and two sisters, Mrs. S. M. BITER of Nocona and Mrs. M. P. WHITE of McCauley, Fisher County, Texas. Three children, his brother and both sisters were with him at the time of his death.

M. W. McCarley

As I watched TV tonight, I started searching rootsweb for McCarleys. I haven't checked it in a long time and basically was just wasting time. Except it wasn't a waste of time. I found an obituary for M.W. McCarley. I already knew most of the information. Mitchel Wilbern's granddaughter was a young girl when he died but she told me that he was visiting her house when he got sick and died. She said he rode a horse from Nocona where he lived to where she lived at Christmas. It was snowing and cold when he arrived. He got sick and died. He was buried there because the weather was too bad to take him home. The obituary confirmed what she told me. The obituary didn't mention that he looked like Santa Claus. His granddaughter said his full white beard made her think he was Santa Claus when he first arrived at their house.

I did learn one important thing from the obituary. His sister, Martha Paralee McCarley White, was living in McCauley, Fisher County, Texas. I have not been able to find her and I couldn't confirm her husband's name. The obit confirms her married name is White and gives me a place to search. There is an interesting family story about her that I will share in another post. Her story inspired me to choose the name Paralee for my SASS alias.