Grace Truman Jordan Evans

  

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 3 (Jan 18-24)
Prompt: Namesake
#52ancestors

 

Grace Truman Jordan

 Grace Truman Jordan was born on April 6, 1909 to William and Minnie Lee Jordan.  There was a mystery pertaining to Minnie Lee’s parents. The only record I could find for years was the 1880 census record where M. L. Dottry, was living with her parents,  T  and J Dottery.  For years that is all we knew about her parents.  It seemed easy to assume that Grace Truman Jordan’s name might be the clue needed to find her grandparents. Surely, she was named after her grandfather, T Dottery, making his given name, Truman.

 Alas, that proved to be wrong, her grandfather’s name turned out to be Thomas G. Dottery, which is another story. Where did the name Truman come from?  It seemed like it should be a surname passed down. Could she have been a distant relative to Harry S Truman? That proved to be wrong, too. 

 In the 1850s, Sallie Rochester Ford published a serial story in the Christian Repository owned by her husband, Reverend Samuel Ford titled, Grace Truman, or Love and Principal.  The serial was published as a book in 1857 and republished multiple times[1].  The 1886 edition included an afterword in which “Ford noted that the work was semi-autobiographical and referenced her own personal and public struggle as she converted from Presbyterianism to the Baptist movement[2].” This book was influential in Baptist circles for many years.

 The two sides of the character, Grace Truman, spoke to many of the faithful Baptist women of the last half of the 1800s and early 1900s.  While Grace Truman was the epitome of the faithful, submissive, devoted wife, she was also a fierce warrior of her faith.  She reflected a strength that appealed to many women of that time. The book, Grace Truman, must have made an impression on Minnie Lee Dottery Jordan for her to have named her daughter, Grace Truman.  In fact, there were many girls named Grace Truman after different editions of the book were published. A search of the first name “Grace Truman” with no other information gives over 4 million results in Ancestry.com and 1,184 results in the family trees. 

Grace Truman Evans with niece, Christine and sons, John (Son) and Ed

 Grace Truman Jordan’s namesake was not another relative but a fictional character, a woman of faith. It gives an insight into the character and faith of her mother, Minnie Lee Dottery Jordan.

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[1]Sallie Rochester Ford.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Rochester_Ford

[2] Sallie Rochester Ford: fiction, faith, and femininity: nineteenth-century Baptists offered two general, and different,  cultural messages to women within the church regarding social expectations. - Free Online Library (thefreelibrary.com). https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Sallie+Rochester+Ford:+fiction,+faith,+and+femininity:...-a0138811971

Gunslingers shoot down McCarley

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 2- 2021
#52ancestors 
Prompt: Family Legend

 In the old west, Malcom McCarley and one of his brothers, were fixing a fence. A couple of gunslingers came by and shot one of the brothers. Their father, Mitchel McCarley and another brother rode to Bowie to post a bond. The brother who was able to get away  and a fourth brother rode out after the killers. One of the brothers came back and the other was never seen again.  

 That is the family legend that my Mother brought home from a reunion one year. Despite my grilling her, that is all she knew. Was this a true story and if so, who was the McCarley brother who was shot by a gunslinger?   

 I was very curious about the idea of them riding to Bowie to post a bond.  I thought a bond is what you paid to get out of jail until your trial started. But a legal definition is that "someone receives a bond (monetary payment) and promises to engage in a specific act. Then a failure to perform results in them forfeiting the money. So a bond is an incentive to do something.  I went to the courthouse in Montague County, where Bowie, Texas is located.  While I found some very interesting things, but I didn't find anything about a bond being posted.  I could only guess that it was some type of reward for finding the killer.  

 As I discovered, many of the details in the original story were wrong. In sorting out the brothers, I started with reviewing Mitchel McCarley's sons and finding when they died. Using census records, I determined their last census record and was able to find the date of death for most of them.   Eli and James seemed to disappear after the 1900 census, so I began to concentrate on finding them.

 Then due to the new rootsweb message boards, I made contact with my Mother's 2nd cousin, Jim Hupp, gave me more details about the story as he had heard it. 

 Jim and Eli McCarley were repairing a fence that had been cut during the fence wars of Texas when a group of gunslingers rode up. Jim and Eli were unarmed but the gunslingers shot and killed Jim anyway. Eli got away. Their father, Mitchel McCarley, and another brother, Sidney, rode to Durant to post a reward. While they were gone, Eli and another brother, decided to ride out after them men who shot Jim. The unknown brother returned to Nocona, but the other brother disappeared. A few months later his family disappeared. It was believed that they went to California.

 As I continued to research, I found that James (Jim) McCarley died on April 6, 1904 and was buried in Marshall County, Oklahoma. Of the older boys in the family, Jim is the only one who died that early in the 1900s.  Eli disappeared in the county records around that time, so it appeared that part of the story is consistent. Since he died in Indian Territory, it makes more sense that  Mitchel and Sidney rode to Durant, Oklahoma rather than Bowie, Texas. I haven't been to the courthouse in Durant but the courthouse in Montague County where Bowie is located did not have any records about a reward or about the killing.

Sometime later, when the Library of Congress started digitizing newspapers in the "Chronicling America" collection, I found these articles in The Daily Ardmoreite. 

 April 8, 1904. Henry Paris, who was present at the killing of Jim McCarley by his brother, Oscar Paris, who escaped, was bound over without bail at his trial yesterday.

The Daily Ardmoreite, April 6, 1904.   Ardmore, I.T., April 8 - ? McCarley was shot and instantly killed Wednesday morning, three miles southeast of Madill. Oscar Paris is alleged to have done the shooting. The two men had quarreled about some land, and, it is said, Paris shot McCarley in the mouth, the ball passing through and breaking his neck. Both men were farmers. 

 

Another article, called it a disagreement among neighbors. Oscar Parish or Paris was eventually caught and bound over for trial.  I have searched the court records in several courthouses in Oklahoma and the pre statehood court records housed at the regional archives in Fort Worth, Texas, but I still have not found the trial of Oscar Parish. However the archivist in Ft Worth told me that if the case lasted past statehood, which was possible, then the records would still be at the Oklahoma courthouse.

 Just recently in searching the "Chronicling America" database, I found the following excerpt from a column titled " Technical Points Not in Favor: Criminal Court of Appeals Not Hunting for Excuses to Set Aside Verdicts" in The Guthrie Daily Leader, dated May 10, 1911.

The case of Oscar Paris, sentenced to one year in prison and fined $100 for manslaughter, is reversed in an opinion by Judge Doyle, because the state was allowed to impeach one of its own witnesses, whose testimony helped out Paris' claim of self-defense. Paris killed J.W. McCarly south of Madill on April 6, 1904. 

So, it appears that Oscar Paris/Parish, did not serve any time for killing Jim McCarley.I am still looking for the court case and the appeals. If as in our family story, Jim was unarmed, how could it be self defense? Perhaps that is another detail that was wrong.

And the brother who disappeared? According to census records, Malcolm and his wife, Cassie are living in Socorro, New Mexico in 1910 and Eli lived in Love County, Oklahoma in 1910 until his death in 1933. Love County is very near where the rest of the family was living during those years, so perhaps, it was Malcolm who disappeared from the family.

Godfrey Ragsdale

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 1- 2021
#52ancestors
Prompt: Beginnings

Godfrey Ragsdale

Most of my family beginnings are in the early records of the new country, United States of America. Some go back to the colonization time period with only one line coming to America in the late 1800s.

 One of the earliest which seems as much myth as fact concerns the Ragsdale family.  The Ragsdale family goes back to Robert Ragsdale born in England in 1484.  His son, Henry, was born in 1510 in Kneeton, Nottinghamshire, England. I don't have all the documentation to prove the line back this far, but it is one of my goals this year to get the proofs back to colonial times. William Ragsdale, born in 1738, is my original DAR ancestor.

 Godfrey Ragsdale, Sr. was born in 1615 in Nottinghamshire, England and was the first Ragsdale to immigrate to the new world. Unfortunately, it did not turn out well for him and his wife, Mary.

 In 1642, Godfrey bought land from John Butler in Virginia near Old Town in Henrico County. In 1644, Opechancanough, chief of Tsenacomoco, led the third assault against the English Colonists.  There were approximately 400 colonials killed in the attack on the outlying plantations around Jamestown [1]. In the 1644 attack, Godfrey and his wife, Mary, lost their lives there. 

 Family tradition is that Godfrey and Mary, hid their son, Godfrey Jr. during the attack.  Their infant son was found after the attack and was raised by his maternal grandparents.  Godfrey Jr was willed land in 1646 from John Cookney. Speculation is that John Cookney was Godfrey Jr's maternal Grandfather, making his mother, Mary Cookney [2]. There is some disagreement in that some researchers believe the Cookney's were neighbors who found the infant and raised him as their own as they had no children. It may never be determined if his mother, Mary was actually a Cookney or was the daughter of another colonist in the area.

 Despite the harrowing circumstances of his infancy, Godfrey Ragsdale, Jr. lived to the approximate age of 69. His will was signed 27 April 1697, naming his wife, Rachell, and children, Godfrey the 3rd, Peter, Daniel, and daughter Rachell [3].

 I am descended from the Ragsdales through my paternal Grandmother, Evelyn "Eva" Maude Lamb.

                                      

 

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[1]Rountree, Helen C.  Opechancanough (d 1646). Encyclopedia Virginia. https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/opechancanough_d_1646

[2] Godfrey Ragsdale II (abt 1643-1703). WikiTree https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ragsdale-42

[3] Brenneman, Ricahrd E. Ragsdale Family in America. 1999. Boston, Massachusetts.

Sarah Daves Herndon Miller Clark

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 52 (Dec 23-31)

Prompt: Resolution

#52ancestors

 Literaryterms.net describes resolution as " the conclusion of the story’s plot. It’s where any unanswered questions are answered, or “loose ends are tied.” So it seems only right to come to a resolution at the end of the year, to answer at least one of the mysteries of my ancestors. The mystery was solved in the last few days with several nights of researching into the early morning hours.

 The mystery involves my 3rd Great Grandmother, Sarah Daves.  In 1850, she is living with her brother, Goodman Daves, in Ozark County, Missouri.  She was only 14 years old so the assumption is that her parents are no longer living.  An assumption that still needs to be proven, but that mystery is close to being solved as I have 2 men living in Kentucky in 1840 who are good candidates to be her father.  Her brother, Goodman, married his wife in Henderson County, Kentucky.  I used a spreadsheet and the 1840 census to determine that two men named Daves or Davis had children of the right age and sex to be her father.  Since the 1840 census doesn't give the children's names more research will need to be done to determine exactly which one is their father.  

 The second mystery about Sarah Daves involves what happened to her in later life. By 1860, Sarah was married to Isaiah Herndon who in 1850 lived only 2 houses down from her and her brother.  The 1860 census, lists her oldest 3 children of which Hannah is the oldest at 8 years old.  Due to Hannah's age, their expected marriage should have taken place between 1850 and  1852.  The two counties where they lived had their courthouses burn with a loss of all records after the expected marriage date. Ozark County courthouse burned in 1858 and the Douglas County courthouse burned in 1886.

 Toward the end of the Civil War, Isaiah was killed and is buried in Douglas County.  The family story states that he was on the way back from fighting in the war when he was set upon by bushwhackers and killed.  However no records have been found for him for military service. It has been proven that the I.O. Herndon who did serve in the Confederacy was not him. 

 Sarah's mystery comes after her husband's death. In 1870, she is living in Ozark County with her three youngest children. By this time, Hannah has married and is no longer with the family. After that Sarah disappeared.  I heard family stories that she married a man named Thompson and filed for a widow's pension for her husband's military service.  But that proved to be false as I discovered that it was Hannah that married a Thompson. There didn't appear to be any widow's pension for Sarah A. Herndon. 

 For many years, I pondered Sarah's fate. I picked up her son's story in 1900, but where he was between 1870 and 1900 was also a mystery.  I had searched Ozark, Douglas, Greene, and Webster  counties  census records page by page when census research was done by microfilm without finding them. The courthouses'  loss of records accounted for not finding a second marriage.

 This last week, I was working on the DAR paper work for a supplemental for my 6th Great Grandfather, Joseph Herndon, and I decided to try one more time to find Sarah Daves Herndon. The Ancestry search engine allows you to search for first names only and I have used that to find other ancestors. The ancestors that were found that way in the past had unusual first names so I didn't have much hope for finding Sarah, James, or Mary. Elisha would have been easier to find but I already knew where he was living with his wife in Douglas County.

 This simple technique proved to be the breakthrough that I needed.  I started with Ozark County as it was the last place that I knew Sarah lived.  But there were way too many Sarahs born close to her birth year.  So, I tried her son, James. In almost every record that I have found for him up to this point, he was listed as James W C Herndon.  I entered James W C into the first name box of the search engine, his year of birth, and that he may have lived in Missouri, USA.  Then I limited it to the 1880 census. The first name that came up and the only one that said, James W. C. was for a James W. C. Miller.  The head of household was Sarah E Miller, a widow.  Close but her name should have been Sarah A. But one of the other children was Mary A. C. Miller.  My James W.C. had a sister, named Mary Ann K.  Sarah was born in Kentucky. James and Mary were born in Missouri and they were the right ages. Despite the discrepancy in the middle initials, I am convinced I have found Sarah.

 There were two other children listed in the household that I did not know, Emma V Miller, age 4, and Sallyann R. Miller, age 3 (on the next page). Emma is listed as the daughter of Sarah and Sallyann as a granddaughter. 

The breakthrough information was from the 1880 Taney County, Missouri Census

 From there, I was able to find that Sarah A Miller had filed for a widow's pension on Burgess G. Miller. Burgess was living with his 3rd wife in 1870, living within a few house of Sarah's brother, Goodman Daves. His wife, Mary A., died in1872 and Burgess died in 1878. So it appears that he and Sarah married  between 1872 and 1876.

 Sarah Miller married Calvin Clark in September of 1908 in Ozark County. Just two years later, she  is listed as divorced on the 1910 census with the last name of Clark and living with her daughter, Emma V. Alsup and 5 grandchildren.

 Perhaps this is not the last resolution for Sarah Daves Herndon Miller Clark as there is still her final resting place to be found.

Good Deeds of Many Researchers

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 47 (Nov. 18-24) 
 Prompt: Good Deeds
#52ancestors

As I thought about what to write this week, I started multiple times with different subjects but nothing really stood out for me until a couple of days ago when a distant relative did a good deed. Over the years, I have had a multitude of distant relatives help me with my genealogy.  Starting with Katherine Walter from Tyler, TX in the 70s who shared her work on our mutual McCarley line.  Over the years, I have documented her work and expanded on it in many places. She was a meticulous researcher and I wish she were still here to continue collaborating. She was patient with me as a beginning researcher who was eager to learn and I have learned that she helped other McCarley researchers get started. 

Then there was my Grand Aunt Nina, sister to my Grandmother,  who in the 80s sent me through the mail some tin type pictures to copy and send back to her. She knew my Dad but not me so I always felt very honored that she trusted me to send them back. 

Descended from a sister to my great grandmother, Bernice Ammann Irwin, sent me a binder with information about my Maddy family.  It was copied from original type written pages with pictures.  Over the Xerox copied pictures, she glued photographs. I didn't check her work for many years, but when I did start documenting, it was all correct, except for leaving the e out of my maiden name.  I was thrilled to see my family listed with all of my siblings. I still treasure that binder with all the pages encased in sheet protectors.

In 2014, Don Ivey, who is descended from my great grandmother's third husband, sent me pictures of her. Sarah Violet Herndon died when she was only 34 years old and no one in my family had ever seen a picture of her.  Don's sharing those pictures caused excitement among many members of my family. My Grandmother considered James Wesley Ivey her father, and she had very fond memories of him.  She had also told us that my Mother looked like Sarah Violet. The pictures do show a remarkable resemblance, but they also show that one of my cousins bears some resemblance to her, also.  One of the pictures  has her and Wesley driving an early model car with a flower in the radiator.  I can't help but believe that Wesley must have been fond of Sarah Violet even after the divorce to have kept her pictures and passed them down in his family. 

This week, I received a picture of Cassie McCarley from a descendant of my great grandparents. I am so grateful to Trinity and her brother, Rob, for sharing this picture. Cassie died when she was only 3 years old and I have researched for her records off and on for many years.  My Grand Aunt Viola is also in the picture and while I have memories of her and pictures of her as an older woman, this is the first picture of her as a baby I have seen.

One of the purposes for my blog is to share with the rest of my family, not just the dates and places of our ancestors, but their stories. Without the good deeds of many distant relatives, I would not know nor be able to share their lives. 

 

Japanese Language

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 46 (Nov. 11-17)
Prompt: Different Language
#52ancestors

 This week I am not writing about my ancestors, but about my grandchildren’s ancestors.

 As I sat at the dining room table with my mother in law and her friends, I let the conversation wash over me as I cut vegetables in the precise manner for sukiyaki. I didn’t understand what they were saying so it was easy to zone out.  Suddenly, my mother in law turned to me and asked me a question in Japanese, and I answered in English.  I don’t know what she asked me, but my answer satisfied her, and she turned back to the conversation. Neither she nor her friends ever realized the question was in Japanese.  I knew by the tone that it was a question and replied, "I don't know".

 My father-in-law met and married Asa (Smoky) Inage while he was in the army and stationed in Japan.  He had gone to Japanese language classes and he frequented areas outside of the military base and tourist areas.  They moved to the United States when my husband, Robert, was about 4 years old.  At the time he spoke Japanese and very little English.  Once Robert started to school, he learned English rapidly and mostly forgot the Japanese that he once knew. 

Robert in a cornfield in Japan

Robert did remember a few words. He had a Japanese pet name for me, but he refused to tell me what it meant.  I knew whatever it meant; it wasn’t flattering.  Eventually I became so annoyed, that I started threatening to ask his mother if he did not tell me.  He would just laugh saying, “You wouldn’t dare”. 

One day, we were gathered around that same dining room table, when I ask Mom what “ketzu magare” meant. She started giggling and covered her mouth with her hand. My father-in-law laughed out loud. I waited, while my husband blushed. Eventually, while  turning just a little red, Dad told me that it meant “dumb head”.  I did not believe  that for one minute. I still don’t know what it really means. The spelling is probably very wrong as the Japanese translators online won't tell me either.  

 Smoky taught our daughter the Japanese word for bathroom (benjo), because it was more polite to use in public. We use a few other Japanese words, like hashi (chopstick).  Once when I was singing “London Bridges” to our young daughter, Robert started singing along with us in Japanese. He was just as surprised as we were because he didn’t know the song until he started singing it.

 I wish now that we had learned more while we had the chance.

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