Hi, everyone! Y’all know I’ve blogged several times before about my searches on Ancestry . com and some of the stories I had learned about my ancestors from my mom. But my dad was never one to talk much about his side of the family, I think because there was quite a lot of sadness in his upbringing.
Dad was one of five children, 4 boys and 1 girl. When he was very young, his ‘just older’ brother was killed in an automobile accident, and my dad was in the car when it happened. Back then, there were deep ruts in the roads and my granddad hit one, overturning the car. Dad’s brother, Walter, was killed. I learned from “family talk” in years to come that my grandmother came home and laid on the bed in her blood-stained clothes for days, mourning the loss of her young son.
Not long after that, Kenneth, their son that was younger than my dad, died of a malady known then as “summer complaint” — he was only 6 months old. There isn’t much more to be discovered on Ancestry about these deaths since they were so long in the past and the children were so young.
But what I DID learn from Ancestry recently was a real shocker–as some things on there are bound to be! Looking through old census records, I came across an unusual entry in the one for my great great grandfather’s family. His name was John Jenkins Moss. He had several children, but there were two sons– one born in 1859 and one in 1860.
He and my gr-gr grandmother, Jaritta Jane, were married in September of 1859 and the son born in 1860 was born in July. But…the one born in 1859? The census shows an “M” by his name–I discovered that stands for “Mulatto” — a reference to a light-skinned, mixed-race child in those days. His name was Ike. It’s a name that has never been talked about in our family.
This haunts me.
Yes, even though he is long dead, I wonder about him and whatever became of him. Why? Because it may mean we have other family members out there that we never were permitted to know or claim, nor they, us.
The thing that stuck with me the most was that on this particular census, both boys were listed as 8 years old, so they couldn’t have been a full year apart. Ike was living with the family at that point, claimed as part of the household, as a son, just as the other boy, William Francis was.
It raised so many questions in my mind. Did my 2 x great grandmother know about Ike when she married her husband? Did she agree to bring him to their home willingly? And when they did, I wonder how things were handled? How did she treat him? How were things between her and her husband? What were the circumstances of Ike coming to live with them? Well, y’all know my writer’s mind just went crazy when I figured all this out!
Something else that’s happened in all of this traipsing around in the past was that I came across some of the things I’d saved from our big attic problem of a couple of years ago (remember when it was buckling and I had to do the massive clean-out?) I had kept a box of letters that were written between my parents when they were engaged. At that time, Dad was in Arizona because his lungs were bad, and Mom was still here in Oklahoma, not having yet joined him.
My mom, Elwanda, and dad, Fred, as newlyweds in 1944
Oh, my goodness. I didn’t know what to do with those letters, as you might imagine. I started reading them, but after the first couple, though they were very sweet and heartfelt, I felt as if I were intruding on some very private moments that were never supposed to be shared. I put them back in the box, but I couldn’t bear to get rid of them. I still have them, but will I ever read them? Maybe when I’m 90, if I live that long.
Do any of you sleuth through your genealogy? I wish so much I’d written down all the stories my mom told me. Too late now. I swore I would write everything down for my kids, no matter how mundane it might seem, and I started that, but I must admit, I have not kept it up like I should have. I don’t make New Years’ resolutions, but if I do have any wish to “keep to” something, I think this would be it.
I know I have a long way to go with the genealogy research, and it has been so much fun so far–but finding that entry about Ike has really stayed with me, and made me think about someone I never knew existed, and certainly never knew was part of my family. There’s no date of death, not so far, anyhow, but maybe in my progress it will show up and I might be able to at least find where his grave is.
Here’s kind of a lighter story about my family before I sign off–my dad’s sister, my Aunt JoAnne, told my sister and me this story when we were at her house a few years back drinking our Sonic drinks on the sweltering heat of summer on her front porch. This same gr gr grandfather who had the two boys so close in age that I mentioned earlier was also a cattle drover. But he didn’t want to travel too far from home there in Texas, close to the Indian Territory border. They lived SO close that they were near Apache, Kiowa, and Comanche territory. As I said, Grandpa John didn’t like to travel a long way on the cattle drives, so he stayed within a 20-30 mile radius of his home, just joining up with certain trail drives and working that area of the drive as the came and went.
One day, he was bitten by a mule in the back of the leg. It became infected. Luckily, he was befriended by the Kiowa chief, Lone Wolf. Lone Wolf took him to his village and they cared for him and made him well, and he was able to live a long life because of this. Lone Wolf was a war chief, known for preserving his tribe’s auntonomy and way of life, so in my mind, this was a real show of friendship and trust for him to take a white man to his camp and care for him. Aunt JoAnne told us that they remained friends for the rest of their lives. A town named for the chief was founded in August 1901, on the opening of the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Reservation to settlement. (Wikipedia) It’s in the southwestern part of Oklahoma. This is picture of Chief Lone Wolf and his wife.
Have any of you ever learned family secrets that you never knew growing up, through working on genealogy or finding a letter or journal, or in some other way? I would love to know, big or small, what that secret was–(without getting you into trouble!) LOL Do you have any unique family stories that have been passed down?
I’m giving away a digital copy of my novella, ONE MAGIC NIGHT, which is loosely based on another ancestor’s background, and I knew he needed his own story! It’s an oldie but a goodie! Be sure to comment for a chance to win!
Genealogy is so interesting, but you must be prepared for what you learn–and decide if you’ll pursue it, or leave it where it lays–at least, until you’re 90.
