November 24

Dorothy Lena Williams died 24 November 1921, age 4

I don't have a picture of Dorothy. The photo above is Dorothy's parents, Uncle Albert and Aunt Tot.

Here's a picture of Aunt Tot when she was younger -

PHOTO L-R: Cleffie (back), Evalee (front), Annie holding Vernell, Aunt Tot.

(Cleffie is my grandmother. Annie is her mother. Evalee and Vernell are her sisters. Aunt Tot is the sister of Annie's husband Ulysses Hicks.)

Dorothy was the same age as Cleffie, so this picture would have been taken after Dorothy died. Uncle Albert and Aunt Tot had two sons and three daughters. Dorothy was the first of the daughters. The other two - Dona and Charlene, both also died young. I don't have any details on them. The two sons grew to adulthood. 

Here is what Cleffie wrote about Dorothy's death:

The Big Storm

My father was teaching school at “Big 4”, a little two room school about five miles out of Judsonia in the country.  He taught there for two years and this was his first year.  We lived about a mile from the school house.  I was four years old in August and the storm I’m going to tell about came on the 24 day of November.  The year was 1921. Papa, as we called our father, and both my sisters, Ruby and Irene, were at school.  Mama and my little brother, Elvin, and I were at home.       

I don’t remember exactly what time of day it happened but I think it was early afternoon. Anyway, this big storm came up and before we knew what was happening it was raging something terrible.  

I remember that Mama got Elvin and me on the bed and then she got on there with us.  

We lay on the bed and watched out the window as the wind whipped the trees in fury, sometimes bending the trees almost to the ground and then suddenly flinging them back the other direction.  The rain was coming down like it would never stop, and the thunder and lightening was so close it was frightening.  Such a vicious storm I had never seen before.        

Mama tried not to let on that she was scared but I knew she was.  She told us not to touch the metal bedstead because metal can draw lightening, but she felt that being on the bed made us safer from the lightening as long as we didn’t touch the metal.       

So there we lay for what seemed like an eternity before the storm began to let up.  And then all of a sudden it was over.  What a relief!  But Mama was still worried about Papa and the girls.  There was no way to get in touch with them; no telephones or anything.  Even if there had been telephones they would all be out of order now.  The storm would have all the lines down.       

Mama was getting more anxious all the time, in fact, she was walking back and forth by this time, looking in the direction of the school house.  Pretty soon the neighbor boy came running by on his way home from school and yelled out that there had been “a bad storm today and a lot of people were killed.”  Well, that just about finished Mama off.  But just about that time here came Papa and the girls.  Talk about relief!  Mama was so relieved even I could feel it.     

However, there was a sad note in their arrival.  Papa said that someone had come to the school house after the storm and told him that his niece Dorothy Williams had been struck with lightening and killed.  She was Aunt Tot’s and Uncle Albert’s daughter and was something like 6½  months older than me.  Anyway, Papa turned out school early and came home.       

Mama was so upset with the neighbor boy for telling such a big “fib” and scaring her almost to death she just wanted to shake him real hard.  Of course, she never did say anything to him about it that I know of.  I don’t know what possessed him to say that a “lot” of people got killed.        

Dorothy had been standing by her daddy, who was sitting in a rocking chair in front of the fireplace, with her hand on his knee when the lightening struck the corner of the house right by the fireplace and, of course, struck her at the same time. It almost killed her daddy, but they worked with him and he got alright.            

The doctor pronounced Dorothy dead.  But Aunt Tot told us years later that her body never did get cold.  She was still warm when they buried her.  Aunt Tot thought it was odd but didn’t say anything because she didn’t know but what that was normal.  Later she said if it was to do over she would say something.  The doctor probably didn’t know she stayed warm.  He most likely didn’t see her again after he pronounced her dead. 

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Killough Marvin Burford died 1943, age 36

This is the only picture I have of Killough. It was cropped from a larger group photo -

PHOTO L-R: George, Lora, Deb, Helen, Ishmael, Killough, Alexander Burford.

Alexander and Lora Burford were my great-grandparents. This picture includes the first five of their ten children. One of the younger sons was my grandfather Lester. 

This is the only picture I have of Killough's wife Louise.

Here is the story of how Killough died -

Killough’s wife, Louise, was in the hospital, and after visiting her Killough went home for the night. Two very kind neighbor ladies had gone into Killough's house to straighten things up and make sure the house was tidy for Killough.  The weather was cool and there was a window open a little bit, so they closed that window not knowing that Killough left it open to allow ventilation for a kerosene (or gas) heater they had in the house and used for heat...

Lora (my great-grandmother, Killough's mother) woke up in the middle of the night with a feeling that something was wrong with Killough. So she woke two of her sons living at home (one was my grandfather Lester) and they went to Killough's house and found him dead. His body was found near the telephone so it appears that he had awakened and tried to get to the phone but didn't make it in time.    

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