July 10

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO...

Elizabeth Ann Decker 1851-1853

Gravestone of Elizabeth Ann, daughter of Wm. & M.A. Decker, died Nov 25, 1853, Aged 2y 4m 15d

Elizabeth Ann had 3 siblings also buried in Burford Cemetery (Jasper County, Illinois)

Abraham J, son of W & M.A. Decker, died Aug 22, 1863, Aged 1 year, 4 mos, 3 days

Marillia, dau of Wm & M.A. Decker, died Aug 11, 1850, Aged 1Yr 2Ms 1D

William F, son of W & M.A. Decker, died Sept 27, 1859, Aged 2y 7m 7d

It tells a very sad story for this family, doesn't it? One of the things I've learned while studying our family histories is that many children died 'back in the day' before modern medicine. Hardly any families raised all their children to adulthood, unscathed by disease or accidental death. Many babies died at birth, many mothers died in childbirth -- or shortly after, from 'childbed fever' (before the discovery of germs).

FROM A WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE ON GERM THEORY:

Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian obstetrician working at the Vienna General Hospital (Allgemeines Krankenhaus) in 1847, noticed the dramatically high maternal mortality from puerperal fever following births assisted by doctors and medical students. However, those attended by midwives were relatively safe. Investigating further, Semmelweis made the connection between puerperal fever and examinations of delivering women by doctors, and further realized that these physicians had usually come directly from autopsies. Asserting that puerperal fever was a contagious disease and that matter from autopsies were implicated in its development, Semmelweis made doctors wash their hands with chlorinated lime water before examining pregnant women. He then documented a sudden reduction in the mortality rate from 18% to 2.2% over a period of a year. Despite this evidence, he and his theories were rejected by most of the contemporary medical establishment.

P.S.

Now, here's the problem with genealogy websites...

FamilySearch lists several records with Mary Ann Burford and her husband William Decker. There are several other children listed as theirs. Problem is, they all say William died in 1849. There is a William Decker, buried in Illinois, who was born in 1809 and died in 1849, but I don't believe he is the one to whom our Mary Ann Burford was married -- because several of the children attributed to him were born AFTER 1849. This same website cites the census of 1850 and 1860, in which William is listed as head of household. In the 1850 census he is said to be 36 years old. In the 1860 census he is said to be 40 years old! (Either way, he was documented as being alive in 1860 -- so he obviously didn't die in 1849.) These are the frustrations of the genealogy hobby. The children buried in Burford Cemetery are not listed in the census records for William and Mary Ann Burford Decker -- they wouldn't be, because they were born and died in the interval between censuses. As for the children listed in the records, I can't vouch for them, because... well, what I said before. 

July 09

MEMORIAL...

Sylvia Vernell Hicks Leatherwood  1925-2007

Vernell was my great-aunt, sister to my grandmother Cleffie Hicks Burford. 

Photo: Cleffie and Vernell

She married Ray Leatherwood and they had 3 children, Carl Ray, Velda, and Mary Gail.

Photos: Ray and Vernell family

11 days old / Cleffie, Evalee, Irene holding Vernell

Vernell, Evalee, Elvin / Olan, Lowell, Vernell

Vernell and Evalee

I actually have a lot more pictures of Vernell than I thought I did, but this one is my all-time favorite:

Photo: Cleffie, Elvin, Evalee, Vernell

This is my favorite photo because Vernell seems to be saying -- "Posing for pictures? Ain't nobody got time for that!"

July 08

Happy Birthday to

John Henry Arnold 1869-1909

John Henry Arnold was my great-great-grandfather, the father of my great-grandmother Annie Arnold Hicks.

John Henry was raised by an aunt and uncle, Peggy and George Bullard.

George and Peggy were brother and sister. Their sister Emma was John Henry's mother.

Here is what Annie wrote about her father:

   Grandmother’s name before marriage was Emma Bullard. She married a man by the name of Arnold. They had one child, Henry (my father). They didn’t live together but three or four years. They had trouble because he wanted to move from Missouri to Texas (or at least that’s what set off the separation), with his folks and she wouldn’t move, but he went ahead and moved without her and in a little while he came back and wanted her to take him back but she wouldn’t. Then in a year or two she married a man by the name of Alex McReynolds. They had one boy and twin girls and they had trouble and he took the girls and left, and they never heard from him any more. But about the time she married the second time, her brother and sister (neither one married) took my Dad - just a small boy about maybe 2 years old, and set up housekeeping and raised him. Their names were George Bullard and Margaret Bullard (Peggy). Uncle George and Aunt Peggy was always exactly like my Grandpa and Grandma. After they got my Dad about raised, Uncle George married Josie Tamsett, an aunt of Amy Tamsett that John Carter married. Then a little later, Aunt Peggy married Alex Williams, a very strange character. Aunt Peggy said she never could get acquainted with him or understand his actions. Lots of nights he would get up in the night and sit in the door with his gun just like he was expecting a murderer, but in just a few years he was walking home across an old field where there was some dead trees and one of them fell on him and killed him. Just the day before that, he had a snuff box packed full of $20 gold pieces and that would be a lot of money for them times. He evidently had hid that money for not a penny could be found (about 1897). In those days gold pieces were in common circulation. They got the idea that he bored a hole in a tree and put the box of money in the hole and put a peg in on it, but they had no idea which tree nor for sure that he did that, so there wasn’t any chance to find the money. This all took place in Missouri around Thayer. 

   My Father was grown and married before Aunt Peggy married. My Father married at the age of 19 or 18 years, to Adeline Carter (my mother). She was seven months older than him. I am not sure how old they were - they probably were not more than 18 years old. I know they were young when they married in Missouri around Thayer. Dad was born around McCrory, Arkansas, but the family moved to Missouri while he was a baby. My Dad was raised in Illinois. My parents had five children, three boys and 2 girls. George was the oldest child. I was next, John was the third, then we moved from Missouri to Arkansas. Then Marlie was born, then Ettie was the last one - born in 1900. 

   When my parents came to Arkansas they homesteaded a piece of land and built a log house on it and lived on it for five or six years, and sold it and bought another farm. Then our house burned. We lost everything we had almost. Then we had to get another place so we bought 40 acres for $100. A fair price for land in those days. My Father was a sorghum maker so he paid for the farm with sorghum molasses. A fifty-gallon barrel or two of them every year at about 20 cents a gallon, a fair price for sorghum in those days. That was in about 1906. We lived on that place a few years and then we traded that place and a wagon and team of mules for 160 acres of land with a good house on it. That was about the best place anywhere around there. After living there three or four years, my Father died at the age of 39 years. The doctor said he had pleurisy. That is water around the lungs. In a few years, Ma divided the place among the children, forty acres apiece for all the children except me. She gave me a cow. I preferred the cow instead of splitting four forties into five blocks. 

Photo: Henry and Adaline Arnold

Photo: Annie Arnold Hicks and cow

July 07

MEMORIAL...

Marlie Alvin Arnold 1898-1970

Marlie was my great-grand-uncle, the brother of my great-grandmother Annie Arnold Hicks.

Photo: L-R Aunt Peggy Bullard (she raised John Henry Arnold), George, Adaline holding Etta, John in front of Annie, John Henry holding Marlie.

Photo: L-R Marlie, John, Henry and Adaline, Annie, Etta

Photo: Arnold siblings -- George, Annie, John, Marlie, Etta

Uncle Marlie married Birdie Hays on Christmas day 1915.

Photos: Aunt Birdie and Uncle Marlie

They had eight children: Sylvia, Eldred, Arbon, Doyle, Lois, Noel, Dorothy Mae, and Hope.

Photo: Some of Marlie's and Annie's children (tagged)

July 06

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO...

DARREN CLARK BURFORD KEEFER 1969-1993

Darren was my cousin (just plain cousin - not removed or anything LOL), the son of Lester Morris Burford Jr. and Kay Linville Burford. This used to be the only picture I had of him, but I recently found some more among the family archives that I had not discovered before.

Photo: Leslie Burford and Darren Burford.

Darren Clark Burford April 1971

July 05

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO...

William Charles Thomas 1899-1980

(my grandfather)

Photo: L-R Bill and Christie, Mel and Alta, Erwin and Renue 

(Mel was Bill's brother, Renue was his sister)

Photo: Richard (my dad) and Bill about 

Photo: Bill and Dianne (that's me) 

Photo: Christie, Dianne, Bill 

July 04

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO...

Dora and Lora Gibson (twins) 1877

Photo: sisters Lora, Julia, Dora

Lora Gibson was my great-grandmother. She married Alexander Oscar Burford Jr. She was a twin, though she and her sister Dora do not look very much alike in the few photos I have of them, so I assume they were not identical twins. For one thing, Dora was quite a bit taller than Lora. 

Photo: Seven of the Gibson siblings.

In the days in which they were born, twins very often did not survive. Twins are usually born prematurely, and our family history is laced with unnamed "twin infants ___" who died at or shortly after birth. (In fact, Adaline Gibson gave birth to another set of twins just four years after Dora and Lora. They are noted in the family records as "twins Gibson." With those two babies included, Asa and Adaline Gibson had a total of 15 children.) Lora was the smaller of the two, and was not expected to live, but -- according to family lore --

"Anyway, Aunt Dorothy also told me that Grandma Burford was so tiny when she was born that the doctor said she would not live.  You know Grandma was a twin.  Dorothy said Grandma was in the bottom part of the womb and Dora was in the top part.  I guess Dora just sat on Grandma and squashed her.  Anyway, Grandma was so tiny she fit into a shoe box after they had put padding it.  The doctor said she would die, and her mother and father believed that was true and they just weren't doing anything to save her.  So Grandma's grandmother asked Grandma's parents if she could take her home with her and try to save her.  They let her do that.  She put cotton seed in a shoe box for warmth - I guess it held heat or something.  She put Grandma in the shoe box with the cotton seed all around her and put her on the back of a wood burning stove to keep her warm.  She fed her with an eye dropper because she was too tiny to nurse or have a bottle.  So by George, she lived and grew and was healthy and everything." 

I have no way to verify whether that is how it really happened or not, but it makes for interesting speculation, anyway. Dora Gibson lived to be 85 years old, and Lora lived to be 93.

July 03

 HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO...

George Ned Arnold married Jessie Tamsett 1910

Photo: Ulysses Hicks, Annie Arnold, George Arnold, Jessie Tamsett 1910

George Ned Arnold was the brother of my great-grandmother Annie Arnold Hicks. Annie married my great-grandfather Ulysses Hicks in February of 1910 and George married Jessie Tamsett in July of that same year. 

George and Jessie had 8 children: 

Photo: George and Jessie Arnold with their first 5 children -- Amos, Arbie, Wilma, and twins Opie and Obie. Amos died at age 8 from typhoid fever.

Here's a photo of all seven girls: Arbie Wilma, Mildred, Obie and Opie, Verlie, Joan

 This is what my grandmother (Cleffie Hicks Burford, daughter of Annie Arnold Hicks) remembered about George Ned Arnold (transcribed from a tape recording):

 "My Uncle George Arnold -- he was a good man, and a likeable person.  But you know, he had a lot of bad luck in his life.  He married Jessie Tamsett and that was good.  They raised a family.  They had, I believe it was eight kids.  The last one though, left Aunt Jessie with, I don’t know if it was childbed fever or something else -- I just don’t know what it was, kind of an infection or poison of some kind in her body, and caused her to be sick and just, well she was in bad shape and lingered along for a few weeks -- maybe a month or more -- and then died, and that was awful.  And then he made out though for -- well, Ma [George's mother] went to live with him and help him raise them kids, so he made out just fine that way, but he didn’t have any wife.  I know that was bad for him.  But anyway, finally, after about five years why, he married another woman.  He married Eula Burnett, and then they set in and raised another family.  Just about the same size family as his first one was.  So he had pretty good luck with that.  Everything went alright.  But then in a few years, he got something wrong with him.  He didn’t know what it was. So he worried with that for a long time, just having trouble like if he had kidney trouble or something, and he didn’t know what to do about it.  Course, there wasn’t no doctors hardly up here in these hills then, and if there was they didn’t know much.  So he decided, well I think my dad talked to him some about it, and told him if he’d come down to Judsonia, he’d go with him over to Searcy and help him get a doctor.  I guess he made an appointment first, I don’t know.  Anyway, he did that.  He came down there and Papa took him over to a doctor in Searcy and after he examined him good why, he told him he had Bright’s disease and couldn’t do anything about it. I don’t know if there’s anything to do for it, might be now, I don’t know, but at that time they didn’t seem to think there was.  So he just came home and just suffered with that for I don’t know how long -- long time.  Finally, it got him -- it just killed him -- he died with it.  He’d lay in that room by himself, just he’d be the only one in there, in that back bedroom and on Sundays a lot of different people would come and see him and just come talk to him a little bit, sit there with him and then go.  That’s the way the last part of his life was for quite a while.  And he finally died.  That was the hardest part -- was just being in that shape, he was bedfast and just wasn’t nothing to be done."

July 02

MEMORIAL...

Daisy Leeth Herman 1905-1989

Daisy and Dennis Leeth were twins. (There are almost 20 sets of twins in our combined family histories!) They were 2 of the 5 children of Beckie Parker, youngest sister of my great-grandmother Massie Parker Treat. 

Photo: The two younger children are Kenneth and Carl.

Photo: Leslie and Beckie with youngest daughter Wanna.

The fifth child was a daughter named Vera Juanita. She was apparently called "Juana" or "Wanna". She was born five years after the next youngest child Carl. I don't have a picture of all five children together.

Beckie was married to Leslie Ellis Leeth, and they lived in Pike County, Ohio, where most all of the Treat family lived and died. 

Massie and Marcus moved to Michigan and their daughter Christie was my grandmother, who married Bill Thomas. (So Daisy was my grandmother's first cousin -- my first cousin twice removed.)

Photos: Massie and Marcus Treat, Bill and Christie Thomas

July 01

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO...

Lora Brooke White 1979

This is not Brooke. (I don't have a picture of her.) This is a picture of her father, Aaron Duane White. Aaron is the son of Judy Burford White. Judy's brother Lester Burford was my grandfather.

This photo shows my great-grandmother Lora Burford with several of her children: L-R Lester, Juanita, George, Lora, Deb, Bernice, Judy, and Helen.

In our family history there is this note about Lora Brooke White, written by her father Aaron:

"LORA BROOKE WHITE IS IN THE AIR FORCE AND IS A RAVEN (SECURITY FORCES).  SHE FLIES ON AIR FORCE ONE."

The USAF Ravens are an elite security force. If you want to read more about them, here's a good article I found:

https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/1447621/airmen-take-tough-phoenix-raven-security-training/