On This Day in Family History - May 16

William George Thomas married Jeanette 'Nettie' Durren 16 May 1890

This is the only picture I have of Nettie Durren Thomas

Photo: William George Thomas

William and Nettie had six children - Donald, twins Lottie and Luttie, Etta, Thelma, and Ralph.

Photo: Twins Lottie and Luttie Thomas

I don't have any pictures of the other four children.

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William G Thomas was known for his deer hunting camp in northern Michigan

Photo: Fred Frazee and William G Thomas (Fred was his son-in-law)

William G Thomas was a barber. His barber shop was in Watervliet, Michigan, for decades.

William G Thomas died in 1945, age 83

On This Day in Family History - May 15

 Ida Florence Deselem Treat died 15 May 1968

Ida was the wife of Jack Estle Treat

Jack Estle Treat was the brother of my great-grandfather Marcus Treat

Estle and Ida had five children - Marjorie Virginia, Helen Hope, Opel Ester, John, and William Rodney.

Photo: William Rodney Treat

I don't have pictures of the other four children.

Their daughter Helen had a son who died in a farm accident - I don't have pictures, but I have the newspaper article/obituary:

12 Oct 1943

BAINBRIDGE BOY DIES OF INJURIES

  Donald Yoakum, 10, son of Mr. and Mrs. George Yoakam, died in Chillicothe city hospital at 5:15 o'clock this morning of injuries suffered last Thursday.

  While helping his father clean wheat, the boy stepped across the belt of a gasoline engine and was thrown on top of the engine, suffering a compound fracture of the left leg and severe lacerations.

  The son of George and Helen Yoakum, the boy was born in Ross County on Oct 15, 1933. In addition to his parents, he is survived by four brothers, Robert, Frank, Paul, and Jon, and his grandparents, Mr and Mrs. Cliff Yoakum of Bainbridge, and Mr. and Mrs. Jack Treat of Springfield.

  Funeral services will be conducted at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Bourneville Methodist Church, with interment in the cemetery there by the H.D. Smith funeral home.

  Friends may call at the funeral home.

  Several weeks ago the Yoakums' home burned to the ground.

 

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Photo: John and Martha Walls Treat and their children - Belle and Marcus (back), and Estle.

A little family trivia --

Marcus (my great-grandfather) always said Estle spoiled the pie after he was born, because they now ad to cut the pie into five pieces instead of four.

Happy Mother's Day to my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother Koonay "Anne" Shikellamy Gibson

 

Chief Shikellamy 

(father of Koonay "Anne" Shikellamy Gibson)

On This Day in Family History - May 14

 Koonay "Anne" Shikellamy Gibson was born 14 May 1741

She was my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother

Obviously, I don't have a picture of her. 

She was the mother of Nicholas Gibson

I do have a picture of him

Nicholas Gibson's father, John Gibson, was a famous figure in colonial America. There is even a whole book written about him, which I only just discovered today:

BOOK REVIEW: No Man Knows This Country Better”: The Frontier Life of John Gibson by Gary S. Williams (University of Akron Press, 2022)

The Founders with whom most Americans are familiar were all on the eastern seaboard: Washington, Adams, Madison, Jefferson, Franklin, and Hamilton. Librarian Gary S. Williams has delivered a thorough and extensive biography of one of the “forgotten founders.” This relatively obscure veteran and statesman was influential in the establishment of American power in the area bordered by the Hudson River, the Great Lakes (up to Lake Michigan), and the Ohio River. The first chapter of “No Man Knows This Country Better”: The Frontier Life of John Gibson begins almost immediately with a description of the man’s many accomplishments:

John Gibson worked with seven of the first twelve U.S. presidents and two of their fathers. He also knew or corresponded with a least a dozen generals from the Continental Army. As a soldier, he served as an officer of increasing rank in every frontier conflict between the French and Indian War and the War of 1812. During the American Revolution, he commanded a regiment at Valley Forge, was in charge at Fort Laurens during a month-long Indian siege, and by the time of the Yorktown Campaign was in command of the Western Department at Fort Pitt. He capped his career by serving as governor of Indiana Territory during the War of 1812, where he provided calm leadership in troubled times.

(I would buy a copy of it, but the Kindle version is $45. That's a lot of money for a book I probably wouldn't actually read.)

If you want to find out more about John Gibson and his wife Koonay "Anne" Gibson, just google it. They're all over the internet.

Koonay "Anne" Gibson was killed in the Yellow Creek Massacre in 1774. There are several different versions of the story of that massacre, one of which has Nicholas kidnapped by the Indians and lived with them for 5 years, after which he was traded back to the settlers for a barrel of whiskey.  (The most famous version of the story of the massacre -- supposedly dictated to John Gibson by Koonay's brother, Chief Logan -- states that the whole family was killed. That can't be true, obviously, because Nicholas lived to be an old man, married and had a bunch of children. If he had been killed, I wouldn't be here! )

On This Day in Family History - May 13

Kenneth Leeth died 13 May 1951, age 43

Photo: Dennis, Daisy, Kenneth (left), and Carl Leeth, 1911

This is the only picture I have of Kenneth Leeth. Kenneth was the son of Rebecca Parker and Leslie Leeth. Rebecca was a sister to my great-grandmother Massie Parker Treat.

Photos: Moses Joseph Parker and Sarah 'Sally' Davis Parker

Moses Joseph Parker II and Celia Campbell Parker

Moses and Celia (my great-great-grandparents) had seven children:

Photo: Top - Alice, Massie, John. Bottom - Beckie, Pearl, Earl.

The third-born child, Maudie, died at age 5. I don't have any pictures of her.

Rebecca (Beckie) Parker married Leslie Ellis Leeth. They had 5 children - Twins Dennis and Daisy, Kenneth, Carl, and Vera Juanita

Photo: Leslie Leeth, Beckie Parker, daughter Vera Juanita 

(Apparently this child was called 'Wanna' -- I'm not sure how they spelled it. Maybe 'Juana'.)

On This Day in Family History - May 12

 Leona Canzada Bullard Hamby was born 12 May 1880

Leona was the daughter of George Bullard and his first wife Josephine Tamsett. 

Photo: George and Josephine Tamsett Bullard with daughter Leona

Leona Bullard married William Limuel Phalamil Hamby in 1901, and they had three children - Mel, Joe, and Dulcia. 

Photos: Mel Hamby

I don't have pictures of Joe or Dulcia.

William Hamby died in 1934, and Leona married A.D. Cross in 1938.

Leona died 25 July 1961, age 81.

The picture below is William Hamby's grave. It is in the same cemetery where Leona is buried -- Mount Olive Cemetery in Big Spring, Texas -- but I don't know if she is buried beside him or not.

I don't know when A.D. Cross died, nor where he is buried, so I don't know if Leona was buried with him or not. He would have been in his 80s when she died (so probably didn't remarry). Leona's children all lived nearby in Texas, so I would expect they would have wanted her to be buried with their father, William Hamby.

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The Bullard and Tamsett families are connected with the Arnold and Carter families by marriage. George Bullard and his sister Peggy raised my great-great-grandfather John Henry Arnold. He was the son of their sister Emma and her first husband Jack (?) Arnold. We don't know what happened to him, whether they were divorced or he died -- we really don't know anything about him, not even certain what his first name was. Emma's second husband was Alex McReynolds, and about the time she married him is when George and Peggy took John Henry to live with them. (They were brother and sister, but they 'set up housekeeping' together for the purpose of raising their sister's child.) 

Josephine Tamsett (George Bullard's first wife) was the sister of Jackson Tamsett. Jackson and his wife Sarah were the parents of Jessie Tamsett (who married George Arnold) and Amy Tamsett (who married John Carter). Sarah Tamsett was the midwife who delivered my grandmother Cleffie Hicks Burford.

Photo: Jackson and Sarah Tamsett

On This Day in Family History - May 11

 Iva Wincel Jackson was born 11 May 1923

Wincel was the daughter of Etta Lee Arnold and Ben Jackson

Etta ('Aunt Ettie') was the sister of my great-grandmother Annie Arnold Hicks

Photo: Etta, Wincel, Ben, Alvis

Photo: Wincel and Alvis Jackson

Photo: Calvin and Wincel

(I don't know who is on the left of the photo -- probably Ben)

Photo: Calvin and Wincel 

Wincel married Toilvy Cleveland 'T.C.' Sandefur in 1938

Photos: Wincel Jackson, T.C. Sandefur

They had five children - Roger, Gaylon, David, Kay, and Sandra

Wincel Jackson Sandefur died 08 July 2002. 

Toilvy Cleveland Sandefur died 04 October 2007

They are buried in Pine Grove Cemetery, Floral, Arkansas

On This Day in Family History - May 10

William Ford died 10 May 1919, age 87

William Ford was my great-great-grandfather, the father of my great-grandmother Nancy Ford Thomas.

William married Isadore Halsted and they had six children - Alice, Charles, Nancy, Kate, Stephen, Effie

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The back of this photo says "This is our house"

It is signed "Wilsie"

I never have yet figured out who Wilsie is. There are one or two other pictures with Wilsie written on the back. Could be William Ford or one of the Thomases... or someone else in that branch of the family tree.

On This Day in Family History - May 9

 On 09 May 1976 I graduated from Harding College, in Searcy, Arkansas

I don't have any still pictures of my graduation day. We have a video that my dad made on a camcorder, but I have yet to get around to having it converted to digital so I can extract some screenshots from it. (The video is a long compilation of all our old home movies, most of which were recorded on 8mm film.)

My yearbook pictures

The old administration building is still there. The lily pond has been completely remodeled since then. 

Cathcart Hall was my dorm the first 2 years. We had a 10:00 curfew. (10:30 for the boys, so they could be gentlemanly and walk their girls home before returning to their own dorm on the other side of campus. No boys were allowed in the girls' dorms, and vice versa.) Cathcart was a dorm for freshman and sophomore women.

Nancy McGee ("Maggie") was my roommate 2nd year.

Debbie Almand was my roommate 3rd year, in the American Heritage dorm for junior and senior women. (That's me sitting on the sign.)

The music building, where I spent most of my time.

We had chapel every day after lunch. They took roll, and you were only allowed 3 absences per semester. It was like a mini church service (or a "devo" as we called them back then) -- a few announcements, brief inspirational message, and some great hymn singing. Harding had a motto back then -- "At Harding We Sing". We sure did !!

Harding College A Capella Chorus

We traveled all over the county, singing at Churches of Christ. There was usually a pot-luck dinner before our concert, and then we stayed overnight in the homes of the church members. The summer after my graduation we went on a 6-week tour of Europe -- Germany, France, and Spain. That was quite an adventure.

Our choir director, Dr. Kenneth Davis, Jr. (we called him Uncle Bud)

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There has been a lot of turmoil in my family over me going to Harding College -- both before and since. But I am extremely thankful for those four years. Extremely thankful.