New Friends from Old Friends
It never ceases to amaze me how life is so circular in nature. Back in 2012 when I was first blogging, I wrote about my 4th great grandfather, Ervin Alonzo DRAKE (Poppy Lonzo’s grandpa). Ervin lived in a town in Indian Territory (now Delaware County, Oklahoma) called Echo. It took me decades to learn where Echo was. You can find that blog post here. If you go back and read it, you’ll see that Echo doesn’t exist anymore. It was a town that was sacrificed so Grand Lake could be created. In all these years, they are the only family I’ve come across in my research who lived there. I know there were other families there, but in the course of my research I’ve never found anyone else who had family that lived in Echo…until today! Today I spoke with Penny, a woman who works on the same job Bart is working on right now. Penny’s been reading my blog (thank you, Penny!) and she mentioned that she was having a little trouble researching her own family and that her family was from Delaware County, Oklahoma. It’s so crazy that Bart goes to a job in Colorado and meets someone who has ties to our little neck of the woods. So I had a brief conversation with Penny this morning. She dropped a name here and there (and I took notes – sorry Penny!!). Once I hung up I thought I would do a quick search to see who her family was. So today, you get to hear a tiny bit about Penny’s family.
Oh yes – Of Course I recognize that name!
One of the surnames Penny dropped was SIXKILLER. One of my favorite people was Terry SIXKILLER. I worked with him for quite a few years. He was intelligent, fair, generous, kind, level-headed and wise beyond his years. I always enjoyed talking to him and so appreciated all the wise advice and direction he gave me when I was just starting out in that job. We also had a neighbor named Taylor SIXKILLER. He and his wife were good people. The year our son passed away, all five families who live on our little dirt road lost a close family member. Taylor was one who passed away that year. Eventually his widow moved out and a couple of years later their house burned down. They were good neighbors.
But I digress. I’m not writing about Sixkiller’s today. Penny’s family member that caught my attention today is Charles Fred SAMUEL and his parents, James W. and Carrie (MORRIS) SAMUEL. As I was looking at Charles’ information I noticed a Dawes Census card on the family. I decided to pop it open and take a look. Here’s what I saw:
You’ll notice that Charles was 1 year old in 1906 when the census was taken. His father is a non-citizen of Cherokee Nation and his mother’s roll number is 767. I noticed the information about the application and the corrected affidavit. Penny will want to seek those documents out as they may have valuable information on them. I highly recommend applying for your own roll number as well, Penny! What a valuable thing to have your ancestor’s roll number! I was about to close out the census card image when my eyes caught sight of the family’s residence. Her ancestors lived in Echo!!! The same little defunct town where my ancestors lived! I love it when our ancestors surprise us with a little nugget like this. Hopefully Penny already has this census card but if she didn’t have it before, she does now.
It’s possible that 115 years ago mine and Penny’s people knew each other. And now, all these decades later, Penny and I meet. I look forward to getting to know Penny better. I love it when my blog brings new people into my life. Thanks for reading and for getting in touch with me Penny, and if you’re ever in Northeast Oklahoma hit me up and I’ll take you around to see some of the places that were important to your people. I hope you really do start your own blog. I will look forward to reading your stories.
Until next time,
Lisa @ Days of Our Lives