This is going to be a two-part series with the shorter part being today. Yesterday was full of emergencies, car repairs, computer repairs that didn’t fix the problem, internet issues, more sickness…you get the picture. So today I will basically introduce Audrey (“Mam”) as a helping person and will continue with more stories on Wednesday. Yesterday was Audrey’s birthday. Audrey is my paternal grandmother. I think I miss my grandmas more and more as I grow older.
Audrey (Larkin) Drake, November 1956 in Texas (probably Amarillo).
A photo of Audrey about 4 years before the newspaper article below was written. I wasn’t sure which direction I wanted to take with this blog post until I found this article yesterday on Newspapers.com:
9 November 1960 article in the Miami Daily News Record (Miami, Oklahoma) about Audrey (Larkin) Drake and her father-in-law Ervin “Alonzo” Drake.
Wednesday, 9 Nov 1960, Miami (Oklahoma) Daily News-Record Mam (Audrey) always was a helper. She raised her four children but then she also raised four grandchildren, three nephews, and a brother-in-law. I knew about her grandchildren living with her- they were my cousins and one of the reasons I enjoyed going to Mam’s house often. I had no idea that she had raised three nephews and a brother-in-law, though. So there is a lot to find out about Mam and all the ways she helped people. I’m still gathering stories if you’d like to send me yours. I apologize for the brevity of this post but real life gets in the way sometimes. I promise to deliver lots of stories on Wednesday to go with this theme and the newspaper article I found. I’m looking forward to it. I hope you are as well. (On Wednesday I was planning to tell you about new information I’ve received on people I’ve blogged about in the past. That will be pushed back to later in the week- maybe Friday.)
I’m not going to lie- this post is a cry for help. I worked off and on through the last few weeks to come up with something to tell you about this man that you would find interesting. I sipped my hot peach tea yesterday and contemplated where else I could search, what search terms I might not have tried yet. I’ve got nothing, folks. I don’t know much about James and all my years of research have only served to confuse me more in regard to him. There is literally not ONE researcher I can find who has this family tree correct and that includes me! Every single one of us has errors. Part of the problem is that my James married my Nancy. But a different James BUTLER married a different Nancy in Grove, Delaware County, Oklahoma (This second couple is not our couple.). (And you wouldn’t believe how many other James Butler’s married how many other Nancy’s in Missouri, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.) To top it all off, I’ve even seen Nancy’s name as Elizabeth Caudill (which actually IS the name of the woman I think is her mom). I’m just going to start with the facts and see where the facts take the story from there. James BUTLER is my paternal 3rd great grandfather. WHAT I KNOW When I first started working on the family history as a teen my Mam (paternal grandmother Audrey) told me that Laura BUTLER HUBBARD’s parents were James and Nancy CAUDILL BUTLER. I’ve had a lot of starts and stops and do-overs in finding information about James and Nancy. I would think I’d found the family and I’d connect them on Ancestry and then find information that changed my mind and I would disconnect that family from James’ tree- not once, not twice, but multiple times. This is what I know about James- or at least what I think I know! James BUTLER was born 10 January 1854 (I’m more certain about the year than the day/month) in Missouri (possibly in Arkansas- Laura listed both places on different census enumerations). James married Nancy CAUDILL on 26 August 1877. I think they had five children. Those children being Laura (my 2nd great grandmother), Emmaline, Charley, Cora, and Estella. One researcher says there is a sibling named Bessie and not a sibling named Cora. Charley is buried in an unmarked grave in Southwest City Cemetery in Southwest City, McDonald County, Missouri as is his son, John Henry. I know the family lived in Douglas County, Missouri and I’m not really sure how many of them made it down to Southwestern Missouri. That’s it, folks. The end of the line for everything of which I can be certain. If you can help, please do! And just to assuage your sadness at this meager posting today, I offer you a screenshot of the marriage certificate of Alford and Laura BUTLER HUBBARD.
Marriage License for Alford Hubbard and Laura Butler.
And a screenshot of Cora BUTLER BARNES’ death certificate.
Cora Butler Barnes’ death certificate.
And a tiny little news clipping in The 16 September 1948 edition of The Sikeston Herald Newspaper out of Sikeston, Missouri courtesy of Newspapers.com. I *think* this article is talking about two of James and Nancy’s children- Charley BUTLER and ESTELLA BUTLER ROBERTS. (I could be wrong on this one but here it is- feel free to disprove it.)
Article about Charles Butler and Estella Butler Roberts, possibly.
Until tomorrow (when I will have a better blog post), Lisa @ Days of Our Lives
Today’s blog post is about Ralph LARKIN. I’ll be going off the information I have available to me online (and not digging out my records or any additional information online) as well as going off stories from my Dad to create today’s blog post. Ralph LARKIN is my paternal great grandfather. He died on this date in 1963. I wasn’t born for another 6 years so I don’t have any personal stories about him to tell. Any stories I have come from others and from records. RALPH’S CHILDHOOD
I have tried to stick with Ralph’s childhood but a big part of childhood is siblings and Ralph has a sibling that’s a big mystery so today I’m going to talk a little about the siblings.
Ralph was born in 1898 in Barry County, Missouri to William and Minerva UNDERWOOD LARKIN. By 1900 (just two years later) the family was living in Aurora, Lawrence County, Missouri. Ralph had two siblings that I can name with certainty- Emily and William. (Alice is another child that some researchers assign to Minerva. We’ll talk about Alice in a minute.) In the 1900 census Ralph’s mom was 48 years old and she stated she gave birth to four children and all four were living. There are only 3 children living in the home, though- Emily (who later goes by Emma; 10 years old), William (who later went by Jess or Jesse; 8 years old), and Ralph (2 years old).
Ten years later in the 1910 census, Ralph’s mom says again that she gave birth to four children but in 1910 she says one child is deceased. The children listed in her household in 1910 are Emma, Jesse (spelled ‘Jessie’), and Ralph. I did a search of pre-1910 Missouri deaths at the Missouri archives database for a possible record of the baby that died but couldn’t find anything that seemed to fit with the information above.
Now let me throw another kink in things. Jess died in 1956. His obituary lists the following siblings: Mrs. Emma SPILLERS of Southwest City, Missouri; Mrs. Alice EDENS of Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Ralph LARKIN of Southwest City, Missouri. So, were there actually 5 children total and one died? Did they think Alice was going to die and told the census taker she was dead but then she pulled through? Was there a misunderstanding on either the census taker’s part or the part of the person giving answers to the census taker?
Let’s go ahead and talk about Alice now. Some researchers have Alice listed as Minerva’s sibling (Ralph’s aunt) and some have Alice listed as Minerva’s child (Ralph’s sibling). On the FindAGrave website Alice is listed as belonging to Minerva’s parents. I believe this is incorrect for a couple of reasons including Alice being listed as a granddaughter of Minerva’s mom on the 1880 census and the fact that Minerva’s mom would have been approaching 60 when Alice was born so biology would make it improbable that she gave birth to Alice.
On the records I’ve found for Alice, she had UNDERWOOD as her last name. So was Alice the illegitimate daughter of Minerva or one of Minerva’s sisters? Was she Minerva’s niece that Minerva ended up raising (a daughter of one of Minerva’s brothers)? Minerva’s brother just happened to get married the year Alice was born so maybe something happened to Alice’s mom and Minerva’s brother couldn’t care for the baby? Allow me to tell you what I think. I think we can safely rule out all of the brothers because in the 1880 census Alice’s father’s birthplace is not given but her mother’s is and her mother’s birthplace is North Carolina. If one of Minerva’s brothers had been the dad, the family would have been able to answer the question of Alice’s father’s birthplace so I think we can safely rule out all of the brothers (Ralph’s uncles). Minerva was approximately 19 when Alice was born so I think it’s most likely that Alice is either Minerva’s or one of the sisters’ illegitimate child. Minerva and Mary are the only ones I’m showing as being born in North Carolina so I think we can safely narrow it down to one of those two women. In looking at these two women, I notice that in 1874 (when Alice was born) Mary was married and going by the name BUTLER. So I think we can finally narrow it down to Minerva as being Alice’s mom. That equals four biological children for Minerva so you would think that would solve the problem, but it doesn’t because Minerva said one of her children was deceased by 1910 and yet Jess’s obituary shows there were four siblings and all were still alive in 1956.
I have yet to figure out this mystery. If you get it figured out- please let me know! It’s difficult for me to imagine that Alice and Ralph were ever very close. Alice had her first two children before Ralph was ever born and she had her third child the same year Ralph was born. We’re going to stop right here with Ralph’s childhood and move on but first, I want to show you some photographs of two of Minerva’s children.
This is Ralph:
This is Ralph’s sister, Emma LARKIN SPILLERS: RALPH’S ADULTHOOD
In 1918, at age 20, Ralph married Bessie WILLIAMS STEELEY.
Ralph and Bess
Bessie had been married already once at the age of 14 to Otis STEELEY and that marriage ended in divorce almost as soon as it began. I think for Ralph, this was his first marriage. Ralph’s mom signed the application for a marriage license and Bess’s mom signed the marriage certificate as a witness to the marriage.
Ralph and Bess had 10 children together that I know of. The stories of their children are interesting but I’ll get to those another day. Ralph worked as a mine laborer and then later as a miner in Miami, Oklahoma. He was also a farmer. He always lived close to his family as far as I can tell.
When my Dad talks about Ralph he often recalls that Ralph was very devout in his faith and was of the Pentecostal faith. Ralph loved to fish and was a hard worker.
Ralph and Bess fishing.
Dad says Ralph died when my dad was only 19 so he doesn’t have a lot of memories, but as he recalls it Ralph died of miner’s lung disease from all his years working in the mines. He says Ralph wasn’t a coal miner. My thought on this is that given that Ralph mined in the Miami, Oklahoma area, Ralph would have worked in the zinc or lead mines. Dad said he always thought one contributing factor to Ralph’s death was lead poisoning. Dad says he’s never seen Ralph’s death certificate but basically Ralph suffocated to death. Ralph moved to Arizona on the doctor’s advice in hopes of restoring his health. He didn’t feel like the dry climate helped him so he moved back after a few years. Dad recalls that at the time, it seems the doctors thought Ralph might have asthma.
Ralph was also very strict. Dad says he loved and respected Ralph but always kept his mouth shut around him! Ralph was stern, but not mean. Dad says Bess was somewhat irreverent and opinionated and was a handful for the strict and devout Ralph. RALPH’S DEATH
Ralph died in January of 1963. Bess, whom my cousin has affectionately called ‘the serial bride’, remarried in August of the same year. She married James R. BRIGGS of Joplin, Missouri. I’m going to end Ralph’s story here since I’ve previously written about Ralph’s official cause of death. His birth date is in April so we’ll be visiting him again in April and hopefully we can flesh out his story a little more then. Until then, click on over to Becky’s blog. She’s posting a photo a day that is genealogy related.
Until tomorrow,
Lisa @ Days of Our Lives blog
Today we’re honoring the life of Lucretia HUTCHISON MITCHELL HARTMAN. Lucretia is my paternal 4th great grandmother. Her first husband was Mordica Elias MITCHELL, my 4th great grandfather. Lucretia was born in 1813 in Polk County, Tennessee. She married Mordica in Monroe County, Tennessee. Sometime between 1840 and 1850 the family moved to Missouri. Together Lucretia and Mordica had 8 known children. Lucretia outlived Mordica by 35 years. About 7 years after his death Lucretia married a second time to William HARTMAN. They each brought children from previous marriages into their own marriage. They were married for 14 years until William’s death. Lucretia outlived William by another 14 years. I don’t know if she married a third time or not. I believe that about 1879, Lucretia moved out to California where some of her children lived. Some researchers say Lucretia did not move to California and died in McDonald County, Missouri. I believe it to be more likely that she died in California while living with some of her children out there. However, I can’t prove either theory. Lucretia’s children moved out to California in the late 1850’s. That was too late for the 1849 California Gold Rush but it was about the time of Pony Express and the installation of the railroad so it’s possible they went to California for those reasons. Lucretia outlived not only two husbands but most of her children as well. Three are known to have survived her. The three known to have survived her are James Harrison MITCHELL, Mary Louisa MITCHELL POTTER THOMAS, and Hester Ann Eglentine MITCHELL DRAKE. James and Mary both went to California. Hester stayed in Missouri. I haven’t been able to find a lot of information about the family. What I have found includes this death certificate for her son James MITCHELL:
Death Certificate for James Mitchell, son of Mordica and Lucretia (Hutchison) Mitchell.
Cause of death was “old age” and subsequent “gradual breaking down of all the organs” I also do have one photo of her daughter (and my 3rd great grandmother) Hester MITCHELL DRAKE:
Portrait of Hester (Mitchell) Drake, daughter of Mordica and Lucretia (Hutchison) Mitchell.
In researching her children I discovered that a couple of the daughters married into the POTTER family. I also discovered one very interesting connection that I had not previously made. Please note that this is someone else’s research and I haven’t had decent internet to double check the information. But if it checks out it will be the biggest breakthrough I’ve made on this family in a long time. According to what I found, Hester had a sister-in-law, Elizabeth J. BECK MITCHELL. When Hester’s brother (Elizabeth’s husband) died, Elizabeth remarried to Hester’s father-in-law, Ervin Alonzo DRAKE (Poppy’s grandfather, not Poppy Lonzo). Ervin had lost his first wife. He was quite a bit older than Elizabeth (20 years older) but they stayed together until Ervin’s death in 1900 (24 years of marriage). So Hester’s sister-in-law became her step-mother-in-law in 1876. And William’s sister-in-law by marriage became his stepmother. Very…awkward. But I guess it worked out for them. At least, I hope it did. Again, I still have to verify all this but I wanted to share with you in case any of you have time to check it out and share with the family. I wish I had more to offer you about Lucretia’s life. Given the difficulty of this line, I feel pretty good about the discovery of Elizabeth BECK’s maiden name (or maybe it’s a previous married name? I don’t know.). That in itself is a new discovery as is (at least for me) the fact that she had two separate relationships to William and Hester MITCHELL DRAKE. So that’s better than finding nothing at all. I hope you’ll join with me in lighting a candle today to celebrate the life of Lucretia and it’s trickle-down effects on our lives today. If you make any discoveries about her, I hope you’ll share them here. In the meantime be sure to head on over to Down in the Root Cellar where Becky has written a blog post (“Trapped”) about my maternal grandma, Jessie. It’s a great read!
Laura is my maternal great grandmother. Hers is the first death date anniversary I’ll be honoring this year. So if you’re lighting a candle with me today, now would be a good time to go do it while you’re thinking about it. On the far right is Jessie RITER BATES and to the left of Jessie is Jessie’s mom, Laura BULLOCK RITER. To the left of Laura are two of her other daughers, possibly Bertha (second from left) and Myrtle (far left). When I was younger I asked Granny to tell me about her mom, Laura. What she recalled the most was that Laura always went outside and played WITH her kids instead of sending them outside to play alone while Laura took care of chores and household business. Granny also recalled Laura being a good cook. When I asked my Mom about her grandma Laura, my Mom also remembered Laura’s cooking. She remembers going to Laura’s house on Sunday’s for meals and Laura almost always fixed Angel Food cakes with sprinkles inside for dessert. I talked about those cakes in this blog post. Mom loved those cakes! In spite of Laura’s good cooking, she was always a thin, petite woman. My mom didn’t recall ever hearing Laura yell or get loud. Laura lived in several different houses in Sulphur Springs, Benton County, Arkansas. Laura’s brother, Uncle Ed, always lived near Laura all his life. I don’t think he ever married. I remember Mom telling me once that it was almost like he stayed to take care of Grandma Laura. Just before Laura’s 23rd birthday, she married William Sherman RITER. They had five children together. Granny always told me there was another baby that didn’t live but I have no proof of that. This baby that didn’t live was Laura’s first baby which would make a total of 6 children that Laura gave birth to. When Laura was just 41 years old, William passed away and left her to raise those five children alone. She raised them well and never remarried. Granny recalled that it took Laura almost a year to get William’s military pension started. That year was very difficult as the family didn’t have much money to live on. In the mid-1950’s, Laura’s daughter Bertha was diagnosed with cancer. In the fall of 1957, when Laura was 70 years old, Bertha died due to the cancer. That left Bertha’s children with their stepfather with whom they did not have much of a relationship and while he loved them, he had no way to raise them on his own. Laura moved those five children back from California and finished raising them. In January of 1970 at the age of 81, after raising 10 children, she passed away. She died on a Saturday. At the time of her death her son William lived in Panama City, Florida. Her daughter Myrtle (RITER) PENDERGRAFT lived in Sulphur Springs (as did Laura). Laura’s daughter Jessie (RITER) BATES live in Southwest City, Missouri. Her daughter Faye (RITER) STEVENS lived in Anderson, Missouri. Her brother Ed BULLOCK lived in Sulphur Springs, Arkansas near Laura as I talked about earlier. He is also buried in the same cemetery as Laura (Butler Cemetery near Sulphur Springs, Arkansas).
William “Ed” Bullock’s gravestone.
I’m leaving a photo of Ed’s gravestone here since the name on the stone is different than what they called him. He doesn’t have any descendants to remember him or clean his gravesite and leave flowers. If you’re ever in the area, you might stop by and leave flowers for he and Grandma Laura and clean off the stones. Laura’s brother Oscar BULLOCK lived in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Oscar was a World War I veteran and when he passed away he was buried in the Fayetteville National Cemetery in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Her sister Cynthia (BULLOCK) BATY lived in Gilroy, California. Another of her sisters, Alice (BULLOCK) ROTRAMEL, lived in Southwest City, Missouri. At the time of her death, Laura had 29 grandchildren (5 of whom she finished raising as noted above) and 53 great grandchildren (of whom I was one of the newest, being less than a year old at the time of her death).
Portrait of me as a baby.
Me at approximately the time Laura BULLOCK RITER passed away. If you have any memories of Laura I’d love to hear them. If you have any photos to share, I’d love to see them.
