Emma Leona Broadnax Rankin Archives - Digging Up Dead Relatives:

AHA! moments in family history research

If you are a genealogy hobbyist, you have undoubtedly experienced one or more joyful “AHA!” moments of discovery. As my friend and distant cousin Roger Alexander says, “Nobody has more fun than we do!”

AHA! moments strike when you finally locate evidence conclusively proving the identity of an ancestor you have been hunting. That usually happens when you have been doggedly mining whatever records you can find.[1] Then, voilà, your search turns up proof.

I would love to hear your AHA! stories. Please tell me about them with a comment on this blog or, alternatively, via an email. If you don’t have my email address already, I’ll bet you can find it in a New York minute, sleuth that you are.

Here are two of my AHA! moments, one of which concerns an Oakes and the other a Rankin. Also one of Gary’s, which involves a Willis.

Claiborne Parish, Louisiana: the Oakes

My father Jim Rankin grew up in rural north Louisiana in Webster and Bienville Parishes. He was certain that our Rankins were related either by blood or marriage to the Oakes family of Claiborne Parish, but he never figured out the nature of the relationship.

So I was stalking Oakes early on in this hobby, trying to prove that there was an Oakes branch on the Rankin family tree. I worked on the issue for a long time. I had my father’s maternal line back to one set of his great-grandparents, like so:

Jim Rankin, the first genealogist in the family; Emma Leona Broadnax and John Marvin Rankin, Jim’s parents; Susan Demaris Harkins and James Harper Tripp Broadnax, Emma’s parents; and Haney and Isaac Harkins, Susan’s parents.

I dug through available Claiborne Parish records in Houston’s Clayton Library ad nauseam researching those folks. I spread out into their extended families of cousins and in-laws. Clayton has thorough marriage and cemetery records for Claiborne. My Claiborne records expanded exponentially.[2] But I still couldn’t prove a Rankin-Oakes connection.

Gary and I were researching in Salt Lake City sometime in the late 1990s. Back then, the only way one could get county or parish records (other than published abstracts) was at the county courthouse, which was always a good place to meet friendly people. However, it is not a good way to research for two genealogists having virtually no geographic overlap.

Alternatively, one could research in films made by the Church of Latter Day Saints. These filmed records weren’t available online back then.[3] You had to go either to a local Family History Center or the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. The local centers had to order films from SLC, so doing research under those conditions was a slow, painful process. Salt Lake City was far more efficient — and way more fun. We often met relatives or friends there, or made new ones.

So there we were. To review filmed records, one sat in one of what we recall as three long rows of back-to-back microfilm readers at the Family History Library.[4] The microfilm room is dark and the readers are, or were, dusty, huge and archaic. In recompense, the chairs, which swiveled and were on wheels, had comfortable seat and back cushions. But finding and interpreting a specific record in sometimes indecipherable handwriting was always challenging. Sitting in front of a microfilm reader with 40 – 50 other people felt like being in a room full of code breakers in WW II, struggling to decipher enemy messages.

Actually, that’s a pretty good analog all the way around except for the enemy part. Although I occasionally find myself wishing I could exhume a county clerk and shoot him.

On the fateful day in question, the room of microfilm readers was full. You had to arrive when the library opened to get one of the more desirable readers.[5] We were late, so I was 6 or 7 people down one row with an antiquated reader. I was slogging my way through Claiborne Parish records. I found a succession record — called a probate record in most jurisdictions — for one W. L. Oakes in 1892.[6] Bless W. L.’s heart, he died intestate, i.e., he did not have a will. That means all the heirs had to be a party to estate proceedings. There is nothing better for a family history researcher than records of an intestate’s estate.

Better yet for me, as it turned out, W. L. Oakes had no children. Under the Louisiana law of intestate descent and succession, his heirs were his siblings. His widow’s petition for administration of his estate had to name all the heirs and their relationship to W. L. The list of heirs included “Mrs. Haney Harkins, sister of deceased.”

Thus I nailed Haney OAKES Harkins, Jim Rankin’s great-grandmother.[7]

I shoved back from the microfilm reader into the center of the aisle, swiveled my chair in 3 or 4 circles, sticking my arms up and down in the air while making the “V” symbol with both hands. Everyone on the aisle turned and grinned, and everyone knew exactly what had just happened.

Wish Jimmy had been there.

The Elusive, Irascible Samuel Rankin

The very first genealogical research I did was on the Rankin family. Of course. I am one. My father took our line back to a Samuel Rankin of Jefferson County, Arkansas, but could go no further.

In an effort to assemble hard facts, I quickly learned that Samuel’s age was impossible to pin down. In 1850, the census said he was 62. In 1860, he was 60, pulling off the fabulous feat of getting younger over the course of a decade. Inconsistencies multiplied as I found him in earlier records. I called him “Young Sam.”

I also learned he may have been a character. He had sons named Napoleon Bonaparte Rankin (“Pole” was his nickname) and Washington Marion Rankin ( or Marion Washington, “Wash”). What kind of person sticks a kid with those monikers? All told, Young Sam had 10 children, including eight sons. His eldest was named Richard Rankin. If that family employed the Anglo naming system for at least the first few sons, that was a clue that Young Sam’s father might have been named Richard.

The 1850 and 1860 censuses also indicated that Young Sam was born in North Carolina. Arkansas deed records revealed that his wife was Mary Frances Estes, daughter of Lyddal Bacon Estes and “Nancy” Ann Allen Winn Estes of Tishomingo County, Mississippi. Sam and Mary’s first six children were born there.

The Tishomingo records also established that Young Sam almost certainly had a brother William. The Mississippi state censuses added further confusing evidence about his age. I sort of, uh, averaged all the records and guessed he was born about 1800.

So. Here’s what I had to go on. Samuel Rankin, born about 1800 in North Carolina. Likely brother William. Possible father Richard. Whoop-dee-doo.

Armed with that miniscule information, I hauled my rookie researcher self off to North Carolina abstracts and started mucking about in Rankins. This is how I eventually became an expert in North Carolina Rankins. Do you have any idea how many of them there were around 1800? In how many counties? I will leave that for you to suss out. The point is that it was immediately obvious I was in for a long slog. Discouraged, I went back to Arkansas looking for anything.

In the Arkansas section of Clayton Library books, I found one with biographical information on prominent Arkansans. Lo and behold, one of them was Sam’s grandson, Claude Rankin. Claude said that Sam “reached adulthood in Lincoln County, North Carolina.” He then went, said Claude, to Rutherford County, Tennessee.

Off to Lincoln County records I went, armed with additional facts and renewed determination. The prominent Rankin family in Lincoln jumped out of the records in about three seconds: a Samuel Rankin whose wife was Eleanor (“Ellen”) Alexander. Turns out his nickname was “Old One-Eyed Sam.” They had ten children.

Lo and behold, Old One-Eyed Sam had a son who predeceased him named Richard. One problem: Richard lived in Mecklenburg County, adjacent Lincoln on the east side of the Catawba River. Claude expressly said that Young Sam “reached adulthood” in Lincoln County.

Following Claude’s lead, I did more research into the Lincoln County section at Clayton. Fortunately, Clayton has abstracts of Lincoln court records. I was poring through them when I found an indenture dated October 1812 that read as follows:

Ordered that “Samuel Rankin, about 13 years old, an orphan son of Richard Rankin, dec’d, be bound to John Rhine until he arrive to the age of 21 years to learn the art and mistery [sic] of a tanner.[8]

The Clayton chairs aren’t on wheels and they don’t revolve. They are made out of solid wood and weigh a zillion pounds or so. I shoved mine back and stood up, tipping the chair over, and just thrust both hands in the air flashing the “victory” sign. There were a couple of blue-haired D.A.R. types at the next table who looked at me with patent disapproval. The hell with ’em if they can’t take a joke.

Finally, four of Old One-Eyed Sam’s and Eleanor’s children went from Lincoln County to Rutherford County, Tennessee — Claude’s second hint. One of them was Samuel Rankin Jr., who had been appointed guardian of Young Sam when his father Richard died.

Jim Rankin would have patted me on the back and said, “good job, sweetie.” I would have had to admit to him that a review of Mecklenburg court records would have turned up the fact that Samuel Jr., a son of Old One-Eyed Sam, was appointed the guardian of Richard Rankin’s four orphans, including sons named Samuel and William.

Fortunately, the elation of the AHA! moment isn’t dimmed by the fact that one fails to take the easiest route to the destination.

I could also use this story as an illustration of how circumstantial evidence can add up to a rock-solid conclusion. Claude’s two hints, plus an estimate of Young Sam’s birth year and identification of Richard and William as possible names for his father and a brother, add up to a “gotcha!” when you add the Mecklenburg guardian record and the Lincoln indenture. Happily, the fact that Young Sam was from the line of Old One-Eyed Sam and Eleanor Alexander Rankin is confirmed by both autosomal and Y-DNA evidence.

John Willis: the Wantage connection

I am stealing one of Gary’s AHA! moments here. I don’t really know what he went through, research-wise, but I do know about him accidentally tripping over a clue bigger than Dallas.

He traces his Willis line back to a John Willis of Dorchester County, Maryland. John was born about 1680 and was the original immigrant in Gary’s Willis line.

John acquired some Dorchester County land in 1708. Like all of the Maryland landowners of that time, he named his tract. Some were humorous: “Sloane’s Folly.” Others were optimistic: “Smith’s Hope.” John named his tract “Wantage.” That rather peculiar name didn’t ring any bells with either of us. We focused on “Want,” as in I want some good luck.

We should have gone to Maps to see what the name would turn up. What we actually did involves far more Wantage luck.

We are both avid readers. At the time, we were wading through the entire oeuvre of Dick Francis, a former British steeplechase jockey and writer of mysteries involving horse racing.

Gary read one that had an owner trailering his horse through the English village of Wantage. “Robin!!!!,” he said. “Guess what?”

Moral: you can never tell where an AHA! moment might knock you down. Even murder mysteries qualify. Where else, I ask you, can John Willis have come from?

Wantage is a charming village in what is now Oxfordshire County, England (formerly Berkshire), west-southwest of London. We had to go there, of course. We stayed at the hotel in the public square called The Bear. It has (or had) a great pub and a nice breakfast-lunch room lit by skylights. I would describe the bedrooms as “adequate,” but for the fact that a friend of ours — whose taste in hotels and restaurants runs to ostentatious decor and astronomical prices — called our favorite hotel in Paris “adequate” after he stayed there. We love the Mayfair, and would never demean it in that fashion.[9] Using our friend’s rating scale, though, one would probably be forced to call The Bear’s accommodations “primitive” rather than “adequate.” I would nevertheless recommend The Bear to anyone except our friend.

Yes, Wantage has and had its share of men named Willis, a fairly common name in the region. One of Gary’s distant Willis cousins obtained a Y-DNA sample from one of them. Alas, that man is not related to Gary’s ancestor John Willis of Dorchester. In fact, he wasn’t a Y-DNA match to any Willis: he is apparently an NPE. Gary is still looking for Y-DNA proof, but is 99% certain his ancestor’s home was Wantage.

The square in front of the Bear has a wonderful statue of King Alfred, a many-greats grandfather of King Charles. Below are pictures of King Alfred and the Bear. It was obviously a glorious day in merrie olde England. Or perhaps it was merely adequate. <grin>

And that’s all the news that’s fit to print. See you on down the road.

Robin

[1] Evidence includes deed, probate, and tax records, court, military, and Bible records, census data, and/or whatever other county, state, or federal documents you can find. See the article at https://wp.me/p7CQxS-il , which includes a link to an article on the same topic by my cousin Roberta Estes from her “DNA Explained” blog. Relationships in online trees do not, repeat NOT, constitute evidence. They are only clues about family relationships.

[2] Based on advice from a professional genealogist, I organize my research results by county or parish in an idiosyncratic format I refer to as a “data table.” It has worked well for me for at least three decades now.

[3] You can now view images of original county and parish microfilms at the FHL website. It is free and is a goldmine of actual evidence. You can search the FHL catalog by location. Be aware, however, that the FHL website also has family trees having about the same credibility as trees on Ancestry. https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog

[4] Because many of the FHL films of original county records are now available online, newer family history researchers may not have had the Salt Lake City microfilm experience. It was a trip!

[5] The last time we were there, the microfilm readers were mostly unused. Microfilm images can be had on a computer, unless one is researching among “locked” records unavailable unless you are at a Family History Center or the SLC Library.

[6] Claiborne Parish, LA Probate Record E: 799, FHL Film # 265,999.

[7] As it turned out, the Oakes, Harkins, and Broadnax came to Claiborne Parish from Perry Co., AL. Perry records include an 1846 marriage for Haney Oakes and Isaac Harkins. The Oakes issue should therefore have been a piece of cake for me, but for the fact that the Perry County marriage abstract at Clayton showed the bride’s given name as Nancy. Moral: always check the original record. There were several other records in Louisiana and Alabama that could have proved Haney’s maiden name for me. I was a rookie at the time, however, and made every mistake in the book, evidently as a matter of principle.

[8] North Carolina State Library and Archives file, C.R.060.301.4, “Lincoln County, County Court Minutes Jan 1806 – Jan 1813,” p. 589.

[9] The Mayfair Hotel is about a block off the Place Vendôme, where both Coco Chanel and Chopin once resided. The Ritz Hotel is on that square. Jardins des Tuileries are less than a block south of the Mayfair. The Place de la Concorde, where Marie Antoinette and her unfortunate husband met the guillotine, is within a few blocks, at the west end of the Tuileries. It is a short walk to the Louvre (at the east end of the Tuileries) and the d’Orsay (just across the Seine to the south).

Family Names and Stories

Every genealogist knows that names can be reliable pointers to ancestral lines. And that pursuing your family tree inevitably produces some good stories. I’m sharing some of both here.

Burke

Our first son’s name is William Burke Willis. William is downright generic, but Burke is a solid clue. In fact, my mother’s birth surname was Burke. Her father was William Logan Burke (“WLB”). Thus, our son was obviously named for my grandfather, known as W. L. or “Billy” Burke. That name persisted: Gramps was one of at least five William Logan Burkes in the family.

The first WLB was born in 1860 in Wilson County, Tennessee. He migrated to Waco, Texas, where he became an early Sheriff and U. S. Marshall of McLennan County. The Sheriff’s father was Esom Logan Burke — thus the “L” in those five middle names. I haven’t proved a Logan on the Burke tree, but I’ll wager there is one.

Here are two Burke stories.

My earliest proved Burke ancestor was John Burke of Jackson County, Tennessee. John owned a fair amount of land on White’s Bend of the Cumberland River. Beautiful county, that is. He had a ferry there, owned enslaved persons, and ultimately fathered sixteen children in two marriages. Some of the sons turned out to be what my grandmother would call “no account,” but Esom Logan was a solid citizen, a Wilson County farmer.

John was born in Virginia during 1780-1790. He has accounted for a fair share of my gray hair: I cannot prove his parents. An early family history undoubtedly contains a great deal of truth, but is likely wrong about John’s parents. Y-DNA has not yet helped.

Desperate, I consulted the Draper Manuscripts. This is a vast trove of historical records, including letters, genealogical and historical notes, land records, newspaper clippings, and interview notes, all collected by Lyman Copeland Draper, a Wisconsin historian. The collection focuses on the frontier history and settlement of the old Northwest and Southwest Territories of the US from the 1740s to 1830. Draper’s papers are assembled in 491 volumes. To describe the collection as labyrinthine would be a massive understatement.

When you are looking for info in Tennessee around 1800 or so and are in a masochistic mood, head for the microfilms of the Draper Manuscripts. First, though, consult a book titled Guide to the Draper Manuscripts or something along those lines.

Lo and behold, I found a John Burke in a Tennessee volume! Draper described him as a renowned teller of fabulous tall tales. The example recounted by Draper: a near neighbor, let’s call him Thomas, was riding home one day and saw John out in the field. Thomas called out to him.

John, said Thomas, how about if you tell me one of your famous tall tales?

John didn’t miss a beat. You don’t have time for such foolishness, he said. I just saw one of your cows loose in your cabbage patch having a fine meal.

The neighbor headed home at a brisk trot. There was no cow in the cabbage patch, of course.

I am not certain that the above John Burke was the same man as my ancestor John Burke of Jackson County. I have not been able to find that story again, hoping it might identify the county where John the storyteller lived. That probably says something about the accessibility of the Draper Manuscripts. However, I definitely know that my grandfather, the second WLB, was also a fabulous storyteller. My grandmother tore out a clipping from one of the Houston newspapers one day and mailed it to my mother, writing on it, “your daddy in print with a big one.” Here is a transcription of the clipping, a column by Bill Walker titled “The Outdoor Sportsman.”

“A roaring gas flame in the big brick fireplace in the Cinco Ranch clubhouse warmed the spacious room and the several members of the Gulf Coast Field Trial Club who gathered there for coffee Saturday morning before the first cast in the shooting dog stake.

“Usually when veteran field trial followers get together the conversation turns to great dogs of yesteryears and this group was no exception.

“W. L. “BILLY” BURKE related one about an all-time favorite of ours — Navasota Shoals Jake.

“Burke and the late W. V. Bowles, owner of Ten Brock’s Bennett and Navasota Shoals Jake, were hunting quail in the Valley on one of those rare hot and sultry winter mornings. Jake pointed a covey several hundred yards from the two men and out in the open.

“BOWLES suggested they take their time approaching the pointing dog, since he was known to be very trustworthy. When the two hunters did not immediately move to Jake, the dog broke his point, backed away to the cool shade of a nearby tree and again pointed the birds.

“THE COVEY was still hovering in a briar thicket when Bowles and Burke arrived. Navasota Shoals Jake was still on point.”

Lindsey

OK, moving on. Our second son is named Ryan Lindsey Willis. Yep, there are Lindseys on my tree — one of my favorite lines. My nearest Lindsey ancestor’s name was Amanda Adieanna Lindsey Rankin. I loved her as soon as I learned the name; I wish I had her picture. She answered a knock on the front door of her father’s Monticello, Arkansas house one night in 1863, and immediately fell in love (according to her recounting) with “the handsomest soldier you ever saw.”

That was John Allen Rankin, wearing an almost brand-new uniform. The last battle in which he had fought was Champion’s Hill, east of Vicksburg, where the Confederates were soundly beaten. They were out-generaled. The Confederate in charge, General Stephen Lee (no relation to Robert E.), marched his soldiers piecemeal into Grant’s entrenched position.[1] About 4,300 Confederate soldiers and 2,500 Union soldiers were casualties. It was considered a Union victory and a decisive battle in the Vicksburg campaign.

On 19 May 1863, whatever was left of John Allen’s division after Champion’s Hill arrived at Jackson, Mississippi. He was in the 1st Mississippi CSA Hospital in Jackson from May 31 to June 13, 1863. The diagnosis: “diarrhea, acute.” That was near the end of the second year of his one-year enlistment.

On September 1, 1863, now in Selma, Alabama, the army issued John Allen a new pair of pants, a jacket and a shirt, all valued on the voucher at $31.00. Good wool and cotton stuff, presumably. Probably the best suit of clothes John Allen ever owned. That was the last the Rebel army ever saw of him. He was shortly declared AWOL and placed under arrest in absentia.

The next thing you know, he was in Monticello, making Amanda Lindsey swoon.

My earliest conclusively proved Lindsey ancestor was a William who died in 1817 in Nash County, North Carolina.[2]He left a charming will instructing his eldest son John Wesley Lindsey to “see that thay [the younger children] mind thare Stepmother and thare larning bisness and are kept out of all dissepated cumpaney and also to have sum chance of schoolling at least to know how to read the word of God.”[3]

William’s youngest son, Edward Buxton Lindsey — my ancestor — is also a story. When he was sixteen, he attended an auction of a deceased brother’s estate. Undoubtedly under the watchful eye of his brother John Wesley, Edward acquired almost everything he needed to start adult life and continue his larning bisness: a bedstead and linens, a pocket knife, a man’s saddle, a razor, an arithmetic book, a cyphering book, and an ink stand.

Edward married four times, which was a serious disgrace in the eyes of his daughter Amanda. He wound up old and widowed in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana in 1880, raising a young son from his last marriage. I felt sorry for him and tried fruitlessly to find his grave, hoping to pay my respect. I don’t think he got much of that from anyone else, except for two of those four wives: two wives divorced him and two died, including Elizabeth Odom Lindsey, his first wife and Amanda’s mother. I wish I had a picture of him, too. He must have been a charmer.

Estes

Family names are usually a blessing (see Burke, above). Sometimes they create chaos. Case in point: my ancestor Lyddal Bacon Estes (“LBE”). My irreverent husband calls him Little Sizzler.

When I identified LBE as the father of Mary F. Estes who married Samuel Rankin (parents of John Allen, the Confederate deserter), I rubbed my hands in glee. With those three surnames, I reasoned, finding his parents would be a piece of cake. Hahahaha …

The genealogy gods apparently do not like cockiness.

Turned out there were three men named Lyddal Bacon Estes whose lifetimes overlapped (not counting my LBE’s namesake son). One of them probably did not have the middle name Bacon, or at least he left no record of either a name or middle initial, notwithstanding appearances in county records.

All three LBEs trace are from the same Estes line of Virginia. And those three surnames don’t lie: there are both Bacon and Lyddall ancestors on my tree. As it turned out, I had to sift through hundreds of Estes records in Lunenburg County, Virginia, searching for LBE’s parents. Conclusive proof nevertheless eluded me. I finally proved them to my satisfaction by the process of elimination: there was only one male Estes in the huge Lunenburg Estes family who could reasonably have been LBE’s father. And only one female, also an Estes, who could reasonably have been his mother.[4]

I like the Estes line, too. The original immigrant to the Colonies was an Abraham Estes, a fine given name for the first of the line to arrive here. The Estes family traces back nicely to Kent, England in the late 1400s. They lived on the east coast and were fisherman and linen weavers.

Broadnax

Also in Kent were my Broadnax family ancestors, a set of certifiable bluebloods. The original immigrant to the Colonies was John Broadnax, a Cavalier, who was undoubtedly fleeing from Cromwell’s. He left his family behind in England. He appeared in Virginia just long enough to have his inventory recorded in York County.

I don’t much care for the Broadnax line because (1) it has been so thoroughly researched it is not challenging (and is therefore no fun) and (2) my view of my father’s mother, Emma Leona Broadnax “Ma” Rankin is my most recent Broadnax ancestor. Ma was, uh, how shall I say this? Not exactly warm and fuzzy. She was an unsmiling, bigoted, tea-totaling Southern Baptist who kept her house in Gibsland, Bienville Parish, Louisiana, heated to about 90 degrees. No mechanical assistance was necessary to achieve that temperature in the summer, it being Louisiana and all. But the heating bills in winter must have been spectacular, especially considering the high ceilings in that old house.

Ma’s husband, John Marvin “Daddy Jack” Rankin, son of the Rebel deserter, was poor as a church mouse. I once asked my favorite Rankin cousin — Butch, we called him as a kid, so he is stuck with that moniker for life — what Daddy Jack did for a living. All of my Rankin cousins were or are considerably older than I, my father being the youngest of the four Rankin siblings and not becoming a father until the ripe old age of 39. So they all know more than I did about the Gibsland Rankins.

Butch’s succinct response: Anything he could, hon. Anything he could. He was a driver of a dray wagon in one census and a waiter in a restaurant in another. A certificate among my father’s records proves he was Bienville Parish sheriff for one term, another non-lucrative profession.

The cousins once showed me an old popcorn wagon stored under the rear of the Rankins’ Gibsland house, which was built on a steep slope. We all figure Daddy Jack sold popcorn from time to time, perhaps turning a profit when Bonnie and Clyde were killed and their corpses displayed in GIbsland. Ma Rankin took in mending to help make ends meet, although they often did not. The Rankin fortunes didn’t revive until their kids, or at least their three sons, escaped rural North Louisiana.

At the first Rankin Cousins reunion at Butch’s house in 1995-ish, my cousin Diane, a child psychiatrist, asked me why in hell Ma Rankin, from the still-wealthy Broadnax family despite a serious setback after the Civil War, married penniless Daddy Jack.

Are you kidding me, Diane? You remember her, uh, personality? She cannot possibly have had many prospects.

One of the cousins, Ellis Leigh Jordan, brought a movie camera to the reunion. He trained it on each of the seven cousins individually and made us tell something about Ma. The word “strict” was grotesquely overused. All four of Ma’s children turned out to be atheists, not surprising in light of Ma’s relentless proselytizing. Furthermore, a fondness for alcohol persisted in the family. Nobody knows where any genetic propensity came from. I think being raised by Ma would drive anyone to drink.

I never knew Daddy Jack, who died in 1932 at age 56. But I knew Ma well enough. Gibsland is sufficiently close to Shreveport, where I grew up, to allow for monthly Sunday visits. I hated those visits with a passion. To describe Ma as merely humorless would prove that either my imagination or my vocabulary is failing me. “Strict” isn’t adequate, either. She once stopped a desultory conversation dead in its tracks, a bullet through its brain, like so …

The setting was her hot-as-hades living room at a Thanksgiving get-together. At least three and perhaps all four of Ma’s children were in attendance. Grandchildren were there as well, restlessly squirming in our seats. At least I was squirming: this was 1957, and I was only eleven. My cousin Marvin, the next youngest, was 15 or 16; Butch and Diane were 18. Ma’s favorite conversational topic was usually other people’s gall bladders, her own still being intact. Thankfully, that topic died quickly for lack of subjects.

Uncle Louie, Diane’s father, finally tried to break one of the prolonged silences by commenting on Sputnik, the satellite launched by the USSR the previous May.

Pretty soon someone will put a man on the moon, Louie opined.

Ma, arms crossed over her chest, fired her conversation-ending bullet: If God had meant for man to be on the moon, he would’ve put him there.

My cousins and I fled to the yard, where we pelted each other with pecans. The frigid cold was a respite.

… And now I have gone on too long. It was fun writing this.

See you on down the road. I’m happy to say that another contribution from Spade is in the works.

Robin

* * * * * * * * * *

[1] General Stephen Lee used exactly the same awful strategy at the Battle of Ezra Church, west of Atlanta, and got Allen W. Estes, brother of Mary Estes Rankin, killed.

[2] Although I cannot conclusively prove his parents, William Lindsey’s grandfather — was a William of Brunswick Co., VA and Edgecombe Co., NC. William had three proved sons: William, Joseph, and John. Y-DNA establishes that one of them was my William’s father, but I can only prove that it wasn’t Joseph. I suspect it was the other William.

[3] North Carolina State Library and Archives, CR069.801.6, “Nash Co. Wills 1778 – 1922, Keith – Owen,” file folder for William Lindsey dated 1817, containing a handwritten will of William Lindsey dated 16 Feb 1817 and proved May 1817.

[4] LBE’s parents were first cousins: John Estes, son of Elisha Estes and Mary Henderson, and Mary Estes, daughter of Benjamin Estes and Frances Bacon. Elisha and Benjamin were sons of the Lunenburg Estes patriarch, Robert Estes Sr. Robert Sr. was a son of Abraham the immigrant. In yet another illustration of the value of names, LBE’s first son was named Benjamin Henderson Estes. His first daughter, my ancestress, was Mary Frances.