In August, 2015, I wrote about DNA testing which had raised some doubts about our family name. As Paul Harvey used to say on the radio, here is "The Rest of the Story".
My
adoptive father, Tommy Alexander, was born on February 7, 1911,
ostensibly to Milton Walker Alexander and Mary May Stephens
Alexander.
Milton
Walker, or “Cap” as he was called, was the foreman of a ranch in
Mannford, Oklahoma. He had come there in 1901 or 1902 with a herd of
cattle which had been brought from Archer City, Texas. The owner of
the ranch was Luke F. Wilson from Kansas City, Missouri. Cap
was in charge of the ranch in Mannford and had several cowboys
working for him. Tommy was named after two of the cowboys, Herman
Weir and Thomas Perry “Tom” Porter, as well as for his father.
(L to R): M.W. "Cap" Alexander, Bob Powell, Tom Porter, Katie Porter
Mary
May Stephens was born in Arkansas in 1881 and had spent most of her
young life in Missouri before coming to Mannford around 1900. Cap,
her husband, had been born in Tennessee in 1857 so he was 24 years
older than his wife. Their first child, Beulah, was born in Mannford
in 1907. Sometime after her birth but before 1911, the ranch house
burned. Cap and May moved to another house on the ranch, near
Kellyville, Oklahoma, while a new ranch house was being built in
Mannford. Tommy was born in the house near Kellyville.
Cap
Alexander died in 1935 in Mannford and is buried there. May, his
wife, died in 1967 and she is also buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in
Mannford.
Cap
and May's marriage was tumultuous to say the least. Eventually they
divorced and she remarried, living in several places before her
death. In all, May was married four times.
Tommy
Alexander, after a first marriage that lasted 13 years, met Annie Sue
Nash and married her. Sue had two young boys from a previous
marriage, Roy Edward (this writer) and Gary Wade. Tommy adopted
these two boys and he and Sue had two children of their own, Mary Sue
and Thomas Milton. Tommy died in 2004 at the age of 92 and Sue died
in 2012 at 86 years of age.
In
2014, Roy Edward, “Edd”, who had been involved with genealogy for
several years, became interested in DNA. He had his own DNA tested,
along with those of his wife, Mary Louise “Louise” and Thomas
Milton “Milt”. He noticed that, although Milt had a lot of
cousins turn up on his paternal grandmother's side, there were no
Alexanders who showed up.
Finally,
in mid-2015, a match showed up on Ancestry DNA which showed a second
cousin relationship between Milt and a person who lived in
California. After exchanging several emails, it was discovered that
one of this man's great uncles was Thomas Perry Porter, the cowboy
who had worked for Cap Alexander on the ranch in Mannford. Since
then, several Porter relatives have been discovered through DNA
testing.
Apparently
May Alexander, who was 24 years younger than her husband, had had a
relationship or “dalliance” with Thomas Perry Porter! At the
time Tommy was born, Thomas Porter was 23 years old and single. He
later married and had two additional children. Interestingly, Tommy
Alexander was named after his biological father.
May
Alexander probably knew who Tommy Alexander's biological father was,
since she named him. What will always remain a mystery is whether
Tommy knew who his father was. Although he was much more fond of Cap
Alexander than of his mother, May, he did have several pictures of
Tom Porter which he kept throughout his life.
Without
a doubt, May went to her grave thinking that no one would ever know
about her dalliance with Tom Porter. However, 50 years later,
through DNA testing, the truth came out!
