Skeletons in the Closet

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a post on Facebook that was interesting. A fellow named Kevin Heaton had written a book which sounded interesting and was centered around my home town, Mannford, Oklahoma. Although I didn’t know Kevin, I did know his parents and also several of the people written about in the book. The subject of the memoir was Opal George, Kevin’s mother-in-law, and the name of the book is, appropriately, “Opal”.

I quickly ordered a copy from Amazon and received it in a couple of days. When I read it, I was surprised to see that one of my distant relatives, Raymond Wyatt, was mentioned. He and Elva Workman were two of Mannford’s most unusual characters.

If you do genealogy long enough, the skeletons are surely going to come out of the closet.  In my case, I've had several.  Some people don't like to talk about certain of their relatives but I think, in most cases, it's terribly funny.

Let's start with Alvie Workman.  Elva W. “Alvie” Workman was born in Miller County, Missouri, on March 16, 1892 to Richard Ellis Workman and Sarah Malissa (Gilliam) Workman. They were both native Missourians and both had been born in Miller County. Miller County is located in the south central part of the state. Richard was a farmer all his life as were most folks in that era.

Alvie was the oldest of three boys born to that marriage. Sarah died in Miller County in 1926 at the age of 56 and Richard died in Perry, Noble County, Oklahoma, in 1959 at 89 years of age. He had moved to Perry to live with his son, Thomas, when he became too old to work.

Alvie moved to the Mannford, Oklahoma area sometime between 1900 and 1910.  In 1917, he married Ida Jane Ihrig, my father's first cousin.  Alvie and Ida had a total of six children, all boys between 1918 and 1928. In the late 1920’s, he was arrested several times for “moonshining”, operating an illegal whiskey still. This was not uncommon, however, for prohibition was the law of the land from 1920 to 1933.

Ida Jane was the fifth child and third daughter of Francis Marion Ihrig and Mahala (Stephens) Ihrig and was born in 1899 in Indian Territory. Mr. Ihrig was also a farmer in the Mannford area. As a side note, one of Ida Jane’s siblings was Ernest “Twenty” Ihrig, a well known cowboy in Mannford and a “side kick” of Milton Walker “Cap” Alexander, the foreman of the Wilson Ranch in that town. An article about that ranch appears in a 2019 blog.

Sometime between 1940 and 1950, Alvie and Ida Jane separated. In 1950, he was still living in Mannford and listed his marital status as “separated”. Ida Jane had moved to San Mateo, California and listed her marital status as “widowed”.

In the early 1950’s, when I was about six years old, I became aware of who Alvie Workman was. My father told us children about how we were related to him. By this time, he had become one of Mannford’s “characters” and was feared by most of the children in the area. He was a tall, gaunt man who had extremely long hair and a long beard.

The story goes that he was possessed by demons. He lived in a tar paper shack down by Hazel Creek on the east side of town. Even with his idiosyncrasies, Alvie was a hard worker and did a great deal of labor, mostly for Raymond Holmes, the local hardware store owner. He was also a very adept whittler and made many a cane for people in Mannford. You could tell by his work that he had a great deal of innate artistic talent.

In the late 1950’s, Alvie began to travel back and forth from Mannford to Lebanon, Missouri. Hitchhiking and hopping freight trains were his preferred modes of travel. He died in August, 1981, and is buried in the Cemetery in Lebanon.

Raymond Wyatt was born on April 12, 1905, in Bowie, Montague County, Texas, about 90 miles northwest of Dallas. He was the son of Albert Lee Wyatt and Calvin “Callie” Horton Wyatt, both of whom were native Texans and who had wed in Montague County in 1902.

Not long after Raymond was born, the young family moved to Hazlip Township in Creek County, Oklahoma. No reason for their move has been found, although Albert had a half brother, Thomas Perry Porter, who had come to Keystone, Oklahoma, nearby, in 1902. The Wyatt family lived in the Mannford area for several years and Albert enrolled his son, Raymond, at Flat Rock School at the age of ten. It is suspected that he didn’t attend school for very long.

Sometime before 1935, Albert and another half brother, Doss Porter, left Mannford and headed for California. Doss took his family but Albert left Callie and young Raymond in Mannford. Callie worked at several jobs after Albert left and even had her own grocery store at one time. Raymond, without the influence of a father, began to drink heavily and got involved with bootlegging and moonshining.

The great prohibition “experiment” in the United States began in 1920 and lasted until 1933. Even after prohibition was lifted, the State of Oklahoma remained legally dry until 1959, with only 3.2% beer being allowed. In practice, however, bootleggers and moonshiners kept the State in alcohol.

It was sometime in the mid-1930’s when Raymond received his nickname, “Slip” or “Slippery”, so called either because of his ability to escape deathor to elude law enforcement. He had many close calls. Also, at one point, he admittedly ran a “still” up in “East Holler”, just east of the town of Mannford.

Slip’s exploits were many: In 1932, he stole a car from another Mannford resident and fellow moonshiner, G.W. “Jack” Housley, and later wrecked it. At the time, it was expected that he would never face charges for the theft because he was critically injured when he wrecked the car. Obviously, he did recover but the outcome of the car theft charge is unknown.

In 1937, he was shot in the stomach by Mannford’s constable, C. E. Woodruff after resisting arrest for disorderly conduct. Apparently, he, Slip, had gotten into an argument with Woodruff’s son where hatchets and hammers were involved. Slip was, of course, very drunk. He was taken to Oklahoma City where he recovered in a hospital there. Charges against him were later dismissed.

At the time of the 1940 U.S. Census, Slip was incarcerated at the state penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma. The reason for his stay there is unknown but he did spend several stays there and in jails around Creek County.

In fact, in 1949, Slip made the national news when he wrote a postcard from Phoenix, Arizona to the Creek County Sheriff, Lee Johnson. Slip had walked off his trusty job with 30 days left to serve on a public drunkenness sentence. The card read:

“Dear Lee, do you want me to come back? I am sorry I run off. Tell all the boys hello for me. Yours truly, Slip Wyatt”

The sheriff commented that he would spend no county money to bring Wyatt back. When Slip had been booked into the jail on the public drunkenness charge, he had listed his profession as “moonshiner”. Wire services had picked up the story and it ran in many newspapers across the country.

In yet another event,in 1945, Slip was charged with grand larceny when he stole two pairs of reading glasses and two sets of false teeth, along with $65 in cash. The outcome of this case is unknown, as is what he planned to do with the false teeth. Again, the victim in this case was his friend, Jack Housley.

In all, the number of times he was arrested is more than can be counted. Charges included public indecency, public intoxication, driving while intoxicated and several others. In spite of all these run-ins with law enforcement, Slip was regarded as a likable fellow around Mannford.

In the early 1960’s, Keystone Dam and Reservoir were being constructed and the town of Mannford elected to move. Many of the residents moved to the new town location but some went elsewhere. It was around this time that Callie Wyatt decided to move to Oilton, about 16 miles away. Slip, who had never married, moved with her.

On July 10, 1967, Raymond “Slip” Wyatt passed away and is buried at the Drumright North Cemetery in Drumright, Oklahoma. No cause for his death can be found but, with the way he lived his life, anything would have been possible. His mother, Callie, died in Oilton in June, 1973 at the age of 91 years.

What's in a Name?

How important to you is your family name or surname? The name itself shouldn't be very important but somehow I'm finding out that it is. If you had been a Smith all your life and suddenly discovered that you were really a Jones, how would you feel?

I was born a Pierce but was adopted early on by my mother's second husband and my surname became Alexander. Having lived as an Alexander practically all my life, I'm kind of proud of that name. Being a genealogist, I'm also proud of my ancestors who bore that name.

Family or surnames didn't come into use until about the 15^th century in Europe. Prior to that time, people were just known by a single name. For instance, Vlad the Impaler was known only by Vlad. Of course, we all know about Attila also. As surnames began to be used, the name was often derived from the person's work or from where he lived. The most common example is the town blacksmith, who when he took a family name, usually became Smith.

Back to my story about the Alexanders. Over the past fifteen years I have done a lot of genealogy on our Alexander family. In fact, I had traced the lineage back to colonial times in Cecil County, Maryland. I'm reasonably sure that our family is descended from the Alexanders who migrated from Scotland to Ireland, then across the Atlantic to the colonies. After years of studying the family, I've grown very fond of my ancestors and their exploits.

DNA testing has become very popular in the past few years in genealogy. This testing helps find cousins you weren't aware of, confirm family lines that you've developed and give you some background on your roots. In the past five years, I've had a lot of DNA testing done and it has all been informative and rewarding. One thing I had not done, however, is any yDNA testing on the Alexander side of the family. yDNA testing follows only the male side of your family and should remain in sync with your family surname.

In order to do yDNA testing on the Alexander line, I had to enlist my brother, Milt, who was a direct descendant of Tommy Alexander and his father, Milton Walker (Cap) Alexander. We sent the test off in May, 2015, and just got the results back. Lo and behold, there was not a single match with the Alexander surname! Out of fifteen matches, ten of them were with people named something else. There were a couple of others who didn't match Alexanders either.

This is what the experts call a non paternity event (NPE). It could have been a child born out of wedlock, infidelity in a marriage, a child taking the mother's maiden name, an adoption or any of several other things. The evidence is pretty conclusive that our surname should have been something besides Alexander. The problem is that we don't know how or when this might have occurred.

I must tell you that I am very bummed about this turn of events. It's kind of like finding out that you aren't really who you thought you were. On the other hand, it does provide me fodder for continued genealogy, probably for several years!

I've purposely not revealed the surname which came up.  I want to do some more study before I tell what it is.

J.O. Alexander Revisited

Yes, its been a while.  I've been either busy or lazy, take your pick.  I've written about my great-grandfather before but I just completed a fairly comprehensive history of him.

James Orville Alexander (Jr.), Born 1828, Died 1906

The Life of a Pioneer

James Orville, or J.O. as most people referred to him, was born on May 10, 1828, in either Obion or Fayette County in Tennessee.  The exact location is not confirmed.

He was the youngest child of four born to James Orville Alexander (Sr.) and Drucilla Abernathy Alexander.  James Orville and Drucilla both died very young.  He was 29; she was 28 and they died within 13 months of each other, reportedly of scarlet or typhoid fever.  At the time of her death, the oldest child was no more than eight years old; the youngest one, J.O., was about 18 months old. 

According to Naomah Alexander Lance in her Alexander history, the children were raised by their aunt, Matilda Sharp Alexander Abernathy.  J.O.’s older siblings included Susan Matilda who was seven years older, Milton Elbert who was five years older, and John Walker who was three years his senior.

In about 1854, J.O. married Malinda Abigail Bradford while still living in Tennessee.  Susan Matilda had married in 1840 and had already passed away by the time of J.O.’s marriage.  Milton Elbert had married Charity Yokley in 1852 and John Walker had married Rebecca Ussrey in 1850.

J.O.’s new bride, Malinda, was the daughter of Eli Bradford and Jane Benthal Bradford.  Her father, Eli, had died in 1838, a year after she was born but the cause is unknown.  Her mother, Jane, remarried sometime before 1847 to Joseph Knox.  At the time of their marriage, Joseph was at least 50 years old, Jane was fourteen years younger, about 36.

By 1855, J.O.’s older brother, John Walker, and his wife, Rebecca, has already had two girls, Drucilla in 1851 and Susan in 1855, both born in Tennessee.  J.O. and Malinda had three boys within a short time of their marriage, James Mack in 1854, Milton Walker in 1857, and William Marcus in 1858. These children were all born in Missouri.  Based on these dates, it appears that the Alexander migration to Missouri was led by J.O., who was closely followed by John Walker.  As mentioned earlier, their sister, Susan, had already passed away; their brother, Milton Elbert, remained in Tennessee with his wife, Charity.

Milton and Charity had eleven children, all of whom were born in Tennessee and most of them remained there.  Even today, there remains a large contingent of their descendants living in
Giles and Maury Counties there.

Moving with J.O. and Malinda from Tennessee to Missouri were her mother, Jane and step father, Joseph Knox.  Joseph and Jane had had two sons of their own after their marriage: James Polk Knox, who became a physician, and Joseph Burdine Knox, who died at the age of 15 in 1865.  Soon after the move to Missouri, the older Joseph Knox died and Jane became a widow for the second time.

In 1860, Jane and her two sons, James and Joseph, were living next door to J.O. and Malinda in Benton Township in Dallas County.  John Walker and his young family also lived in Benton Township.

John Walker and Rebecca had another daughter and three sons between 1858 and 1871: Sophronia, William, James Milton, and Frank, who were all born in Dallas County, Missouri.  J.O. and Malinda had two more children, both girls, who were born in 1865 and 1868.  They were Susan Augustine and Martha Alice, both reportedly born in Texas.

It is possible that the Civil War had an impact on these two brothers separating.  In 1861 when war broke out, John Walker was 36 years old; J.O. was 33.  John Walker did fight for the North and received a pension from the government for his service.  J.O. fought on the side of the Confederacy, mostly in Texas.

J.O. joined the Confederate Army in December, 1862, as a private and for the term of "three years or [the end of the] war." He enlisted in Company D, the Frontier Regiment, with Colonel J.E. McCord commanding. The last muster listed for him ended on October 31, 1863. However, because of an incident which occurred on January 8, 1865, we know that he was still in McCord's Regiment.  The Battle of Dove Creek was a skirmish between Confederates and Texas state militiamen on one side and a group of Kickapoo Indians on the other. At least twenty-two soldiers were killed as well as many Indians. The battle is regarded today as a colossal blunder by the Confederates since the Kickapoo were not hostile, but were only trying to migrate to Mexico.

In an article published in the June, 1924, "Frontier Times" magazine, Judge I.D. Ferguson of Denton, Texas, wrote of his experience in the battle of Dove Creek:   "Just as these thoughts [of dying] were trooping through my brain, I saw the panic stricken column checking up and a little man wheel his horse and with a loud voice say, "Here boys, here, follow me, let us save that boy's life!"  It was J.O. Alexander of our company, God bless his noble name; to him I owe my life. He came charging back, followed by our own company and also Foycett's company, with the old gray headed commander leading them; and in a minute the whole command had rallied and were coming flying back, screaming and shooting as they came. They drove the Indians back and we planted ourselves on a ridge of prairie to stand and fight until every man was dead".

 A Childress County, Texas, Confederate Veterans Camp listed J.O. as being a member but did not report his regiment.

Sometime in the early 1860’s, J.O. and Malinda moved from Missouri to Cooke County, Texas on the border between Oklahoma and Texas.  Within a couple of years they had moved a few miles south into Denton County.  J.O. and Malinda’s two girls were born during this period, Susan Augustine in 1865 and Martha Alice in 1868.

Soon after Martha Alice was born, J.O. and Malinda sold their property in Denton County and, with their five children, moved to Bentonville, Arkansas.  Accompanying them to Arkansas was Malinda’s mother, Jane.  By this time, Jane’s son, James P. Knox, was either in college in Bonham, Texas or medical school at the University of Nashville.  Her other son, Joseph Burdine, had passed away three years earlier.

J.O. became a merchant in Bentonville and had a store on the main square there.  The 1870 Census listed his occupation as "merchant" and one of the people living in his house was listed as a "Clerk in Store”.  One of the people in the listing listed his occupation as "tinner" which would indicate possibly that J.O. was involved either with making or repairing pots and pans.

Benton Lodge No. 33, International Order of Oddfellows, was chartered on November 25, 1870, and J.O. was one of the charter members. (Goodspeed's History of Benton etal Counties, Arkansas, The Goodspeed Publishing County, 1889, page 102.)

J.O. had several real estate transactions while he lived in Bentonville.  On December 11, 1869, he and Mr. H.L. Glass purchased Lot No. 71 in Bentonville for the sum of $200.  They purchased it from Mr. Samuel Woods.  This lot is on the town square, directly across from the Benton County Courthouse and is apparently the location where J.O. had his store.

On March 15, 1871, Malinda passed away.  An obituary clipping from an unknown newspaper which has been passed down through the family reads, "......the death of Mrs. Malinda A. Alexander, wife of Mr. J.O. Alexander [of our town?].  Mrs. A. had but recently returned from a long [ ? ] to visit friends in Tennessee.  She came home sick with measles, supposed to have been taken in Nashville, which terminated fatally on last Thursday night.  We extend to the bereaved family our sincere sympathy in this their great affliction.  Death under almost any circumstance is an unwelcome guest but when he comes the [ ? ] invader of the sacred precepts of the family circle and with [ ? ] grasp tears from its endearing associations a prized and faithful wife, a fond affectionate mother, we can only, in our creature weakness [ ? ] our grief stricken and bleeding hearts to heaven and say: "Thy will, not ours, O God be done"."

Malinda Abigail is buried in the Bentonville Cemetery, about one block from Walmart’s World Headquarters.

On April 20, 1872, James sold his half of the  store lot to his partner, Mr. Glass, for $400.  In the meantime he had purchased two residential lots south of the store.  The first, 900 feet south of the store, was bought on June 10, 1870, from Thomas and Maria Hurley for $300.  He sold it on March 9, 1872, to James Pearce for $250.  The second, 650 feet south of the store, was purchased on March 20, 1871, from Seaburn and M.V. Marquis for $300.  He sold this lot on January 4, 1872, to Samuel Howard for $700.  It might be conjectured that James was giving up the merchant business and decided to go back to farming in early 1872.  He sold his half of the store and the residential locations and purchased a 40 acre tract on January 4, 1873, from Samuel Howard, to whom he had sold the lot in town. It may have been that this was a trade, since the amounts are the same and the date is the same except for the year.

In 1874, James O. Alexander went to court in Bentonville to obtain guardianship of his children. Why he had to go to court to obtain this guardianship is unknown (Benton County, Arkansas, Court Clerk's Record's, January 21, 1874, Book C, Page 131).  Sometime after 1873 and the time of the 1880 Census, Jane Knox packed up J.O.’s five children (her grandchildren) and moved back to Denton County, Texas, where they were all living with Dr. Knox, who had started his practice in Bolivar in 1873.  It is suspected that the timing of this move coincided with J.O.’s next marriage.

In March, 1875, he married Nancy E. Faulkner Worthington in Benton County, Arkansas and remained married to her at least five years since they were together in the 1880 census.   Nancy was the widow of Dr. James Worthington, a Bentonville physician who had been shot and killed in 1871 by the suitor of one of his daughters.  In 1880, three of Nancy’s children were living with her and J.O. in Bentonville.  On July 15, 1875, James and his second wife sold their 40 acre farm to C.S. Pace.

Sometime between 1880 and 1887, J.O. moved to Childress, Texas, and Nancy moved to Missouri to live with a daughter, Sarah Annis.  She later moved to Pontotoc County, Oklahoma to live with another daughter, Florence Robertson.  Nancy died there in 1910.  Although the couple separated permanently, no record of a divorce has been found.

Sometime between 1880 and 1887, at least two of the sons, James Mack and William Marcus, both of whom were in their twenties, became reunited with J.O. in Childress County, Texas. It is not known whether he followed them there or they followed him.  No evidence that Milton Walker went to Childress exists; Susan Augustine did not, since she had married in Denton County in 1882.  Martha Alice also remained in Denton County with her grandmother, Jane Knox.  Jane Knox died in 1882.

Childress County, Texas and the town of Childress were not even formed until April, 1887. Prior to that time, there were very few settlers in the area and those that were there lived in dugout houses and worked as cowboys. There was not even a census taken of this area in 1870.

J.O. initially settled in Arlie where, according to his obituary, he was a merchant and the first postmaster. After a couple of years, he moved to the town of Childress, where he was elected as Justice of the Peace in precinct 3 in 1891, succeeding his son, James M., and served in this role until 1898.  At the time of the 1900 Census, J.O. Alexander was living with his son, James Mack, and listed himself as "widowed" (1900 U.S. Census, Texas, Childress County, E.D. 12, Precinct No. 1, Line 113-117).  From the Obituary in the Childress Index of Friday, June 29, 1906 (courtesy of Panhandle Plains Museum in Canyon Texas):  "J.O. Alexander died at the residence of his son, W.M. Alexander, June 16, 1906. Deceased was in his 78th year, and had been a resident of this county since 1887. He was the first postmaster of Arlie, first justice of the peace of precinct three and the first merchant. He was born and reared in Tennessee. Later he moved to Missouri, then in 1861 he came to Cooke County, Texas. He afterward lived in Denton and Wise Counties. He was the honest poor man's friend and a man of unusual business acumen. The deceased was father of J.M., at Childress, also has two daughters living."  Of interest, it is noted that Milton Walker Alexander, a son,  was not mentioned in this obituary; he was the only one omitted.

Interestingly, J. O. and his two brothers all died within a few years of each other.  Milton Elbert died in 1908 in Giles County, Tennessee and John Walker died in 1903 in Dallas County, Missouri.

J.O. and Malinda’s children all stayed in the Texas-Oklahoma area.  James Mack (“Uncle Mack”), his oldest son, married Nancy Garrison and they had six children.  The family lived in Childress, Texas, the whole time.  He died in Ardmore, Oklahoma in 1930, while visiting one of his sons.

Milton Walker (“Cap” or “Capt”) moved to Mannford, Oklahoma and married Mary May Stephens.  They had two children in addition to two she had from a previous marriage.  His grave is at Oak Hill Cemetery in Mannford.

William Marcus (“Uncle Billy”) married Flora Cooper and they lived in the Childress area all their lives.  They had eleven children of their own and one of Flora’s from a previous marriage.  For many years, he owned a drug store in Hollis, Oklahoma, just across the line from Childress.  They both are interred at Hollis.

Susan Augustine, the oldest daughter, married Ambrose Bourn in Denton County, Texas, in 1882.  They had two girls before he passed away in 1905.  After his death, Susan moved to Erick, Oklahoma to live near her sister, Martha Alice.  She died tragically in 1911 when her clothing caught fire as she attempted to built a fire in her cookstove.

Martha Alice married Bailey Tinsley in 1885 in Wise County, Texas, just west of Bolivar.  They moved to western Oklahoma shortly after that where he was a cotton farmer all his life.  Martha and Bailey had no children of their own but they did raise Susan’s two girls after her tragic death.  The couple is buried in Erick Cemetery in Erick, Oklahoma.

Close Relatives

One of the things that is always in the back of your mind if you do genealogy is that you may find a close relative that you didn't know you had.  I've wondered if I had a half brother or sister I didn't know about, or a first or second cousin.

That thought is at least a small part of the reason I decided to have the DNA test done, along with the DNA from my wife, Louise, and brother, Milt.

Well, yesterday it happened.  I got an email from a second cousin who I had no idea even existed.  Her grandfather and my grandmother were brother and sister.  I am extremely excited to find out more about these people.  Milt, my brother, is too since he was closer to Grandmother Alexander than the rest of us.

This picture shows my grandmother and me many years ago, probably about 1957 or 1958.  She died in 1967 so my memories of her are distant.  I can't wait to find out more about her brother's grandchildren!