Since this summarizes multiple trips/stops, this will jump around a bit from day to day, but ultimately, the point is to document my trips to visit our kin with my (now two OLDEST) sons. They may or may not remember these excursions when they're older, so I think it would be good to have a record of where we went to explore and who they got to pay their respects to. I don't know if they'll ever get the chance again with us living as far away as we do, and the odds are against one or both of them being as into genealogy as I am. But if nothing else, I hope to instill a sense of pride for their heritage in them, and if that happens, hopefully they will be glad they took these trips when they were young.
The first pictures I want to show are from more of an excursion than a trip that I took with Artie. When living in Tulsa, I made it a point to visit three graves at least twice a year: my grandmother, Roberta Moose Vaughan, and her parents, Robert and Ruby Jay Moose. I have pictures of the boys with these headstones on our visits, just like my mother took pictures of my brother and I at these same headstones when we were kids. Elliott wasn't with us on this last visit, but I have many pictures of him visiting here numerous times over the years.
These are pictures from our last visit to their graves on 9/5/18. Unfortunately, I don't know when we'll have a chance to visit again.
Our first trip was four days later, on 9/9. We were going to Oklahoma City to meet a cousin I'd connected with after our DNA match. On the way, I figure I would stop at Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie to pay my respects one last time before leaving for Michigan. I have visited this cemetery 2-3 times since moving back to Oklahoma, and as it contains 3 sets of grandparents and numerous aunts uncles, and cousins, it has become a very meaningful place for me.
Every time I stop here, I start with the Jay plot. It is nearest the entrance and easiest to locate. These are my 3rd great grandparents, William Thomas and Mary Louise Conner Jay.
The boys with the headstone of their 4th great grandparents.
My aunt Bell, daughter of William & Mary Jay
My 2nd great grandmother, daughter of Andrew & Mary May
My 2nd great grandfather, son of William & Mary Jay
The boys with the graves of their 3rd great grandparents.
This is an important spot. This is where my uncle, Roy Jay Moose, lies. He does not have a marker, clearly. This is immediately to the right of his grandfather, Elmer Jay. He was just under 17 months old when he died. I have often thought about how life could have been different if he hadn't died. I probably would have known him and regularly bugged him for genealogical information like I do his younger brother, my great uncle Ronnie.
Ronnie told me once that his mother used to say that her relationship with his father occurred in cycles of 17. They dated for 17 months. 17 months after they were married, Roy was born. 17 months later, he died. 17 months later, Roberta was born.
One day I am determined to properly mark this grave. I think my grandmother and her parents would have wanted that.
My uncle, son of Elmer & Roxie Jay
Wife of Roy
Son of Roy
The headstone of my 3rd great grandfather, Andrew Lewis May, and his 2nd wife, Tabitha Cummings
The boys with the graves of their 4th great grandparents
Homemade stone for Tabitha
Homemade stone for Andrew
Uncle Van May, son of Andrew & Tabitha May
Wife of Van
Son of Van
Son of Van
Grandson of Van, son of Mary Edith May
Next, we headed into Oklahoma City to meet my new-found cousin, Randy Berry. Randy appeared as one of my Ancestry DNA matches. He was a top 10 match of my grandfather who appeared one day and I was unable to place him in the family tree. Like most Ancestry DNA matches, I expected him to ignore my messages inquiring as to what our connection could be. But miraculously, he did not ignore me. He immediately knew our connection because he'd met my grandfather when he was a boy. His grandmother, Frances Barnett, was the sister of my great grandmother, Marie Barnett. So Randy and my dad are second cousins.
We exchanged messages, and eventually texts and phone calls, and discussed our mutual relatives, with a particular focus on Andrew "Andy" Jackson Barnett, our closest mutual male ancestor (his great grandfather, my 2x great). We both have accumulated stories, pictures, and artifacts of Andy's from our respective branches of the Barnett family tree, and it was exciting to be able to share them with someone as enthusiastic as me. Unlike myself, Randy had the privilege to meet and know Andy as a child. We were both able to share information the other wasn't aware of, and we eventually decided to meet so we could look at each others' heirlooms in person.
We met at a Chick-Fil-A in Oklahoma City that had a playplace to keep the boys occupied, and we kept on with exchanging stories and genealogy information. I brought the small sword/machete, book on Kentucky feuds, some tintype photos, and personal papers of Tom Barnett which are my Barnett heirlooms. All of these items belonged to Andy's older half-brother Tom and Andy owned them after his brother died. Tom brought the sword back with him after serving in the Philippine-American War in 1899-1900. "Kentucky's Famous Feuds & Tragedies" by Charles G. Mutzenburg is a book that discusses several eastern Kentucky feuds from the late 19th century. It discusses the feud that Andy's father was involved in, and includes notes from either Tom or Andy themselves, plus handwritten notes of one of the feud's participants who they apparently lent the book to. It is a first edition and in very poor shape, but is an extremely special book.
Tom's personal papers included his military discharge documents and several ages of handwritten testimony discussing a violent incident in which he was involved in 1923 (see the post from 2012: http://thesaltofamerica.blogspot.com/2012/06/tj-barnettjl-combs-murder-trial.html). Wrapped up in the papers are two original tintypes: Tom as a young boy less than 5 years old, and Jackson and Phoebe Barnett's portrait (Tom's father and step-mother).
Randy had inherited two personal items of Andy's: his hat and his pipe. Most pictures of Andy in his later years include this hate and pipe, and it was amazing to see them in person. Randy also has but could not bring with him a coin that belonged to Andy. The stry goes is that Andy was drafted for World War I service. They passed out a series of coins to each drafted man that showed up; if you got one color, you went to fight. If you got the other color, you went to mine for munitions supplies. Andy received the latter and went to mine in Picher, Oklahoma, the now infamous deserted ghost town that is a toxic waste zone. (See "Picher, Oklahoma: The Biggest Environmental Disaster You've Never Heard Of": https://5newsonline.com/2015/11/02/picher-oklahoma-the-biggest-environmental-disaster-youve-never-heard-of/)
I forgot to take a picture of the two of us together. Fortunately, Randy thought to when we got out to the parking lot, so we got a quick selfie of the air of us.
Next we were off to a series of gravesites that I have unfortunately neglected up to this point. Despite growing up just outside the metro OKC area in Edmond and then living in Oklahoma again for the past four years and making regular trips to the area, there were some close family members who I had yet to pay my respects to.
When I finally pulled up to Memorial Park Cemetery, I realized I had seen the cemetery many times before. I'd driven by it (as a passenger) countless times over the years when I was a kid going in and out of the city with my parents. All that time I never knew that my great great grandmother rested there. But on this day I would rectify the mistake of never coming to visit her.
Adolphus "Frank" and Sarah "Olive" Moose, circa 1915
Sarah Olive Sain Moose was known as "Ollie" to her kin. She was born in Cleburne County, Arkansas in 1872, and lived in and near Nashville, Arkansas for most of her younger years before moving to Oklahoma right around the time of statehood, circa 1907.
Ollie is a somewhat divisive figure in our family, at least to those that know our Moose family history. I don't think anyone doubts that she was a hard-worker and a loving mother. But when her husband, Frank, died in May, 1922 after succumbing to injuries suffered in a tornado, she did what many parents would consider unthinkable: she put her four youngest children in the Masonic Youth Home, which was primarily for orphans. Now Marion (who later changed his name to Charles), Bob, Paul, and Dale were not orphans because they had their mother. But that same tornado that injured ultimately killed Frank also destroyed the family business, the West Side Garage in Sulphur.
Frank Moose family, circa 1915
By this time, Dan and Mae were married and starting their own families, with Dan expecting his first child only a month after his father's death. Frank [Jr.] married three days before his father's death, and Albert the following month. Zella lived in Tulsa and was working as a nurse. That would leave Anna and Ollie to tend for the four youngest. So with no source of income, needing to cope with the unexpected loss of her husband and the father of her children, and her oldest children out of the home tending to their families, Ollie was left with few options. She would be hard put to provide everything four growing boys needed to not just survive but thrive. The family would need to move to Oklahoma City to find work, and finding an affordable home that could accommodate everyone was an additional obstacle.
Frank Moose's West Side Garage in Sulphur
West Side Garage in Sulphur
Ruins in Sulphur after 1922 cyclone, believed to be the spot where the West Side Garage stood. Courtesy of Carol Carlile Cook.
Apparently realizing she would be unable to fully provide for all her young children, Olive appealed to the Freemasons for help. Frank was a prominent Mason, and his membership came with certain benefits in the event of his untimely death. These benefits included qualifying his children for the Masonic Children's Home in Guthrie.
John Louis Moose, brother of Adolphus Franklin "Frank" Moose. Courtesy of Susie Martin Bower.
What's interesting to me about the applications Olive submitted for each boy to the group home was that only her brother-in-law, John L. Moose, was listed as additional family that could or couldn't help them. None of her Sain kin are mentioned. I don't know why that would be, because she had numerous siblings and one would think some would be willing to help. She also had Frank's sister, Mollie Moose Milner, who was childless and close with the children, but Olive did not document an attempt to secure help from her either. This all strikes me as curious, but these are questions that will likely never be answered.
Letter from Sulphur Lodge re: Moose children
Application for my great grandfather, Robert Royer "Bob" Moose's entry into the Masonic Children's Home
Page 2 of Bob's Application
Page 3 of Bob's application
Each of the boys' applications were very similar in content, with just names and ages changed for the most part. Dale and Bob went on to thrive in the home and were discharged successfully. Marion AKA Charles left not long after his arrival, presumably returning to his mother in Oklahoma City. Paul left after a couple of years, reportedly because he kept leaving the home for long periods to chase after various girls.
The boys' placement in the children's home, as I said, has made Olive a bit of a divisive figure in the family. Some believe that some of her children held it against her that she did not keep the children with her. The family being split apart like this may have played a role in the siblings not being as close later in life as one might think they would be. Other than a couple of apparent rifts, they all seemed to care for one another and would visit on occasion, but their contact was hardly frequent, even for the ones that lived in close proximity to one another. Who knows why this might be? They may have just all been too busy with their lives and work to be as tight-knit as some sibling sets would be. But some at least seem to think that Olive's decision to send the boys to Guthrie played a part in these dynamics.
Regardless, I respect Olive for doing what she felt was necessary. I don't think she would have if she didn't feel she genuinely needed to, and at least in my family, for Bob's sake, it all worked out: Bob would never have met my great grandmother, Guthrie-native Ruby Jay, were he not sent to live there. So I have Olive's decision to send her boys the Masonic Children's Home, most likely the most difficult decision of her life, to thank for my very existence beyond just providing me with roughly 1/16th of my genetic make-up.
So finally I got to make the time to visit her grave and pay my respects. As I said, when pulling up, I realized I had seen this cemetery countless times growing up and I was intrigued to finally go in and find Olive. I stopped by the office and got a map to her plot and made my over there.
The tower in the middle of Memorial Park Cemetery in Oklahoma City
It took a while of searching around her plot because there were quite a few graves clustered together in the area, but I eventually found her.
It was good to finally see her and pay my respects to one of my more misunderstood ancestors. Anyone interested in reading abut her untimely death can learn more on one of my previous blog posts: http://thesaltofamerica.blogspot.com/2015/02/12-unfortunate-ways-my-ancestors-met.html
Next we were off to Sunny Lane Cemetery. This is yet another cemetery that I have seen and driven by many times growing up but I don't remember ever visiting. I may have when I was a child; I know I attended my great grandmother's service, but I would have been 11 years old and I simply don't recall.
We visited the cemetery office and were able to easily find the plot where some of our family is buried.
The boys with the stone of their 3rd great grandmother, Lillie Emma Cowan Davidson Clements.
Lillie Emma Cowan Clements
Our cousin, Janelle Lewis. She was the daughter of Jay Nelson Lewis, son of Allene "Babe" Davidson, daughter of Lillie Emma Cowan.
The boys with the stone of their 2nd great grandmother, Elnora Pauline Clements Martin.
Elnora Pauline Clements Martin
When little Janelle died, her grandmother Allene ("Aunt Babe" to my family) was devastated. My grandmother recalled quite well several lines of a poem Babe had written for her little granddaughter, and after reaching out to other relatives, I was able to find the beautiful poem.
"A Little Visitor"
An Angel came to visit us
On the 16th day of May
We planned a gala welcome
And hoped she had come to stay.
Her beauty filled admiring eyes
Her smile was just superb,
Her daintiness was quite complete
She was a darling little cherub.
We loved...we even worshiped her
And thanked God every day,
That he had sent this Baby,
To brighten our daily way.
At last her health became impaired
By an ailing little heart,
Our lives became so saddened
We knew she would soon depart.
Alas, the Baby Angels gathered round,
The loving God, their father,
And meekly asked if they might have
A beautiful little caller.
The Father loved these little Babes,
He pondered their request,
And on August 11
He called her home to rest.
And now she breathes the purest air
And feeds upon his love,
She sings the songs all angels sing
From portals up above.
Our hearts are very heavy
And our heads are bowed with grief,
Because our precious Baby,
Made her visit brief.
As we live from day to day
Our hearts so full of sorrow,
The only hope that we can see
Is the reunion on the morrow.
Unfortunately, it was getting late by this time and the boys were eager to get moving, so we did not have time to find the other plot I wanted to visit where Aunt Babe is buried. Hopefully I will be able to find her on a future visit.
Our second trip started a couple weeks later on the 23rd of September. We headed to Denison, Texas where we planned to meet my grandfather, who had not yet gotten meet his great grandson, Arthur. We invited my dad's sister, Teriki, as well, so it promised to be a nice little reunion.
Arthur meeting great grandpa Clyde for the first time.
Arthur meeting great grandma Karen for the first time at Huck's in Denison, Texas.
Arthur, Clyde, and Elliott Marks.
Arthur meeting his great aunt Teriki for the first time with cousin Hanna in the back.
Artie just having a good time.
Time to say goodbye for now!
We next headed to Ardmore, where I was determined to dig up some information and maybe pictures of one of the elementary schools I attended when I was a kid. Springdale School outside of Ardmore was only my school for the second half of 1st grade, but I have many vivid memories from my time there. Other pieces of information, like even my teacher's name, eluded me, however. I could remember every homeroom teacher I had up until high school except for the one I had at Springdale.
The school was purchased by Ardmore schools a few years after I went there. Declining enrollment led it to shut down as a fully-functional school, and the students mostly went to Dickson and Ardmore. It became the "options" or "alternative education" facility for Ardmore Schools for a while, then eventually was purchased by a group of folks in the area and is now called the Springdale Community Center. It is used for local gatherings and meetings. I visited there in 2016 and took some pictures, and it was a pretty depressing sight for me that I won't revisit here.
What I was able to do this time was track down a couple of former teachers from Springdale, and one of them had a book about the school someone had put together. It had some poor quality photo copied pictures too which was nice, and I finally got my answer as to who my 1st grade teacher was.
By this point in September, I knew I would be moving to Michigan soon, and probably would not have much time to spend in Oklahoma for many years. I wanted to not only get some last answers about my family history, but I wanted to have some answers about my own personal history as well.
I elected to stay in Ardmore overnight, and we would be up early to visit several cemeteries. I had visited most of the nostalgic sights I wanted to see in Ardmore on my aforementioned last visit, but I got to make a couple more before we settled in for the night.
Burger and Fries in Ardmore, an old favorite of my family back in the day.
Burger and Fries in Ardmore.
Since there's a play place, we elected to eat at Burger King. I'm pretty certain this play place has not been updated since I was a kid, and that it's the same one I was playing on 20 years ago.
Quite possibly the last sunrise I'll ever see in person over my old hometown.
Next we were off to Rose Hill Cemetery in Wapanucka, Oklahoma, my grandpa Clyde's hometown and the resting place of numerous relatives on both his side and my grandma Gerri's side.
The boys with the stone of their great great grandparents, Clyde and Leola Marie Barnett Marks.
My 2nd great grandparents, Andrew and Nancy Eversole Barnett.
My great grandma's brother, Bert Barnett.
My great grandparents, Clyde and Marie Barnett Marks.
Dovie Crownover Marks, husband of Lloyd Marks, my great grandpa's brother.
Lloyd Monroe Marks, my great grandpa's brother.
Lendon Augustus Marks, my great grandpa's brother. This stone has been sinking slowly into the ground for years now, and every time I come I try to clear the dirt and grass off it best I can.
From everything I've been told about my great great grandma Ella Baker Marks, that sweet lady would have been thrilled to death to be visited by these two little wildmen, who wouldn't be here if it weren't for her.
Ella Baker Marks, my great great grandmother.
The boys with the stone of Albert Monroe Marks, their 3rd great grandfather.
Walking where their ancestors walked decades ago.
My great grandma's brother, John "Buster" Clements, and my aunt Mabel. Buster was the only full sibling of my great grandma Elnora Pauline Clements, referenced earlier this post.
Billy Lewis Clements, infant son of my uncle Buster.
Unfortunately, I was not able to find the stone of my uncle Bill Clements. I have found it before but it has been a few years. He is not buried near uncle Buster or any other family, just off by himself somewhere and I can't recall where. It was by accident I found him the first time, and I hoped for another happy accident, but no such luck. One of these days on another visit I'll find him again. He was the half-brother of my great grandma Pauline Clements Martin.
We then headed about 5 miles down the road toward Clarita and the Moore Cemetery there. A huge number of my great grandma Pauline's family are buried here, including my 3rd great grandmother and one of only two 4th great grandmothers in my lineage that are buried in Oklahoma.
Moore Cemetery south of Clarita, Oklahoma
Do your part to keep the wild hogs at bay!
This sign scared Elliott off from wanting to wander the cemetery; he was afraid of running into a feral hog, so I let him stay in the car. These hogs really can do a lot of damages to cemetery, like they are currently at the Indianola Cemetery in Indianola, Oklahoma, where I have several cousins buried: https://kfor.com/2018/11/28/wild-hogs-destroy-cemetery-in-indianola/
James Joshua Patton was half-brother of my 3rd great grandmother, Martha Evelyn "Evie" Patton. He was the oldest child of my 4th great grandfather, Samuel C. Patton.
It took me nearly 20 minutes of scouring the cemetery to finally find this grave, but I was so pleased when I did. This is the grave of Sarah Jane Todd Patton, my 4th great grandmother.
Sarah Adeline "Addie" Hayward Lemley was the half-sister of "Grandma Winn", which is what everyone called my 3rd great grandmother, Martha Evelyn "Evie" Patton. She was the daughter of Sarah Jane Todd by her first marriage to Jackson Hayward.
Marion Patton was my uncle, the son of Samuel and Sarah Jane Todd Patton.
The stone of my 3rd great grandmother, Martha Evelyn "Evie" Patton Winn.
She was also the widow of John D. Cowan, James M. Crider, and Joseph S. Skipper. She was affectionately known in the family as "Grandma Winn". She was still alive when my father was born in 1959, so I've always been jealous that my dad had a still-living great GREAT grandmother when he was born. I was fortunate to have 7 living biological grandparents when I was born, but my dad had a whopping TEN of them, with Grandma Winn being the oldest.
Uncle Rube Skipper was the son of Martha Patton and Joseph Skipper, and so the half-brother of my 2nd great grandmother, Lillie Emma Cowan.
Aunt Ruth was both my aunt-by-marriage and my cousin. She was the wife of Uncle Rube Skipper, and also the daughter of James Joshua Patton, making her my half-first cousin four times removed.
Additionally, I photographed the graves of more than a dozen Patton and Skipper cousins and their spouses, but I did not want to bog down this post with even more headstone pictures, so I stuck to sharing aunts, uncles, and grandparents. The cemetery was very quiet and peaceful, and not a hog in sight, thankfully.
Next we headed north to bring our Moose family visits full-circle with our arrival at Palmer Cemetery outside of Sulphur, Oklahoma, where my 2nd and 3rd great grandfathers on the Moose side are buried.
Palmer Cemetery near Sulphur, Oklahoma
The grave of my 3rd great grandfather, Lawson Jeremiah Moose
The grave of my 2nd great grandfather, Adolphus Franklin Moose
The Moose family plot
Alternative view of the Moose family plot
We had done all this before lunch, and the boys were hungry and exhausted, so we got some Taco Bell and headed east to Pittsburg County.
We headed for Indianola on a pre-arranged visit to see the site of the old ghost town of Thurman, a predecessor to the town of Ulan, of which my great great grandfather was an early resident. I have written an extensive post on the histories of Ulan and Thurman in relation to my family here: http://thesaltofamerica.blogspot.com/2017/02/ulan-former-community-in-pittsburg.html
Little remains of Thurman today and it is well off the beaten path, but I was able to make a connection through Facebook to the folks that own the property where Thurman once stood today. To respect their privacy, I am withholding their names but if someone has a keen interest in the subject, feel free to e-mail me directly at the address provided in my biographical information on the right side of this page.
Many years ago, these folks discovered a bell on their property that they believe once hung above the schoolhouse at Thurman.
A bell from Thurman, Oklahoma
Piling in our new friends' pick-up truck to go off-roading into the middle of nowhere to find Thurman.
For reference of where we ended up, here are 3 screenshots on Google Maps I took on three occasions once we'd reached our approximate destination. This aligns well with where Thurman is placed on the few maps on which it can be found, and shows its location in relation to the Indian Nation Turnpike.
Here is an 1897 map of Indian Territory where you can find Thurman listed near Choate, Scipio, and Indianola. I left the map wide enough to include Eufaula and McAlester as points of reference as well. The full map can be found courtesy of the Oklahoma State University Digital Collections OKSTATE Library here: https://dc.library.okstate.edu/digital/collection/OKMaps/id/3656/rec/17
1897 Map of Indian Territory. You can find Thurman in the middle south of the Canadian River.
There really isn't anything left of the town. There are some trails that still have two-wheel ruts in them from when wagons used to come through, but no standing structures.
Thurman, Oklahoma once stood in this vicinity.
Thurman, Oklahoma once stood in this vicinity.
The only man-made thing left to be found is an old well.
For reference, this is the point where we found the well in relation to the Indian Nation Turnpike.
Old well that likely dates to the days of Thurman
Elliott at the well at Thurman
Next, we headed nearby to the Ulan Cemetery. Four generations of my family are buried there, including my grandfather and 8 other direct grandparents, along with numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins. Since moving to Oklahoma, I have been fortunate enough to get to visit at least once and sometimes twice a year. This was my second visit of 2017, having come in May for a family reunion in Scipio. These are photos of most of my aunts, uncles, and grandparents there, plus a couple of cousins, and I neglected to photograph the stone of my aunt Lou Vaughan White.
My cousin, Lee Roy Epps, son of C. D. & Johnnie Auston Epps. A double-cousin of sorts, I met him at my grandfather's funeral and he was a very nice guy.
My aunt and uncle C. D. and Johnnie Auston Epps, who was a sister of my great grandmother, Lillian Auston Vaughan. C. D. is also my biological 1st cousin 4 times removed in addition to being my uncle by marriage. His father, William M. Epps, was the brother of my 3rd great grandmother, Sarah Frances Elizabeth Epps Auston.
Willie and Marie Auston Ross, my aunt and uncle. Marie was the sister of my great grandmother, Lillian. Willie's brothers also married two of my other aunts; his brother James married Nicie Vaughan, and his brother Claud married Elizabeth Auston.
Ida White Vaughan, the wife of my uncle Dewey Vaughan.
John Dodson Vaughan, brother of my great grandpa, Sampson Vaughan.
Nellie Kelton Vaughan, wife of my uncle John Dodson Vaughan.
My beloved cousin and genealogy mentor, Coleen. I miss her constantly, she was such a source of knowledge and help, and as kind as they come.
My uncle Will Auston, brother of my 2nd great grandfather, John.
My uncle Jim Auston, another brother of my 2nd great grandfather, John.
Aunt Tat, who was my aunt both by blood and by marriage. She was the sister of my great grandma, Lillian Auston, and the wife of Charlie Vaughan, the brother of my great grandpa, Sampson. She was a such a sweet lady to me, and tolerated my bothering her with genealogy questions during her final years.
Uncle Charlie Vaughan, brother of my great grandpa, Samp.
Alma Binkley Auston, my 2nd great grandmother.
John Grady Auston, my 2nd great grandfather.
Aunt Elizabeth Auston, who everyone called "Snooks", sister of my great grandma, Lillian.
My 3rd great grandparents, James Walter and Sarah Elizabeth Epps Auston.
William Epps, the brother of my 3rd great grandmother.
My 2nd great grandmother, Leona Waller Vaughan.
John Lafayette Vaughan, my 2nd great grandfather.
Little Charles Vaughan, my grandfather's oldest brother who pre-deceased his birth.
My grandpa, Don Vaughan.
My aunt Judy, my grandpa's youngest sister. She was an awesome lady.
My great grandparents, Samp and Lil Auston Vaughan.
One of the few remaining artifacts of Ulan is the old tornado shelter for the school. The school was torn down many years ago, but the stone cellar the school utilized is still there. I've gone into it many times as a kid and adult, and Elliott wanted to check it out today. He is probably the 5th generation of his family to enter this little room in some capacity.
Our second to last stop was Choate Prairie Cemetery, which is just down the road from Ulan a couple miles. It was formerly the primary cemetery for this vicinity prior to Ulan Cemetery being established about 1917. My 2nd great grandmother, Leona Waller Vaughan, is believed to be the second person buried at Ulan, though there could possibly be earlier graves that are unmarked and we are unaware of. Her husband's first wife (or previous wife if unsubstantiated rumors of a prior Native bride prove true) was buried at Choate Prairie, along with a few more of our kin.
Grave of Cotnar Vaughan, eldest child of John and Leona Vaughan. He shares a stone with his uncle and his father's first wife.
Archibald Dodson Vaughan, brother of John Lafayette Vaughan.
Sarah Ann Eva Vaughan, the first wife of John L. Vaughan. The family story is that she died in childbirth and that the child also did not survive, so that child is also likely buried with her. Last year, I used DNA to uncover Sarah's previously unknown identity. You can read about that process here: http://thesaltofamerica.blogspot.com/2017/08/using-dna-to-solve-family-mystery-sarah.html
This stone next to the marker could represent an unknown additional burial, or it could be the original stone for Eva, as she died in 1897, ten years before Cotnar and Archibald died in 1907. It is likely that John purchased the 3-person stone at this time, so the rock next to this marker may have been what originally marked Eva's grave.
View of Choate Prairie Cemetery
Herb is a cousin on my Waller side. His mother was Fannie Waller, a sister of Leona Waller Vaughan. Herb and his brothers were taken in by the Vaughans for a time after their mother died, according to school census records. Even though John had no biological connection to them, Leona had died, and John had remarried and taken in his step-children in addition to his own, he still found a way to take these boys in which to me says a lot about his character.
My aunt Fannie Waller Westmoreland Newman, sister of Leona Waller Vaughan, and daughter of my 3rd great grandparents, James Henry Waller and Mary Ann Frances Mooney.
Samuel Newman, my uncle by marriage, 2nd spouse of Fannie Waller.
The stone of my uncle, John Epps. He died in 1891, proving our Epps family was here quite early. Because of his burial here, we're confident that two more Epps kin are also here.
This broken stone lies right next to John Epps and might be what remains of a marker for either his mother or his brother.
Besides knowing John and his sister-in-law, Nora Sanders Epps (wife of his brother William), are buried here, we also believe John's mother and brother are here somewhere, possibly lying next to him.
John's mother Sarah Moon Epps is in the 1900 Census in Pittsburg County, as is his brother, Nathaniel. Sarah is the second of my two 4th great grandmothers buried in Oklahoma, though there is no surviving marker for her. Nathaniel is living with another Epps brother, Walter, in 1900, but he pre-deceased his father who died in 1907 according to probate records. So both he and Sarah died between 1900 and 1910, and since other Eppses are buried here and this was the only widely used cemetery in the area at that time, it is believed they are both interred here.
They may have had stones at one point, but they have either sunken into the ground or been lost or destroyed. There are remnants of old stones like the one next to John scattered all around the oldest section of the cemetery, and even piles of stones that have broken apart over the years like the picture above. A goal of mine is to get markers for Sarah and Nathaniel one day, but it probably won't be possible for several years.
Our final stop of the day was at the Turner-McElhaney Cemetery. I had come previously trying to locate the stone of my 3rd great grandmother to no avail, but I had since acquired a photo of the stone with my aforementioned cousin Coleen holding it up, so I had a better idea of where the stone was lying in the early 1980s and I wanted to have another go trying to find it. Coleen believed this cemetery was originally the Thurman Cemetery, or at least the primary cemetery the people of Thurman used during the few years Thurman was an active community. Then it became a family burial ground for different families, including the Turners and McElhaneys, who had their own separate plots fenced off. The original stones from the original cemetery lie between the two family plots, and due to time, tornadoes, and farm equipment, most of the stones not in fenced plots have been destroyed and/or lost.
This is the picture of Coleen with Amanda's stone. I was hoping to find this same spot and tree, and dig around the ground to find remains of the stone.
Problem was, which tree is in the picture? It could be this destroyed one.
It could be this one.
Or this one that looks almost exactly like it.
Or the one in front of the fallen down one.
So I searched around all of them, using techniques I've used in other cemeteries to find stones that have sunken into the ground. But unfortunately, for the second time, I struck out and could not find Amanda's stone. I know it was here 30 years ago, so I hope one of these days it will turn up.
We then took our 90-minute drive home and relaxed the rest of the day. It was the end of a fun weekend and a great month exploring our family history and walking in the footsteps of our ancestors.
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