Ancestral Missives

Dad

• Some very interesting stories coming out about the First Ladies ancestry back to her slave roots.
• One of my ancestor's owned a slave woman named Chynna. She was listed with items he owned which were dispersed at auction after his death.
• A weird thing about that? I think of her often, wish I knew more about her and have a certain, odd affection for her.
• She was listed among other properties such as well ropes and buckets.
• My great great grandmother was an Indian. My GGF met her on his way down from Iowa in Oklahoma and they had a whole batch of kids- something like 9. We don't know a lot about her due to the really pioneering nature of their existence in South Central Texas and the fact he was ostracized by family for the union.
• I have a picture of her and their children- she looks strong and kind.
• The kids look like dirt eaters.
• I don't say kids very often.
• My other great grandfather was a blacksmith, we know exactly where his last shop was although there's not even a hint of it left. I did find a drill bit and some other oddments lying around. It was quite a thought to be touching something that the last human to touch it was the man who before was only vague stories, since he died when my mother was a small child.
• During prohibition he was also a bootlegger but, in beer not liquor. Because of this and the isolated nature of where they lived even county officials and sheriff's deputies would come to dances at the barn and partake of his wares. He also raised pigs and fed the left over grains to them.
• It was all fun and games until the repeal and the pigs started dying of cirrhosis.
• He was found one day after being missing for 2 or 3 in the back pasture with his head on a downed tree lying on his back, dead of an apparent heart attack. My mother told the grown ups when they started worrying about him, I had a dream he was lying on a log with his hat over his face sleeping. There was a plow close by and it was near some trees and the river. No one had gone to the back pasture to search for him as he had left home to go to town in street clothes and had been seen in town later.
• They said, Go on now child- you're crazy.