My dad's Uncle Quint's family

I only heard my dad talk about two of his uncles - his favorites - Uncle Quint and Uncle Bill.  Uncle Quint was Oliver Quintas Hawk, sometimes listed as Olliver Quintas Hawk.   Uncle Bill was William Evans Hawk, oldest son of George Washington and Salina Hudson Hawk. 

This summer I was able to visit the grave of Uncle Quint and his wife, Suda Anderson Hawk, in a tiny town in eastern New Mexico called Elida.  Elida is in Roosevelt County, southwest of Clovis.

I was curious about this part of my dad's family for several reasons. On the way to Texas, my dad's family had stopped at this uncle's house in Oklahoma on their move to Texas.  My great grandmother had remained there and is buried in Payne County, Oklahoma. But the Oklahoma family kind of disappeared from there.  I searched back in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Texas, even California, but wasn't able to find them until the census records became available online through Ancestry.  To my surprise, Uncle Quint and family had moved to New Mexico.  He didn't die until 1960 when he was about 87 years old.  My folks and I had traveled near there in about 1965 and I'm pretty sure my dad didn't know his Uncle Quint's family was that close. 

Uncle Quint and Aunt Suda (I'm assuming that's what she was called, although I can imagine it being Sudie) had three childlren:  Walter Hesicar, Oliver Quintas, and a daughter, Cecil M. 

Walter Hesicar (same middle name as my father, Joe Hawk) was born in 1888 in Nodaway County, Missouri.  He married Dessie McQuain in Payne County, Oklahoma.  They had one child that I know of: Homer Oliver Hawk, born in 1908.  In 1930 they were living in Payne County, OK.

Oliver Q. Hawk was born 1900 in Payne County, Oklahoma and married Beatrice Cochrain in Roosevelt County, NM on Valentine's Day in 1921.  They had two children I know of: Ollie Clint Hawk, born 1926 and  Bennie Louisa Hawk, born 1929.  He died in Smith County, Texas in 1973.

Cecil M. Hawk was born in 1903 in Oklahoma and married Steve Cochrain on the same day her brother married Beatrice Cochrain.   She and Steve Cochrain had a son, Montie Cochrain. she is buried in the Elida Cemetery, as is her husband and son.  After her husband's death, she married again and her name on the tombstone is Lea.

 
I would love to know more about my Hawk and Cochrain cousins.  As usual, I was rushing down the road and didn't take time to see if there were any of the family still left in Elida.  That just means a trip back!

Aunt Jackie's Story

Aunt Jackie's story about their late night swim is again in the news.   She would be so tickled to see it on the internet.  She would have loved the world wide web.  See her story at Baytown Texas site

An Arranged Marriage

When I was a teenager, in a time long ago, a neighbor and friend of my mother, had become widowed and then remarried quickly. Of course, the community was appalled at this scandolous behavior. I was therefore surprised when Mama defended the lady, who had complained to her of being so lonely after her husband's death. It was only much later than I learned the reason for that defense: my mother had done exactly the same thing! 

Let me explain.  Mother was first married to Leonard George Showers and they lived in 1930 in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana according to the census. Leonard was the son of Hattie Hawk Showers, eldest daughter of Joseph W. and Martha Jane (Hess) Hawk, and was therefore also my Dad's oldest sister. The elder Showers family also emigrated to Texas from Kansas with the rest of the family by covered wagon in 1908. Mama and Leonard Showers had one child, a boy also named Leonard George, born in 1931. Below is the only photo we have of Leonard.  He is shown with his son, my brother George.

Sadly, Leonard Sr. contracted tuberculosis, and after lingering for several years, died of this disease on March 1, 1936. During his illness, they had returned to his parents' home in south Texas.  As he lay dying, according to my brother and others in the family, he asked his Uncle Joe, my father, to marry and take care of his wife and son. My parents did marry, and only six months later, on September 2, 1936. Remember, this would have been in the middle of the Great Depression.  Can you imagine being suddenly a widow with a young son to raise, and in a rural farm community with no jobs?  In spite of being an "arranged marriage" it was a long and happy one, and they always seemed very devoted to one another. They were married for just short of 44 years when my mother died in June of 1980.

In my post of January 3, 2010, I covered the family lines of my parents, Joe H. Hawk and Alma Josephine Bond. See My Parents' Families

Tombstone Tuesday - Sarah's Chapel

On our recent trip east I was fortunate to finally get to Dade County, Georgia.  Since I first found my Bond family in that county in 1850 I've been curious about the place.  I  had very little information to go on, and not a lot of time.  We landed in Trenton, Georgia and headed up the highway hoping to run across a cemetery.  I quickly checked http://www.findagrave.com/ and noted that John P. Bond was buried at Sarah's Chapel on Sarah's Chapel Road.   As we drove slowly north we fortunately saw the road sign for Sarah's Chapel Road and had no problem locating the cemetery.  

I had several reasons to visit this cemetery in addition to knowing that John P. Bond, a brother of our Gr-Grandfather Charles Bond, was buried here.  His was the only grave listed on findagrave and I wondered why he was seemingly buried there alone when he spent a lot of time visiting Fannin County, Texas where his brother lived.  He also owned a lot of land in Fannin County, and was often selling land there.   He sold two 1/4 interest in a 244 acre piece of property to his two brothers, Charles and William Thomas Bond.  Why would he choose to be buried back in Georgia where there was no one, I wondered.

We found his grave right away.  And next to it, was his wife's headstone, Nannie (Hale) Bond.   There are a lot of Hales buried in this cemetery.  Also there was his son's grave, James D. Bond.   John P. Bond was, as far as I can tell, the oldest half-brother of Charles Bond.  Both were sons of William W. Bond, John by a first wife who is unknown, and Charles by the second wife Janetta Neighbors.  

 On the 1850 census, William W. and wife Janetta (spelled variously as Ganetta, Jennetter, and many other ways) were living in Dade County, with four children from his first wife: John P., Jane, Moses, and Martha.  Children from his marriage to Janetta were: William T., Benjamin, Charles H., George W., and Johnston.  I find it interesting that our grandfather, Benjamin Moses Bond, was named after two of his father's brothers.  I have never been able to find anything on the first family except John P. Bond and his family.  Of the second family, William T. Bond is buried in Hilger Cemetery, as well as his brother Charles and mother Janetta and other Bond and Neighbors/Nabors relatives. 

John B. Bond was a First Lieutenant in the Army for the Confederacy, Company F, 34th Georgia Volunteer Infantry, Army of Tennessee.  He was born 1838 and died 1894.

I was hoping I'd find the family of Charles Bond's mother, Janetta Neighbors, but I found no Neighbors graves.  Benjamin Neighbors, who Charles' brother Benjamin was probably named after, and who I believe to be Janetta's father, lived in Dade County at the same time as the Bonds.  There are a lot of old gravestones, and many of them are broken and in very poor condition.   Some are buried under a lot of brush, and I started wading through to the back of the cemetery, but the heavy undergrowth discouraged me.   Here's a photo of a gravestone that is buried under a tree in a lot of brush.  I couldn't get close enough to read the engraving.   Generally, the cemetery is very well cared for, but it's obvious this area gets a lot of rain and a lot of growth and it would probably be a full-time job keeping these old stones readable.   You can barely see the gravestone in the middle of this photo.

I'll be working to determine if there are other family members buried in Sarah's Chapel Cemetery.

Great Grandmother Susana J. Markham Bond

I’ve spent quite a lot of time working on identifying the family of Susana J. Markham. The 1860 census, the only instance where I find her with a birth family, shows her name as Sus. J. Markham, living with parents Carter Markham and wife Lucinda (Thompson). Both my mother and Aunt Jackie remember her name as Mary Markham, and were quite adamant about that. I don't know where the Mary came from, maybe a nickname. However, Susana Markham Bond died before either was born, so maybe they were remembering someone else.

Scott Markham, who lived either with or next to our Bond family, was a mystery person to me for quite a long time, but helped me pinpoint the family of Carter Markham. Scott is shown on the 1900 census in Fannin County, TX living with Charles Bond and wife Martha, and is listed as nephew, although technically he was neither person’s nephew.   Our Benjamin M. Bond family is there also, with daughter Grace.

It wasn’t until death certificates from Texas became available online that I pinpointed Scott's father as John T. Markham, brother of Susana, and son of Carter Markham and Lucinda Thompson. Interesting, both Scott and Charles Bond married ladies from the Nichols family, which is probably a large part of why they stayed in close contact. In 1910 they are next to each other in Johnston County, Oklahoma, along with other Bond, Timmons and Markham families. By 1920 they were back in Texas, living in Burkburnett County, Texas. His name is sometimes listed as G.S. Markham, and other times J. S. Markham, but his wife’s name, Fenette (?), stays nearly the same, though she gave information for his death certificate as Janette Nichols Markham.  Those census takers weren't exactly fussy about getting spellings, or even names, correct.

Susana’s gravestone in the Bond family plot, Hilger Cemetery, Fannin County, Texas, where her husband and other family members are buried, shows her simply as S.J. Markham. On their son’s death certificate (Marvin Claude Bond) his mother’s name is listed as Susana Markham. She died on February 20, 1892. I’d still love to know what the J stands for. Maybe my mother’s name: Josephine? And maybe, just maybe, there's someone out there with a photograph of Susana Markham.  Wouldn't that be grand?

Cousins in Burkburnett, Texas

Long ago, at least for us, our Great Grandfather Charles Bond lived in Burkburnett with his first wife's nephew, Scott Markham.   In 1920, they lived at 506 6th Street in Burkburnett where they were renting a  house. Charles Bond's death certificate in 1922 lists his residence as Burkburnett, though he died and is buried in Fannin County, Texas.  Although oil was first discovered in 1912, it wasn't until the 1918 find that Burkburnett became a boom town.  The 1940 move "Boom Town" with Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy was inspired by the Burkburnett story.  Below are some photos to give you an idea of what Burkburnett looked like in 1919.  Click on the images to enlarge.  Next post will go in to some more history about our Gr-Grandfather Bond and Gr-Grandmother Susana Markham families.

Both photos were taken c. 1919 and are from the Library of Congress site which indicates no known restrictions to their use.   Several things struck me about these images:  one was the location of oil rigs right next to the homes, and the second was the large number of rigs.   Couldn't get away with that today, could we? You can also see flares where the distillate is burned off.   Must have been fun keeping house.  Must have smelled lovely, too, or maybe they just thought of it as the fine "smell of money being made."
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The Farm

I thought I'd write a bit about the farm where I grew up. On the left is a photo of the old farmhouse, with my aunt and cousins. Regrettably I don't have a complete picture, but only parts of it supplied by a cousin (the farmhouse burned down when I was 10). The house, built by my grandfather, Joseph W. Hawk, had a gabled roof. You can just begin to see the beginnings of it on the left in the photo. The living room is at the front just off the porch at the left under the gabled portion. On the west wall (the house is facing south) there was a staircase behind a door which led you up to a landing, where you turned and went up to a long, narrow room. This room served as our playroom. As I remember, the sides of the walls went up before meeting the ceiling which went up to a point in the middle of the room. My sister and I spent many days up there, especially rainy ones--which happens pretty often in south Texas.

Grandmama Nora Timmons Bond with granddaughters at the farm.

On the opening wall from the staircase opening upstairs was a opening to the attic, showing an unfinished space with rafters. We weren't allowed to even crawl into this space as Mama and Daddy were certain we would fall tlhrough and land somewhere downstairs. Daddy would sometimes walk across the boards to get whatever was stored up there. I sure was tempted but kept picturing myself falling through the ceiling. Just inside the door (which was covered with a cloth curtain) were several very old trunks which had likely come with the family when they traveled from Kansas by covered wagon in 1908. I know these trunks held lots of old photos because I was able to lean over from the doorway and reach in far enough to lift the lids and peak in. Gosh, would I love to have those old photos now. Sadly, they were lost in the fire that destroyed our home on November 8, 1956.
Playing Paper Dolls
My sister and I were big on paper dolls. A Sears catalog was a great boon, and we looked forward to the new one coming so we could tear up the old one. We cut out people and made whole families, and then laid out homes with rooms furnished from the Sears pages. I always had big families, with lots of kids, and parents who looked handsome and very fashionable. The kids were of all ages, although none of the kids was old enough to be married. We did love those wedding gown-clad ladies though. Sis and I would each take a side of the bed for our families. Sometimes we would play on the floor. We had other games we played, but paper dolls was always my favorite.

Our parents would also buy us books of dolls, and we would cut or tear those out along with their clothes. Another favorite pastime was designing and coloring clothes and then adding little tabs so we could put them on our favorite paper ladies. Imagine my surprise when I found old paper doll books on amazon.com, as well as collectors of old paper dolls. There are even people who design paper dolls (see ). Another page I really enjoyed was one with Betsy McCall dolls from the pages of old McCall magazines. Click on Betsy McCall to see the pages. You can download a pdf file for any of the Betsy McCall pages they have, if you still want to play with paper dolls. Oh, I mean if you have children who might enjoy them, or grandchildren. :)