I held the phone and listened to my Aunt Ginny tell me a
story about her father taking her to visit some relatives in Salina, Kansas.
While she told me about “the aunt in the bonnet” and the “uncle in the overalls
and big farmer hat” I wondered if she really remembered a road trip with her
father when she couldn’t have been more than five or six years old. She was
eight when my grandfather died; my father was thirteen months.
She said they drove. Where did they get a car in Depression era Kansas? She didn’t know. What were the names of this aunt and uncle? She
didn’t remember. She just remembered that my grandfather had taken her, my
grandmother Pearl, and my Uncle Red to visit some of his relatives in Salina.
This was before my father was born in 1932.
She remembered there were some kids around too but not how many nor
their names or genders. Just some kids. And some neighbors who spoke Spanish.
I asked my father if he remembered any talk about relatives in Salina and relayed the story Aunt Ginny had told me. He poo-pooed her tale saying that I really shouldn't rely much on stories from her about things that happened decades ago. In this case he was wrong.
My main paternal family lines, Coker and Stinnett, were from Arkansas and had settled in Missouri and Oklahoma. The families lived in Marion County, Arkansas at the turn of the twentieth century. Coker siblings married Stinnett siblings producing a line of double cousins (first cousins who share both sets of grandparents in common). My great-grandfather George W. Coker married Anna Stinnett. His sister Elizabeth (Lizzie) married Anna's brother John, and his sister Lettie married Anna's brother Tom. There were also three other Stinnett brothers: William (m. Fannie Kirkham), Marion (m. Sada Duncan) and Richard (who seems to have had three wives).
The three Coker-Stinnett families appear in the 1900 census for Marion County, Arkansas. By 1910 George and Anna, and John and Lizzie are in Jasper County, Missouri. Tom and Lettie are living in Muskogee, Oklahoma but move to Joplin in the 1920s. I lost track of John and Lizzie and most of their children after 1920. Their son Jesse has married a Mary Morford and lives with her and two children, Anzwilla Sue and Jack Herman in Galena, Kansas. Where is the rest of the family?
Guess who I found in Salina in the 1930 census? John and Lizzie Stinnett living with their daughter Walsie and her husband Harvey Fickes. Their son Arthur, also married, is there too. Their son George isn't in the census but a 1929 South Dakota marriage record lists his residence as Salina. Son Richard, now calling himself Tex, is not in the 1930 census either but Salina city directories show him with a wife named Charlotte. But wait ... they're WHITE. Except for Jesse. Well, George's marriage record says he is Indian and French ...
In 1900 John and Lizzie and their children are Black and living in Union Township, Marion County, Arkansas. The household also includes four Crawford children (Dolph, Freddie, Willie and Bessie) listed as John's stepchildren. In 1910 they are living in Jasper, Missouri (without the Crawford kids - Dolph and Wille are in Batesville, Arkansas and Bessie is in Springfield, Missouri) and everyone is Mulatto; same race in 1920 but they are living in Webb City. Jess and Arthur's WWI draft registration cards list them as Black. Jess is Negro in 1930 but everyone else is White. By 1940, John, Jess and Tex are dead. Jess's family is still Black. The 1940 surprise is that George's family is recorded as Negro and he is designated as the person who provided the information to the enumerator!
How do you keep a secret like this? How do you decide - as a family - to cross over racial lines in America? John and Lizzie's youngest son was a preteen when they moved from Missouri to Kansas. They appear to have spent some time in Wichita before settling in Salina. Were they Black in Wichita? All of the children attended Lincoln School in Joplin which was the "colored" school. I saw their names in the class listings in the digitized Black Families of the Ozarks at the Springfield-Greene County Library. So they knew that they were once Black.
Arthur married Virgie Mae Foote in Wichita in 1921. Walsie married Harvey Fickes in Oklahoma in 1922. George married Christina Wolf in 1929. Tex and Charlotte were probably married before the birth of their twins in 1933. To the best of my knowledge all of the spouses, with the exception of Jess's wife (Mary Frances Morford), were of White, European descent. Were they aware of the racial metamorphosis? If so, I would call them courageous for their time and place. I suspect that the Stinnetts admitted to some Native American ancestry. In fact my great-grandmother Anna (John Stinnett's sister) was quoted in a 1922 newspaper article as saying her father was a White man and her mother was a half-breed Indian.
Aunt Ginny's memories put me on a path that led to living descendants of John and Lizzie Stinnett. My cousins are out there. They are White and I am not.
Stinnett family 1900:
John and Lizzie 1930:
Related stories: Hiding in Plain Sight - Part 2, Hiding in Plain Sight - Part 3
Guess who I found in Salina in the 1930 census? John and Lizzie Stinnett living with their daughter Walsie and her husband Harvey Fickes. Their son Arthur, also married, is there too. Their son George isn't in the census but a 1929 South Dakota marriage record lists his residence as Salina. Son Richard, now calling himself Tex, is not in the 1930 census either but Salina city directories show him with a wife named Charlotte. But wait ... they're WHITE. Except for Jesse. Well, George's marriage record says he is Indian and French ...
In 1900 John and Lizzie and their children are Black and living in Union Township, Marion County, Arkansas. The household also includes four Crawford children (Dolph, Freddie, Willie and Bessie) listed as John's stepchildren. In 1910 they are living in Jasper, Missouri (without the Crawford kids - Dolph and Wille are in Batesville, Arkansas and Bessie is in Springfield, Missouri) and everyone is Mulatto; same race in 1920 but they are living in Webb City. Jess and Arthur's WWI draft registration cards list them as Black. Jess is Negro in 1930 but everyone else is White. By 1940, John, Jess and Tex are dead. Jess's family is still Black. The 1940 surprise is that George's family is recorded as Negro and he is designated as the person who provided the information to the enumerator!
How do you keep a secret like this? How do you decide - as a family - to cross over racial lines in America? John and Lizzie's youngest son was a preteen when they moved from Missouri to Kansas. They appear to have spent some time in Wichita before settling in Salina. Were they Black in Wichita? All of the children attended Lincoln School in Joplin which was the "colored" school. I saw their names in the class listings in the digitized Black Families of the Ozarks at the Springfield-Greene County Library. So they knew that they were once Black.
Arthur married Virgie Mae Foote in Wichita in 1921. Walsie married Harvey Fickes in Oklahoma in 1922. George married Christina Wolf in 1929. Tex and Charlotte were probably married before the birth of their twins in 1933. To the best of my knowledge all of the spouses, with the exception of Jess's wife (Mary Frances Morford), were of White, European descent. Were they aware of the racial metamorphosis? If so, I would call them courageous for their time and place. I suspect that the Stinnetts admitted to some Native American ancestry. In fact my great-grandmother Anna (John Stinnett's sister) was quoted in a 1922 newspaper article as saying her father was a White man and her mother was a half-breed Indian.
Aunt Ginny's memories put me on a path that led to living descendants of John and Lizzie Stinnett. My cousins are out there. They are White and I am not.
Stinnett family 1900:
John and Lizzie 1930:
Related stories: Hiding in Plain Sight - Part 2, Hiding in Plain Sight - Part 3