The Mystery of Myrtle Coker

Myrtle L. Coker

According to my Aunt Ginny, her Aunt Myrtle hadn't been heard from since she sent a telegram to my great-grandmother in 1933 acknowledging the death of my grandfather, her brother, Lonnie Coker. She was living in Washington State at the time.

Following Aunt Myrtle's trail has not been easy. She appears with the rest of the G.W. Coker family in the 1900 census in Yellville, Arkansas where she was born, then later with them in Joplin, Missouri in 1910.

Myrtle married Bert Patterson January 25, 1913 in Carthage, Missouri. From here the trail gets murky. When Bert registered for the WWI draft (12 Sep 1918) he was working as a horseshoer in Augusta, Kansas but gave 1024 North St., Joplin, Missouri as his home address. His wife Myrtle L. Patterson at that address was listed as next of kin. Bert is recorded as a white male of medium build with brown hair. The address on North Street is just  block from Myrtle's family home (922 North St.) in Joplin.

The 1920 census shows a white family group living in Augusta, Kansas - Albert Patterson, wife Myrtle L Patterson, and niece Clema Watkins, Myrtle's late sister Maud Coker Watkins had a daughter named Clemma. Another coincidence, Myrtle's cousin David Stinnett was also living in Augusta in the same time frame.

I don't know what happened between Myrtle and Bert. She shows up in Seattle, Washington in a 1923 marriage record. Even though the bride's name on this record is Lillian Patterson (the "L" in Myrtle L Patterson?) I was fairly sure this was our Myrtle because one of the witnesses is Alfred Stinnette, who I believe is another cousin, the son of William and Fannie Stinnett of Muskogee, Oklahoma.

Marriage certificate of Lillian Patterson and Arthur S. Ramsden

The 1930 census lists Lillian Ramsden as a divorced beauty shop operator boarding in a house on Warren Ave. in Seattle. Aunt Ginny said that Myrtle used to do hair in Joplin.

Lillian Ramsden marries again in Vancouver, Washington in 1936. This time to Claude Siner. And this time I have a record that ties her to my family. George Coker and Anna Stinnette of Missouri are listed as her parents on the marriage record.

Marriage record for Claude Sine and Lillian Ramsden.

According to articles in the Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada, Feb 28, 1945) Lillian Siner filed for divorce from Claude Siner AND applied for a marriage license to Leonard A. Schelling of Tule Lake, California. Both articles appeared in the same issue of the Journal under the headings Marriage Licenses and Actions Filed.

Santa Rosa, California city directories list a Leonard A. and Lillian Schilling from the late 1940s until the early 1970s. After that I found a 1975 death record for a Leonard Schelling in Florida but nothing else on Lillian. I don't know if they were still married at the time of his death or whether this is even the same Leonard Schelling (though the fact that his Social Security card being issued in Oregon leads me toward that conclusion). There is also a 1985 death record for a Lillian Schelling in Napa, California. I'll have to get a death certificate and hopefully confirm Myrtle's identity. 

So here I have Aunt Myrtle (AKA Lillian), white, independent beauty operator, married four times. I would love to have more details of her life. I wonder if she preceded Leonard in death, if they stayed married for 30 years, if she'll turn up with yet another surname; so many questions Aunt Myrtle. I'll keep looking for you.

Memorial Day

There were just three graves in Oakwood Cemetery that my grandmother laid flowers on every Memorial Day – her husband and son in the small veterans’ section, and her mother’s unmarked grave on the other side of the cemetery. She picked flowers from her overgrown backyard – whatever was blooming; most often yellow snapdragons and tiger lilies – and wrapped them in damp newspaper. She gathered her grandchildren and started the two-mile walk to the burial ground before the heat of the day set in.

I have tried to remember the route we took because I know it wasn’t along main roads to the proper entrance of Oakwood. I remember walking along gravel and paved roads and dirt paths trampled by many feet through somewhat wooded areas, finally reaching the cemetery on the southeast side, what I would now call “from the back”.  Perhaps development has changed the route we took; perhaps my child’s mind remembers the nearby park as the woods. I am certain however that we did not enter the cemetery through the front gate. Sometimes the path was choked with undergrowth and Grandma cautioned us to follow in her steps, to watch out for mud … and snakes. Any noise sent us hurrying to Grandma's side and grabbing the apron whose pockets held the peppermints and chewing gum that she will give us after our work is done.

Our first stop is the unmarked grave of my great-grandmother Charity Brown.  Grandma places some flowers on the grass and tells us a story about her mother.  I learned that Charity came from Texas after slavery. She was short and dark and fat and had little bitty feet. Charity's mother's name was Nellie Washington and she died at the state hospital in Osawatomie. A death notice in the Parsons newspaper said she would be interred in Oakwood but hospital records identify her final resting place as the hospital burial grounds marked only by a number that can't be tracked because some other records were lost in a fire. Grandma said Charity Brown didn’t like white people because of the abuse and mistreatment she suffered most of her life by their hand. She loved her grandchildren and spoiled my father rotten.

We walk north a hundred yards or so to the veterans’ graves.  My grandfather Lonnie Coker died when my father was just a year old. We wipe dirt and remove debris from his WWI vet’s headstone before laying flowers there. Grandma doesn’t talk about him. She grabs our hands and moves us toward her eldest son. Cleaning another grave, laying more flowers. I remember Uncle Son though I was very young when he died. He was my father’s older half-brother, more than twenty years his senior. We get our candy now and suck the sweet peppermint discs as Grandma’s eyes pass between the graves of her men; they were gone too soon.

Others have arrived to honor their dead, calling greetings across the headstones as they make their offerings. Heads bent in prayer, tears sliding down a cheek.  You see markers for the lady who used to live across the street and her husband who used to cut hair. The Sunday school teacher, the preacher, the grocery store man. The dead are still neighbors in their silent town, segregated as they were in life from the white folks. We recognize a name and say, “I remember when …”. Saying the name, telling the story, binds us to them.

Grandma walked to the cemetery each May as long as she was able.  My family moved away, I grew up and I’m never in town for Memorial Day any more.  I  do go to Oakwood when I’m home but now I drive through the main gate off Main Street and drive to “our town”. In the back, by the creek that used to overflow during heavy rains and erode the soil around the headstones.  There may be years between visits but I know the way. I can show my nieces and nephews where our people are buried.  I can tell a story of those they’ve never met. They can tell a story of the ones they have. When we say their names we know who we are.

My mother Lois Robinson Coker is there now, not far from her father Charles Robinson. My father's brother Lonnie Jr., Uncle Red, rests next to Grandma and Charity Brown. My father will be there some day. There is no room for me because I didn’t buy a plot when I had the chance. Who will find me and say my name?

Backtracking - William Stinnett's Missing Children

William Stinnett was my great-grandmother's oldest brother.  I had been able to track most of his family up to their deaths with the exception of his daughter Carrie and his son Sherman who disappeared from available records between 1900 when the family lived in Harrison, Arkansas and 1910 after William and Fannie moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma. The last I'd heard of either of them was through marriage records - Carrie Stinnett of Muskogee married Edward M. Carpenter in Wyandotte County, Kansas in 1909 and Sherman married Jenette Barker in Muskogee in 1910.

Carrie Stinnett Randall

After my recent luck picking up the trail of Marion Stinnett I decided to search for Carrie and Sherman again. My luck held out.

I found an earlier marriage record for Carrie in Black Families of the Ozarks Volume 4-A, page 355. These volumes are available in PDF format at the Springfield-Greene County Library. A listing of Wright County, Missouri marriage records shows Toby Duncan of Hartville marrying Carrie Stinnett of Harrison, Boone County, Arkansas on October 18, 1903. Ancestry.com also has this record though the groom's name has been transcribed as Poly Duncan. I can find no other record of Toby and Carrie together, or any information about a divorce,  though I may have found Toby later with another wife.

I also found both marriage and death records for Carrie in Washington state. She died at age 32 just a year after her marriage to Arza Randall. Both records name William and Fannie as her parents. The marriage record has the mother's maiden name as Fannie Kircum but the death record has Bower as Fannie's maiden name. My best guess on this is that the clerk mistakenly recorded Carrie's husband's (Arza Bowen Randall) middle name instead of her mother's maiden name. The marriage record shows a divorced Carrie Carpenter whose maiden name was Stinnette. I know this is my girl. What I may never know is how she ended up in Walla Walla, Washington.

The man that I believe to be Sherman is also in Washington state. Trolling through dozens of Stinnett records led me to an employment application for an Alfred Stinnette whose parents were William and Fannie Stinnette of Muskogee, Oklahoma. Further digging turned up WWI and WWII draft registrations, marriage and death records, naturalization applications for his Canadian wife, listings in city directories and even a hit on a family tree at ancestry.com. The family tree had this man as Alfred Sylvester Stinnette but none of the associated records documented his middle name. I thought he was still a possibility so I started searching for Alfred Stinnette and I found another clue in newspaper archives that strengthen my case for Sherman and Alfred being the same person.

Starting November 15, 1924 the Bothell [Washington] Sentinel printed a Summons by Publication, for plaintiff Alfred Stinnette against defendant Janett Stinnette. Alfred is suing for divorce based on desertion and abandonment and Janett has 90 days to answer the summons. Further searches in Bothell and Seattle newspapers turn up articles where he is called Alfred S. Stinnette. I think the S stands for Sherman, not Sylvester. I need to get my hands on the divorce case to verify that Janett Stinnette is the former Jenette Barker that Sherman married in Muskogee but I do think I'm hot on the trail.

Again, I don't know how these Stinnetts ended up in Washington. Was their move a part of The Great Migration? Sherman's WWI draft registration shows him living in Seattle as early as 1917. Carrie was married in Walla Walla in 1916. Did Sherman and Carrie move west together? I'll let these latest discoveries muddle around in my head for a while and come back to them later.