Mam-ma's Southern Family

Copyright © 2023 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family, All rights reserved.

Have you ever known anyone named the “Best of”? Well, my grandmother’s first cousin, Faye Loveless Moon was named a “Best of.” Faye was the first daughter of James Oscar Arthur Loveless and Lula Kate Ferguson, born on 15 March 1908 in Texas. She grew up in Stephenville and was five years older than my grandmother. They likely hung out at times when my grandmother grew older. Best Cook in the Country Faye Moon of Stephenville was named the “Best Cook in the Country” by Country Magazine for the year 1987. She responded to a newspaper reporter saying, “I was so excited I could hardly believe what they were telling me.” [1] Country Magazine had a contest where subscribers could nominate the best cook. Her cousin, R. D. Lancaster, my grandmother’s brother, nominated Faye. He and his wife, Barbara, were frequent visitors to Faye’s home and he insisted “she is truly a good cook.” Faye was a retired home economics teacher and she enjoyed cooking and experimenting with food preparati...

We lost our grandmother ten years ago and today would have been her birthday. Pansy Louise Lancaster was born on 19 November 1913. She married Tom J Johnston and had one child, our mother, Lela Nell. She was not an easy woman but she did like to hear about my genealogy quests into her family lines. Happy Birthday, Mam-ma! Copyright © 2023 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family, All rights reserved.

In my recent lifetime, I knew my maternal grandmother to live to the age of almost one hundred years. She died just two months short. I thought that was a remarkable feat and probably someone in our family who lived the longest. Well, I tested that theory by running a search in RootsMagic to see if I had anyone who lived to be over one hundred years old. And sure enough, I got a return of six people. I will focus on my mother’s side of the family. That brings the number to three. My grandmother’s uncle, William Hutson Loveless was born on 1 March 1894 in Arkansas and died on 23 May 1998 in Seminole, Texas. He was 104 years old. My first cousin, four times removed, Drew Oliver Welch , was born on 15 January 1865 in Copiah Co, Mississippi, and died on 1 January 1969 in Tyler, Texas. He was 103 years old. My second cousin, three times removed, Thelma Gladys Welch , was born on 3 February 1900 in Brookhaven, Mississippi, and died on 24 September 2002 in Erath County, Texas. She wa...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Night again - Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!   Here is our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings : 1)  If you have AncestryDNA ThruLines results, which set of 3rd great-grandparents has the most ThruLines?  Analyze your ThruLines from these ancestors.  Are they all "correct?"   Here’s mine:  I have not looked at ThruLines yet, so this is a good exercise. I decided to write this on Mam-ma’s Southern Family blog because I haven’t written a post there in a while. Let’s look at the 3 rd great-grandparents on her line (my maternal side). George W. Lancaster (1839-1919) has 15 DNA matches. His wife, Martha Jane Polly (1855-1932) has 17 DNA matches. James Madison Coor (1833-1889) has 17 DNA matches. His wife, Melissa A. Welch (1840-1876) has 17 DNA matches. Jesse Loveless (1806-1873) has 31 DNA matches and his wife, Elizabeth Nixon (1810-1876) has 31 DNA matches. David Rodgers (1818-??) has...

After locating the usual records for an ancestor at Ancestry and FamilySearch , I look for newspaper articles to fill in details about their lives between the tax, deed, vital, and census records found for them. Case in point. Many of my mother’s ancestors lived in Texas and I searched recently to see if there were newer articles in the newspapers in Erath County. I look for these at the wonderful website, The Portal to Texas History , which has many digitized records. One of the largest collections is the Texas Digital Newspaper Program. As of July 7, 2023, they have ten million pages. [1] This website is hosted by the University of North Texas Libraries. I learned something new about my 3x-great-grandfather, James M. Coor, by searching in the newspapers of Erath County. There were two articles in the same newspaper about his hunting abilities. On the front page, we learned that he shot a buck that weighed 160 pounds and that he saw three more bucks. [2] On page 4, he was referr...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's  Saturday Night  again - time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Here is our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings: 1) What are three things about one of your ancestors that you have learned doing genealogy research?    Here’s mine: 1) Lela Ann Loveless was born on 2 April 1896 in East Fork Township of Faulkner County, Arkansas as the youngest child of Ebenezer Loveless and Eliza A. Rodgers. 2) She was just eleven years old when her mother died in 1907. 3) She married George Warren Lancaster on 15 December 1912 when she was sixteen years old. Her brother William Hutson Loveless married George’s younger sister, Josephine Hazel Lancaster on 24 November 1915. Bonus: Their children were double cousins, and my grandmother, Pansy Lancaster, was very close to her double cousin, Dorothy Loveless. Lela Ann is my maternal great-grandmother. Copyright © 2023 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family, All rig...

It is important to document the lives of those who left no descendants. I have been researching and writing as much as I can about family members who either never married or who married but had no children. They have no descendants who will do the research or even take DNA tests. But they will not be forgotten. Reginald F. Lancaster, my second great-uncle, was the son of George Wilson Lancaster and Martha Jane Polly. He was born 22 July 1887 in Phoenix, Maricopa, Arizona, the fifth child of six. [1] His parents divorced when he was five. [2] His father moved back to Texas and Reggie probably never saw his father again. Reggie’s mother married Noah Flood Parks in 1893 and he grew up with two younger half-sisters. Sometime in the early 1900s, the family moved to Imperial County, California, to do farming. When Reggie registered for the draft, he was working at ranching. At age 29, he was of medium height and weight and had blue eyes and brown hair. He was still single. [3] I have ...

One photo of my 2x-grandfather, A. Ebenezer Loveless, shows not a full beard, but a very full mustache and goatee. He is pictured with his wife, Eliza A. (Rodgers), and youngest child, Lela Ann, my great-grandmother (and Mam-ma's mother). I love this photo. They are nicely dressed, he in a suit and Eliza and Lela in their finest dresses. Lela looks about seven to nine years of age. She was born in 1896 and her mother died in 1907. So, this photo was taken sometime between those years.  They lived in Faulkner County, Arkansas. He farmed and preached with the Baptist church. I have a photo of him standing in Cadron Creek after baptizing several members of the congregation. It was given to the Log Cabin Democrat in Conway, Arkansas by Mrs. J.E. Loveless, wife of the grandson of Ebenezer. It was published in their column "Way Back When" on July 12, 1981. I have the actual clipping, given to me by a distant cousin, but I have not found a digital copy. These papers are not onl...

Happy Mother's Day! Mam-ma, her daughter, Lela Nell, her granddaughter Lisa, and great-granddaughter, Elizabeth Copyright © 2023 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family, All rights reserved.

There was no big catastrophic event that happened in my family, but I can think of several smaller events that would be nice to be portrayed in a movie, primarily so I could see their adventures visually. We don’t have many photos and certainly not photos of their travels. I would love to see a movie about the travels of my southern family as they traveled across the southern states, from North Carolina to Texas. Depending on the timeframe, the travel might have been accomplished using horses, oxen, or mules pulling a wagon of their goods while the family members walked alongside. Later, after the Civil War, once railroads were rebuilt, they may have journeyed by using trains. I do know that John Core, his mother, four sisters and two small children, along with some enslaved people, traveled from Richmond County in North Carolina through Indian Nation to the Western Country (which was what would be Mississippi Territory). Also traveling with his family were Mr. John Keayhey (which ...

Hey genea-folks,  it's  Saturday Night  again,  time for more  Genealogy Fun! Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: 1)  This SNGF is based on the 100 Word Challenge ( https://100wc.net/ ) that school children are participating in around the world.  They are given a word or phrase to write a story about in one hundred words. 2)  Write a short 100 word story using the phrase ",,,an ancestor I would like to meet..." in 100 words. Why would you like to meet him/her? [Hint:  If you write it in a word processor, you can use Tools > Word Count (or similar) to count words] Here's mine: An ancestor I would like to meet is George W. Lancaster (1839-1919), my 3x-great-grandfather. Born in Missouri, he lived mostly in Texas, except for a stint in Maricopa County, Arizona, where he purchased federal land and then abandoned his wife, Martha Jane (Polly) and family. He and the oldest son, William Carleton, returne...

My maternal grandmother, Pansy Louise Lancaster, loved to sew. She made most of her own clothes when she was young and that skill came in handy when she was a young adult. She worked at clothing stores, both men and women, and had side jobs doing alterations. It was a great way to make some extra money. I remember her old sewing machine. It was black and had gold lettering on it. I have a few photos of outfits she made. This shot shows the mother-daughter dresses she made. And with this one, I would be surprised if she made these night clothes for their Christmas photo. Later in retirement, she liked to crochet and made us all blankets. When her hands couldn’t crochet anymore, she took up embroidering. Here is a shot of her in the embroidered sweatshirt. #Women’sHistoryMonth. March is Women’s History Month. This is post one of the women in my ancestry. Some will be direct ancestors, and others sisters, aunts, and cousins.  Copyright © 2023 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's South...

I have fond memories of eating catfish my grandfather caught, likely at Clear Lake where they had a cabin in the town of Nice. Mam-ma always prepared the fish by rolling them in cornmeal and egg and frying them. Oh, so delicious! Now, I have never been fishing, so I don’t know much about how to catch catfish, what bait to use, or where the best place to find them at Clear Lake. I never asked my grandfather about how he fished. He may have fished from a boat. However, I found a website that gives tips on fishing at Clear Lake. [1] Besides catfish, largemouth and smallmouth bass, white and black crappie, bluegill and sunfish, and perch can be found in the lake. I learned that catfish prefer warmer coves but are also found near marinas. Live bait, cut bait, or dough bait can be used and some of the best baits are chicken livers, hotdogs, anchovies, mackerel or sardines, and even night crawlers. In this photo, we can see he had a successful day of fishing. This is taken at their hom...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings asks us to “Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.”  1)  Pick an ancestor, any ancestor.  What do you know about them?  What source type(s) do you have for each item? Answer the 20 questions below about your chosen ancestor. Here's mine: 1)  Ancestor's birth name:  Abner Ebenezer Loveless [1] 2)  Ancestor's parents:  Jesse Loveless and Elizabeth Nixon [2] 3)  Ancestor's birth date and place:  8 Feb 1851 in Georgia, likely in Cass County, as that is where the family was living in 1850. [3] 4)  Ancestor's baptism/christening date and place:   likely Baptist, so no infant baptism . 5)  Ancestor's spouse birth name:   Eliza A. Ro(d)gers ; [4] Melissa M. Settle [5] 6 )  Ancestor's spouse paren...