Grandparent #4: Cora Lee Bell Wheat Altstatt

Cora Lee Bell

Cora Lee Bell was born on 13 August 1896 in Indian Territory, the daughter of Thomas Jefferson and Cornelia (Roberts) Bell.  She was listed on the 1900 census in Township 2 South, Range 5 East, Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory, with her father shown as Jefferson Bell, age 27, born in Mississippi, and her mother as Cornelia, age 35, born in Tennessee.  Her parents stated they had been married 7 years.  Cora was 3, and her siblings were Clara E., age 5, and James A., age 1.

1900 Indian Territory Census
Thomas Jefferson Bell & family 

In 1910 the Bells were living in Johnson County, Texas, probably in the home of Thomas’s Aunt Lydia Powell Ray, who was living with her sister Bennie in Briscoe County, Texas. Cora is 13, James is 11, and another sister has been born—Cornelia M., age 6.  Living in the same household is sister Clara E., age 15, and her husband, John A. (Angus) Guest, and their son, Stanley (transcribed as Uriel E.), age 8 months.

1910 Johnson County, TX Census
Thomas Jefferson Bell & family

On 28 January 1917 Cora Bell, age 20, who resided in Dustin, Oklahoma, married John W. Wheat, age 37, in Carson, Hughes County, Oklahoma.  In September 1918 they were living in Oklahoma City, according to John’s World War I draft registration.  In 1920 the Wheats were living back in Dustin with their first child, Leona, age 2.  Son William Powell was born in 1920, followed by daughter Iona Marie in 1922 and daughter Ida Belle in 1925.  John Wheat died in 1927 and on the 1930 census Cora and her children are living with her father, Thomas J. Bell, in Dustin.

Bell-Wheat marriage license

Cora married Henry Paul Alstatt, a widower, on 18 June 1938 in Dustin.  On the 1940 census the blended family included Henry’s children Bonnie, Jack, and Betty Joe, and Cora’s children, Powell, Marie, and Ida Belle.

Granny and Henry

Cora Altstatt was Granny to me, and Henry was Papa Henry.  My dad and paternal grandparents took my brother and me to Dustin to see Granny often when we were kids.  I think my grandmother Smith must have felt she had something to prove to Granny about how she was taking care of us; I remember that within a few miles of Dustin, Tim and I climbed in the back seat and changed clothes so we’d be fresh and presentable when we got to Granny’s house. Dustin was so different than our home in Tulsa.  Granny had a big garden, and raised hogs and chickens, and we walked a dirt road down to visit Aunt Clara.   

My two grandmothers and me

Aunt Clara and Granny in Granny's front yard

Granny was a good cook and a wonderful seamstress, and she was scared to death of storms.  I can’t say that I know much more about her; for one, of course, we didn’t live with her, but for another, she was very quiet and always seemed unhappy to me. Even before Henry’s death in 1970, Granny went to a nursing home in Wetumka where she was basically unresponsive for years before she died in 1981.  Later, when I was old enough to understand, I wondered if losing her two girls, Leona and my mother, so young, was just too much for her to bear.  Now that I know more about her mother, I also think she must have had a difficult childhood, and she probably had a difficult marriage with John Wheat.  I found this picture of her recently and realized, among all the other photos I have of her, this is the only one in which she is smiling.

Granny and me

The Wheats in Oklahoma

John William Wheat married Cora Lee Bell on 28 January 1917 in Carson, Hughes County, Oklahoma.  She was 20 and he had just turned 37.  Together they had four children: Leona, born 1918; William Powell, born 1920; Iona Marie, born 1922; and the youngest, my mother, Ida Belle, born 1925. Less than 10 years later on 9 November 1927, John William died in Seminole, Oklahoma, where he was working at an oil field.  My mother was only 2 years old when he died.

Wheat kids at Seminole oil camp, about 1926
Powell, Ida, Marie, Leona 

I started out knowing very little about the Wheat side of my family.  The only facts I had came from my baby book, where my mother had filled out a family tree with the names of her parents and grandparents—my grands and greats.  She wrote that her father was John William Wheat, and his parents were John William Wheat and Cynthia Ming.  The Ming name was very helpful, of course, because it was so unusual.  The elder “John William Wheat” led me on a wild goose chase for years.

The Wheats in Oklahoma is a story that starts out in Texas.  The first piece of information I found was the 1880 Collin County, Texas, census, enumerated on the 30^th day of June.  J. and Synthe Wheat, both 21, are listed as family #478 with two children:  A.B., son, age 2; and J.W., son, age 5 months, born in January.  All four of them were born in Texas.  Family #479 was W.F. and Susanna Ming and their 7 children, ages 18 to 3 months. For years I thought that the Wheats were living next door to Cynthia’s parents and siblings, until I looked closely at the original census and realized that, although they were enumerated as separate families, they were all living together in the same residence—a total of 4 adults and 9 children.

1880 Collin County TX census

The next obvious place to look was the 1900 census, since the 1890 was practically non-existent.  No John Wheat, no Cynthia Wheat, no A.B. Wheat, no J.W. Wheat.  No W.F. or Susanna Ming, although I did find them on the 1910 census.  W.F. was living with the daughter of his first marriage in Greer County, Oklahoma, claiming to be a widower. Susanna, alive and well, was living with her daughter Martha and her family in Garvin County, Oklahoma. And in 1910, John W. Wheat, age 30, is living with a heretofore unknown brother, Thomas J., age 26, and his family in Cottle County, Texas.

1910 Cottle County TX census

In 1903 Thomas had married Lou Hattie Loper in Ada, Pontotoc County, Indian Territory. In 1906 John had enlisted in the Army at Guthrie, Logan County, Oklahoma Territory.  Apparently the brothers moved from Texas to Oklahoma and back again, possibly following job opportunities or other relatives. By 1918 (when they both filled out draft registrations for World War I) the brothers had apparently permanently settled in Oklahoma—John was in Oklahoma City and Thomas in Garvin County—because all remaining documents I have found show them living in Oklahoma somewhere.

John William Wheat's WWI draft registration

On the 1920 census Thomas was living in Whitebead, Garvin County, with his wife Lou and children, Beulah, Cynthia, John, and Thomas.  John was in Dustin, Hughes County, with wife Cora and daughter Leona.  By 1930 John had died; Thomas was living in Pocasset, Grady County with his daughter Beulah.  In 1940 Thomas was living in Dustin with the family of Benton Bell, who was the son of his mother’s sister Martha and also related by marriage to John Wheat.  While the 1910 Texas census has Thomas’s occupation as farmer, working on his “own account,” on all the Oklahoma censuses he was working as a farm laborer for others.  Thomas died in 1962 and is buried in Chickasha, Grady County, near his daughter Beulah.

Thomas J. Wheat headstone
Fairlawn Cemetery, Chickasha, OK
from www.findagrave.com

Thomas, who was not even born on the 1880 census, has turned out to be the key in helping me to unlock the identity of “J.” Wheat, the father listed on the 1880 census as the husband of Cynthia and father of John William.