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

Grandpa and Grandma Bell

Okay—last branch of my family tree, my mother’s mother’s family.  This research has been some of the most rewarding and interesting of all the genealogical searching I have done.  And while much has been learned, many questions still remain—and a couple of brick walls that I’m still working at breaking down.

Thomas J. & Cornelia Bell
Cora and Clara

My maternal grandmother’s parents were Thomas Jefferson Bell and Cornelia Dee (or Orange??) Roberts.  T.J. Bell was born in 1871 in Mississippi, probably in Early Grove, Marshall County, where he was living on the 1880 census. Sometime before 1893 he moved to Woodford, Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory, where he married Mrs. Cornelia (Roberts) Spurlock on 15 October 1893.  I have never found the marriage recorded, but my cousin gave me a copy of the original marriage license, which she possesses. 

Marriage license of Thomas J.
Bell & Mrs. Cornelia Spurlock 

Thomas J. Bell’s father and mother were James W. Bell and Mary Mourning Powell.  They married on 4 December 1866 in Marshall County, Mississippi.  Apparently, the Powells moved to Mississippi from Tennessee not long after the 1860 census was taken, taking for clues the marriage dates and places of Mary M. Powell and her siblings.

James W. Bell (1841-1883) was the son of Thomas Bell and his wife Elizabeth.  Thomas was born in 1806 in North Carolina, married Elizabeth about 1830, lived in Marshall County, Mississippi, and his occupation was listed as Mill Wright on the 1860 census.  That’s really all I know about him.  James was the youngest child and the only boy; his sisters were Catharine F. (married Swan), Mary J.R. (married Baldwin), Elizabeth G., Martha, and Winifred (married Losee).    

In 1883 James W. Bell died, and by 1894 or 1895, Polly remarried.  In 1900 she was widowed again and living in Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory, along with Thomas’s siblings, William, Russell, Joseph, and Kitty (Elizabeth.) In 1900 Thomas’s remaining brother, Benjamin Franklin Bell, was living in Chickasaw Nation with his wife, Martha E. (Mattie) Ming.  (Yes, my Ming family.  Another convoluted relationship. Mattie is sister to Cynthia Ming, my Wheat great-grandmother.)  In 1880 the family of James and Polly Bell was in Mississippi, and by 1900 they were all in Oklahoma.

Cornelia Roberts was born on 4 February 1865 in Granville, Jackson County, Tennessee.  I have seen her middle name recorded as Dee in several places, including the baby book filled out by my mother.  Some descendants have recorded her middle name as Orange, which I would think ridiculous except that her headstone reads “Cornelia O. Bell.”  Her parents were Stephen and Elzina (Huff) Roberts. 

  

On the 1870 Jackson County census her siblings were listed as Nancy, Henry, Ellis, Thomas, Caleb, and Nathan.  In 1874 her mother filed for divorce from Stephen Roberts by reason of abandonment.  On the 1880 census the family, consisting of mother Elzina (enumerated as Elmira), Nancy, James H. (Henry), Thomas J., Cornelia, and Nathan J., were living in Harmony, Caldwell County, Kentucky.  I have never found a reason for the move to this area, over 200 miles north of Granville.  Another puzzling thing about these two census entries is that Cornelia is listed as “Permelia,” age 14 on the 1870 census, and as Cornelia, age 13, on the 1880 census. 

Roberts family on 1880 census of
Caldwell County, Kentucky

Apparently, Cornelia married someone named Spurlock sometime before she married T.J. Bell in 1893.  Whether that marriage ended in death or divorce, I have never been able to determine.  There were several Spurlock families in Jackson County, Tennessee, but I have never been able to figure out who Cornelia married.  The Spurlock men of the right age in 1880 appear to still be living in Tennessee in 1900, so how did Cornelia get to Indian Territory?  I did find a grave recorded in Woodford, Indian Territory, for Maggie L.V. Spurlock, born 14 February 1887, died 7 December 1892.  The 1900 census showed that Cornelia had borne 4 children, but only 3 were living.  I have always wondered if Maggie was the child of Cornelia and her Spurlock husband, and whether the child’s death might have caused divorce or abandonment by Mr. Spurlock. 

Maggie L. V. Spurlock headstone
Woodford Cemetery, Carter County, OK
from findagrave.com 

By 1900 Thomas and Cornelia had three children: Clara Elizabeth, age 5; Cora Lee, age 3; and James Alfred, age 1.  Their fourth child, Cornelia Morning, was born in 1903.  According to cousins descended from Cornelia Morning Bell, T.J. Bell owned a store and post office in Mill Creek, Indian Territory.  Oh, my gosh!! Decided to check this out, since I now know where to go to find postmaster appointments on ancestry.com.  Add another name to the list of postmasters in my family—Thomas J. Bell was appointed postmaster of Lester (near Mill Creek) Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory, on 15 September 1899. 

Appointment of T. J. Bell as postmaster
Lester, Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory 

In 1904 T.J. Bell became a Primitive Baptist minister.  In 1906 the Bell family moved to New Mexico Territory to homestead but a snowstorm forced them to move back home.  In 1908 they moved to Egan, Texas, to live with Thomas’s aunt Lydia Powell Ray, but then moved to Carson, OK, in 1910 to live in a log cabin owned by Cornelia’s brother Nathan.  They built a new house on Middle Creek (Pleasant View) and lived there until 1922.

By all accounts, Thomas J. Bell was the kindest man alive, and Cornelia Bell was the meanest woman.  To be fair, she can’t have had an easy early life, since her father was a drinker that abandoned his family, according to the divorce papers filed by her mother.  Certainly, if Cornelia lost a child at a young age, that had to have taken an emotional toll.  But just look at her photograph as a young girl—she doesn’t look happy even then.  Here’s the story I love to tell:  One of her husband’s Primitive Baptist minister friends came to visit, and she chased them out of the house with a buggy whip!

Cornelia Roberts

In 1922 Thomas filed for divorce from Cornelia, stating that she had ordered him to leave their home, criticized him because of his religious belief, that she was “of a nervous, high-strung temperament, easy to find fault with the plaintiff; continually fault-finding, many times quarreling with him and abusing him and making their home life miserable and making it absolutely impossible for them to maintain a peaceable home.”  They both moved into the nearby town of Dustin, where they lived on the same street.  T.J. owned the Dustin Harness and Shoe Shop and a chicken hatchery.  Until his death in April 1937 he walked by Cornelia’s house every day to check on her.  She died the same year in December, and they are buried next to each other in the Fairview Cemetery in Dustin.    

The Mystery of J. Wheat

On the 1880 Collin County, Texas, census my grandfather’s father is listed as J. Wheat, born in 1859 in Texas; according to the census, his father was born in Arkansas and his mother was born in Mississippi. Since my mother had written in my baby book that my great-grandfather was John William Wheat, I spent years looking for a Wheat from Arkansas that had a son John that was of the correct age.  I searched censuses in Texas for a John Wheat born around 1859 and corresponded with Wheat researchers who had documented every Wheat that ever lived in Arkansas—no luck.  My Wheats in Texas, intermarried with the Mings, were from Alabama, not Arkansas.

My baby book--showing great-grandfather as John William Wheat

1880 Collin County Texas census 

Finally, through a Family History Center at a LDS Church in Tulsa, I found the marriage license of J.A. Wheat and Cynthia Ming on 21 January 1877 in Grayson County, Texas.  Yes, that’s right—still no name.  Just initials.  Not only that, but the license says “J.A. Wheat” and the minister’s return says “J.W. Wheat.”  At least I knew that J. and Cynthia were originally from Grayson County.

Marriage license of J.A. Wheat and Cynthia Ming

I began to collect more and more information but still nothing that would give me the identity of J. Wheat.  I found out that my grandfather John had a brother named Thomas, born in 1884.  I found out that Mrs. Cynthia F. Ming married Thomas L. Rhodes in Weatherford, Parker County, Texas, on 17 November 1890, so presumably J. Wheat was deceased before 1890. I considered that my Aunt Marie might have mistakenly attributed a death of a father and son by wagon accident to her Roberts grandfather when it really happened to J. Wheat and his oldest son A.B.—since A.B. also disappeared after the 1880 census.  I sent off to the National Archives and Records Administration for John William Wheat’s Army service records and found that although he was living in Collin County at age 5 months, he was born in Grayson County.

Marriage license of Thomas L. Rhodes & Cynthia F. Wheat

I decided to record every Wheat family living in Grayson and Collin counties on the 1870 and 1880 censuses.  Most of them were related to the Wheats I already knew from the Ming side of the family.  In 1870 the families listed in Grayson County were those of: William Whitley Wheat, son of Samuel & Cynthia Stephenson Wheat; James R. Wheat, son of William Whitley Wheat; Robert S. Wheat, son of William Wheat and Esther Stephenson (William is Samuel Wheat’s brother and Esther is another Stephenson sister); Samuel Wheat, son of William, with whom his mother Esther, age 86, was living.  The only J. Wheat even close to the right age is James H., son of Samuel, who is not married and still living with his parents on the 1880 census.

There is only one other Wheat family in Collin County in 1870 and 1880, seemingly unrelated to my Wheats.  They have a son James, but he is still young and living at home on the 1880 census.

Obviously in June 1880 my J. Wheat was living in Collin County, so he wasn’t living in Grayson County.  However, since the family was living in Grayson County in January 1880 when my grandfather John William was born, I thought I would see who was in Grayson County at the time of the 1880 census.  Most of the families were those previously living in Grayson County or sons of Robert S. or William Whitley Wheat who were now living on their own. One Wheat family from Georgia had a head of household too young to be J.’s father. 

But—living in Grayson County in 1880 is a father named Henry Wheat with his daughters Lucy, Mollie, and Emma.  Henry was the son of William and Esther Wheat, and his wife Caroline Farris, born in Mississippi, had died in 1874. In 1870 Henry lived in Davis County, Texas, with Caroline, daughters Lucy, Elizabeth, Henrietta, and Mary, and son Joseph, age 13.  The name Joseph Wheat does not appear in Texas on the 1880 census—unless he is my J. Wheat.  Circumstantial evidence, I know, but I was having a pretty good feeling about it. 

Henry Wheat on 1870 Davis Co. TX census, page 26

Henry Wheat family on 1870 Davis Co. TX census, page 27 

I hadn’t had any luck finding the name of my great-grandfather on any of John William Wheat’s documents.  The information on his death certificate was given by his father-in-law, Thomas J. Bell, who apparently didn’t know, as the father and mother are marked as Unknown.  But maybe with Thomas, his brother, I would have better luck.  I requested Thomas’s death certificate from the State of Oklahoma.  When I received it in the mail, I was more than excited to see that Thomas’s mother’s name was Cynthia Ming and his father was Joe Wheat!  Even then, the death certificate didn’t say who had given the information for the death certificate, so I was still uncertain.

Then, I found out that with Thomas’s social security number I could request his original Social Security application, so I did.  I waited impatiently for a month and finally received a copy of the application just a few weeks ago.  Even though it is hard to read, it also says Joe Wheat.  Only a few little details don’t match up: on the 1860 census when the family was living in Titus County, Joseph was listed as “J.F.” and was age 5, making his birth year 1855; his father Henry Wheat was born in Alabama, not Arkansas.  However, I have proven ancestors who have birthdates and names that differ by that much. I think I’ve probably found all the confirmation I will ever have, so I am declaring the mystery solved.   

This means that on the Wheat side of my family I am descended from three sisters: Cynthia Stephenson, wife of Samuel Wheat and mother of Susanna Wheat Ming; Susannah Stephenson, wife of Thomas Ming and mother of William Frederick Ming; and Esther Stephenson, wife of William Wheat, mother of Henry Wheat, and grandmother of Joseph Wheat.  Whew!

Whitley family tree at William Whitley House
Elizabeth Whitley Stevenson is mother of Cynthia, Susannah, and Esther

The Mansell Connection

The first time I ever heard the Mansell surname was on the Guion Miller application that my great-grandfather Stephen A. Smith filed on behalf of his children.  He claimed that his late wife Fannie’s maiden name was Mansell, that Fannie’s mother was Elizabeth Simmons, and that Elizabeth’s mother’s name was Priscilla Soles.  My grandmother had always called her mother-in-law Fannie Cotton, and that was the name that I had used to try to trace Fannie’s family.  At the time I thought perhaps I had found a clue that would let me find Fannie’s family through her true surname, but it hasn’t been that easy.  One complication is that Mansell can be spelled a hundred ways: Mancil, Mansel, Mansell, Mansfield, Mansild, etc.  For the sake of ease, I will spell it Mansell.

It turns out that Elizabeth was married to John Mansell and had the following children with him: William A., born about 1826; Samuel J., born about 1828; Daniel Monrow, born 1833; Simeon C., born about 1835; Benjamin Franklin, born about 1836; John E., born about 1842; and Amos P., born about 1843.  The family migrated from Columbus County, North Carolina, to Alabama after the birth of the first three boys.  John Mansell died in May 1844 so he can’t be the father of Fannie, who was born 7 June 1849. (Another son, Simeon, was born in 1845 so his parentage is suspect as well.)  Elizabeth remarried on 26 August 1863 to William W. Cotton, who could possibly be Fannie’s father, but if so, it seems odd that they waited to marry until 14 years after Fannie’s birth. 

In 1850 Elizabeth, head of household and using the surname Mansfield, was enumerated in Pike County with her sons William, Samuel, Daniel, Benjamin, John, Amos and Simeon, and her daughter Frances.  In 1860 William, Samuel, Simeon and Frances are still living with their mother, along with 7-year-olds named Pugh and Nancy.  It’s never been determined to whom they belong, and they have not been found on subsequent censuses.   In 1870 Elizabeth is married to William Cotton and they are both living with her son, William.  Between 1870 and 1880 several family members moved from Pike County to Lauderdale County, Alabama.  In 1880 Elizabeth and son William are living in Lauderdale County.

Elizabeth was born in 1812 in North Carolina, perhaps the daughter of Luke Russell Simmons, whose wife’s name was Priscilla. Other researchers have shown her father as Benjamin Simmons.  She probably married John Mansell in the mid-1820s, based on the birth of William in 1826.  She moved to Alabama with about one hundred other residents of Columbus County, North Carolina, in the 1830s.  Members of the family in Alabama have been told that Elizabeth is buried in an unmarked grave in Mt. Olive Cemetery, Waterloo, Alabama.  Attached to the application for Cherokee citizenship that Fannie Smith made in 1896 is an affidavit by her mother Elizabeth Cotton, taken in 1894 in Cleveland County, Oklahoma Territory.  It is possible that Elizabeth came to Oklahoma with the Smith family and then returned to Alabama with other family members, where she died.

Tree under which it is said that Elizabeth Simmons
(Granny Cotton) is buried in
Mt. Olive Cemetery, Waterloo, AL

The Smiths in Alabama I

I started looking for the Smiths back in the Soundex, microfilm, pre-computer database days.  Knowing that my Smiths came from Waterloo, Lauderdale County, Alabama, that’s where I started.  But of course, I couldn’t start with the 1890 census, just before Stephen Albert’s family came to Oklahoma.  I finally found a family that I thought was his on the 1880 census in Lauderdale County—even though some of the names seemed unfamiliar.

            E.D. 140   Lauderdale County, AL   June 10, 1880

                        Steve Smith                age 34             born AL         

                        Francis Smith             age 30             born AL

                        Marry                          age 8               born AL

                        Eller                            age 7               born AL

                        Willice                         age 4               born FL

                        Martha                        age 2               born AL

Stephen Albert was “Steve”; Fannie was “Francis”.  Marry could be Molly, as that is often a nickname for Mary.  I’m always amused when the census taker spells what he hears, because obviously “Eller” is Ella, spoken in a Southern country accent.  Who the heck were Willice and Martha?  And did that really say that Willice was born in Florida, a locale not ever associated with my Smiths?

Next door are Lizzie Cotton and her son William Mansil.  I suspected Lizzie could be Fannie’s mother because she was the right age (69), and my grandmother had told me that Fannie’s maiden name was Cotton.  I had no idea who William Mansil was, although the census said that he was Lizzie’s son.

That was it.  I couldn’t find anything else.  Back in those days, you really needed to know a county name to find anything on microfilm, and Stephen and Fannie were just not in Lauderdale County in 1870.  That was the only place in Alabama that I knew that they ever lived.  My grandfather and grandmother had died; there was no-one to ask.  I found an old book of phone numbers that belonged to my grandmother and called a Smith cousin, daughter of Barbara, who told me that before Waterloo, the Smiths were from Pike County, around Montgomery.

Now I had somewhere to look.  No wonder I hadn’t been able to find Stephen in the 1870 Alabama census index.  Here’s what I found.

            Pike County, AL         Post Office: Orion      August 15, 1870

                        Samuel A. Smith         age 25

                        Frances Smith            age 22

                        Sarah                          age 1

Living next door are William A. Mansel, William W. Cotton and Elizabeth Cotton.  This helped determine that Samuel really was Stephen.  Just a couple of years ago I was finally able to find Stephen and Fannie’s marriage license.  They were married the 9^th day of January, 1868.  Previously, their daughter Mary (Molly) had seemed to be the oldest child, but she was not born until 1872.  Apparently, they had had a child in 1869, Sarah, who did not survive to be enumerated on the 1880 census.

I had connected Fannie with her mother, if not her father, but I still had questions about her, and I knew nothing about Stephen Albert’s parents or siblings.