I have little proof that my ancestor, Richard "Dick" Childers, once existed. No birth or death records are known. The cemetery where he was buried has been repeatedly vandalized, and his tombstone long gone. There is no one alive today who knows his parents' history. When I was five years old I saw his son, the only person I've met who actually knew Dick Childers. But his son, Henry Sam, was orphaned at age nine when his father died in February 1891. I am told Henry Sam was asked many times about his parents over the years. He remembered little. No known letter about Dick's family tree exists by anyone who talked with him. There are a few recorded memories from family who talked with those who once knew him.
My Great Aunt Lois, our Childers' family historian, once showed me a copy of a marriage record for Lucy Ackley and Richard Childers. A marriage performed by Robert McGill Loughridge on June 18, 1879 in Creek Nation, Indian Territory at the Tallahassee Mission, several miles from what is now Muskogee, Oklahoma. Sometimes called "Tullahassee," this mission served as a Creek Nation boarding school. Dr. Loughridge was both school superintendent and a popular ordained minister who performed many marriages.
The mission building later burned. Here is a photograph:
Lucy and Richard do not appear in the Federal Census for 1880 because they were not living in the USA, but instead living in what was then called Indian Territory. Neither do their names appear on any of the 30+ tribal censuses or rolls.
Their first-known child, Henry Samuel Childers, was born May 19, 1881 near Fort Gibson, Creek Nation--now in Muskogee County, Oklahoma.
Daughter Sara Anna was born July 2, 1883 near Fort Gibson, Sara lived but two years, dying in nearby Catoosa, Cherokee Nation, on July 19th. Her mother died nearly five years later in Catoosa, in February 1888. I've spent many hours reading archived newspapers for a mention of their passing. Death notices were not a paper's regular feature as is found today. Nor do I know in whose home they were living shortly before their deaths. One might assume it was Lucy and Richard's home. However, I was told by my Great-Aunt Lois Childers that the young couple had separated a short time before Lucy became ill. Perhaps she was living with a brother's family?
I next find a "Dick Childers" in an 1890 census for Cherokee Nation residents. He is not listed with tribal members, but is shown with other white people who are "living under permit" in the Cooweescoowee District. His home is near his wife's brother's family, Henry Wilson Ackley, in what I believe to be present-day Mayes County, specifically the Hogan Township.
Assuming this is my ancestor, the second person in Childers' household would have been his young son, Henry Sam. The 1890 Cherokee Nation shows cousin Henry and his brother-in-law Dick as:
1. H.W. ACKLEY, age 31, five (5) in household, arrived in I.T. in 1878, --census page 119
2. Dick CHILDERS, age 33, two (2) in household, arrived in I.T. in 1874, --census page 120
I was thrilled to find this record in both a book and on microfilm in the Bartlesville (Oklahoma) Library. This was a memorable day for me as it was also the occasion of Robert Plant's appearing in Tulsa that evening at the legendary Cains Ballroom. March 11, 2005. Perhaps you heard me hollering for joy? Please see several pictures from the book here, and yes, that is my thumb:
Some family researchers have guessed Richard Childers' birth date to be a few years later. I'm going with 1857 based on the Bartlesville Library find. I can be persuaded otherwise if any Kind Reader cares to share a birth record. A census record?
Territory newspapers are slowly going online. I was happy to find this clipping of the February 2, 1891 death of Dick's brother-in-law, Henry Wilson Ackley. Family historian Lois Childers told me the two men had died within days of each other in the same locale.
I am told Dick and his young son, Henry Sam, had lived near Dick's own family at that time. Were they his parents or siblings, I don't know. Lois Childers told me her father-in-law (Henry Sam Childers) couldn't recall their names, as he was a young boy when he last saw them.
I have scoured the Cherokee and Creek Nation censuses, and have become quite familiar with the ancestry of several Childers' families. Those who are tribal members have well documented family trees going back to the early 1800s, long before President Andy Jackson sent them packing. Some of these Childers fought for the Confederacy under Stand Watie, a Cherokee general. A colorful family, some later became lawmen, judges, ran ferries on the Arkansas River, owned thousands of cattle in what is now Tulsa County, and sent their children to be educated in Pennsylvania.
One family in particular descends from a Scotsman, William Childers, a trusted employee of famed Cherokee leader Major Ridge. This William married Maria Shoe Boots, a Cherokee daughter of a former enslaved woman. After the Civil War when Indian Territory was in tumult, several of their sons asked to leave the Cherokee tribe and join Creek Nation. These Childers were accepted, and their descendants are Creek Nation members still today.
If my Childers connect with any of the many other Childers living in Indian Territory 125 years ago, I've not yet found Dick's family. Nor any connection.
Adding to the challenge are the varying birthplaces listed on the censuses for Dick's son, Henry Sam. U.S. federal censuses for decades have asked the birth location of each citizen's parents--father first, then a mother's birth state. Sounds great, huh? It isn't. Very often someone other than the person who knew correct information might answer the door to speak with the census taker. Men were often out working and their wives or mother-in-laws answered census questions. Or worse, the neighbors sometimes gave answers about a family living nearby who were unavailable to the census person.
Here is what census records show for the birth locations of the parents of Henry Sam Childers:
1900 Federal Census: Teenager Sam is living with his Ackley grandparents in Pawnee, Oklahoma Territory. His parents' birthplaces are listed as North Carolina and West Virginia. Mom Lucy WAS born in Marshall County, West Virginia. Bingo! (Lucy's info is correct).
1910 Federal Census: Sam is living in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, with his young wife, Evie, and two young children. His parents' birthplace are shown as: West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
1920 Federal Census: Sam and Evie are in Tulsa County, with Virginia and Kansas as his parents' birth states.
1930 Federal Census: Still in Tulsa County, Sam's parents are shown as having been born in West Virginia and Kansas. (really!)
1940 Federal Census: Sam is in Weslaco, Texas, but that census broke rank and didn't ask about parents that year.
NOTE: West Virginia seceded from Virginia in 1863. If his parents HAD been born there, surely he would recall it as "Virginia"--not West Virginia. We know his mom Lucy was born in 1864 in the state whose college football team soundly beat the Oklahoma Sooners at the Fiesta Bowl on January 2, 2008. What's that? The score was 48 to 28, thanks for asking!
Henry Sam, WHO's your daddy?