Apart from my family interest as a descendent, I have been drawn into quite an investigation of the kinship pattern of the William Daniel-Polly Williams family thru contacts in many parts of West Tennessee. The family has been prolific and has not had a good family historian to help delineate the lineage in West Tennessee, nor to reconstruct the ancestry in North Carolina and Virginia. As it is a principal allied family of my immediate family I will try to share what I have discovered thus far.
Of the ten known children born to Ralph and America Daniel, nine lived to adulthood, and produced children. There seems to have been at least thirty-six grandchildren and a much greater number of great grandchildren who have scattered into Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas, as well as many counties in West Tennessee
The first born son, William Paulin, died at the age of two, and in the census of 1860 the family was living near Medon in Madison Co., where Ralph's sister Judy Farrell also lived. Her husband was listed as a shoemaker and Ralph was listed in the census as an overseer, and Ada as the only child. There was a near neighbor Dunaway in the census list with considerable wealth for that time in both real estate and personal property which would include horses, cattle and slaves. Ralph was thirty years of age in 1860 and his sister and husband were ten years his senior. It is very likely that he already had experience in farming at home and in leather working and shoemaking with his brother-in-law Herbert Farrell which would make him a valuable asset to a large farming operation. Evidently he migrated back closer to his and America's families in the Civil War years as the children are all reported to have been born ``near Pinson'' in Madison Co., Tenn.
Ada Cordelia, the oldest daughter, married James Strawn whose family had settled near Bells, Tenn. and this may have been the attraction of the other children toward Crockett Co., Tenn. James and Ada Strawn are reported to have had five sons and three daughters, most of whom migrated toward Memphis to rear their families but some stayed near Bells. Ulrich Watlington reported that one of his Daniel aunts had died accidently when severely burned while tending the wash-pot fire while washing clothes. He believed this to have been Ada Strawn. Later, Charlie Lee Daniel lived in Crockett Co. with his first wife Betty Lowery and took part in the Cypress Methodist Church. The Strawns would have been near that vicinity also.
It was while visiting or living with one of the Crockett County families that America Tabitha Daniel died April 21, 1888 and was buried at the Cypress Methodist Church Cemetery near Bells, Tenn. Charlie's first wife and a child or so were also buried at the same cemetery. Charlie Daniel carried the mail for some years from Bells to Friendship and return and later settled nearer Friendship. He had four children by Betty Lowery and later three more by Elizabeth (Lizzie) Powell.
The youngest Daniel daughter, Ludie Emma, was only nine years old when her mother died. She then spent several years living with her sister Pearl Dildy and family in Nashville, Arkansas, then a few years with her sister Allie Jones in Greenville, Mississippi. When Charlie's wife Betty Lowery died in 1900, she was out of school and unmarried and so was called upon to help Charlie with his five children under twelve years of age in Crockett Co. While working there she met her future husband, Luther Williams, and settled into farm life in Crockett Co.
Because of these relatives in Crockett Co., Ulrich A. Watlington, a nephew to Ludie Daniel, though only six years younger, was attracted to that region as he married and started his family. Through family contacts there he found work in nearby Dyer County in 1907 and 1908, and then in 1911 and 1912 made two good crops among kinfolk there in Crockett County again.
Mention has been made of a Daniel daughter in Arkansas and one in Greenville, Mississippi in the 1880's and 90's. Wynona May and Dudley Rodgers also went west and at times lived near Nashville, Arkansas and at other times near Clarksville, Texas. In January or February 1890 Eula Avenant Daniel and Mack Rob Watlington took their young family to try out Texas also. They went to Clarksville by train where Wynona and Dudley Rodgers met them and helped them get settled into a share-cropping farm home for 1890. The next year Wynona and Dudley Rodgers asked them to live in their house and farm their land for them while they returned to Tennessee for a crop season. This they did also, and reported two good crops in Red River County, Texas. But Eula wanted to get back closer to kinfolks at Big Springs so 1892 found them farming again in Tennessee west of Pinson.
In the fall of 1903, Ulrich A. Watlington got involved in a neighborhood quarrel and injured a young neighbor so badly that the family thought he would die. To avoid any further agitations he went to help his ``Aunt Nona'' Rodgers harvest their crop in Red River Co., Texas. He stayed over the following crop year, 1904, working as a farm laborer for Rodgers and neighbors. In later years the Rodgers were reported to be living back in Arkansas near Pearl Daniel Dildy at Nashville. The Rodgers had one son and the Dildys had one daughter.
Another Daniel son, Robert Oneal (Bob) migrated to Texas also, and died at Lubbock, Texas, Nov. 26, 1956. Just recently we heard that his widow, Elizabeth (Bessie) Holmes was still living at the age of 105. One of their daughters, Elizabeth Daniel Spears, who now lives in Austin, Texas, has helped the family keep in touch through her correspondence and genealogical interest. Another helper has been a granddaughter of Charlie Lee Daniel, Mrs. Grace Peal Foy who has lived in Memphis most of her life.She and her sister, Esther Peal Woodward, still live in Memphis and helped get this information together. Both Esther and Grace attended Freed-Hardeman College in Henderson as young ladies and met their husbands through the college experience. Grace has a daughter living in Memphis also. Grace, Esther, Thelma and Bertha Lee are all descendents of Edna Daniel who married Grover C. Peal.
Of the Daniel-Anderson children only Ora Anderson and Eula Avenant married and reared their families in Madison Co., Tenn. Ora married William (Will) Wooley and they raised four sons that are remembered: Terrell (Terry), Ramsey, William and Thomas. Mack Rob Watlington, who married Eula Daniel kept in touch with this family for thirty years after the death of Eula in 1903. Some of their descendents are still around Jackson, Tenn.
The youngest daughter, Ludie Daniel Williams, reared one son and one daughter on the edge of Dyer and Crockett counties, at Tigrett, Tennessee where her husband was a farmer. Their son Ivory continued farming there as long as his health permitted but never married. Their daughter, Ludie Virginia, married D. Franklin Webster, a prosperous farmer at Friendship, Tenn., and they have two sons, Don and Kenny, who continue to live on the farm though one is a teacher and one is a banker in Friendship.
Ludie Daniel Williams and Ulrich A. Watlington helped serve as a ``bridge between generations.'' She was the youngest of the Daniel-Anderson children and Ulrich was the oldest son of the Watlington-Daniel children. Ulrich also had the advantage of having his widowed father living with his family for the last twenty-five years of his life, 1912-1937. As long as they lived, many of the family stories lived with them, and the knowledge of the extended family. But with their passing, many stories have been lost. Alex Haley, author of Roots has said that when an alert elderly person dies it is like ``losing a library in a fire.'' Information, stories, relationship all are lost--much of which can never be replaced.
Their death dates are therefore worth noting:
Their deaths make our scribbling more necessary and therefore more important. Lest we forget, Lest we forget ...