THELMER MOORE STORY -----MOORE FACTS
David Frank Moore was born 1848 in Florida. He was in Company B, 2nd Reg't, Tex. Calvary Volunteers. He died June 30, 1891 in Indian Territory,
according to Civil war pension records.
He married Harriett Katherine Chastain on Feb 13, 1876 in Greenwood, Sebastion County, Arkansas. He was 25 and she was 14.
She was the daughter of Quinfry Chastain and Malinda McCoy. Her family is traced back to Jacques Chastain who was born in France in 1598.
They had three sons and a daughter
Marion Jasper born August 28, 1882, in what was Hal County, Arkansas.
(Died March 22, 1955 in Checotah, Oklahoma.)
Lee Otis was born December 17, 1885 in Paw Paw, Sequoyah, Oklahoma.
(Died May 2, 1954, in San Francisco, California).
Curtis Henry was born July 25, 1888 in Arkansas.
(Died March 15, 1966, Madera, California)
Evaline (Evie) was born August 2, 1890 in Van Buren, Crawford County, Arkansas. (Died April 17, 1972, in San Francisco, California.)
Harriett Katherine Chastain Moore was going by wagon with her 4 children.
Harriett got sick near Briartown and they camped just south of town.
She sent Marion to find a Doctor, Doc Gullage didn't live very far.
He came and gave her paregoric and bismuth for diarrhea and stomach ache.
(Years later, Bill talked to some of the old ladies from Briartown.
They told Bill of them going and trying to help her grandmother.
They remembered that she was so sick.)
After a few mornings Marion went to Doc Gullage,
"Mama won't talk to us."
She was buried in the Briartown Cemetery.
Wylie Chastain was her brother, he didn't live far. Marion remembers that he come and took the wagon and everything in it, and the team. He didn't stay long.He told Dr Gullage,"You'll have to handle these kids.I can't take them." However, Lee Otis remembers staying with Wylie and Hilda Chastain.
Marion never told anything about their past life. He would start crying.
1900 census for Indian Territory, Cherokee Nation shows
Henry C.(Curtis), Evaline, and Marion J, Moore as orphans
living with Charlie and Sarah Young in Porum.
A couple from Checotah soon took Evie. They had wanted a daughter.
Marion stayed with a family. They worked him to hard.
He got 'pore and skinny' and Doc Gullage took him back.
Then H. C. and Elizabeth Coleman took him. He was white,
she was half ? Cherokee Indian. They had two son's 'Man' and 'Babe'.
Not long after Marion come to live with the Coleman's, Granpa Coleman was plowing potatoes with a Georgia-stock. It was coming up a little spring storm and he wanted to get in the barn. Marion rushed to unhook the single-tree from behind the horse. Man pushed him aside, "I'll do it."
When Man touched the metal, he was struck by lightening and killed.
(Years later, Babe Coleman and his wife Lizzie, lived toward Porum. They had an adopted son, Harold, about Thelmers age, they played together. He joined the army and later died in a car wreck. There are no more Colemans. Their memorial--the Coleman Cemetery, Granpa Coleman donated 20 acres)
As a young man, Marion rode bronks. Someone would have a horse they wanted 'broke'.A group would gather and go there, Marion would ride it
He was starting out of his yard in his wagon, on his way to Porum.
A man coming down the road said, "Marion, some of these days I'm going to whip you." Marion said, "Wo-ah--- today is as good a day as any."
The man never slowed down, he kept on going.
He was a good swimmer, they called on him to help hunt people.
A boy was missing in the river. Where the river narrows (where the dam is now), between the two mountains, there is a whirlpool that drowns people. Men were searching. Marion tied three hooks on a pole. He swam down and was reaching under, with the pole. He hooked the ear and brought it up.
Marion Jasper Moore and Sarah Belle Stephens were married October 25, 1903, in Briartown, Muskogee County, Oklahoma. He was 21 and she was 14. She was born January 16, 1888 in Fayetteville, Washington Co, Ark.
They were our 'Mommy and Poppy'. They were hard working and religious.
Robert Lee was born in 1905; Nellie in 1907.
When Laura was born in July 16, 1909, her sister, Nellie was two years old.
There was a neighbor man named 'Bill', that Nellie really liked.
She said that she wanted to have a brother named 'Bill.'
Nellie called the new baby girl, 'Bill', and everyone else did too.
So Laura, became 'Bill'. Nellie died of a heart problem before she was three.
She was buried in the Briartown cemetery, by the side of her Grandmother.
She has always been remembered as 'Little Nellie'.
Truman was born in 1911 and Sylvia was born in 1913.
”I, Bill, remember going across the field with Granpa Coleman, to fish. We caught perch out of the little tank. He was an old man.
Granpa and Grandma Coleman both smoked corncob pipes, he grew their own tobacco, there on his farm. Lee would fill their pipes for them. He couldn’t remember how very young he was when he started smoking.
(We were at his home in California when he died from lung cancer, at 83. There was a smoke detector in his home. It kept going off, so shrill. They had to take the batteries out of it. So many of the family was smoking.)
Then we moved about 30 miles from Porum, across the big Arkansas River. We lived in Sequoia County on Blackgum mountain, near the town of Box. (The waters of Tenkiller Lake cover that area now. The lake got
its name from the Indian family that owned most of the land that the lake covers. Lawrence worked on the dam that holds back Tenkiller Lake.)
Mommy's older sister, Aunt Maude and Uncle Matt, lived there too.
He and Poppy leased up land, to cut trees on. They were cutting crossties with axes for the Midland Valley Rail Road. Lee was 10, and a big help.
They would smooth them with a hand drawn knife, hands on both ends.