Memoirs of Joe and Ramona Tucker

By Joseph Russell Tucker and Ramona Fleta (Napier) Tucker

These Memoirs are a documentation of events that occurred throughout the lives of Joe and Ramona Tucker, compiled for their children and grandchildren.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312370272

Book preview

Memoirs of Joe and Ramona Tucker

MEMOIRS

of

Joe and Ramona Tucker

IMG_20140621_0004_NEW.jpg

Joseph Russell Tucker

Ramona Fleta (Napier) Tucker

The Memoirs

of

Joseph Russell Tucker

IMG_20140621_0003_NEW.jpg

Chapter 1

MY ANCESTORS

My ancestors came to America from England, Ireland and Germany. In doing genealogy research, I have found information on several of the main line families. These are Bell, Bivens, O'Neal, Privett, Smelser and Tucker. I will give a little background on each of these families.

Bivens

My paternal 4th great grandfather was Nathaniel Bivens, Sr. He was believed to have been of Welsh extraction. He was born about 1740 and was married to Peggy Tyler who was born about 1745 in Holland. She was an orphan who stowed away on a ship to America at age twelve. According to family legend, Peggy's father was planning to remarry, so she ran away to join relatives in the new world. She married Nathaniel while still in her early teens.

Some time before the Revolutionary War, they arrived in Anson County, North Carolina. To their union ten children were born. The 1970 census for Anson County, NC shows six males, three females and three slaves in their household.

My paternal 3rd great grandfather was Stephan S. Bivens, born in North Carolina in 1784 and was married to Susan Shelby about 1804 in Lauderdale County, Alabama. They had six children. They moved westward through Alabama, to Hardin County, Tennessee, then finally Columbia County, Arkansas where Stephen died about 1860.

My paternal 2nd great grandfather was Barnabas S. (Barney) Bivens. He and Mary Polly Adams were married April 11, 1830 in Lauderdale County, Alabama. Barney was a blacksmith by trade. They had ten children, Delilah, Columbus, Anabell, Susan (my great grandmother), Nancy, James, Malinda, George, Harriet and Evan.

Barney, Polly and Delilah Bivens are buried in the Lebanon Cemetery in Hardin County, Tennessee, near the town of Milledgeville, Tennessee.

Tuckers

Thomas T. Tucker, my 2nd great grandfather, was born about 1793 in North Carolina. He and Elizabeth Russell, of Tennessee, were married about 1830. They had seven children born in Giles County, Tennessee. The oldest son, James Russell Tucker (my great grandfather) was born about 1833. The other children were Ann, Joseph, Elizabeth, John T., Nancy and Frank.

James Russell Tucker married Susan Anvil Bivens in Tennessee about 1855. The Tuckers came to Missouri from Tennessee between 1865 and 1868. They first settled close to the Old Lebanon Church near the present site of Tucker, Missouri. They had eleven children. Their first child, John Thomas Tucker (my grandfather) was born in 1857. The other children were Eliza Ann, Martha, Minnie, Lulu, and Mary.

James Russell is buried in the Johnston Chapel Cemetery, about 14 miles SW of Doniphan, Missouri. Susan is buried in the Richmond Cemetery, about 2 miles west of Corning, Arkansas.

John Thomas Tucker and Rhoda Elizabeth (Smelser) (Patterson) were married in 1876 and were parents of my father William Peyton Tucker.

Smelser

The earliest records I have on the Smelsers is for Paulser Sr., my 4th great grandfather, who was born about 1720 in Virginia. Paulser Smelser married a Catherine (last name unknown) and they had eight children. Paulser Jr., my 3rd great grandfather, was born about 1766 in Kentucky. He married Mary Gordon and they had eight children. William Stephan Smelser, my 2nd great grandfather, was born in 1806 in Kentucky. He married Elizabeth Greathouse about 1824 in Ripley County, Missouri. They had nine children.

Paulser Wilkins Smelser, my great grandfather, was born in 1829 to William Stephan and Elizabeth Smelser. He married Elizabeth O'Neal on February 27, 1853 at Current River, Ripley County, Missouri. They had thirteen children which included my father, William Peyton Tucker, born on February 16, 1886 at Pine, Missouri.

Paulser Smelser died in Datto, Arkansas. Elizabeth Smelser died in Gatewood, Missouri and is buried in Richmond Cemetery, Corning, Arkansas.

Bell

My maternal 2nd great grandfather was Benjamin Bell. He was born in New York on December 18, 1797. He married Nancy Masters of Virginia about 1826. In 1827 they were living in Mansfield, Ohio. All eight of their children were born in Ohio. The 1860 federal census shows the family moved to Kansas. One of their sons, William Maxwell Bell, became my great grandfather. William married Rhoda W. Burns on January 30, 1862 in Osawatomie, Kansas. My grandmother, Mary Alice Bell was one of the nine children born to this family.

William Bell is buried near Tonasket, Washington and Rhoda Bell is buried somewhere near Skiatook, Oklahoma.

Privett

My 3rd great grandfather was Samuel Privett, born about 1790 in Virginia. He married Elizabeth Miller about 1818 in Wayne County, Kentucky. They had nine children. Their son, Miles Privett, my 2nd great grandfather married Lucinda Upchurch in 1844 in Wayne County, Kentucky. They also had nine children.

John W. Privett, son of Miles and Lucinda was my great grandfather. He married Cary Ann Trail on December 28, 1869 in Wayne County, Kentucky. They had ten children. John W. Privett and family lived in Wayne County from about 1850 to 1884, in Missouri from 1884 to 1888, in Kansas from 1888 to 1893 and in Hominy, Oklahoma from about 1893 to 1917. One of their sons, Taylor Minnifee Privett, my grandfather, married Mary Alice (Bell) Gilmore, widow of Osage Indian, James A. Gilmore. They lived on the Black Dog Reservation east of Hominy, Oklahoma. They had four children, one of whom was Edna Ellot Privett, my mother, who married William Peyton Tucker, my father, November 6, 1924 in Hominy, Oklahoma.

John W., Cary, Taylor, and Mary Privett are all buried in the Powell Cemetery in Hominy, Oklahoma. William Peyton and Edna Ellot are buried in the Memory Lane Cemetery, Harrah, Oklahoma.

IMG_20140616_0006.jpgIMG_20140616_0004.jpg

Chapter 2

HOMINY

This is to document some of the things that happened in my early days as best I can remember them. It will serve as a way for my children and grandchildren to learn of things about my past which are not widely known or talked about and would die when I do. They are not always in chronological order but are recorded as I think of them.

I was born January 16, 1928 in an oil lease home about ten miles or so east of Hominy, Osage County, Oklahoma. The area was called Wild Horse. It is now under water, covered by Skiatook Lake. My parents were William Peyton and Edna Ellot (Privett) Tucker who were descendants of John Thomas and Rhoda Elizabeth (Smelser) (Patterson) Tucker and Taylor Minnifee (Pete) and Mary Alice (Bell) Privett. At that time, I had an adopted sister, Vera Juanita Hale and an older brother, Jimmy Peyton Tucker. Later, I had two younger sisters, Ruby Ellot and Ruth Joy Tucker.

IMG_20140616_0007_NEW.jpg

Ellot Tucker holding Joe, Vera Juanita Hale & Jim Tucker, 1928

My earliest recollection was after my parents moved into Hominy and I was about five years old. We lived in the southwest section of town on about five acres. The short lane, or driveway, had a wooden archway with the name Melody Lane over the top of it and was lined on each side with tall trees. Dad had a chicken house with several hundred chickens and a few milk cows. A candle light was used to make sure the eggs we sold were good. At that time, Dad was working for the county on a road grader that was pulled behind a large tractor. The tractor was driven by a man named Oscar Hall, who in later years became Dad's boss in Barnsdall, Oklahoma.

There was a small, white house across the street from us occupied by people by the name Elliot. Their grandson, Sonny Parker, stayed with them and we played together, fished for crawdads, and even had a few fights with each other. To the south, a family by the name of Long had some race horses and jockeys. Because of the bad influence they were supposed to have, not many of the neighbors had anything to do with them.

My grandmother, Mary Alice (Bell) Privett, lived in a small shot-gun style house about a block north of our house. On