Kenneth Monroe Pybas: Tennessee To Texas -- By Barbara Pybas

[Admin Note: In researching Kenneth Monroe "KM" Pybas, I came across this manuscript by Barbara Pybas and realized I could in no way improve on her telling of his story!  Recent updates in some details have been added by me and are so noted--but otherwise Barbara deserves all the credit for this story! - CCL]

Kenneth Monroe Pybas had virtually lived a lifetime before he arrived in Cooke County, Texas in 1881 at the age of fifty­ seven years, a life span at that time in history. However, he would reside on Nubbin Ridge near the Red River in Cooke County for another thirty years, passing his eighty-eighth birthday in 1913. He was a respected, responsible citizen in his native Bedford County, Tennessee. He had acquired, owned and cleared a farm, was a road overseer, served as a soldier in the Confederate Anny even as a forty year old with a family of six children, was the tolJ gate keeper for the S & F Turnpike Company in the l 870's, found it necessary to sell his holdings, made the wagon train journey with his four married sons and families, his wife and three other children to the Trinity River area near Grapevine, Texas. Although he had purchased land in that area, tragedy struck with the epidemic of Typhoid Fever, the death of three of the grandchildren, the unhealthy climate, prompting the decision to find another location.

 K. M. Pybas was born in Lincoln County, Tennessee in 1824. He was of slight build, five feet, nine inches, dark skin and dark hair as stated on his enlistment papers of his Confederate war record. Although his eyes were a steel blue, he had sight in only one eye, having fa11en on a pair of scissors in his grandmother's lap while she was piecing a quilt, when he was only a year or two old.

He was largely self-educated, having only three months of schooling. However, he wrote legibly and was widely read as evidenced by the books handed down to his descendants. Some of those are The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbons, History of the Second War with England, in two volumes, 1853, a bound volume of The Trial of Andrew Johnson on Impeachment for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Washington:Government Printing Office, 1868., The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest, 1899., also books of poetry, culture, presidents of the United States and Greek history of the Peloponnese Wars.

His father, James Pybas, Jr., one of nine children, was born in North Carolina in 1801, married Sarah Jane Moore in 1822-23. He made his way to Lincoln County, Tennessee where they became parents of two sons, Kenneth Monroe, born in 1824, and William J. Pybas, 1828.  James Pybas, Jr. died in Lincoln County in 1843 and as the two sons were underage, an executor and guardian, John Sanders, was named, for the estate. After K.M reached majority and his mother had remarried, to a man named Joshua Yates, Yates was appointed guardian for the second son, William, by the court. The two sons then moved to Bedford County.

In 1853, K.M and William J. sold the 153 acres in Lincoln County they had inherited from their father. (Lincoln County Deed Book, B-2, pp 117,120). After that disposition, there seems to be no record of the brother, William.

Eleanor Cain Holt

K. M. Pybas married Eleanor Cain Holt November 9, 1847 in Bedford County, Tennessee. She was the daughter, born in 1828, of Jordan Cain Holt and Margaret Willough. Her grandparents bad also come from North Carolina, (Joshua and Eleanor Cain Burrow) and purchased about 2000 acres of land in Bedford County 1808.

Pybas had married into a very religious family, Joshua Holt having established the Holt's Camp Ground where camp meetings were held for many, many years and a Methodist Church was built in 1823. Eleanor's uncle deeded the twenty acres of the camp ground to the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1841.

K.M. and Eleanor had a family of six sons and two daughters. They were Jordan Cain, 1850, James Blair, 1852, Hiram Cardwell, 1854, John Benjamin, 1856, William Edward, 1858, Margaret Alice, 1861, Boy (Kenneth Monroe), 1864, and Missie (Emily Evaline), 1868.

Bedford County, Tennessee is more rolling and timbered than the delta country of that state so Kenneth Monroe Pybas' family was probably more in the corn, grain and livestock, such as sheep, hogs and cattle, than in cotton production. They did grow enough cotton for their own use, spinning and weaving cloth for clothing, quilts and household use. Records show that he was the owner of a few slaves, who he may have purchased to keep a family together, a Negro girl named America in 1854, a mother and child in 1856, and a man named, Sam, about forty years of age, in 1861, each from different owners.

One common responsibility of K. M. Pybas, his father and his own sons was the clearing and building of roadways in their commw1ities. James, (K.M.'s father) in Lincoln County (minutes of the Docket, Fayetteville, April 23, 1835, "was ordered by the court to be overseer of the publick road from X Pybas plantation to the twelve mile post and call on the usual hands".

In Bedford County, November Term, 1848, "Kenneth M. Pybas ordered by the court to be overseer from the Ten Mile Post to Alice Flacks in the Survey of Peter Cunningham."

K.M. Pybas was also the keeper of Gate Number 1, for the S&F Turnpike, Co. One document shows his receipts from January 1876 to July 1877. It also lists the workers and disbursements, showing that his sons, W.E. Pybas, J.C. Pybas, Ben Pybas, J.B. Pybas and H.C. Pybas were also employed.

This may have been the last accounting made by K.M Pybas as they made preparation to move to Texas in the spring of 1878.   Other roadmen were sons, W.E. Pybas, county commissioner, Cooke County, Texas, 1896, Ben Pybas, road overseer in 1888, (Cooke County) later county commissioner, 1916-22. J.C. Pybas, road overseer, Boone Township, Oklahoma Territory, 1895, after he had proved his homestead claimed in the Oklahoma Land Run, April 22, 1889.

The account, told by descendants of the Pybas family, is that after the Civil War, K.M. Pybas, in accommodating a neighbor, had co-signed a note to help him make payments on land. When default was declared and payment demanded, K.M. was forced to sell his own property to pay the neighbor's debt. This prompted the decision for the family to move to Texas. [Documents have since verified that it was not a neighbor, but K.M.'s brother-in-law, James Lewis Hix, for whom K.M. co-signed the note. Attempts to obtain the transcripts from this court hearing are ongoing as of this writing-CCL] Jordan C. Pybas, the eldest son, unmarried, was sent to find a location. The family left Tennessee in the spring of 1878, arriving at the Trinity River bottom near Grapevine, Texas. The wagon train with seven wagons, containing all their household goods, books, photographs, an organ, tools, seeds, foodstuffs, was well planned by the close-knit family of K.M. Pybas.

 Members traveling with the wagons were four married sons:

- James Blair Pybas and his pregnant wife, Emma Holt, a distant cousin, who he married in 1874 and their two children,

Hiram & Emma Pybas

- Hiram Cardwell Pybas and his wife, Emma Newton, whom he married in 1875, also pregnant on the trip to Texas.

- John Benjamin Pybas (Ben) and his pregnant wife, Lillie Dale Newton and two year old son, Jordan R. Pybas. (Ben and Hiram Card had married sisters, Lillie Dale Newton and Emma Newton in a double wedding ceremony in Bedford County in 1875).

- William Edward Pybas and his pregnant wife, Fannie Wiggins, married in 1877.

 Also in the group were three younger children: Margaret Alice. seventeen in 1878 on the Texas journey; Boy (Kenneth Monroe, Jr.), born in 1864, (fourteen in 1878); and Missie (Emily Evaline), born in 1868.

Also included in the train was Herod Holt, grandfather of Blair's wife, Emma. His son, Emma's father, was killed while serving in the Confederate Army.

To become true settlers and to invest in their chosen location, K.M. Pybas evidently purchased land immediately. Tax receipts show he paid taxes in 1879 on property in Tarrant County valued at $530. With land selling for $1.00 per acre, it was a sizable tract. He also signed a $100 note with H.A. Lewis in 1880 as part payment on a tract of land, payable at Grapevine, Texas. As an additional enterprise, the sons, J.C. and J.B. signed a paper for J.D. Hudgins, for one-fourth interest in a cotton gin at Grapevine, Texas.

One can imagine the hardship for the young women in the wagon train, each in some stage of pregnancy. A descendant of Benjamin Pybas recounted some of his recollections as the husband of Lillie Dale. They chose to walk, he said, because of the jouncing in the bumpy wagons and covered most of the miles from Tennessee to Texas on foot. His daughter, Ludie, was born two weeks after they arrived at Grapevine.

Little is known of the living arrangements of the Pybas clan at the Grapevine area, but the men must have busied themselves with breaking enough land to put in cotton that spring to ensure a fall harvest. K.M. was the true patriarch and guide for the group as well as having the money left from the sale of the Tennessee farm to finance their beginning in Texas.

The summer of 1880 brought tragedy to the family. Four of K.M.'s grandchildren contacted Typhoid Fever. Three of them were Blair's children, 5, 3 and 1. They died within one week. Ben and Lillie's, Ludie, also came down with the fever. She was not expected to live. Emma, Blair's wife, had a nervous breakdown and was put on morphine. The worry and sorrow was taking its toll.

K.M. made a decision. Quoting his granddaughter, Kenneth M. Clifton, "Grandpa K.M. said, 'We're not going to stay in this unhealthy loca]jty any longer."' They had heard that there were persons settled in Cooke County from Tennessee. So their father sent Jordan C. and Ben to try to find another location. They rode horseback to Gainesville, still a village at that time, a cow town, where they inquired where a Tennessee Colony was located. They were directed to Sivells Bend where they met Mr. Midkiff, who had established a farm there as early as the 1860's, was the postmaster, Justice of Peace, self­ appointed land man and respected citizen. He knew of 500 acres for sale on Nubbin Ridge, partly good black land, part of it timberland, a bluff overlooking Warrens Bend and the Red River.

The transaction was accomplished, after consultation with their father and arrangements for disposition of the Grapevine property. Again, the family was packed into their wagons, heading for another destination. K.M. Pybas and wife, Eleanor, sons, Blair and Emma, Card and Emma Newton, Ben and Lillie, Will and Fannie and the several children. Alice, Boy and Missie, the younger ones, and Grandpa Holt. The large group arrived in the fall with little time to put in a crop except for turnips and late vegetables. They camped in their wagons and tents, sending some of the wagons to Sherman for lumber for a house and a barn. With great effort, a four room house was completed. Eleanor Pybas was able to bring to her new borne her precious items packed carefully in Tennessee. The books, the pictures, the organ, the quilts and dishes.

There were no trees on the prairie land along the wagon track where K.M. wanted his house but a grove of young hackberry trees grew along a ridge several hundred yards to the north and the men stationed their wagons there for shelter. They then constructed half dug-outs under or near the trees and lived in them the first winter. Ben Pybas, K.M.'s son, told that they managed very poorly that winter. The money was about gone, they were living on rabbits and squirrels and whatever they could hunt. They learned that a man in Marysville needed some fences built. Will Pybas and Ben took on the job although they were paid in meat, the man that hired them had butchered some hogs. He said that each received a side of pork and that their good wives could stretch it with gravy.

One can imagine the fortitude and perseverance, the decisions to be made, the endurance that was necessary in establishing a farm, a homestead, and a place in the community in the 1880's in a land that was quickly becoming settled. Mr. Rufus Hickman lived on the next place to the west. He was capable and efficient in building ponds with a slip or fresno and teams of horses. K.M. had a pond built for stock water and soon had the ground broken for wheat and oats. He planted his exceptional orchard and made a large garden.

The sons and families began to find their own locations: W.E. to Marysville; Blair and Ben to Warrens Bend; and Card to Dibble, Indian Territory. Boy worked as a cowboy for Bill Washington who ran large numbers of cattle in Indian Territory. Alice was soon married to Zambry Giddens of Sivells Bend. And sadly, a grave at Bearhead Cemetery is marked for their month old infant in 1881.  (The family of K.M. Pybas was to see many births and deaths in a few short years after their arrival in Cooke County.)

Ben and Blair began their development in Warrens Bend with 500 acres, built a gin, blacksmith shop, a store to accommodate the many familjes who sharecropped for them and for the Gunter family whose large holdings were on the east end of the valley. Ben built a large home in 1890. Disaster struck in 1891 with an overflow and with Blair's death at age thirty-nine, leaving Emma and five little children, born after they arrived in Cooke County in 1881. Fannie Wiggins, Will's wife died in 1889. He married Linda (Wilborn) Binford, a widow with two children, Daisy and Clem Binford. They lived near Marysville. Ben and Lillie Dale also lost several children, infant twin boys, another infant in 1894, five-year-old Bonnie in 1895 and twelve-year-old Bailey in 1901. The mother also died in 1905.

K.M. would see Emma, Blair's widow, married again to a brother of Ben's and Hiram Card's wives, (Lillie Dale and Emma), John Newton. 

Eleanor Pybas wrote to her daughter-in law, Emma Holt (Pybas) Newton in Indian Territory in 1895. She tells the news of the family, that the thrashing of the wheat and oats had been completed, that they had had a bumper crop of peaches, which she dried and canned, that they had lots of rain that summer. "You never saw the like of weeds and grass, it takes a man to get to the garden. I have good cabbage and tomatoes, have all the chickens I want, all the turkeys I want, all the meat and bread I want, lots of butter and eggs, so you can see we are doing very well." She told of a revival meeting at Barehead Church and that Mr. Early Giddens had joined the church. She admonished her grandchildren to "be good children and don't bother nothing that don't belong to you and to keep out of bad company."

K.M. Pybas was still settling for land in 1896 when a deed was filed for 1476 acres of land on Nubbin Ridge in Cooke County. He was seventy-two years old. In his later years, his granddaughter recalled, he would sit on his front porch, watching the road. If anyone rode by, he walked out to approach them and insist they come in to eat. Food was prepared in the morning, placed on the table and covered with a cloth and left for the rest of the day. An extra plate was always set, a ritual carried over to his son, Ben Pybas' home, in Warrens Bend. Ben Pybas' daughter, Kenneth Marie (Pybas) Clifton was named for her grandfather. She was born in 1911 before his death in 1913.

K.M.'s wife, Eleanor suffered a stroke which left her bedfast for two years before she died in July 1912. The youngest daughter, Missie, cared for her and was the beneficiary of the land on Nubbin Ridge.  K.M. Pybas died only six months later, January, 1913 at age eighty-eight.

As he had requested, there was no funeral for him, no "tomfoolery" as he called it at the Barehead Cemetery. His son, Ben, the one K.M. had given the instructions, had asked. "Don't you want a nice funeral like you gave Mother?" He said, No, that was different; Grandma was a Christian and he was an infidel. He told Ben he wouldn't die satisfied until he promised that there would be no tomfoolery, (preachers, praying, flowers) after he died.

On a cold January day in 1913, the neighbors had come as they knew death was very near. [After he died] they took him to the cemetery in a homemade coffin in a wagon. Mr. Russell, his good neighbor, removed his hat and said, "Friends and neighbors, we all know that this is the body of K.M. Pybas."

His son, Ben Pybas, told his daughter, Kenneth M. (Pybas) Clifton, "Burying Pap was the hardest thing I ever did in my life."  Kenneth Monroe Pybas was one of the hardy, responsible, enterprising, brave and adventurous individuals who came to the sparsely settled West to establish family ties, contribute to the development and a better livelihood in the new community than they could expect to accomplish in his native Tennessee following the Civil War. The exodus of the extended family to Texas was a combined effort for a better life, and to that end the energy and drive and means, with their honesty, dedication, ability and contribution helped in the progress and growth in Cooke County, Texas.

CIVIL WAR SERVICE OF KENNETH MONROE PYBAS

K.M. Pybas served in Lieutenant.General Nathan Bedford Forrest's Escort, a personally selected small group who served in many capacities, scouts, messengers, as well as at the front They continued with the general even when he was removed from command of a finished brigade and required to train and recruit two more brigades.  He served with Captain John C. Jackson's Company,Tennessee Calvary, as well as under Captain N. Boone's Company Calvary for the General. He volunteered, January 10, 1863, at thirty-nine years of age. As he was a farmer and head of a family with six children, he probably had resisted the hardship of leaving his borne, wife and children in danger until it was absolutely necessary. 

The completed harvest was perhaps commandeered by the Confederate Forces, the remainder later confiscated by the Federal troops. The danger increased as the Union Army neared control of Bedford County, Tennessee, K.M. Pybas' home. He was leaving his thirteen-year-old son, Jordan C. Pybas, his wife, Eleanor, and a few slaves in charge of the farm.

K.M. Pybas kept a diary or day book for part of his military service. Although the notations are brief, he records battle and events. The cavalry were required to furnish their own horses. Twice he tells of getting his horse shot and returning home for a replacement.

"April 10, 1863: skirmish near Douglas Church four miles from Franklin, Tenn. Captain Freeman killed and his battery taken; recaptured battery with small loss. Got my fine mare killed and left all my rigging on the battlefield. Four of the escort wounded."

He tells of several skirmishes and also that he was sick and was transferred to a hospital at Atlanta, Georgia. However, he was sent back in time for a battle at Chickamauga, beginning September 18, 1863, very heavy fighting...."slaughter heavy on both sides with Rosecrans falling back and Bragg advancing, holding the battleground."

He also gives accounts of fighting in Mississippi, driving the enemy back and capturing about fifty prisoners, that the "escort" lost three men and that Dock Boone was killed.

"Feb 20, 1864....escort captured twenty-one prisoners late in the evening. ten of the escort sent back with the prisoners. I was on the detail."

Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest

General Nathan Bedford Forrest was born in Bedford County, Tennessee in 1821. His family moved to Mississippi where his father died when he was about thirteen. He matured very quickly and had his own enterprises in Nashville by the time he was nineteen. He enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1861 as a private. He had evident leadership qualities and was soon given a command. At that time the Confederate troops elected their junior officers.  They elected Forrest Lieutenant.  He recruited more soldiers and they elected him Major.

His troops were very ill-equipped and ill-armed. Since he had no education and all of the higher officers of both the Confederate and Union armies were from West Point or will educated, Forrest was not considered for a high ranking office. He then recruited enough men for a battalion, who elected him Lieutenant Colonel. Fully half his men had only shot-guns and squirrel rifles brought from home. His first successes were in capturing supplies, rifles, blankets, provisions from Union outposts. He equipped his battalion and since it was well mounted and well armed, the Confederate officers removed it from his command and ordered him to recruit another battalion.

After the battle of Chattanooga, on the 18th of June, 1862, he was fortunate to find the 8th Texas Cavalry, better known as Terry's Rangers, to form the first part of the second brigade, he was to recruit. It was made up of cattle ranchers and cowboys from Texas and several volunteers from Cooke County, Texas. When Terry was killed, he was succeeded by Lt. Col. Biffie, from whom most of the Biffle's in Cooke County are descended. Again, Forrest mustered and equipped a forceful brigade.

At the time his first brigade was removed from his command, he insisted on taking some of his personally picked men which served as his personal escort. About twenty-five to fifty strong, they stayed with the General, if they survived, until the end of the war. They served as a utility force, filling many capacities, scouts, setting up headquarters, communications with other units, on the battle field under heavy fighting, as well. More men were selected as the need arose and K.M. Pybas was one of these men.

Towards the end of the war the Confederacy finally recognized Forrest's brilliance and placed him as a Lieutenant General in command of all the Cavalry for the Confederate Army of the West. Quoting Winston Churchill in his The Great Democracies, "Forrest could hardly read or write, but he possessed military qualities of the highest order." His unique ability in the art of war was summarized by the phrase attributed to Forrest, himself, of being "Firstest with the Mostest." Had the Confederacy recognized his strategic and tactical abilities sooner, the outcome of the war may have been different.

 

Rev. Charles Blair Banks - Missionary to the Congo

 

Charles Blair Banks was born 14 May 1857 in Edinburgh Parish, Midlothian, Scotland, to George W. Banks and Janet Black. He was the second youngest of eight children born to George and Janet. His siblings included oldest brother John Alexander (1838), sister Margaret Lithgow (1841), William Black (1844), Agnes Lawson (1848), George Junior (1850), Janet “Jessie” (1853), Thomas Milner Hughes (1855), and Francis Johnstone (1859). His father, George, was the son of Margaret Weir and John Banks, a tailor from Stirling, Stirlingshire, Scotland.  Charles’ father, George had had a lucrative business in as a shoemaker, employing six men, according to the 1851 Scotland Census. But he apparently was not very good with money because between 1856 and 1860 he appeared before the Edinburgh Bankruptcy Court five times. Then, in 1861 the court issued a warrant for his arrest for failure to appear.  The 1861 Scotland Census shows Janet living alone with her children, with her eldest son, John Alexander, listed as the head of the household, his occupation being listed as “classical tutor.” George, however, was listed as living with his brother as a boarder and working as a journeyman bootmaker. Charles was living with his mother’s sister, Agnes Black.  

 On 27 Jan 1864, Charles’ mother passed away at the age of 46, followed six years later by his father on 28 Jun 1870. It was after this that Charles and his brothers and sisters were divided and bounced around between different local relatives. In 1871 he was living with his sisters, Margaret and Jessie, and his younger brother, Francis in Midlothian. But a year later, on 15 Jan 1872, he was in the custody of an aunt, Janet Laws, who signed Charles and his brother Thomas into Indentured Apprenticeship in the Merchant Navy. Charles’ indenture was for 4 years and Thomas’ for 3 aboard the Stornoway, a British tea clipper under Captain J. Waugh. (The Stornoway would eventually wreck at the mouth of the Thames on 7 Jun 1873 under Capt. G. Greener.) In 19th century United Kingdom boys between the ages of 14 and 16 years were indentured, or bound by contract, to be an apprentice on merchant vessels for a fixed period of time to be trained as seamen for the merchant navy. These “training ships” were partially funded by the government in order to maintain a strong Royal Naval Reserve. The Stornoway was one of these training vessels, making through the Mediterranean.

Charles ended his indenture on 25 Feb 1876 at the age of 18, having served on the Stornoway, Marion, Valparaiso, Henrietta, Southern Cross, Cumberland, Ella, and Buda. On 12 Jul 1880 he applied for the position of 2nd Mate, making him third in command on the Buda. He was approved for this position on 14 Jul 1880. On 22 Jan 1881 he applied for and received his certification as Only Mate, placing him in command should the Master Mate (2nd behind the Captain) be incapacitated. By this time he had served five years at sea and had become an accomplished seaman.

 Emily Tiptaft and Charles Blair Banks

It was during this time that Charles felt the calling of the mission field and became allied with the American Baptist Mission Union (ABMU) who sent him to the Belgian Congo where he saw the medical needs of the natives in that region. In 1883 he returned to England to study medicine at the University of London. In 1885 Charles attended a religious meeting at Dame Agnes Weston’s Royal Sailors Rest in London with a friend, Jack Murphy. While there Jack introduced him to a charming woman by the name of Fanny Tiptaft. At a later meeting he spotted Miss Tiptaft again and greeted her, but when she turned to him it was not Fanny but her twin sister Emily! “Sir,” she said, “I believe you have mistaken me for my sister!” His error was his good fortune, as their friendship turned into a courtship and they were married in Hackney, England on 30 Dec 1886.

Charles and Emily left England 30 Apr 1887 to return to Africa, arriving at Wangata, Etat Independent du Congo many weeks later, on 13 Sep 1887, again under the auspices of the ABMU where they would remain for the following 13 years. They first lived in Wangata in a native clay hut. The natives at first didn't believe she was real, saying that she couldn't be a woman as she was made entirely of cloth. They called her Ndoki (ghost) as she would wear a white dress and a white scarf over her helmet to protect her from the scorching sun. They had never seen a white woman before, let alone one dressed completely in white and they were suspicious and frightened of her. But Emily's tender ways toward them soon earned her the name "White Mama." They called Charles “Mondele”or ‘Banksisi” and believed him to be a great hunter due to his skill with his rifle when he would accompany the tribesmen hunting for game.

Charles and Emily welcomed their first child, Marguerite, 13 Sep 1888. The natives adored Marguerite, calling her Bona Owa Wangata—child of Wangata, and marveled at her whiteness and beauty. In Jun 1889, after a period of illness that would not seem to abate, Emily and Marguerite returned to England to her family while Charles remained behind on the Congo. It took her many months of care and treatment before she recovered enough to return to Charles and their work with the natives of the Congo. In 1890 she left Marguerite in the care of her parents and sisters and returned to Wangata. Upon meeting Charles she found that he had built them a home in the village of Bolenge, four miles down the river from Wangata. He had built it entirely by hand and surrounded it with acres of cleared ground, shrubbery, and gardens. He had even built her furniture!

After settling in Charles and Emily invited their tribes-people to come in and see the new “hut” that their Mondele had built for his wife. While the crowd milled about looking at this and that, a strange man entered the house and approached Emily, saying something to her that she did not understand. A young native woman was standing nearby and turned on the man saying, “How dare you talk to our White Woman in such words! Go away!” Later Emily found Charles at the top of the steps leading to the seven-foot veranda. The same stranger was coming up the steps and spoke to Charles. A hush came over the crowd and the tanned face of their White Man turned pale. His hand shot out and he took the intruder by the throat and shook him violently, then he kicked the man down the steps with his heavily booted foot. The man picked himself up and slunk away, and one of the natives asked Charles, “What would you do, White Man, if he had taken her?” Charles gave a look at his gun and made a gesture as if firing it, as his only reply. The crowd began murmuring, both inside and outside the house—it was just one word said over and over again: “Ekila, Ekila, Ekila.” It meant forbidden, sacred. It was used to describe only things to be feared; thus the White Woman was sacred and safe for all the years that followed. Emily never dared ask Charles what the man had said. The tribe was in awe of the love the White Man had for his White Woman.

In Mar 1891 Charles and Emily welcomed their second child, Charles Sidney James Banks, to their family and then in May 1892 a second son, Alan Herbert. Charles had a furlough due, little Charles had been sick, and Alan was not as strong as he should be, so it was decided they would all return to England. Upon their return to London, they found their little Marguerite, in the care of Emily’s family, had grown into a lovely little girl. They went to North Weald on the East Coast of England to rest, as Charles and Emily were both worn down from recurrent attacks of fever. While there, a daughter Emmaline Frances, was born in Aug 1894.

Charles returned to Bolenge when his furlough was over, and when Emmaline was 8 months old Emily followed. They continued their work until their last child, Kenneth Alexander, was born in Feb 1898. Emily made a final visit to the villages to say her farewells and then returned to England with Charles following several months later after he prepared the mission for its successor. When he left Africa he knew it was for the last time as the hard life, fevers, and climate had taken their toll. He arrived home in May and spent the summer and autumn reacquainting himself with his children. Despite their long separation from their father, they adored him fiercely. Then in December what began as an attack of rheumatic fever soon revealed a brain clot.

 

On 29 Dec 1900 Charles, knowing the end was near, told a friend, "I long to go, I am so weary; but it does seem selfish to go away and leave Mrs. Banks alone with five children. I must get well to help her." But it was too late. Following 24 hours of unconsciousness, Charles Blair Banks died at the age of 43.

In The Beginning...

 

When I was a little girl I remember my mother working on her family’s genealogical history.  She would bring back rolls of paper from the butcher shop and carefully diagram her parents and siblings, their parents and children, and so on.  She would write to and receive books and papers from libraries and archives and sometimes take me and my little brothers with her on quests at the Oregon State Library where she would pour over little drawers filled with index cards and then copy dates and events from big, heavy books into her little notebook while we were admonished to “be still.”                                                                                                                                                                                      

When we went to Texas to visit her family, her brothers and sister would share their charts and notes and talk about their family’s history, stories filled with pioneers who sailed to the New World with little more than the clothes on their back to start a new life in this place called America.  There were stories of heroes who fought in the Revolutionary War, in the Civil War and in the Alamo and tales of ancestors who were the first Texas Rangers.  We grew up with these stories of our ancestors who scraped out their living in the American frontier fighting Indians, Mexicans, disease and famine.  If we complained about how tough things were going at home we were reminded that we came from a long line of pioneers who never said “can’t or try” but did.                                                                                                                                      

The lure of family genealogy was lost on me in my younger years and more of an annoyance to me, with my mother who was determined to trudge in the rain with her children in tow through a cemetery to look at a tombstone of someone who died a hundred years ago.  But as I grew older and had children of my own the stories took on a different look.  The faded photos carefully saved took on a different light and their stories began to feel as much a part of me as my own blood.  These were MY people, MY family and it’s where I come from. 

When my mother passed away my siblings insisted that I become the keeper of all my mother’s photographs and notes and I began to undertake the task that she had worked on when I was a little girl.  Only I now had the advantage of the internet and thousands of genealogists, distant relatives, all doing the same!  In my initial enthusiasm I joined Ancestry.com and my trees began to grow with the vehemence of Audrey II in “Little Shop of Horrors,” but wisdom overcame giddiness and I began to focus on the trees, one at a time, beginning with my father’s. 

I began my more focused research on my father’s family tree of which stories had been told but really little was known.  As anyone who has researched family history will tell you, you never know what you will find behind the cobwebs in the closet.  What we found were German immigrants who left their families behind to start over only to find themselves in the grip of war and having to start over yet again. 

They were farmers, laborers, husbands and fathers, wives and mothers. They fought for their families, their land and their country. And the stories of their perseverance and tenacity have been inspiring.

This collection of stories is the sum of the research and stories of other distant branches of our tree that has been collected over the centuries. It is a gift to our children, who I hope will one day realize (as I did) that they are more than just stories: They are the path from whence we came and what made us who we are today.