Re: DUNN/FREEMAN,Tunnel Hill, GA
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In reply to:
Re: DUNN/FREEMAN,Tunnel Hill, GA
Laverne Elsey 1/15/04
Cousin Laverne:
How good to hear from you!I have been spasmodically working on a family history that I want to include on a family web site that I hope to have up this year.We will be having a family reunion in Littlefield, Texas on July 3&4, 2005, and I promised the cousins to have it done before then.
So,I was rummaging through this web site looking for something on Grandmother Zenith when I ran across one of your postings from three or four years ago. How great to have found you this way!
I remember hearing of your grandfather many years ago in West Texas. Uncle Henry was highly regarded by my grandparents, particularly my grandmother, Lena Olivia Carr Dunn.
As you noticed, I now live in Asheville, North Carolina, but I was raised in Littlefield, Texas.My father was John Leoniel (named after my grandfather (your great uncle?),
Leoniel Lorrine. That would put you and I in the same generation, I think.Grandfather Leo's parents were Andrew Almarine and Zenith Holden Hollingsworth Dunn.
My father died Sept. 13, 2002 at the age of 92, the last of his family of five boys and one girl.
I was intrigued that you were looking for information about William Dunn and Tunnel Hill.I have followed up many Dunn's in Georgia that are not related to us, and it took me aback when I saw your note, that it really was "one of us".
I know quite a bit about these folks because of my father.When he was a little boy, his grandfather Andrew and grandmother Zenith would live with them periodically.According to my father, they "broke up housekeeping" and went to take turns living with their children at a relatively young age.Apparently, great grandfather Andrew was prone to fits of depression from time to time, and when this would happen, my grandmother Lena would send my dad, who wasa young boy then, to talk with him.They apparently got along well, and dad would encourage his grandfather Andrew to tell him about the family's history.Dad had a near photographic memory, and he could remember most of these conversations in great detail up until his death.
My wife and I went to Tunnel Hill last year, looking for cemetaries, or signs of our family. We found a cemetary, still used, that dated from that era, but didn't find anything conclusive: perhaps one woman whose maiden name was Dunn who would have been about the right age to have been a daughter of William.She was born in Lincoln County, North Carolina, which could work, since William apparently immigrated from Ireland through the port of Wilmington, North Carolina, at the age of 17 or so, during one of the great potato famines that swept through Ireland. To this date, I have never found his wife's name, or anyone who knew it.She was apparently Indian, according to her description told to my father by Andrew.Such marriages weren't regarded well in those days, and no one ever talked about this outside the family.You probably know that grandmother Zenith was an indian also, probably Cherokee, from eastern Oklahoma.In fact, I was looking for information about her Indian heritage when I ran upon you.
Small world, isn't it?
Well, I will look forward to sharing notes with you.
Cousin to Cousin,
Harley
More Replies:
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Re: DUNN/FREEMAN,Tunnel Hill, GA
Harley Dunn 1/16/04