Re: Wanda MENDENALL SCHEU - OK 20s & 30s?
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In reply to:
Wanda MENDENALL SCHEU - OK 20s & 30s?
3/25/00
Dear (Mendenall) family descendants (Marie, Miranda Waldrep, Frances, Mary Reichter):
For the full family tree up to the Mendenalls, check out http://boards.ancestry.myfamily.com/surnames.harvick/35/mb.ashxhttp://boards.ancestry.myfamily.com/surnames.harvick/35/mb.ashx -- it all lines up with posts here!
I just Googled my great-grandmother Lelia Scott Mendenall, and found the genforum. I responded to Marie's posting on the Mendenall family there. I don't know if this email will get to any of you 9 years later. If you know Marie's email (it wasn't clear on the forum) please let me know. I'd love to learn more about this family tree.
I am a descendant of Mollie Scott, my great great grandmother, and Lelia Scott Mendenall, my great-grandmother. Her daughter Inez was my grandmother living in California. Inez married Charles Case, and they had two children: Charles Edward (my Uncle Ed, now married to Roseanne, and their daughter Lelia - all living in NYC), and my mother Yvonne, now living in northern California (where my grandmother lived for twenty years and is buried.)
Inez and Charles divorced after several years, and Inez remarried Ben Heinricks. They had two boys: Bennie Jr. and Phillip David, whom I last saw at Inez' funeral in 1999. Charles disappeared but my mother searched for and found him, so he and his wife Sally (both now deceased) became my other grandparents from the time I was 7. (And now Charles' first child from a previous marriage is my long lost "auntie".)
My mother has fond memories of her grandmother, and even remembers Lelia's mother, the "little grandmother", whom I understand was Cherokee. Mom even went to some pow-wows with one of them. I also did a brief oral history of Inez in 1990, who talked a bit about growing up in Oklahoma. My mother met her aunts, uncles and some cousins before, but I never have... that family is huge but it sounds like it was a tumultuous past.
I looked it up because I found an old email from my Uncle Ed, with some of his memories of Lelia's house in Cotton County, Oklahoma:
"The smallest bedroom was called the 'west room' and this is where Darlene slept when she was visiting grandmother. Darlene was Wanda's daughter. And she was closest to grandmother because she spent so much time with her. Wanda was married to a service man and Frankie was married to a sailor. The house was on ten acres. There was a barn which housed some chickens, cows and pigs. The barn was small and shabby. I used to gather eggs for grandmother... Some years later Grandad died. He was laid out in the living room. I remember one woman who said he didn't drink but a little whiskey. That may have been grandmother speaking to another woman. I will tell you about a Pow Wow some other time..."
Lelia Scott Mendenall had 9 children including my grandmother Inez (and I remember her and my mother speaking of Frankie and Wynona, as well as her great aunt "Pokie"). I am wondering where the Cherokee heritage comes in? I was always told that Mollie Scott was Cherokee (or perhaps half) - maybe it was her mother Mary Serene Beasley??)
Hope to hear from you!