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The Powder Horn
One day my brother, Frank announced, “I
am dividing our family tree into seven branches. Each of the seven children
will take one family line and research it so that we won’t duplicate the work
needed to complete our family history.” I was assigned my great-grandfather,
Delaney Elliott, and his wife, Louesa Caroline Baker. We knew they had been born in Missouri
and had been married in Texas County, Missouri. I knew that Delaney Elliott had
lived in a covered wagon and sold sugar to the Indians in the Indian Territory
before Oklahoma became a state. Family tradition said that his wife Louesa with
her thirteen children had moved to New Mexico to be near her family. No other
information had been located. Over a period of about thirty years, I
frequented libraries and checked out old newspapers, census records, and
property records. I continually met dead ends. My siblings were sailing through
data like it was poured milk through a sieve, but my Bakers and Elliotts had
eluded every aspect of my research. One day when my mom, Christene, was
visiting from West Texas, she said “How about traveling to Calvin, Oklahoma (a
small town of about 600 people) and attempt to locate information at the
cemetery or court house?” The trip took my mother, my husband
Gordon, and I about three hours. Upon arriving, we went to the very small
cemetery and found a few Elliotts and Bakers but nothing that connected our
family to these names. We drove to the courthouse. As we parked we noticed
several elderly gentlemen sitting in the shade by the courthouse door playing
checkers. My mom said, “Maybe one of those gentlemen would help us locate
someone by the name of Elliott.” As we nervously approached the men, my
husband Gordon spoke to the men and asked, “Does anyone here know of a family
by the name of Elliott?” A very tall, slender man stood up and
said, “My name is Tom Elliott, what do you want to know?” Surprised at finding him, I told him,
“We are looking for information on Delaney Joel Elliott.” Tom informed us that he was Delaney’s
nephew. He invited us to come to his home. When we were sitting in his living
room, he brought out a powder horn that Delaney had made from the horn of a
bull owned by the family. Tom told us, “Delaney lived with my family when I was
a child. He made this powder horn for me.” Tom showed us where my
great-grandfather had carved Delaney’s name and birth date on the power horn.
Tom continued “When Delaney died, I carved his death date underneath his birth
date.” We photographed the powder horn and were
extremely grateful to have shared a moment of history with my
great-grandfather’s gift to his nephew. Returning to Oklahoma City’s
Genealogical Library, I quickly went to the newspaper section and checked for
his death date. I found an obituary that read: “An uncle of Tom Elliott died.”
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