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Note: Tom (also known as T.R.) was born 1871. His mother, Rosa, died soon after his birth and Tom went to live with his grandparents, Robert and Lucy Ann Lail. He was raised by them until he was fifteen years of age. At that time Robert died and Lucy Ann went to Carrier Mills, Illinois to live with her son Edward. Tom was sent to live with his father who had long since remarried and had a large family. Tom stayed about two years there but was not happy. This did not seem like his family. With help of a neighbor, Mr. Henry Penturf, Tom boarded a train and went to Illinois to be with his grandmother.
After Tom's grandmother died, Edward took his family south to Indian territory where they lived in a tent on the prairie for a while. Tom was still with them. Eventually Edward moved back to Illinois but his children and his nephew, Tom Williams stayed in Indian Territory, (OK).
We don't know what went on in Tom's life for the next seven or eight years. We pick him up again when he marries Warneta Betts in Blue County, IT. About 1902-03 after the birth of their first two children, Warneta received her land allotment in Atoka Co. near that of her parents, Ramsey and Emmaline. Tom and Warneta moved there and Tom built a log cabin on the land. The third child, Beulah, my mother, was born in this cabin in 1904. With the help of his cousin, Bob Lail, Tom built a large wood frame house nearby. Here Tom and Warneta raised their large family. Tom was fairly prosperous as a farmer and merchant and even constructed and operated his own telephone line into Atoka, a distance of about 10 miles.
Sadly, Warneta died of cancer at the age of forty-two leaving Tom with the large brood. The youngest, Winnie, was only six.
Three years later his son-in-law, Bud Calvert was tragically killed by his horses, so Tom's daughter, Effie moved back home and helped Tom until his death.
The log cabin is long gone, although I remember it well. The house Tom and his cousin built is still in good repair and is still in the family. Tom's daughter Jewell lives there now. Every time I go there I expect to hear the guineas cackling in the big cedar trees in the front yard. The trees are still there but the guineas are not. Not fondly missed is the hauling of water in a barrel from the spring below the house with a horse and sled. They had a well but it was never adequate. They have utility water now, thanks to the Choctaw Indian Tribal Commission.
Aunt Jewell told me about a hired hand that worked for Tom. He was an old man named Willie Goodin.
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