Add to “Things I Never Knew” ……
My paternal great grandmother, (the Carroll family side) who died when my grandmother and her sister were less than 10, was Cherokee Indian. A cousin has done some family geneology and told me today….Great grandpa Carroll remarried in his 30s a much younger woman, still in her teens, if I recall correctly what I knew of him. His second wife was called “Aunt Arrie” by my Dad and his siblings. I met her one time that I can recall when I was about 3-4. I think Grandpa Carroll and Arrie had a son that my Dad’s family called “Uncle Roy”. He was a veteran who lived out his last years in a Veterans’ Hospital in Tuskegee, AL. My Dad and I visited him a few times when I was a teen/ young adult. Now I’m wondering if Arrie was Cherokee, too. From my memory of her, she certainly could have been. As for my Granny’s sister, Oma, whom I knew as I grew up, now that I know their Mother was Cherokee, I can see that in Aunt Oma. My cousin said Oma got Cherokee coloring and features and Granny got more the white coloring and features of their Daddy…. that was obvious in their looks. Aunt Oma’s daughter had a bit of on Indian appearance. Why didn’t I know this family history?????
My cousin said they never talked about it because Great Grandma Carroll’s family stayed in Alabama and did not go west when the Cherokee Nation was forced onto reservations in the Trail of Tears. It was kept on the down low to not bring attention to her family.
Huh. Oh, how I wish Daddy was still available. I can ask Mother but I’m not sure she ever knew this history of Daddy’s grandmother. At least she never told me, if she did.
That would make me 1/8 Cherokee? If she was 1/2 Cherokee, I’d be 1/16. Susan is doing some follow-up research after I called today asking about the Carroll family and Aunt Arrie in particular. The really peculiar thing about this story is that about an hour before I called Susan the Lord had put the word “Cherokee” in my mind in an odd out-of-nowhere, curiosity kind of way that led me to think about Aunt Arrie. God does strange things when given free rein in a brain’s ponderings…. There was something that triggered the pondering and it began with a prayer……
Bill always told me, too that his grandmother was 1/2 Cherokee, too, from southwest Alabama. Her picture looks it. I loved Bill’s thick black hair and dark brown eyes. He tanned easily when he was young. He had a bit of a prominent nose, too! Our kids both got his darker hair and eye color.