This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.
Surnames: Brock, Calvert, Skelton, Ward, Cate, Stelle
Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/WQH.2ACEB/77.1.1.1
Message Board Post:
Regarding Wilford Calvert... I am a descendant from this man whose name has been confused
as Wilford and Milford. I have worked on our family tree since 1972. I was born Eunice
Eddene HIGHTOWER, 1943, Vinita, Oklahoma to Roscoe Edward HIGHTOWER and his wife, Eunice
Sarah SWIFT. Roscoe was the only living child of Lloyd Eratus HIGHTOWER and my
grandmother, Pansy Manila BROCK. My grandmother was his great-granddaughter, Pansy Manila
BROCK, born 1899 in West Fork, Washington Co, Ark. She was the daughter of George
'Austin' BROCK and his wife, Theora Theodocia CATE. Austin, born 1877 in Van
Buren, Crawford Co, AR was the son of William 'Hoyt' BROCK and his wife Mary
Elizabeth CALVERT. Mary Elizabeth CALVERT was born 11 Aug 1851 in Washington Co, Ark to
Milford CALVERT and his wife, Permelia (SKELTON) Stelle, widow of Timothy Stelle. My
grandmother, Pansy Brock, was raised in the immediate vicinity of her grandmother, Mary
Calvert Brock. Mary told her that her father, MILFO!
RD CALVERT was an orphan left on a doorstep. I am very interested in hearing something
about his sister, for that was never mentioned in our family before. I started working on
our family tree in 1972 and dug up everything that I could from my grandmother and her
cousins in Oklahoma and in Arkansas. When visiting her cousin, Argel Brock near West Fork,
Ark about 1977, he told us that Grandpa Calvert was buried 'in the longest grave'
on Caudle's Bluff and pointed north from Hoyt and Mary Brock's homeplace. We have
never been back to that area to search that out and Argel has been gone for many years, as
well as my grandmother. Pansy was the oldest child of Austin and Theora Brock and was
raised right next door to her grandparents. Mary was a small woman with very dark
complexion, she was a medicine woman and midwife. Pansy's other grandmother and I
guess others called Mary by a nickname "Black Mary". Pansy said that Mary told
her that she had gotten her indian blood fro!
m her father, Milford. Mary had an older half-sister, Hanna Stelle, w
ho married William Ward. They had numerous children who are buried by Hanna in the
cemetery at Baptist Ford Church Cemetery. She also had sons who lived that Pansy knew who
were Hiram, Tim and Oscar Ward. The sons, or some of them, lived and visited in Canon
City, Colorado. After Milford Calvert died in Washington County Arkansas sometime in the
1870s, his widow, Permelia, loaded up her possessions and her younger children and moved
out to the Canon City area. She was supposed to have lived in the Currant Creek area
there. Hanna and Mary both raised their families in Washington county, but their families
made periodic trips out to Canon City over the years. I don't know if Hanna went out
or not, but Mary, her husband and their children made many trips out there. They lost one
baby son while out there once and Mary died there 25 Oct 1909 and is buried by or close to
her mother, Permelia. In the late 1970s or so, one of the sons of Permelia's son,
John Calvert, and hi!
s wife came to visit me in Broken Arrow, Ok where we lived. He told the story that
Permelia and her kids went out to Canon City. He didn't know if they went in a group
or what. After getting settled in there, her son, John who was about 13 or 14 'walked
by himself all the way back to Washington Co Ark' to get their cattle and to lead
other folks out to Canon City. He had a greenhouse and nursery there for many years,
producing crops that were shipped all over everywhere. The Brock and Ward family went out
there to work for him very often. I was never able to find Hoyt and Mary Brock on the
1880 census anywhere from the time I started searching for them on microfilm about 1972
until about 2002. They just never turned up anywhere that I looked for them. When the
LDS put out the cd collection of the transcribed 1880 census, I purchased it and after
'much searching' found them in KANSAS.. "Never" would I have thought
they would have been recorded there. They were in Gar!
den City, Sequoyah Co, KS. I suppose that they were just in that area
when the census was taken, for the family never talked of living in Kansas, although they
traveled through Kansas to get to Colorado.
I have never been able to link Milford Calvert to any family and never have I heard
about him having a sister. That is 'wonderful' news.. I just hope that you can
give me a lead on her, even if it is just a name. On the census records, he was recorded
with various spellings of his last name, but knowing that Grandmother told me that his
name was 'Milford Calvert' and that after researching the family for over 32 years
and seeing that the info she gave me was at least 99% correct, I have to believe her
stories were true. She loved her Brock family very much and despaired when her beloved
grandmother Mary (Calvert) Brock left in the wagon with her husband, Hoyt and their
youngest child, Lillie Brock for Colorado. Her despair was made even more so when Hoyt
and Lillie returned 'without' Mary and never spoke of her again. Pansy's
mother explained that that was the indian way of dealing with her death-they didn't
speak her name again, I guess. Austin and his family all!
stayed around the old homeplace of Hoyt and Mary near West Fork for quite a number of
years. No one has ever been known to have seen a copy of a photograph of Hoyt and Mary,
alone or together. None of them are listed on the indian rolls. Pansy claimed Cherokee,
as did the others, but no one had any roll numbers. After Pansy died, her youngest
sister, Gladys told me that "Papa and Mama were going to sign up on the rolls in
Oklahoma but their wagon broke down and they never got to go". That is all of the
story about that that I know.
I would be glad to share the info that I have with you in exchange for your link and
information to the family. Perhaps we can help each other piece the puzzle together.