Robert Jones Laurence (1860-1937) and
Julia Ann Nicholas
Our grandfather Robert Jones Laurence was born Sept. 14, 1960, in Decatur County, Tennessee, which adjoins Benton County on the south. Actually Carroll, Benton, and Decatur counties converge at this spot, so the families could have lived within ten or fifteen miles of each other and been in the three different counties. Since Robert’s father, R.J., was in the Civil War, that means Robert would have not had a father in the home during the war, and his mother must have had some difficult times.
Robert married Julia Ann Nicholas on October 3, 1888. She was the daughter of William and Mary Ann Taylor Nicholas, both of whom were born in Tennessee. Most of the Nicholas family are buried in Yellow Springs Cemetery, in Decatur county, just a few miles south of the Mt. Carmel Cemetery where so many of the Haynes family are buried. Robert and Julia Ann’s first child, Willie Jones (Sam), was born October 27, 1889, in Camden, Tennessee, the seat of Benton County. The next two children, Mary Etta (Molly) born Feb. 9, 1892, and Leonard Carl, born July 16, 1893, were born in Decatur county. I assume their parents were living there, but it is possible Julia Ann just went there so her family could help with the new baby, as well as the other children she already had. She was the youngest of several sisters.
Robert and Julia Ann’s youngest son and daughter, Ralph and Verna, were born in Oklahoma in 1903 and 1905. Some time between 1893 and 1903, the family spent a couple of years in Stoddard County, Missouri. According to Verna, or it may have been Molly, Granddad (Robert) was working with teams, clearing land along the Mississippi. It was swampland and there was a lot of malaria. Granddad was using alcohol either to treat or to cure malaria. He decided he needed to get out of the swampland before he became an alcoholic. Julia Ann’s family were staunch Methodists and the Laurence’s had been Presbyterian, so both were reared in strict religious homes. According to my father, Julia Ann’s uncle John Battin was a Methodist minister. I have not been able to confirm this, but I have found that another sister was married to a Methodist minister. He died while he lived in Missouri and his wife returned to Decatur county where she shows in the census and she is buried in the Yellow Springs Cemetery.
The family moved to Oklahoma at the time the Cherokee Strip was opened. My dad recalled moving there and living in their covered wagon until they got their cabin built. They settled in the Ft. Gibson/Hulbert area, which was hilly and not very good farming land. W.J. (Sam) my father was about 13 when they moved to Oklahoma. When he was about fifteen he moved with neighbors who were going to Dodge City, Kansas, and never lived near his family after that. According to my mother, my dad did not get along with his dad as a teen-ager, so he left home. He never talked much about his dad to me, but always spoke kindly and softly when he mentioned his mother. After his marriage to my mother, they always stayed close to her family. I think they lived in California a short time around 1920.
After Julia Ann’s death on July13, 1919, Robert returned to Tennessee, and married Julia Ann’s older sister’s daughter. I think shortly after that he moved to California. I believe Leonard was out there during the war and had stayed and that Ralph had gone out to work. I think Granddad must have been pretty strong willed; I believe Verna wanted to be a nurse and he was very opposed, wanted her to be a teacher like Molly. But apparently she won out. But I think she did it on her own, without his approval. When Granddad Laurence died in July 1937, all of the children except Willie Jones (Sam) lived in the Long Beach area.