The Sanders Family

 

 

 

An Insight Into One of the Families Buried at

Golightly Mounds Cemetery

 

Submitted by John Feather

May 14, 2003

 

John Feather, Ph.D.

Executive Director and CEO

Society of Research Administrators International

1901 N. Moore Street, Suite 1004

Arlington, VA 22209

 

 

LIZZIE (Elizabeth) SANDERS ELLIOTT GEISER [my great grandmother]; born June 6, 1862, Madison County, Mississippi; first marriage to Schap Elliott; child born (William) who died in 1898; married David Geiser, September 4, 1889, Memphis (Shelby County), Tennessee [age 27]; died September 2, 1896, Jericho (Crittenden County), Arkansas [age 34]; buried in family burying ground called "The Mounds" near Clarkedale, Arkansas

 

Grandma [my grandmother, Lula Geiser Alley] wrote extensive notes on the back of a picture of her mother taken before her wedding in 1889.  Her mother died at age 34, when Grandma was 6 years old, and she added this poignant note: "Our mother died early one morning before breakfast at our home in Jericho, Arkansas and was buried under an apple tree that she told papa to bury her under so Charley, Birdie [her siblings] and I could play on her grave.  Her body was moved to the old family burying ground called the Mounds near Clarkdale [Clarkedale], Ark. when papa sold our home and moved to Cross Co."

 

Other family members include Lizzie's sisters:

 

MARTINA SANDERS SMITH ["Sweety" or "Sweet"; married name Mrs. Samuel Smith], died 1900

 

CORNELIA SANDERS, died about age 17 or 18

 

EMMA SANDERS, died about age 12

 

Lizzie's father:

 

EDWARD DOUGLASS SANDERS [or Saunders], born July 1, 1837 in Poker Point (Crittenden County), Arkansas; married in the 1860s in the Catholic Church in Canton, Mississippi

 

WILLIAM ELLIOTT, Lizzie's son by her first marriage.

 

INFANT SON OF OLIVER LUCKETT SANDERS, Lizzie's nephew and the son of her brother. .

 

Aunt Anna had a "unique" writing style, but it is fascinating to read.  Here are the things she had to say about the people buried in the Mounds Cemetery:

 

Aunt Anna describes the cemetery as "on the Danner place, near Wappanocca Bayou, and now abandoned" as of the time she was writing in 1931.  At that time, "there are remains of grave stones to be seen in the plot of woodland there."

 

 "William Elliott, son of Lizzie [Grandma's mother] and Schap Elliott [Lizzie's first husband], lived with his Uncle Oliver [Uncle Bud] and myself, for two years after his mother's death [in 1896].  He was buried at the old Mounds Cemetery where his mother, and grandfather Edward Saunders were buried, and Cornelia, Sweety and Emma Saunders [Lizzie's sisters] were buried."

 

"Mr. [Edward, Grandma's grandfather] Saunders came out to this new country [Arkansas, in 1873] to make a new way of living.  You see, the Civil War wiped out all the money of all of the southern people of the time.  It was nothing but paper when the war ended.  My grandfather had about $15,000 [in Confederate notes] that we used to play with in an old stocking that mama kept it in when we were children.  It represented her father's wealth and a life of toil.  Terrible, was it not?"

 

"I did not mention much about your [i.e., Grandma's] Aunt Sweety [Martina Saunders, Lizzie's sister] and right here I want to say there was next to my mother no sweeter woman ever lived than she was.  She was so even tempered, in fact she was as calm as your uncle Oliver [Uncle Bud] was the opposite, for he was violent in temperament, even though a good man.  Sweet bore more as a pioneer, stood out so brave and fine through the trying years of those days and was one of the most devout Christian women as well.  She had a very outstanding voice, and many times that I sat through a sermon, and after it was over, felt that more inspiration had come out of the service through her sweet Christian spirit and voice uplifted than all the sermon just preached to us.  She was so proud, so true, so much of a sameness all of the time, that every one who knew her admired and loved her.  There was never any one of that section of the country living there abouts that radiated the influence to those around them that her life did.  Her letters were always invoking a blessing upon one and breathed a whispered prayer to the reader.  She died in the winter of 1900 I think it was.  She had been in very poor health and feared she would go into a decline, but did not.  She died from childbirth.  She had four sons Warner, Edward, Elmer, and Samuel Smith.  Warner lives [in 1932] in Memphis, had two girls, Zoola and Margaret, who is now in the East, in Theatrical life - Adajo dancing [no idea what this is].  The brother Edward was accidentally killed."

 

 

 

 

 

“The letters are a fascinating insight into life in the 1870-1930 period in Arkansas history.  What you see below are snippets that I took out of the letters and put next to the information on the people she is talking about.  Because "Aunt Anna" wrote in a stream of consciousness way, it took me months just to work out who all of these people were!  The first two bullets explain in more detail the sources of this information.”

 

“In all of this information, "Grandma" is my maternal grandmother, Lula Geiser Alley (1890-1989).  "Grandpa" is my maternal grandfather, Walter William Alley (1884-1957).  I have tried as best I can to add references to explain who is being referred to.”

 

                                                                                       ~ ~ ~ ~  John Feather

 

·      

The "Aunt Anna" letters

 

Probably the most interesting source of information comes from a series of letters written in 1931 and 1932 to Grandma and her sister Birdie from "Aunt Anna" Talbott [Mrs. Edward Talbott in her second marriage].  She had been married to Grandma's "Uncle Bud," Oliver Luckett Sanders [Grandma's mother's brother], although they were divorced when they were young in 1905.  For some reason, she kept in contact with the family, even though she remarried in 1913 and moved away to Gilmore, Arkansas.  Evidently, Grandma and Birdie wanted to join the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and needed to prove that they were direct descendants of someone who fought in the Revolutionary War.  There were many letters (of which only Aunt Anna's survive), and they trace the history of the Sanders [spelled "Saunders" by Aunt Anna] and Luckett families (who, of course, were not her family at all, but her divorced husband's) back to the early settlement of the United States.  Another invaluable aspect is that Aunt Anna also transcribed a series of letters from older members of the family written in the 1890s about the family.  The letters are fascinating but very difficult reading, because Aunt Anna gives a whole new meaning to "run-on sentence" - there are some pages that are a single sentence.  The best parts of her recollections of many of the people in Grandma's parents' generation.  I have pulled apart the different sections and quoted them at length next to the person they refer to.  While I have tried to retain her punctuation and spelling, sometimes it is impossible to make sense of what she is saying if you do.  The best way to read them is to imagine someone speaking - the letters read like a transcription of dictation.

 

Ø                        The "Mrs. Ward" and "Mrs. Branch" Letters.  Two of Aunt Anna's major correspondents were Mrs. Letitia Saunders Ward and Mrs. Lila Saunders Branch, both of Woodstock [now Bickford], Tennessee.  They seem to have been sisters, and were Lizzie Saunders Geiser's [Grandma's mother] first cousins through Lizzie's father's brother David Saunders.  They were very helpful, particularly in tracing the Sanders family.  Aunt Anna went to see her in person in 1931, and wrote of the experience: "We found them to be very lovely ladies, who were so good to tell us any thing they could.  They know lots, but our time did not allow us to stay and listen for more and more.  Their father's picture in his Confederate uniform was on the mantle piece.  We were received so cordially by them and felt so at home, and were entertained every minute.  Mrs. Ward is very deaf and I had to sit closely and talk loud to her, but she was indeed very pleasant, not the least churlish as so many are who are afflicted with deafness[!]."  Assuming they were roughly contemporary with Lizzie, they were at least in their mid-70s in the 1930s when these letters were written.

 

Ø                        Aunt Anna on Walter William Alley:  Grandpa lived with Grandma's Uncle Bud [Oliver Luckett] and Aunt Anna along with his mother Sallie Alley.  She tells a long story of how William Elliott, Lizzie Geiser's [Grandma's mother] son by her first marriage to Schap Elliott, died at their house.  In passing, she mentions "Walter Alley."  These events took place in 1898, when Walter was 14 and William Elliott was about 16 [do not have actual birth date].  I am quoting this story exactly as written, because it gives interesting information, but also because it is an excellent example of Aunt Anna's unusual writing style.  As mentioned before, it makes most sense if you think of someone talking.  This whole paragraph is one sentence!

"[William Elliott] was stricken with a chill one afternoon, and while seemingly alright about 11 P.M. laughing and telling jokes to his uncle [Uncle Bud] on me (for his Uncle had just come home from his Miss. Log Camp, that morning) about my being so brave when some one came up to the porch, that after I heard them run off the porch, I got the gun and then stuck it out of the door and shot, and then too he said get out the Christmas gifts Aunt Anna, for you do know you want to show them (he and my self had been down to a River Store Boat, and made our Christmas purchases the day before, the best they afforded and we had laughed over the tinsel show of it all, even though we did find something in stock other than all the glistening tin and bright red and blue striped hosiery, yes we found some very nice socks, a cuspidor, and a carving set, the latter with some socks were for Mr. Saunders, socks and a cuspidor for Willie [William Elliott] and socks for Walter Alley, I did get out the gifts and pass around and Willie laughed heartily at the cuspidor, and said he smoked cigarettes and did not need it, but that he guessed it would be just something else for me to keep polished up, for he teased me for keeping the knob of the front door polished over on the river where we saw so few, and one thing was certain if the rooster crowed on the front porch, with his head toward the door, he would laugh and tell me that company was surely coming as Walter Alley said it was a sure sign) well as I was telling of Willie, he insisted we go to bed, and in the night he was stricken into unconsciousness and died in a few days, we now know of uremia poison."

  

Ø                  Aunt Anna on Lizzie Elliott Gieser: "I met Lizzie Elliott-Geiser [Grandma's mother, 1862-1896] several times, she was a very lovely woman, I recall seeing her first at a Church supper at Iverton, Arkansas and she was the life of the crowd in a room where a number of ladies were talking, I was a young lady school teacher at the time, and she had heard I was going with her brother [Oliver Saunders, Uncle Bud], so she was rather lovely to me and I was much pleased; I recall her telling me she liked me and that she did hope her brother and myself married, and said now he has a temper, but he is a fine boy.  I saw her last time while she was ill, and oh so wan and pale she was on her couch on the front verandah of their home, she could not talk to me much, but did ask me to tell her if Buddie [Oliver] and myself were going to marry?  I told her we were planning to do so in December, she squeezed my hand and smiled.  Her daughter Birdie [Grandma's sister], looks like her [Lizzie]; Lula [Grandma] resembles her Aunt Sweet [Lizzie's sister Martina Smith] in the facial form. [Lizzie did not live to see her brother wed.  She died September 2, 1896, and the couple was married December 23, 1896.]

 

Ø                  Note of Schap Elliott [Lizzie's first husband]: Lizzie Sanders [Grandma's mother] and Schap Elliott were first cousins.  Lizzie's father Edward had a sister named Elizabeth who married Charles Elliott ["Lizzie's" name was actually Elizabeth].  They had five children, included Schap Elliott.  As was common, Lizzie was named after her aunt.

 

Ø                  Aunt Anna on Henrietta: "Henrietta Luckett Saunders [Grandma's maternal grandmother, 1841-1874] had pneumonia and after her illness, she wished to go to see her father in Canton [Mississippi], thinking it would help her, but they always told me that she grew no better, but gradually grew worse and died, and was buried in Canton, Miss.  I met a Mrs. Luckett [a cousin of Henrietta's] once, and she said she knew your grandmother [Henrietta] and talked of seeing her as a beautiful corpse, and that she came home to Canton, never grew better and died away from her husband and loved ones [who were still in Arkansas], and longed to see them before she died, but that means were scarce and funds were needed for her family back home.

 

"Sweety [Martina Saunders Smith, Grandma's mother's sister] said her mother was a beautiful woman, and had been quite a society girl in Canton, as they were people of means, and that it was a great change for her to come into this wilderness country of that time around in 1874 and bring a young family to rear, away from her social life, of culture, etc.  That it took love of husband and bravery to risk living here among mosquitoes, malaria, etc. and not any schools, but that she made the best that could be had in the way of schooling; and they were as well informed through their crude one room school-house facilities as the average child is now, with so much better facilities.  It seems to me, that they applied themselves more to the fundamentals of an education.  Of course, the course of subjects were not covered, but they learned the three "R's" and by hard knocks took on a practical education, read and learned always and were as well informed in a general way as we are today.

 

"Oliver [Uncle Bud] always told me that his father resented the way the Lucketts [Henrietta's family] did about his wife, that they did not wire him of her illness being so serious and that she was dead and buried and they then wrote him a letter stating as such.  Buddie [Oliver] said she [Henrietta] used to dance so beautifully and that she took cold after having gone to a dance, that it snowed while she was over at a neighbors at this party and she took cold and had pneumonia.  In this Oliver was more like his mother, was going to have his own way, etc., and she was thus.  Do burn this up and do not attach it to the family data [!].  Sweety [Lizzie's sister Martina] told me that they the Lucketts sort of thought of themselves 'high-hat' because they had more money than her father had and that she guessed they resented her mother not having has as much as she had been used to having as a young lady before she married Mr. Saunders and came to this new country to make a new way of living."

 

"O.L. [Uncle Bud] was like his mother, so he told me always - so ambitious for wealth and the best things in life, but never did stop to enjoy them."

 

Ø                  Emma Luckett Rose [Henrietta's sister] wrote in 1932: "My sister Henrietta died in my arms as I lifted her to give her a drink.  I stopped school to nurse her from September until March.  She died of T.B."  She also adds, "the [parish] records from the [Catholic church] at Locust Grove, Georgia were sent to the Cathedral at Savannah, Georgia during Sherman's march to the sea, and Sherman burned the Church at Locust Grove, Georgia and it was never rebuilt."

 

Ø                  Note on religion: The Luckett family was Catholic, but the Sanders were Presbyterian.  This comes out in a discussion about where to look for marriage records.  It is not clear if one of them converted, but Lizzie's [Grandma's mother] brother [Henrietta's son] Oliver [Uncle Bud] was educated at the Christian Brothers College in Memphis and was a practicing Catholic at that time.  Later he became a Baptist and Methodist, while Mr. Sanders [Oliver's father] was Presbyterian.  Probably another reason the Lucketts didn't care for Mr. Sanders as a son-in-law.

 

Ø                  Aunt Anna on Edward Saunders: "I remember seeing Mr. Edward Saunders [Grandma's maternal grandfather, 1837-1893] in my father's home (Allison Rieves) [?] out in the country from Clarkedale, in 1885, he was a handsome old gentleman and very interesting to hear talk, I well remember his talking to my father all the afternoon, as his horse stood hitched at the front gate.  He was not as I recall a very tall man, but rather solid or plump, maybe I should have said he was broad shouldered; his son Oliver [Uncle Bud] was not as tall as he was.  He died about ... [a blank is left in the document that was not filled in].  His funeral was preached by an old baptist minister [Grandma wrote in "Martin" next to the minister] who used to come over from Tenn. and preach at Lambethville, and it was in 1895 that they preached his funeral in the old Lambethville church (long since washed away by the high waters).  I know that someone said he had been dead then for about two years [meaning that he would have died in 1893].  We went to church that morning not knowing that it was to be preached and I recall that I thought of how queer it was to hear a funeral preached about a man whom I had known of as having been gone that long.  His children Oliver [Uncle Bud] and Martina [Sweety] were there, Martie Howard [Martha] was not well enough to come.  Edward Saunders was on a visit to his daughter Lizzie Geiser [Grandma's mother] when he sickened and died."

 

Ø                  On "Uncle Ed":  One of Aunt Anna's correspondents, Mrs. Lila Saunders Branch of Wodstock, Tennessee [Lizzie Sanders Geiser's first cousin], had these recollections of her "Uncle Ed's" [Edward Douglass Saunders] family: "I do not know when Uncle Ed came to Tennessee, but I [have] doubt about his having lived around Germantown [Tennessee?].  Now, he might have lived near Cuba [10 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee], which is just across from Island 40.  It is only now [1932] a store and a few houses.  I always heard my father speak of uncle Edward Saunders family that moved from this state [Tennessee] over into Arkansas."

 

Ø                  Note of the Howard and the Douglass families: Cullen Edward Douglass, a distant cousin of Lizzie Sanders Geiser's, wrote in 1897, "The Howards of North Carolina were of English descent and prided themselves on their royal blood, as they claim they can trace back in unbroken lineage to Queen Elizabeth [I]; they were therefore Loyalist [in the American Revolutionary War].  But not so with the Douglasses.  They were from Scotland and not so much in favor of the English government, and were in sympathy with the American Revolution.  This is the way it has been handed down to me." [These were family lines of Edward Douglass Saunders.]

 

Ø                  Aunt Anna on "Sanders" vs. "Saunders": "Mrs. Lila Saunders Ward [Lizzie Sanders Geiser's first cousin] told me that her grandfather Charles Gradison Saunders had a neighbor in Gallatin, Tennessee who spelled his name Saunders, and that his mail would get mixed up with his to the extent that it was not satisfactory.  So he changed the spelling of his name to Sanders, left out the "u" and so to this day your people spelled the name Sanders."

 

Ø                  Note on the house: Cullen Edward Douglass, a second cousin of Mrs. Ward, wrote in 1897 that "the cozy little log house [where Grandma's mother's father's parents Elizabeth (1806-1840) and Charles Grandison Saunders (1798-1871 lived] is still [in 1897] standing and is well preserved, of course it has been added to, and occasionally whitewashed; it is about one hundred and ten or twelve years old and is about one mile from the old Station Camp.  This goes back to Indian times in Tennessee."

 

Ø                  Aunt Anna adds this odd story about Mary Donelson: "William Saunders [James' father, Grandma's great great great grandfather] moved to Sumner County, Tennesee about 1790.  The old brick house yet stands [in 1931] on the Gallatin Pike in which the Saunders family lived, it was the old Saunders home, because they had to do with the early history of that section.  This home was built out of the natural stone of that section and was up on a hill where one could enjoy the beautiful vista of the country surrounding them.  It was from this house that Andrew Jackson [I assume she means the President] helped Mary Smith runaway to marry Samuel Donalson.  After Mary Donalson was a widow, she married James Saunders.  Mrs. Ward [a distant cousin] visited this section of the country that figured in Tennessee history and said that as she stood looking at the old home, she wonder which window Mary Smith climbed out of with Jackson's assistance."

 

Ø                  ... and then the odder story of Elizabeth Allen, Sam Houston's first wife: Eliza [Elizabeth] Allen was a young woman from a prominent Tennessee family, much younger than Houston, who was Governor of Tennessee at the time.  Many theories are offered for why they split apart, but they eventually did.  Houston moved on to Texas, and Eliza eventually married Elmore Douglass.  Eliza was the granddaughter of James Sanders and Hannah Mitchell [Grandma's great great grandparents], through her mother Letitia Sanders Allen [the second child listed above].  Grandma was her third cousin.

 

Ø                  Note on intermarriage: Mrs. Mayme Green, a distant relative writing to Aunt Anna in 1932, states that "Oliver A. Luckett and Elizabeth Thompson were cousins.  In fact, nearly all my ancestors so closely intermarried, it took me three years to work out the tree I sent to you."  I will add this is particularly difficult, since different generations tended to reuse the same names repeatedly.  Children tended to named for aunts and uncles, making it very confusing!

 

Ø                  Aunt Anna on Oliver Luckett: "I recall being in the home of Mrs. 'Martie' Martha Saunders Howard [Lizzie Sanders Geiser's sister] on Island 40, Tennessee, spending the day.  She took me in and showed me her grandfather Luckett's [Oliver Austin Luckett, Lizzie and Martha's mother's father] and said, 'You known, Annie [Anna], Buddie [Uncle Bud, Oliver Luckett Saunders] was named for him.  He is our grandfather Oliver Luckett, of Canton, Mississippi, our mother's father.  He was a very prominent man of affairs of Canton.  I know that she told me he had been in public life of the section, either as a Judge or Senator.  I think she told me he had been in the Senate.  I know that her furnishings suffered during an overflow of the Mississippi river and I have often wondered if the picture was damaged or if some of the Howards [Martha's husbands family] have it.

 

Ø                  Mrs. Letitia Saunders Ward wrote Aunt Anna: "I can remember seeing the Luckett home once.  I am not sure, but did I tell you that Judge Luckett had children by his second wife?"  Neither the second wife's name nor those of the children have been found.

 

 

 

 

Over 100 years ago, Cullen Edward Douglass, a distant relative of Lizzie Sanders Geiser, had these words about why it is important to trace our roots: "I am glad to see you take a lively interest in the grand old family, make out your record, and hand it down to posterity with the injunction: 'continue on through the ages.'  And why not?  There are men who can trace the pedigree of their horse back five hundred years.  Why not the human family?"