Mahala Ann Gentry

Mahala Ann Cromer was born July 10, 1833 in Laurel County, Kentucky. Her parents according to census records were David Cromer and Rachel (Sellers) Cromer. However, according to a story passed down within the family, Mahala's mother was a young Cherokee woman who lived in a local tribe along the border of Rockcastle and Laurel Counties. According to the story, the woman's name was Sahji Tahee, and because she became pregnant and was not married, she was banished from her tribe, and sought refuge in the surrounding woods. This would have been in the winter of 1832. She was found and taken in by the Cromer family, who nursed her back to health and cared for her and eventually, her child, Mahala, which was born that following July. According to one source, David Cromer was the natural father of Mahala, and that he and his wife reached an agreement that they would keep the child and raise her as their own, while the Cherokee mother went on her way on the Trail Of Tears. The Cromers were the ones who gave Mahala her Christian name. No one knows what became of her birth mother, but the Cromers raised and took care of Mahala up until the time she married her first husband, William L. Miller in Laurel County, July 16, 1854. They had five children: Telitha J. Miller, Elizabeth (Miller) McQueen, Daniel G. Miller, Milton Miller, and Rachel (Miller) Gentry. Mahala's husband William died sometime in the early 1860s, and she remarried to William Smith Gentry in about 1865, in Rockcastle County. Smith had been married twice before, and had six children from his previous marriages, including Walker Gentry, who married Mahala's daughter Rachel from her first marriage. Smith and Mahala had four daughters: Catherine "Kitty" (Gentry) Baker, Matilda Ann (Gentry) Manis, Artimicie Mae "Artimish" (Gentry) Morris, and Martha W. (Gentry) Kirby. Smith Gentry died of Pneumonia, aged about 51 years, April 18, 1876 in Rockcastle County. In the 1880 census, Mahala and her family are recorded living in Precinct 1, in Rockcastle County. She is age 44, the head of household, and her mother Rachel Cromer is living with her at age 83. Her step-daughter Lucy, children Kitty, Ann, Artimish, Martha Gentry, and Telitha, Daniel, Milton, and Rachel Miller are listed as living with her. This is the last record of Mahala's life that has been found, other than a record from Union Baptist Church (Red Hill) in Rockcastle County, where Mahala was banned in 1896 on an accusation of adultery. She is not listed in the 1900 census, suggesting that she died between 1896, and 1900. Her burial place is currently unknown, although it is most likely she is buried in Rockcastle County. Mahala's daughter Artimish recalled to her grandchildren later in life that when she was a young girl, her family lived in a one-room log house with a dirt floor, and beds of animal skins and straw bolted into the walls. Many descendants of Mahala's family are divided on the Indian story for lack of documentation, but the appearances of Native American characteristics is evident in the photographs existing of this family.

-Kyle Rambo