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JOHN THEOPHILUS NEELY John or John T. August 28, 1875 - December 9, 1918 43 years old
John T. was born and nurtured, in his early years at least, in a log cabin with a dirt floor in Blount County, Alabama, as were his three older brothers, Will, T.H., Stephen Farris, a younger sister, Madora, and a younger brother, Ernest. Their father, Theophilus Monroe Neely, was born in Lincoln County, Tennessee, but had emigrated to Alabama where he met and married Sarah Hood. Theirs was a difficult and hardship filled existence (certainly when compared to what most of us in the beginning of the twenty-first century have ever experienced), although it may not have seemed so unusual to them at the time. Many in the post-Civil War South suffered from the lingering economic effects of the ravages of the war, especially those who scraped out a living from small marginal farms in hilly northeast Alabama. An interesting, yet poignant, recollection of their actual circumstances was recorded by one of John's nephews, U.R. (who was one of John T.'s older brother Will's nine sons) and who late in his life made a tape recording of things told to him by his father. {See more in paragraphs 4 & 5 of this project, Will Neely 1866 which more fully describe that period in the lives of John's family.}
One tragic event occurred of which we know little. The second oldest son, T.H., apparently died as a child, a fact known only because of his absence from the 1880 and subsequent Alabama census reports in which the remainder of the family are listed. Theophilus himself died of "billious fever" June 15, 1880 when only 31 years of age, leaving his widow, Sarah, with five children ranging in age from Will, at 14 years old, to the baby, Ernest, only seven months; John was not quite 5. Theophilus had moved to Limestone County, Alabama for at least the previous farming season, after some years in Blount County, and the winter had been especially hard; it is known that food had been scarce. The details of how the family then survived has not been recorded, but it is suggested that they returned to Blount County to live with or near Sarah's mother Rachel Scott Hood. A plausible assumption is that Will and Steve (who at ages 14 and 12 were expected to do almost as much work as grown men) were employed by other farmers in the area who may have needed and could afford to pay wages, although such employment was likely to have been seasonal and uncertain. It would not be unexpected in that day and time that John himself would also hire out as he soon reached seven or eight years of age. Uncle U.R. records that when he himself was ten, living with Will's family in Nolan County, Texas, he hired out to a local farmer for a dollar a day to hoe weeds and thin cotton, and later that same year to assist with the picking. His youngest brother, Miles, picked cotton for wages (although we don't know the rate) in the fall of 1913, when he was only six. That seems astonishing, but indicative of what had to be done for families to subsist. However, one valuable lesson was learned, which was that much could be accomplished by sheer hard work. It was the norm. Boys and girls both grew up in that environment, and an extremely strong work ethic was thereby woven into the fabric of their personalities. It would serve them well the rest of their lives, and would be passed down to their next generations largely undiluted.
Five years after his father's death, John T.'s mother, Sarah, married again, to a neighbor (who was actually her second cousin - see connections), Andrew Jackson "Jack" or "Ike" Nation. It appears from consideration of both their circumstances that there was an element of practicality for the union. Jack needed someone to care for his own children after the death of his wife three months earlier, and Sarah certainly needed assistance in raising hers. Although we assume that there was, at least initially, an attraction between the two, later events indicate that the marriage could not survive. [[Unice Roscoe Neely, I U. R.] records that "it was a mistake. From what little I heard, her new husband drank too much and did not help with the children ...by all accounts Grandmother had a hard time." The marriage took place June 24, 1885.
Sarah's children may not have liked their new stepfather from the start. A few months after the marriage, Will, then 19 years old, and Ulah Allgood, 17, left home and married in October of 1885. Almost simultaneously (probably) Steve at age 16 also left home; he travelled to Ellis County, Texas and immediately went to work in a cotton gin. John T., then 10, must have remained in the new home, along with his younger sister, Madora and brother Ernest. In 1886, a half brother, Hope Nation was born.
Seven years passed during which Will and Sarah are thought to have lived and farmed in Blount County, but with marginal success, during which time their first four children were born. In late 1892 Will moved with his family to Ellis County, Texas. It has been heard more than a few times that his motivation to move was to farm in an area of more fertile land where the prospects for good cotton crops were greater, and therefore his family could live better. During inquiry about such matters for the purposes of this book, an intriguing alternate reason was related by Mac Stiles, whose grandmother, Georgia, was a sister of Will's wife Ulah, and who also lived in Blount County, Alabama in the same years that Will and Ulah did. As related to Mac by his mother Anna, Georgia's daughter, "Will had to leave Alabama". But why? No reason was known.
In June of 2000, a meeting of many Neelys, called NeelyClan2000 was held in Meklenburg County, North Carolina, the old ancestral area of four generations of Thomas Neelys who are our direct line. Some seventy-odd Neelys attended, most of whom were interested in learning more of their genealogy. In attendance were Robert "Bob" Neely (Will's grandson through Ellis), Roy "Buddy" Neely Jr. (Will's grandson through Roy), and William "Bill" Neely Jr. (Ernest's grandson through William Warren Neely); all are great grandsons of Theophilus Monroe Neely. At the time, we had no knowledge of the whereabouts or even the existence of descendants of Will's and Ernest's brothers Steve and John T., and their sister Madora. We shortly learned that two grandchildren of John T. were also in attendance at that gathering, who were Gerald Neely, and Nancy Neely, both from Texas. It was through our new acquaintance with them that many things about the story of this closely related Neely branch as well as the details of John T.'s descendants were learned. The three page family tree which follows this essay has been developed from their records and bible listings. One of the individuals of John T.'s branch in our generation (nine) turned out to be Mary Fay Clark, who by amazing coincidence has lived for many years only 15 miles from my home in Midland, Texas.
Mary Fay's mother was Jessie Ann Neely, the fifth of the seven children of John and Lizzie Henson. John T. and Lizzie had married in Waxahachie in December of 1895 when he was 20 and she was not quite 15. It is not known how long previously John T. himself had come from Alabama to Texas. It is also not known how long that couple continued to live in Ellis County, other than that they are listed in the 1900 census, and their first son, J.T. Jr., was buried in Maloney cemetery where his gravestone shows his death as having occurred on May 8, 1902. His grave is adjacent to that of Marcellous, Will and Ulah's infant son who died the summer after their arrival in Texas nine years earlier. Two older daughters were Hattie Virginia (born in 1897) and Eron Carolyn (born in 1899). Probably shortly after the death of their son, John T. and Lizzie moved to Sulphur Springs, Hopkins County, Texas, about 100 miles to the east. There they lived on a farm of perhaps 160 acres, near town where their four additional children were born. John T. was employed by Mobil Oil Company for about 15 years, initially as a distributor of oil and lubricants, by wagon and mule team as the mechanization of America's agriculture was just starting to get under way. John T. remained in Mobil's employ until his death on December 9, 1918, a victim of the world's worst influenza epidemic.
The surviving six children of John T. and Lizzie were: Hattie Virginia, born March 15, 1897; Eron Carolyn, born April 29, 1899; W.N. "Bubba", born November 6, 1903; Jessie Ann, born August 20, 1909; John M., born July 31, 1915; and Henry Francis, born July 11, 1918 just six months before his father's death.
Hattie Virginia, John T. and Lizzie's oldest daughter, especially loved her father and may have felt that she was his favorite, although it seems clear that he loved all his children. He played with them always, rolled up the carpet and danced with them, and generally displayed great affection, no matter how long the day had been or how tired he was. The children waited for his arrival at home in the evenings, swinging on the gate to the mule corral. John T. was an outgoing person, he loved his family and was evidently a happy man. In the fall of 1922, nearly four years after the death of her husband, Lizzie was preparing to marry again, to a man named Sam Beasley. Virginia greatly disliked that prospect and told her mother in no uncertain terms that her father was perfect and no other man could ever take his place or should be allowed into their home; her father, she thought "hung the moon." Lizzie (who has been described as "stern") may have been patient, or not, we don't know. It seems clear that Virginia, who had never had a warm relationship with her mother, persisted to Lizzie's exasperation limit. At that point, Lizzie burst out and related (in the presence of Mary's mother Jessie Ann, who was 13 at the time) that indeed their father, John T., had not been perfect at all, that he had served time in the penitentiary in Alabama (before coming to Texas) and that he had served the sentence for his brother Will. That information had not been known by any of John T. and Lizzie's children previously. Why? The explanation that was repeated from Mary as well as three other grandchildren of John T. (who were interviewed later) was that in that day and time, having been in prison carried such a stigma that it was to be kept secret and never talked about. After hearing the truth about her father from Lizzie, Virginia (an adult, 25 years old at the time) is said to have never spoken to her mother again. Mary confirmed that Lizzie later repeated the story to an interested Jessie, Mary's mother, as she grew older and wished to know the details. The basic facts were also known by the other cousins in the John T. Neely branch who were later interviewed, but no details as to the amount of time served, or in what prison are known. The offense was thought to have something to do with illegalities regarding liquor; "bootlegging" was mentioned speculatively, as was "moonshining." The nature of the liquor laws in Alabama at the time, or whether federal tax statutes may have been involved is not known.
So we are left to ponder and wonder. In an effort to obtain substantiation for this event, Mac Stiles visited Blount County in 2001 to learn what records might still exist. He did indeed find in the "Sheriffs Feeding Accounts" entries for several Neelys (apparently not related) at widely varying dates, but including John Neely for "selling liquor" in 1893. (The inmates were required to pay 30 cents a day for their board, and records were maintained of accounts to be collected). We can only speculate as to how the substitution was made. Was it a sort of a plea bargain agreed to by the authorities, sympathetic with the circumstances? John T. was 17 years old, not married and with no dependents, other than possibly his mother, Sarah and his younger brothers and sister, who may or may not have still been living under the roof of Jack Nation. Will was married with four children, who would have had no means of support if Will was imprisoned. Or could it have been some sort of trickery on the part of Will and John? The former theory may have more weight if an agreement with the authorities included Will's "having to leave Alabama" as remembered by his niece, Anna.
In all of the many hours of conversation with our first cousins (those descended from Will), concerning the widest range of subjects in preparation for this book, not the slightest hint of this matter has come up. One must conclude that Will and Ulah never spoke a word to anyone. Their children were too young at the time (about 1892) to have been aware of the matter, so could not have remembered it.
In any case, the episode appeals to this writer as a noble act on the part of John. It points out the value and commitment to family connections that existed. What was it that Will did? Whatever the offense, one is inclined to be forgiving (if it didn't harm others) on the assumption that times were desperate and Will did what he had to in order to feed his family. One phrase that was jotted in the notebook as coffee was shared at a kitchen table one evening was that "Will was an importer of spirits from the islands," just those cryptic words and nothing more in the way of elaboration. They, along with John T.'s offense recorded in the sheriffs feeding accounts suggest an area of speculation, but we will never likely learn more. We don't know how long John T. served, other than it was limited in time for him to arrive in Ellis County, Texas soon enough to meet, court, and marry Lizzie Henson there in late 1895. A reasonable guess might be a few months, but who can say?
This essay was planned to have been written by Gerald Neely, who was the first descendant of Will's brother John T. who was found as we searched for descendants of the siblings of Will. Being a great grandson of Theophilus Monroe Neely as are we, he had independently developed a great interest in learning about our Neely line, and had, at the time of a visit to his home in Austin, Texas, on December 22, 2001, embraced the task of searching out information from his eight living siblings and first cousins, all also grandchildren of John T. It seems clear that his and Lizzie's seven children and subsequent generations never conversed very much about times past, for reasons that are not clear. However, that circumstance has made it very difficult to fill out the story of that branch of the family. Tragically, Gerald died suddenly on January 22, 2002, and it has been left to this writer to gather information that has been gleaned from contacts with three cousins in our generation, Nancy Neely Ray, Patricia Neely Vaughn, and Mary Fay Clark, who have been visited in recent months. What follows regarding the lives and activities of the children of John T. seems meager, but it is all that we have. Phrases in quotation marks are verbatim from those living grandchildren of John T.
John T's widow, Lizzie, married Sam Beasley in November of 1922, and that couple continued to live on the farm at Sulphur Springs, Texas, occupied previously by John and Lizzie. Nothing is remembered about the personality of Mr. Beasley or the nature of the marriage or how or when it ended. We know that Lizzie later married Charles Wesley Fisher (in April of 1937) and that couple also continued to live on the same farm place. However, their financial situation was apparently tenuous, and it is remembered that the farm had to be sold to pay the taxes. In any case, "Mr Fisher" (as she is remembered as having called him) and "Wife" (as he called her), moved to Carlsbad, New Mexico, about 1939 or 1940. Some say they hitch-hiked; another remembered version is that they had a trailer of belongings pulled behind a car. Fisher was a preacher, and was considered very strict by Lizzie's grandchildren; Nancy "was scared of old man Fisher; he was strict". Little is known of their life in Carlsbad, but finances were marginal, and Lizzie did domestic work for hire. Lizzie was buried in the Carlsbad cemetery after her death there in 1961 at the age of 81.
John T. and Lizzie's oldest child, Hattie Virginia, married Jack Lindley with whom she lived in Dallas. They had one child, Jack Lindley, Jr. Also, Virginia's younger brother, Henry Francis Neely, who was only five months older than her son, lived "for many years" with that family during most of his boyhood and youth. The home of his mother, Lizzie, in Sulphur Springs was about 90 miles east of Dallas, and it is not clear why Henry Francis was raised "off and on until he was grown" by his older sister. One brief but significant event that is recalled was that John T. once whipped Jack Lindley with a buggy whip for slapping Virginia. In earlier years, John T. had made a cedar chest for Virginia which is still in the family. During her adult years she worked for a time at the Adophus Hotel in Dallas.
The next daughter, Eron Carolyn Neely was married successively to Guy Bowden and then Jack Griffis. Pictures of her show a beautiful young woman. She is remembered as being "sweet and nice," but having a problem with alcohol. She resided in Corpus Christi, Texas for much of her adult life. She had no children.
The third child was J.T. Neely, Jr, who's passing is recorded on his gravestone in Maloney Cemetery in Ellis County as having died May 8, 1902 at the age of just twelve months. Nothing is remembered about the cause of his death.
John and Lizzie's fourth child, a son, was W. N. Neely. Living relatives indicate that he had no formal name, just those initials, but was commonly known as "Bubba". He was said to be "a beautiful sweet man, fun loving, good looking." He was, however, "his own man - nobody crossed Uncle Bubba." He lived in Dallas and owned a furniture store on Greenville Avenue. In later life he was a plumber and owned his own business. He was married twice, to Bessie Moore and Loraine Palmore, but had no children. In 1946, at a visit to the State Fair of Texas in Dallas, he won the drawing for an Oldsmobile automobile, which is still owned by his stepson, Don Palmore. It was one of the first cars made after WWII.
The fifth child, a daughter, was Jessie Ann Neely who was born in Sulphur Springs. She was, like her father and brother, Bubba, a happy, fun loving girl. At the age of sixteen, she "ran off and married Mack Stevenson - Mack was a lot older." Apparently this prospective union was not viewed favorably by her parents, especially Lizzie, who was said to be "controlling" as well as "stern". Mack was traveling from town to town with an itinerant entertainment group (common in the early early decades of the twentieth century) whose name has not been saved in memories. It can be concluded that Mack and Jessie Ann had essentially nothing in the way of financial resources, as suggested by the fact that they "walked down the railroad tracks to Pittsburg, Texas to get married" in 1925. Mack and Jessie traveled to various towns in Texas much of the time during their marriage which produced three children: Karl Owen Stevenson (who died as an infant); Floyd Mack Stevenson, and Mary Fay Stevenson Clark. Mack Stevenson died in 1937, leaving his widow with two small children and little or no means of support. Lizzie refused to let Jessie Ann return home, saying "you made your bed (married without my approval), now you must lie in it." Jessie Ann was then forced to live and raise her two children in extremely difficult financial circumstances (including living for a period of time in a tent), mostly surviving by doing domestic labor. In 1940, when her children were seven and eight years old, she married Homer Pulliam, and thereafter lived for some years in Uvalde, Texas. Her nieces "loved Aunt Jessie", whose personality apparently was closer to that of her father, John T., than to her mother, Lizzie. She is remembered as always loving to do fun things and going on picnics.
John M. Neely was the next child of John T. and Lizzie. He was born in Sulphur Springs during the WW I years in 1915, and was only three years old when his father died in 1918, and so had little in the way of memories to later relate to his own children, Patricia, Nancy Sue, and Karan. John M. married Julia Marguerite Elliot in Dallas in 1936, and then began to work for his older brother, Bubba, in the used furniture business in Dallas. In about 1937, he worked on the construction of a Dallas Power and Light generating plant, making between 50 cents and a dollar per day. He got the job by putting rocks in his pockets before he was weighed, as the company wanted heavier men to use a jack hammer. Their two older daughters, Patricia and Nancy, were born in Dallas. He applied for the Post Office and was accepted in Dallas and later transferred to Mount Vernon. John M. then enlisted in the Army Air Corps (early in WW II), and was assigned to Greenville, Texas for basic training. The family lived at the country club there where Maguerite ran the clubhouse. It was while living in Greenville that Nancy and Patricia started to school. John was transferred out of Greenville to go overseas but was first sent to Utah for ulcer surgery, the first of several during his life. Later he was sent to Guam where he stayed for the duration. Coincidentally, his younger brother, Francis, (who was in the Marines and his ship stopped at Guam) ran into him in a bar and they had a great time as they ended up in a fight there. When John had left Greenville, his wife, Marguerite, returned to Dallas to work in an aircraft factory. Nancy stayed with "other aunts" and Patricia stayed with her aunt Virginia.
After the war, John M. again worked in the post office in Mount Vernon, Texas where the third daughter, Karan, was born; Marguerite worked at the local "five and dime store". Later the family moved to Abernathy and subsequently to Morton, both in West Texas, where John M. worked with Henson relatives in, or operated his own, service stations. John M. then lived in Andrews, (West Texas also) where he was employed in the post office and later in law enforcement, rising to be police chief. At that time, the family of Claude Neely (son of Stephen Farris Neely who was a brother of John M.'s father) also lived in Andrews, and those two families of Neelys were acquainted. Some time later, the John M. family moved to Longview in East Texas where he worked in the post office, and then as a deputy sherriff. In that latter role he was held hostage by an escaped convict and seriously injured with a punctured lung at the conclusion of that episode in Louisiana, which ended his working career. John M. was known to love to fish, and to sing: "Barney Google, with those goo-goo-googly eyes".
The last child of John T. and Lizzie was named either Henry Francis Neely or Francis Henry Neely. The former version is adopted here, principally because it was so listed in the family tree prepared by his son Gerald. Like his two previous brothers and one sister, Francis (as he seems to have been called) was born in Sulphur Springs, Hopkins County, Texas. That was in July of 1918, only five months before the death of his father) in December. As related in previous paragraphs, his mother, Lizzie remarried when Francis was about four years old. From an early age (we do not know just when), this young brother of Virginia was raised in her household in Dallas. Why? We have no clear answer. One might speculate that Virginia "resented Sam Beasley" (Lizzie's new husband) to the extent that she didn't want her brother under his care. One interview resulted in a quotation from Virginia about her mother that is too derogatory to be printed here. In any case, "Virginia went back from Dallas to Sulphur Springs and got Francis to raise, off and on, until he was grown." Francis was 21 years old when his mother, after marrying for a third time (to Charles Fisher), moved permanently to New Mexico. As a young adult in the late 1930s, Francis worked in car dealerships in Dallas and Denton, Texas and later in a Buick dealership in Roswell, New Mexico. Little else is known about his subsequent life until his death in Big Sandy, Gregg County in East Texas in 1980. A fairly complete family tree has been constructed for the descendants of John T. Neely and Lizzie Henson from dates recorded (or remembered) by Nancy, Patricia, and Mary, all mentioned above and in following paragraphs, as well as from the family Bible which is now kept by Patricia. That family tree, which appears on three pages immediately following this essay, reveals that Francis was married five times and had five children by four of his wives.
Following are very brief comments about each of the grandchildren of John T. and Lizzie previously mentioned.
Mary Fay Stevenson Clark (daughter of Jessie Ann Neely Stevenson) and her husband, Wayne Clark, celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary in October of 1950, and live in retirement in Gardendale, Midland County, Texas. Mary previously lived with her mother at several places in West and South Texas, as well as in Roswell, New Mexico. While there, she had frequent opportunity to know her grandmother, Lizzie Henson, and therefore to learn interesting, but limited, bits about the early family life in Sulphur Springs. Roswell and Carlsbad are not very far apart, and Mary well remembers her grandmother's recounting the facts of John T.'s serving the term "in the pen" for his brother Will many years previously in Alabama. Mary did Lizzie's hair from time to time. Mary and Wayne have lived for many years in Odessa, and Midland, Texas. The have two sons, Michael Wayne, and Russell Don, and a daughter Terri Lynn. There are a total of seven grandchildren. Mary has been visited several times and has been a major source of information about this Neely branch.
Patricia Ann Neely Vaughn, the oldest daughter of John M. Neely, lives in the East Texas town of Marshall, and continues to work part time as a legal secretary. She had four sons (the first of whom died in 1977) and one daughter, who altogether have produced 14 grandchildren. Her children's names are: Barry Neal Young, Kristi Sue Young, Richard Lee Gibson, Jerrald Kent Vaughn, and Kenneth Wade Vaughn. She was visited in Marshall in April of this year and has also supplied valuable memories for this report.
Nancy Sue Neely Ray is the second daughter of John M. She and her husband, Wayne Raymond Ray live in the panhandle of Texas at Hale Center, raising their two grandchildren. Nancy has four children who are: Lisa Jeanne Ray, Jon Clar Underwood, Nicole Leann Underwood, and Paul Garrett Underwood. She has seven grandchildren. As her parents, John M. and Marguerite declined in advanced age, Nancy moved from Odessa, Texas to their home in Longview in East Texas, where she cared for them until they both died within a few months of each other in 1998. Nancy has been visited several times and has recounted numerous details about the John T. Neely branch.
Gerald Lewis "Jess" Neely, mentioned previously, was born in Dallas. In high school in Dallas, he was the star halfback on the football team. He entered college at Texas Tech in Lubbock where he also excelled as an athlete. Later, he completed his education at the University of Texas in Austin graduating with an electrical engineering degree. Tributes to his character, personality and competence are far too many to include here, but short quotations give a sense of the kind of man he was. "Jess demonstrated his effectiveness as an engineer, marketeer, program manager, mentor, and leader of teams over a period of almost four decades at what once was Tracor and now BEA Systems. During all of that time, Jess was a gentleman and a good friend." "He had an outgoing nature, friendly manner, positive attitude, and extraordinary generosity...." "....one of the founding fathers in the Pop Warner Football League and Little League Baseball organizations." "... avid sailor, continual reader and gifted computer genius."
Jess had three sons and one daughter and three grandchildren. They are listed in the family tree which follows. Five additional grandchildren of John T. and Lizzie are known to be living in Texas, but have not yet been contacted. They are: Karan Elizabeth Neely Pearcy, daughter of John M., living in Houston; Bruce Dawson Neely Vincent, son of Henry Francis; Gary Sanders Neely, son of Henry Francis; Franci Jean Neely Crane, daughter of Henry Francis, living in Houston; Bridget Anette Neely Monthly, living in Houston.
Family Photograph (waiting to be upload)
This picture comes from descendants of John T. and is therefore assumed to be of family members. Following is our best (though subject to objection) guess as to whom some of the members might be. The woman on the right holding the smallest baby most likely is "Lizzie". If the baby she holds is Jack Lindley Jr., born December 13, 1918, 4 days after the death of his grandfather, John T. Neely, the picture was made in early 1919. Using that as a working hypothesis and knowing the ages at that time of Lizzie and John T.'s children, we guess that in the back row, left to right, we see W.N. "Bubba" Neely, unknown teenage girl, Guy Bowden (Eron Carolyn's husband ), and Eron Carolyn. The younger woman next to Lizzie may be her oldest daughter, Hattie Virginia, holding Lizzie's last child, Henry Francis Neely who was born July 11, 1918. We then may guess that the boy in left front is John M. Neely (age 4 1/2) next to Hattie Virginia's husband Jack Lindley, and front center is Jessie Ann Neely (age 9 1/2).