Willie A Parrish

When Willie A. Parrish was born on December 13, 1889, in Tennessee, her father, William, was 37 and her mother, Jennie, was 40. She had two brothers (Benjamin Herbert and Daniel Wilkes) and three sisters (Amanda M, Mary Tom, and Nancy Ruth) with her being the youngest of the six.  Mary Tom was my grandmother on my father's side which makes Willie A my grand aunt.  Willie had a short life and is on only one document that I can find.

The folklore of why this family of Parrishs left Tennessee has to do with false accusations of adultery and secret assignations involving her parents.  The damages to their trust and emotions was done so Willie's parents packed up and headed to Texas.  I do not have any dates for this story but the Texas Parrishs never went back to visit the Tennessee family. With the destruction of the 1890 census by fire there is no way of telling where Willie's father and mother, William and Jennie, took everyone.  There is a 1891 land grant in Arkansas of a William Parrish in Benton, AR; but, is this the correct William?  With land grants there are no ages or birth years, and this William Parrish did not use a middle name or initial. In Texas, our William rents his land, which means this is the wrong William or something happened, again, that sent the family further west with the loss of property and means.

In 1900, Willie A. Parish was 10 years old and lived  with her father, mother, 2 brothers, and 3 sisters.  The family is in Texas in the census district for the combined towns of Brookston and Ambia in Lamar County which borders Oklahoma across the Red River.  This census was taken in June and shows that the family rents a farm being worked by her father and older brother, Herbert.  Willie, Daniel and Nancy attended 4 months of school that year while Amanda and Mary Tom only attended for 3 months.  Perhaps this is a clue as to the family's arrival in this county, specifically, if not in Texas, generally.  Her parents have been married only once, to each other, for 25 years.  Her mother has had 7 children but only the 6 are sill living.

Having just turned 15, she died as a teenager on January 18, 1905, in Paris, Texas, and was buried there in the Pleasant Hill Cemetery.  The US Census had stopped the mortality schedules in 1890 and Texas had not required death certificates until 1906.  There is no record of any epidemics or attacks (Oklahoma was still Indian territory) at that time for Lamar County so there's no way of saying what contributed to her death.  If I had to hazard a guess, since it is in the winter time perhaps she caught an infection, which was common,such as bronchopheumonia, that she couldn't shake off.

She lived during some interesting times though - the Spanish-America War in 1898; President William McKinley was assassinated in New York on September 6, 1901; and the Wright Brothers had taken the first flight in North Carolina on September 17, 1903.  I hope word of the Wright brothers had reached her small farm in Texas; and, she had the chance to think about the amazement of airplanes and travel by air.

There's nothing more to say, but I wanted her story to be told.  Hopefully, I will find further records or stories in the future and can fill in her life.