Where I Came From
We are all curious about our ancestors, where we came from, how we got here...
Like anyone else, I was curious so I asked my parents, grandparents, aunts,
uncles etc. and got pieces of information from everyone. I have never done any
formal lineage research so what I write here cannot be proven or established
completely but I am not so much interested in that as the impressions, memories
and tales told to me and passed down to me. Through that I have put together
this narrative for my own descendants in an effort to make them a bit more
aware of where they came from.
With that in mind (and with a nod to members of my family who have done
research and made the effort to establish truth) I begin to relate to you the
story that was told to me by those who came before me.
Back in the late 1800's in an area near Sparta, North Carolina, a man named
Marion Sanders lived with his family. He had three sons and a daughter. His
eldest son and daughter were twins.
The family lived there for a long time, the sons became grown or at least in
their late teens and farmed the land. It has been hinted that they were
"moonshiners" but of course, I have no way to confirm or deny that.
Several years ago, my wife’s parents purchased a barn on a piece of land in
Sparta. They converted the barn int o a cabin and I visited them there. My
father heard about it and gave me a contact that he had fro one of the
relatives I still had in the area. His mane was Jimmy and his mother was my
Great Grandfather’s twin sister. I met with him and actually very near the
cabin of my in-laws, he took me to what he said was the original Sanders home
site. All that was left were the stone foundations but I was able to stand in
the area where they lived and felt a connection back all those generations to them
It was about the time that the oldest son, Alfred (my Great Grandfather) had
turned 19 that his father got in to some kind of an argument or altercation
with the local Sheriff and his deputies.
Some have said that it was related
to moonshining but again, I can't say. In any case, he was shot and killed by
the Sheriff and his Deputies. In order to understand what happened next, one
needs to understand the times and the region. Mountain Justice is a term that I
have heard for some time and it simply means that you avenge your family if one
has been wronged or (in this case) killed. Added to that, I am sure that the
sons were crushed by the killing of their father and greatly angered.
Personally, I think they made a very serious mistake and one that they would
regret for the rest of their lives.
In retaliation, they killed the sheriff in a gunfight. Just who actually pulled
the trigger or if the gunfight involved others (such as Deputies) was never
made clear to me (it all happened so long ago) but the end result was the same,
the Sheriff was dead.
Local law enforcement would come after them as soon as the crime was discovered
so they decided to leave North Carolina never to return. I can imagine the
tearful and heart wrenching goodbye to a Mother whom had just lost her husband
and now her three sons, all in the span of a few days. Also, the heartbreak of
the sister who had lost her father and now her brothers (one of whom was her
twin) must have been unbearable. It was I am sure a terrible and anguishing
experience for everyone involved, including (I'm sure) the family of the
Sheriff.
So under cover of darkness, they left the only home they had ever known and set
out on foot heading northwest. They planned on getting as far away (as quickly)
as possible.
I have no details about their trek across country. I am sure that it was
extremely difficult and often harrowing (travel in those days was far different
from what we enjoy today) but after several months, they ended up in Oregon
where they spent 2 years as lumberjacks. After two years, John, (the youngest)
elected to stay in Oregon where his descendants (I suppose) reside today. From
that day as far as I know, we have never had any contact with his family (if he
had one).
Will and Alfred traveled to Texas. Again, the details of that trip are unknown
to me. I have never heard any discussion related to the actual travels, mostly I
have heard about what happened at destinations they reached.
In Texas, they got jobs as cowboys
and worked driving cattle to market off the plains for 2-4 years. The exact
time is unknown to me. Will elected to stay in Texas where he met a woman and
fell in love with her. Some have said that the woman was married some say not. the truth cannot be determined. It is said however that the woman became pregnant wiht Will's child and the child born fromt hat was named Bonnie.
Will had a reputation apparently for having a very bad temper backed up by a
tendency to react violently if he felt he was "crossed" or wronged.
It may well be that he was actually the one who killed the sheriff, no one
knows for sure. With that in mind, it is not all that surprising that several years
later he was shot in a gunfight. This injury resulted in his legs being
paralyzed.
Will remained in Texas and became a bricklayer. Alfred (my Great Grandfather) traveled northeast.
He was, I'm sure, homesick for the mountains of North Carolina where he had
been born and after all these years, felt somewhat safe in returning to the
region if not to his beloved North Carolina. He ended up in a valley in the
Virginia Mountains where he used the monies he had saved through the jobs he
and his brothers had worked at to buy 100 acres. It became a beautiful farm and
apple producing business. My father has told me that he and his grandfather
planted more than 600 apple trees. I have very early memories of the wonderful
smell of apples in his large apple house.
After Will was crippled in Texas, in 1914, he managed to get to Virginia where Alfred
cared for him for the rest of his life. He left the woman in Texas and his
daughter, Bonnie. He never returned to Texas and never saw his wife again to my
knowledge. She may have died but I have no information on her. He did however,
some say, see his daughter again. Therein lies a somewhat incredulous story.
I was with my father visiting my great Aunt in Roswell, Georgia (a small town
near Atlanta) in my 20's. We were in an area where there were shops and people milling
about when we were approached by a very old man.
"Say, aren't you Alfred Sanders' grandson?" he said to my father.
"Why, yes, I am”, my father responded. There ensued a conversation between
the two men that I was privy to standing next to my father. The man explained
that he had been a lifelong resident of the area where my great grandfather
lived and was friends with my great grandfather. He had moved to Atlanta with
his children in his declining years to be close to them and for them to assist
in his care. He began telling us stories of his days with my great grandfather
and we were enjoying the tales. Suddenly he stopped and became quite serious.
"There is one story that you may not know of." he said. "I was
at Bea Addison's store in the hurricane (a store that was well known in the
area and a neighborhood near my great grandfather's farm) on a cold morning in
December of 1932. We were all standing outside warming ourselves over a fire
someone had built and just talking about things. Alfred was there and a young
woman was with him. She did not say anything, just stood there warming her
hands. After a bit, a car pulled up and she and Alfred walked to the car. She
got in and the car pulled away. Alfred came back the fire and I asked him who
the woman was. He explained that it was his niece, Bonnie who had come to visit
his brother Will, her father.” He went on to say, “I heard later on that she went by the name Bonnie Parker and was the woman we all heard about a couple years
later who was killed by the law for robbing banks!"
The only other thing I ever heard related to this was from a great uncle who
told me that when the newspaper that had the story about Bonnie and Clyde being
killed in it was given to Uncle Will. He looked at it for a long moment and
then put it under his mattress. No one ever spoke of it after that.
Was the Bonnie that was Will's daughter the infamous bonnie Parker? I can't be
sure. I've never seen any records showing who her father was but it makes a
good story, anyway.