This research data and story is presented to my descendants so each will know where they come from and to some extend how they got here. Also, to anyone interested in these families or researchers just looking for connections to their lineage.
Our ancestors on both mother and father's side sailed from Belfast, Ireland to South Carolina. They may have originated in Scotland and went to Ireland sometime before 1800.
Our parental lineage, ggg grandfather, James McCulley was born in Ireland about 1802. He left Ireland and arrived in Charleston, SC on April 19, 1820. He married Amy Smith and lived in Fairfield Co., SC until around 1831. Stephen and David W. McCulley were born there in 1828 and 1830 respectively. In about 1831 the family moved to Georgia where Susan was born in 1832. After 3 years in Georgia they moved to Alabama still looking for something or someplace to settle. Here, John, our gg grandfather, was born about 1835. John married Martha in Tuscaloosa Co., Alabama and their first son, William, was born in 1852. In about 1866 the family moved further west to northeast Arkansas around the Jonesboro area. By this time James had died in Alabama. This was shortly after the Civil War so all three sons were probably in the war and going back to Alabama afterward. There was nothing left for them so they pulled up stakes and went to Arkansas where the war was not quite so devastatiing. They were share croppers so stayed in the Mississippi Delta area where cotton was the major crop which was in northeast Arkansas. It seems this was a good place because the McCulley's stayed here for some 70 years. The family probably worked to clear the land because in 1867 that area was mostly timber consisting of oak, hickory, sweet gum, elm and some cottonwood trees.. After clearing enough land they planted cotton and corn.
John and Martha had 5 children in Alabama before going to Arkansas. Their first born son, William, married Exeline Bridges in 1877. From this union 5 boys and 2 girls were born between 1878 and 1891. William and Exeline's first born son was Alonzo, my grandfather. Alonzo married Leanna Steele in March 1904. In December that year my father, John Cecil McCulley was born in Harrisburg, Poinsett Co., Arkansas. Alonzo and Leanna also produced two daughters, Irene and Lucille McCulley. Alonzo died soon after Lucille was born and Leanna later married David A. Hedgepath and they had 3 children.
John Cecil first married Rosa Lee Partain on October 11, 1925 in Harrisburg, Poinsett Co., Arkansas. Rosa Lee died in childbirth and it has not been proven if the child died at the same time. We continue to search for this child in the event it did live. On June 4, 1927 also in Poinsett Co., Arkansas, John Cecil married Eleanor Wilcox. They produced one son, Wallace P. McCulley, born June 29, 1928. However, John Cecil was unaware of this child because he and Eleanor had separated before his birth. John had told me that he had another son but did not know his name or where he was. After 15 years of searching, which started in 1977, we found the family of Wallace in Russleville, Arkansas. Wallace had died in 1981, only 4 years after we began searching for him.
On September 29, 1930, John Cecil McCulley married Ida Leona Robertson. John and Leona had me and three daughters in Arkansas before moving to Catron Missouri where 6 more children were born. Catron is about 50 miles north of where we lived in Arkansas. We lived in this area until about 1951 when the family began to go their separate way.
John Cecil died in July 1946 from a brain hemorrhage (called a stroke in those days). After his death, supporting this large family became very difficult for Leona. The youngest, Patricia Kay, was born in March 1947 which brought the total number of children at this time to 9 ranging in age from 15 to 0. This situation was apparently too much for Leona to handle because she started hanging out with a guy who was an itinerant and drunk. In a few months she left family in care of me and my younger sisters. In the spring of 1949, the welfare department took the two youngest children, John Cecil Jr. and Patricia Kay and placed them in adoption homes. John Cecil was taken to Tennessee by "Buck" Oliver and his wife. Patricia Kay went with David Barton and his wife in Catron, Missouri.
When the adoption happened, I decided to join the Air Force, as opposed to being a foot soldier, because the Korean Was was starting and the draft had begun. My sisters, Mary, Dalphine and Betty took care of the three younger girls until they went on their own.
After spending four years in the Air Force and marrying Delores Waltman in 1953, I went back to Missouri with my wife and first child, Sherry, born in September 1954. I enrolled in pre-engineering at Southeast Missouri State. After two years, I transferred to Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy in Rolla graduating in 1958. Our second daughter, Patricia, was born there in December 1957. After graduation, I took a job at China Lake, California where we moved. After 5 years we moved to the Los Angeles area and stayed until present. Two more daughters were born in California, Susan, born April 1963 and Colleen, born November 1967.
In December 1978 Delores and I divorced and in late 1977 I met B. Esther Oviedo. Esther and I were married in 1980 and it was she who introduced me to this hobby of genealogy. Through the years, we generated data for this web site. |
