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Rachel Susan Jernigan was the daughter of William Watkins Jernigan (see Issue eight, April 1994, Jernigan Connection Newsletter) and Sarah Jane Downs. She was born 15 Jun 1860 in Little Rock, Arkansas and married Samuel "Sam" Patton Stockton on 28 Nov 1877 in Greenfield, Dade, Missouri. Rachel and Sam had eight children; James Lee Arthur (1879-1945), William Luther (1881-1957), Claude Emmitt (1883-1958), Lewis Emerson (1885-1964), Lula Mae (1887-1970), Elvis (1889-1969), Loda Wan (1891-1965), and Lelia (1893-1976).
Sam and Rachel left Missouri for the Indian Territory sometime after the birth of Loda in 1891 and remained there near Fayil until after July of 1895 when Lelia was born. The following letter was sent to Rachel by William Watkins Jernigan, her father:
Ponce deLeon Mo July 16th 1895
R.S. & S.P. Stockton Fayil IT Dear children this leaves us well. Hope you are all the same. Hope you are the same. Hope you will pardon me for not writing sooner. We was going to make a trip to see Tom & Mittie & then write you and we never got off to see them until last Saturday & we got back last night. They are all well except Mitties eyes they are very week. Tom has a good crop and is gitting along very well & he has bought 80 acres of good land. They paid cash for there land and got a warantee deeds to it & they have got a good plase sure. I have got a good crop but some of my corn is late we are not dun laying by yet. But my corn is looking fine. We have a fine garden & potato & corn patches & we got a letter from Alice last week but she never said a word about you in the letter nor said a word about how they was gitting along. She said she was married the 28 of May.
I expect to move to Tany County this fall I have ingaged me a farm thare to move to with 75 acres of cleared land with good houses, good barn & good orchard and plenty of water I aim to sow 20 acres in wheat this fall. Your ma likes Tany county the best kind. Her & me went down in the buggy.Well, Susan your Ma has got a fine lot of chickens & ducks this spring. We are looking for Grant & Fannie this week. They said
(See Rachel on page 5)
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