"To Ms. Emely Chaney . . . Poke County, Texas": A Letter from David M. Chaney to his Daughter

A continuing series drawn largely from Laura Powers Marbut and Sarah Powers Thielbar's book David M. Chaney, , 1809-1859, Allied Families and Descendants. The book has long been out of print, having been published in 1971 by Heritage Papers of Danielsville, Georgia.

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One of the real joy of family research is the discovery of the unexpected. Such a surprise was ours when we received a photostatic copy of a letter written by David Madison Chaney to his daughter Emely Whitehead after she had gone to Texas to make her home.

(Marbut & Thielbar, pg 13)

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The letter in question, which is relayed below in its entirety as taken from the book by Marbut & Thielbar, was at the time of the publication of their book in 1971 in the possession of Emily's granddaughter Alma Vann Whitehead Lusk of Mobile, Alabama.

The letter was addressed to Mrs. Emely Whitehead, Mrs. Emely Chaney, Peach Tree Valley, Poke County, Texas.

Marbut and Thielbar insist that some parts of the letter, even by that time, were undecipherable and that some other parts were condensed when they typed it for publication for the book. The parts summarized involved court cases and lawsuits which they had no background on and no final decisions were rendered in their regard. Other sections, the ones they included and could read, provided an intimate look into the home from which Emily came and of that which David Madison Chaney still lived and managed.

Part of the letter (part will be relayed in the next posting), as given by Marbut and Thielbar, is as follows:

East Feliciana, Louisiana

Bluff Creek

July 5th, 1857

John and Emely

Dear Children:

Your letter of the 24th of May is before me. So long a time and rite glad I am to hear from you, indeed. I have been anxiously awaiting a letter from you ever since you left and although you speak of having written several times, yet this is the first word that I have heard from you - according to promise you were to write as soon as you got home and then we were to keep a correspondence. I have been wishing to know how you got along on your travel. You have failed to say a single word on that subject. I am proud to learn that Emely is satisfied - of your good health and of your prospects for a good crop. The tendor of your regard toward us are most kindly appreciated . . .

Reading between the lines, as per me, John and Emily were to write immediately after their arrival in Texas, and they were to let David know of how they fared during the trip. After that, they were to keep up a steady correspondence. It does appear, that David did not think they had kept up their part of the bargain.

It goes without saying that in 1857 the postal service was anything but unreliable. It also should be pointed out that John and Emily's trip to Texas was far from smooth. At one point, Emily and an old slave man, named Daddy Lou, chased robbers away with boiling hot water when they attacked the wagon train in no-man's land. During the trip, Emily wore about fifteen hundred gold dollars around her waist. She also had gold bricks in the bed of the wagon along with other things from home. (See John and Emily: Of Legends and Crepe Myrtles.)

While this was the first letter David received, it was not the first they had written. Nonetheless, David is a bit piqued that he had not received a letter previously.

Marbut and Thielbar relate that David follows with three long paragraphs regarding the settlement of estates for the Nesom family and the Cobb family. David, along with a brother and a sister, were co-defendants with him in the suit. Margaret Nesom was David's first wife and Emily's mother, but I am unsure how the Cobb family comes into the picture, nor what either of those families would have to do with siblings of David.

The letter then continues:

Marriages come before deaths always - I have celebrated several since you left - one pair 13 1/2 to 17 and at the same hour 74 to 77 a good old age. I tell you I never held a service in my life like it. Like performing a funeral service.

On the 25th ult. [of last month] I celebrated a marriage between John McMichael and Mary E. Bankston of Livingston Parish. Emely knows her. There was a great many people and a big wedding. Deaths -- first Mr. Mills of Clinton was drowned near your shore, Galveston - Old Mrs. Offutt after a short illness - Abby Montgomery after an illness of 23 days, and several deaths near Clinton with flux and several others that we have heard of. After all, the neighbors seem to be getting along quietly, considering.

Flux and bloody flux, another name for dysentery, was a severe gastrointestinal infection primarily caused by bacterial (like Shigella) or parasitic (like Entamoeba histolytica) contamination of food and water, often due to poor sanitation. It frequently occurred in epidemics within crowded conditions such as military camps or on ships where hygiene was poor and disease could spread rapidly through fecal-oral routes. Symptoms included severe abdominal cramps, fever, nausea, vomiting, and most notably, profuse diarrhea often containing blood and mucus.

Survival rates for flux were grim, especially for young children, the elderly, or those already weakened. Before modern medicine, dehydration was a major killer. Historically, treatments were ineffective and sometimes harmful, including bloodletting and questionable herbal remedies. The understanding of germ theory eventually led to better sanitation and effective treatments, making flux far less common today and certainly not as lethal

As for the marriage David performed between the 74 and 77 year old couple - obviously David thought it was pointless at their age.

Nonetheless, death is no respecter of persons or age - as David was to find out all too soon.

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A life-long educator and writer, Donna has always had stories in her head. When they were not swirling and gnawing, she had her head in a history book - both fiction and non-fiction. While in junior college, her grandfather gave her a family notebook with McQueen documents and family group sheets. Thus, her love of genealogy was born, and she has not stopped hunting down all the ancestors she can. She graduated from Texas A & M University with a teaching degree, and has since published five historical novels based on her family history, five books on her genealogy, and a few smallish books. Donna teaches middle-school English Language Arts and tutors privately. She dreams of life in a log cabin the woods, even as she is addicted to antique and thrift shopping.

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