In my previous post, I expressed my appreciation for a newfound cousin in Ancestry who made me aware that I my late Aunt Mazie in Foreman, Arkansas had written  a book called So Now, We Wear the Green. 
I now have something to offer in exchange to my new correspondent, JB, and to others who might come along with interest in the families who took over lands in the southwest corner of Arkansas, including but not limited to Little River and Sevier counties. 

Finding The Pulpit and The Pew
In recent months, I have tried to consolidate the  artifacts that family members, primarily my mother, have handed down to me. More than 25 years ago, my father made a photocopy of a self-published text called The Pulpit and The Pew. My father died in 1993 so I cannot ask him to confirm this. The pages that I found in among my mother's artifacts, were looseleaf photocopies bound by two holes at the top with a shoelace. This is how my father typically archived things that were important to him. 

Inscribed to Malinda Cannon
I only met my great aunt Mary Zerelda one time when I was too young and shy to build much rapport with her. However, my older cousin Malinda grew up a short distance from my grandfather George Edward and she enjoyed traveling with him to see his relatives in Foreman. It appears that my father borrowed Malinda's copy of this book given and inscribed to her by our aunt Mazie.  I hope to discover that one of my cousins has a copy of the larger text So Now, We Wear the Green.

I'm surely the one to blame that I hadn't known more until now. I only met my Aunt Mazie once at the age of about eleven when I was too young and shy to really build a lasting rapport.  And like my grandparents, my parents, my siblings, and my aunts and uncles, I moved away from my hometown as a young adult.  Now that my opportunity to know my aunt is long gone, I'm starting to ask my near cousins about the book that JB has introduced me to recently. It's called "So Now We Wear the Green" with more than 200 pages of stories, documented connections, and speculations to connect individuals. I'm in my early retirement years and I've recently lost the last near relative of my father's generation. So it is truly bittersweet to realize in equal measure that I am sad to arrive so late to my family's stories and that I am so happy to connect with related and generous researchers like JB.

My Lemons tree is blooming at the start of summer 2019. Thank you JB for the leads, I'm delighted by the number of names and documents that now extend my research diversion and that remind me of my tenacious aunt. Look for my documents in the next blog entry. 

In my prior post, I introduced an incomplete scan of a hand-drawn family tree. The detailed representation was penned by Rosemary and was based on confident recollections passed on by Mary Zerelda Cannon her father's sister, known as Aunt Mazie. This post digs into one section of the larger tree to illustrate the combination of various imperfections and helpful opportunities this tree offers to my research on my father's Cannon side.

As shown by a check mark in the image above, records have been found for William and Phoeby. From the pension application we know that Phoeby was severely afflicted and living at home with her widowed mother. She had no known children. Other than common variations in the spelling of her name, there is really nothing to add or alter about her small branch.

With the breadth of records that are now readily accessible in digital formats, this tree begs to be expanded by many new branches. As noted already, John Cannon would replace Louis in Mazie's tree. His wife Martha Moore and their six children were not known well enough to be part of this tree. William is shown correctly above but without his wife, Lucy Ward, and their nine additions to the grandchildren of Ellis and Elizabeth.  His sister Susanna also married a Ward and they added seven more grandchildren. Winnifred is also among these missing siblings; she and her husband John Vandiver would add nine more branches. The most valuable among the added branches would show Elijah Cannon (b. 1782) who married Darcus (Dorcas) Bowen and had eleven children. Adding their branch would help distinguish his records from those of his nephew, Elijah Cannon (b. 1796) born only 15 years later to Elijah's older brother Lewis Cannon (b. 1775).

Ellis Cannon is the starting point for a very helpful tree of his descendants. At each generation of descendants of Reverend Ellis Cannon, there continue to be both accurate, inaccurate, and omitted names. As with any family history that has been passed on from oral retellings, it remains an extraordinary inheritance especially with its imperfections.

This hand-drawn tree is a family research treasure map. I've already mined it repeatedly to initiate record searches that confirm and expand on the many household nodes it suggests. It has led the way to primary source documents such as US Census records. Recently I've returned to the tree for a closer look. This time, it promises to offer far more than confirmation of existing records. It may help me bridge from a dead end  in our Rainwater branch to a dead end another researcher's Rainwater branch to help reunite names from the original household. More about that in the next post, Leaping into the Rainwaters.

Updated with new text and images on 24 Feb 2019

​The image below comes from two generations of reproduction. Although I have now photographed the most complete version of the tree that I have, I do not have the original. The copy that I photographed below was created from the original by my father using a Xerox machine in letter-size sections and carefully taped together. It was then folded up and stored in a file folder for many years.

I have been told that the original poster was created by my father's sister, Rosemary Cannon  for a school project. This was likely done when she was in high school in the mid- to late-1950s. She was living in New Mexico and probably consulted by phone with Aunt Mazie (Mary Zerelda Cannon) in Arkansas.

My father and his sister Rosemary have died. Only their brother, my Uncle Jim and their first cousin, Sarah Cannon, are still living and  may be able to offer more details about the poster. I'm hoping to see Sarah and find that she has the original poster from Rosemary for me to photograph.

The one certainty I have is that Aunt Mazie was always certain of her facts, even the ones that were incorrect.  A close transcription of the text in the tree is organized in nested lists below. I've tried to capture the exact lettering without any corrections. I'll save corrections for later posts.