I think I remember hearing....

John Allen Perdue, my maternal great-grandfather, was born in 1854 in Alabama. Maybe. My Aunt Doll insisted that John Allen and his younger brother Joseph were orphans from France and were taken in by an older couple who did not adopt them. However, there is archival evidence that their parents lived in Alabama and the boys were born there. I have not yet been able to find a death record for John Allen. He left his wife Jennie within a couple of years of this photo which was taken around 1917. That is according to my mother who remembers her mother telling her about it. Grandma Margaret said that John Allen had a penchant for whiskey and she felt like this is what ultimately caused him to leave the family. Aunt Doll worshipped the man and would never had thought, much less stated, such a thing. And all this is hearsay anyway.
Memories are tricky. I think I remember lots of things. When searching for information on my ancestors I am relying heavily on information gathered by my mother before my grandfather died. His memory was quite good up until he died and he remembered the funniest things about people which has made the stories so much more human. But there is not nearly enough of this kind of information. When siblings have totally different memories of the same situations, it is hard to find the truth. And when you factor in that these things are all being told as recalled by my mother things get even murkier.
Pictures like this one of Grandpa John make me feel sad. Knowing that life was hard back then working in logging camps and driving cattle here and there in those hot, dense, insect-laden Wakulla forests makes me have both sympathy and admiration for him. Knowing what a harsh woman Jennie was leaves me unable to blame him for drinking and leaving. Knowing how much Doll adored him makes me angry that he bailed on them. Margaret wasn't even 3 years old, for crying out loud. But then I have to consider that John was 63 at the time of this photo. He had been married before Jennie and had two children with his first wife. The story goes that Jennie wanted John Allen from the minute she met him. But she was almost six feet tall and she'd had 5 children with her first husband John Gibson. So Jennie starved herself to get John Allen Perdue. (I can't help but think that the more things change, the more they stay the same!) No one is clear on whether Jennie waited for John Allen's first wife to die or if he left her, but Jennie ended up with her man. She knew what she wanted and did what she had to to get it. Jennie was born to pure Creek parents but was ashamed of her "color" and never admitted to being Creek herself because they were an undesirable minority. There is no discrepancy amongst the grandchildren about that part of Jennie's story. She considered herself to be white.
Anyway, I find myself wishing I had listened closer when grandma Margaret talked about the old days. I wish I had gotten this urge to know my family before I went through my selfish college days. Those were the times when all Jennie's girls were available to discuss it...and Lord knows they could discuss it. I want to know more about John Allen and Jennie and I really want to ask Jennie who her mother was. I am stuck on her side of the tree. It's like I have gotten a new book and I am really enjoying it but now I find some pages are missing.