My Oft-Married Ancestor

#52ancestors No. 23 

June 4-10 

Going to the Chapel 

My Oft-Married Ancestor

 By Mya Vanderpool Gormley © 2018 

J. H. Kimbro (top, with whip) and his cotton-picking helpers

 -- mostly his children and grandchildren. ca 1905 Eufaula, I. T.

Great-grandpa Jefferson Hezekiah (what a mouthful) Kimbro’s many trips to the wedding chapel, or more correctly, to the county courthouses, created a puzzle for a couple of young family historians — way back when. 

My sis and I, long before the 1900 U.S. census was available, let alone online, began our quest to figure out which children belonged to which wife of our great-grandpa. We weren’t even sure how many times he had been married. 

She, being older, recalled more family stories passed down via our maternal grandmother — a daughter of J. H. Kimbro — but the stories were so scrambled and contradictory when we began to put information on charts we finally had to throw up our hands. We were like deer caught in headlights. We had many names, dates, and places, but nothing matched, or could be verified. Our grandmother didn’t even know, for sure, in which Tennessee county she was born.

 Since she was born after the 1880 census, I was unable to find her family in that record because I did not have enough information to go on or to be able sort out the hundreds of Kimbros who lived in various counties in Tennessee. However, hoping to find great-grandpa (born 1856) in that enumeration, I made several trips to the National Archives in Seattle to scroll through microfilm. I extracted data until my fingers grew numb and my eyes crossed. 

At that time, the 1880 census did not have an every-name index. It had what was called a Soundex — a coded surname index based on the way a surname sounds rather than the way it is spelled. It had been developed by the WPA (Works Progress Administration) in the 1930s for the Social Security Administration. The latter needed to identify individuals, few of whom had birth records, who would be eligible to apply for old-age benefits, meaning those born in the 1870s; thus only households with children 10 years of age and under were included in that 1880 index. I found one couple, but the given names didn’t match what little information we had.

 “We have to have more information,” I told sis. “There are way too many Kimbros and Kimbroughs in Tennessee. 

Finally, I obtained a copy of great-grandpa’s 1926 Oklahoma death certificate and found his obituary. The informant for his death certificate was his “last” wife, and it was riddled with “unknowns.” The local newspaper carried his obituary, but it was not particularly helpful. It read: “Besides his widow, deceased leaves a brother, John Allen Kimbro, and a number of children and a number of nephews and nieces to mourn his death.” 

Sis and I knew he had a number of children, but we were not sure how many, who they were, or who their mothers were. We were spinning our wheels. Our father and aunts provided additional information, mostly from their memories, but nothing fit. Nobody was sure of the maiden name of his first wife (purportedly the mother of our maternal grandmother) though several claimed there was a Family Bible — somewhere. 

Sis went to Oklahoma to visit and vowed to search the cemeteries. She found great-grandpa’s final resting place and his stone. It also mentioned Ida, his last wife, who outlived him. She died in 1945. That didn’t help us much. The family stories claimed his other wives probably were buried in a small settlement near Eufaula. But, as our luck would have it, that graveyard had been moved when Lake Eufaula was created in the 1960s. 

Finally, we found re-interment information that had been produced by the Army Corps of Engineers for the New Mellette Cemetery — the final resting place of several Kimbros. All we had to do was figure out who they were.

 • Kimbro, Bessie ---- 15 Sep 1895

 • Kimbro, Cassa ---- 15 Mar 1896

 • Kimbro, Flora 1 Mar 1889 16 Jun 1901

 • Kimbro, Ida 8 Jul 1897 15 Aug 1897

 • Kimbro, (Infant) 8 Feb 1900 10 Feb 1900

 • Kimbro, (Infant) 30 Jun 1902 3 Jul 1902 

 • Kimbro, Lemmie 9 Feb 1892 10 Sep 1892

 • Kimbro, Lochy ---- 15 Oct 1896

 • Kimbro, Martha I. 11 Jun 1865 24 Feb 1900

 • Kimbro, R. J. 6 Mar 1881 21 Jan 1899

 • Kimbro, Tennessee D. 28 Jul 1862 11 Jul 1902

 • Kimbro, Tully ---- 5 Mar 1896 

One family story maintained that our grandmother, Mollie, and our grand-aunt Cora were daughters of J. H. Kimbro and that their mothers were sisters. We tracked down Cora’s Texas death certificate. It listed her mother as “Mattie Lee,” and revealed that Cora was born 31 August 1891 in Winnsboro, Tennessee. At last, we had a maiden name for the first two wives of J. H. Kimbro. We determined there was no Winnsboro in Tennessee but there was a Waynesboro, located in Wayne County. Armed with this information and a better timeline to pinpoint the date of the migration from Tennessee to Indian Territory, we finally began to make headway. 

We eventually (don’t ask how many years) learned that J. H. Kimbro “went to the chapel” four times: • He married first Amarintha “Celie” Lee 22 September 1875 in Wayne County, Tennessee. She died there about 1890. They had six children, including our grandmother, born in 1889.

 • He married secondly Martha E. “Mattie” Lee (sister to “Celie”) 4 December 1890 in Wayne County, Tennessee. They had three daughters, including a set of twins, one of whom did not survive). Mattie died 24 February 1900 in Indian Territory and is the Martha I. Kimbro listed in the New Mellette Cemetery record.

 • He married thirdly Lucinda Jane (her maiden name is believed to be Evans) Chastain, 11 February 1901 in Indian Territory. They had one daughter. Lucinda died 11 January 1906 in Eufaula, Creek Nation, Indian Territory. 

• He married fourthly Ida Etta Gordon-McCracken (her maiden name not determined) 16 March 1906 in Muskogee, Creek Nation, Indian Territory. They did not have any issue. She died 8 May 1945 in Henryetta, Okmulgee County, Oklahoma. 

Our oft-married great-grandpa was a fairly successful farmer and businessman, and as a result, his name frequently appeared in the local newspaper. But it was a 1913 article about him that grabbed my attention. The newspaper article says he built a home in Eufaula (Oklahoma) with the profits realized from one crop of watermelons. Well, that’s one claim to fame I haven’t seen in any other genealogies. 

I’m happy to share genealogical information, pictures and sources pertaining to my Kimbro family. It is a German line that settled in Orange County, North Carolina in the 18th century. Contact me by e-mail.