39 Great Grandfather, George, the Gambler

George Neal, My maternal Great Grandfather

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 39 – September 24, 2025

Prompt: Disappeared (and Found)

DNA matches uncovered a new branch in my maternal grandmother’s family tree—one that led to a man who seemed to live by chance and disappear by choice. My great-grandfather, George Neal, was born in Illinois in 1864 and grew up in Sycamore, a rural community in Montgomery County, Kansas.

George Neal, photo from the collection of Betty Neal McBride Curran, shared by her daughter Shelley McBride.

In 1881, according to the South Kansas Tribune, George “went to The Nation,” referring to the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory. Yet by the 1885 Kansas State Census, he had reappeared in Sycamore with his wife, Fannie Whiteman, and their two-month-old baby, Laura Belle.

By 1890, George was back in Indian Territory—his son Thomas Andrew Neal was born near Standpipe Hill in what is now Tulsa, according to Thomas’s granddaughter, Maria Neal Scott. Fannie died there in 1892.

When the 1900 census was taken, Laura Belle and Thomas Andrew were living with their mother’s sister and brother-in-law. George is missing from that census, but evidence suggests he remained in the Tulsa area, a widower who crossed paths with my great-grandmother, Lucendy Crull Coon Boone, herself twice widowed. Their connection resulted in the birth of my grandmother, Elizabeth Moore, and her twin brother Bill, in 1904.

Life in early Tulsa could be rough-and-tumble, and George Neal sounds like just the type of man my great-grandmother was attracted to—remembering her second husband, Lew Boone, who was shot following a horse race.

On November 13, 1906, both the Tulsa Tribune and the Tulsa Daily Democrat reported that four gamblers had been arrested. Two—including George Neal—were charged with operating a gambling house and fined $24.40 each; the other two men, fined $14.40, had simply been gambling.

Image: Tulsa Daily Democrat, November 13, 1906 — “Four Gamblers Arrested.”

The brief article that first placed George Neal in Tulsa’s early days, living by his wits and a roll of the dice.

 By 1910, George reappears in the census for Black Dog Township, Osage County, Oklahoma, about nine miles north of what is now Pogue Airport near Sand Springs. He was 47, widowed, living alone, and supporting himself as a well digger.

For years, I believed that 1910 census entry was the last trace of George Neal—that he had disappeared, at least on paper. An unsourced note on my Ancestry profile listed his death in Wekiwa (another small community near Sand Springs) in either 1908 or 1910. I couldn’t remember where that information originated—perhaps from his granddaughter Maria, or his great-grandniece Shelley McBride, who helped me figure out the DNA connection. By the way, Shelley’s mother, Betty Neal Curran, told us that George was known to have had other children. I even contacted Woodlawn Cemetery in Sand Springs to ask if George was buried there. He wasn’t.

But while creating George’s timeline for this very post, I ran another search on Newspapers.com—and found him again.

Two local papers carried the same article: the Tulsa Tribune on Tuesday, June 14, 1910, and the Tulsa Weekly Democrat on Thursday, June 16, 1910.

Transcript of the 1910 Article

George Neal

The body of George Neal, aged 50 years, who was found dead in a tent about two miles southeast of Wekiwa, was brought to Tulsa yesterday and is being held at the Mowbray Undertaking Parlors awaiting messages from his daughter Mrs. Laura Boyce of Fairfax, Okla., and his two sons and brother at Shawnee, Okla. ( The papers erred—George had only one son, and two brothers in Shawnee.)

Tulsa Tribune, June 14, 1910 - Reporting the death of George Neal. 

His death came just two weeks after my grandmother, her twin brother Bill, and sister Anna were taken to the Sand Springs Home to be cared for. Their mother, Lucendy, was living at 111 S. Phoenix, Tulsa.

For more than a century, George Neal had disappeared from the family’s story, his name unknown to us. But now, through DNA evidence and old newspaper pages, he has been found again.

I have not yet discovered the burial location for either George or Fannie.  Tulsa Genealogy Society Funeral Home Index lists George Neal, death date June 11, 1910, burial unknown, in Volume 8, covering several early Tulsa undertakers, including Winterringer Funeral Home—the one active at the time of his death. 

 

Closing Reflection

George Neal lived a life that balanced on the edge of fortune—a gambler in cards and in circumstance. He wagered on new beginnings, from Kansas to the Cherokee Nation, and ultimately disappeared from the records, leaving his story to fade into silence.

It’s no wonder, perhaps, that my great-grandmother Lucendy was drawn to him. Like her second husband, Lew Boone, who met his end after a horse race, George moved through a world of risk and restless energy. Both men lived boldly and died suddenly, leaving behind more questions than answers.

Yet more than a century later, George, the gambler, was found again. Through DNA, old newspapers, and a bit of genealogical luck, his story came full circle—reminding me that the ones who disappear often leave the richest trails for us to follow.