2026 -5 A River Runs Through It

Martha ______ McCorkle, My Maternal 3rd Great Grandmother

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 5: January 29 - February 4, 2026

Prompt: A Breakthrough Moment

ChatGPT generated image of a surveyor mapping the land around the Cumberland Mountains where
"A River Runs Through It".

For years, I searched for Martha’s maiden name. Already a widow at age 38 in 1850, I'm not even sure of her husband's name. 

I tried the usual routes—records, court cases, census entries, and more than one promising theory that eventually fell apart. I followed surnames, then discarded them. I built trees, dismantled them, and rebuilt again. Like many genealogists, I kept hoping that one perfect document would finally appear and hand me the answer.

It didn’t.

What finally changed my thinking wasn’t a new record or a dramatic DNA discovery. It was the land and the river that ran through it. 

As I reviewed deeds, tax rolls, road crew assignments, agricultural schedules, and probate records, I stopped focusing on who Martha was related to and began asking a different question:

Where did she live—and who lived with her?

That shift changed everything.

The Collins River winds through Warren County, Tennessee, cutting its way along the slopes of Cumberland Mountain. As it twists and bends, it leaves behind pockets of flat ground—natural places for farms, roads, and small communities to form. Those places had names: Myers Cove, Turner’s Bend, Harrison’s Ferry.

When I began mapping records instead of just reading them, those same names kept appearing—on land entries, on road crews, in court orders, and on census pages. The same families surfaced again and again: McCorkles, Turners, Savages, Myers, Safleys, Vickers, Hennessees and Harrisons.

They weren’t just neighbors.

They were the marriage pool.

Martha and her children didn’t live in isolation. They lived in a tightly woven community shaped by river bends, mountain ridges, and the labor required to keep roads passable and farms productive. Men served together on road crews. Families buried their dead on nearby hilltops. Children married into households only a few miles away.

Once I understood that world, the DNA evidence finally had context.

I had been finding DNA clusters and trying to make them fit a name. What I needed to do instead was understand the community first, then see whether the DNA supported it. When I did that—when I placed Martha inside the physical and social landscape of Cumberland Mountain and the Collins River—the patterns made sense.

I still don’t know Martha’s maiden name.

But I now know where she stood—along the Collins River, among families who worked the same roads, farmed the same bottomlands, and buried their loved ones on the same ridges. I know why she stayed. I know why her children stayed. And I know that answers don’t always come from a single record, but from learning how people lived together in a place.

Sometimes the breakthrough isn't a name, it's the understanding the land. And the river that runs through it. 

One of these days, "she'll be comin' 'round the mountain" and she'll tell me her name. 

2026 - 4 Priscilla ____ McCorkle: A Chick of a Cluck?

 

Priscilla ______ McCorkle My Maternal 4th Great-Grandmother

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 4 January 22 - 28, 2026

Prompt: A Theory in Progress

When I began building trees for my mother’s top mystery matches on AncestryDNA, I noticed a cluster that pointed again and again to the same couple: Henry Cluck and Mary Ann (Shoemaker) Cluck of Jefferson County, Tennessee.

Because these matches fell on my mother’s paternal line, the Cluck/Shoemaker couple had to connect through either her Nolen or McCorkle ancestry.

The shared centimorgan ranges suggested the Cluck/Shoemaker couple would be my mother’s 4th great-grandparents, placing them as my 5th great-grandparents.

That narrowed the field to two women in that generation whose maiden names were unknown:

• Elizabeth ____ Nolen

• Priscilla ____ McCorkle

Either could plausibly be Cluck daughters.

To sort that out, I reviewed the shared matches. While there were a few inevitable autosomal outliers, the strongest patterns pointed toward the McCorkle side, not the Nolen side.

To keep everything organized, I assigned the cluster a colored dot and added a small “Cluck” icon to each DNA match (and to their ancestors) who descended from Henry and Mary Ann Cluck. 

From there, I shifted to locality.

Priscilla married Robert McCorkle, whose family was well rooted in Warren County, Tennessee. Priscilla gave her age as 60 in the 1850 census, placing her birth about 1790, which fits comfortably in the Cluck/Shoemaker childbearing window of roughly 1770–1795.

The Probate Puzzle

The pivotal record turned out to be the settlement of the estate of Henry Cluck, dated 1832 in Jefferson County, Tennessee. The legatees listed were:

• sons Peter, George, Henry, Adam, John, Daniel

• and two sons-in-law:

  • Thomas Walker (husband of Mary Cluck)

  • James Walker (husband of Catherine Cluck)

Notably absent were:

• Jacob Cluck (son)

• Priscilla Cluck McCorkle (daughter)

At first glance this omission seems problematic. But context matters.

Jacob was already moving into adulthood and would later establish himself in Madison County, Arkansas—but not until the 1840s, well after the estate settlement. His absence therefore likely reflects geographic distance more than estrangement.

Priscilla, meanwhile, had married and remained in Tennessee, yet was the only Tennessee-based child not named in the settlement. Her omission stands out—and in genealogy, anomalies are rarely meaningless.

Geography & Migration Behavior

Jefferson County, Tennessee was home for the Clucks. Warren County served the same function for the McCorkles.

Priscilla married Robert, raised seven children, and after Robert’s death she remained in Warren County. All seven of those children also remained in Warren County into adulthood.

That single fact may explain why Priscilla did not follow her siblings westward. In many migration studies, children move — parents rarely do.

She didn’t follow her brother Jacob to Madison County, Arkansas, as her niece (daughter of her brother Henry Jr.) did, and she didn’t return to Jefferson County where her brothers Peter and Daniel still lived.

She stayed in Warren County — because she had something to stay for.

Farm.

Daughters.

Family.

Kin.

Roots.

By 1850, Priscilla appears both on the population census and the agricultural schedule as head of household — operating a working farm with livestock and land under cultivation. With teenage daughters in the home and a growing network of McCorkle children and grandchildren nearby, the social and economic ties that anchored her in Warren County were substantial.

By contrast, the one sibling who did venture west — Jacob — was already married at the time of the settlement, and migrated to Madison County, Arkansas as the head of his own household, free to pursue inexpensive land and new opportunity. His descendants would eventually intersect with my paternal line when Louisa Monroe Cluck married Reason Dudgeon in Madison County in 1893.

Those interwoven threads are exactly what make FAN-club (Family, Associates, Neighbors) research so revealing.

Shoemakers, Quakers & Colorful Origins

Mary Ann Shoemaker came from a Pennsylvania Quaker family with roots at Abington Friends Meeting. Her ancestor George Shoemaker reportedly arrived in Philadelphia on the ship Jeffries in 1686 and established a tannery at Shoemakertown.

Whether Mary Ann remained Quaker by the time she married Henry Cluck is not yet clear, but it adds a vivid cultural layer to the story—and another research path for later.

Theory in Progress

Taken together:

✔ DNA matches

✔ shared match patterns

✔ generational fit

✔ locality

✔ probate behavior

✔ migration behavior

all converge on the same hypothesis:

 

Priscilla ____ McCorkle was very likely born Priscilla Cluck, daughter of Henry and Mary Ann (Shoemaker) Cluck.

But this remains—appropriately—a Theory in Progress.

Plan Going Forward

Next steps include:

• Continued DNA match analysis

• Shoemaker & Cluck probate expansion

• Jefferson County court minutes

• Warren County land & tax records

• McCorkle FAN-club mapping

• Migration and wagon corridor reconstruction

• Quaker and Pennsylvania lines via Abington MM records

• Final GPS write-up once evidence is exhaustive

Conclusion

Taken together — the DNA matches, the absence in the estate settlement, the sibling pattern, and the migration behavior — point toward Priscilla being a daughter of Henry Cluck and Mary Ann Shoemaker. It isn’t proven under the Genealogical Proof Standard, but it is a coherent hypothesis supported by multiple, independent evidence streams.

If it looks like a Cluck and quacks like a Cluck… well, you know the rest.

2026 -3 A Revolutionary Cousin: Major Francis Marion McCorkle

2C8R: Major Francis Marion McCorkle

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 3 January 15 - 21

Prompt: What This Story Means To Me

Commemorating 250 Years of the American Revolution (1776–2026)

🇺🇸 America250 Is Coming

As we approach the nation’s 250th birthday in 2026, I’ve set a personal goal to highlight patriots in my extended family — direct and collateral. The McCorkles are well represented, and Francis stands out as a reminder that the Revolution didn’t just happen in Boston or Philadelphia; it happened in muddy Carolina woods.

Major Francis Marion McCorkle

Major Francis McCorkle, my 2nd cousin 8 times removed, was born in 1742, just three generations removed from my Scottish immigrant 9th great-grandparents Alexander McCorkle and Mary MacDougall. Their children and grandchildren carried the clan into the Carolina backcountry, where the Revolution came right to their doorstep.

According to his tombstone and Find A Grave memorial, Francis served in the Rowan County Committee of Public Safety (1774–1776) and was active in multiple engagements, including Ramsour’s Mill, King’s Mountain, and other frontier battles. DAR confirms his service as militia, civil service, patriotic service, and captain — a résumé few backcountry men could claim.

“I Stand for Liberty” — The Ramsour’s Mill Anecdote

During the Battle of Ramsour’s Mill, Major McCorkle was rumored to have been killed. He later arrived home alive. When word reached his neighborhood, some of his friends went to his house by night pretending to be Tories coming to kill him. They called him out, and when they asked where he stood he replied:

“I won’t die with a lie in my mouth, for I stand for liberty.”

Then the visitors made themselves known as his friends and neighbors who had come to celebrate the victory he had helped to win.

King’s Mountain, South Carolina

If a single historic event can echo through a family line, the Battle of King’s Mountain did just that. My collateral cousin — Major Francis McCorkle (1742–1802) — fought there in 1780, helping turn the tide of the American Revolution in the southern theater.

I visited King's Mountain December 31, 2017.

Few Revolutionary War sites feel as visceral as King’s Mountain. Frontier woods, steep slopes, and a battlefield made for irregular fighters — no parade ground here.

Frontier men didn’t wait for orders; they fought from behind trees and advanced on their own initiative. (Outlander fans will recognize the feel of this fight — the backcountry was its own world.)

The trail follows the ridge where patriot riflemen surrounded Major Ferguson’s Loyalist forces. It’s not hard to imagine the smoke and shouting in these quiet trees.

The trail led to the monument commemorating the battle officers, those who died, and those who were wounded. 

Plaque on the memorial obelisk. 

A brilliant victory marked the turning point of the American Revolution.

King’s Mountain shocked the British, killed Major Patrick Ferguson, and shattered Loyalist momentum in the South.

The Patriot Cousin

While not my direct ancestor, Major Francis McCorkle represents a branch of the family that stepped into the national story. His service is documented in DAR (Ancestor #A075564) and marked at McCorkle Cemetery in Catawba County, North Carolina.

His legacy was both military and civic — militia, committee of safety, and juror — the kind of layered participation that actually wins revolutions.

What This Story Means to Me

For the 52 Ancestors prompt, it’s satisfying to anchor a family story to a national turning point. King’s Mountain mattered, and a McCorkle was there. That’s not just genealogy — that’s pride in the resilience and grit of a family line that came from Scotland, fought in the backcountry, and helped shape a new country.

As Major McCorkle said, 

“I won’t die with a lie in my mouth, for I stand for liberty.”

2026 - 2 Poinsettias in Winter, Tulips in Spring

 

Gertrude Susan Goldsmith Wallis, My Paternal Grandmother

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 2 – January 8-14, 2026

Prompt: A Record That Adds Color

Records are not the only way to add color to an ancestor. In the case of my Wallis Grandmother, Gertrude “Gertie” Susan Goldsmith Wallis, color is added through the quilt she made and through photographs — even though they are in black and white — described and explained by her daughter, my Aunt Gladys.

I wrote about her quilt in Blog Post #6, A Tale of Two Quilts (February 2025).

Gertie died August 16, 1943 before my parents met, married, or started a family. My father rarely talked about his mother. He more or less adopted my mother’s family as his own when he married at the young age of 18.

So when I wanted to know about Grandma Wallis, who was also my namesake (we share middle names), I went to my father’s older sister, Aunt Gladys. She told me stories, and I took notes. When I asked for a picture, she sent several — each accompanied by letters that explained who was in the photo, where it was taken, and why it mattered. Those letters have become the “record that adds color” to her life.

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Born in Madison County, Arkansas — in a Flood

Gertrude Susan Goldsmith was born September 2, 1888 near Huntsville in Madison County, Arkansas. Her parents, David Milton Goldsmith and Nancy Curtis Dudgeon, lived in Sedan, Kansas, but were visiting her mother’s parents in Arkansas for the summer. Nancy went into town for supplies, but encountered a flooded stream. She got on one of the horses, cut loose the wagon, and everything was lost. Gertie was born prematurely the next morning. It was said that she was so tiny her father’s ring would fit over her head. They put her in a warming oven in a box filled with carded wool and saved her. A dresser drawer became her bassinet.

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Telephone Operator in Indian Territory

In 1903, the Goldsmith family moved to Indian Territory. Gertie soon became a telephone operator in Ramona, Oklahoma. In November 1905, The Ramona Herald reported that the Pioneer Telephone Company had issued a new directory with fifty subscribers, and that new subscribers would have to wait until more could be accommodated. The following year they were installing additional poles for expanded lines and there were advertisements for “telephone apparatus.”

Even without photographs, I can picture her perched on a stool, headset on, speaking politely into early switchboard equipment — her voice carrying the newest form of color: electricity and communication.

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A Love Story That Changed Direction

One of Aunt Gladys’s letters explained how my grandparents met. C.B. Wallis was visiting his brothers, Scott and Will, in Sapulpa, Oklahoma before going on to Panama to work on the Panama Canal. But he met Gertrude Goldsmith, fell in love, and stayed in Oklahoma to work in the oil fields instead.

Postcard photo sent to Gertie's double aunt, Mrs. M.E. Goldsmith 5 weeks after their marriage.

C.B. and Gertie were married March 6, 1910 in Creek County. Their marriage license states they were both from Keifer, near Sapulpa.

Oil Boom Towns & Family Photographs

Unknown boy, Gertrude Susan Goldsmith Wallis, Dollie Daniels Wallis, Violet Wallis, Gertie's sister Ora Goldsmith White, Gertie's mother Nancy Jane Dudgeon Goldsmith, Gertie's brother Clarence. Children in front of Dollie are her children: Archie, William and Bennie, William being the tallest. Remaining women and children are unknown, 

Aunt Gladys said this picture was made about 1909, but I believe it was taken in the early days of their marriage because it includes not only Gertie’s family — her mother, her sister Ora, and her brother Clarence — but also her sister-in-law Dollie and Dollie’s children. Gladys wrote that the picture was made on the oil lease where they all lived between Sapulpa and Keifer.

Their first child, Gladys Juanita, was born in an oilfield shack somewhere between Oilton and Drumright (both in Creek County) in 1911, followed by Charles Bert Jr., born in Quay, Payne County, in 1917. These were all oil boom towns tied to the nearby Cushing Oil Field.

Another photo was taken at Cushing, Oklahoma at the Magnolia Petroleum Company lease when both of Glady's grandmothers (my great grandmothers) visited in the winter of 1920–21.

Gladys Wallis, Nancy Jane Dudgeon Goldsmith, Gertrude Susan Goldsmith Wallis, Sophia McCool Wallis and in front Bert Wallis Jr. 

The next photo was taken in the fall of 1922 at a studio. Gladys remembered that “Mom and Daddy had fussed about the appointment and it shows in their faces.”

Gertrude Susan Goldsmith Wallis, Gladys Wallis, C.B. Wallis, and Bert Wallis Jr. 

Flowers as Color

I imagine that Gertie loved flowers. In the photo below, she is dressed for winter weather in a wool coat and hat, holding a pot of poinsettias.

Gertrude Susan Goldsmith Wallis

The next photo, taken with my father, shows her standing next to a large garden of tulips. On the back someone wrote, “April 24, 1939, Tulsa, Okla.”

Spring Tulips, Tracy Park, 11th and Peoria, Tulsa, OK
Gertrude Susan Goldsmith Wallis and Ralph David Wallis

I spent weeks trying to figure out where this was in Tulsa. I finally asked a friend who owned a shop for gardeners and had lived in Tulsa all her life. She immediately recognized it as Tracy Park at 11th and Peoria. I have driven by there hundreds of times but have never seen it planted with tulips. Ironically, it is across the street from where my maternal great-grandmother is buried. If she had a headstone, you could see it from Tracy Park. And little did my father know that his future bride’s high school, Central, could also be seen from that location in 1939.

83 years later I found the spot that once had" Tulips in Spring."

I haven’t found a family event in 1939 that would have brought them to Tulsa except that her sister Cynthia lived nearby — again, ironically — right down the street from a house my husband owns.

Loss of Sight

Gertrude lost her eyesight to diabetes. I hope she had colorful memories of quilts and flowers.

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One Final Color — Flowers at Her Grave

The final picture is of Gertrude’s grave, piled high with flowers. Even in black and white, it adds color to her story.

Gertrude Susan Goldsmith Wallis grave, Arlington Cemetery, El Dorado, Arkansas.

2026 -1 He Followed His Heart - And the Oil

 

Charles Bertram “C.B.” Wallis, My Paternal Grandfather

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 1 – January 1–7, 2026

Prompt: An Ancestor I Admire

Most of what I know about my Wallis grandfather I have gleaned from letters written by his daughter, my Aunt Gladys, and from newspaper articles. He died on April 4, 1962, when I was nine years old. We lived in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and he lived in El Dorado, Arkansas, so we didn’t see each other very often—maybe once a year.

I do have a photograph of him holding me with my step-grandmother, Mam Maw, standing beside us on the sidewalk in front of our home in Bartlesville. In another picture, it appears that I have run straight into his arms as he kneels down to give me a big hug. I look to be about three years old, so we had recently moved to Bartlesville from Tulsa. The purpose of that visit may have been to bring me the cedar chest he made. It was bigger than I was and still bears a rope burn from being tied down during shipment. It was as long as my bedroom closet, and we had to remove the sliding doors just to fit it inside.

C.B. Wallis holding granddaughter, Libby Wallis with Stella Wallis beside them. 

Libby Wallis getting a big hug from her Grampa Wallis. 

I remember having to get up very early for the long drive to El Dorado in our station wagon. Daddy would put a full-size mattress in the back so we kids could go back to sleep. We would stop for breakfast in Sallisaw, Oklahoma. We knew we were nearing the end of our trip when the smell of the paper mills in Camden, Arkansas overwhelmed us. I remember playing under the big magnolia tree in his front yard. But I don’t really remember any interaction with Grampa Wallis.

The red station wagon loaded with a mattress and boxes - apparently we didn't use suitcases - for the long drive to El Dorado, Arkansas in 1960. 

The 1960 visit came after C.B. had suffered the stroke that left him an invalid. In every photograph from that trip, he is wearing a bathrobe. Yet he is not confined. He is shown walking outside his home with a cane and sitting with others, playing dominoes.

Three generations, Ralph, Dave, and C.B. enjoying a game of dominoes. 

C.B. still able to walk following a stroke. 

C.B. "still able to take nourishment" as my father would say after his stroke. 

C.B. and my father, Ralph.

Looking at those images now, I realize that although I didn’t have long conversations with Grampa Wallis, I was present during a meaningful chapter of his life. The long drive, the mattress in the back of the car, and the quiet moments captured in those photographs carried us to him at a time when his world had narrowed, but not entirely closed.

Following His Heart

One of Aunt Gladys’s letters explains how C.B. and my grandmother Gertrude met. By then, he had already served in the Spanish-American War in Manila, Philippines, and had been married and divorced. He left his home in Iola, Kansas, to visit his brother Scott, who was a lease foreman for an oil company in Sapulpa, Oklahoma. From there, he planned to travel on to Panama to work on the Panama Canal.

But he met Gertrude Goldsmith, fell in love, and stayed in Oklahoma to work in the oil fields instead.

That is why I admire him.

He followed his heart.

C.B. and Gertrude were married on March 6, 1910, in Creek County, Oklahoma. Their marriage license states that both were residents of Kiefer, near Sapulpa.

Postcard photo sent to Gertie's double aunt, Mrs. M. E. Goldsmith, 5 weeks after their marriage. 

Their first child, Gladys Juanita, was born in 1911 in an oil-field shack somewhere between Oilton and Drumright, both in Creek County. Their second child, Charles Bert Jr., was born in 1917 in Quay, Payne County. These were all oil-boom towns tied to the nearby Cushing Oil Field.

A Soldier Before the Oil Fields

Private C.B. Wallis, Indiana Volunteers, Spanish-American War era, c. 1899–1901. This studio portrait was likely taken before he shipped out to the Philippines. His expression suggests a young man learning how to be a soldier.

Before oil fields and before family life anchored him to Oklahoma and Arkansas, Charles Bertram “C.B.” Wallis was already a soldier.

He enlisted on September 4, 1899, as a Private in Company E, 35th Indiana Volunteers, serving in the Spanish-American War and the Philippine conflict that followed. His discharge certificate records his release from service on May 2, 1901.

At first glance, Indiana may seem an odd choice for a Kansas-born young man, but it fit his circumstances. His parents and grandparents had lived in Indiana, and at age eighteen he was working on a farm there when he enlisted. Indiana was not a detour—it was part of his family landscape.

C.B.’s service took him to Manila, where he served under General Fred Funston, who—like C.B.—was from Inola, Kansas. A newspaper article from the time reports that C.B. wrote to friends back home, saying he was now under Funston’s command and reassuring them that “the gallant Fred is all O.K.”

Funston was no obscure officer. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the Philippines and was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers, becoming a nationally recognized figure during the conflict. His fame was such that a cigar bearing the name General Funston was marketed during that period—most likely a private-label brand produced for a Kansas cigar wholesaler or grocer. That detail helps explain why C.B. referenced him so casually in letters home.

Military service was not something C.B. set aside when his enlistment ended. According to a note from Aunt Gladys, while working in the oil fields he found time to drill the local “home guard”—boys preparing to leave for war. Even in civilian life, he stepped naturally into a role shaped by discipline, readiness, and responsibility.

Decades later, he remained active in Spanish-American War veterans’ organizations, eventually serving as Department Commander for the Department of Arkansas in 1956–1957.

Business Card Front

Business Card Back

Commander Wallis wearing convention badge and holding his ever present pipe.

These artifacts reflect a man who never stopped identifying as a soldier. Service, once claimed, stayed with him for life.

Following the Oil

In the early 1920s, the family moved to Homer, Louisiana, where C.B. worked for Magnolia Petroleum Company. My father was born there in 1926. Shortly after his birth, the family followed the oil boom again, settling in El Dorado, Arkansas.

Reverse side says, "Daddy Bert holding Ralph."

C.B. worked for Magnolia until his retirement.

In 1959, Magnolia merged with Mobil Oil, whose symbol was the red Pegasus.

This unused decal was found tucked into the family Bible.

Another artifact from that period is a gold pocket watch engraved with his initials. 

Inside it reads "Presented to C.B. Wallis by "The Gang" Dec 25 '26"

 Possibly a farewell gift as he was leaving Homer. 

Sports and Teamwork

C.B. was sports-minded for most of his life, remaining active until ill health eventually curtailed his activities.

C.B. Wallis is on top row, second from the right. 

An early photograph from 1901 shows him as part of a football team in LaHarpe, Kansas, where he worked for a time in a glass factory that produced fruit jars before the era of standardized molds. The team itself was composed entirely of factory employees—working men who carried teamwork and camaraderie from the factory floor onto the playing field. The opponent is unknown, but LaHarpe won 107-0.

During the oil-boom years, C.B. worked for Kathleen Oil Company and lived in Shamrock, near Drumright, Oklahoma. He captained the company baseball team.   By 1916, he helped organize and lead a “home players” baseball league made up of oil-field workers and local talent from towns around the Cushing Oil Field. Newspaper coverage emphasized that no salaried players were involved—baseball, for C.B., was about teamwork, fairness, and community rather than profit.

Later, in El Dorado, Arkansas, that same commitment found expression in mentorship.

Coach Wallis, the white haired coach, top right. 

For several years, C.B. coached the Christian Church Boys Club baseball team. One photograph shows him with the team after they won the city championship—a fitting image of a man whose love of sports had evolved into leadership and guidance.

Loss, Loneliness, and Companionship

C.B.’s long partnership with Gertrude came to an end in August 1943, when she died of complications due to diabetes. Her death marked a profound turning point in his life. After decades of shared work, movement, and community, he was suddenly alone.

August 1943, C.B. Wallis returned home after Gertie's funeral. 

In a letter written to my father, C.B. spoke openly of how very lonely he was—an unguarded glimpse into the emotional cost of losing the woman who had anchored his adult life.

In February 1944, he married Annie Mabel Walker Evans, the mother of my father's best friend, but the marriage was short-lived. 

That loneliness did not keep him from showing up when it mattered most. In January 1945, he traveled alone to Tulsa to stand as best man at his son’s wedding. It is a small but powerful moment: a father, recently widowed, putting aside his own grief to support the next generation at a pivotal milestone.

January 21, 1945 Sand Springs, Oklahoma
Rev. James E Greer, Elizabeth Nolen, Ralph Wallis, Margaret "Peggy" Nolen, C. B. Wallis, Betty Nolen, Leonard Nolen

Later that year, on December 22,1945, C.B. married for the fourth and final time. His bride, Stella Dean Morgan Kinard, had cared for Gertrude during her final months and would later care for C.B. himself. Their marriage brought stability and companionship in his later years, and they remained together until his death.

December 30, 1945 Hot Springs, Arkansas
C.B. Wallis and Stella Dean Morgan Kindard Wallis

C.B. suffered a stroke that left him an invalid, and Stella cared for him until he died in 1962. In that final chapter, as in so many earlier ones, the story circles back to the same themes—service, loyalty, and quiet endurance.

C.B. and Stella, wife, companion and caregiver. 

Why I Admire Him

I admire C.B. Wallis because he followed his heart, served his country, worked hard, built community, and endured loss with quiet resilience.