06-25-01

The photo and story for this week’s news is about a Cherokee family and their grandparents that came to Onega (Aubrey) during the 1840's , when the area along the Trinity River was a stopping and watering place for tired and hungry horses, cows and other livestock that were with the large exodus of Native Americans and immigrants that were stopping at the Trinity River. Dallas was a new frontier center for trade and development.

Sam Houston was just finishing a fight with the Mexicans and Texas was an open range. Onega was an area that attracted this family’s ancestors and many other Native Americans because of its sand dunes which are in still in demand in the year of 2000's.

Remember I mentioned last week that these Cherokee families did not become citizens of the country that they claimed until 1924.

Robert Smith the man holding Leon West who is about 2 years old and his wife Harriet (Tucker) Smith, native of the Cherokee and Black Dutch tribe are seated with the family in the background. In the center of the photo is Marion Cecil Smith and on the top row from left to right is Kate Smith, Easter, Amy and Clarence.

This family home is one of many homes in this area at this time. The log construction was located where the Diamond B Ranch is now located on Grubbs Road which is northwest of Aubrey about one mile.

I have a map that was made during the late 1880's and it shows a dot along the country roads where a house was located and it is obvious where the log house was located on the west side of the road going to the North.

Robert (Bob ) Smith’s grandfather was Albert Burton Brumley and his wife Emily (Helms) Brumley were the parents of ten children of which one of Albert and Emily’s children was named John Brumley who was married to Amy Smith the sister of Robert in the photo holding the baby.

The Grandfather Albert Brumley was born in 1844, and came to Texas to settle his family, but he had to migrate back to Tennessee just before the Civil War. As the custom was during the Civil War, many Cherokees were recruited to fight in the war due to their honesty and loyalty as soldiers. At about this time there were more Cherokees fighting and dying in the fight of the Civil War than there were other forces of the Northern Union or Confederacy, this was creating a liquidation of the Cherokee population. This caused many Cherokees to change their identity and hide their Cherokee ancestry.

The Grandmother to Bob Smith was Emily Helms and after Albert died she married a Mr. Kingsbury. She is buried at the Wilson cemetery along with Albert Brumley.

Easter Mundy was the mother of Bob Smith. Rachel Mundy Harmon who was a sister to Easter.

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