Blog Posts - Goodman Ancestors

Finding your Ancestors

4/4/2012

Have you ever wondered where your ancestors came from? Who were they? What did they do? What were their lives like? Finding the answers to these questions can be very rewarding in many ways.

This journey began for me a good ten years or so ago when I got a copy of Family Tree Maker. I purchased it just out of curiosity to find out a little more about our family history. Once I began entering the information, I felt the need to find out more and more and just keep going on entering this information. I was hooked!

Once I entered the information that I knew, I was lost. I determined that I needed to talk to my parents and find out what they could add. This soon led to talking to Great-Aunts, Cousins and other family members to expand on what was already getting to be a very interesting family. The elders of the family were so excited that I was documenting the stories that they were telling me and continuing to search and solve these hidden mysteries of our family.

There have been many defining moments in this search. Taking my Dad to his grandmothers (Patsy McCoy Ford) grandmothers (Mary Ann Mitchell McCoy) grave side at Sullins and Hankins cemetery in Grubbs, Arkansas really meant a lot. The letters, pictures, emails and documents that I received from all over the country to add to the website and my research were like opening priceless treasures. It fuels me on to keep looking for more.

My visits to Arkansas always include trips to libraries, cemeteries, visiting with family members and places of our families past. This is a search that will never end. Once you find a love for genealogy, you are building a history lesson for your current and future family members.

Parents are great!

3/25/2012

My parents are the greatest. My little Mom and my sweet sweet Daddy. I am such a lucky girl!
Although they have been divorced for nearly 40 years, they are friends because of their children. I savor the time I get to spend with both of them. They have lived such totally different lives and are so special in their own ways. I love them both very much!

Daddy and Me -March 18, 2012

Mom and Me - March 18, 2012

The Tuckered Town of Tuckerman

3/23/2012

The main street of Tuckerman is one city block with just a few sad, lonely, delapidated buildings left. There are businesses in the town, but, they all seem to have relocated or been established right on the highway in order to possibly attract more business. Tuckerman is a quaint little town with townfolks offering a smile and a friendly conversation everywhere you go.

Not a lot to do in Tuckerman other than go have a cup of coffee at the cafe. Friday and Saturday you can go to the park and see what treasures you may find from the local farmers market. I heard that on a Saturday night you can enjoy watching the wrestling matches. Of course, this time of year, there is always baseball. I chose to go for long walks around town. The air is fresh and clean, the weather was beautiful and I always feel a sense of "coming home" every time I go to see my Dad.

I spend a lot of time at the library in Tuckerman and I was disappointed to hear that it may close. So sad to hear that this could happen.

You knew you were from Tuckerman if .....

8/21/2011

A new group started on facebook for all those Tuckerman alumni, family and friends to reminisce. Quite interesting to go down memory lane and remember people places and events of our earlier lives. Names familiar and unfamiliar as everyone posts their memories of a diufferent time and place.

I can sit and remember the one block main street of Tuckerman and the businesses on either side of the street. Parking was an issue back in the early 70's. Doing a u-turn at the end of the one block was required to park on the opposite side to get your mail from the post office. There was the Drug Store, the Tuckerman Mercantile, Paul D's grocery store, Mom had her beauty shop, Armstrong's. I can't remember the rest of the businesses nor can I remember if these were all in business at the same time. Everyone remembers Gene Elkins, the Shingle Shack and Marie's Dairiette. Daddy had a restaurant at the North end of town at one time. Spent many a morning there opening with Daddy before going to school.

The 70's were some good years, but, some tough times. Mom left, parents got a divorce, both parents remarried. Lots to be grateful for throughout my life. The 70's were probably one of the worst periods. It is not a time that I have spent a lot of time reflecting on, so, reminiscing with other Tuckermanians is therapeutic at this point in my life and I am enjoying the experience. Lookng at that point of my life in a different perspective

Conversations with Daddy

8/8/2011

It has become part of my weekly routine to call Daddy every Sunday morning. He looks forward to calls and usually will answer the phone with "Jake's Mule Barn" or some other silly greeting just to let me know he knows it's me calling. The discussions are usually about the same every week How hot is has been, how high the utility bills are getting, what vegetables are in season, who's sick, who's died and how his health is. Not necessarily in that order.

This weeks news consisted of Boyce Ray being in intensive care in Jonesboro. With Daddy's poor hearing, details are usually a little sketchy. He thought that Boyce Ray had gotten dehydrated. With the temperatures running over 100 degrees these days in Arkansas, it is easy to believe. Troy was home this week and him and Stephen Jay stopped over to visit with Daddy and Brenda for awhile. Daddy really enjoyed this. Daddy had an appointment with an arthritis doctor this week. He is having a lot of problems with his left shoulder. He seems to think it is from his walking with a cane. Don't know how much longer he will be able to get around without a wheelchair. I worry so much about him falling.

These weekly conversations have become a highlight of my week. Just to hear his voice and feel his smile warms my heart. Makes me miss him so much. He is such a wonderful man. He is never in a bad mood, he never gets mad, never has anything bad to say about anybody. In name and in life, he is really a GOOD MAN.

Tuckerman, Arkansas

8/3/2011

Downtown Tuckerman

The St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway ran from St. Louis, Missouri and Texarkana, Arkansas, as well as to southeast Missouri. The line was initially established to deliver iron ore from Iron Mountain, Missouri to St. Louis. In 1872, the railroad was making it's way through Jackson County and by 1873 a train station was established in Tuckerman. Tuckerman was supposedly named after a railroad official named Mr. Tucker.

D.C. and F.R. Dowell, living at Elgin at the time, saw the opportunity the Tuckerman Station could bring and built the first store nearby. The post office was established in 1884 and Tuckerman was beginning to grow. By 1889, the population had grown to 150. The town now had a post office, three general stores, two groceries, two drugstores, two blacksmiths, a wood shop, a hotel, two boarding houses, a school house, a church and two saw-mills. The town continued to grow installing gas and water mains in the 30's along with asphalt being put down on Highway 67. Population grew to about 2000 and has fluctuated in that area for many years since.

As with many cities and small towns alike these days, there is not a lot of business in Tuckerman these days. The railroad quit stopping many years ago, businesses closed down and the one block main street of Tuckerman is just a sad shadow of what used to be. I have many memories of this little town and it will always be a special place for me.

Downtown Tuckerman

Who do you think you are?

8/1/2011

More and more people are becoming interested in finding out who their ancestors were. This is such an interesting and exciting journey. Not everyone can have such elaborate ancestors as a King or President or even a great war hero, but, all of our ancestors are interesting. None of my ancestors (as far as I have found so far) have done any elaborate deeds or held any high positions. What I have found is that they were hard working and good hearted. My grandmother Polly Goodman was a mid-wife and delivered many of the babies on Denton Island. Her and Grandpa Taylor always had extra children to raise besides their own 9. That says a lot about the type of people that they were.

Roosevelt's "new deal" in the 1930's probably allowed them to purchase the farm on Denton Island and have a home to raise their family. As the children grew, they all seemed to spread their wings and go where the work would take them. Uncle Orden and Aunt Neal ended up in Converse, Indiana. The automotive factories in Kokomo offered a new opportunity for families in the 60's.

For those that remained in Tuckerman and Grubbs, farming continued to be the way of life. Daddy became an Assembly of God minister preaching at Sunny Valley Church on Denton Island and later at Egypt, Arkansas. My childhood was happy. We always had food, always felt safe and ALWAYS ALWAYS felt loved. What more could you ask for?

Taylor and Polly Goodman

7/28/2011

Abner Tell Guffey passed away in 1917, leaving Polly Devore Guffey a widow with 5 children to raise Polly met Taylor Goodman after he returned home from the Navy. They married in 1920 and had 6 more children. Curtis and Ramon died before they were a year old. This left seven boys and two girls to make up the children of the Guffey/Goodman household. They lived in a community known as Denton Island outside Tuckerman, Arkansas along the Cache River. This is where they raised their children, farmed their land, helped their neighbors and lived out their lives.
Denton Island was a thriving community in the early 1900's. It wasn't until the 1960's that Denton Island began to fade away. Sunny Valley Church, the old school house, the sawmill, the old swimming hole, the catfish ponds and all the homes are long gone. The only remaining homes on Denton Island belong to the family of Doyle Guffey. Nothing is left there to show the way of life that Taylor, Polly and their children knew. We only have the memories from their descendants that we need to preserve.

Another watermelon story

7/28/2011

Mother said that shortly after her and Daddy got married he asked her to help him plant watermelons. Her job would be to hold the pole with a rope attached to it so that Daddy could tell if he was planting a straight line. Seemed like a relatively easy task and Mom was happy to get to help. Daddy hops on the tractor and takes off with the other end of the line. After a little while Daddy looks back and Mother had moved. Mother said that she started looking around for arrowheads while waiting and before she knew it she was kind of wandering about the field. Needless to say, Daddy was not happy and did not ask for her help in planting watermelons again!

A HUGE family!

7/28/2011

No matter what family you belong to, there are numerous other family lines attached to your ancestry. For every set of grandparents that you have, the number doubles as you go back each generation. Just 10 generations back, you have a total of 1024 - 8th great grandparents. Now that is a lot of family!

On the Keller side of our family, I can only track 17 of these 1024 - 8th great grandparents. The time period that this relates to is in the mid 1600's mainly located in Switzerland and Germany. Wow, only 1007 more 8th great grandparents to find. That is 17 surnames to research further. Those names included: KELLER, SENN, HILDEBRAND, STIFFLER, HOTTEL, LNU, LEINBACH, KLEISS, FREY, LEVERING, NEUN, HOFMAN, REDMAN, NOLAND, CONNELL, SMALLWOOD and GARLAND. And to think that if I should go back 20 generations that would be more than a million ancestors to locate. 21 generations, more than 2 million, 22 generations, more than 4 million, 23 generations, 8 million, etc. etc. etc. . . . . . . . . . oh my!