Our ancestor is Rolandus Aurelian Watkins, the third child of Stephen and Florinda Watkins. Mary Ginevra, his oldest sister, married Herbert Moses of Grant County. The Moses had five children, in what order I am uncertain, Herbert, Edna, Sadie Florinda, Rolandus and Raymond. My contact in California is the daughter in law of Sadie's daughter Ginevra.

Emma Euginia, the second, and also older, sister taught school in Lancaster and Milwaukee, Wisconsin prior to her marriage to George Reynolds. Emma was obviously as bright as she was humane. She was well informed as to current public and family events even through her eighties. Her letters to her nephew "Charley," our grandfather, are a treasure trove of family information. Emma was an active worker in the Church. She and George had one child, Emily Wealthy, who died at age 14 years of tuberculosis. The Reynolds lived most of their lives in Lincoln Park section of Los Angeles and the three of them are buried in Evergreen, the oldest cemetery in the area. A recent photograph is the gift of my colleague in California*

Dora the youngest did not marry. She worked in Great Grandfather Rolandus' law office. According to the accounts in the news articles she was a highly valued member and quite active in the Lancaster Congregational Church. She also did much of the work of cataloging and organizing the letter collection and typed copies of many of them. We have her original notes.

19 May 1881 Rolandus married Ellen Maria Clark the niece of his law partner, John Garvin Clark. We have a number of the Clark family letters and extensive genealogies of both of Ellen Maria's parents. Ellen's history is dramatic but a common one for the southern survivors of the Civil War. She was orphaned in childhood, her father while serving in the Confederacy and her mother's death a few short years later surely hurried by the physical stresses of managing a ranch under really barbaric conditions in north Texas. Her father's brother John who had commanded Union regiment succeeded in bringing his brother's children to Lancaster a process he and their mother had been pursuing prior to her death.. The Clarks remained very much intermingled in the lives of Rolla, Ellen and their children.

Rolla and Ellen Watkins had five children who survived to adulthood, Charles Stephen Watkins, Ralph Bushnell Watkins, Margaret Watkins Sheppard, Ellen (Nell) Watkins Maxwell and John Clark Watkins. All were born and grew to maturity in Lancaster, Wisconsin and from newspaper and family accounts were active in numerous community and Congregational Church affairs.

In "The Great Lottery" land opening draw of 1901 Rolla Watkins won farmland southeast of Lawton in Comanche County, Oklahoma (then Indian Territory). The family fulfilled the residence requirement for permanent ownership but he did not close his law practice in Lancaster until 1915 or later.

A mystery preoccupied several of us for some time, that of the reason for Rolla and Ellen joining the Comanche Kiowa lottery with the consequent move of their family to Oklahoma . Was it a son late in life giving in to a desire to follow a father's example? Was it a holding onto the European and 19th Century American notion that ownership of land under cultivation is the basis of economic and cultural life? Was it related to Ellen Clark Watkins uncle, John G. Clark being one of the three justices of the Territorial Court? Vicky resolved the question explaining that Ellen had all of her adult life longed for to live closer to her siblings, orphaned so tragically young. Those who had been surely rescued by their father's brother, Colonel John Clark from primitive and dangerous conditions prevailing in Texas had all save Ellen returned to Texas and Oklahoma once matured.

The oldest son, my grandfather, Charley, as he was known all of his life, while living on the farm with his parents met Minnie Kendall who was teaching school at the nearby schoolhouse. On 29 August 1907 Charley Watkins married Minnie Olive Kendall. (There is a published genealogy of the Kendall and collateral lines completed by my uncle James R. Watkins. His daughter Anne Watkins Jenkins and son James Patterson Watkins have carefully preserved and now share the larger segment of surviving Watkins and Kendall photographs which will soon be in publication.)

Sometime after Charley and Minnie were married Rolla and Ellen moved leaving them to farm the property. My father Charles Kendall was born 17 July 1908 on his maternal grandparents' farm nearby. Ralph Clark was born 30 October 1909 on the Watkins farm and, my first playmate, James Robert was born in the city of Lawton 29 June 1922.

In 1915 Rolla retired and with Ellen and his younger sister Dora moved back to Oklahoma and it was then necessary for Granddad to move to a tenant status on a nearby farm. Those were difficult years and for many native Oklahomans presaged the years of the Dust Bowl to come. Once Granddad obtained Civil Service employment, which later evolved into a position in the Ordinance Department at Ft. Sill, they were able to move into Lawton and purchased the home which was the site of many childhood memories for two generations of us.

Rolla and Ellen's other children also married and, excepting John, settled in Oklahoma. Ralph Bushnell married Jennie Howell they lived most of their lives in Oklahoma City and Chickasha. I am very anxious to make contact with his descendants but have so far been unable. The third child Margaret married Thomas J. (Jim) Sheppard and they lived their lives farming in Cotton County, Oklahoma. Ellen married Harold Maxwell a chiropractor and their family lived in Okemah. John married twice, Olline Stansell and Aurelia Garnett. He lived in Texas most his life. There were no children.

It may be revision of old age but my recollection is how civil and sensitive to others, especially the children, they all were and also how they loved knowledge! I recall Aunt Margaret with greater clarity than the others. She was very much like Granddad. Uncle Jim and Aunt Margaret's children were George, Louise, Tom, Roger and Vicky. These cousins were for Uncle Ralph and Daddy and our families playmates, dating buddies and lifelong friends. I continue the correspondence with Ellen Victoria (Vicky) the surviving sibling. We owe her, her mother and sister Louise appreciation for the information on Margaret's line.

I think of Granddad as being much as I imagine Stephen to have been. He was quiet and very bright, reverent for the truth, and happy, if not happiest, with his books. I loved to sit on his lap and he was throughout his life civil and kind. The fact that my brother and I recall an amazing amount detail of the family history he recounted is a tribute to his finesse at teaching. In the past as well as the here and now we also owe Uncle Ralph Clark Watkins a great debt for really starting me on this section of the history with his wonderful letters which have given the priceless gift of tone and detail to his and my father's growing up. It is a sadness for me that WWII and the gasoline rationing intervened to limit our ability to more frequently visit with the grandparents and uncles, aunts and cousins during the times of my maturation.

* See Credits

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