An Illustrated Carl Family History

version 1.0*

with philosophical musings by

Charlotte Carl-Mitchell

November, 2002

* More information will be added as I go through more of the family papers

and get feedback from family members.

Edward Miller Carl, Jr.'s family

Mercy Ramsey and Ed Carl were married on 12 June 1940 at the Central Christian Church in Austin, Texas. They were the parents of Madeline (Beall), Catherine (Dalferes) and Charlotte (Carl-Mitchell).

Edward Miller Carl, Jr. was born on 15 May 1909 near Pettys Chapel, east of Corsicana, Texas, the son of Edward Miller and Euna Posey Carl. In 1919 his parents separated and he moved with his father and sister, Minnie, to San Antonio. He graduated from San Antonio's Main Avenue High School and then entered Texas A & M in College Station in September 1926.

PICTURES FROM ED'S CHILDHOOD, YOUTH,  ADULTHOOD

In 1928 he met Mercy Ramsey when he was matched up with her during a double date to the annual Thanksgiving football game between UT and Texas A&M. He graduated with a BS degree in Electrical Engineering and a 2nd lieutenant's Army reserve commission in 1931. It took him an extra year to graduate because at the beginning of his 1929/30 senior year, he was appointed Organization Editor for the A&M annual and he had to make several trips away from school to coordinate plans with the book's publisher. This caused him to get behind in his senior E.E. lab experiments and he had to go back for another full year to complete the work. During the Great Depression he found work where he could, on an oil tanker, as a night-operator at a filling station, a clerk in a grocery store and manager of a farm. He had maintained his status as a Reserve Officer and in the fall of 1936, he was ordered to report for duty with a company of the Civilian Conservation Corps. During this time he developed pneumonia and tuberculosis, was given medical leave and spent several years off and on in Army Tubercular Hospitals.

PICTURES  OF ED'S FAMILY; MADELINE'S , CATHERINE'S, CHARLOTTE'S GROWING YEARS; OES

He had corresponded with Mercy over the years and even with his medical problems, they decided to marry which they did on 12 June 1940. In February 1941 he joined the Texas Highway Department and worked there for thirty two years during which time he was Senior Resident Engineer in charge of several highway projects and was eventually placed in charge of the Department's Highway Illumination and Research division and later the formation of the Department's first Archeology section. In 1971 he was appointed to the National Cooperative Highway Research Program advisory panel of the National Academy of Sciences because of his work on high level lighting. But in 1972 his health worsened and he had to retire. Over the years he too had been active in the Austin community. In 1943 and 1944, he served as scoutmaster for a boy scout troop. He was a Mason and member of the local Scottish Rite Consistory and Ben Hur Shrine Temple. He was supportive of his daughters' work in Rainbow and in 1962 was General Chairman of the Grand Assembly when it was held in Austin. In 1966-67, 1973-74 and 1980-81, he served as Worthy Patron of Austin Chapter #304, Order of the Eastern Star. He loved to fish and built his own boat for the purpose. He was proud of his German heritage and after retirement spent a lot of time doing genealogical research on his family (which has helped make this history much easier). He had a quiet sense of humor and a twinkle in his eyes when he said something funny. He was kind and generous to all he met and the overflow crowd at his funeral attested to the high regard in which he was held. He died on 27 January 1987 in Austin and is buried in the Austin Memorial Park cemetery.

Some fond memories: To show his quiet wisdom, I remember coming to him in tears when I got my first speeding ticket. Instead of being upset, he said the experience would teach me a lesson that might save my life one day - don't drive recklessly. Even though he was often confused for a Methodist minister because he was so serious, he could be funny. During one of our typically loud and silly Sunday dinners, he got up from the table. When we asked him where he was going, he looked at us with a twinkle in his eye and said, ÒI have to tinkle.Ó a shockingly funny remark from him. When Smoot and I were planning our wedding we didn't want the large, formal affairs Madeline and Catherine had had. Mother was not OK with this, but Daddy said if I wanted him to come in overalls, he would. Some of his favorite foods: Durkee's sandwiches, buttermilk and Vienna sausages!

Memories from Beverly:

* playing hours of dominoes and on several occasions he taped our conversations

* eating Rotelle (sp) with him at the end of the kitchen table

* shopping at M.W (Montgomery Wards)

Memories from Holly:

* Swinging with Dadders and playing on the Whirly-Gig.

* Badminton in the yard.

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Previous Generation

Euna Posey and Edward Carl were married on 13 April 1906 in Houston, Texas. They were the parents of Edward Miller Carl, Jr.

Euna Ellerfair Posey was born on 2 July 1888 in Rural Shade, a farming community twenty miles southeast of Corsicana in southeastern Navarro County, Texas. Her parents were Lonnie and Margaret Frances Elizabeth Martin. Her father, a farmer, died when she was young and her mother remarried. She had a brother, William Posey and a half-sister, Mattie McDonald (Justice). Edward and Euna met in Corsicana and were married in Houston in 1906. In May 1909 they had a son, Edward Jr. and in December 1910 a daughter, Minnie, joined the family. In April 1919 their lives changed. There are two versions of the story. According to Ed's family, he came home early from work and found Euna with another man. He immediately took the children and went to live with his brother. However, she was the one who filed for divorce and described a very unhappy marriage. She claimed in her application that he had been Ôguilty of the grossest cruelty and neglect, that he scarcely ever would take her anywhere with him but would go to places of amusement alone, refusing to take her; that he had an extreme dislike and contempt for [her] relatives and humiliated and hurt [her] feelings by abusing her people and refusing to eat at the same table with them, and also forbade them to come to his house; that for several years prior to the [April] separation, [she] had to sew to earn a livelihood, he failing and refusing to provide sufficient means for her support and maintenance. That he was also extremely jealous and accused her of various acts of infidelity which were untrue, and in fact imputed to her a lack of chastity in the presence of herself and of others, there being absolutely no foundation for such unjust and slanderous charges, and that his conduct on the whole was of such a nature as to render their further living together insupportable.

PICTURES OF EUNA POSEY CARL

She was granted the divorce but Ed was given custody of the children, both were unusual events in those days. Perhaps it was because she would have had a hard time raising the children on her own. Euna married two more times, the first to Wm. E Mondell, a Mason (1888-1943) and the second time to Charles 'Buck' Peters. She lost contact with her children until her son contacted her before he married in 1940. She was pleased to become part of his life again and to play the role of grandmother, bringing silver dollars for her grandchildren when she came to visit. She died on 15 Sept 1961 in Nevada, Missouri and is buried in the Corsicana City Cemetery. Her (Mondell) marker indicates she was in Eastern Star. Her son remembers her being a excellent seamstress and loving pretty, expensive clothes. Ed Jr.'s cousin remembers her as always smelling good and having a sweet smile. She described herself as a very hard worker and said originally she had brown eyes and blond hair that turned dark auburn. Late in her life she ran a motel in Deming, NM with her third husband. She attended Cumberland Presbyterian Church. From the bad spelling and grammar in her letters, she probably didn't receive much formal education but that would have been common for a woman of her time.

Edward Miller Carl, Sr. was born on 25 December 1881 in Benton County, Arkansas. His parents were John Hammock and Mary Elizabeth Swank Carl. He had six brothers and one sister. In 1885 his family traveled from Arkansas to Texas. While on the trip, he slipped on ice in Dennison, Texas and broke his leg. The only physician available was a railroad doctor who set his leg improperly and as he grew to maturity that leg was shorter than the other, crippling him. But even with his disability he was obviously able to work. He entered the oil business as a young man and participated in the early day operations at Corsicana, Spindletop, Humble and Sour Lake. He met Euna when he was working on the oil wells on his brother Tom's farm. Ed and Euna took a train to Houston where they married in 1906. From there, they traveled by train to the Beaumont area where Ed had secured employment on an oil drilling rig, but Ed left the job because of fear of the effects of the sulfuric gas produced by the wells. The couple returned to Corsicana and Ed again worked on his brother's oil wells. By then they had moved into town and eventually opened a grocery store. Euna was in charge of the store and Ed worked in a plant that fabricated oil field equipment. Ed later took a job in the post office. We have a copy of his Statement of Case Examination for the United States Post Office in Corsicana. He handled 1000 cards with only 5 misthrown, 99 1/2 % correct, in 31 minutes - 'a very fine showing' was noted in the remarks.

PICTURES OF EDWARD MILLER CARL, SR.

In 1919 he and Euna divorced and after living with his brother for a while, he took his children and moved to San Antonio to be within walking distance to the Prospect Hill Methodist Church were his elder brother, Newt, was pastor. (In Ed Carl, Jr's autobiography, he said his family for generations had been Methodists. He also said his Uncle Newt graduated from the seminary of Southwestern University.) At this time Ed Sr's parents moved from Austin to live with him and his two children. In December of that year his father died and his mother took over the running of the household and raising of the children. Another of Ed's brothers, Frank, owned an oil lease in Somerset, south of San Antonio and Ed started work there pumping and gauging the production of the several wells. He and Frank went into business as the Carl Brothers Drilling Company and for several years they drilled in several areas of South Texas. While working the Somerset lease, he met Minnie Marion Fulkes, the niece of the landowner and in 1922 they married even though she was 20 and he was 40. He made a lot of money but lost most of it in the Great Depression. Ed and Minnie had two children, John Wesley Carl born 19 December 1926 and William Paul born 7 December 1933. In 1949, after the death of his mother, Ed and Minnie moved to Austin so Paul could attend UT. At around this time J.W. served in the navy during the Korean War. On 8 July 1956 Ed died from a stroke and was buried in the Capitol Memorial Park north of Austin. Minnie later moved in with J.W.'s family in San Antonio. Mr. Carl had some quirks, one of which was that he would only eat off a white plate, another was that none of his food could be touching each other. He also refused to let his wife have any control or access to money; he would give her a house allowance weekly. He doesn't sound like he was a very nice person, but perhaps he was just a man of his time.

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Previous Generation

Margaret Frances Elizabeth Martin and Lonnie Posey were married around 1887. They were the parents of Euna Ellerfair Posey (Carl Mondell Peters).

Margaret Frances Elizabeth Martin was born in Tennessee in 1872 and, as so many people seemed to be doing around that time, she and her family went to Texas. Around 1887 she married Lonnie Posey and settled down in Rural Shade, a farming community twenty miles southeast of Corsicana in southeastern Navarro County, Texas. Rural Shade was first settled in 1850 and by 1885 it consisted of a blacksmith shop, a sawmill, three gristmills, three general stores, four cotton gins, and an estimated population of seventy-five. Margaret Frances, known as Fannie, and Lonnie had two children. He was 22 and she was 16 when Euna Ellerfair Posey was born. Their second child was a son, William Posey, born in 1890. (William was murdered at the age of 31 when he had an argument with one of his oil well drilling crew, hit him with a hoe and the man shot him with a 30-30 rifle.) The same year William was born, Lonnie died of pneumonia. After her husband's death, Fannie married Wilton O. McDonald and they had a daughter, Mattie McDonald (Justice). Fannie Posey McDonald died in 1919 and was buried in Navarro County.

Lonnie Posey was born in Alabama around 1866. We know very little about him except that he was a farmer, he married Fannie Martin, had two children and died in 1890. He is presumed buried in Rural Shade.

WEDDING PICTURES OF FANNIE MARTIN AND LONNIE POSEY; AND MARY SWANK AND JOHN CARL

Mary Elizabeth Swank and John Hammock Carl were married on 5 September 1869. They were the parents of Edward Miller Carl, Sr.

Mary Elizabeth Swank was born 6 December 1853 in Phillips County, Arkansas, the daughter of Amanda Miller and the Rev. David Swank. In 1868 she met and on 5 September 1869 she married John Hammock Carl. They had eight children, seven boys and a girl. Their names were William Newton, Thomas Robert, John Franklin, David Hervey, Henry Samuel called Den, Sarah Ellen called Ella, Edward Miller and Loney Lee. On 20 October 1885 they loaded all their belongings into two covered wagons and set off for Texas. According to the book Oak Hill Cedar Valley Pioneers ÒAfter crossing the wilderness of Oklahoma, then called the Cherokee Nation, they stopped near Bowie in Montague County, Texas. The family then moved to the William Swank farm north of Bluff Springs.' (Mary's oldest brother was named William; he was eventually murdered by a Baptist preacher according to an entry in the family Bible!) After moving several times where there was work, they returned to Travis County in 1890 and lived west of Pleasant Hill school until most of their children were married. They then moved to Corsicana, to Dallas then back to Austin until her husband's health failed and they moved in with their newly divorced son, Edward in San Antonio.

According to her grandson Edward Jr.'s autobiography, after John H.'s death, Mary , at the age of 65 Òcontinued to care for my father and us children by doing the cooking, mending, housekeeping and washing for all of us. She was an amazing little woman. I thoroughly loved my Grandmother Carl's cooking. It was a'pinch of this and a pinch of that'. Her biscuits were big and fluffy. She used dried fruits to make tarts and diced bacon to make corn bread pone patties and mashed potatoes with onions to make potato patties. She was a devout Christian and a strict disciplinarian, in addition to being thrifty and frugal.' Her granddaughter-in-law, Mercy Carl, remembers her as being a skillful practitioner of Reflexology, therapeutic foot massage. From her business card, Mary Carl was the proprietress of the Ladies Massage Parlors in Austin. (I'm sure it was very different from the massage parlors of our day.) She died in San Antonio on 24 April 1949 at the age of 95 and was buried next to her husband in the Mission Burial Park in San Antonio.

From childhoods picking cotton and other hard farm labor, Mary and John's children had interesting lives. According to an article in an unidentified newspaper, the oldest son, Wm Newt, born near Maysville in Benton Co., Ark. on 24 July 1870 was converted in 1884 and joined the Methodist Church, South, in 1892. He moved to Austin, Tx with his parents and preached in the Methodist Church in Bastrop. He was graduated from Dr. David Swank's School of Pantherapy and Osteopathology in 1902. (I don't know if that David Swank was related to Mary. Her father, David Swank didn't die until 1906 and she had a brother David as well.) He then studied law under Sanbourn and Shelton of Austin and was granted a permanent license to practice in all the courts of Texas. This was the Newt who was the pastor of the Prospect Hill Methodist Church in San Antonio.

Mary and John's third son, John Franklin Carl was at one time Associate Justice of the Fourth Court of Civil Appeals in San Antonio, and secretary of the State Council of Defense during World War I. But on 1 September 1924 he disappeared while in Austin and was only found 10 months later. He was eventually adjudged to be insane and was committed to the state insane asylum. Considered a brilliant lawyer, all he could say about his disappearance was 'The lights went out and I don't know what happened then.' Dave, the fourth son, was an experienced oil well driller and made a lot of money in the development of the huge oil field near Burkburnette in North Texas. Dave and Ed Carl, Sr. went into business as the Carl Brothers Drilling Company.

PICTURES OF JOHN AND MARY CARL IN LATER YEARS

John Hammock Carl was born on 5 April 1847 in Benton County, Arkansas, the son of Synthia W. Maxwell and Thomas Carl. In September 1863, at the age of 16, he enlisted in Company B, Browns Battalion, Confederate Cavalry where he served until September 1864. He was then transferred to Company H, 17th Arkansas Cavalry and served until May 1865 when he was paroled at Jackson, Mississippi. He married Mary Elizabeth Swank on 5 September, 1869. They lived with his father, Thomas Carl, for a while after the death of Thomas' wife Synthia in 1871. Then in 1885 John H. moved his family to Texas. He worked as a farmer in several places until he and his wife moved to Austin in 1911. They had a house across the street from Brackenridge Hospital. He joined the State Capitol Police force where he was in charge of the guards on the Capitol grounds, a position created for elderly Confederate veterans. He died in San Antonio in 1919, his body still containing some musket balls he received during the Civil War. Because of his service in the War, his widow received a pension the rest of her life. (Confederate Pension Warrant No. 101715.) John was a Mason, a member of Onion Creek Lodge, No. 220 in Travis County. He was also a member of Prospect Hill Methodist Church where his son, Newt, was pastor.

According to the book Oak Hill Cedar Valley Pioneers, 'The Carl family was the average of good American people. Their faults were not of a vicious nature. Each of them were embued with outstanding individualism. A firm conviction abided in all, that each could take care of himself.' They might have been rugged individualists, but at least one of their descendants had very negative views of John H. Carl. One of his grandsons, Fred Carl, when I interviewed him at the age of 80 something, still shook with rage when he told me about how mean and cruel his grandfather was. He also said after his grandfather died and was laid out, as was custom at the time, on the kitchen table to be prepared for burial, Fred's father insisted Fred go touch the musket balls in John H's back. It must have been a traumatic thing for a child to do because he remembered it with horror his entire life. There seems to be a pattern of cruelty and insensitivity in the Carl men. Ed Carl, Sr. was divorced because of his cruelty. His father, John H. Carl was seemingly also cruel and Fred's father, Tom Carl, Ed Sr's brother showed a decided lack of sensitivity in making his son touch his grandfather's dead body. And, to be honest, Ed Carl, Jr. often showed a lack of sensitivity and kindness to his wife, Mercy. Ed, Jr. said a void had been created in his life without the love and care of a devoted mother. As an adult he became aware of what her leaving had denied him of family unity and love. I took that to mean he had never learned how to show love. Perhaps that's true, but it didn't help that he had such 'rugged individualists' i.e. cold, cruel men in his family.

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Previous Generation

Sallie Westbrook married James Nathan Martin. They were the parents of Margaret Frances Martin (Posey McDonald).

Sallie Westbrook was born on 10 September 1841 in North Carolina. She and her husband James Nathan Martin were the parents of Margaret Frances Martin who was born in Tennessee in 1872. The family eventually moved to Texas. Sallie died on 20 February 1927 in Kerens, Texas. According to the Handbook of Texas, e, fourteen miles east of Corsicana in eastern Navarro County, was established in 1881 when the St. Louis Southwestern Railway of Texas built through the county. A post office opened in 1882, and the town was incorporated in 1888. W. P. Noble was the first mayor, and Sam Sluggs was sheriff. By the mid-1890s the town had three cotton gin-mills, four grocery stores, two hotels, two drug stores, a wagonmaker, and a weekly newspaper named the Navarro Blade. The estimated population in 1896 was 500. The first school was built shortly after the town was founded, and by 1906 two schools were operating, one with 242 white students and one with 121 black students. Kerens reached a peak population of 1,800 in 1929 and afterward declined.

James Nathan Martin was also born in North Carolina, but it isn't known where or when he married. He died in Navarro County, Texas.

PICTURES OF SALLIE WESTBROOK AND JAMES NATHAN MARTIN

Amanda Miller and the Rev. David Swank married on 15 March 1849. They were the parents of Mary Elizabeth Swank (Carl).

Amanda Miller was born 24 December 1831 in Arkansas, the daughter of Pamelia (Pamela? Permelia?) Caroline Carothers and Robert Richardson Miller. R.R. Miller was born in Virginia in about 1810. His first wife, Pamelia, was born in Tennessee in 1813. They were married 6 January 1831 according to an entry in the family Bible. In 1850 the family was living in Union Township of St. Francis County, Arkansas. There seems to be some difference of opinion about how many children were in the family 10 or 12 but whichever, Amanda was the oldest. By 1860, the Miller family had moved to Greene County, Arkansas and settled in St. Francis Township. By this time another child had been born. Apparently Pamelia Miller died sometime during the 1850s (not surprising, having had 10 or 12 children), because the 1860 census listed Robert's wife as Matilda. Family legend says that Amanda was a good horsewoman (perhaps her Virginia heritage) and that she was rescued by David Swank when she tried to cross a swollen stream. That was how they met. Amanda married David Swank on 15 March 1849. (One of David's brothers, Jacob, married one of Amanda's sisters Martha, seemingly not uncommon in that day.) In the 1850 census, Amanda was listed as living with her parents. That was because David had gone to prospect in the 1849 California Gold Rush. Their first child was also born in 1849. She and David eventually had 12 children. She died on 12 October 1881 in Denver, Colorado. Both Edward Miller Carl Sr. and Jr. were given the Miller name to honor her family.

The Rev. David Swank was born on 15 September 1823 in Hardin County, Kentucky. He was the son of Elizabeth Van Meter and Jacob Swank. On the Van Meter line, we have information dating back to 1662 when Jan Joosten Van Meteren married Maeyken Hendricksin in Holland. Elizabeth Van Meter is supposed to have been President Tyler's cousin. According to notes compiled by Ed Carl, Jr., the Swanks were part of the group of early Americans called Pennsylvania Dutch. (The Dutch was a corruption of Deutsch, meaning German.) This name was applied to Swiss, German and even French Huguenots who arrived in America in the 1700s and early 1800s and settled in south-central and eastern Pennsylvania. Almost all of these immigrants came from the area of South Germany known as The Palatinate so they were called Palatines. Apparently our Swanks initially arrived and settled in Pennsylvania but later migrated to Kentucky as recruited members of one of Daniel Boone's return trips. Later, possibly because of Indian uprisings in Kentucky, they moved to what is now Mississippi County in Missouri. Supposedly some of our Swanks fought in the American Revolution under Mad Anthony Wayne. David was a lay Methodist minister and circuit rider. David and Amanda lived in Arkansas and eventually ended up in Corsicana where he died there on 11 February 1906. He is buried in Pettys Chapel Cemetery.

PICTURES OF AMANDA MILLER SWANK AND MARY SWANK; AND OF THOMAS AND SYNTHIA CARL AND HIS FIRST FAMILY WITH NANCY SHED

Synthia W. Maxwell married Thomas Carl. They were the parents of John Hammock Carl.

Synthia W. Maxwell was born on 6 January 1811 in Arkansas. She was the second wife of Thomas Carl and bore him seven children: Sarah, Nancy, Sybel, John Hammock (our ancestor), Zack and Henry. Ed Carl, Jr's notes say two of their daughters died, one in infancy and the other at an early age but he also says Zack died in infancy. There is also a discrepancy in the spelling of Sara and Syble's names, but that wasn't uncommon in those days. Even though Synthia (our modern spelling would be Cynthia) was nine years younger than Thomas, he outlived her by 20 years. Again from Ed's notes: 'In that period, women married at an early age, bore children every year or two and rarely lived beyond the age of 45 or 50.. A woman's life in that era was expended in child birth and hard work, and their years were usually limited because of this.' Synthia died on 21 February 1871, having reached the age of 60. She and Thomas are both buried in the Word Cemetery about three miles from Decatur, Arkansas.

Thomas Carl was born on 24 March 1802 in Dutchess County, New York, the son of William Carl and Anna Finger. Family lore has it that he was the oldest of seven brothers. Also that he was apprenticed to a tailor in his youth, and when he'd learned how to make a suit of clothes, he ran away to escape the tailor's ill treatment. We don't know where he went after that but his name was recorded in the 1830 census as living in Franklin County, Tennessee. He first married a Nancy Shed probably in 1823 after he was 21 years old. He and Nancy had five sons and a daughter and in 1838 moved from Tennessee to Mulberry near Van Buren in Arkansas where Nancy died on 1 September 1839. Following the death of his wife, Thomas Carl sold his farm and moved to a place on Osage Creek, six miles south of Bentonville, Arkansas. It was near Bentonville, which is in northwest Arkansas just south of the Missouri state line, where he met and married Synthia W. Maxwell. Later he sold that farm and moved to Prairie Grove, Washington County and lived for several years. Then he sold that farm and bought another west of Bentonville, on Little Flint Creek, near Round Prairie. After the Civil War, in 1866, he sold that and bought another on Spavinaw Creek, eleven miles from Maysville which is just east of the Oklahoma state line. He lived on that farm until after his wife's death. His son John H. and John's wife Mary Elizabeth Carl lived with him for a while after Synthia's death, but after they moved to their own farm, Thomas lived among his other children. He died 11 January 1891 at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Dennis Chastain.

Ed Carl, Jr. always claimed his father's family was German but one of his cousins who was also a grandson of Thomas, wrote that Thomas claimed he was an Irishman and that his father and a brother came to America as stowaways. Some have speculated that they were stowaways from Long Island, not Ireland, since Long Island was originally under Dutch control, but that doesn't fit with Thomas' reluctance to talk about his father's origins for fear of being deported. Thomas's son, John H. Carl, subscribed to the Belfast Times from Northern Ireland after he moved his family from Arkansas to Pleasant Hill south of Austin. This would tend to lend credence to the Irish connection, but it has not been proven. On our trip to Ireland, I talked to the people at the Palatine Museum where records were kept of all the Germans who came directly to Ireland from the Palatinate region of Germany. There were no Carls in their records but since he was supposedly in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he could have come through England before reaching Ireland.