The other day someone asked how I got interested in Indian dancing. I replied I’m Cherokee. What was whispered in past generations can be shouted from the rooftops now. I am the son of Geneva Grace Choate, the daughter of Gracie Fisher, the daughter of Tennie Hall, the daughter of Moli Duvall, the grand daughter of Orjil Bowl of the Cherokee people of east Tennessee when all was well.
Well maybe a little more explanation would be in order. Sometime about when I started school (1st grade), my mom gave Bettie and me an arrow head. They had been given to her by her Uncle, Jim Fisher. Actually it is a lance point but we have always called them arrow heads or Indian rocks. My moms grandmother had told all her grandchildren that they were Cherokee but not to tell it. It was certainly not popular when Ma (Tennessee Hall) was growing up.
Her mother (Moli) had been born just about the time of the removal. Moli does not remember her mother, only the step mother of her siblings that she was raised with. She was either the daughter of Billy Duvall or was taken in by him when the Cherokee were being herded to internment camps in east Tennessee. My great, great grandmother was raised Moli Duvall, born in a Cherokee town near Knoxville, the grand daughter of Orjil Bowl, the head of a Cherokee family.
Moli was taken with the other girls to near Nashville in 1839 when she should have still been nursing. Billy Duvalls wife abandoned her two natural daughters and Moli, probably because Moli was Billy’s daughter by a Cherokee woman. But we will never know that for sure. Billy abandoned her when she was a teenager and she married Billy Hall, a moon shiner and the employer of her grandfather Bowl.
When he died presumably near Nashville they moved to Illinois. My great grandmother “Ma” Tennessee Hall was born shortly after they crossed the Ohio river into Illinois. Ma told her kids and later her grand kids that she remembered her mother Moli carrying water from the spring on her head. Where she learned that I don’t know unless it was from her grandfather who lived until she was nearly an adult.
Ma had 4 children, two by my great grand father Jim Fisher and 2 by her second husband, Jim’s cousin, Jake Helm. Jim Fisher built a two room log house on our Illinois farm and told everybody he was putting a hall in the house which must have seemed strange. He did and it was Tennie Hall, black headed and still fairly dark.
She had two Fishers, Gracie, my grandmother and Jim born after his fathers death. Gracie had 5 girls, my mom was the least and was called “Panther eyes” by the railroad men that frequented their restaurant. If you ever saw her mad you’d know why. I’ve seen her mad on several occasions but feared more to run than to take a licking.
That brings us back to me. I believe I am 1/8th Cherokee because my mom and dad are both 1/8th.
Daddy’s story is similar, his great grandmother Nanci Drennon was born in Kentucky in 1820 and I believe hid out by the Woodall family in Marshall county. She married Roland Woodall and he took over the land that her family had farmed before the removal. Daddy’s family never talked about their heritage. My great aunt Pearl told me that they all wore long sleeves and hats or bonnets so they wouldn’t get so dark. Her mother’s picture shows it didn’t work so good. She is nearly black, high cheek bones and hooked nose. My nose was straightened when I was 18 mostly because I broke it and couldn’t breath right. It didn’t help the breathing for long but it is straight now. Aunt Pearl was my grandfathers sister and she was black headed and very dark. My dad took after his mother.
I am Cherokee not so much by blood as by heart and in our family that is all that matters
This is a part of the web page that I plan to change and add a story now and then, maybe when the moon changes again. You're welcome to look over my shoulder.
Thank you for letting me share some of my family lore. Please come back and visit again!