Jessie Smith Blackford 1892 - 1976

If you are wondering if you had any colorful, dynamic, larger than life ancestors, I’m here to introduce you to one! Meet Jessie Smith Blackford! He was a man of action, a force with which to be reckoned. Born on the 5th of July, he wasn’t a day late or a dollar short: he was a real firecracker!

His mother, Nettie, was always described as a strikingly beautiful blonde woman that clearly wasn’t too interested in settling down. His father, Nathan, as the story goes, came back to check on Jess after his marriage with Nettie had ended. He found Jess not being cared for in a manner he found suitable, so he swooped Jess up and rode off with him. (I love that “swoopin’” part!) In the 1900 Census taken on June 22, Jess is shown in Horsehead, Johnson County, Arkansas (which is less than 20 miles north of Clarksville, Arkansas) as a seven year old, a couple of weeks shy of his eighth birthday. He lived with his father Nathan, step-mother Ethel, and a baby step-brother, Carl, one year old. By the 1910 Census, Jess no longer lived at home. The family story is that Jess and Ethel were sort of like oil and water and that by the time Jess was thirteen, he was on his own. It is said that during those years he worked as a saloon sweeper, as a stable boy, and as a cook’s helper on a cattle drive. In the 1910 Census, there is a Jessie Smith Blackford working as a trainer for race horses in Okemah, Okfuskee County, Oklahoma. (Remember, Nathan his father, was in the same county by 1920) Interestingly enough, although all the markers are correct to make this our Jessie (his correct birth place, correct full name, correct birth place of his father), his birth year is shown as 1888. I saw his birth year listed again as 1888 on his World War I Draft Registration card. My guess is that if you leave home at 13, it’s much easier to get work if you tell people you’re 17 than 13 and if it gets down to it, you decide 1888 was a good birth year a you stick with it for several years.

By July of 1910 Jess had come to Texas! Once I asked my dad why Grandpa (Jess) came to Texas. He said Grandpa was living up in Oklahoma and had gone to a barn dance. He and another man got into a fight. The fight was so bad that Jess thought he had killed the man. Those close to Jess at the time advised him that leaving the area would be a wise idea and told him about some of their family out in West Texas he might find. After telling me this story, my dad put his feet up on the porch rail where we were sitting and slowly, matter of factly said, “So, I guess you could say he came to Texas for his health.”

Another family story I’ve been told has to do with this time in Jess’ life. The story goes that Jess was told to get off at a certain train stop in Texas and walk due north for a certain number of miles and there he would find the farm of a family where he might find work and stay. It was said that the grass in that part of Texas was waist high as far as you could see. He walked North and came to a farm where lived the prettiest dark haired, dark eyed girl he had ever met and he loved her from that day on. So, who was that girl?

In the 1910 Census, a man named Jeptha Lorenza Dow Jones is shown living in Borden County, Texas with his wife Mandy (Amanda Simpson Jones) and their eight children ranging from Edna, 25, to Robert, 2. Borden County is just North of Howard County where Big Spring, Texas is located. From various stories I’ve heard over the years, I think they lived North of Vincent, Texas which is about twenty miles Northeast from Big Spring close to the border of Howard and Borden Counties. The Colorado River runs through that area. Among those eight children of the Jones, there happened to be another daughter, 19 years old at the time, named Minnie Lee Jones. She was the beautiful girl he loved. If Jess was the firecracker, then she was the dove. Jess had blond hair and sky blue eyes. Minnie had black hair and dark eyes. Jess was a live wire and Minnie had a gentle, quiet spirit. It must have been a case of opposites attract because they were married on July 27, 1910 in Vincent, Texas.