The Miles and Betty Bryant Crocker Orphans

This family like many of their generation reared or assisted in rearing grandchildren who  either were motherless or had lost both parents due to childbirth or diseases such as Measles, Diphtheria, Spinal Meningitis, Small Pox, Tuberculosis or Influenza.

 Miles Crocker brought his family from SC in November of 1865 according to his bible, owned by Clyde Lackey Vaughn's youngest son, Sidney, now, in possession of his cousin, Evelyn Crocker.

Here beside the probate record we found the date of his death of Jan 1895, following his eldest son, James Alfred who died November 17, 1892 of Tuberculosis. James Alfred's wife , Sally Ann Webb, was left a widow with 6 half grown children and one infant.

Miles' wife, Betty was also left a widow with her daughter's Rhoda's motherless children to rear.

Her only living son, John Henry, my grandfather was living nearby with his family .

Some say that he owned the house that James Alfred and his family were  living. But this is not true, The Miles' Crocker children all lived in farm cabins belonging to their parents, working on the halves.

John Henry along with his mother was the administrar of Miles Crocker estate in 1895.

The story goes that when James Alfred died, Sally , his wife, had an disagreement with John Henry and he told her to take her children and leave.  Family, friends and neighbors took them in, furnishing them room and board in exchange for work.Sally Anne took her children to her mother-in-law  , this upset "Aunt Betty" his mother to the degree she told John Henry   that she had lost two sons when James Alfred passed away, that he was no longer her son.... and would receive none of the Crocker Estate....[Fact!, It was Miles who told John Henry , he would be dis- inherited over a disagreement on salary and payment of loan.] [Bettie meant she had lost Thomas and Alfred and didn't want to lose John. ] In the Bible records we found names of three other children born in SC but 2 daughters , Lucinda and Nancy died or married before the family left SC. Another, a son, Thomas, born in 1860 died in 1877, we found an Abbyville merchant's record of 1877 were M. Crocker bought a shroud for his son. We assume this would be Thomas, since James Alfred didn't die until 1892. John Henry died an old man in 1938.

John H owned interest in the mills and gin, he may have told Alfred Crocker's boys that they would have to work to earn their keep and Sally their mother took it up and was asked to leave. [Fact! "Faith" Lackey , Rhoda Crocker Lackey's widow husband who had also left in a huff over his children took Sally and children to Calhoun County where her sister was living.]

Like many stories handed down through families it was proven untrue.

The facts are Miles and John Henry became business partners in 1892 buying machinery for the mills and gin. Each were to pay their half of the loan. Miles refused to pay his 1/2 of the loan and John Henry's salary for running the mills. Miles threaten not pay him but dis-inherit him as well. John simply went into Oxford and hired an lawyer to file a labor suit against his father which John won in 1893, there are records of this suit in the Chancery's court office.

After Miles died in Janurary of 1895, Sally Ann Webb  Crocker and her daughter, Ada came down with a "fever" and died leaving the five sons and one daughter,Addie, orphans.
 ROBERT ALVIS  CROCKER, age16,  was the eldest,
PERRY AUSTIN CROCKER, age 14, who later moved to Cass County Texas, lived and worked for  Jesse McCord, later married McCord's motherless daughter, Marion Arrie .
JAMES ARTHUR CROCKER ,age 8 boarded with a Kimsey Family. When he was in his teens, while working in the fields with  Mr. Kimsey a young man by name of Ed Gammons rode up on a horse and killed Mr. Kimsey, then rode on to the house and killed Kimsey's young daughter, Frances who had spurned him.
HENRY ALTAS CROCKER was age 6, boarded and worked for G. N. Womble family according to the 1900 Lafayette Co. Census. He was 17. He stayed in Mississippi later moved to Memphis TN.
WM. ALMONTH CROCKER , age 2,  lived with his  aunt, Fannie B. Crocker Kestler, his father, James Alfred's sister. It is said that she was abusive to him and as soon as Robert Alvis became of age, he came for Wm. Almonth. [Aunt Fannie had her hands full, her son, Hugh was the same age as Almonth , so she had two babies plus her step daughter Aggie Kestler whose mother was Fannie's deceased sister Mary aka Molly Crocker Kestler , Fannie's husband's first wife.] Robert Alvis also, reared his sister, Addie. Their sister Ada had died of the fever near the same time as the parents, she is thought to also be buried in the Crocker Family Graveyard, one of the thirteen un-named tombs marked with sandstone.
These Children became successful business men , Ada Crocker died young and is buried in the "Crocker" cemetery with her Grandparents and parents and sister near Paris, Lafayette County, MS.