From: <ECol91234@aol.com>
Subject: Re: ZDUTTON — Thanks for pictures — Chickasha — Dutton characteristics
Date: 1998-07-27 01:12:52
Dear Betty and Woody: Small world. What years was your mother in Chickasha? Our family was there from 1948 until the late 1960's, early 70's. My Dad's station was ln South 81 near the intersection of Grand Avenue. We lived on the corner of Grand and 14th St. I have no sense of direction and don't exactly know where east Chickasha is. Did you ever go to the Shannon Springs Park off Grand Ave.? Did you know that they have a huge Christmas light display there now that attracts visitors and bus charters from all over? I saw it last year and was amazed. Your mother's first name wasn't Eula by any chance? When I was in high school 1949-52, there was a town bootlegger whose first name was Eula.. . .the only one anyone had ever heard of as having this name - - the source of some teasing you can bet. Wouldn't it be a coincidence if this was the "sort of " meeting of those two Eulas? Dad's station was Dutton Oil, an APCO distributorship the last number of years. Uncle George's Dutton's Oil Co. (station) was there at least as early as the 1940's until he died in the early 1950's. What was your family's station and motor court named? So far as my Dutton family's physical characteristics, we have many blue-eyed Duttons, including my dad, his father, my Grandpa Sam and three of my siblings. I have the same green eyes as you --referred to by myself as "hazel" and by my younger "pesty" brothers as "cat eyes." There are some brown eyes in the family and some very dark hair. My hair is fairly dark and had very little grey until I turned 60. It still looks dark, but has grey if you look very closely. The Dutton men that were the brothers and father of my grandpa Sam were all described by their descendants as quiet. The way the Walker Co. AL relatives put it, "The Dutton men didn't talk. Any information you got came from their wives." The Dutton men in my father's generation and somewhat in later generations were fairly quiet, but the Dutton women were (and many are, probably including myself) hard to keep from talking. My Duttons are all pretty religious, but almost all that I know about are Baptist, mostly Southern Baptist. I have sort of strayed and joined the Christian Church in later years. Some of the Walker Co. Duttons must be Church of Christ as at least one is buried in that church's cemetery. All this about Dutton characteristics reminds me of a question I want to ask. Someone referred to Duttons being "Black Dutch". I would like to know exactly what that refers to. My Dad used to say he was part English, part Irish, and part Black Dutch. Grandpa Sam's wife, Ellen was Irish of the red-haired and blue eyed variety, and from her we have some red-haired and light haired members. I have had one explanation of the Black Dutch reference. Like to see what you folks know of that. There is one family mystery I am trying to solve, but live too far from AL to get any answers yet. The only sister of my Grandpa Sam was named S. Lucinda Dutton. Like most of my cousins, I was totally unaware that there had been a sister as we always heard about the Dutton Brothers. Seems Lucinda was found to be with child and unmarried and as I got the story "The old man (William, her father) ran her off". My dad mentioned her when I questioned him about birth order about 1990. He said, "There was one sister, but Aunt Lucinda went off to Birmingham and didn't have anything to do with the family, so I don't know where she came in the birth order. " I heard the reason for her going off to Birmingham after my dad died and I got in touch with the AL cousins. Seems in the families of her brothers, the wives all pretty much gave their husbands to understand that if one of their girls had this problem there would be no thought of doing likewise. I'm sure my dad knew why she "went off", but didn't want to say. If he had depended upon his Dad to tell him he wouldn't have known, but he visited with the AL cousins some when he was a young man and must have heard from the girls. Anyway, the only thing anyone else in the family knows of her is that she did have a son. One of the cousins happened to meet him later in life and had planned to see him and visit, but before he could do so, the cousin with the good intentions became ill and died. The only thing anyone knows of the son is that Glenn (the well-intended one) said "he was nice." No one knows if she married the father of the child, but it seemed to be common knowledge that the father was a Hamilton. One of my cousins in Jasper's grandmother was a Hamilton and she said there never was a marriage. The only other thing that is known is that after she died, her oldest surviving brother Elijah I. Dutton received a communication >from Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham that her grave needed to be moved because of some right of way and the cemetery wanted the family to pay for the grave moving. Elijah consulted with his other Jasper area brothers, none of whom were were will to chip in to pay anything. Elijah didn't reckon as to how he wanted to pay for the whole thing, so his granddaughter thinks no money was sent. I wrote Elmwood asking them if there were a Lucinda, S.L. or S. Lucinda Dutton or Hamilton buried there. They replied there was no one by the name Lucinda Dutton buried there, so I guess that is the only name they were willing to check. If anyone is researching Jefferson County records, you should find David A. Dutton's family at some point. I don't know exactly when he moved from Walker County. If you see a middle name help me determine if it were Anders or Andrew. Seems to be some family disagreement on that. Also keep an eye out for any census or marriage records of Lucinda. If we had a married name, if she did ever marry anyone, we could check other records. That is the one big blank in the family of William D. Dutton and Mariah Keeton in my records. Thanks, Eula