Thomas Dutton and Mary K. Bates Desc.

Dear Sonya  and all the others:
Found the Thomas Dutton and Mary Katherine Bates descendant who
contacted me years ago:  She is Ilene (Starkey) Willingham, 2158 E. 
Palo Alto, Fresno, CA (209)-299-0588.  She is the granddau. of Laura
Bell Dutton, daughter of Thomas and M.K.(Bates) Dutton.  We never
exchanged much information.  She told me more than this on the 
phone when she called and I scribbled the whole time, but mixed it 
up so some of it made no sense.  She said that Thomas Dutton was 
born in the TUSCALOOSA area, that he left AL and went to MS before he
married and married Mary Katherine in MS.  That much I was sure of
and filed in my card file.  Ilene works at the Church of Latter Day Saints
Family History Library in Fresno part time.  The way she got my name
and phone number is through a very sad chapter in the story of the Sam
B. Dutton family.  My cousin Luther whom I mentioned before had very
much alienated himself from all his family years ago after an accident
at work that left him bitter, so when that story hit the news, it came as 
gigantic surprise to all his relatives.  You may remember the story of
a Herman and Drury Dutton in Rush Springs, OK who shot and killed their 
father, Lonnie Dutton, whom all the community agreed needed to me
put out of commission. That was our Luther's son.  The boys were young, 
the mother had left them, there were two very young children besides
Herman and Drury.  The boys were prosecuted but the community defended
them to a person and the news called their dad a totally cruel and mean
person who beat the children and was sexually abusing the boys younger
sister, the latter being the reason for the shooting.  The mother then
wanted custody, but the two boys were put in foster home for two years
or so then given to Luther and his wife.  The two younger ones were
given by the court to Luther's daughters.  Anyway, the story made the
talk show circuits through the mother.  Ilene saw her and one of the
boys' teachers on one of those sensational talk shows, I think Geraldo. 
When she heard the Dutton name she called information in Rush Springs,
talked to Luther who knew zilch of family history, but referred her to
my cousin Mae McClure, who referred her to me.  (Mae is the one who
put her family history files on a disk and sent in to The Family Tree
Program.  Cousin Joe saw those records, contacted Mae, Mae referred
him to me - - and as they say,"The rest is history"--in the making...)
Now all of you know the skeleton in my family closet.  A bigger
(worse) scandal would be hard to top. . . .

Changing the subject.  Why does my correspondence have all those little
arrow marks at the beginning of each line?  And why to the lines print
out in a different pattern than I type them???   I am making the lines
shorter on this communique and hitting the return bar before the
print gets to end of this internet message box.  Is that the answer?
Help to educate me!

Eula Coleman