The Saga of Mississippi Belle Castleman-Bullock

Authors note: What I know about "Aunt Belle" is what I remember vaguely from what my father told me. That's what he called her, "Aunt Belle", and when he said it you almost heard it ring. He was very fond of her even though he hadn't seen her in years. Dad was pretty much a vagabond in his early years, once he left home he traveled to the harvest for a number of years and stayed with his Aunt when ever in the area where she was at the time. "Belle" died seven years before Dad moved his family to California and he had had very little contact with any family other than his siblings. Dad was not very vocal about his extended family, parents and siblings until late in life and when he did finally speak of them to me the impression I got was it bothered him greatly that he had lost contact with his family. On with the story.

Mississippi Belle and Jefferson Davis Castleman were twins, the fifth & sixth children of James and Nancy Castleman. Born in Mississippi just a year or so before the beginning of the Civil War, they were very young when James sent Nancy back to Kentucky and joined the army of the Confederacy. For some reason not known for sure, Nancy did not go to the home of her mother-in-law (Sarah Jane LaRue-Castleman), or at least was not there when the next child was born in 1863. Some speculation exists that Sarah Jane, James' mother would not have a "Breed" in her home, not even her grandchildren. There is nothing in my memory to substantiate that other than vague memories of conversations. There seemed to be quite a bit of hostility towards the Amerindians in those days and her son had married, away from home to a half breed Chocktaw, that could not have made her happy. Oh well, it's just speculation.

Belle was just a teenager (14) when the family moved to Wise County Texas where her father started his medical practice and his ministry of the Church of Christ. Four years later she married there to Licugas F. Bullock a teacher in the public school system of Eastland County, and they began their family there in Cisco, Texas. There must have been some back and forth movement as the next three children were born near her parents farm in Wise County, about 100 miles North East of Eastland where Licugas died in 1886, the same year as their last childs birth.

Within a year Belle married again, this time to Oscar Allen Rudolph Clark/Bullock, purportedly a half brother or cousin of Licugas, (note) and therein lies a mystery of sorts. I have spoken to several of the descendants of Belle and her two husbands and no one recalls any mention of Oscar being adopted or a foster child but my father was certain that he was. We may never know as those who would be best able to research it do not seem to be interested. Anyway; Belle and Oscar had five children then he died, reportedly in 1898 at Archer City, Archer County, Texas, although I have never been able to substantiate that.

Information I had from Bessie Yoakum indicated that Belle was buried in Fort Worth, Texas in Mt. Olivett Cemetery. I had gone there and had them search their records and they did not find her, below is the tale of the search for Belle.

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Mar 29th 2001

Recently I had a new clue from the Texas Death records of a Mrs. M. B. Bullock dying in Briscoe County in 1923. I went there to Silverton the county seat and was informed that the records for the period 1917 to 1927 are no longer in existence, a very discouraging situation. I decided to visit my family in California.

I finally started back home to Texas after an extended stay on the West Coast planning to continue my quest to locate Belle. On the way I stopped for coffe with Bill Barnette who has been doing some research on Belle, his ex wife's grandmother. He had a clue!

Briscoe County is fairly barren of population, having only a few small towns, Silverton, the County Seat has a population of less than 500 people. He had found in the Texas census of 1920 that there were a couple of Belles sons living in Briscoe County, and that fueled the fire knowing there was a good reason for her to be there so back I went to check further.

When I left Bill at the Waffle house in Tucson with new information and new hope it was nearing 90 degrees so it seemed as if I would have a nice ride. By the time I reached Roswell New Mexico the temperature was in the low 40s and when I arrived at Tulia, south of Amarillo it was snowing lightly and below freezing, that dictated staying in a motel for the night. The next morning after scrapping the windows with the temperature hovering at 32 degrees, I went on to Silverton where I spent the morning searching through property records, it seems that the mysterious disappearance of the records was restricted to birth and death records, and I found some evidence that Belle had been there.

In 1917, Mrs. M. B. Bullock had purchased on time payments a large parcel of land near the town of Quitaque (Kitty Quay), south of Silverton, however it was foreclosed on in 1919 for non payment and there was no other trace of her.

I did find where William Bullock one of her step sons, had a place north of Quitaque a few miles and was told there was a private cemetery on the property, called the Rhea Cemetery. As two of Belles sons had married two Rhea daughters it seemed a good bet that if she stayed in the area after losing the property, she must have stayed with her son or sons and probably died there. If so, it would also seem likely that she would have been buried in the cemetery on the property.

There are two public cemeteries in Briscoe County, one in Silverton and the other in Quitaque. There is one other that is semi public but it is on the other (western) side of the county from where William and Belle had their places. I checked the two public cemeteries, they are well kept and documented even though there are quite a lot of unknowns in both, and do not feel she is in either. I made the trip to where William used to have his ranch, met the present owner who gave me permission to visit the site and graciously offered to guide me to that cemetery, it was good that he did. The cemetery lies way off the roadway and is approachable only through fields for about two miles and the weather made that very tricky going. Mr. Smith, the owner was a little worried about leaving me there and when I assured him I would be fine, he relented but said he would check the place the next day when he came to feed the cattle.

There are only 7 graves that had readable headstones, none were Belle's or any Bullocks, most were Rhea and Cothern and there are several broken, scattered and unreadable sandstone type headstones and, Mr. Smith says there were probably more graves that are no longer identifiable or marked, some outside the little fence that was erected in later years. Could Belle be there?? I suppose so but there is no way to know for sure. Have I given up?? No, of course not, I am a Castleman and if nothing else, I have stubborn genes.

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15 April 2001

Eureka, the "Belle" has sounded

Belle is found and you won't guess where. Right back where I started looking for her at Mt. Olivett Cemetery, Ft. Worth, TX. This letter has two purposes. One is to let you know I found her and the other is to never take no for an answer, people DO make mistakes.

I went to Mt. Olivett last year because Bessie Yoakum in a letter to my cousin Elsie Burch in 1966 said that was where she was buried. It is such an impressive place that someone like myself, used to slogging through overgrown plots of land called cemeteries, could not believe they would not have everyone there categorized, cross referenced and pigeonholed and I didn't question them further when they looked at their records and said "There is no one here by that name",

I had them try Mississippi Belle Castleman-Bullock, and every other combination of names like that and No Belle, so, I assumed Bessie must have been mistaken and continued to search other venues.

Finding myself in Fort Worth after my non productive trip through Briscoe County, I decided to go to Mt. Olivett and take a picture of Belle's daughter, Roxie Maie McCourtie's headstone. I was sure of this one as her daughter had written me not long ago telling me that was where her mother and father were buried, so, once again into the breach I go expecting this to be an easy one, Ha.

This is not a face to face hands on operation. You have to give the receptionist the name and she phones someone deep within the reaches of this huge building, gives her the information, utters a few uh huhs and says, "She is not here." Whoa....

Now Bessie might have been mistaken about Belle but Theresa buried her mother just twenty years ago and she only lives a few miles from there, so a mistake was highly unlikely, I persisted. We tried spelling McCourtie several different ways, also Roxy, Roxie , etc., and finally, after about five more minutes she popped up. Boy, this has to be the strictest search engine in history. I would have thought you could type in McCourtie, click sounds like and every name in the database with that combination would line up in alphabetical order. Guess that is too much to expect. Anyway, when the nice young lady came out to give me the location information, and a map to find it (This is a BIG cemetery), I mentioned that I had been there looking for Belle and they couldn't find her. She asked me for the name, I told her that the Texas Death record listed her as Mrs. M. B. Bullock, she that she died in Briscoe County, several hundred miles away from Fort Worth (This is a BIG State).

She then disappeared back into the cavern and I walked around the reception area which has 6 viewing rooms off it, and all were occupied, and this was mid week (told you this was a BIG cemetery. Their grounds people ride around in a fleet of old Postal Jeeps painted white). As I was admiring the handiwork of one of their morticians the nice young, pretty, dressed in a black suit, lady came to me and handed me another map and info sheet with the explanation that they had only begun to enter the older graves into their database and probably she was not listed there last year and yes, it is a narrow search engine. Without the Mrs. M. B. she would probably not have come up this time. I drove into the cemetery and took the picture even though it was raining and the marker was half underwater. I will go back one nice day and redo it.

Well, that takes care of Belle, still haven't found husband Oscar but he's not a sibling so there is only her sister Georgia Ann to locate and that may be impossible, maybe not, I am a Castleman (stubborn)