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~As told by Georgene Jackson (Sanders) Birchett~

You asked about when Moma Jack and Uncle Ed Lingo moving to the Durant area.....Well I don’t really know when. It had to have been after C.T. Ragland died. Also, I don't know when or where Moma Jack and Uncle Ed got married.

So, Charles Thomas Ragland and Malinda Jackson (Jackie) James married in Ozark, Arkansas and moved to the Tom Bean, Texas area. (their store was in the town of Tom Bean, but they lived in White Mound) But Moma told me that when she was little, Aunt Carrie,(who was 14 years older than Moma), would walk to their store and that their father would give her a big Hershey Bar to take home and share among the 3 kids. So, if they were living in White Mound, how did Aunt Carrie WALK to the store. I just wish I had thought to ask Moma.

Aunt Carrie and her husband, Sam Bruce, came to visit Moma and Daddy while we were in Berlin, and Moma and Daddy were living in our house in OKC. They all took a drive out to Frontier City, and saw the skit where the outlaws stage a holdup, and the LAW arrests them. Of course there is a shootout. Moma said that Aunt Carrie laughed and told Moma that it was just like when they lived at Tom Bean. That was where Moma Jack got rid of the drunk cowboy who was on his horse, waving his six-shooter around threatening to kill C.T. Ragland and demanding to know his whereabouts. Moma Jack quietly asked him to wait; went into the house and got a teakettle of boiling water, came back out and poured it on the horse. Of course, the horse bolted, running away at a full gallop with the cowboy hanging on for dear life. Moma Jack was some nervy lady.

Well, back to the move to Durant. C.T. Ragland died 1916. Malinda J. (James) Ragland married George E. Lingo and moved to the Durant,Ok. area. I would say that the move had to be pretty soon after C.T. died. Moma was 14 years old when her Dad died, and she continued to go to school after moving to Durant. They lived in the Lone Oak school district. It's on the map, near the Blue River, just a little way from Durant.

Moma was about 16 when Daddy came to visit his uncle Lingo, and saw Moma for the first time. They were married when she was 18 years old, in Feb.1923. That sounds like an error, but Momas birth date is Nov. 25, and depending on the dates of the events might make it sound like that. I have no idea how long Moma Jack and Uncle Ed lived there, or when they made the move to West Texas, as I told you in as earlier E-mail, it had to be before about 1930.

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