Senia Arminta (Badgley) Mitchell/Batton

Senia Arminta (known as "Minnie")'s childhood may be lost to time. Two of her children have shared stories of her when she was in her 30s, and later, however. Minnie was known to have a sharp wit, a ready laugh, and could make the fluffiest biscuits around. One of her favorite meals was a little fried bacon, with cornbread dunked in buttermilk. She married George Washington Mitchell in 1894 when she was 17, 2 years after her mother died, one year after her step-mother moved in. It was implied that she wanted nothing to do with her step mother, and Minnie's daughters never claimed any tie to their maternal grandparents. Minnie and George had their first child, Hazel, in 1895; their next daughter, Georgie (1897), survived less than a year. Their third child, Victor (1900), was celebrated, being the first (and only) son. Two daughters, Biddie (1903), and Elzora (1905), completed the family. Minnie sang her children to sleep each night, and woke them by beating a wooden spoon on an upturned washtub each morning, if the rooster wasn't loud enough to rouse them. Minnie's husband was often absent from the house, either sleeping in one of the outbuildings, or occasionally not coming home at all. Biddie reported that Minnie often said "you're daddy hasn't ever been the same since Georgie died". Although there was singing and often much laughter in the home, there was also an ever present tension that continued to grow. On New Year's Day of 1911, tragedy struck. George began threatening to do away with himself; first with a razor, then with his gun. Neighboring friends attempted to calm and console him, but he escalated as soon as they left, and, after an argument and chase, shot Minnie, the bullet grazing the back of her neck. Minnie fled the home with the three youngest children following behind. Neighbors that took Minnie & the children in returned to the homestead to find George non-responsive with gunshot wounds to his head. The children stayed with neighbors the next week, while Minnie returned to the home to clean up and nurse her husband. George never regained consciousness, and died on January 3rd. Minnie held the funeral on the 5th, and the children returned home shortly afterward. There is gap between this chapter and the next in her life. Over the next year, George's sister, Ettie, and Ettie's husband Samuel, divorced. Within months of the divorce, Minnie married her ex-brother in law, and the couple immediately left Indiana for Oklahoma. Samuel Porter Batton and his son Arthur, & Minnie and the Mitchell children set up a homestead near Calumet, OK, just West of El Reno. Minnie made friends, fit right in to the community, and life was peaceful and quiet. SP and Minnie welcomed 2 children in the next 5 years, a son, Samuel Porter Batton Jr. (1913), and Orilla Grace (1916). By 1922 the last of the Mitchell children had married and moved out, and the Battons moved North and just East of El Reno, where she lived until her death in 1930, survived by Husband SP, son SP (Porter) 17, and daughter Grace, 14.