I’ve been working on a project lately, for my first client
from the great state of Alaska. No
ancestry binder for this client—it’s all being done online—just growin’ an
online tree.
And I am telling you, this tree is a gold mine! I have never seen a tree so rich with
information… His ancestors were in the
United States so far back in time, on so many branches of his tree, that
researching it is like Ancestry Disneyland!
One of my favorite finds has been his Aunt Maggie and Uncle John.
I was tracing a line on his maternal side and came a across
a great-great-grandfather who has my favorite name in this tree—Willis Woody
Corn. Willis and his wife had a number
of children, including Mary Elizabeth, my client’s great-grandmother. But Mary Elizabeth had a sister—Maggie—with an
interesting story.
Maggie was born May 15, 1885 in Kerrville, Texas, the
seventh of ten children of Willis Woody Corn and Susannah Covey Corn. The 1900 census tells us that by the time she
was fifteen, the family had moved to Bonito, New Mexico (now under 75 feet of
water because of the Bonito Canyon Dam), where her daddy was a farmer.
Somewhere around this time, she met John Franklin Greer. According to a biography by C.W. Barnum on
nmahgp.genealogyvillage.com, John had just come from Pecos, Texas, tarrying
there after his family moved to New Mexico to close up his father’s hardware
store. He also kept busy working on his
gambling skills—which became his chosen career path.
John left Pecos in a hurry after a gambling dispute led to
gunfire. Two angry card players followed
him from Texas towards New Mexico Territory, but he ambushed and killed them
both along the way. He arrived in Bonito
soon afterwards, and began a life of gambling in the boom towns in the area. Somehow he and Maggie met.
Maggie was married to John at the tender age of sixteen, in
January 1902. Ten months later she had
the first of their six children—four daughters and then two sons over the next
eight years. Perhaps life was reasonably
quiet for those years, although I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
After some trouble that resulted in a shootout in the spring
of 1910, John headed for El Paso, Texas, where he graduated to robbing trains
with his brothers and his friend John Gates, who were known as the Greer Gang. He hid out in Mexico for a while (even
joining the Mexican Army of Revolution).
Eventually he ended up back in New Mexico, where he resumed his career
of robbing trains. But when he walked
into the jail in Deming where his friend John Gates was being held, stuck a gun
Sheriff Dwight Stephens’ face, and freed his friend, the end was near. Sheriff Stephens formed a posse and a week
later, he cornered the Greer Gang in a steep canyon called Sandy Draw. John walked out and pretended to surrender,
then shot both his pistols from the hip, killing two deputies. Moments later he was dead in a hail of
gunfire at age 30. The inscription on
his grave says “beloved son.” Was he
also a “beloved husband and father”?
From what I can see, Maggie didn’t remarry for twenty
years. Why was that? Was she grieving for her husband? Was she afraid of getting her heart broken
again? Or was she just fed up with men? At any rate, in 1932 she and Clyde Lee
Thompson were married in Hurley, New Mexico.
Clyde passed away in 1940. Maggie died in 1945 and is buried next to him at
Memory Lane Cemetery in Silver City, New Mexico.
Photos: truewestmagazine.com, stevenloeffler on
findagrave, and myra0014 on findagrave.
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