Happy New Year! For this post we are going to discuss distant cousins. One of our great-grandfathers had two grandsons whose paths were very different. One went to Sonora and one ended up in Oklahoma almost 200 years ago. Those events made for an easy one-day genealogy trip to Southeastern Oklahoma.

When I first found out from D. Krebs that I made the Krebs familial cut, he mentioned that there were Krebs’ all over. In fact, there was a town in Oklahoma named after a cousin. When I realized it was Krebs, OK, I was flabbergasted. My husband had been there for work and had eaten an amazing Italian lunch there about 15 years ago. (Yes, our family is food-focused.) I’ve been wanting to visit ever since. But just how this branch of the Krebs family was “our cousins” needs a diagram.

Hugo Ernestus Krebs was my 6th Great-Grandfather. I’ve told you all about him before. The Escalante’s are descended from his first marriage. The OK Krebs come from his second. These two cousins from the Colonial Gulf Coast made life choices that took them in two very different directions.

The week before our excursion, I was planning the itinerary. It started by simply visiting Krebs. The more I dug, however, I realized something. Judge Edmond Krebs was one of many children of Placide Krebs. That meant he had siblings. Researching all of them, I realized Skullyville, Oklahoma, was the place we really wanted to visit.

Placide Krebs married into the Choctaw Nation via his bride Rebecca Folsom. Their family was forced to move from Mississippi to Oklahoma due to the Indian Removal Act/The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. The Choctaw stopped in this region of the territory in 1832. All that’s left of this town is this memorial and the Skullyville Cemetery. The headquarters to the tribe is now in Durant, OK.

We were able to walk around. Many of the graves are unmarked. This place is peaceful as well as haunting. Or maybe it was just the dreary day.

We went in farther. There were several familial groupings. Many of the original Krebs descendants do not have marked graves. Some observations I made: many of the grave markers had Mason symbols on them; several of the Choctaw buried there had served in the Confederate Army. Yes. Escalante’s have cousins who fought in Grey. Just wild.

This memorial mentions many of the family names Placide’s children married into. I found a YouTube video of a man who had come to lovingly clean this monument. So grateful for his work. Many of the stones still here are impossible to read.

Judge Edmond Krebs isn’t buried in Skullyville as most of his siblings were. He is believed to have been buried in the North McAlester Cemetery. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/86168478/edmond-folsom-krebs . We did manage to see the town named after him. We got to the town museum about 10 minutes to closing. Once I name dropped that I was a “distant cousin to the Judge,” they let us stay a few minutes longer. Because of the coal mining in the region, many different immigrants came to the area. A very large Italian community was established here. Krebs’ nickname is “Little Italy.”

I was going to do a whole write up about the family history, who married who, etc. BUT! As someone who loves a good internet search, I found a wonderful blog piece from choctawspirit.wordpress.com. Please follow the link and read it!! The research is spot on. There is discussion about the Krebs connection. And lovely photos of those whose roots still live in Southeastern Oklahoma.

Choctaw First Lady: Cillen Krebs Walker

One last note. This week, Disney+ released the show “Echo.” It’s about a female superhero who is deaf and Choctaw. The production company worked diligently with the Choctaw Nation for language and cultural accuracies. I’m only through episode 2, but the tribal background/history is fascinating. If you would like to know more about the Choctaw, I encourage you to watch. Support Native storytelling!