Category Archives: Families on the Fringes

This category is for those families and friends that were very important to our history.

Family. The Long Way ‘Round.

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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.

It was a very cold morning in all that’s left of Skullyville.

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.

The entrance to this historical cemetery.

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.

Historical memorial for those who come to learn about the site.

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.”

The sun finally came out over Krebs.

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!

Looking for Leads. Or: How to Procrastinate Like a Boss.

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When I sit down for a few minutes to do some quick research between life events, there is really never any method to my madness.  A person or article will pop into my mind so I will start looking to see if Ancestry has any new hints on the person. I search newspaper articles to see if they were ever famous. Or infamous.

Every once in a while I go over old documents to try to see if I can analyze the information with new eyes.

According to ancestry.com, Leonardo and Mariana had three other children that I think MIGHT be related to the two I can confirm. Getting out a large sheet of paper, I wrote down the names of the children. In my non-Spanish-reading semi-expertness, I gleaned basic information: dates, name of child, names of parents and godparents.

I ventured to do quick look-ups on the godparents to see if anyone could lead me to more clues about my family.

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Possible other Escalante siblings, with their Padrinos (Godparents) listed.

At the top of the list is a son with Salasar padrinos. This is good because Mariana’s mother was a Salasar. So maybe these were her cousins. The second son, Florentino, had a Bustamante godmother. Good sign too as Mariana was a Bustamante, but could find nothing definitive on these two. [Am I the ONLY person doing family history? Come on people! Post your trees! Okay. I’m done.] Maria Sisilia’s padrinos were interesting. I had seen their names before. My spider senses were on alert for two reasons: I have an uncle Fernando and Maria Ramirez de Barbachano’s middle name was Luisa.

When I looked for more information on Fernando Montijo and Luisa Bustamante, there were LOTS of kids to examine.

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Montijo Children. Screen One.

At this point, I start to play the “let’s be optimistic” game. There were Escalantes named as godparents. A few Bustamantes.  There was even a Leonardo Escalante, but his wife’s name was different. Which made me sad.

This family is the second one I have found that recycled baby names. For example: they named a child “Maria Adelaida.” But you will find the same name for a different baby born a year later. My guess is with life expectancy not as high as it is now, there were several babies who passed along the way. And the name was chosen again.

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Holy Smokes, they had many a baby!

The one off-spring that fascinated me the most, was Fernando Montijo, Junior. His padrinos weren’t exciting necessarily. However. I discovered he was a traveler. He married Elvira Hugues in 1883. Fernando became a store owner in Berkeley, California. He traveled often to Sonora with his family. He crossed back into the United States in December, 1906, with his entire familial entourage.

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Going home to Bay Area, December 1906.

I look at the list of names and the timeline. Try to stick with me here as my mind goes click, click, click.

  • AS Fernando Junior’s mom was Luisa Bustamante; and IF her sister/cousin was our Mariana Bustamante then,
  • MAYBE Mariana named Maria Luisa Bernadina Ramirez after her relative, then
  • MAYBE Maria L.B. Ramirez named her daughter Elvira after this Elvira, and
  • MAYBE on their way back to Berkeley in 1906, they stopped to visit Leonardo and Anita in Ventura County, because
  • the next child, a boy, born to Leonardo in August of 1907 was named Alberto, and
  • the next boy born to him in 1914 was named Fernando.

Dropping the mic right there. Boom!

My family, up until the last two generations, loved naming new babies after family. You could easily track who might be in your line by those named before. SO easy! SO helpful! Now, not so much. But it used to be a sign of admiration, love, and respect.

I have done this not-necessarily-conclusive research which I will put back away for a while. Maybe when I am brushing my teeth, I will think about the Montijos again. I will wander to the computer between scout meetings, working, or mowing the lawn. It’s at the random times you find out if these elusive people are really family or not. It’s the beginning of the research.

So as not to leave y’all hanging, this was how Fernando Junior’s story ended.

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Fernando Montijo’s Death Announcement, 1937.

In 6 months from now, I might wander over to another site to do a “quick look-up” on Fernando’s sister, Rosaura Serrano. Widow of Rafael Serrano, former Mexican consul to St. Louis. Whose daugther-in-law had a torrid affair that made the Midwestern papers. But that’s for another day…….