Ancestors
Charles Benjamin Thomas
1872-1939 · Alto, Cherokee County, Texas
Born 1872
Died 1939
Father: James W. Thomas
Mother: Martha Ann Spencer
Children include Milton
Charles Benjamin Thomas was born on 19 September 1872, the third child of James W. Thomas and Martha Spencer, and grew up at Douglass in Nacogdoches County, Texas. His father was an Alabama man of fifty when Charlie was eight. By 1900 his father was dead, and Charley B., twenty seven and unmarried, was still in his widowed mother's house in the same precinct.
Within ten years he had crossed into Cherokee County and settled at Alto. There he married Pearl Inez Carr, whose family had come down from Franklin County a few years before. She brought a small son, James, and they had five more children together, the last, Allen Floyd, in July 1916. Pearl died the following March at thirty. Charles was left with a house full of children. In September 1918 he gave his mother, Martha Ann Thomas of Alto, as his nearest relative on his draft card. He was then a clerk in M. J. Hogan's store, and he spent most of his working life behind a counter in the hardware and furniture trade.
He was known around Alto as Uncle Bud. On the afternoon of Wednesday 12 July 1939 he died of a heart attack in Joe Cruseturner's barber shop, after several weeks of bad health. He was sixty eight. The funeral was at the Alto Methodist church the next afternoon, and he was buried in the family lot in the City Cemetery beside Pearl. Five of his children survived him, with his brother William M. Thomas of Alto and his sister, Mrs. William Wortham of Lilbert.
Children
Milton Benjamin Thomas (1912-1973)
Sources
United States Census, 1910, Alto, Justice Precinct 13, Cherokee County, Texas, sheet 15A. Charley Thomas, 37, born Texas, father born Texas, mother born Texas. Pearl Thomas, 23, born Texas, FATHER BORN TENNESSEE, MOTHER BORN ALABAMA. James Thomas, 3, step-son. Frederick Thomas, 0, son. NARA T624 (FamilySearch 1:1:M29J-5QD) · against United States Census, 1900, Rusk, Cherokee County: Haywood Carr, born September 1836 in Louisiana, and Millie, born March 1846 in Tennessee Record of births not previously registered, probate court, Cherokee County, Texas. Charles Fred Thomas, male, white, born at Alto on 11 December 1909. FATHER: Charles Benjamin Thomas, of Alto, Texas, born Texas, aged 38, occupation STOREKEEPER, trade HARDWARE. MOTHER: Pearl Carr, of Alto, born Texas, aged 28, housewife. Number of children of this mother including this child: five. Born alive and now living: five. Certified by Mrs. Mary Carr. Affidavit A: 'Before me on this day appeared Mrs. Mary Carr known to me to be the person who signed the certificate attached hereto, who on oath deposes and says that the facts stated in the foregoing birth certificate of Charles Fred Thomas are true and correct to the best of her knowledge and belief, and that she was acquainted with the facts at the time of the event.' Affidavit B is signed by Mrs. M. E. McClure and adds the sentence Mary Carr's does not: 'that she is not related to the individual by blood or marriage.' Sworn 24 January 1942 before I. V. Barker, notary.
ALLEN FLOYD THOMAS, born 16 JULY 1916 at ALTO, Cherokee County, Texas, christened in the same county. Parents entered as CHARLES BENJAMAN THOMAS and ELEANOR PEARL CARR. He is the Floyd A. Thomas of the 1930 census household, there aged thirteen. Two filings of the entry carry the same names and the same date.
United States, World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918, Cherokee County, Texas, serial 808, order 3799. CHARLES BENJAMIN THOMAS, permanent home address Alto, Cherokee, Texas; age in years 45; date of birth Sept 19, 1872; native born citizen; present occupation CLERK IN STORE; employer's name M. J. HOGAN; place of employment Alto, Cherokee, Texas. NEAREST RELATIVE, name: MARTHA ANN THOMAS, address Alto, Cherokee, Texas, with the relationship abbreviated ahead of the name in his hand and reading as mother. Signed Charles Benjamin Thomas. Registrar's report: medium height, eyes gray, hair black. Registered 9/12/18. FamilySearch carries the same relative's name in its own image index for the draft card, so it does not rest on a reading of the hand alone. Texas certificate of death 81509. MARVIN YANCY THOMAS, born 31 December 1877 in ALABAMA, died 30 December 1964 at Memorial Hospital, Lufkin, Angelina County, aged 86, a widowed farmer of Route 1, Pollok. 13 FATHER'S NAME: BLAKE ALLEN THOMAS. 14 MOTHER'S MAIDEN NAME: UNOBTAINABLE. Informant Mrs. J. O. Burnside. Buried at Pollok, 31 December 1964.
TWO THOMAS FAMILIES. Adelia D. Hester of Forest married a MARVIN Y. THOMAS, and Adelia's own niece married a son of CHARLES BENJAMIN THOMAS of Alto. Two Thomas men marrying into the same small family a few miles apart is the sort of thing that is usually one family.
THE ANSWER IS NO. Marvin was born in ALABAMA to a BLAKE ALLEN THOMAS. Charles was born in Texas about 1872 and told the 1910 census that both of his own parents were born in TEXAS. Different state, different father, and nothing joins them.
One coincidence worth naming so that it is not mistaken for evidence later. Charles called a son ALLEN FLOYD THOMAS, and Marvin's father was Blake ALLEN Thomas. Allen is among the commonest middle names of the period and it carries no weight here.
And the mother's line on this certificate reads UNOBTAINABLE, so even if the two men had been brothers it could not have named Martha Ann Thomas.
A NAME THAT WOBBLES, RECORDED RATHER THAN TIDIED. His son LEWIS A. THOMAS, who died at Pollock on 14 February 1923, has his father entered as JOHN Y. THOMAS with the mother Adelia Hester. Against that, his daughter Ethel's own social security application names her parents as MARVIN Y THOMAS and ADELIA L HESTER, and she filed it herself. The Marvin form is followed here and the John form is noted, not erased. The Alto Herald, Alto, Texas, 14 July 1939, page 1, "C. B. Thomas Died Suddenly Wednesday" (Portal to Texas History, ark:/67531/metapth214956, page 1).
United States Census 1880, Douglass, Nacogdoches County, Texas, ED 48, sheet 208D (FamilySearch 1:1:MFJ3-JNR, image 3:1:33SQ-GYB6-8WM). The mother is entered as Martha D. and her birthplace as Michigan.
United States Census 1900, Justice Precinct 2, Nacogdoches County, Texas, ED 42, sheet 4A, household 67 (FamilySearch 1:1:M3P5-H54).
United States Census 1880, Precinct No. 2, Nacogdoches County, Texas, ED 48, page 16, lines 41 to 47 (FamilySearch image 3:1:33SQ-GYB6-8WM).
The Alto Herald, Alto, Texas, 14 July 1939, page 1, "C. B. Thomas Died Suddenly Wednesday" (Portal to Texas History, ark:/67531/metapth214956, page 1); United States Census 1880, Douglass, Nacogdoches County, Texas, ED 48, sheet 208D (FamilySearch 1:1:MFJ3-JNR, image 3:1:33SQ-GYB6-8WM); United States Census 1900, Justice Precinct 2, Nacogdoches County, Texas, ED 42, sheet 4A, household 67 (FamilySearch 1:1:M3P5-H54); Texas death certificate of Annie Adline Wortham, Nacogdoches, 19 November 1941 (FamilySearch 1:1:K394-N5B); draft registration, Cherokee County, 12 September 1918; United States Census 1910 and 1930, Alto; Alto City Cemetery.
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Cite: Heirology, "Charles Benjamin Thomas (1872-1939)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/charles-benjamin-thomas-1872-1939-3894e0.