Mary Mayhan
Mary Lee Mayhan was born on 18 March 1939 at Sallisaw, the seat of Sequoyah County, Oklahoma. She was the elder daughter of William Clarence Mayhan and Jocie Cleo Dobbs, who had married at Sallisaw the summer before, on 16 July 1938. In April 1940 the census found the young family in Marble Township, outside Marble City and near the Dwight Indian Training School: Clarence, 21, Cleo, 21, and Mary Lee, one year old. Mary had a younger sister, Betty Lou.
She married Aquila Cornelious Risley, a young man from Cookson in neighbouring Cherokee County. In the 1950s the couple were in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mary's first daughter, Darlene, was born in San Francisco on 14 November 1956, when Mary was seventeen. Ila was born in Contra Costa County on 15 October 1959, and Donna there on 26 October 1960. Each birth was registered with the mother's maiden name, Mayhan. A son, Lonnie Aquila, named for his father, was born on 9 October 1962.
By the mid 1960s the family was back in Cherokee County, Oklahoma. In 1965 to 1967 Mary Lee Risley was named as the parent on the school enrollments of Ila, who went by Lynn, at Park Hill and Tahlequah, and of three year old Lonnie.
Mary later married Howell Glyn Thomas, born in 1942, and lived for many years at Big Cabin, in Craig County. When her father died in 1992, his obituary named her among his survivors as Mary Thomas of Big Cabin, and her son Jerold Risley was one of his pallbearers. Howell died in 2006. Mary died on 17 April 2009 at Claremore, aged 70. A graveside funeral was held at 2 p.m. on Monday, 27 April 2009, at Maple Cemetery near Sallisaw, with Rev. Steve Rutherford officiating, under the direction of Luginbuel Funeral Home.
Sources
If Mary Mayhan is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "Mary Mayhan (1939-2009)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/mary-mayhan-1939-2009-225d88.