Ancestors

William Alfred Dowdy

William Alfred Dowdy was born on 26 August 1887 at Ranger, in Yell County, Arkansas, in the Petit Jean valley south of Mount Magazine, the son of Thomas Warren Dowdy, a Tennessean, and Mary Jane Parkison. His mother died in 1904. On 12 November 1910 the county clerk at Danville licensed W. A. Dowdy of Ranger, 23, to marry Miss Ola Cannon of Ranger, 18, the daughter of a Cannon who had died ten years before, and they were married the next day.

Two years later to the day, on 12 November 1912, they left Arkansas for Cherokee County, Oklahoma, the old Cherokee capital country around Tahlequah, where their only child, William Ralph, was born on 17 November 1913. In December 1913 they moved again, to Holdenville in Hughes County, and that was home for the rest of their lives, with one exception.

In the spring of 1921 William decided to try Mexico. On 12 March 1921, before a Hughes County notary, he swore out an affidavit of his whole life for the State Department: born in Yell County, lived there until 1912, then Cherokee County, then Hughes; five feet nine and a half, 150 pounds, black hair, blue eyes; wife Ola, "nee Cannon", red or auburn hair, brown eyes; one child, Ralph, seven. The purpose was "obtaining Passport into Old Mexico, State of Vera Cruz, where I am now moving with my family for the purpose of making my future home." He went down to Laredo, where on 21 March 1921 he signed the application itself as a contractor of Holdenville, with E. D. Stone, a Holdenville blacksmith, swearing to his identity, and asked that the passport be sent on to him at Paso del Cura in the state of Vera Cruz. A photograph of the three of them went with the papers. Passport 11701 was issued on 31 March 1921.

The Mexican venture did not last. By 1930 W. A. Dowdy was back in Holdenville with Ola and Ralph, and the 1950 census, taken that April, found William A. and Ola Dowdy there still. On the evening of 28 April 1950 a tornado struck Holdenville and destroyed their home. Both were killed. William was 62. Their son Ralph bought the plot in the Holdenville Cemetery, and they were buried together on 1 May 1950 in block OC, lot 448, where a red granite stone carries the same death date on both sides. The cemetery's card for him reads, under cause of death, "Storm (tornado) casualty."

If William Alfred Dowdy is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "William Alfred Dowdy (1887-1950)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/william-alfred-dowdy-1887-1950-08015c.