MOORE



FATE AND ALINE(BRABSTON)MOORE & THEIR 3 YOUNGEST CHILDREN


Simon Lafayette “Fate” Moore was born in 1844 and was a Baptist preacher who stood 6 foot 8 inches tall. He was the son of William "Bill" Moore and Lou Patterson. In 1873, he married 25-year-old, 5 foot nothing, half Cherokee, Elizabeth Aline Brabson in Knoxville, TN. By 1893 Aline had given birth to 8 children, one of which died in infancy. Three years later, they decided to GO TO TEXAS , leaving behind their oldest daughter Mattie Aline who had married a young man named Ivy (we thought). Not realizing they would never see Mattie again, or ever know any of her children, they took the six youngest children and joined a wagon train headed west, making their new home in Fannin County, Texas.

In 1898, the couple left their children with neighbors and went to Oklahoma to register on the Dawes Rolls. Their application was denied because Fate didn’t have enough Indian blood and Elizabeth was female. They returned to Fannin, County where they lived the remainder of their lives. Aline died in 1927 and Fate in 1944. Both are buried in unmarked graves at Carson Cemetery in Ector, Texas.

As families do, the children grew up, married and had families of their own. The oldest son, Joe died in 1903 leaving Mary Rogers Moore a widow with two small children. She remarried and the children grew up not seeing much of their Moore relatives. Alice married Alex Bartley, moved to Memphis, Texas, and had 10 children. Della married Art Ellison and moved to Dallas. When Art died leaving her a widow with a small daughter, Della married David Knight and had two more daughters and a son. Fate and Elizabeth’s three remaining boys, Will, Tom and Luke stayed in Fannin County. Will married Lena Chance and had seven children and Tom married Viola Mitchell and had two sons. Luke married Johnnie Laverne Hudson and with their five children, made their home in Ector. Travel was difficult and infrequent in those days and letters were the only contacts between the siblings.

More than 100 years later the descendents span six generations. All of Fate and Aline’s eight children are deceased. Seven of their 23 plus grandchildren are still alive, and the 100 plus members of the fourth, fifth, and sixth generations are scattered throughout Texas, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

The family that started out on a Wagon Train to Texas was reunited August 5, 2000 in Sherman, TX, thanks to the modern technology of the Internet.

In 1997 I began searching for my grandfather, Luke Moore’s ancestors, through various genealogy sites on the Internet. Moore is such a common name I started my search, looking for Brabson and immediately found a fourth cousin in Detroit who had compiled more than 300 years of Elizabeth’s family history. There were also several branches of the Brabson tree with relatives from California to Virginia. There is a large Brabson Reunion every fall in Knoxville, Tennessee. Anyone connected to the Brabson’s are invited.

Information on the Moore family remained elusive, but in September of 1998, Mary Della Moore Knight’s granddaughter came across a genealogy web site entitled “Brabston/Brabson.” She had found the same page I had found a few months earlier. The cousin in Detroit e-mailed both of us and we exchanged information about each other’s families. We were both surprised to realize how close we lived to one another. She lives in 60 miles south/east of me.

In May of 2000, Joe’s great-granddaughter was searching for her roots on the Internet and typed in the name “Moore” on her browser. A web page popped up that listed Joseph Moore, son of Simon Lafayette Moore. She had found my genealogy web page. She phoned her mother, so excited she could barely talk. The mother e-mailed me and the exchange of information began once again. We were able to fill in gaps in the family history for each other. I e-mailed the cousin in Terrell and the three of us got on a family chat line. Imagine my suprise to learn that she only lived 60 miles east of me.

Plans for a reunion were underway. There would be three of Fate and Alines's children represented by four generations of Moores.

On Sunday the 30th of July, one week before the scheduled reunion, I was once again looking at genealogy message boards for Moore and there was a request for information on any relative of Alice Mae Moore Bartley. I responded. After a few e-mails and several phone calls made by the cousin who made the posting, to her three sisters, plans were made for the newest found members of the family to attend the reunion. There were now four of the eight siblings represented. Thank you World Wide Web. We never could have found each other if it wasn’t for the far-reaching technology of the Internet.

This story has a poignant post-script. Various family members of her mother had raised Della's granchildren, after their parents died. She knew that her father, Perry Knight had been married before he met her mother and had a daughter but that was all the information available to her. Because of a casual comment and a few questions asked at the reunion, she found a cousin of her sister's, who gave her the sister's phone number in Virginia and the sisters have since spoken on the phone and are planning their own reunion. Now the oldest sister has two sisters, a brother and more cousins than she can count.

Post script #2: a few months after the reunion the genealogist grandaughter of Della Moore Kinight had another surprise. She knew that her father had been married after her mother died, but what she didn't know was that the new wife was expecting a child when Perry and she divorced. This child, another daughter, found her sister in a genforum posting and now all of Della's grandchildren have been united. Via the internet, Mattie's grandchildren have been found and a correction made. She married an Ivy later in life after her husband, Robert Sterling McNish died. We thought her children were named Ivy because we had an envelope with the return name of Ivy.

Fate and Aline's youngest son was Simon Luke Moore who married Johnnie Laverne Hudson in 1914. Her parents were John Thomas Hudson and Mollie Campbell Gideon and their family can be found on the Hudson link.


Johnnie and children about 1930


Johnnie and Luke 1960


Moore Sisters 1945


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