children:

Joseph  b/d 1903 twin
Joe  b/d 1903 twin
Infant b/d 1904
Infant b/d 1905
Clee  b. 1906 d. 1984 twin
Lee b/d 1906 twin
Clinton Daniel b. 1909 d. 1941
J. C. b, 1913 d. 1989
Cecil b. 1917 d. 1999
Maggie Mae b. 1919 d. 1921
T.S. b. 1920 d.1991
Dolly b. 1922 twin
Holly b/d 1922 twin
William Robert Jr. b. 1925 d. 1959

born:  March 16, 1886
Clarksville, Red River, Texas

died: December 10, 1966
Clovis, Fresno, California
burial: Clovis Cemetery

married: William Robert Herion
September 28, 1902
Indian Territory
Ada, Pontotoc, Oklahoma

Marriage License

You will find Bertie named Birtie J. Chapman in most documents, but here she will be Bertie Jay, why.....? , that's what she told me.  I don't have any better documentation that I can use as proof.  Since I can't 'prove' it, I, for one don't argue about it.  " A rose by any other name........!"

Bertie was borned the last child of Joseph Chapman and his second wife Margaret Strong.  Her mother died at or soon after her birth and her father died when she was 8 years old.  There is a mystery between the time her mother died in Texas and her father's death in Illinois.  When and did, Joseph move himself and his children north ?  Bertie's grandmother's obituary states that she and their grandfather went to Illinois to retrieve the children and took them to raise in Oklahoma.  There has also been the suggestion of a step mother, but I have not found any thing to back this up. 

Bertie always considered her uncle, John C. Chapman, her father figure.  When he died he left her enough money that she was able to buy herself a wood cook stove.

She married, Bob Herion,  the young widowed husband of her first cousin, Allie Duncan, at the age of 16.   She and Bob had 13 children, 3 of the births being twins.  Of these 13, they raised 7 to adulthood.  Her many miscarriages and infant deaths, may have been the result of living in oil camps during the early days of Oklahoma's oil booms.  These rough and rowdy towns were hard on the wives and children of the men who worked them.

If any one ever loved me unconditionaly, she did.  She doted, not only me, but my many cousins, putting up with our antics, fighting and hurts with a loving since of humor.  One of my fondest memories is of the time she gave into our pleas of tasting her snuff.  To us it looked like sweetened cocoa and even though she tried to disuade us, we insisted and she obliged.  Giving each of us a healty ' dip' she laughed, until tears ran, at the show we put on, spitting, shoving and pushing our way to the water faucet, hoping to wash that awful stuff and it's taste from our mouths.  You can believe this one never asked to share a 'dip' again.

She also had me convinced that the birds were tattletales, coming straight to her with any bit of news about what I had been up to in my day's adventures.  I spent ours throwing rocks and chasing birds out of the yard before they could tell on me.  Seemed logical to me at the time...after all the birds were every place I was and she knew things I didn't think she could possibly found out with out some help. 

I miss my Grandma, even after 33 years, she always made my world safe and secure.