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I am the third child out of five. I was only seven years old when my Daddy died. My oldest brother, Paul was thirteen, my sister, Melinda was ten, and my baby brothers, the twins were only four. Daddy was a very young forty-six, but he had been very sick with sugar diabetes. In 1966 and before the medical profession had no idea how to treat diabetics, except with diet and "nerve pills”. The treatment was very inadequate. A few months before he was killed, he was in the Veteran's Hospital in Jackson, MS for six months. All the hospitalization did was cause us not to see our Daddy for a long time, we only saw him one time while he was up there, and he was demoted at work. He made very little as it was, he supplemented our income farming, and Mama worked. After the demotion, there was barely enough money to feed all of us. I cannot remember exactly how long it was before he died, but for what seemed like forever, he was laid off work, Mama was working over time, and her Mother was very ill. Mama was torn between her family and her Mother; it must have been hard on her. On September 1, 1966 Daddy was killed while hunting, he was buried on the third. Granny, Mama's Mama died on September 6,1966 and was buried on the ninth. It was a horrible few weeks for all of us. We loved Daddy very much, and were very close to Granny. Mama kept us away from Daddy's family from then on and we know very little about our Davis blood. We know Daddy's immediate family, except his Daddy, he died when our Daddy was only seventeen. His mother was the "Grandmother from Hell" she never liked any of us. I hope to find some of our Davis ancestors, where we came from, when we came to America, if we have any Native American blood and if so which tribe (we all hope we have a lot of Native American Heritage to discover.) My family does not know I am doing this search, it is a surprise for them from me. I cannot wait to see their faces, when I have some positive results. We have been to very few functions of any kind that involved the Davis family, I can remember one or two times when I was young, before Daddy died. We go to the yearly reunions as much as we can now, that we are older. Mama is now seventy-two years old, and she is in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s. She lives in the years she was married to Daddy more than she does any other time. I plan to contact my Daddy's only living brother to see if he can give me some more information to enter on my family tree, maybe that will help with my search.
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