Queen Victoria · Moore Family Stories

Queen Victoria

1997, Nathaniel Jeffery Moore, 15, Thomas Leonard 's son, comes in from school.
"Grama (Anne Louise Knight Moore), our history assignment is to give a talk about an ancestor.
Tell me about Queen Victoria."
"Your Great-Great-Great-Granmama, Armenta Missouri Davenport, (Sue) was born in
Alabama. She married Marshal Messer Gill in 1865.
He was part Indian. He was real white, he had no Indian look about him.
Some of his brothers and sisters did.
The story is--- that she was kin to Queen Victoria.
My mother, Anne Gill Knight, remembers when she was a kid and had a fit and would lay on
the floor and kick and scream. Her Granmama would laugh and scold her, "You quit acting like Queen Victoria."

Granmama's youngest daughter, Aunt Anne, would primp and pout and
be 'stuck-uppy' as a teenager, just so spoiled that you mustn't upset her.
She wanted to stay in her home or her room and 'look pretty'

(All her life, she did nothing that was 'work'. She had no children
She always had 'a mop lady'. She dyed her hair black, and said she was 25,
until her Mother was 90. And to dye your hair then, was a sin.
The hair dye caused cancer on her head. It led to her death.
She was pale and stately---and beautiful---and she knew it.)

Grandmama would dismiss her with a wave,
"Go on, Queen Victoria."

Grandmama had six granddaughters about my age.
We were at her house a lot, Dora, Stella, Don, Fred, Tid and me.
We kept asking her what she meant about "Queen Victoria".
She told one of us, about her family going back to Queen Victoria---
and then we all knew it.

Us girls knew that on our Grandad's side of the family, our Great-Great Grandad was Chief
Little Red Deer. We joked that he went back to Pocahontas, We kept it to ourselves.
It was a disgrace for anyone to know that you had Indian blood.
(Nathaniel, your own Father, Tommy Moore, moved to Oklahoma in 1978.
He wanted us to find out if he had enough Indian blood, to get in on all the government
benefits, that Indians get.)

These saying have been passed down for generations. I heard it when I was about 10
and of course I repeated it. Mama scolded me every time, "Don't let anybody hear you say that."

My sister Alicea, heard it about forty years ago, she was excited about it.
She read a book about Queen Victoria's Father and her birth,
then she didn't want anyone to know that she might be kin to Queen Victoria.
Nate: "But why Gran Ma?"
"Well, like the royal family today, divorce and scandals."
Nate: "But isn't the Queen today, a nice lady?"
"Yes, but some in her family aren't."
Nate: "Well, what did they do?"
"Look Nathaniel, instead, here in your 100 year old great-Grandmama's
(Anne Gill Knight) own words, is what she remembers about her Grandpa Hess. He is
your Great-great-great-Grandpa, on the other side of the family."

Joseph Eugene Hess was born in France in 1838. It was the time of the Napoleons and
there were wars. When he was twelve, he was soon to be drafted. His family hid him a
box and carried it onto a ship. When he was out of sight of France, he was opened up.
They all sailed to America. He had two brothers.
George, was just younger than him and would have been drafted too.
Cholera broke out on the ship and half of the people aboard died. He saw a woman
sit on her suitcase to talk, and she fell over dead--- that quick. His family was spared.

He lived in Ottawa, Illinois. One of his brothers had hydrophobia. When he was 'at himself'
he would tell his family,
"Stay away from me, when I am having a fit, I might bite you". He died.
His other brother went back to France.
His wife died, leaving him with Josie and Jenny, and a son. He owned a flour grinding mill,
that had a big water wheel to turn it. They lived in the building.

He went to town and Jenny overheard him say that he was going to buy them some candy.
He come back, and Jenny flew upstairs to get her candy. Her dress caught in the machinery.
It was so noisy that the workers didn't know to shut it off until they saw blood in the flour.

Her leg was cut off at her hip. They didn't have to operate. She got an artificial leg but
wouldn't use it. She hopped around on one foot.
She could sweep, do housework and play as good as anyone.
The other kids would play and have one-legged races, Jenny always won them.

Grandpa Hess didn't fight in the Civil War. Northern men didn't have a great desire to fight.
The Yankees had plenty of men and didn't need soldiers. You could honorably pay someone
to take your place in the army. He did that.