Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 January 1917 — WHO FORGOT HAS 2 FAMILIES [ARTICLE]

WHO FORGOT HAS 2 FAMILIES

SONS WHO HAD NOT SEEN HIM ' FOR 50 YEARS GOT CLEW WHEN HE BEGAN TO TRACE SELF FLED FROM MISSOURI IN 1860 \t ~. L : '. ~—~~~ ~~~ Union Soldier, Warned Away, Wed Again; Wife, Hearing He Was Dead, Also Wed. Tulsa, Ok.—After eyeing the aged man in the big leather chair from various angles of the Hotel Tulsa ]cbby, one Texan said to another, “1 believe he is the man.” They went over to the big chair. One opened a small leather case and held before the eyes of the old man a dagguerrotype of a man just under middle age. “That’s me,!’ said the old .man, as he leaned forward in surprise. “Where d d you get it? Who are you?” “Don’t you know us?” one of the younger men asked. The old man st,ood up and looked them over. He snook his head. “It seems to me that 1 have seen you before,” he said To ore of them, “but 1 don’t place you." He was asked again, “Don’t you know us—father?” He looked again, startled, but again shook his head. The ydunger men were Joseph Robertson of Floyada and John Robartson o f Coleman, Tex. Joseph is 60, John is 58. The old man was Jeremiah C.. Robertson of Alvarado, Tex. He is 85. The sons had not ‘Seen him for 50 years. Until a short time before they had supposed that he was dead. But he had only forgotten. He had lost himself and his family. The unusual tn.ng in his strange case, however, was that he had forgotten two families. Now he finds that he has a family in Texas and one in Missouri. His story, as it is told, goes back to the days, right after the Civil War. In August, 1866, Jeremiah Robertson v, as a farmer in Greene County, Mo., net far from Springfield. He had returned from the Union Army to his wife and four, boys, but found Union veterans were npt in high favor in his c ommunity. Four of his neighbors, •wno had been with him in the Union army, were mysteriously killed, one at a time, and Robertson was warned to leave' the country. He paid no attention to the warning. Then his neighbor on the next farm was shot from ambush at night, and a few days later another letter, under fils door, read: “You have 12 hours to get away i nTve.” ■ ■ j_——

Robertson went into his yard. A rifle bullet grazed his head. He ran into the house, and that night rode away on his horse; after telling his wife that he would send for her and Ute boys as soon as he was settled. Two years later his family neard that he had been killed at Pond Springs, Mo. Neighbors who went L'tre to see the body told Mrs. Robertson it was that of her husband. So, to his Missouri family, he,was =d± ad. — Many years passed. “Then, s me time ago, the two sons Robertson, who had moved to Texas, received information which led them to believe that their father was alive. " i.e story he told to these sons upon tneir discovery of him shows how his ev.stence came to be revealed. He told them: \ "I have always had a faint recollection that I used to live in Missouri. I hi-ve no recollection beyond a day when I found myself riding along a toad in Texas. I had an idea then wl ere I came from or where I was going. “During the next year I seriously Jon from whence •' had come and trying to find ojit something about my-st-]f, but I did not know where to make inquiries, I simply forgot my past.” When Joseph Robertson heard of the old man, Jereiniah Robertson, five months ago, he and his brother, John, tv-thwealthy, hired a detective to help establish the identity of the man. investigation revealed that Jeremiah Robertson, on leaving his home, went direct from Greene County, Mo., to Collin County, Tex., and that he lived the re 16 years. IL revealed that he married a few years after his arrival in Texas under his own name, and that he became interested in thfe cattle business. The dagguereotype of him, which led to his identification, was taken in Springfield, Mo., when he was 33 years old.— —- -— ——— son ? e ;; MlSsouri wife married again and lives at South Greenfield, where she has grown children . and by her marriage to Robertson are living, and there are 23 grandchildren In this branch of the family. In Robertson’s Texas family there are 16 children, the oldest a man of 45,and36 grandchildren. The two sons who searched for and f- und their father sent for their two orothers in the Missouri branch of the family to come and see their parent, who hadthen returned from Tulsa to Alvaradd. The other brothers are Owen Robertson of South Greenfield, Mo., and Ray Robertson Of Broken Arrow, Ok. . He—“ You used to say there was s miething .about me you liked," She—“ Yes, but you’-ve spent ft all now.”