Grove Beginnings...Part 14

Crittenden Grave

By Rose Stauber

Some things catch your attention and make you want to know the answers. Such a situation is a lone grave in downtown Grove. It took us several years just to get into the overgrown lot where the grave is located. When I finally was taken to the gravestone, it was lying on the ground, but still in great condition.

The engraving on the stone reads: Electa Crittenden Born Dec. 25, 1835 Died Jan. 20, 1879. A verse follows:

"Her gentle ways will ever dwell in hearts of those who knew and loved her well."

For the record, Electa's son James gave his mother's date of death as Feb. 28, 1878, on his Guion Miller application.

Electa died at age 43 or 44, and those years were surely filled with troubles and sorrow known by all Cherokees during that period. I haven't tried to prove it, but she probably came over the Trail of Tears as a young child. She lived in Goingsnake District, probably in the part of that district which is now Adair County. Her maiden name was Hopkins. She married Henry Crittenden and had children. Henry died, likely killed, in 1865 in the violence of the Civil War.

Two sons, James F. and Charles W., and two daughters, Elizabeth and Jennie, would have been quite young when their father died. James gave his date and place of birth as Carey's Ferry, Nov. 15, 1863. The bereft family must have lived in what is now Grove when Electa died in 1879. The custom of the time would be for her to be buried near the home. Who caused the gravestone to be made and placed and when is not known. Did the two sons, barely out of their teens, if both were, have the marker placed? We cannot know.

We do know that the sons left the Cherokee Nation for a period, possibly going to Texas.
In 1880, the two brothers went before the Cherokee Nation Commission on Citizenship and petitioned to regain their citizenship. To explain, leaving the Cherokee Nation was to forfeit citizenship. The Crittenden brothers were again members of the nation. The quality of both parents' families was noted by the commission.

They appear not to have lived near each other after that. Charles told the Dawes Commission of being in the Choctaw Nation working around the coal mines. After his marriage in 1886 he lived in Checotah.

James came back to the home area where his father had owned land in the Grand River Valley. Mentions of James are found frequently in early issues of "The Grove Sun." He seems to have farmed, as did most people in those days, and perhaps had some business interests. He married Elizabeth Butler, daughter of Elowie and Dorcas Landrum Butler. One child was born to this marriage; Electa Crittenden was born Dec. 4, 1889. and named for her grandmother.

Elizabeth died Feb. 29, 1896, and was buried in Butler Cemetery on the south side of Honey Creek. James later married Esther Caudill who died Sept. 21, 1948.

James died May 25, 1953, at a rest home near Miami where he had lived since Esther died. The obituary, which has some errors, says James was survived by "his daughter, Electa Crain of Los Angeles, Calif., and several distant relatives." Nothing else has been found on Electa Crain. James' obituary says that he was buried in Olympus Cemetery, but we have found no monument for him or Esther also said to be buried there.

Jarrell Browning, who owns the property where Electa Crittenden' s gravestone is, grew up in the house on the property. The house, Jarrell says, was a Carey house moved in from the Patricia Island area when Grand Lake was built. Jarrell remembers that a man wearing a dark coat visited the grave over the years Jarrell was growing up. The visitor must have been James Crittenden. Jarrell says there have been no visitors to the grave since he was young.

There are more of these family graves in Grove. One child's stone is near a house in northeast Grove where it is being protected. The gravestone reads "Our Fannie" with no surname. The date of death is early 1870s. So far I have been unsuccessful in identifying what family this child belongs to.

In another case, two children's gravestones are loose near a house in inner Grove. Undoubtedly, other graves may be unmarked in the older sections of the town.

Copyright © 2007 Rose Stauber