My maternal grandmother was born 13 March 1885 in Bledsoe county, Tennessee, daughter of Euclid Houston Lamb (1855-1913) and Martha A. Boyd (1855-1904). Lella had been baptized in the Church of Christ, to which her family belonged in Tennessee. She joined the Baptist Church in Friendship, Jackson county, Oklahoma. According to a tape made by her sister-in-law, Mayme Harrison McReynolds, her profession of faith included a statement that the decision to join the Baptist Church was hers and in no way was pressed upon her by her husband -- who was raised Baptist.My mother did not have letters from grandmother so I never saw her handwriting, until I was working on the 1920 census. The Jackson county census holding my mother's family was written so neatly, all the information filled in, no ditto marks, so I looked for the taker's name: Mrs. John H. Harrison. I could take the information filled in on her family for gospel!!
Although this photo had a crease in it you can see why John Harrison was interested by this young lady when they met while riding in the Sequatchie Valley of Tennessee. Soon he wooed and won her hand and they were married 17 March, 1907. He soon left her, headed for Oklahoma to homestead in the panhandle, where their first son, Edwin Houston, was born in January of 1908. Here's a photo of Edwin and his grandmother's first cousin, Margaret Turner. Margaret lived with Martha (Boyd) Lamb and helped raise her children, then moved to Oklahoma to help Lella with hers.
I'll write more later about Lella and her children, but what I write I learned from others. Lella died nine months after I was born and all I've learned from her came from memories. To know her was to love her, and that came from my father, who loved her as much as his own mother. He made promises to her before I was born that he kept until the day he died. Can anyone say that about their own mother-in-law?
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