Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Post #1
by Tonya Graham McQuade
How This Journey Began: The Hales & Petrees of Andrew County, Missouri
Back in early December of 2021, I received a message through Ancestry.com. Little did I realize at the time what an impact that email would have on me. The sender wanted to know how I was related to Bailis Petree. I responded by letting him know Bailis was my great great grandfather, figuring this was someone else researching our family tree. Not so. Almost two months later, I got the following reply:
I have no relation to the Petree’s but I do have an interesting story. Back in the early 90’s my father stumbled upon a bunch of letters and pictures of the family going back to James C. Hale, father of Mary Hale who was married to Bailis Petree. It’s quite a collection of your family history. I got to thinking if someone had my family history, I’d want to know. If you are at all interested, send me your cell number, and I can send you pictures or you can text my cell.
As soon as I read Jeremy’s message, I immediately texted back. The following night, we had an hour-long conversation on the phone. Soon after that, we made arrangements for Jeremy to send me the box of old letters, photos, and memorabilia. Thus began my new adventure: tracing James C. Hale’s steps through the Civil War and researching key people, events, and impacts of the Civil War in Missouri. Along with James’s letters, I discovered Civil War letters from Bailis’s brother, Benjamin Petree; letters from family members who had traveled to California, Oregon, and Washington in the 1850’s and 1860’s; older letters from James and his wife’s parents in Tennessee; poems my great-great grandparents had written for each other; a letter from a "Rebel Cousin" named Rachel writing in support of "Jeff Davis" and other Confederate generals; and more recent letters from my great grandmother’s generation. More than 100 letters in all, it was quite a treasure trove of family history.
The box did not only include letters, however. There was a pair of James C. Hale’s eyeglasses; a flag his daughter Mary Ann Hale Petree made for him, which he carried with him throughout the Civil War; several tintype photos of various family members; pieces of material from dresses worn by my ggg-grandmother and gg-grandmother; and several pages of family tree information.
Initially, my goal was to read through the letters and transcribe parts that were important to understanding my family history, but I soon realized what I had in my hands might be interesting to people outside of my family as well. These were actual letters written from Civil War camps in various states, written from the Oregon Trail, and written from the mining camps of California. Reading through the letters gave me insights into so many aspects of history and provided so many unique perspectives that I soon felt compelled to share, especially when the early pages of this book started forming – unbidden – in my mind.
And thus was born Missouri Daughter - a book that begins and ends with Mary Ann “Mollie” Hale Petree, but interweaves actual letters from her father James C. Hale, her brother-in-law Benjamin Petree, her aunt Jane Kennedy Hale McMeeken, and her friend Elias Edwards. While the “at home” chapters featuring Mollie and Bailis incorporate fictional elements and imagined conversations, many actual events referenced in the letters form key plot elements in these chapters, and most others are based on extensive research into their location and time period.
As I quickly learned in my research and from reading these letters, Missouri was a state torn apart by the Civil War – eventually even having two competing governments and governors, one recognized by the United States government and one by the Confederacy. Both the Hales and Petrees had relatives who fought on both sides of the war, and both sides lost family members in the fighting. While James C. Hale volunteered early on to join the Union army, seeing action in Missouri, Kentucky, and Arkansas before spending much of his enlisted time at the hospital in St. Louis, Benjamin Petree was drafted toward the end of the war and ended up joining Gen. Sherman’s March to the Sea through North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, seeing huge amounts of devastation and destruction along the way.
Through it all, Mollie stayed home, trying to offer her support to her family whenever she could. And she wrote letters – lots of letters – to her father and other family members and friends. Most importantly, she preserved the letters she received in response, then passed them on to her daughter Lettie Petree Bragg. Lettie, my great grandmother’s Nora’s sister, labeled some of the items in the box and recorded some of the family tree information that was included.
Since Lettie had no children, she must have eventually passed the letters on to a favorite niece or nephew – I have a guess, but I can’t be certain. That relative – somewhere in Southern California in the 1990’s - put that box of letters and other items outside beside her garbage bin as she prepared to move to a retirement home. I am ever so thankful to Jeremy’s father for recognizing their value and holding on to them for 30 years – and to Jeremy, who was able to find me through Ancestry.com to send me this gift of my family’s history.
Missouri Daughter is now in a first draft form - I plan to continue working on it through the summer and fall, when I have a second trip to Missouri planned (check out a future blog post for details on my recent trip). After that, I hope to find an agent or publisher with whom I can work so that I can share the book with a larger audience - esp. those with connections to Bailis and Mary Ann Petree.
If you want to follow along on this journey of discovery, be sure to click "Follow" up above, and feel free to add your comments, insights, or questions along the way!
Tonya McQuade, Teacher & Writer
San Jose, CA
