Hello Rainwater List, The following was passed along to me by a fellow Rainwater researcher. It is an interesting little sketch of a Rainwater family reported to be a part-blood Cherokee. To see more on John Raliegh Rainwater's ancestry go to Ron Gray's tree at <www.familytreemaker.com/users/g/r/a/Ronald-A-Gray/index.html> Look under Gereration 5, 13, iii. Note: Jeanette's name is spelled Genetta. I received the story as follows and deleted the name of the person who wrote it: ____________________________________________________ Have you ever corresponded with ________ of KY? A number of years ago she wrote to me the following: "I knew nothing personally about Dad's uncles and aunts except the youngest child, Jeanette (Thomas) Rainwater. Quite by accident, I stumbled upon one of her grand-daughters, Earthy Humble of Arkansas. She was 88 yrs old then. From her I learned the story of Jeanette's life. As before said, Jeanette Thomas married John Rainwater. He was a Cherokee Indian. As Jeanette told her grand-daughter, she looked up one day and saw him coming over the mountain, and he was the most handsome man she ever laid eyes on. They got married when she was 19 yrs old. Evidently other women considered John Rainwater handsome too, for several years later, he left Jeanette and their 7 children for another woman. Jeanette had a stroke which left her paralyzed on one side, and she walked on a cane the rest of her life. Her life was sad, but courageous one. She didn't give up, sit down and pine her life away for John Rainwater. Their oldest son, Chris was married and living in Arkansas. Jeanette had her belongings loaded in 2 covered wagons, took her children and joined a wagon train to join her son Chris in Arkansas. On the way, her baby girl, Mary Jane, grew ill and died. The wagon master stopped the train long enough to bury her by the roadside, then they moved on. As her children grew up and married, Jeanette would stay with first one, then the other of her children. She died at Chris Rainwater's house in Scott Co, Ark. This is how Mrs. Humble told it to me. Pa (Miles Rainwater) was living in Okla. then. One morning he said he felt like he ought to go see Ma (he called her Ma). So he got on his horseand rode about 25 miles over into Arkansas to where Chris lived. The cemetery there is over in a field and there was a burial in process. Pa knew everyone, so he decided he'd go over to the cemetery and see who they were putting away. And it was Grandma! They were letting her down (in the newly dug grave) when he got there. She died in the spring of 1918. If you have her birthdate right, she would have been 79 years old." [End of quote] ________________________________________________________ Regards, RG