Saturday, October 10, 2009

Alexander Judd Doran & Lillian Francis Stroud



Lillian Francis Stroud & Alexander Judd Doran in their wedding clothes

Since I posted the History of Alexander Judd Doran last time, I thought I’d tell you a little something about him. Does that sound ok to you? Assuming, of course, that there ever is a “you” to read this. :)
Alexander Judd Doran was born April 18, 1873 in Finley, Christian County, Missouri to Hamilton Green Doran and Charlotte Belinda McCroskey. He had two sisters (Emma Amner and Minnie Ellen) and six brothers (Francis Edwin, Matthew Duff, William James, Junius Harry, Allen Hamilton and Leonard Paul).


If you read his History, you know he wandered all over Missouri, Kansas, and the Indian Territory to find work. He even wandered as far as Nebraska. Then in 1902 he went to


Oklahoma with Cousin Charley McCroskey where he went to homestead. Went to Valley View Tex in fall to Uncle Will McCroskeys
1902 stayed there one year about Dec 10           29
then to Thayer Kan was married Dec 17 1903    30
I find that passage to be incredibly interesting.


According to family legend, aka my mother, Alexander Judd was in love with Vanny McCroskey. And she loved him. He even asked her to marry him. But she said no, because they were cousins. “Uncle Will McCroskey” was Vanny’s father. So it appears that in the fall of 1902 he went to Valley View and spent a year with the McCroskey’s before going to Kansas to marry my great-grandmother.


On December 17, 1903 he married Lillian Francis Stroud, daughter of Elisha and Ruth (Rawlings) Stroud. They had four children: Ethel (104 and still feisty!), Chester Joseph (1906-1972), Harry Glenn (1910-2002) and Vivian Vannie (1913-1996).


They moved to Cotton County, Oklahoma in September of 1907 to a homestead Southwest of Walters where the family remained until 1943. To me, he sounds incredibly lonely when he wrote:


The children all married and gone Lillian died March 6 1942 and was buried in IOOF Cemetery one mile west of Walters. On the north side. I am alone on the Farm this is may 13th 1943.
Twenty-eight days later, on June 10, 1943 he finally got to marry his first love, Virginia Vandalia McCroskey.


Vanny McCroskey (1875-1963) circa 1884

Alexander Judd Doran passed away on March 22, 1976 just 24 days from his 103rd birthday.

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