"Emeline's paternal great-grandfather, Peter Reisinger, reached America's shores from Germany before our nation was founded, and subsequently fought in the Revolutionary War.
Emeline's paternal grandfather, Jacob Risinger, wanted more "elbow room" and came to Alabama in around 1820 with his wife, Mary Elizabeth Morgan, and eleven children.
On April 18, 1824, one of Jacob's sons, James "David" Risinger married Nancy Jane (Terry) Risinger in Bibb County, Alabama. Nancy was also a member of a South Carolinian pioneer family who moved to Alabama.
Within two years, David and Nancy had begun their family. In late summer of 1834, their beloved daughter, Emeline was born.
With an ancestral pioneer spirit in their blood, four of the Risinger brothers set out for Colorado in search of gold and land. As was the custom when wagons came westward, they did not keep moving constantly, but stopped along the way.
The Risingers had always made their living by tilling the soil, so they stopped each spring to raise a crop before going on again. Sometimes a family would become so attached to the countryside wherethey stopped that they would stay on. One brother, John F. Risinger, liked the land in Louisiana so much that he stayed.
When the other brothers arrived at Rusk County during Christmas week in 1849, they allowed others to go on in search of gold, and made Texas their home. George eventually settled in Tyler County and Amos in Shelby, but David Risinger stayed on at Laneville in Rusk County.
Within a few short years, on December 2, 1852, Emeline married Moses McSpadden Buckner, "the boy next door", at her parents home in Rusk County, Texas. Two years later, her brother, Jackson, married "the girl next door" and Moses' sister, Cassie (also known as Joanna Catherine Buckner).
After marrying, Emeline began her new life with Moses at the home and farm of her in-law's, Garrett David Buckner and Sarah Psalms (McSpadden) Buckner.
Tragically, Garrett had fallen ill shortly before the wedding, and died the following fall. Moses and his mother were named executor & executrix of Garrett's will and estate. The young widow was leftwith several young and teen-aged children.
Within a few years, the house was full of Sarah's growing children, and the new additions provided by Moses and Emeline. Tragically, Moses and Emeline lost their first child, Nancy Catherine, after only a year. Seven months later, Franklin Bowden "Frank" was born. Within a few short years, they were blessed with three more children, Mary Ann "Molly" (Scogin), Sarah Theodosia "Theo" (Power) and Robert "Garrett".
By 1862, the Civil War was upon the nation. Moses and several family members, including his younger brother, James, and four of Emeline's brothers, and cousins, enlisted at Tyler and Woodville.
In December 1862, Emeline wrote a letter to Moses telling him of the birth of his "little black-haired girl". Moses' touching response expressed his deep desire to see her. Nine days later, an intense two-day battle broke out in which Moses and his younger family members were taken captive at Arkansas Post. A few short months later, Emeline's husband died of small pox at the POW camp, Camp Douglas in Illinois. He never saw his "little black-haired girl" in which Emeline named Mosa "Mosie" Mariah Buckner (Scogin).
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The clasp on Emeline Risinger's nineteenth century photograph album was broken years ago, and the pages inside are crumbling with age, but the memories those old tintypes preserved have not faded.
In the early 1850's, the Risinger family lived in Rusk County at what was known as Pig Eye. The children attended school at Forest Hill. Years later, Emeline (1832-1921) would tell her grandchildren,"I don't know why you call it Glenfawn; it's nothing in the world but Forest Hill."
Nearby lived the Buckners, and – well, you know the story about the boy next door? In 1852, Emeline Risinger married Moses M. Buckner. Two years later, his younger sister, Cassie, also married the boy next door, Emeline's brother, Jackson.
Apparently there were many bonds between the Risinger and Buckner families. When war broke out, Moses' younger brother, James, enlisted at Woodville with some of the Risinger boys and their cousins, James Smelley. Emeline's husband, her brother-in-law, James Buckner, and four of her brothers –McCary, Landon, Jackson, and David – died in the war. Moses died in a prisoner-of-war camp. Jackson was mortally wounded in 1864 in the Battle of Calcasieu Pass, Louisiana. Cassie named her youngest child (who never saw his father) Jackson Landon Moses McCary Risinger.
The only one who returned home at the war's end was Jim Smelley. In 1867 he married the Widow Buckner at her father's house in Nacogdoches where she had moved with her five children after the war.
Jim Smelley farmed for a living, and when the crop was poor, so was the living. One year a deer was wrecking havoc in the cornpatch. The younger Buckner boy [Robert Garrett Buckner], who was a good shot, decided to stop the varmint. With the help of his half-brother, David Smelley, Buck penned the livestock. David got to hold the pine torch behind his older brother. The big flare burned slowly. Night settled down. As David later told it, they saw a pair of eyes shining. Buck leveled down on them, and the eyes hit the ground with loud thump. "It must have been a mighty big deer," Buck said. Going over to investigate, they discovered the neighbor's buggy pony, shot right between the eyes.
There was nothing to do but go home, much chagrined, and report to Jim Smelley. "You boys go on to bed," Jim said. "In the morning we'll go across the branch and tell Mr. Looney and go into town and buy him another pony."
In those days, people really lived off the land. One of Emeline's grandchildren, Dollie Lowe, remembered watching her grandmother make thread from cotton. "She had a row of cotton in the garden. She'd pick that cotton by hand, and she'd spin her thread," Dollie explained. "Granny made cotton socks. I don't think she ever had any wool. Maybe Granny wouldn't be needing any thread, but she'd make some to show me what it was like. I think she told me she had spun thread down fine enough to sew in a needle before, but this she was doing was about like twine." It is quite evident that pioneers likeGranny were very enterprising.
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Submitted by Frances Whitmire.
The following bio was taken from page 365 of the book entitled "Rusk County History" compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission. Transcribed by Claudia Schuster
Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Cemeteries of TX
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Emeline is recorded in "Wright and Susan Scogin: Their Descendants, and Related Families" by Grover C. Andersen, 1983, pg. 215.
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Bits and pieces were taken from the family history stories compiled for more than fifty years by Emeline's granddaughter, Era Mae Smelley (1899-1973).
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