Person:Samuel Lindsey (4)

SML's date of birth is in his father's bible--see Henry Carlton Lindsey, THE MARK LINDSEY HERITAGE (Brownwood, TX, 1982), p. 66. Date of death is in ibid., p. 68, as well as date of marriage and spouse's dates of birth and death.

According to MARK LINDSEY HERITAGE, SML spent his early life as a farmer, and then entered public service in Red River Psh., serving as constable for 16 years. I have a copy of a tape recording made at a Lindsey family reunion in the 1960s, in which SML speaks of his service. He also was a merchant at Coushatta.

I have fond memories of Uncle Sam, who was the patriarch of the Lindsey family when I was growing up. Though SML's life had been touched by tragedy when his son Dwight Cecil killed his mother Avie, his wife and children, and himself in 1942, SML was a genial, gentlemanly man full of wit and life. I recall him sitting with his cane at reunions, holding court and trying to outdo all other joke tellers and storytellers. My uncle Lee Compere tells me that the reunions never began until Uncle Sam had taken his pick of the prettiest woman at the reunion; when he'd made his choice, he'd then dance her around the room as the band played, and the reunion had officially started.

In build, Uncle Sam tended to short rather than tall, and tended to gain a bit more weight than many of the Lindsey family, though he was never over-weight. He always had a genial smile, and his eyes twinkled when he told jokes or waltzed his lady-friends around the room at family reunions.

Uncle Sam lived to be almost 100, and his daughter Lucy Mai Parker told me some years ago that his final objective in life was to live long enough to cast his final presidential vote for Jimmy Carter. Like all his brothers, he tended to dress fastidiously, with starched white shirts and ties even on the hottest summer days, up to the end of his life.

I enjoyed visiting Uncle Sam and his second wife at their house in Coushatta, which had a large, well-maintained front lawn, with a swing on it, where we children would sit and eat fresh hot gingerbread that Uncle Sam's wife had just baked.

Unless otherwise noted, all information on the children of this family is from Henry Carlton Lindsey, THE MARK LINDSEY HERITAGE (Brownwood, TX, 1982), p. 68.