July 25, 2008-Liberty Bell Cemetery-Dill City, Oklahoma

After the visit to Woods Cemetery in Fannin County, Texas and all the time spent in researching the relationships of the ancestors buried there, I thought I knew how I would proceed in visiting other small cemeteries. I would go fully informed about the ancestors who were buried there, or I would pay very close attention to gravemarkers and be thorough in looking around.

In April 2008 while on a trip to Oklahoma, we went to Liberty Bell Cemetery in Dill City, Oklahoma. It is a small cemetery with probably less than 80 graves. I thought we were well informed about who in the family was buried there. There would be Browns, Bookouts, Parkers and Rouses. We knew where they were located and took some nice photos. We found the Browns and Rouses and Parkers we had expected. There was a row of 5 Bookout graves with two Jackson markers right in the middle of the row. The Jackson markers were much older. It seemed a bit confusing, but we made notes and included pictures of the Jackson markers. At that time, we were not aware of any relationship to Jacksons since we had only been doing genealogy for about 8 months.

The Jackson markers read, Mahala Jackson, wife of S.N. Jackson, June 26, 1904 and Mary R. Jackson, died Feb. 9, 1906, aged 63 years. In order to identify these two Jacksons I had to go back over the genealogy of the Bookout family, which took a while. As it turned out Mahala Moore Bookout was married to Calvin Bookout. Calvin Bookout died in 1877. Mahala was left a widow with seven children. Two of her children, Amaziah Bookout and Molly Bookout Rouse are buried at Liberty Bell. In 1881, Mahala remarried to Stephen Nelson Jackson. That made it clear that it was Mahala Jackson, the wife of S.N. Jackson, who was the mother of Amaziah and Molly Bookout. Stephen N. Jackson's mother was Mary R. Jackson. The age on Mary R. Jackson's marker does not match what her age would have been in 1906. Instead of 73 years old, the marker showed 63 years. Just a mistake.

I was not surprised to learn that Stephen N. Jackson is also buried at Liberty Bell. I don't know exactly where, but next time I will locate his grave. Stephen N. Jackson and Mahala married when the oldest of Mahala's children was 15 and the youngest only 4. He raised the children of Cecil Bookout.

Thinking I had identified all the ancestors at Liberty Bell, I was surprised when we discovered that one of the daughters of the Rouses is also buried there. Bertha Rouse married Mr. Dean and Bertha Dean is also at Liberty Bell. I now have no reason to believe we won't find more ancestors there as the research continues. I am becoming better prepared as time goes by.