We do have a great selection of information on the Smoky Mountain Mall site about Cherokee Indian History. We try to add new information all the time. Today we were given a tidbit of personal information about one of the Cherokee.
The message is from a side you rarely get in a book.
Here was our visitors comments about her life as a Cherokee Indian:
There is no reason why I would be ashamed of my heritage, so I thought I would comment on your pages about the Cherokee Indians. I am proud that I am part Cherokee and am very interested in the heritage and all the Cherokee history. The older I get it seems the more important the Cherokee Indian history becomes to me. I've never told much of my story about my grandmother being mistreated, but I have mentioned too many that a big part of me is Cherokee!
Very interesting site to read containing important information about the mistreatment of our Cherokee brothers and sisters. My mother's father's mother was full blooded Cherokee, but I can't prove it. He was a renegade and left home at a very young age and somehow ended up in Sylacauga, Alabama and married my grandmother, Emma. He mistreated her, and after 10 girls and one boy, the towns men kick him out of town. As I called him "Pop," he later moved in with us for a short period after mom married my dad. I was about 2 years old (around 1950) at the time and my sister was 5 years older. We lived in Childersburg, Alabama. He was a alcoholic at the time and later had to leave.
When I was older we had been to see him in a low income housing development in Sylacauga, Alabama, and I remember him very well. He was tall and had very very high cheek bones. He had a big laugh and was fun to be around. He had always loved me very much and spoiled me. He said I was just like my mama and she was his pick out of the 10 girls and 1 boy. We lived in Birmingham, Alabama at that time.
When he was dying in the hospital (around 1958,) in Sylacauga, he continued to call for mama. He had five daughters who lived in town and we lived 50 miles away in Birmingham but he wanted my mama. She went to him and stayed night and day in the hospital, alone, for weeks until he went on to live with Jesus. I have always wanted to find out more about the Cherokee tribe and maybe learn something about my relatives, but to no avail have hit a brick wall every way I went. His name was Clarence Wood. I don't know how he got Wood unless his dad was a Wood.
Thanks for posting such important information for those of us wanted to read about how the Cherokee Indians lived and had to survive after the people from other countries came and took our land. At the time it was the illegal aliens who took the land from us. We fought to protect our rights, our freedom and our land but to no avail it was a useless battle against the incoming settlers.
Delia Wood Farris Holloway
Now and forever in Alabama