The Mayflower Ancestry of Margaret Deborah Page

~ AND THE DESCENDANTS OF RUTH FULLER FRANCISCO ~

(Author's note: This is likely the last chapter in a genealogical journey. Thanks for the memories.)

As always, unapologetically unedited. (I've been told to remove this line... Have they never met me?)

I. THE ROYAL FLUSH

I think I might be done.

Well, as "done" as any genealogist ever is with any line. But yes, I think the heavy lifting is finally finished. I’m still technically waiting on one last "proof verification," but the consensus among fellow researchers is that I don’t really need it. They tell me the final argument for the last of the eight generations—that for Annie Bell Cisco King—stands perfectly well on its own. Waiting on this final piece of the puzzle, it seems, is just a genealogical accoutrement.

It has been quite a journey. First, I "traveled" through Ruth Fuller, that sixth-generation descendant of Mayflower passenger Edward Fuller and his son Samuel. I’m happy to report I now have her thoroughly identified as the wife of Old Henry Francisco. In fact, my dear Ruth should be making her formal debut in the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record next month. She’ll be in print, cementing her own particular legacy in a peer-reviewed journal that’s been doing this since 1869. No pressure or anything.    

It was from Ruth Fuller Francisco’s branch that I was able to tell Peggy’s story.

 

To be honest, I hadn't really planned on it being Peggy’s story—or rather, The Mayflower Ancestry of Margaret Deborah Page. This project began simply because my friend Paige asked me to embark on it. The realization that the story actually belonged to her mother, Peggy, didn't hit me immediately. But as the research began to take shape, I realized something important: whatever truths this research might offer, they weren't really mine to give. The research has been given to Paige through her mother, and through the great Mayflower descendants who walked before her.

Women like Ruth (Fuller) Francisco. Women like Annie Belle (Cisco) King.

But, yes, I might be done.            

Though I have to admit, I’d still sure love to see that last shred of official evidence for Annie King. Don't quote me, but I feel a bit like a card player who looks down, sees he’s holding a tentative Royal Flush, but just has to pull that final card to be absolutely certain. That last bit of proof is an official accounting of the 1889 death of Annie Bell (Cisco) King out of Jennings County, Indiana. Do I really need it? Every genealogy mentor I’ve ever learned from tells me I do. They tell me that without it, I haven’t completely met the Genealogical Proof Standard—that ever-elusive "GPS" that always seems just out of reach, even when you’ve already proven your argument ad nauseam.

And yet, the argument we do have seems to hold its own weight:

The Case for Anna Belle (Cisco) King

• Direct Statements: Four of her own children independently named Annie Cisco as their mother on their vital records—Don Carloss on his 1936 Social Security application and 1944 Tennessee death certificate, John Harrison on his Social Security record, and Florence Jane on her 1976 Indiana death certificate.

• The Kinship Link: Her paternal uncle, Calvin Cisco—Clark's elder brother and the sitting Madison City Marshal—was recorded in the Madison Courier on June 6, 1889, as having attended "the funeral of his niece, Mrs. Robert King." Given that Calvin's only documented brother in the Cisco line is Shelton Clark, that contemporary statement places Anna Belle as Clark's daughter without remainder.

• Corroborating Evidence: This is fully supported by an 1898 statutory pension claim filed by Annie King on Clark's service (which required her status as his minor child); the 1860 census enumeration of a Cisco daughter of suitable age in Clark's household; the 1880 residential proximity of Anna King's household to that of Clark's son; and the total elimination of every alternative same-age Cisco female candidate in Madison.

• Conflicting Evidence: None has been found.

Yeah, I think I might finally be done. Version 52 (and then some) has officially been sent to the printers, and it was a hard-fought victory.

II. A LINE AGAINST THE GRAIN

It's an odd and somewhat unsettling feeling putting together an additional eight-generation line of descent from Old Edward Fuller. However, I knew at the very start it was there; I could just feel it.

Okay, okay, I know how that sounds. Really, Jeff? You could feel it? But it's true. At the very beginning of all this, I could sense that Paige's Mayflower ancestry was waiting to be found. This is a genuinely unique line—especially for Paige. It follows a singular North-to-South migration pattern in a combined lineage that is otherwise 98% South of the Mason-Dixon line. In researching family histories, I see a lot of East-West migration patterns, but I rarely see one like this, let alone leading back to the Mayflower.

A line that moved from Cape Cod, to Connecticut, to New York, to Ohio, to Indiana, and then pushed even further south into Tennessee... you just don't see it. Paige's ancestry was subtly unique, and I felt it from the start. 

I felt it when I looked at the massive volumes of data on the Cisco/Sisco/Francisco families—families that interweave so closely they seem to exist purely to confuse future genealogists. I knew it when I saw that Ruth Fuller Francisco had been misidentified in major works like Frank Doherty's Settlers of the Beekman Patent and Hyslop's Genealogy of Some Descendants of Edward Fuller. And I certainly felt it in the agonizing lack of records while trying to pinpoint Ruth's descendant, Annie Belle Cisco King.

But putting it all together into a cohesive book? (Yikes.)

III. LEGACY AND RENEWAL

My main goal is simply to present a polished, heirloom-quality volume to Paige in memory of her mother, Peggy. I have tried my best to treat Peggy's recent passing quietly throughout the work, acknowledging her life without letting the book become a monument to grief.

As I assembled the genealogy, I did not want to dwell exclusively on death. This isn't to say her passing isn't genealogically relevant, because of course it is. Rather, it's just my belief that a personal family history doesn't have to emphasize loss. Genealogy should ultimately be about legacy, continuity, and the renewal of new lines going forward. We all pass in the end. If we are fortunate, we live on through our family. That is exactly what I wanted to show here for both Peggy and Paige.

Of course, actually producing the book meant fighting the formatting demons. I can arrange a genealogy. I can cull facts, curate an argument from sparse vital records, and aim a pretty good arrow at the Genealogical Proof Standard. But when it comes to assembling PDFs, wrestling with Word documents, resizing images, figuring out "Recto and Verso" displays, coordinating blank pages, or suppressing headers and properly placing superscripts... well, this seventy-year-old brain gets lost in a hurry.

Still, I have high hopes that it will come out looking nice and won’t read like a jumbled mess. I really want The Mayflower Ancestry of Margaret Deborah Page to be a beautiful, hardbound book—and not look like a mis-printed edition of And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. I want it to be something Paige can proudly pass down to her own kids.

It is scheduled to arrive in about two weeks—the proof copy, at least. It may very well turn out to be the only copy ever printed of the full book. Meanwhile, the standalone article, Ruth Fuller, Wife of Henry Francisco of Whitehall, New York, will arrive under separate cover through the NYGBR. For the book, I’ve included that NYGBR article as an appendix for easy reference. I might be dancing on the edge of some copyright technicality by binding them together, but beats me—I’m just an old researcher trying to ensure the full tale gets told.

          

   

I guess that's it. Now we wait and hope for the best. I'm incredibly excited to get this to Paige, and to have had the chance to preserve some small part of Peggy's legacy.

As with any genealogy there will be mistakes. There will be omissions.

I'm just grateful to have brought some of the truth to light.

I'm honored to have told the tale.

☮

Epilogue: 

Today, the final proof arrived. A vital record excerpt supplied by Jennings County, Indiana Health Department. It is a transcript of Annie Bell (Cisco) King's 1889 death record. It names her parents as Clark Cisco and Sarah Hurley- officially verifing the lineage.

The Mayflower line to Edward Fuller holds. The line is complete.

 Finishing Clark and the Proof Adjacent

AND THE MAYFLOWER DESCENDANTS OF RUTH FULLER FRANCISCO

      AN EVIDENTIARY CASE IN SUPPORT OF A LIKELY CONCLUSION...

(Author's note: Chasing the rabbit: "Hey Clark! Is that you??")

As always, unapologetically unedited.

As weird as it sounds, we genealogical types tend to become obsessed. Say what?! Yes, it's true. Any said "obsession" can then be said to have come out of nowhere, even in the midst of some other "obsession." There really isn't any rhyme or reason- it usually grabs hold of our gray matter by means of some puzzle we're Hell-bent to chase, or some question (inane though it may be) that simply doesn't want to resolve itself. Sometimes there is an answer. 

Most of the time there is not.

This has happened to me twice (maybe three times?) as I have navigated the Edward Fuller Mayflower line through "Old Henry" Francisco and his wife Ruth Fuller, and just this week in further identifying Annie Bell (Cisco) King as the daughter of Clark Sisco/Cisco. 

See: https://atroubledsage.blogspot.com/2026/05/finding-annie-and-the-mayflower.html

However, something has nagged at me a bit. 

And that something or someone has been Clark Cisco.

Now he (Clark Cisco) hasn't nagged at me in the usual way. I mean, I am comfortable with his birth record contained in the Bible Transcriptions (above) and obtained through the D.A.R. records of Harriet Leas Hatfield. Harriet's made my job easy in "getting back" to Ruth Fuller and "Old Henry." And now, with the recent clarification of the date of death and family relationship status of Annie Bell (Cisco) King to her uncle Calvin, Clark Cisco's brother, and with them all living in Madison, Jefferson County, Indiana, and them all being butchers by trade, well, I'm good with the whole of the line despite whatever variables the Tribunals of Plymouth might decide to throw against it. I certainly believe that I can easily and successfully argue the Mayflower line.

Nah, what's nagged at me is Clark's name: "Shelton Clark Francisco/Sisco/Siscoe/Cisco."

Okay, you can forget all the variations of "Cisco." Those are easily enough either verified or tracked through Clark himself, or through other family members. Hey, it was a time of "spelling like it sounds" and shortening up anything that took too long to write. I'm good with all that.

But "Shelton Clark?" 

Why that name? And, why doesn't it ever seem to repeat itself?

On the surface, (and perhaps legitimately so) I can hear the Tribunals of Plymouth asking me:

"What proof do you have beyond the Bible record that "Shelton Clark Cisco" is "one and the same" person as the hero of this tale, "Clark Cisco?"

Well, after I remind them of all the other instances as mentioned above of Clark, his family, and their occupation and locale, I would likely also come away with wondering the very same thing too. So I began to look at why (or how) "Shelton Clark" ever got his name- and indeed why it never seems to have repeated itself. And the answer came to me in the strangest place.

The 1830 U.S.Census for the North Liberties, an area of Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio.

Check this out:

Look who lives next door to Clark Cisco/Sisco's father John Sisco and family: None other than "Shelton Clark"

It doesn't take much to connect the dots here that Paige's ancestor "Clark Cisco" was (originally) named after the next door neighbor... But that feels a bit random...I mean won't the Tribunals of Plymouth want something more?

Of course they will. When don't they? 

Truthfully, there wasn't (or isn't) much else I could find. But a quick perusal of FamilySearch.org did reveal this:

Above: United States City and Business Directories FamilySearch.org entry for Shelton Clark, 1831.

It isn't much - but it does solidify the relationship, a business one, and likely that of a very dear and good family friend- indeed a best friend.

So just who was Shelton Clark, the man John Sisco/Cisco would name his son after? The records at this point get even more scant. First though, I want to show you something else. As grim account as it is, records do reflect that John Sisco/Cisco died at Cincinnati in December of 1834.

        

This means that business partner and best friend Shelton Clark was likely set out on his own. 

Indeed, there is no further accounting of Shelton Clark, save for this I found in the newspaper a few years later.

Sadly, there is nothing more. 

It is possible of course that this "Shelton Clark" is not "one and the same" as the Shelton Clark who lived in Cincinnati and worked and boarded with John Sisco, father of "Shelton Clark Sisco," John the brother of Calvin Cisco- but it seems pretty darn likely.

  

The fact that he was "aged about thirty years" is very telling too. This means he was too young to appear in the 1820 census and died before the 1840. What a short young life- it feels so sad to me.

Yet "Shelton Clark" now plays his own role in the Mayflower story of his namesake's descendants. Somehow, some way, there remains a bit of old Shelton in the abiding honor and in the ambiguity and often times oblivion of one simple life.

Rest in Peace Mr. Shelton Clark.

☮

Finding Annie

AND THE MAYFLOWER DESCENDANTS OF RUTH FULLER FRANCISCO      

Above: Some of Ruth (Fuller) Francisco's descendants: Annie Grace Cisco and her sister Mable Cisco

(Author's note: Sometimes it just falls out of the sky.)

Genealogy is a tough business.

You wait for months for some tidbit of information you hope will solve whichever dynastic dilemma has taken over your sleep and waking hours. You scour and scrub the internet, applying your waning old man mental skills seeking out the recombinant DNA of missing facts and "pizzle" pieces, always trying some new algorithmic chant in hopes that you will shake something loose from the way back pages of Google Books or from some highlighted full text AI search. I mean you hope you've got the working skills. You've got the schemata of what you need to prove out- but often times like some mathematical question the puzzle just doesn't want to resolve itself.

Then there are the bumps in the road. The "gnarled branches" so to speak.

This week it's been the bureaucrats who've flummoxed me- both for good and bad. This week culminated my 120+ day wait with the National Archives and Records Administration for the Mexican-American War pension file for Clark Cisco and/or his daughter Annie Cisco King- only to be told that they "didn't have anything." And, if that wasn't enough, sending me copies of what they did have or could find- the very same copies of items easily found at FamilySearch, Ancestry.com, or frickn' Zillow. (Okay, so maybe not on Zillow...)

But they didn't have "anything?" 

Did they really even look? 

I kinda don't think so. 

I think they checked their index, sipped a luke-warm Starbuck's from their morning commute, chatted about their plans for Memorial Day weekend with the cute guy or girl in the next cubicle, and, coming up "effortlessly empty," they called it all done and good. I'm pretty sure nobody wanted to go into the dusty old NARA basement to look through the actual files. I imagine a conversation like this:

"Hey, Mabel, this guy Jeff Record keeps emailing us asking for a status on some old pension records copy. You'd think after four months he'd get a clue. Just send him something so we can clear out the backlog. You know how the boss gets when we have too many backlogged email requests..."

Great.

However, it doesn't always go that way. 

Some days, we genealogists actually do get people that give a hoot and will go the extra mile. I'd like to give a BIG shout out to the Madison- Jefferson County Public Library, Madison, Indiana, Local History and Genealogy Department. They who actually took the time to send me something real and amazing. These kind folks sent me proof of Clark Cisco's death- a record I have been angling to find since the start of this. This individual at the MJCPL went the extra mile. They also said that they were willing to go look at the old microfilms if I needed anything else. 

These folks are the unsung heroes of any genealogy. 

Above: The actual death record transcription from Vail's Undertakers notes courtesy of the Madison-Jefferson Public Library, Madison, Indiana, and an actual death record for Clark Cisco/Francisco

I can't thank them enough.

Yes, genealogy is a tough business.

Again, I digress.

The problem from the get-go has been to establish a Mayflower line from passenger Edward Fuller on down to my friend Paige. And yes, I have all of the working parts but proving them out has been a piecemeal series of events. There have been two (in my estimation) major roadblocks in getting there. The first of course was establishing that Ruth Fuller (Mayflower passenger Edward Fuller's direct line descendant) was married to "Old Henry" Francisco of Whitehall, New York, and that the "Francisco/Cisco" line (that of Clark Cisco and Annie Cisco King) descends from them. 

With regard to "Old Henry" and Ruth, I believe my previous blog posts will confirm that the line holds, and that I have met the Genealogical Proof Standard. (A possible forthcoming article submitted for publishing will, with any luck, confirm and validate this portion of the line)

However, on to Paige:

The second part of the "dilemma" has been establishing that Annie Cisco King was Clark Cisco's daughter. You see, there has been literally no record that she ever "was" - no birth record, no death record, and no census record. The only piece of paper that there has ever been has been a rejected Mexican-American War pension file index card naming "Annie King" as a claimant minor to his pension. Yes, that same very pension records that the NARA folks says they don't have- or that they didn't want to be bothered to look for. (One would have thought some correspondence rejecting her application might yet remain...)

Above: This basic genealogy is in bad need of some spelling and name revisions but will work for now.

So in light of this, proving that Annie Cisco King was the daughter of Clark Cisco (aka Shelton Clark Francisco) has been thin at best. Now it isn't that I haven't or can't build a circumstantial argument for the father-daughter relationship. I mean I can put both Clark and Annie in the same town in Madison, Jefferson County, Indiana, at relatively the same time, but to do so I have had to extrapolate records going foward and backwards. I have had to eliminate "Anabel Cisco" as a possible daughter of Clark's and try to configure and justify "Susan Cisco" in Clark's household as an incorrectly enumerated "Annie Cisco." I have had to argue Annie's existence through the proximity of her brother, John Calvin- who does appear in census records. 

Heck, I could do all of that. No problem. 

I think they call it "making chicken salad out of chicken..." or "lipstick on a pig." It isn't that the argument that "Annie Cisco King is Clark Cisco's daughter" doesn't hold- it does- but it really has needed something more. I can see the Tribunals of Plymouth chucking my circumstantial proofs right out the window without something more. 

Yeah, you know how they get. "We see you are trying to do actual genealogy again Jeff. How cute! Come back next year when you have some actual proof..."

And then today, despite all the non-help from the NARA and with appreciation for the help from the small town library an apple fell from the tree. Frankly, it's as if I found the key to it all on some FaceBook post- or at least what FaceBook was in 1889...

- in the newspaper.

Check it out:

Above: The Madison Courier, Madison, Jefferson County, Indiana, 6 June 1889, p. 4

   

           

And suddenly all the pieces fell into place.

Because you see without this, the Mayflower line for Paige could be argued as only inferential or circumstantial. It could be "argued out"- but possibly also not in a good way.

Now remember- we have absolutely no vital records for Annie Bell Cisco. We have absolutely nothing to link her as the daughter of Clark Cisco/Francisco. 

All we have is that Mexican American War Pension index card- which may or may not be considered "enough."

But we do have this:

We have the 1876 Madison, Jefferson County marriage record where Annie Cisco marries Robert King. This is the document that carries forth the next generation that I wrote about in The Mayflower Kings. 

https://atroubledsage.blogspot.com/2026/01/mayflower-kings-and-descendants-of-ruth.html

Still though, how does it prove that "this Annie Cisco" was "the daughter of Clark Cisco/Francisco?"

It doesn't. Keep reading...

Check out the verbiage again in the above newspaper clipping: "Marshall Cisco" and "attend to the funeral of his niece" and "Mrs. Robert King."

And now this- check out who "Marshall Cisco" is (or was) in Madison, Indiana, in 1889:

             

Above: The Madison Courier, Madison, Jefferson County, Indiana, Sept 14, 1908

Marshall Cisco=Calvin Cisco=brother of Clark Cisco= Uncle of Mrs. Robert King

And no- I didn't miss a step. 

You see it's easy enough to go back to verify that Calvin Cisco and Clark Cisco were brothers. 

 

Above: Daughters of the American Revolution file for member Harriet Leas Hatfield 238950 Family Bible Record attested to by affidavit. 

Not to mention that they all lived in, wait for it, Madison, Jefferson County, Indiana.

Now I can go on- I can extrapolate from here about the family business, show where both Calvin and Clark were butchers by trade, but I'm good with the above Bible record as the corroborating evidence that Calvin and Clark were brothers. Further, as Clark Cisco was dead by 1889 (having died in May of 1874) it makes sense that his brother "Marshall Cisco" would attend to the funeral needs of his niece, "Mrs. Robert King."

Yeah, right outta the newspapers. 

This small clip exceeds expectations. It identifies relationships and connects the Cisco brothers, Calvin to Clark, Clark to Annie, and Annie as Mrs. Robert King.

"Winner winner, chicken dinner!"

The Mayflower line for Paige holds.

Peace out.

To be continued...

☮

Postscript: Today, she is found!!!!! June 1, 2026

 Pieces of Joy

(Authors's note: You can get back to clutching your pearls - it's just fiction. Or is it?)

As usual, editing was haphazard.

ELEANOR JOYLYNN "JO" FUGATE hated herself. Indeed, whoever had told her momma to put "joy" into any part of her name must have been a real idiot. There was no joy in being any part of Joy. She hated it all; the way her face made her look like her dad "Mouse" Fugate, especially when she looked in the mirror only to see her dark brown eyes that peered out over her small impish nose. She hated her arms, which she thought were too short, and her hands, which she thought too big. She always hid her funny little ears and hated her legs, thinking they were too thick and strong to ever be considered pretty. Not that she wanted to be pretty. She hated it too when Momma would try and dress her up in girly clothes from the Goodwill for some rare day at Sunday school or a special event at the county fair. Man, she hated that stuff.

They'd tell her, "Oh, Jo, you'll grow out of this awkward stage." Couldn't anyone see that maybe she wouldn't ever grow out of it? Heck, maybe she didn't even want to. From the day Eleanor Joylynn "Jo" Fugate was born, she never felt comfortable in her skin. The truth of it was, she knew she wasn't a girl. Yes, she'd been born that way, but she sure as heck didn't feel like some "girl." She just couldn't figure out why nobody else saw that too. It was sad to say that at only ten years old, "Jo" Fugate hated her life.

Mostly, she hated her name. 

Who the heck calls their kid "Eleanor Joylynn"? Fortunately, when she was about four years old, folks started calling her just plain "Jo," and she was pretty content with that. At least when they called her Jo she didn't feel like some "girlie girl" or somebody's grandma. She did, however, know why Momma had named her "Eleanor" in the first place — even though Momma never really did tell the whole story.

Momma had been young and gotten involved with her daddy, Skipper "Mouse" Fugate. Now Skipper didn't look like a mouse. Skipper Fugate was actually a pretty good-looking mook of a guy and was, as they say, a bit of "all that and a bag of chips." Nah, her daddy was called "Mouse" because Skipper would squirrel away with his computers and coding books (and a whole lot of really strange cyberporn) and never come out of the room in his momma's basement. (How her momma had ever hooked up with him Jo never could quite figure out.) It didn't matter much anyway, as "Mouse" ended up hacking into one of those riverboat casinos up in Kansas City trying to steal "a boatload" of money and getting caught. All of this happened right before Jo'd been born. Growing up, Momma told Jo that she had a real "smart daddy." It was just that her daddy wouldn't be coming around to see her for a long time. Didn't much matter to Jo. To Jo, "Skipper" or "Mouse," or whatever he was calling himself these days, was still just a damn rodent anyway.

Momma had named Jo "Eleanor" after Mouse's mother, Eleanor "Dolly" Fugate. "Dolly" Fugate was a widow and a traveling nurse who worked up north out of the Osawatomie State Hospital and at various points beyond. Momma's family, (being who they were) hadn't been much support to her when she'd gotten pregnant with Jo. By then, Mouse had already been "installed" over at Tipton Correctional (and would be for a long time). Momma thought that if she named the baby girl "Eleanor" after Mouse's mother, that well, she'd gain sympathy if not some financial support from the Widow Fugate. It sure didn't work out that way.

Grandma Fugate wanted nothing to do with her momma or the "Baby Jo." Dolly Fugate pitched a shit-fit when she found out that her Skipper/Mouse had "supposedly" fathered a baby with Momma. Dolly didn't believe it was Mouse's baby and told everyone that Momma was nothing but a "two-bit whore" looking for money and who'd sleep with anyone along the way. Dolly Fugate even went so far as to say that Momma had probably slept with some disabled boy and that there was no tellin' whose baby it was or how special it'd turn out to be. Dolly told Momma that if she knew what was good for her, she'd take her bastard and get the Hell out of Kansas. Momma protested, saying the baby was indeed Mouse's and that she'd be happy to take a DNA or paternity test for little Jo. However, Mrs. Eleanor "Dolly" Fugate just stormed off saying she didn't need "no damn DNA test" to tell her anything. There was no way that baby girl was a child of her Skipper's.

Jo guessed that this was how Momma had ended up south of there and over in the next town. She guessed too that this was how Momma'd met her half-brother Rory's dad somewhere along the way. (Jo remembered Rory's dad better than her own.) She'd been such a little kid and it was hazy in her memory. Jo thought he worked at the truck stop on 400 Highway, but she didn't know anymore. She remembered he was a sad feller, usually stoned with some faraway look in his eyes. She remembered that Rory's daddy wasn't any "looker" like Mouse was. (She'd seen a picture of Mouse one day when Momma tried to go back and talk to Grandma Fugate about money again.) But she did remember that for the most part, he was a nice guy with a really bad drug problem. She remembered him always telling Momma that they were all gonna run away and get the Hell out of Kansas. He said that he wanted to take them all to the coast, out to maybe Oregon or to California. He said he had relatives in California who owned an RV store in Sacramento. Maybe they might give him a job.

It didn't matter. 

They never made it to California. About the time they tried to leave, Momma gave birth to Little John- a baby boy that'd end up getting called "Rory" but that's another tale as to why. It wasn't like Little John's birth was unexpected. It just messed with the California dreamin' spell that he'd put them all under. He soon enough got back into dopin', and then he and Momma started fighting worse than ever. Things never got better even after Little John was born. Momma tried working at Grapevine's Novelty in town, but she couldn't keep up with raising two kids and the baby's father's drug habit. Momma kept telling him that he had to get some professional help. She told him that there were places up in Kansas City or even as close as Joplin that could take him in.

For all his foolish pride, he wouldn't commit to anything. He kept saying that he didn't have "no drug problem." Then he'd yell at Momma, and then Little John would start squalling. He'd tell Momma to stop comparing him to Mouse and say, Well, at least my ass ain't in no Missouri jail. Jo just hid when all this started to happen. She'd usually go into the other room and try to talk to the baby to calm him down. It didn't work. For Jo, this was another reason why her life sucked. Looking back, she wasn't sure what night it was that it all came crashing down.

She remembered that they'd all been in the car weaving through town and that he'd wrecked it outside Lankershim's Hardware Store on Fifth Street. Jo remembered him getting out of the car puking all over himself and pounding on the hood. She can still see Momma getting out of the passenger's side bleeding from her head and hear Little John screaming from his car seat. It all seemed like something that was happening to somebody else. If Eleanor Joylynn "Jo" Fugate hadn't hated her life before that night, it was certain that after that crap she did now.

Of course, Sheriff Roger Dick had been called. The sheriff then called his deputy, Maudine Meadows, who dispatched an EMT. They hauled Little John's dad kicking and screaming up to the State Hospital. Jo guessed that they had a better place up there for him to dry out off the dope, but whatever their intention was, it didn't work. His arraignment followed, and even though Momma had bailed him out, he was right back to doing dope not twenty-four hours later. He told Momma that the folks at the State Hospital had assaulted him (how, Jo never did know) and that he would get off the drugs if she'd just take him up to some private rehab in Overland Park. Momma agreed, though how she had planned to pay for it Jo didn't have a clue. Again, it didn't matter, because he overdosed and died the following Tuesday, leaving Momma a note that simply said, I tried.

She thought it was about then that Momma moved the three of them into the Parkside Motel. She guessed Momma must have paid a week or so in advance, because, well, at first, nothing happened. Mr. Hammurabi, who owned the place, and his wife just let them alone. She guessed this because they had been at the motel for about a week before she and Little John had started to wonder if Momma was ever coming back. Momma had left some hot dogs and cheese in an old ice chest, and there were some chips and candy bars on the table by the bed, but nothing more. She told them she had a job over in Jasper County and that she wouldn't be long. At first, they believed Momma wasn't coming back. After all, their momma loved them. Momma was the one true constant in both her and Little John's lives. What happened to her? Where had she gone? But still, she and Little John sat there and waited, keeping as quiet as they could and telling the maid lady who came around that their mother was just out for a few minutes.

Then it happened. They got hungry. Little John kept whining and telling Jo his belly hurt. Couldn't they please get something to eat? She solved this by playing a game with him to see how much ice each of them could eat out of the motel machine to help make the hunger go away. The winner would get to pick the cartoon on the television. Momma had left behind some loose change near the bathroom sink. It all totaled a little less than two dollars, but it was enough that she could head over to the Sonic and buy a cheap burger to split with Little John. She made that burger last two days. But the hunger didn't go away, and Momma still didn't come back. They got hungrier.

It was about then that Jo noticed people throwing out half a burger and fries and parts of milkshakes into the Sonic trashcans. She watched the Sonic guy haul all that food out to the dumpster that backed up to the backside of the Parkside Motel. Late one Thursday, and with no sign that Momma was coming back, she told Little John to stay put so she could go dumpsterin' for food at the Sonic. Well, Little John wouldn't have it. He started throwing a fit, saying that Jo was trying to leave him too. In the end, she didn't have any choice but to take Little John with her.

It was evening, and the fluorescent lights at the Sonic hadn't come on yet. Going all the way around the Parkside to not be noticed, she managed to lift Little John enough that he could pull himself into the dumpster. She lifted herself up and over the edge too. There were advantages to being a tom-boy. There was so much half-eaten food. It was amazing! She and Little John sat on the floor of the dumpster and rummaged about and ate and ate. Not all of the food was good, but when you're as hungry as all that, not all of it was bad. Looking back, Jo figured that they must have made too much noise. Before she knew it, she could hear the Sonic guy yelling loudly to his boss that there were a couple of kids eating out of the back dumpster.

Jo had grabbed Little John by the back of his shirt, giving him a stern big sister look and saying, "Run, John, get back to the room!" They both scrammed out of the dumpster, heading again around the backside of the motel, and made a mad dash back to their room. At first, it seemed like it would be okay. At first, it felt like they'd gotten away from the folks yelling over at the Sonic. Jo kept the lights and the television off in the motel room. Then, through the curtains, she could see the flashing lights. She could hear Mr. Hammurabi chattering about two kids, and she could hear Sheriff Roger Dick. Suddenly, but not unexpectedly, the door to their motel room opened. Life as they knew it was about to change.

As the sheriff entered their motel room, Jo could see some old man speaking to Mr. Hammurabi and to a heavy-set woman with a clipboard and a briefcase. What the heck did that mean? Who the Hell were they? She could hear the woman introduce herself as Mrs. Clyde Barker of the Kansas Children's Home. She heard her say to the crusty-looking old guy, "The children will not be broken up," and something about relatives in California. She watched the old man suck in his spit and wipe his nose with two fingers onto the back of his sleeve. She could tell the old man thought it was funny, like he was playing a game and trying to figure out his next move. Jo heard the sheriff call him "Uncle Keith" and say something about him being her daddy's brother. Bullshit was all she could say.

She watched the man they called "Uncle Keith Baptiste" kneel to look at Little John. Uncle Keith kept calling Little John by the name of Rory. What the heck did he call him that for? Jo watched as he turned his attention to her. As she looked back at him, it felt like she was staring into a giant hole in the ground, one that she was about to fall into if she wasn't careful. It was about then that he scooped them both up and put them in his pick-up truck. Life wasn't the same anymore. Momma was gone. It was just her and Little John now. Yes, Eleanor Joylynn "Jo" Fugate hated her life.

---

"JO" FUGATE was a survivor. She'd survived the crap her daddy "Mouse" Fugate had fed her and Momma from day one. She'd survived being disowned by her Grandma "Dolly" Fugate and even survived her brother "Rory's" drug-addicted, hood-punchin', pukin' dad. She knew ultimately she could "survive" living with "Uncle Keith," whoever he was, and whatever the Hell he did to her. She hated her life anyway, so one more round of things to get through didn't register in her little boy's brain. She was, after all, just a dumb boy inside, and she knew it. Why doesn't anyone see me as I am? There were no answers though, and as she and "Rory" moved in with Uncle Keith and into his way of life, mostly she just endured. She had to.

"Jo" did sort of like school. It was the one place where life made sense. She liked it when she and "Rory" could get away from the trailer house, and she secretly enjoyed it when she excelled in her mathematics class. "Man, these other kids are just plain dumb," she'd think, though she didn't mean it. Sometimes the principal and a flouncy lady in high heels from the Public School Board would come by and watch her in math class. She's so gifted! they'd say. They never said anything directly to her, but one day she overheard them saying, "Her test scores are off the chart." Whatever that meant. Then they'd mumble and say something about Uncle Keith, and then they'd frown and say that someone really ought to ring Mrs. Clyde Barker, age 56, of the Kansas Children's Home. Afterward, they'd walk off laughing like the sixth-grade girls always did when talking about cute boys and gossip about the terrible potato salad Maudine Meadows brought to the last school board meeting. Had they seen her? Nothing ever changed. Then, just a few days short of her twelfth birthday, her stomach began to cramp.

She and Rory had been living at Uncle Keith's for a little more than a year now, and making sure that Uncle Keith was either asleep from too much of his "sweet booze" or damn tuckered out from his pushing and pulling on himself seemed to be her biggest job. The whole deal with Uncle Keith was just to give in to him. She learned right quick not to fight him if she didn't want to get smacked upside the head. It was all over real quick anyway. Then she'd have to clean up his sticky mess and try to make sense of what had just passed on the bed sheets in that back room cot. Sometimes the cleaning up part was the worst of it. She just couldn't get that smell off her, and the sticky stuff never seemed to wash itself free. It didn't help much that the water in the trailer house was rank and "yella," or that she'd have to sneak outside to use the pump water to wash herself when no one was watching.

At first, she just cried when Uncle Keith took her to the back end of the trailer house. He'd make her strip down bare and put on woman's underclothes that were way too big for her while he shook his private parts till they spit, all the while screamin', "Oh, Peoria!" Who the heck is Peoria anyway? Gradually, he took more freedom with her, getting himself all gooey. She thought she could remember the first time he'd turned her over and put himself inside her girl hole. She'd screamed something fierce, but Uncle Keith had smacked her and said, "Be quiet, you little flat-titted whore." Rory hadn't been home that day, and nobody'd come to help or get her. She'd been so raw and bloody afterward. She even stayed home the next day from the Public School and told Rory she had a stomach bug. He could tell she was lying. He always knew.

The days and weeks went by with Uncle Keith doing his pushing and pulling on her. She got to where she didn't think much about it. What the heck did it matter anyway? No one was gonna come to help her or Rory. Nobody gave a shit. While it was happening, she'd just stare at the mud tarp over the window or try to do math problems in her head. Sometimes she'd stare at the grit on Uncle Keith's dirty hands as he held her down or watch the sweat pop off his brow. Anything to not feel anything. Most of all, Jo hated the smell of "it." She hated when Uncle Keith dragged his breath out all over her, his body smelling like dead stuff and his breath like sweet booze and dried mud. The whole mess was just a bunch of gruntin', stinkin', and cleanin' up if you asked her. She didn't realize it then, but all that business with Uncle Keith killed something inside her. It confused the little boy she knew she was. Yet she also knew that for all of Uncle Keith's pushing and gruntin' over her, it was way better than getting locked outside in the cold or having him beat on her or Rory.

The cramps that day had come on all of a sudden. They weren't the usual ones. Jo knew what her courses were like; they'd come on a year or so ago. The first time was at the Wash-a-rama after Uncle Keith had dropped them off. They'd made her crumple against the Mega-dryer that day, and then the blood had come in her underwear. She hadn't known what it meant or what to do about it. Was she gonna die? Maybe dying would be better than living with Uncle Keith. Rory had been with her, and he'd yelled when she doubled over. Fortunately, Old Dessie, who worked the laundromat, was there that day and seemed to know what was happening. Dessie'd told Rory to start a new load of wash and then hustled Jo off into the washroom. Rory said later on that both she and Dessie were sure in there a long time. Jo guessed that maybe they had been. The good news was that she learned she wasn't gonna die anyway. What a mess though. I'm a boy, so why do I have to deal with this?

This, however, was different. Her belly roiled, and a mess of clots kept coming. This doesn't feel right, she kept on saying to herself. This ain't my normal courses. She lay on the floor of the trailer house bathroom, hurting too badly to move around all that much. She tried doing math problems in her head or watching the earwigs come and go out of the faucet or out of the crack in the wall next to the shower tub. It didn't work. The pain was just too much. Uncle Keith wasn't around, but Rory was, so she yelled out to him that she needed some help and that things weren't right. Rory blanched, looking at her, unsure of what to do. He was just a little boy. She told Rory to run and find Old Dessie, and so Rory left, running barefoot into town.

Old Dessie did come. Rory found her there at the Wash-a-rama. Rory had done his best to tell Dessie what was happening with Jo, and Dessie seemed to understand. She loaded Rory up into a blue and mostly rust-covered Belvedere that belched smoke and cranked over hard to start. The old car had eventually started, and she and Rory hurried, chugging black smoke out to the bottomlands and toward the trailer house. Rory noticed the bottle of sweet booze on the seat next to Old Dessie and that Dessie's car smelt like a three-day-old chew, but he didn't care at that moment. He knew he had to help Jo. Dessie didn't say much of anything. She hummed to herself real low, and there was a faraway look in her bright blue eyes. It was a look that said she'd been down this road before, but it was more than this too. It was a look that said, Don't mess with me, Keith.

Pulling up to the trailer house, Rory quickly showed Dessie where Jo was. She helped Jo up onto the divan and had Rory bring in some fresh water from the pump outside. She took some root slips and dried flowers out of a pocket in her housecoat and told Rory to put a kettle on the stove. After a bit, she fed some of that thin broth that smelled like licorice to Jo. Dessie said it was nothing but chicory root and would help with the pain. Jo drank it down like a greedy sailor looking for fresh water. After a bit though, the cramps came back again, and Jo felt a dropping feeling like her innards were trying to bleed themselves out of her. Dessie started to look worried, and Rory watched as the old woman chewed something on the inside of her lip like she was figuring out what to do. Finally, she bundled up Jo in an oil-stained blanket she took out of the Belvedere and helped Jo down the steps of the trailer house. Jo didn't fight her on this, as she was too weak to care. Rory knew well enough to stay out of the old woman's way.

About the time Jo was making her way with Dessie to the Belvedere, Uncle Keith's truck with its wide mouth of a missing front bumper squeaked angrily up into the drive. Dusty mud and rock blew off the back of the truck, and Uncle Keith got out, slamming the door with an ire Rory had never seen before. Uncle Keith was furious.

"Get your hands off that girl child, Dessie," he screamed, shaking his better hand up in the air while thrusting and pointing its middle finger in her direction. "The State of Kansas says she belongs to me, and you ain't got no right pulling in here and stealin' what ain't yours." Uncle Keith shook, dark green and white spittle snot flew out of his nose and mouth as he screamed expletives with increasing fury. "This ain't about that girl of yours no more. The courts done settled that years ago, you dumb so-and-so. Nobody could prove nothin'."

Uncle Keith's anger only grew larger, and he moved towards Dessie and Jo, preparing himself to strike Dessie and to wrestle Jo away from her. Rory cried out, unsure of what he should do. Uncle Keith just screamed at him, "Get in the house, cissy-boy. None of this concerns you." Rory moved toward the house and out of Uncle Keith's sight, hiding behind the porch stoop. There was no way he would leave Jo if he didn't have to. Then Rory saw Dessie's eyes nearly shoot laser beams out of her head at Uncle Keith. Jo shook in Dessie's arms, crumbling inside that old blanket like them tongue-speakers on Sunday morning over at the revival tent. A fever began to take over Jo's body, but she could still feel the power in Dessie's ancient frame. "You'd best get away from me and this here girl, Keith Baptiste. I will slit your throat in the middle of the night if you come near either one of us. I knows what you are."

Keith Baptiste seemed to crumble at the words, "I knows what you are." All of a sudden he was quieter, still angry, but more like a little kid throwing a fit over some favorite toy he'd messed up or broken. He still shook, and the spittle still flew in Dessie's direction. Jo watched through her fever and cramps as Uncle Keith took a step back. "You'd best bring her back here, Dessie," he drawled on. "Ain't nobody in these parts likes an uppity know-it-all, and Sheriff Roger Dick ain't no different in that regard."

His threats fell on empty ears, as by then Dessie had shuffled Jo into the car and the old Belvedere churned back to life as it puked smoke backing out the drive. Jo could tell that Dessie and Uncle Keith had drawn lines in the sand between each other years ago. Jo could feel that whatever had transpired between them was more than just some old-as-time dumbass race war — it was personal. However, Jo was too sick with a fever and bleeding too badly to care about them. She worried a bit about leaving Rory behind as the old car sped toward town, but even thoughts of Rory fell away from her as such exhaustion like she never knew spread over her.

Jo did not realize how much time had passed. She woke up alone but could hear the chattering of women echo nearby. She was in the room of an old building and in a place she did not recognize. The ceilings were very tall, and the room's walls had scratched-up dirty boards that went mid-way up where they met strips of well-worn wallpaper from another time. Against one of the walls, two high-reaching narrow windows looked out against a dignified backdrop of tree tops and buildings. Am I on the second floor? The windows were open, and a breeze blew in and against threadbare stained curtains.

There was a small sink at one end of the room, which led to a hallway. There was a single electric light that hung from a cord that went someplace up into the dark ceiling. On a wooden table by the bed was an unguent mixture of some sort and a cup of some leftover broth that felt familiar to her. Further away, near the door, were two bags of clean rag cloth, and a bit further away she could see that someone was storing potatoes and onions and dried meats in a makeshift larder of sorts. Two faded housecoats hung on the back of the door, and a mud-covered pair of what looked like men's boots were tucked away in a corner. The room was worn and sad. It was shadowed dark, save for the light that came in from the north side of the tree tops across the street, and was quiet save for the chattering voices outside its doorway. It was clean, however, and she felt safe.

Sweat still covered her, but the cramping had gone, and she did not feel like her lady parts were trying to spit some other self or part of her body outside itself. Still, she was weak as she pulled herself up to look out the window. As she looked around and got her bearings, she could tell that she was in town, and, if not mistaken, on the second floor of an old building across from Lankershim's Hardware Store. In the distance, she could see the neon from the Parkside Motel's sign.

What she didn't see in all of this was the wall directly behind her. As she turned her head to survey more of where she was, she saw it, or rather she saw them. Attached to the wall behind her were lots of old maps. There were different kinds of them, from county maps to maps that showed all the creeks of Eastern Kansas and Southern Missouri. Taped alongside were hundreds of yellowing newspaper articles. Most all had bold headlines, and some of them had pictures of two little girls. The girls in the pictures were young, maybe about six or seven, and the pictures in the yellowed newspaper were dark, making both of the girls' features hard to see. Past this, or along with it, were strings and small bent nails stuck into the old wallpaper, connecting one piece of newspaper to any given spot on one of the maps. There were notes in hard-to-read words mouthed together and written down as they'd been heard. Beyond this, and in the middle of it all, was a single picture of one small girl. The picture wasn't large; it was a crinkled black and white snapshot, but the little girl's bright eyes showed through. Underneath, someone had scribbled in poorly written letters, Eloise.

It was about then that Dessie returned. She came through the door quietly as Jo settled into the small bed, too tired to make much more sense of her surroundings. Dessie checked Jo's blankets, pulling them up and looking under the large shirt that covered Jo to briefly check for more bleeding. Jo could have told her that there wasn't any, that the worst of whatever had happened seemed to be over. Couldn't Dessie see that she was no cissy? She was a tough boy. But Dessie didn't ask. In this regard, Dessie just went about her business of nursing Jo back to health, not troubling either of them with any conversation. Dessie's blue eyes were somewhere between vacant and sad, and her mouth twisted up sometimes like she was gonna scream, as if someone had stabbed her in the heart. Jo could tell that Dessie was strong though, and that this was the same woman who'd taught her how to use the machines at the Wash-a-rama and explained her courses to her and was also the woman who'd come to rescue her when she needed someone the most. Jo'd nearly forgotten what a mother's hand felt like. As Dessie washed her up with a quick spit bath, and for a quick moment, Jo remembered her momma.

"It was too weak and it didn't hang on, Lawd be praised," mumbled Dessie. "It was none but the devil's anyways, girlchild, so be glad that it done flushed itself out and went back to Hell with its demon brethren. Miss Phillis and Mother Kauchee helped me get the rest of it out of you and get you cleaned back upright. I 'spect that you'll be fine by the next time your red river comes callin' on you. You got to come round here again if things don't seem right. You hear me, chil'? If not, you'll need to get a ride over to the clinic in Joplin." Jo's head swam. What? I'm not even twelve years old. What hung on?

"I'm tellin' ya too, girl, if that sonnabitch comes at you again you got to close them parts of yours up and keep his damn diddling outta your cooch. Don't think this can't happen again, and next time youza might not get the grace of Baby Jesus. He'll spill his seed quick enough outsidda ya, so you gotta be quicker and get him to do juz dat. If he still won't let you be, you'd best call on Sheriff Roger Dick and take your chances with the county folks at the children's home. I s'pect he'll behave for a while though, as that bastard don't like no 'tention on his guilty ass self. Chil', don't you end up like our darlin' Eloise none, ya hear me?"

The following day, Dessie put Jo in the Belvedere and drove to the trailer house. Rory was overjoyed to see her and ran to hug her, even as Dessie told him just to let her be for now. Uncle Keith stood far back on the stoop. His hat was pulled down, and he didn't say a word. He grunted at Jo, telling her she looked like crap and mumbling that she'd best not get no blood on the divan. Other than this, there wasn't much of an exchange. Dessie spat on the ground and told Rory to come to get her again if need be. Then she got in the car and slammed the door on the Belvedere, which fired up another round of black smoke. Jo and Rory watched as Dessie pulled out onto Pollard Road and was gone.

No one said anything. Five minutes later, a nondescript tan Chevrolet with a sunflower decal and the letters KCH pulled into the drive. Uncle Keith swore under his breath as it pulled in, but this time it had nothing to do with him. A tall skinny man in a dingy suit got out of the car. Uncle Keith seemed to recognize the man. "Why, Daddy Shook, what you doing out this far?" Uncle Keith said. "Ain't you s'pose to be over to Topeka?"

The skinny man Uncle Keith called "Daddy Shook" took out an envelope from his coat pocket. The envelope wasn't smooth but had a bump in it like the treasure in a Kracker Jack box. "This ain't got nothin' to do with y'all, Keith. I'm here to see the girl Eleanor Joylynn, Keith," he said. Daddy Shook looked vaguely anxious. He had the familiar look on his face of someone who was used to being uncomfortable with uncomfortable things. Both Jo and Rory watched from the side of the pyracantha bush, but neither moved.

"Joylynn, get on out here, girl." Uncle Keith drawled in his put-on official and unctuous manner. "This here's Daddy Shook. He come all the way out from Topeka to see you special. Show him some manners, girl." Jo stepped forward, not knowing what to expect. Oddly, Daddy Shook began gripping the envelope tighter as he passed it over to Jo. As he did so, he said, "I'm sorry to tell you that your father Skipper Fugate is dead, girl. He was killed in the Tipton Correctional Prison Yard." Eleanor Joylynn "Jo" Fugate's brain just spun.

She was twelve years old today. She felt her soul swimming down inside her. She stepped off the porch, brushing past the pyracantha bush. She stopped. Near the stoop she realized she, Jo, was yet again, nothing more than the pieces of someone else's life.

And, finally, she screamed.

END