Charlie Hall Cavel (1904 - 1985)

Born 21 May 1904 in Ara, Pickens, Indian Territory

Ancestors

Son of Frederick Francis William Cavel and Priscilla Josephine Smith

Husband of Mattie Neil (Clark) Cavel — married 7 Sep 1922 in Walters, Cotton, Oklahoma, USA

Descendants

Died 19 Nov 1985 at age 81 in White Oak, Gregg, Texas, USA

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Deb Cavel [send private message]

Biography for Charlie Hall Cavel

Charlie Cavel has English ancestors.

Birth

I have in my possession his: Delayed Birth Certificate filed in 1968 when he needed to prove his age to begin drawing Social Security the following year. His sister Susan Kizziah Cavel Lawson states that he was born shortly after 6:00 am on the 21st of May 1904 near the community of Ara, Pickens County, Indian Territory (now Claud, Stephens County, OK), that she was in attendance at the birth and helped her mother deliver him. (She was *11* years old at the time.)

The 1st language Charlie and his siblings spoke was Skarù·ręʔ, the language of the Tuscarora Tribe of North Carolina. He and his older siblings spoke it fluently all their lives. They had Tuscarora ancestry through three of their four grandparents, all of whom descend from the children of one Tuscarora couple who were born about 1620.

The Tuscarora are a matrilineal society and are organized into matriarchal clans. The siblings/matrilineal cousins who took the surname Kčę’heh (meaning "my immediate family" in Skarù·ręʔ) in the early-mid 1700s were Deer Clan, a tradition passed down through the mother's line to the present day.

The Shave Spike

Testing of Charlie's DNA (Lazarus file) revealed that he carried what we called the "Shave Spike", a distinctive pattern of DNA on Chromosome 2 stretching from the 110 - 121 M SNP, seen in descendants across multiple families of a Sub-Saharan African man born approx 1620 who was enslaved and put on board a Spanish ship bound for Cuba.

^[1]When Jamestown's Governor Francis Yeardley reached the Tuscarora in 1654 he was given report of a Spaniard who had been living in the main town of the Tuscarora for seven years. He and eight Africans had been rescued by the Tuscarora after a ship carrying Africans bound for slavery in Cuba broke up and sank offshore during a storm in 1646. The Spaniard's "family" and Africans had been living with the Tuscarora for seven years and had grown to 30 souls.

Residence

^[2] 1910 Census Place: Justice Precinct 6, Brown, Texas; Roll: T624_1535; Page: 9B; Enumeration District: 107; Image: 435;
Frederick Cavel 37 born in England
Josie Cavel 31 born in Arkansas
Susie Cavel 16
Annie Cavel 14
Arthur Cavel 11
Cleo Cavel 8
Hall Cavel 6 b in OK Son
Francis Cavel 3 (Francis Frederick i.e. Dick)
John Crouch 17 (One of Josie's cousins)

Charlie started school in Brown County, Texas. We know from a school photo that in 1914 he attended the Sand Creek School in the Bangs Community, Brown County, Texas. Charlie stands in the back row, the farthest left. His younger brother Dick sits in front on him and their sister Cleo sits next to Dick. None of the Cavel children look happy, and no wonder, but it was decades before we knew why.

The Primary Grades, Sand Creek School, 1914

When Dad was in his late 70s he had several stroke-like attacks which would go on from a few days to a week. Each time this would happen he'd act as if he were a boy of eight or ten again. He'd sit in his hospital bed and whistle for invisible dogs, throw non-existent sticks, whet imaginary knives, sew grommets into invisible canvas and weave grass baskets, carefully pulling long strands of invisible grass through his mouth to moisten them. He didn't appear to know any of us. And he spoke no English. He spoke to invisible companions in a language none of us could understand.

At first we thought he was just gibbering, but his sister Cleo came through on her way home from a trip and stopped to visit. He sat in his hospital bed and talked to her a mile a minute. She said to me, “Get your Aunt Susie down here. She's the only one of us besides him who remembers Granny's old Indian talk.”

So we called Susie and she came, and stayed to translate for him. I sat in the corner of the room and listened to their conversation, unaware that I was probably listening to some of the last two speakers of an ancient dialect.

If only I had recorded them, because at that point there were only a handful of Native speakers of the Tuscarora language left alive. They live in in New York and Canada, and speak a version of the language which is influenced by other Iroquois languages. Dad and Aunt Susie were speaking the ancient North Carolina dialect of that language, which hasn't been spoken freely for 100 years or more.

Once Dad recovered I asked him and Aunt Susie why they'd never spoken their Native language in front of us kids, why they'd never taught us. Both said they'd all spoken "Indian" before they learned to speak English, but they'd been beaten at school for talking to each other or calling out to each other in "Indian” on the playground during games. They'd been subjected to prejudice because of their Indian blood, and so they had all decided never to speak their language in front of us kids. We were predominantly European, and most of us didn't appear Native. They didn't want us experiencing the prejudice they'd suffered. (My mother's family had the same experience.)

But Dad used a few phrases here and there without thinking. “Wee-ooo" ("That's beautiful" or "That's great" in Skarù·ręʔ) when he saw something beautiful, or that he was impressed by. “Aw-weh” for water, “Ahk-soo” referring to his grandmother. In fact as a child I thought that was her name. And I used to be told, "That-soo-ree” ("You eat some more!" in Skarù·ręʔ), when urged to clean my plate by my Grandmother.

^[3] 1920; Census Place: Parks, Stephens, Oklahoma; Roll: T625_1484; Page: 13A; Enumeration District: 259; Image: 957

• Household Members
• Name Age
• Fredrick F Cavel 47
• Josephene Cavel 42
• Mary A Cavel 24
• Arthur W Cavel 21
• Charlie H Cavel 15 b 1905, b OK, Son Speak English Yes Read/Write? Yes
• Fredrick F Cavel 13
• John H Cavel 9
• Thomason H Cavel 4

Fred Cavel, Charlie's father, was an ordained Baptist minister, but in those days Baptist ministers were expected to volunteer their services, so they had to work to support their families. My Grandad Fred owned a farm where he raised beef cattle and food crops. I heard this story many times through the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, when Charlie and his brothers Arthur and Dick Cavel got together.

This event must have taken place when Arthur was 20, Charlie was 14, and Dick was 12, so about 1919. Charlie, Arthur and Dick were driving a herd of cattle from Velma (OK) to the rail head at Chickasha (OK). One evening they had corralled the cows and camped for the night. After a while they heard singing and shouting and, being naturally curious, they went to see what was going on.

They found a group of people having a religious meeting by torch light under a brush arbour. So the boys climbed a big tree beyond the reach of the torch light and watched through the leaf canopy as the worshippers became more and more energized under the influence of "The Spirit". Soon the worshippers were running up and down the aisles, throwing their arms in the air, falling to their knees and crying out with great emotion , "Come Lord Jesus! Come Lord Jesus!"

The boys' father, Fred Cavel, was a Baptist pastor, and English as well. They were accustomed to Sunday services of measured dignity, if not solemnity. All this display of religious fervour struck the younger Charlie and Dick as hysterically funny.

Arthur shushed their smothered giggles with a shake of his head and a stern look. "Follow my lead," he whispered. "Shake your tree limbs as hard as you can, but don't let yourselves be seen!"

They looked at him quizzically but obeyed and began to vigorously shake the limbs and branches of the tree where they sat.

Arthur lowered his voice as deep as he could and boomed out, "Your prayers are answered! I'm a comin'! I'M A COMIN!"

A silence fell on the congregation. The worshippers stared into the dark sky where the voice had come from, then they began to scream and scatter. Not one waited to welcome the coming of the Lord.

If their father had ever learned of this stunt he'd have soundly whipped them all, and I'm betting not one told it openly until after their dad's death in 1941, but while I was growing up they repeated this story again and again during family gatherings as evidence of what scoundrels they had been as teenagers.

Marriage

Neither of their families wanted Charlie and Mattie to wed. Charlie was not of legal age to marry without parental consent, which was 21 for males. Mattie had just turned 18, which was the legal age for females, but her father felt she was immature and not ready for the responsibilities of husband and home. She didn't need consent but she still added a year to her age when they applied for the license. Charlie convinced his older brother Arthur to go along and speak as his "consent". The clerk obviously didn't ask for proof of identity, as Arthur signed as WL Cavel, and Charlie became HC Cavel, who said he'd been born in Randlett, Cotton County. Despite this skullduggery, the marriage lasted until Mattie's death in December of 1981, or 59 years.

^[4] Marriage Records. Oklahoma Marriages. Cotton County OK
Name: H C Cavel; Gender: Male: Age 21; Birth Date: abt 1901;
Born Randlett OK
Marriage Date: 7 Sep 1922; Place; Walters, Cotton County, Oklahoma,
Spouse: Mattie Clark; Gender Female Age 19 Born Unknown
Household Members
Name Age
H C Cavel 21
Mattie Clark 19

Mattie holding Ruby, Charlie holding niece Norene.

Here they are in about 1925, the 1st photo we have of them together and the earliest we have of Mattie. It spectacularly unflattering, with them staring into a brilliant sunset and deep shadows. Each has a small bonneted girl, my Mother holds my sister Ruby, who is two, and Dad holds Arthur and Fanny Clark Cavel's eldest daughter Norene Cavel who is probably just shy of three. I'm not sure of the occasion, but they are dressed up, so it might have been the wind-up dinner for the annual Cavel Reunion, held on Labor Day Weekend each year.

^[5]

• 1930; Census Place: Graham, Carter, Oklahoma; Roll: 1896; Page: 5A; Enumeration District: 19; Image: 485.0. Dwelling# 85 Family# 85
• Address: Dirt Oil Field Road Magnolia Camp
• Home Owned or Rented? Owned
• Home Value $75
• Radio Set? No
• Farm? No
• Age at First Marriage: 18
• Able to Read and Write? Yes
• Able to Speak English?Yes
• Household Members:
• Name Age
• Charley H Cavel 25
• Mattie N Cavel 25 1905 B TX Married
• Ruby L Cavel 6
• Hall Cavel 10/12
• Harold W Cavel 10/12 (Harrel)
• Henry C Clark 70 Widowed - (Mattie's father)

The identical twin boys Hall and Harrel were 10 months old when the enumerator came around in April 1930. When Mattie was pregnant for the second time she suspected she might be carrying twins. She told the doctor she could feel two heads and two little behinds but he laughed and said he didn't think so, as he could only hear a single heartbeat.

When she was seven months she went into labor during a raging storm. The rain fell in sheets, and when they tried to get to the hospital the bridges on both exit roads were washed out. So they went back home and Charlie's brother Arthur went for the doctor on a horse. The doctor came and after 36 hours of labor Mattie delivered a tiny baby boy, with legs and arms the size of his father's fingers.

She told the doctor, "There's another one." He said he didn't think so, but at that point a second baby boy, identical to the first but even smaller, made his presence known.

The doctor looked them over, about two pounds each, and said they'd never live. Best to wrap them up and let them slip away quietly without too much fuss. But Charlie looked at his tiny sons and declared that as long as they were alive he was going to give them every chance he could to live. He was a farm boy and had experience keeping baby animals alive. He knew that it was vital to keep babies warm and the air they breathed warm and humid, and to handle them as little as possible.

He got an apple crate and lined it with a clean blanket. On the bottom he laid a thick layer of clean cotton batting with a layer of flannel on top. He made a pocket on each side with a folded blanket and slipped hot water bottles into the pockets.

The boys were laid in the apple crate with flannel beneath them that could be slipped out when it was soiled. Then a towel soaked in boiling water and wrung as dry as possible was laid over the top of the crate. As soon as it cooled it was replaced with a hot one. He laid the milk thermometer in the crate so he could make sure the temperature was stable and stayed a consistent 99 degrees. He and Arthur took turns on towel duty 24 hours a day.

Mattie expressed a little milk every half hour and Charlie fed the twins two drops each with a sterile eye dropper. And they lived through the first 24 hours, the first 48, the first week.

At the end of two weeks Charlie and Arthur had no skin left on their hands and arms to the elbows, but the weather had warmed up and boys were able to breathe room temperature air, and soon they were strong enough to nurse on their own.

Many men might have given up. Most premature babies died then, but Charlie was determined that his sons were not going to die.

Amazingly my brothers Hall and Harrell were never told how he fought to save their lives, though my Mother told this story a dozen times as a child and teenager. When I told my brother Hall this story in the last year of his life - and he lived to be 82 - he wept. He said he never knew that Dad loved them, and while our Dad was not an emotional man, nor one to hug or kiss his children, he would have stood between us and a bullet. There's not a single day goes by I don't miss him.

^[6]

• 1935: Residence in 1935: Greggton, Gregg Co Texas; Resident on farm in 1935? No

Sons of FF and Josie Smith Cavel, L to R, Houston, Dick, Arthur, Charlie, Tom, 1938

^[7]

• 1940; Census Place: Centralia, Marion, Illinois; Roll: T627_852; Page: 61A; *Enumeration District: 61-6. 848 1/2 Poplar Street
• HOH: Charley H Cavel 35 B 1905 OK Married
• Occupation: Driller
• House Owned or Rented: Rented - Monthly Rental: $24
• Highest Grade Completed: Elementary school, 7th grade
• Hours Worked Week Prior to Census: 40
• Class of Worker: Wage or salary worker in private work
• Weeks Worked in 1939: 48
• Income: $2000
• Income Other Sources: No
• Household Members:
• Name Age
• Charley H Cavel: 35
• Mattie N Cavel: 35
• Hall W Cavel: 10
• Harrel W Cavel: 10

Then came World War Two. His sons were too young to serve, but his son-in-law was drafted, and other young men in the family joined up. He went down to the recruiting office to volunteer and was told not only was he too old (at 37) but as a driller and getting a reputation as a self-educated geologist he was in a reserved occupation and was needed at home, supplying the troupes with fuel.

Military

^[8] U.S. WWII Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947
Name: Charlie Hall Cavel, Race: White, Age: 37,
Relationship to Draftee: Self,
Birth Date: 21 May 1904, Birth Place: Ara, Oklahoma, USA;
Residence Place: Centralia, Marion, Illinois, USA
Registration Date: 16 Feb 1942; Registration Place: Illinois, USA;
Employer; Arrow Petroleum Company
Weight: 160; Complexion: Dark; Eye Color: Brown; Hair Color: Brown;
Height: 6; Next of Kin: F F Cavel; Household Members: 39606251

This is their 25th Anniversary photo

^[9] 1950 Federal Census; Snyder Scurry Co Texas
9 28th 669 Cavel Charlie H Head M 45 1905 M OK Driller Oil Field
10 28th 669 Cavel Mattie N Wife F 45 1905 M TX Keeping House
11 28th 669 Cavel Claudette Daughter F 4 1946 Single IL

Both Charlie and Mattie were somewhat temperamental, and each had a stubborn streak. I was told by my much older siblings, and that's not a vanity statement, they were from 18-24 years my elder, that there were a certain number of pots and pans thrown by the folks during their first 20 or so years of wedded bliss, but the disagreements had become less vigorous by the time I was born.

I remember numerous times when Mother packed a suitcase and we went off on the bus for extended visits with various sisters, brothers, cousins and other relatives, but in large Southern families that's the way things were done in the 40s, at least in families like ours. It helped to have eight siblings and 50-60 cousins. Most of our people lived on farms, and an extra pair or two of hands in the garden and kitchen were always welcomed. I'm still trying to sort out who some of those people were and how they were related.

Eventually, absence did make the heart grow fonder, and with a few weeks cooling off period, Mother would find the thoughts of Charlie Cavel and her own home tolerable again and pretty soon the green Pontiac would pull up in front of Auntie Ivah's or Eva's or Uncle Tut's and we'd be on our way home.

Sun City's Original Volunteer

My Dad wasn't much of a talker, but no one could outwork him. He worked in the oil patch from the age of 18 until he was in his 50s, but he was always able to pick up a hammer and saw and build anything from a house to a chest of drawers or a set of kitchen cabinets with meticulous precision.

He was tall and as lean as a greyhound and when he was working he was as focused on what he was doing as greyhounds are on the rabbit when the gate springs open and they speed down the track.

When we moved to Phoenix in 1959 he left the oil field for good, strapped on a tool belt and became a finish carpenter. Phoenix was booming and neighbourhoods were sprouting up like mushrooms across the desert. Dad had no trouble finding work. When one subdivision was finished he moved on to the next.

Construction's a hard job in the summer in Phoenix. Work starts at 4:00 am and the crews quit for the day at noon. Working construction in 110 degrees F (43 C) is brutal, and the men he worked alongside were for the most part in their 20s and 30s. He was in his late 50s. They called him "The Old Man", but for all their youth they couldn't outwork him.

Time went on and he was in his 60s and as he liked to say, he was so skinny he had to stand twice to throw a shadow. The economy was going through a bit of slow patch. A job ended as a subdivision was finished and he went looking for a new job. He'd leave about 5:00 am with his lunch box and water can, but in a couple of hours later he'd be back, having not found work. This went on for a week, and anxiety mounted in the household. My folks were ninja masters at living on very little, but they couldn't live on nothing. They worked harder than anyone I've ever known but they definitely lived paycheque to paycheque.

One morning Dad left, lunch pail and water can in hand, and he did not return until after noon. As he pulled into the driveway in his little 51 Ford station wagon the anxiety my mother and I felt lifted. Dad was working again. He came in and dropped his empty lunch pail on the table with a satisfied look on his face. "I worked today," he said, matter-of-factly.

"Where?" Mother asked.

"That big new development called Sun City," he said. "They're building a thousand houses or more, it's a new deal, a whole community just for retired people."

He went off to work the next day and the next.

On Friday he came home at noon, dropped his lunch pail and a paycheque on the table and said with a grin, "Well, I got a job today, and I got a promotion too."

"What do you mean you got a job today? Mother asked. "What about the job you had before?"

"Oh I said I was working," he said. "I didn't say I had a job."

"What does that mean?" Mother demanded.

"Well, I looked up the job foreman Tuesday morning and asked him if he needed any help. He was a smart-assed son-of-a-bitch, looked about 25. He looked me up and down with a sneer on his face and he said, 'Yeah. I need a finish carpenter, but I don't hire old men.'

That made me mad, so I left and drove around there a while looking at all those hundreds of houses. All those roads go in big circles inside circles. After a while I stopped and got out and went in one of those houses, just to look around a bit. It was ready for the finish work, all the material had been delivered. It was just laying there. So I got my tools out of the wagon and started to work.

Couple of hours later a guy 'bout my age came around, poked his head in, introduced himself, and I introduced myself, and we talked a bit about that whole project, while I worked. He came by the next day too, by then I was working in the next house. He brought his lunchbox so we sat and ate lunch together, and afterwards he said he'd never seen what a finish carpenter does. I showed him how you frame window and door jambs, how you miter the joints at the angles so they all meet perfectly.

This morning he came back again, with that smart-ass foreman. Seems he's the developer of the whole project. He went to the foreman this morning and asked him what he was paying me. The foreman didn't know who he meant, until he described me. Then the foreman said, "What does that old so-and-so think he's doing? I told him I didn't hire old men!"

The developer brought him over to the house where I was working, and said, "Okay, son, get your tool belt on and let's see if you are as good a finish carpenter as the 'Old Man'. And Charlie, you come on up to the office. I'm making you foreman of this job, and we'll figure out what we owe you for this week's wages."

The 'developer' was Del E Webb, and that job lasted until Mom and Dad moved to Texas to live next door to my brother Hall and sister-in-law June.

Residence

^[10]

• Date: 1970: Place: White Oak, TX
• Lived next door to son and daughter-in-law Hall and June Cavel

Charlie in 1979

Death

In death, as in life, once Dad pretty made up his mind about something he was as immovable as a 20-ton boulder. He called me on the 17th of November, courtesy call really, to tell me he'd decided to walk on, which in Native parlance means moving on to the the Spirit Plane. I knew he'd lived in agony from a collapsing spine for years. He wore a steel cage from armpits to hipbones which was hell itself in the South Texas heat.

But that wasn't what was bothering him. He'd just bought a new car two weeks earlier, and the damned doctor had taken away his driver's license. That was bad, because Dad loved his cars. As far back as I could remember, he had to have a new car every two years or the train would jump the tracks. But the last straw was that the doctor had told him he couldn't live alone anymore. He might have been able to handle not being able to drive, but he couldn't face moving in with my brother and his wife, even though he'd have his own private quarters. Losing his independence was a bridge too far.

I called my sister-in-law June in a panic, because our mother had done the same thing. She'd simply announced, "I'm going home now," and 20 minutes later she had a massive heart attack and died. June got my brother and they drove Dad to the hospital, despite his protests. His doctor checked him over and admitted him, out of an abundance of caution. He had a very mild case of pneumonia, which he'd normally have written a prescription for and sent him home, but under the circumstances... better to be safe.

They put Dad in a double room, and apparently he knew the man in the other bed, or he knew the people visiting him. On the early evening of the 19th he'd been chatting and laughing with them for some time after dinner. He told them, "I think I'm going to have a nap," and he dozed off. After a few minutes the alarm on his cardiac monitor began ringing. A nurse came rushing in, looked at the monitor, woke him, adjusted the wires and remarked that nothing was amiss, it was just that a lead on the monitor had pulled loose. She left the room and he dozed off again. Two minutes later the alarm on the monitor began sounding again, and she came back, muttering about the leads on the monitor, but when she went to speak to him he was dead.

^{[11] [12]} 19 NOV 1985; Charley Hall Cavel; Place: White Oak, Gregg, Texas
^[13] Charley Hall Cavel Number: XXX-09-0822; Issue State: Oklahoma; Issue Date: Before 1951.
Died 19 NOV 1985, White Oak, Gregg, Texas,

Burial

^[14]

• Find A Grave ID 12618981
• Burial: U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current;
• Place: Longview, Harrison Co, Texas;
• Charlie Hall Cavel Birth Date 21 05 1904;
• Birth Place: Velma, Stephens County, OK
• Death Date: 19 11 1985
• Death Place: White Oak; Gregg County, Texas,
• Cemetery: Memory Park Cemetery

• Find a Grave Bio: Born in Ara, Pickens Co Indian Territory, Charlie farmed until the oil boom hit East Texas, when he became a roughneck making the spectacular pay of $1.25 a day. He was self-educated but keenly intelligent and had a photographic memory. He went on to become a field supervisor and self-educated geologist. He married Mattie Neil Clark in 1922. At 60 he became a cabinet maker and made many beautiful clocks and pieces of furniture.

DNA Matches

• Paternal relationship is identified by an GEDmatch test match between Chris Goff and his distant cousin Living Cavel (son of Hall Wayland Cavel Jr.). Their MRCAs are unknown but are through John Cavel and/or his wife Rachel Flemington. Predicted relationship: 5th-8th Cousins, based on sharing 12.2 cm at Chr-5. Requires Triangulation.

Sources

1. ↑ Francis Yeardley's Narrative of Excursions Into Carolina, 1654 Virginia, Linne-haven, this 8th May, 1654. From: Narratives of Early Carolina 1650-1708 Ed. Alexander S. Salley Jr.; Charles Scribner's Sons, April 1911
2. ↑ 1910 Census Place: Justice Precinct 6, Brown, Texas; Roll: T624_1535; Page: 9B; Enumeration District: 107; Image: 435
3. ↑ 1920; Census Place: Parks, Stephens, Oklahoma; Roll: T625_1484; Page: 13A; Enumeration District: 259; Image: 957
4. ↑ Marriage Records. Oklahoma Marriages. Cotton County 1922 - 1965 FH Film # 001313580
5. ↑ 1930; Census Place: Graham, Carter, Oklahoma; Roll: 1896; Page: 5A; Enumeration District: 19; Image: 485.0. Dwelling# 85 Family# 85
6. ↑ 1935: Residence in 1935: Greggton, Gregg Co Texas;
7. ↑ 1940; Census Place: Centralia, Marion, Illinois; Roll: T627_852; Page: 61A; Enumeration District: 61-6. 848 1/2 Poplar Street
8. ↑ The National Archives in St. Louis, Missouri; St. Louis, Missouri; WWII Draft Registration Cards for Illinois, 10/16/1940-03/31/1947; Record Group: Records of the Selective Service System, 147; Box: 277
9. ↑ NARA; Bureau of the Census, 17th Census, Record Group 29; 1950 Federal Census; Snyder Scurry Co Texas 208-16; pg 15
10. ↑ Voter Registration Lists, Public Record Filings, Historical Residential Records, and Other Household Database Listings. U.S. Public Records Index, 1950-1993, Volume 2
11. ↑ Texas State Death Index
12. ↑ Personal knowledge of his four children
13. ↑ US Social Security Index, 1935-2014
14. ↑ Find A Grave ID 12618981