16. MY CHEROKEE BLOODLINE

 

Underneath an excess of flesh on my face are relatively high cheekbones. They were passed down to me through my mother. They came to her through her mother, whose father was son to Peninah Cotton Wood. History is less clear the further back I go, but here's a bit of what Family Search and other research has told me about my Cherokee grandmother.

James Cotton was sent to America as a missionary by the Church of England to convert the Indians to Christianity about the year of 1767. He married Bluebird, the daughter of a Cherokee Indian chief about the year of 1769 and they had one son Caleb, born about 1776. Caleb Cotton married Nancy Meredith and to them were born 5 sons and 5 daughters: Elizabeth Melinda, Mahala, James, George, Noah Shelton, Josephine, Gabriel, Carl, Louisa and Peninah.

Peninah dipped into the waters of baptism as a teenager, joining the membership of the newly established Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She traveled with her chosen tribe as they moved gradually west. Her story is evidence of her noble heritage. She is most often referred to as the first "Lamanite" member of the Mormon Church, Lamanite referring to the indigenous tribes written about in the Book of Mormon. 

It took some digging to find the story of her life events. Deeper delving to discover the aspects of her character that defined her. She was apparently known for her strength, compassion, generosity, work ethic and devotion. The fact that she survived so much change tells me she learned to adjust to change. Her willingness to mother not only her own children, but the children of Daniel Wood's first wife, and orphaned Native Americans found hiding in the riverbeds of the Great Salt Lake. The Wood family built the first schoolhouse and meeting hall in Davis County Utah, where we now live. I had no idea when we moved here that we would be moving "home."  The Wood Family Band provided music and culture throughout the county in the wild untamed west.  

Peninah was my grandmother's grandmother, through her son Daniel Cotton Wood. I have an innate yearning to know her. I hear the echo of her voice in the mysterious chambers of the spirit-heart. 

Her son, Joseph, wrote this about her. Don't you think its a good idea for us to write about our mothers so those who never saw them may have some vision of who they were? (That's part of what twelve years of Lent Writing has, hopefully, created for my grandchildren.) 

PENINAH COTTON WOOD by her son Joseph Cotton Wood:

 ... She helped milk cows, drive the ox teams, was an excellent hand with horse teams, and had a very tender feeling for dumb animals. She knitted the stockings for her family, from wool off her own sheep. She did washing and carding and spinning the wool into "warp," as it was called, to the loom to make cloth from which their clothes were made. She was a lover of horses, taking a horse-back ride for an outing, going sometimes into Salt Lake City and back in one day. I, her son Joseph C. Wood, have made this trip with her as a growing boy. She knew how to strike a steel on a flint, or rub two boards together to start a fire, as matches were unknown. She could cover a pine knot up in the hot ashes and coals as it would keep a fire for days. She made moccasins for shoes, homemade brooms to sweep the crude floors. She doctored the sick horses and cows and raised motherless colts many times. She made tallow candles, knew how to braid rope, made heavy thread for the men's clothing, and kept house with only a fireplace for heat and cooking. She baked bread in an old iron kettle on the hot coals. She made hominy out of corn, cloth out of hemp, and cured all kinds of meat. She always took the wild animals that were killed to rend out grease for leather and harness oil. Her summer times were always busy with planting her own kitchen garden, and caring for it, drying all kinds of fruits, making her own molasses, syrups, sour kraut, and pickles for their supply during the long, hard winters. She knew how to make her own gloves and those for the men folk as well....

One day I will walk the hot sands of the everlasting desert and find her. Until then, I will carry her blood, her stories, her influence and let it drip down into my grandchildren and their grandchildren.

In honor of International Women's Day