The Brickey's

Click on the above thumbnail photographs to enlarge the images

Unfortunately, Francis Brickey, my great granddad, died before I was born so I never had the privilege of knowing him personally. But my grandmother, Marjorie Crump, told us kids plenty of stories about him. He was an accomplished machinist, who was also a good carpenter, plumber and auto mechanic. In those days people had to be more self-reliant in order to survive. I still have in my possession a roll top desk which he constructed for my mother when she was a little girl, a well made piece of furniture.

When Francis had some free time, he would make a trip down to the old Mason Hotel here in Claremore to visit his long-time friend, J.M Davis, who started the famous gun collection, which is now housed in the J.M. Davis Gun Museum here in Claremore. In the early days the gun collection was housed in the Mason Hotel itself, right in the main lobby. I remember, as a child, seeing the many guns hanging up on the walls of the old hotel, an impressive site to say the least!

The Mason Hotel

 I remember my grandmother telling us Francis used to live at the base of Claremore Mound in a little stone house in his younger days. He would occasionally make treks to the top of the Mound searching for arrowheads, which could be found in abundance in those days on top of the Mound, where there was once an Osage Indian village. Over the years, he accumulated a collection of several thousand of these arrowheads. I remember seeing some of them as a child. But, sadly, they were stolen when my grandmother hired someone to come in and clean her house for her. And clean it they did –– not only were the arrowheads taken, but they also stole a Colt Frontier revolver with the 1892 Springfield Armory stamp still visible on the grips. This revolver used to belong to Francis and would have been passed down to me or my brother, and then to our children had it not been stolen. 

Francis taught my mother to shoot with this gun. My mother told me the first time she shot it she happened to be sitting on a saw horse in the back yard. When she finally pulled the trigger of the big gun, which was a .45 caliber, she fell off the saw horse backwards. Undaunted by her first experience with a firearm, she went on to become an excellent shot with pistols of all calibers. Francis and my mother were very close.

I do, though, have some memories of my great grandmother, Maude Brickey, before she passed away in 1966 when I was five. Maude was an excellent seamstress, who sewed nearly all of the family clothes, as well as those of many of the townsfolk here in Claremore. She was a kind-hearted soul who, I was told by my mother, consistently displayed the love of Christ to all she came in contact with. Indeed, I also remember her being that way to my brother and I. "Granny" as we used to call her, was blued eyed and fair skinned, which is why it was hard for people to believe that Marjorie, her daughter, was in fact her real daughter because Marjorie had a very dark complexion with dark eyes - traits she inherited from her father, Francis.

I've always wanted to know who Francis' parents were, but had no information until recently about their identities. I posted a message on a roots web genealogy message board about a year ago, hoping that someone would come along and help me answer that question. I received no replies until one day a gentleman by the name of Carl Brickey emailed me the following information: 

Descendants of Alonzo Pierce Brickey


Generation No. 1

1. ALONZO PIERCE7 BRICKEY (JAMES HANSBURY6, PRESTON
B.5, JARRETT4, JARRETT (GERARD)3, PETER2, JOHN (JEAN
BRICQUET)1) was born November 01, 1856 in Red Bud,
Monroe Co., IL., and died December 20, 1922. He
married MARY REBECCA HOPKINS January 22, 1880 in
Monroe Co., IL.. 

Children of ALONZO BRICKEY and MARY HOPKINS are:
i. EMMA BELL8 BRICKEY, b. March 01, 1882, Red Bud,
Monroe Co., IL.; d. September 04, 1965.
ii. JAMES BENJAMIN BRICKEY, b. June 28, 1883, Red
Bud, Monrei, IL; d. October 14, 1957, Los Angeles,
CA.; m. GERTRUDE ELLEN SCHLUETER, 1913.
iii. FRANCIS EDGAR BRICKEY, b. July 11, 1880,
Weatherford, TX.; d. 1960, Claremore, OK.; m. Maude Brickey.
iv. LORA GRACE BRICKEY, b. November 17, 1886, Red
Bud, Monroe Co., IL.; d. September 20, 1942.
v. MARY AVANEL BRICKEY, b. April 17, 1895; d.

Many thanks to Carl for helping me with my query.

My purpose for this web page, as with all of my family pages, is to preserve my family's heritage for future generations. Francis and Maude were two very real people with very real lives who once passed this way; people whose lives were special and had meaning and I don't want them to be forgotten.

 

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