Rescued from a Texas storage unit

Silas Watts Lucas and Family
about 1891

You never know where and when you’re going to get a new tidbit in your family history research.

I was browsing through Findagrave.com last month and found the picture above posted on the Silas Watt Lucas memorial page.  This is the only picture I have seen that has my great-grandmother, Alice Lucas White (at the far right), as a child.  A caption with the picture noted,  “See the Grace Armantrout Museum FaceBook Page for more Lucas family photos.”  Since the museum is near the small town of George West, Texas, I was curious how this picture ended up there.  To my knowledge,  none of the folks in the picture had never lived anywhere near that.  I sent a note to Kevin Mackey who posted the picture at Findagrave and got this response:

I acquired the photos recently in cleaning out some storage units in Live Oak County. Other family items indicates that some of the family maybe from Oakville area and some live in the county still. The photos are photos of the originals and not scans. I was about to return these to a family member of the people who owned/forfeited the storage unit, but before I did I photographed them to preserve and share. Preservation of history and the sharing of history is important to me so I decided to post them to the Museum page so as to share and glean information from any family members in the area. I then and went to look on Find-A-Grave to see if I could associate the photos with their graves. I was able to locate the locations for two of the photos and would appreciate any more information you could provide.

In subsequent exchanges I found that the photos were from a family named Lemley.  The connection to the Lucas family was through Ada Jewel Lucas who was the grand-daughter of Lorenza Dow Lucas (brother of  Silas Watts Lucas) and the wife of Albert Luther Lemley.  As a result of this happy find, I have been able to correspond with one of the Texas Lemley cousins.  Strangely enough, it also enabled me to connect with a couple of Alabama Lucas cousins who are descended from Uncle Murray Lucas.  The internet can be a wonderful thing!