Dust to Dust to Dust

When Henry Parker and Thomas Thompson arrived in Virginia Colony aboard the sailing ship Endeavor, 1765, their altercation aboard ship was forgotten. Each went his separate way, never expecting to meet again. Each, for his own reason, was anxious to depart the dock. Thomas Thompson, with his wife Elinor and son James, headed for the dusty coal mines of West Virginia. Thomas was jumping ship to avoid a return trip to England as promised to the captain. Henry Parker was heading west to look for suitable farm land that could be claimed free, if possible. He was anxious to get settled so that he could send for his bride, with whom he had only three days before being ordered to leave England forever, by King George III. Henry was to have a long three year wait before seeing his bride again. The next meeting between the Parkers and Thompsons took place in a military hospital during the revolutionary war, each had been wounded at the second battle of Yorktown. Over the next many years chance meetings occurred between the two families through the dust of Texas trail drives, wars, and homesteading in Oklahoma Territory. Then in 1922 the two families were forever joined as Arthur William Parker courted and wed, Lena May Thompson. In 1935 and 1936 the Parker sharecrop farm was devastated by the depression, drought, and choking dust storms of the 1930s. In 1937 Most members of both extended families joined the long trail of okies headed for California in search of a better life.