Grandfather Tuley’s 3rd great grandfather, Peter Tuley, came to Henrico Co., VA on the first ship of French Huguenots to arrive at Manakin Town on the James River.

Huguenots began coming to Virginia as early as 1620. In 1700-1701, five ships arrived at the mouth of the James River, then the York and the Rappahannock Rivers, east of present-day Richmond, Virginia. French Huguenots, having fled religious persecution, had lived in England and Ireland and done military services for King William. They were granted lands in the New World for a permanent home where they had the freedom to worship as they pleased. West of Richmond, many founded a colony on the site of a village deserted by the Monacan Indians.

Grandfather Tuley and all his twelve siblings were born and grew to adulthood in the Shenandoah Valley, and most of them left Virginia along with their parents and settled in Lewis Co., MO, where Charles married Rebecca Broy, also from the Shenandoah Valley. Grandfather acquired a farm and a total of thirteen children were born here, and all but one reached adulthood.. A few migrated to other parts of the U.S., but most stayed in or near Lewis Co. Aunt Lizzie’s twin brother was said to have been killed in Kansas while riding with the James brothers.

Grandfather William founded New Prospect Baptist Church. He died at the age of 71, preceding his wife by eleven years, and they are buried in New Prospect Cemetery,

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At his home near Benjamin, Jan. 8th, 1892, of heart trouble, Wm. Addison Tuley, born in Virginia, Oct. 19th, 1820. He came to Missouri over 50 years ago and most of that time has resided in this vicinity. He was a good neighbor, kind father and an upright citizen. He united with the Baptist church in his boyhood and has always been a consistent, christian character and his transition was but a laying down of his burden to accept a crown of life prepared for those who are faithful unto death.


Our Tuley Progenitors
The origins of the Tuley family are shrouded in mystery, but it has been suggested that they may have been among the French Huguenots who fled religious persecution by immigrating to the United States and eventually found peace among the lush, green hills of Virginia. They lived there in Amherst Co. and the Shenandoah Valley for at least three generations before Charles and his wife Frances Mays made the move to Lewis Co., MO

In Lewis Co., MO, Charles and Frances' son William Addison married Rebecca Ann Broy. It is likely that their families had known one another in Virginia, as they had both lived in Shenandoah Co. Rebecca had traveled to Missouri, with her family at the age of four. Her father was Daniel Boone Broy, an inventor and manufacturer, who invented and received a patent on a corn planter. Unfortunately, when he contacted representatives of John Deere to market his invention, they "stole his patent," and he was unable to benefit from his work.

William and Rebecca had thirteen children, the youngest of whom was Tresa Ellen. She was born when her mother was 38 years old. Being the youngest of thirteen children, she was no doubt the spoiled darling, and she was never in very good health. Tresa's older sister Nanny and her family homesteaded in Kansas, and their brother Robert joined them and died there at the age of 22. Some family sources say that he was killed in a train robbery while riding with the James gang, but his obituary states that he died of typhoid.

When Tresa was 21 years old, she married Andrew Lewis Gruber, and together they had four children. The two older boys Orange and Melven were their mother's favorites, and when Bea was born in 1895, she was relegated to a lesser role by her mother. By the time the baby Virginia was born in 1911, Tresa had been through the usual rowdiness and carousing of young teenage boys and was ready to bestow her affection elsewhere, so Virginia received the lion's share, and again Bea was left on the outside. However, this only proved to help mold her into the strong, resourceful woman we knew and loved.

One of Bea's memories which she retained till her death at age 81 was of the time she became lost as a three year old child while visiting with her parents at the home of relatives. She followed some of the older children at play and eventually wandered off alone and became lost. She never realized she was lost, but when she could not be located in the evening, the adults, especially her parents, became frantic. A search was organized but had to be called off with the growing darkness. Bea spent the time walking through the fields on her adventures. She remembered touching a hog on the back, and she must have dreamed of looking into the window of a house where a black family was having their supper, as no such house existed anywhere in the neighborhood. The following morning she was surprised to see her Uncle Pete coming riding toward her on his big horse. He rode up to her and said "Good morning, Bea," and she said "Good morning." He then fired a shot into the air to let the other searchers know that she had been found. She was clutching a little white flower in her hand which she had picked to take to her mother.

Some of the other memories Bea liked to recount were of the fact that she wore lots of pink dresses as a child, because her mother's favorite color was pink. Bea's favorite color was blue, but she seldom had a blue dress. It's not hard to guess that she had many blue dresses as a grown woman, and she was very rarely seen in a pink one. She also remembered hating to have her hair curled before she went to school in the mornings, as it pulled so badly. When she would get out of sight of the house, she would frequently stand and shake all the curls out of her hair. Also, she often had a ham sandwich in her lard pail lunch bucket. She loved the ham sandwiches and many times would stop on the way to school in the morning to eat one.

Since girls did not receive much education in those days, Bea received the equivalent of only a fifth grade education, but she was wise beyond her years in childhood and adulthood. Grandchildren loved to hear her recite the poetry she had learned as a pupil and to hear her play her banjo, which she had learned from her older brothers as a teenager.

Bea was only 17 years old when she married William Knight McDaniel, a local boy. They lived in the same neighborhood, and although they probably did not attend school together, they would have attended church together, as both were Baptist, and probably met and became acquainted at neighborhood parties and gatherings.