I am a fifth-generation Texan. My great-great-grandfather John Martin Whitfield moved to North Texas from Wilsonville in Shelby County Alabama just before 1900. His entire family moved to Texas with him and his wife Mary Elizabeth Wright Whitfield, including the oldest children who already had families of their own. My great-grandfather George Daniel "Deed" Whitfield was the fourth oldest of John and Mary. He was married Cora E. Holcomb on the 7th of May 1896 by a Methodist parson named T.M. Wilson in Wilsonville while still in Alabama. Cora died in 1908 just 34 years old. Records do not indicate any children. Deed married Julia March Warden in 1910 and they had three children, Mary L. Cotten, Cora Margaret Henry, and Thomas Wayne Whitfield, my grandfather. Six months after giving birth to Tommy, Julia grew ill and died. Family stories attest that prior to her death she confided in her sister-in-law Augusta Cornelia (Mammy) and asked her to raise Tommy. Aunt Cornelia and Uncle Jim (Deed's older brother) took Tommy, who wasn't quite 3, and raised him alongside their son George, who was already 13 at the time. Tommy became a WWII veteran and is the sole propagator of the Whitfield name from Deed's line. He, in turn, had four daughters and one son, my father, Kenneth Alvin Whitfield.

I am a fifth-generation Texan. My great-great-grandfather John Martin Whitfield moved to North Texas from Wilsonville in Shelby County Alabama just before 1900. His entire family moved to Texas with him and his wife Mary Elizabeth Wright Whitfield, including the oldest children who already had families of their own. My great-grandfather George Daniel "Deed" Whitfield was the fourth oldest of John and Mary. He was married Cora E. Holcomb on the 7th of May 1896 by a Methodist parson named T.M. Wilson in Wilsonville while still in Alabama. Cora died in 1908 just 34 years old. Records do not indicate any children. Deed married Julia March Warden in 1910 and they had three children, Mary L. Cotten, Cora Margaret Henry, and Thomas Wayne Whitfield, my grandfather. Six months after giving birth to Tommy, Julia grew ill and died. Family stories attest that prior to her death she confided in her sister-in-law Augusta Cornelia (Mammy) and asked her to raise Tommy. Aunt Cornelia and Uncle Jim (Deed's older brother) took Tommy, who wasn't quite 3, and raised him alongside their son George, who was already 13 at the time. Tommy became a WWII veteran and is the sole propagator of the Whitfield name from Deed's line. He, in turn, had four daughters and one son, my father, Kenneth Alvin Whitfield.