When my sister was born in 1916, she had 10 living grandparents. One of them was our great-grandmother, Margaret Ann Dalton Williams. Margaret had married our great grandfather, George Washington Williams, when she was 17 years old. They lived in Missouri and came to Texas in a wagon train in 1869. By that time they had four children, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Richard who was our grandfather, Sallie, and Eliza.
They settled in Parker County near the Brazos River. She had 5 more children, but one died in infancy. The youngest was 17 when George W. died in 1879. She had been a widow for 18 years when my sister was born. She lived to age 88. My sister was 13 when she died, and my sister had many fond memories of her. She called her Grandma.
My sister told me anytime anyone asked Margaret Ann if she was related to the outlaws, the Dalton Gang, her standard reply was a curt, “There is no connection.” Everyone took her word for it until her sister from Missouri came to visit. My sister described Margaret Ann as a rather small, soft spoken woman. Her sister was a large, loud, woman. The biggest shock to my sister was that the sister called Grandma by the nickname, Meg. My sister said that Grandma’s sister would say, “Why Meg, you mean you have never told them that you are kin to the Dalton Gang?” Then she would let loose with a boisterous laugh. Our grandmother would get mad and vehemently deny it. Her sister would laugh even louder. Our grandmother was so mad that her children were afraid to approach the subject. Even after her sister left, no one dared to ask her about it.
After her husband died in 1898, Margaret Ann ran a boarding house across the street from the train station in Brazos Texas. She carried a .32, 5 shot revolver in her apron pocket because “there was so much meanness” in those days. Supposedly, the word around the area was, “don’t mess with the widow Williams.”
My cousin tells me that his Dad (My Dad’s brother) told him about our grandfather taking him to Ranger to meet Emmett Dalton*. Emmett was in Ranger to meet some of his Dalton relatives. Our grandmother was very upset and did not want our grandfather to take her son around “that Dalton trash.” My uncle remembered Emmett as an older man with gray hair. He was very well dressed and very friendly, but he sat with his back to a wall.
Margaret Ann died in 1929 and is buried just east of Lipan, Texas, in Parker County.
*Emmett was the youngest of the Dalton Boys. Their careers as train and bank robbers ended in 1892, in Coffeyville, Kansas, when all of them except Emmett were killed. Emmett was sentenced to life in prison, but he was pardoned after serving 14 years of his sentence. He moved to Oklahoma and became a peace officer. He later moved to California. The story is that there were two brothers, and one moved to the western part of Missouri. The gang descended from this brother. . Our grandmother was descended from the brother who stayed in the eastern part of the state (St. Francis County).