Miz Emma : Emma Jane Simmons Arnold Allison

In June 2014 I decided to look into Emma Jane Simmons Arnold Allison, stepmother to our dad Lewis Allison and his brother Harry. Their papa, Harry Craig Allison, had remarried after his first wife Stella Cannaday died in 1924.  

Miz Emma was on her second husband when she took on the Allison boys around 1930.  According to Lewis “Miz Emma” was stern and “favored” her own boys over her stepsons. I have a dim memory of meeting Miz Emma Arnold when I was eight years old on our one-and-only family trip to east Texas in 1957.

She lived in a wood farmhouse on a country road surrounded by deep woods. Miz. Emma welcomed Lewis and his “youngins”. She invited us to have something to “drank”, which turned out to be well water. We all walked around the house to the backyard. She pulled up the bucket of well water and we all sipped out of the same ladle. I remember our California Mom, stranger to east Texas ways, remarking later how “unsanitary” this was.

The next time I encountered Miss Emma Arnold, was finding her on a list of people buried in the cemetery in Arp, Texas. Arp is a tiny town in Smith County. The town’s population is less than a thousand living folks, but the cemetery’s population is twice that.  The cemetery also held some secrets for the Search Sisters. 

Emma J Allison Arnold @ findagrave.com

Note: The banner image at the top of the page is the Search Sisters

 with their dad Lewis visiting in Arp's Mason Cemetary.