Spell on You: Armenta Paralee Howerton Laird Cannaday

Standardized spelling was not yet invented when Paralee grew up in Arkansas in the 1860's. The Simplified Spelling Board, an effort to standardize American English, was not founded until 1906. Not everyone welcomed standard spelling.  Mark Twain had this to say:

 “...simplified spelling is all right, but, like chastity, you can carry it too far.”

Paralee did not carry this burden of simple spelling far at all. Her various ways of spelling her name have made her almost invisible to her genealogical mad great grand daughters. We have found her in the records as:

Arminta Homerton, 1870 census, War Eagle, Arkansas b. 1862
Parilee Hameston of the 1880 census (mistranscribed Howerton) 
Armenta P Cannaday of the 1910 census, Hagansport Texas
Armentie Canady of the 1920 census, Rusk Texas, b. 1861
Paralee Cannaday of the 1930 census, Arp Texas, b. 1862
Armintia Cannady of the 1940 census, Arp Texas, b. 1862

According to the census of 1880 Paralee could read and write, but her mother Susan Laird could not. Arkansas of her youth did have a Civil War, but did not yet have a school system.  Even if she had learned to spell in school, standard spelling was not the rule.

Consistent spelling would have made our search for Arminta Paralee Cannaday a lot easier. However, Mark Twain, never without an opinion, rues the loss of invented spelling:  

“I never had any large respect for good spelling... Before the spelling-book came with its arbitrary forms, men unconsciously revealed shades of their characters and also added enlightening shades of expression to what they wrote by their spelling, and so it is possible that the spelling-book has been a doubtful benevolence to us."  Mark Twain's Autobiography

On this assessment Grandma Paralee had plenty of character. Her grandson Lewis would have agreed.

Left to right: Lewis Allison, Paralee Laird Cannaday, Harry Allison Circa 1926

Linda Allison / August, 2014