On these pages I'd like to share interesting and medical stories about the individuals which make up our family tree. If you have an amusing, interesting or medical story about our family members please share them with me. 

From the Parker's in Arizona to the Sepulveda's and Machado's in Pueblo de Los Angeles, Debbie's ancestors are well documented in shaping the old west. Parker descendents still maintain a family ranch nestled in the Huachuca Mountains of Southeastern Arizona.

Ancestry Report for Helen Delores Parker

• William A. Parker Sr. was born in Tennessee about 1824. He is said to be a cousin of Comanche Indian Chief Quanah Parker (confirmed!). He migrated to Missouri, married, had two sons, John and James, before 1849 when William traveled west to San Luis Obispo County, CA. during the gold rush.  They remained in CA. for about 15 years, where he mined for gold and farmed. He moved his family about 1867, eventually settling in the Huachuca Mountains of Southeastern Arizona. The area now bears his name - Parker Canyon. They, and many of their descendants became very prominent ranchers in Southern Arizona. William died around the turn of the century, and is buried in the canyon he so loved.

• William A. Parker, Jr. (aka Uncle Billy), was born in San Luis Obispo, Ca. in 1860. His family had located there to mine gold and farm. When he was about 8 years old, the family excitedly moved to the growing Territory of Arizona, first settling in Prescott. In 1880 when the territorial capital was changed the family moved again, this time to the growing small town of Phoenix. This change was to be short. During the same year the Elder Parker acted on his dream to settle in the Huachuca Mountains of Southern Arizona which he had remembered when he crossed them in 1849 in the gold rush days.
  Now an adult, "Uncle Billy" joined the family in the move. He followed his father's life of ranching, establishing his own ranch near Canelo, AZ. He was married in 1884 to Eva Landers and together they had seven children. "Uncle Billy's ranch and adobe house remain in the family today.
  He was in this area when singing railroad workers connected the rail line which connected Arizona and Sonora at Nogales. He took part in the campaign against marauding Indians, defending his home and property on several occasions. He was almost 40 years of age when Santa Cruz County was carved out of Pima County in 1899. In that year his wife died. In 1905 he married again to Annie Musgrave, sister of the famed outlaw George West Musgrave. 

• Elmer Emitt Parker was the fifth child of William A. Parker Jr. and Eva Louisa Landers Parker. Elmer was born in Parker Canyon, which had been settled by his grandfather in 1882. Having been born into the ranching family, horses, cows, brush-popping and roping were second nature to the happy go lucky and hard working youngster. He left ranch work at 16 for a muleskinner's job with an Army pack train that carried supplies to remote army camps. In those days, all civilian packers and teamsters were assigned to one troop. He was with Troop G of the Fourth Cavalry during the Hadero revolt. Driving a supply wagon wasn't quite as adventurous or as filled with excitement as some TV or movie scripts would make it seem, but boredom never bothered anyone. In 1913,  Elmer moved to Los Angeles and he returned to ranching in 1915 on Santa Rosa Island where as many as 9000 head of cattle roamed at one time.
  A year later, he returned to Arizona and the Army again, this time as a truck driver on one of the first motorized supply caravans in the army.
  A short time later he began a new career back in California at Terminal Island, he joined the Los Angles Fire Department. Firefighting back in those days was an uphill battle and all by hand. There were only hand reels and 500 feet of hose that had to be drug to every fire. Off the main street, the roads were nothing but sand. The reel would get stuck in the sand nearly every time. There were other reels, all stationed at different points around town for such problems.
  Cow country called again and Elmer went back to ranching in Arizona, but he returned to San Pedro in 1918 to wed Alice Harriman, whom he had met while a fireman on Terminal Island.
  After several years as a shipyard worker, dockhand, tank builder and dairyman, he rejoined the fire department where he spent 31 and a half years, all in the harbor area.

• Alice Josephine Harriman was born in Los Angeles, the only child of Edgar Francis Harriman and Leonora Josephina Oden. She was living with her parents on Terminal Island when she met Elmer Parker. On June 04, 1918, the pretty doll faced girl and her Arizona cowboy husband-to-be boarded the ferryboat Real for their elopement across the channel to San Pedro. They climbed the bluff and hurried up the hill to old Mary Star of the Sea Church. There, Fr. McGrath performed the marriage ceremony in his rectory. 
  Alice is a descendant of the historic Machado family, related to the Sepulvedas, the early rancho owners. Alice was active in community activities. She was a member of a number of groups including the Woman's Club of San Pedro, San Pedro Community Hospital Auxiliary, Rudecinda Parlor, 230, Native Daughters of the Golden West, in which she was a past president and the Thirty Year Club of which she was charter president.
  Alice's great grandmother was the widow of Dolores Sepulveda, who was killed in a fight with the Indians, as he was returning south from the city of Monterey. 

• George W. Oden came from West Virginia to Wilmington, CA. soon after the arrival of Phineas T. Banning. Oden was a carpenter and wheelwright. He soon was making coaches and wagons and teaching his trade to others. Several vehicles he made are known to be still in existence. One is at the L.A. County Museum in Exposition Park and one remains at Banning Manor in Wilmington. George had another distinction. He married sisters. First he married Maria, then Ellen, both widows, who were daughters of Antonio Machado.

• Jose'F Manuel Orchaga Y Machado 1781, Los Angeles is founded and, while the pueblo is still young, its citizens discover that the Culver City valley is good pasture ground for cattle. Within the decade after the eleven families from Sonora and Sinaloa started building Los Angeles' first houses, the names of Machado, Higuera, Talamantes and Lopez were established in the community. Members of these families were to become the first white settlers along Ballona Creek, the first white occupants of the valley land that stretches from Culver City to the sea. One of the soldier-guard who came from Sonora to Los Angeles as a member of the Rivera-Moncada expedition of 1781 was 25-year-old Jose' Manuel Machado. He brought with him a 17-year-old wife, Maria. It was this Machado whose sons Augustin and Ygnacio were to settle Rancho La Ballona. A few years after the founding of the Pueblo, Felipe Talamantes and his brother Tomas became Los Angeles citizens. Later they shared with the young Machado men in their ranch venture. The alcalde of the pueblo in the year 1800 was Joaquin Higuera. His son, Bernardo, was to settle the land that adjoined the Rancho La Ballona on the northeast - Rancho Rincon de los Bueyes. Meanwhile the people of the pueblo, with vague ideas about the boundaries of their own four square leagues of land, needed more good pasturage for their cattle. The Rincon and the Ballona, lying to the southwest, could qualify and in addition were so far from San Gabriel and San Fernando as to be unclaimed by the Missions. At a very early period, then, cattle owners from the pueblo were visiting the Culver City valley.

• Lewis Tacquett was born about 1675 to a Huguenot (Protestant) family in France. His immigration to America was a direct result of religious persecution in France. The Edict of Nantes, a decree of King Henry IV in 1598, ended a series of religious wars between Catholics and Protestants that began in 1562. The Edict provided some measure of religious freedom to the Huguenots but its provisions were never fully implemented. Persecution of Protestants continued especially after 1681. Then, in 1685 the Edict was revoked by Louis XIV and hundreds of thousands of Huguenots were forced to flee France and take refuge in Protestant Countries. That the family of Louis Tacquett fled to England is shown by his name being found on a 1686-87 list of Huguenots for whom passage to Virginia was paid by an Englishman, Nicholas Hayward. Also included on this list was Louis Reynaud (Reno) who came to Virginia at the same time and whose family was very close to the Tacketts there.

• Christopher Tackett. Ft. Tackett once stood near St. Albans, West Virginia. Fort Tackett was built in 1786 on land that originally belonged to George Washington and deeded to him for his service in the French and Indian War. 31 people lived there in 1790 when the Shawnee Indians attacked and captured several settlers and took them to Michigan. Most of them eventually escaped and returned to this area. Six months later they attacked again and killed Christopher Tackett and several children, kidnapped several others and burned the fort. Several hid from the attack and managed to escape to Ft. Clendenin, later Charleston. The first white child born in the Kanawha Valley was born to Kizah Tackett.