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Check Farmer

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Check Farmer The picture above was beloved by the family because it captured her. She is sitting on her front porch where, in her later years, she spent long hours reading, shelling peas, or playing with the grandchildren. Across the street can be seen the Fire House. She was born on December 28, 1861 just as the Civil War was breaking out. She must have had a very stress-filled childhood growing up with a father who had to flee the family for a few years during the Civil War because he was a Union sympathizer and who for his long career as a Calvary Colonel was away from the family for weeks at a time. (see Thompson Family History). Her own childhood--left alone with her mother and brothers and sister, facing constant fear of Indian raids, must also have been harrowing. She went to school with Jim, her future husband, and at one point they did not live far from each other. Theirs was a devoted marriage. All of the family spoke of both of them with great love. My mother told me that her grandmother’s first act, every morning of her life, was to make a huge batch of biscuits for the large family.

Here she is a young women. She was very tiny, not even five feet tall, but her Cherokee ancestry can be seen very clearly.

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Check Farmer

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Check Farmer On April 19, 1883, Check married her childhood sweetheart, Jim Farmer. Of the picture my mother wrote: the dress was plum-colored, very soft wool. She still had it and could still wear it in my lifetime. I wish they were both standing so you could see how huge he was and how tine she was. Also I dislike the solemn expressions required then. Grandpa was never that solemn! And Grandmother, who even as an old lady was pretty, had a sweet delightful expression at all times. The picture also does not show how Cherokee she looked. Her hair was jet black and her eyes very dark. This is the home Mayor Farmer built in North Fort Worth at 702 N.W. 24th St and Refugio. They lived there from 1898 to their deaths in the 1940’s. Jim, Check, and Minnie are seen in the front yard.

This is the rear view

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Check Farmer

Mom told me the following about the house: It was built in 1898 for them and had six bedrooms. You entered into the Reception Hall, which had a large marble fireplace. It was large enough for two sets of square dancing at once and the home was often filled with guests doing just that! To the right was the Parlor, also with a fireplace. That room had walls lined with glass-front bookcases. There were double sliding doors between the Parlor and the Reception Hall. Behind the Parlor was the master bedroom. It was huge, with two daybeds in addition to a four-poster bed. Across the hall there was another bedroom. The hall made an L and behind it was yet another bedroom. Behind that were stairs going up. Then came the kitchen with a large pantry on the left.

Over the years they had nine children: Fred, Mary C. (Minnie), Ward, Jeannette, J.D. Jr., Martha Cherokee (Cherry- my grandmother), Jack, Jolly, and Robert, who died in infancy. This is Fred, Ward, and Minnie

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Check Farmer

Below is Jack and Jolly

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Check Farmer

Cherry Farmer at age 3.

A letter she wrote to her children on genealogy follows: Dear Children, This is in no sense intended as a genealogical record. Many documents and records to which I have access are so yellowed and faded as to be useless and some have crumbled in my hands…I have tried to give only facts that I can verify. …There are many old tales handed down from one generation to the next. If I include any of these it will be because I have loved them, not because I can vouch for their authenticity as very old people are prone to remember kindly the days of their youth, and as many a teller of tales was already living in an album-tinted world where harsh realities were mercifully softened by failing memories, it is hard to separate fact from fancy. Records substantiate that the Farmer family migrated from Ireland an England, and the Thompson family from Scotland. But it would take years of dedicated research to explore these dim trails and I have neither time nor energy Besides, it is my firm belief that the best proof of sound heredity is the use you make of it to uphold the spiritual and political ideals bequeathed to you by your

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Check Farmer forbears…Sometimes a man, due to unfortunate circumstances, cannot add great luster to a good name. But every man, no matter what his adversities, can keep his name untarnished. He owes it to himself and to his country to bequeath to his children the heritage of a good name, and to train them so that they may do the same for their children. He can leave them no greater legacy.

Check died on May 12, 1940.

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