Fannie at 12 years
Fannie Mae Tackett, unknown age
Fannie Mae Tackett was born on May 25, 1934, in Hinton, Caddo County, Oklahoma. Her parents were Grover Lively Tackett and Josie Blanche Moss. Grover and Josie had 10 children, only 7 of which survived childhood (listed below).
Juanita Blanch Tackett was born about 1916 in Oklahoma.
Hazel Lorene Tackett was born about 1918 in OK.
Dale Otto Tackett was born about 1921 in OK.
Harold George Tackett was born in Feb 1924 in OK.
Glen John Tackett was born on 11 Apr 1925 in OK.
Mary Lou Tackett was born on 01 Jun 1927 in OK.
(two children who did not survive childhood belong somewhere in here.)
Fannie Mae Tackett was born on 25 May 1934.
Fannie Mae Tackett was born on 25 May 1934.
Fannie wasn't close to her siblings because of the large age difference between them. Many of her siblings had already left home when she was growing up. Of all her siblings, she was closest to her sister Mary Lou as a child, but even Mary Lou was 5 years older than her.
When asked about her name, Fannie said that she thought her Ma had just run out of names! She talked about her name and her Grandpa's farm: "My brothers, they used to tease me on the farm. Grandpa had a team of horses that he plowed with, and one of them’s name was Fan. I was only 5 or 6 whenever we lived
there... They'd tease me that I was named after that horse and I would just go into tears!" Fannie said that she couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 while she was living at her grandparent's farm.
"Mom’s father’s name was George
Shermann Moss- her mother’s name was Mabel Pendergrass. Grandma moss’s father’s
name was John Pendergrass, he fought in the civil war. He was some kind of a
confederate officer. He had a plantation in Mississippi, and the first Cotton
Gin in the south was on his plantation. He lost his plantation in the war. I didn’t know dad’s part of the family very much. His
father died before dad married mom and they had 4 girls and 2 boys (plus
grandpa). His dad used to be a horse-breaker. He fell off, he was bucked off
and hurt his back and couldn’t do it anymore. So he sold singer sewing machines
off the back of his buggy. Dad’s mother lived with dad and mom for a long
time. And she died whenever Mary
Lou was a baby." These are the words of Fannie about her grandparents. She also mentioned that the Pendergrass and Moss families were involved in the Oklahoma land rush, and that she knew her maternal uncles fairly well. "Mom had 4 brothers, and they interacted with us kids all the time. Mom was the only girl in that family."
When asked about the 2 children between Mary Lou and herself, Fannie said the following:
"There
were 2 babies that didn’t survive
in between us. The girl had a blockage and she only lived about a week. A
little boy, he had what they called back then “summer complaint” and it was
like a fever and he died."
When I asked Fannie about her friends and school when she was in elementary/middle school, she replied that she didn't have very many friends, because it was a long ways in between houses- so even though they might be going to school together and next door neighbors, the neighbors might still be 3 miles away. She did recall that about 10 years old, she was invited on a picnic lunch by a girl from school. This little girl lived right next next door and the two girls were in the same class.
"Her parents had a piece of property outside of town," Fannie said, "and they invited me to
come with them for lunch. While the adults were getting lunch ready, the two girls decided to go play in the creek. All of the sudden I look behind us, and I see these 3
snakes, all coming after us with mouths open, and we ran, and boy we ran out of
that creek just a flying and just set down at the table and the adults never
did know about that snake pit!"
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| Fannie, in high school, with an unidentified friend |
Growing up, Fannie's parents moved around a lot. "I started school in alfalfa, we moved to Bowe, someplace
else, checkeshaw, minnishaw, then I came to California" Fannie said. "I was pretty well
wrapped up with mary lou. If I did something wrong, mama always knew about it.
Mary lou ratted on me every chance she got." I guess it was a good thing that she had Mary Lou no matter where she went to school!
Both Wanita and Fannie said that their mother, Josie Blanche Moss, was a wonderful woman, but that they didn't really know her very well since she died when they were young. "I don't have a favorite memory of her, I just know she was a wonderful woman," said Fannie. For Fannie, who was only 12, this was an especially hard time. Fannie was the only child left at home. While all the other kids were "hither and yon," Fannie had yet to finish middle school. When Fannie was 13, she went to live with her oldest sister, Juanita, for a few years. She stayed with Juanita, moving to california with her, until just before she married.
Fannie's best friends in High School were Mary Carney and Kathleen Tappus, although she doesn't remember much about them now. Fannie remembers entering the workforce in high school, starting work for Woolsworths, but only for 6 hours a week because she was under 21 and a woman (I still haven't been able to find this law, but I believe it existed). Fannie got engaged on December 20, 1952, to Kenneth Dale Parker. He gave Fannie an engagement ring,
at her workplace.
Kenneth Dale Parker and Fannie Mae Tackett were married in Reno, Nevada, on January 19th, 1953. They brought Kenneth's brother and sister to be the witnesses. They all drove up to Reno on the 18th, then stayed the night in a hotel. Early the next morning, about 8:00am, they were married in the courthouse, by the district judge of Washitaw, Nevada. They drove back to Selenas that day so that Fannie could be back in her classes on Monday. Kenneth was in the Navy, and had to return to San Diego, where he was stationed. Kenneth got an apartment in San Diego, where hen and Fannie lived after she had graduated from High School. They lived there until Ken was discharged from the Navy.
Kenneth Dale and Fannie Mae had their first son, Kenneth Eugene Parker (nicknamed Gene) in the Balboa Navy hospital in San Diego on Feb 11, 1954. They moved back to Selenas shortly afterwards, so that Kenneth Dale could go to Hartnel College, where he studied Automotive repair. His first job when he finished was with the Cadillac dealership in Selenas. It was here that their second child, Diana Gail Parker, was born, on February 23, 1958. The small family moved shortly after, when Kenneth Dale got a job offer in San Jose, California.
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| Fannie and Kenneth Eugene (Gene) |
Kenneth was offered a job a Lockheed in SunnyVale in 1959, which he chose to accept. He worked on quite a few projects, including Twister, the Polaris Missile, the NASA program, and the deep diving submarine. Kenneth worked there for about 30 years, retiring in 1990.
Brenda Joe Parker was born on March 4, 1963, in San Jose. In 1963, Fannie went to work for Fairchild in 1965- she made a whole dollar an hour! She worked there until 1988, when the company was sold and went out of business. Fannie never went back to work after that.
Raising her kids:
"Gene was a good kid! I didn’t work the first year and a
half. I didn’t have any problems with him at all. He was really a good kid. He always made good grades all
through high school. When he was in his senior year of high school he got lazy.
He was always doing something ornery. Almost always was a good kid.
Napoleon the snake: it was a long weekend, and We went over
to big basin park. We had a little old camp trailer and they were all looking
around, fiddling around, and we didn’t think too much about it. Sissy comes
flying in and she says “mom mom I need a jar” and I said “what do you need a
jar for?” And She said we wanna catch some frogs. “ I said only frogs, and gave
her a jar, with holes in it.” We had a little small fence in front of the
house, and jean was leaning on the fence, with his legs crossed, looking around
and every once in a while he’d look down. I got out of the car and I said “hi
gene! What’s going on” and he said nothing. I look down in the grass, and see a little head popping up,
and I said is there a snake in our yard. And he said it’s napoleon, my pet snake. And he told me
where he caught it, and he was exercising it, and letting it catch some bugs in
the yard, and I made him get rid of the snake.
I would leave the bathroom window open. He would jump over
the fence, and we had a Doberman in the backyard, and the Doberman would try to
bite Jim if Gene didn’t tell him to leave Jim alone, then Gene would climb
through the window and open the door for everyone else.
His senior year he passed with as and bs, he was 3rd
down from the valedictorian.
That’s how close he was to
being the valedictorian. He was a smart kid, he really was."
On raising sissy:
Tell me about raising Dianna (sissy): I never had any problems. She’s more
like grandpa, it takes longer to learn stuff, but once she does, its there
forever.
On raising Brenda Joe:
"That girl could lie and she was always getting
sissy and Jean (Kenneth) in trouble. I went back to work when she was 3 months
old, and so I wasn’t really home much with her. Except vacations and weekends.I
had a time with Brenda Joe in high school. I stayed home from work one day, and
sis was home with me. We decided we’d go pick up Brenda and go shopping. And we
went to school, and she wasn’t there. She’d cut school. And in the month of February she had only been to school 3days. Right after that she quit school.
We didn’t know where she was. And finally we went home. She came dragging in
and she was sure surprised ot see us! They were gonna suspend her. She passed
senior year with A's and B's.
The siblings as adults:
