Des Moines, Iowa1286
June 27, 1965

Dear Mr. Stringfield,

Thanks for your letter. Sorry though to learn you have but little interest in your family. [However, I caught the bug-JSS] You really are missing something. The Stringfield is a lovely old Southern family which traces back to Capt John an officer in the Queen‘s Guard in England. My family has cousin kinship with Pres. John Adams - 2nd Pres of U.S. and I am very proud of it.

Of course I cannot place your family as you give no family connections. So of course I wouldn‘t know just where you fit into the four lines. Richard was the immigrant from England to the historic old English settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. A year or so later Richard‘s half-brother Joseph Str. followed him to Virginia. So these two are the lineal ancestors of all Stringfields in America. Joseph‘s descendants remained mostly in Virginia or SE corner of North Carolina - one or two went to Texas. Richard and Mary (Pettus) had a family but they too remained in VA- all except one fine son, James, who made quite a name for himself in the war and became Colonel of the militia. He married Mary Ann Ray in VA, then they moved to North Carolina, and later on to Warren County Kentucky.
James and Mary Ann had a family - if any girls I do not know - but - they had 3 sons and these sons became the heads of three big lines over the U.S. And of course with Joseph this makes four lines and there are historians working on all lines. The three sons were: ‘.John who served in Rev. War - 2. William Ray - 3. Rev James Stringfield. My grandfather‘s sister married a son of Rev. James - he was Milton Ray Stringfield. Yes, I know all about Lamar Stringfield. His family springs from Joseph the half-brother. There is a very fine historian working on this line in North Carolina. I‘ve been in touch with all the historians.
Thank you for your letter.

Yours very truly,
Mrs. De Forrest C. Parrott

P.S. Oh you asked how I obtained your address. Well a Stringfield in New England sent three pages of names and addresses to his cousin, Mrs. Zuma Magee in Louisiana and she sent the list to me. Letters are pouring in from much interested Stringfields, fat letters with much record, so I feel I can help a lot of folks and they help me. I owe much to Mrs. Magee. She was already working as historian on John‘s line when my letter reached her so many years ago. She joined me in my search for Great Aunt Rhoda and Milton Ray Stringfield. It was Zuma who learned of ‘The Stringfield Tragedy’ now a recorded episode in early Texas History. And it was Aunt Rhoda‘s son Thomas, wife, and 2 boys who were killed in LaSalle County Texas - 1874. An 8-year old girl lanced and thrown in a prickly pear patch and left for dead was found by a Mexican and Ida lived to tell the story of the Indian massacre. Oh I thank the God above that Milton and Rhoda had died in Texas before tragedy struck their family so they never knew about Thomas or about young Rev. James McKendree Str who died on the battlefield, another son also, or about young ‘Lit’ who drowned in Brazos River. I am finally after all these years of searching, in touch with Aunt Rhoda‘s descendants in Houston, San Antonio, Texas A & M College, in fact all over the state and we are all happy we found each other. I‘m thankful for my bulldog streak which wouldn‘t let me give up the search - I did give up time and again only to start again - it took close to twenty years of searching before I found Great Aunt Rhoda, until then only a big blank space in my Rhodes genealogy. How true those words: ‘Genealogy either sets you on fire, or leaves you cold’ - I’ve been burning many years - ha ha

I presume this lady is no longer living...but I don‘t know. Wouldn‘t it be great to find, if not her, her records? Anybody in Des Moines know where we could look? And - who is, or was, Zuma Magee?