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This page pretains to my grandfather Huston / Houston E. Madden. we aren't proud of this fact [ murder ] but I thought to add it, as it is family history, good or bad.
My mother nor I have good memories of this man. He lied about every stage of his life and I will add some of his life here.
He had told my mother that he was pure Indian and that his mother or grandmother was an Indian Princess. As most of you may know, there isn't any such thing as Indian Princess's.. but at the time I didn't know that. After years of searching I found out he was of Chinese blood from his mothers side [ Foe / Gong ]
I started my search for his family even though we didn't have a clue who they were after my mom happened to remember something she had overheard when she was a small girl, about him being in prison. He died in 1963, going to his grave with no hint of who he really was.
I searched for years in Ill. for any record of him being in prison, one day I got an e mail from a person whose daughter worked in the system and she found the court records of his trial. Another person had found the newsprint on him. Then I found him on the 1920 Census, also in prison.
The first Newspaper stated that Huston said he was innocent of the murder of Claude Norman and also the sheriff states that there were 4 others implicated and they would be brought in soon. The second stated that Huston had signed a confession that he alone was responsible, but the sheriff states he didn't belive that. No others were ever brought in to be charged for this crime but my grandfather. He was sentenced to 15 years but served 9. As far as we can tell, as soon as he was released from prison, 1929-30 in Ill. he went straight to pick up grandmother and two children [ we belive] and headed straight toStrebbling, Tn. for the home of his uncle Wilson Madden whose wife was Sarah Baggett, sister to my grandmother ,Isabell [ Maggie ]. That was in 1930, then in 1931 we found him in Waverly county,Tn where my mom was born [ not proven , no birth record ever found ] In 1939 we find him here in Arkansas, living in Genoa [ Garland ] Dist. where my mom was inrolled in 1st and 2nd grades at Genoa school. She wasn't allowed to return to school after the 2nd grade. She was needed to work.
Another brick wall I am having, is on several records for the wife of Huston, my grandmother, it stated her maiden name was Gaynor / Gayner even though we knew it was Baggett. I asked around and found out that back then if a woman had been married before, she used her married surname instead of maiden name. On a census for her father, I found two children living with him that stated the last name of Gaynor and they were his grandchildren. I had found a grandaughter of the sister to my grandmother and she had never heard of my grandmother being married before and I asked my mom and she said that she had never heard a word about it either.
My grandfather wasn't a very nice person. He wasn't a very big person, maybe 5'6' and weighed 110-120 or so pounds, but very strong.
As a small child of six or seven and my brothers even younger, he would take us behind the barn, line us up against the wall and pop a bullwhip around our ankles for the fun of it.
He took us to the woods one day and sat us down on a log, then he shaved a block of Chewing Tobacco into slivers and gave it to us, telling us it was good. Being little kids we belived him, talk about SICK !! We were green as gourds when we got home. My grandmother asked what was wrong with us and he told her we had some eaten green apples.
My dad told us a story about grandfather::: Huston was comming down a narrow lane [ in his horse and wagon ] with a closed barbedwire gate, on the other side was a man in his horse and wagon. Grandfather got down and opened the gate and the other person started through, grandfather yelled at him to hold up, that he had gotten there first . The man started to cuss and yell and stated that grandfather was a blanky blank etc, so grandfather pulled out his knife and threw it at the guy which of course stuck in the man and he fell [ off the wagon ] to the ground. Grandfather then got into the other wagon , moved it back and he then pulled his own wagon through, closed the gate and preceded on down the road without ever looking to see if the man was alive or not. I'm not sure if this is true or not but my dad says it happened. Not many people messed with Huston. Dad had said he had heard several stories about Huston attacking folks etc, before dad married mom. I have one photo of Houston and someday I will put it on the site. It's a very dark photo and am trying to find a way to lighten it.
