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Subject: Otis Light (Durham) Garner...major help or idas needed please
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 07:56:10 EST

Otis Light of Riverside California.....

Prepare for a very interesting story:

Before my Great Grandmother Edna Garner McKee passed away, Otis Light of
Riverside CA found her and told her he was her half brother.

How it began......

Edna was told that her mother died when she was about 6 months old and her
dad gave her to the John and Susan Durham of Alexander County IL to raise.
She took on the Durham ( in school and on the census) name until the day she
married my Great Grandfather, John Fredrick McKee, and then listed her birth
name, Garner. I found on a family tree (ancestry.com) where someone had
changed Otis Light's name to Otis Light Durham.



Now, Otis Light's mother was Minnie Elizabeth Durham of Alexander County IL.
Otis went by her husbands last name , Light. I suspect that before his
mother died, she told him that he was not a LIGHT. I don't know if she ever
married anyone but Mr. LIGHT and I don't know why Otis went by Durham on another
family tree unless whom ever did the tree now knows he is the half brother
to his siblings but didn't know his real last name.


So anyway, Otis went on a hunt for his birth father and found my great
grandmother through her birth record in Charleston MO. That they both had the
same father. Edna McKee was born Edna Garner. Her father unknown and mother
unknown.


My mother remember's Otis coming to the house and talking to Edna. Otis is
mentioned in my Great Grandmothers Obit as her brother. Edna's son, Leland,
my grandfather, remembers Edna mentioning once her fathers name and he thinks
it was Marion.

boy is that complicated!

So ::: Otis Light (Durham) of California and Edna Marie McKee (Garner) of
Thebes IL have the same father. Edna is firm on the Garner name. Otis finds
out he was not a LIGHT and found Edna through her birth record in MO, my mom
thought Sikeston MO but the obit article said Charleston MO. The family tree
I found on Ancestry of Otis has him as Otis Light Durham. I guess he went by
his mothers maiden name. Oddly enough, the family that Edna's father placed
her with are DURHAMS. John Durham and Minnie Elizabeth Durham Light are
brother and sister. John and his wife Susan Hutson, raised Edna Garner. Why
did Mr. Garner pick them to raise his daughter?

My mother said that Edna had a Uncle Carl Garner. The brothers to Carl
Garner in the census was Marion A. Garner and Charles Garner.

By the way, Edna was never given a social security card........ :(

There are three email addresses listed on the ancestry.com family tree for
Otis Light Durham. I have wrote to all three and have no luck in getting a
reply from them.

Can you see why I need help? haha

thanks again for any help I can get!
Angela

From The Cairo Evening Citizen, Tuesday, Oct. 12, 1971

Mrs. Edna McKee

Mrs. Edna McKee, 71, died at 6:25 p.m., Friday at Cape LaCroix
Mansion Nursing Home.
Mrs. McKee was born in Charleston.
She is survived by her husband, Fred McKee, Thebes; two sons, Vernon
F. McKee, and Leland L. McKee, both of Thebes; one daughter, Mrs. Vera
Dover, Anna; one brother, Otis Light, California; seven grandchildren,
and five great-grandchildren.
Funeral services were conducted Monday at 2 p.m. at Alexander Free
Will Baptist Church near Olive Branch, with Rev. Billy Heady
officiating, and assisted by Dale Billingsly.
Interment was made in Rosehill Cemetery in Thebes. Farnsworth
Funeral Home in Tamms was in charge of arrangements.

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