This picture to be exact. And the information I got off the back of it.
Doug was born on the 29th of January 1882 in Helena, Phillips County, Arkansas according to the World War II Draft Cards (4th Registration) for the State of Oklahoma (shown below). He was the second child of Jacob and Tina/Tiny/Tinia Briggs.
The earliest documentation I have found on Doug is the 1900 census in Hunt County, Texas (of course, it would have been the 1890 census if not for that pesky fire). He is 17 living with his mother and step-father, Jess Abrams, as well as his half-brother, J.C., and full-sisters, Myrtle and Jessie.
It's possible that this is one of those cases where the family was not at home when the enumerator came by and a neighbor supplied the family's information. However, if that's the case, the neighbor sure knew alot about the family: birth month, year, and place; how many living children Tinia had as well as non-living children. It's also possible that the enumerator just got some information confused, but the fact that the youngest Briggs child is listed as a male when she was most certainly a 9-year old girl is a pretty big fact to get confused.
The census shows the Briggs children's father as being born in Arkansas, but he has claimed Tennessee as his birthplace on two other censuses. Tinia's oldest Briggs child is not with the family because she married William Ivey in 1893 in Lamar County, Texas (an adjacent county to Hunt).
Doug married Allie McDonald on July 1, 1909 in Pushmataha County, Oklahoma presumably where he moved after the death of his mother. Doug and Allie had 6 children together:
- Elmer Junior Briggs (1911-1997)
- William Doyle "Nub" Briggs (1917-1994)
- Martha Gladys Briggs-Owens (1920-2011)
- Pearl Allene Briggs-Pate (1922-2005)
- Mary Jane Briggs-Shea (1926-2005)
- Holland Ray Briggs (1914-1915)
Doug passed away in 1943 and is buried in Kosoma Cemetery in Pushmataha County, Oklahoma.
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| Doug Brigg's Gravestone |
Cousin Cathy was lucky enough to meet and talk to Doug's daughter Martha Gladys (who went by Gladys) before she passed away. Cathy was kind enough to pass on some of the information Gladys shared with her about Doug. Gladys said that her father, Doug, told her that his father, Jacob, was the "meanest creature that ever lived." Gladys goes on to say:
Doug left home when he was 13 years old, and he did not see his sisters, Anna and Jessie, for years and years, and never seemed to know much about his family. Doug worked on a boat on the Mississippi River when he was a kid, after he left home.
Gladys didn't really know much else about her father's life or his family. Aunt Jessie (Briggs-Moss) and husband were the only ones of the family she knows of being in Texas. Cathy did hear from other members of the family that Doug wasn't the sweetest guy himself. He must have gotten that from his dad.
