Steve & Great-Grandma Laws (Cherokee Indian)

This was a story that my brother, Steve, sent me (on 2/20/2021):

When I was about 13 or 14, I went with my Mom to see Great-Grandma Laws in University City.  Now, Great-Grandma Laws was Grandpa Ora Dean's Mom. She remarried to a man named “Laws” after her husband died. When her first husband died, she moved in with her son, Ora,  in Kirkwood Mo. Great-Grandma Laws worked in Kirkwood cleaning homes and she cleaned Mr. Law's home - that is how they met. Her name before she married the first time was Maddock. I believe she grew up near Perryville in a town called Silver Lake.

Now, when I was at her home in U City, Great- Grandma told me a story that I never forgot; she told me that we were part Cherokee Indian. She said that the young woman who was part Cherokee escaped her Tribe during the “Trail Of Tears”. Now here are some facts about this story: 

In 1838-1839, the Cherokee Indians did cross the Mississippi River near the Cape; so, that part of her story can be proven as true.

I took a DNA test recently and there is no Indian DNA in my system but there is a lot of Scottish DNA. When the Scotts came to America, they did marry into the Cherokee Tribe.

I do know that when the Cherokee Indians came over the Mississippi River, there was a report of a young boy and girl who were abandoned in the woods near the Cape.

This may be the connection that makes Great-Grandma's story true. People did not talk too much about the fact that they were part Indian because of the “Indian Removal Act”, put into law by the United States.

It was about 1929; this Law was not enforceable. People who were part Indian did not talk about that much, esp., if they were living in the areas where they were supposed to be removed to places like Oklahoma and areas west of Missouri and Kansas.

I recently read a book about the “Trail Of Tears”, which reported that two children were left abandoned in the woods near the Cape.  One boy and one girl, then a family adopted the children. The woods were north of the Cape which is where the Deans lived at this time.

Great-Grandma Laws is the one who passed the information to me that there was Cherokee blood in our family tree!