Sarah Christenberry--A Sad Story

Written on the back is: Willie Christenberry.

A great, great-granddaughter of E. William and Sarah (Vandiver) Christenberry told me this story.  Sarah was the daughter of Nancy Bates and Enoch Vandiver from Cherokee County, Georgia.   She married E. William Christenberry about 1850 in Georgia.   The next year, 1851, they had a little boy, William.   That year E. William decided to travel away from home and go to Arkansas in search of land.  Sarah sewed his money into the lining of his coat.   He left Georgia and traveled alone toward Arkansas.  He never returned and Sarah never saw him again.   She was left alone with little William.   In the fall of 1852, she and little William joined her parents on the wagon train going to Arkansas.   All along the way, where they found people, they would stop and ask about E. William but no one knew anything about him.   They finally gave him up for dead.   Sarah settled near Big Fork.   Little William grew up and married Julia Philpot and had a daughter who married into the Edwards and Bates family who settled around Big Fork.