Skeletons in the Family Closet, Part Five: Prison Before Dishonor

Previous posts:

Part 1: The Grandfather I Never Knew

Part 2: A Shooting in Phillips County

Part 3: Grief Upon Grief

Part 4: Confronting the Abhorrent Truth

This is a post I should have written years ago. Sometime around 2016, my cousin Cheryl (we share the same grandfather, John Mansfield, but different grandmothers if you've been following the story) had done some additional research and made a startling new discovery about the events that unfold in my previous posts.

All of the intrigue and twists of this story came back into my life recently due to a series by reporter Ceilia Storey of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. She had come across the name Lester Yeager (the man who shot my great grandfather, William; married my great grandmother, Daisy; and was originally accused by my Aunt Beth of fathering her child) in writing another article. When Storey began researching Yeager, she came across century-old national news related to the century-old scandal as well as my blog posts linked above. 

Here are the four posts by Celia Storey related to Lester Yeager, recently published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The fourth installment mentions my blog and me. If you're not a subscriber to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, you will have to sign up; but you can get 8 weeks for $1 and cancel anytime. 

The woman they wouldn’t let into prison in 1923 Arkansas (Sept 17, 2023)

In crime-weary 1920s Arkansas, 2 governors let exonerated man linger in prison (Oct 1, 2023)

With Klan on the rise in 1920s, another Arkansas governor lets innocent deputy rot in prison (Oct 8, 2023)

Surprise evolves into dismay as Daisy Yeager’s descendant seeks 100-year-old truth (Oct 22, 2023)

So to recap: in the Spring of 1920, my great grandfather, William Porter Mansfield, dies in a gunfight with Phillips County, Arkansas, deputy Lester Yeager. With a claim of self defense, Yeager does not go to jail for killing my great grandfather. Beth, the 13-year-old daughter of William and Daisy is found to be pregnant. She points the finger at Lester Yeager as the father, and he is arrested in October, 1920, for "carnal abuse." Beth gives the baby up for adoption. For reasons that are still not entirely clear, my great grandmother Daisy marries Yeager in December of that year. Yeager is offered a plea deal of one year in prison if he will plead guilty to the charges. He refuses, claiming his innocence, and is sentenced the next year to 21 years in the state prison. 

When I last wrote about these events, over a decade ago, I thought this was the end of things. I assumed that Yeager died in prison. But as mentioned earlier, my cousin Cheryl unearthed new information a few years ago. If this story wasn't mind-blowing enough, there was still one more twist to be discovered. 

Fast forward to 1923. Daisy divorces Lester while he's still in prison. Soon thereafter, her daughter Beth makes a startling confession: Yeager wasn't the father of her child, after all. Rather, William--her own father--was. On William's deathbed, he had convinced the impressionable Beth to tell the world that Yeager was the father of the baby.

As reported in The Pittsburg Post, Beth's official retraction reads as follows:

I, Elizabeth Mansfield, make the following statement of my own volition, without threats or promises of reward. I was the prosecuting witness and the only witness in the case in which L. E. A. Yeager was convicted in the Phillips circuit court of the charge of carnal abuse and was sentenced to 21 years in the state penitentiary. It was solely my testimony that convicted Yeager of that charge. 

I did not testify to the truth at the time of the trial for the reason I had promised my father on his death bed that I would testify that Yeager was the guilty man.

The truth of the case is that my father was the father of my child and Yeager never had immoral relations with me at any time.

With Beth's retraction, the judge, prosecuting attorney, and 11 of the 12 jurors signed a petition for Yeager to be immediately pardoned and released from prison. This seems like a simple task. There was, however, a major problem: the current governor, T. C. McRae, and then his successor, Tom J. Terral, had both run on platforms promising no pardons.

In the meantime, Yeager, a model inmate, and with his accuser's retraction, had the full trust of the prison warden. He was the "trusty" at the gate for a period of time, allowing people in and out. He was given furloughs for work away from the prison. And he always came back. Yeager could have easily run and not returned. Odds are no one would have pursued him. However, he chose prison before dishonor. Perhaps it was his earlier occupation as a deputy sherriff that was so ingrained in Yeager that he refused to go against the due process of the law. 

Fortunately for Yeager, after Terral lost his re-election bid, he formally pardoned the innocent man on Christmas, 1926. Lester Yeager had spent 5 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.

 

There are still lots of unanswered questions. Why did Daisy marry Lester to begin with? When I thought Yeager was the bad guy in all this, I often wondered if perhaps something was going on between Daisy and Lester and by being married, she couldn't be forced to testify against him. But this makes less sense now that we know he was not guilty. What was the context of their divorce? Perhaps with Yeager sentenced to prison for 21 years, perhaps she just needed to find someone with whom she could have a future and could bring income into the household. 

The ever-charismatic John, my grandfather, with Aubrey on the left and Beth on the right--around 1928The big question for me is what happened to the child put up for adoption. I'd like to eventually go back to Phillips County, Arkansas and pursue this question in the old courthouse records. Everyone involved is now long gone, so there should not be any objection for sake of privacy at this point. Interestingly, there are a number of photos from around this time of a family friend, Aubrey Tharp and her son, James, who was born (coincidentally) in 1920. Was James the son of Beth given up for adopton? I've got my DNA out there quite publicly in hopes that one day this mystery can be solved.

All of this needs more research, and then, I believe it would make quite the page-turner of a book. Stay tuned.

Skeletons in the Family Closet, Part Two: A Shooting in Phillips County

William Mansfield's simple grave marker in Maple Hill Cemetery, Phillips County, ArkansasSupposedly, my great grandfather shot first. 

However, we only have the testimony of his killer for this fact. There were no other witnesses, so ultimately we’ll never know what really happened. All we know for certain is that on April 8, 1920, William P. Mansfield died of four gunshot wounds he received the previous day in Lexa, Arkansas. 

Believe it or not, learning that my great grandfather died in a gunfight is not what shocked me most. The more startling revelation relates to what my great grandmother did afterwards. 

William P. Mansfield was born in Kentucky in 1880, the son of a Scottish immigrant who married an American girl from the bluegrass state. I don’t know a lot about William, and I know even less about his parents, but I’ve learned enough to piece together his movements for the last fifteen years of his life. [2023 update: Elijah Mansfield was born in 1851 in Barren County, Kentucky. Yes, birth certificates for his sons, William and Thomas, both claim Scottish ancestry, but there's a mountain of proof otherwise. Evidently, my ancestors had habits of telling tall tales.]

In 1905, William married Daisy Julian, a young woman whose families had settled a couple of generations earlier in the northwest corner of Tennessee in Obion County. Daisy had grown up in Union City, right on the border with Kentucky, where she no doubt had met William. They married on Saturday, April 22, in Alexander County, Illinois. I’m not certain why they went to Illinois to get married, but it’s actually only 70 miles north of Daisy’s hometown.

By 1909, they were a family of four living in Helena, Arkansas: William, Daisy, Mary Elizabeth (age 2) and John my grandfather (age 1). William worked for the Solomon-Moore Land Company, and they all lived in company housing on the south end of town. 

William moved the family wherever he could find the best work to provide for them. The very next year, the family crossed back over to the other side of Mississippi River and settled in Boyle, Mississippi, roughly seventy miles south down river. 

The details surrounding the next few years are sketchy, but by 1920, the Mansfield family had moved back to Helena, Arkansas, where they show up in the 1920 U.S. Census, taken in January of that year. They were no longer living in company housing, and William seems to be working as a freelance carpenter.

Daisy (my great grandmother) and her son, John (my grandfather), 1957 in Memphis, TennesseeIn my previous post, I wrote about John Mansfield (William’s son), my grandfather who died a few months before I was born. John was intelligent and charismatic, but ultimately, his life brought with it much tragedy. In the course of less than two decades, he abandoned two separate families--two wives and seven children combined. In the end, as an alcoholic and diabetic, he died alone in a flophouse of gangrene poisoning because he would not go to the doctor regarding his infected leg. 

I also noted that my grandmother (John’s second wife) felt like her husband could have accomplished more in life had he not had to drop out of school with only a grade school education in order to support the family. 

Why, though, did John have to drop out of school? When I started researching my grandfather and his family, I initially got stuck in 1920 because there were a number of unanswered questions. 

Although I found the family intact in Phillips County, Arkansas, living in the town of Helena in January, 1920, I stumbled upon a marriage record for December of the same year in which a Daisy Mansfield married a man named L. E. A. Yeager. Assuming that there weren’t multiple Daisy Mansfields in Helena, Arkansas, in 1920, I had to wonder what had happened to William Mansfield? Did they divorce? Did something happen to him?

So I dug a little deeper and came across a listing in the Arkansas Death Index for a William Mansfield, who died on April 8, 1920, in Phillips County, Arkansas. Was this my great grandfather? Could he have died at less than 40 years old? To know for certain, I sent off for his death certificate. After I received it, I discovered that it was indeed the William Mansfield of my family tree. 

If not some kind of terminal illness, I halfway expected to discover that William died in some kind of accident--perhaps a misstep in his line of work as a carpenter. I did not expect to see “gunshot wounds” as his cause of death. I was a bit shocked. Part of me, which has no real emotional attachment to this man, thought it sounded a bit exotic to have an ancestor die in a gunfight. 

Nevertheless, I knew there had to be more to this story. How did my great grandfather get into a position in which he died of gunshot wounds?

Assuming that such an event would be big news in a small town in 1920, I contacted the Phillips County Library, which I had learned housed the archives of the local newspaper. After I described the event to one of the local librarians, she told me she would look in the newspaper around the days surrounding William’s death to see if there were any accounts of what happened. 

When I talked to her later that afternoon, the librarian told me that she had found two articles regarding William Mansfield’s death. One was written soon after he had been shot, but while he was still alive. The second one was written after he had already died. She told me she would send the articles to me in the mail.

After I thanked her and was about to hang up, she said, “Oh, and I now know the name of your great grandfather’s killer, if you are interested.” I was certainly interested but had not really thought about it. I assumed that the killer would just be a name to me. Out of curiosity, though, I said, “Yes, please, tell me the killer’s name.”

From The Helena Daily World, April 8, 1920You hear of people’s jaws dropping when hearing shocking news, but it seems like more of a cliche than an actual physical reaction. Yet, I can promise you that my jaw literally dropped when she said that the shooter’s name was L. E. A. Yeager. 

Yes, this was the same man my great grandmother, sweet Daisy, married later that year!

There were no eyewitnesses to what actually happened. The events reported in the paper on April 8, 1920, were based solely on the story of Lester Elgin Archer Yeager, a Phillips County sheriff’s deputy, and the shooter of my great grandfather. On the evening of Wednesday, April 7, 1920, my great grandfather, William P. Mansfield, traveled from his home in Helena fifteen miles to nearby Lexa, Arkansas. 

According to Yeager, the quarrel between the two was over lumber contracts. Yeager also claims that William fired a gun twice before he could even open the door (a little detail that still sounds odd to me--was he trying to shoot through the door?). Then, Yeager returned fire shooting William four times. He died the next day. 

Of course it’s tragedy enough that Daisy lost her husband in such a violent manner. Yet it absolutely blows me away that eight months later, she married her husband’s killer!

There is obviously much more to this story, and it will require an eventual trip to Helena, Arkansas, to look for more answers. In the meantime, though, I have lots of questions. For instance, I don’t blame Daisy for marrying so quickly. That was common in those days for means of support, especially when there were children involved. But why would she marry her husband’s shooter? Was William Mansfield a really bad man and Yeager seen as a savior? Were Daisy and Yeager involved in an illicit relationship? Did Yeager have some kind of power over Daisy and the rest of the family?

From The Helena Daily World, April 9, 1920And what about my grandfather, John? Even if his father was a bad man, such events had to have taken a terrible toll on a 12-year-old boy. To lose a father at such a formative time in a young boy’s life would have long-term consequences. And what did John think about his mother marrying his father’s killer? 

I will always want to be clear that I don’t want to excuse my grandfather’s bad decisions in life. He made poor choices and they were his direct responsibility. And yet, with the knowledge I have now--even if still incomplete--I have to admit that I judge him less harshly than I did before. 

Is it any surprise that someone who had experienced such tragic loss at such a young age might have trouble maintaining long-term relationships later in life? Again, even if William was not a nice guy, young boys often want to look up to their fathers, often overlooking their flaws. What kind of feelings were inside 12-year-old John when his mother married his father's killer? When she brought him into their home? Is it surprising at all that as an adult, he might try to futiley escape these memories in a bottle? 

In my next and final installment, I’ll offer some closing reflections on these events and my grandfather’s life. And I may even throw in a little bit of philosophical speculation in regard to this very enthralling section of my family tree. Check back in a few days.

Part 1: The Grandfather I Never Knew

Part 3: Grief Upon Grief

Part 4: Confronting the Abhorrent Truth

Part 5: Prison Before Dishonor

As always, your thoughts, questions, comments, and rebuttals are welcome below.

Skeletons in the Family Closet, Part One: The Grandfather I Never Knew

John at 49 in 1957, ten years before he died. I never knew my paternal grandfather. He died five months before I was born.

John William Richard Mansfield (one of many variations of his name) died during the first week of July (we don’t know the exact day) in 1967. Estranged from the family, he died alone in Memphis, Tennessee, as a result--according to his death certificate--of septicemia. 

If you’re not familiar with septicemia, I’ll save you the bother of looking it up: it’s blood poisoning. My grandfather, John, had two conflicting maladies; he was both diabetic and alcoholic. The two do not go well together because consumed alcohol converts to sugar in the digestive system. Moreover, John was not one to faithfully take his insulin injections. 

About a week before he died, my father’s older half-brother, Johnnie, paid his father a visit. John had a wound on one of his legs that looked badly infected. Actually, it was gangrenous. Johnnie told his father that he need to go to the doctor, but John wouldn’t go. He knew they would remove his leg, and he felt that he just couldn’t live as an amputee. Very true, but I'm sure not as he meant it. 

I’ve heard hushed stories about my grandfather, John Mansfield, all my life. As I said, I never knew him. I also heard that I had aunts and uncles I’d never met--as well as cousins--all from a marriage my grandfather had to a woman who was not my grandmother.  

My grandfather was born on March 17, 1908, somewhere in Kentucky (we’re not certain exactly where). His parents were William P. Mansfield (born Nov 4, 1880) and Daisy Dean Julian (born sometime in August, 1882). There was also a sister, Mary Elizabeth, about a year older than John, whom the surviving family knew as “Aunt Beth.” I’d never heard of any of them except for John until a few months ago.

Frankly, John Mansfield was not an overly responsible individual (and that’s being very kind). In 1931, he married Ena Prier, and they had four children--two boys and two girls. But sometime around 1938, John started seeing Maurene (yes, that spelling is correct) Fowler, my grandmother, in Little Rock, Arkansas. When Maurene found out John was married, she broke things off with him. She told him she was not the kind of woman who would date a married man.

Maurene was nearly 30 years old when she had started seeing John. I have very distinct memories of my grandmother, but they all come about three decades after these events and beyond. When I remember her, she’s at near saint-level in my mind. She was a pillar of her church when I knew her. I’m sure she could have told you her sins, but I couldn’t tell you what they were. I never saw them.

Therefore it’s hard to imagine a man like John being willing to leave a wife and four children for my grandmother. And even after he came calling again in 1939, with the ink still fresh on the papers of his divorce from Ena, it boggles my mind that Maurene would have anything to do with him. Perhaps it was her age. I have no idea how many suitors had come calling in her younger days, but I’m sure that by the age of 31, the number had drastically dwindled.  

And yet history has a funny way of repeating itself. In late 1939, John and Maurene got married. After they had three children, one of whom is my father, John simply disappeared one day. I believe it was around 1947, but I could be off a year or two. By the time he came back about half a decade later, begging Maurene to take him back, she simply wouldn’t hear of it. She’d worked three jobs at times to support herself and three children. Maurene was college educated (a rarity for women in those days) which allowed her to teach elementary school, but an Arkansas teacher’s salary in the 1940s and 50s was not enough to make ends meet. 

The charismatic John Mansfield at 20 (1928). On the left, a family friend, Aubrey; and on the right, John's sister, Beth.I don’t blame my grandmother for not taking my grandfather back. I have no doubt she probably loved him even years later. From everything I can tell, he was an extremely charismatic individual. But his increased drinking had brought chaos into her life years before, and now she had to think of what would bring the greatest stability for her three children. John and Maurene never divorced, but they would never live in the same house again either. John moved to Memphis where much of his family from his first marriage lived. 

In spite of John’s faults, there were some positives. My father tells me how smart his father was. And this information comes not from his own memory, but from the testimony of his mother, Maurene. She said there wasn’t anything mechanical that he couldn’t figure out. He could take any device apart, fix it, and put it back together again. My grandmother told my father that she really believes he could have been something more if it weren’t for the fact that he had to drop out of school after about the fifth grade to help support the family.

Also, I’ve recently met some of my “half” first cousins--that is, grandchildren of John and his first wife, Ena--who are a bit older than me and remember him. Although John’s wives and children had great reason to be wary of him, his grandchildren who knew him seem to have fond memories of their brief experiences with him. They describe John as kind and funny, even if he did tend to always smell a bit like tobacco and whiskey. One of my cousins told me that she really liked her grandfather, but her father didn't let him come around much.

It’s easy to judge my grandfather harshly. Certainly no one can excuse the abandonment of not one, but two separate families. But where did John’s life first take a turn for the worse? 

No one living now seemed to know the exact circumstances that led to my grandfather’s disadvantaged childhood, vaguely described years ago by my grandmother. As I began digging into the past, I discovered a family scandal that is not only shocking to me--even weeks after I first discovered it--but still sounds like something more the stuff of fiction than real life. Nevertheless, I have the historical records and newspaper reports that prove what happened on the night of April 7, 1920. 

I’ll provide the jaw-dropping account of those events in my next installment. 

Part 2: A Shooting in Phillips County

Part 3: Grief Upon Grief

Part 4: Confronting the Abhorrent Truth

Part 5: Prison Before Dishonor

As always, your questions, thoughts, comments or rebuttals are always welcome below.