Over the years the children of John Burl and Josephine Tabor told the story of one of the sisters failed attempt at eloping.  She packed a bag of her belongings and hid it from her parents.  She then waited up for the young man to show up.  What she didn’t know was John Burl had somehow found out about the plan.  He hid in the apple orchard with his shotgun.  When Ethyl’s beau arrived he was met with gunfire.  I am sure the gun was not aimed at the poor man.  After all it was a shotgun and he didn’t get hit.  He just took off running never to be seen around the Tabor place again.  Ethyl was left with a broken heart.  She did recover after time and married William Vander Burns on 12 Dec 1899.  He was the brother of the Reverend M V Burns who was married to Bertha Porter Burns.

That story has been told many times in our family but somehow not one single living person knew which sister it was.  That is until I went digging in the Union Parish marriage license book. There it was.  The marriage that never took place.

Ethyl was the oldest of John Burl and Josephine Tabor’s thirteen children.  My grandmother was the youngest and had not been born when the elopement incident took place.

The children of John Burl Tabor and Josephine A. Butler are:

Ethyl Manolia – William Vander Burns

Willie Jessie – James Louis McCallum

Infant – we don’t the name or sex

Robert Sylvester – Ethyl Reeves

Eunice, who only lived a few months

James Brooks – Urka Belle Tipton

Laura Ann – Benjamin Franklin Matthews, who died young

                  John Henry Lewis

                  August Loe Smith

Jenny Ruth – Larkin Lafayette Salley

Charles Louie – Mary Pearl Hutto

George Holland “Pat” – Pearl Janet Toler

Florence Mae – Leroy Lee

Mattie Inez – Welbon Alfis “Jack” Rogers

Bertha Lee – William Jesse Fomby