Emily was a Strother, and The William Strother Society has a database that lists almost 77,000 Strother-connected individuals. The photo shows the Strother family in 1896 at Duck Creek near Garland, Texas. Emily’s father, E. B. Strother, is sitting on the porch on the far right, with his back to a post. He is 23 years old and has been married to my great-grandmother Lena Hill Snead for two years at this point, but Lena isn’t in the photo.
The matriarch in the chair on the porch is my 2nd great-grandmother Emily McCullough Strother, who grew up on a farm in Kentucky. If you squint just right, doesn’t that look like a pistol she’s holding in her right hand? Okay, maybe not…but I bet she knew how to use one, even if she didn’t carry at family reunions.
The dog in the foreground is not identified.
I’m not sure which of the Williams the Strother Society focuses on, but here’s how Emily is apparently descended from William Strother IV (1630-1702, b. Northumberland, England):
William Strother IV
. Jeremiah Strother (1655-1740, b. Virginia)
. . Christopher Strother (1715-1785, b. Virginia)
. . . James Strother (1763-1843, b. Virginia)
. . . . Green Bower Strother (1804-1872, b. N. Carolina)
. . . . . Joseph Sale Strother (1836-1903, b. Alabama)
. . . . . . Edwin Bower Strother (1873-1958, b. Dallas, Texas)
. . . . . . . Emily Harriet Strother