Do You Own The Mineral Rights?

Often times African American people sell the land without knowledge of mineral and oil rights. How often do we talk about the mineral and oil rights in our families. When was the last time you visit the courthouse to check on the mineral and rights oil, and gas lease? Have you consult with and attorney? Are you discussing these important matters at your family reunion.

Minerals rights in an oil and gas lease differ from surface rights. A landowner may own the surface land but not the mineral rights of that land. The owner of the land should check on whether he/she has ownership of mineral rights or title of the land.

One of the places to check on real ownership is through an independent sandman or a bank. The landowner can also use and abstract company. Whosever is the one contracted to perform the mineral title is then empowered to obtain and ownership report or mineral takeoff.

The owner of the land, is order to legally negotiate with the oil gas production company, has to know whether they have clear title to mineral rights of the that land. In many cases, the mineral right are separated from the surface right. http://oil-gas-leases.com/oil-gas-lease-terms.html

Developers say that Tangipahoa Parish is sitting on oil. People are preparing for possible oil and gas boom. http://www.wwltv.com/news/northshore/Developers-say-Tangipahoa-Parish-sitting-on-oil-135775543.html

Sitting and Talking with Mrs. Lillian Womack

Lillian Johnson Womack
Photo Credit: Antoinette Harrell

I decided to take the scenic route to my destination and while riding, I saw a tidy and neat little house with a well maintain lawn that caught my attention. I decided too stop and start up a genealogy conversation. Well the person who I saw sitting on the porch said, "I don't know much you would have to talk with my mother who is in her eighties."

I was extremely excited and seized the opportunity to talk with a living history book. Mrs. Lilian was born to Thomas and Carrie Johnson in 1928 in St. Helena, Louisiana. She was one of sixteen children. Some of siblings are Willie, Isaac Jessie, Walter, Rebecca, Thomas, Irene, Iretha, and Rose, these are the children who was listed on the 1940 U.S. Census.

Having someone to talk about people who were born in the early nineteen hundreds and the late eighteen hundreds was just what I needed. She gave me the names of two midwives that she could recall, two ladies by the name of Annie Sims and her grandmother Fannie Johnson who was part Indian and mulatto. She said that she didn't know Fannie maiden name because she was brought as a slave to someone plantation.

What Not Tree " Crab Apple and Pear" 

She told me how she walked for miles to attend school at the church at Black Creek the same place where she was baptized as a young child. She worked in the field with her brothers and sisters picking cotton, beans, corn, taking care of the livestock, milking cows before she went to school.  She talked about Venable Chapel and Pipkin Chapel Methodist Churches. She was the Sunday School Superintendent for forty-five years at Veneable Chapel A.M.E. in Greensburg, LA.

As the conversation continued we end up talking about canning pears and how the "what not tree" in her back yard is a cross between the grab apple and pear seed. I was happy to see the peach tree in her backyard blooming with peaches. Mrs. Womack is just a kind and sweet lady. She and I are making plans going to go to the cemetery at Veneable Chapel.

She and her son Kerry told me about the plant that is called the wild onion plant. I tasted the plant and it tasted like black pepper and onion. If anyone know how to live off the land it is Mrs. Lillian. Everything they ate they grew. I asked her if any of the younger people talked with her about her early years growing up without the amenities that we have today. She said, " they don't want to know about that kind of stuff."

Pepper Grass

Peach Tree

She is sweetheart and I really enjoyed sitting and talking with her. It's people like Mrs. Lillian that we need to be interviewing and preserving the oral history before we loose it. She is a very strong woman and her memory is very good. The Knighten, Johnson's is her relations and the Pounds and Womack is her deceased husband relations.

I only wish that more people would take interest in their family history. There is so much to learn and the rewards are great. Its nothing like sitting and talking with the elders to gain knowledge. They are waiting for us if only we take the time and talk with them. Especially if we are talking about people who they lived with and may have passed on. It helps their memory when we talk with about the times they came up in and the people who must of us are reading about on the census and other sources.

In Memory of Doris Harrell Wheat

One of my childhood memories of my cousin Doris Harrell Wheat was her beautiful smile and her kindness. Cousin Doris was my maternal second cousin, her father Palmer and my grandfather Jasper Harrell, Sr. were brothers. Cousin Doris was always kind to me and my brothers no matter when we visit her home. She always offered us something to eat or candy and cookies. I don't have to tell you which of the two my brothers and I chose. The candy and cookies of course.

Doris Harrell Wheat

Doris Harrell Wheat was born in 1923 to Palmer and Manilla McCoy Harrell in Amite, Louisiana. She had a very loving way with children. She made us feel welcome in her home when we went over to play with  her youngest son Bruce. I stopped by and talked with Bruce last week and he and I went down memory lane. We both talked about the time we busted a lot of watermelons in his father's garden and his father didn't raise his voice or showed any anger toward us. After my mother found out what we did she told cousin Henry to give us a good whipping and he said no, kids will be kids.

I miss cousin Henry and cousin Doris and I often think about them not only as good neighbors but kind and sharing family members. They wasn't the kind of people that bragged about anything, but they were the kind of people that shared what they had with the community and family.

When Bruce told me he had something to show me, he came out of his house with a picture of his mother and I was so happy to see her photograph. She was a beautiful woman that loved children. Bruce was the youngest of the family and he was a little spoiled by his parents. Me and my brothers liked playing with Bruce, he was as gentle as his mother and father. Bruce had older brothers and no sisters, he had nieces and nephews at an early age. Of course they didn't call him uncle Bruce.

The Wheat Family and Uncle Palmer Harrell

As kids we never had a fight and if we did our parents didn't get involved, matter of fact we had better settle whatever it was before they found out. Beside we didn't have many neighbors were we lived,  and the ones that lived closed by was family. We all played together and got along very well. We didn't care anything about being third cousin or fourth cousins, we were cousins and that's the way it was.

Living next door to cousin Henry and Doris was Roy Wheat the brother of cousin Henry. Roy and his wife had several children. The girls were very beautiful to me, we played with them as well. We all loved each other and thats the way it was. We spent long hours playing in the woods, hunting for antiques and animals. Sometimes we would go fishing or bike riding.

Our great grandmothers' Emma's house was right across the road from our house. Little did we know that house could have been full of antiques items from our great grandmother Emma and her children. That house stood until one family member decided to demolished the house, just like they demolished my grandparents house. The house the Wheat's built is still standing and one of their offsprings still live in the house, I was so happy to see that. The Wheat's may be gone but they are not forgotten.