Frank S. Pentecost Letter Added to Ancestry.com by Sue_Sunstrum on 2 Jan 2009
My father's cousin, Frank S. Pentecost, wrote a letter to my father (Morris Emanuel Pentecost, Sr.) dated September 18, 1987. Following is the text contained in the letter:
"The earliest I know of our family is back to two Pentecost boys and a girl who were foster children, their parents being dead. There is no known reason of their deaths or where they came from at that time. This was before the war with England (War of 1812). They were raised in western Florida, then belonging to Spain. The girl married and the two boys joined General Jackson's Army and fought in the Battle of New Orleans. Both then settled in New Orleans. One of the boys died from smallpox in New Orleans, the other, whose name was Robert, was my great grandfather. He married a French girl in New Orleans, they moved up to St. Helena Parish across Lake Ponchartrain. They raised a family of seven boys. Of the seven boys I only remember the names of three, Joseph, Nathan and Edward, besides my grandfather whose name was Jacob Wesley Pentecost. Grandpa Jake raised three boys. The three boys were Jack (John Wesley), Joseph Edward and Tom. One more boy, named Timothy, died at an early age. There were four girls, Elizabeth (Lizzie), Martha, Bridgette and Octavia (Tavie). Of the first two I know very little, Aunt Martha married a Wiggins, Aunt Bridgette married Jim Oxford and Aunt Tavie married John James. Uncle Jack married Bertha (Birdie) Nancy Missouri Weeks. My father, Joseph E., married Lillie Weeks. My father raised eleven (11) children (I name them as they were in sequence), Sam, Myrtle, Kitty, Ruby, Gertrude, Jack and Joe (twins), Blanche, Bryan, Bun (John) and myself, Frank. The only living ones are Gertrude, Blanche, Bun and myself.
Uncle Tom's children were Tommy, LaQuin, LaThadwin (Dr.) and a girl, Aida.
Robert Pentecost married a girl in New Orelans named O'Neal, a French girl. Robert's son Jacob married a Cajun girl in New Iberia, Louisiana named Elizabeth (Betty) Pritchard. Both of the girls Jack and Joe married were Weeks (sisters). The Weeks came from Louisiana also, and were third cousins to Uncle Jack and Papa. This was sometime in 1888 or 1889. My dad was 20 years old when he came to Texas and he married at 23 years of age. Uncle Jack was a year or two older than Papa, and Uncle Tom was one or two years younger. Aunt Tavie was the youngest of the children.
I do not know much about the uncles and aunts, their ages or where they were born. My father was born in Jena, Louisiana on the 30th of November 1866. Jena is the county seat of Catahoula Parish. The family then moved to Winn Parish and on west to Many and Mansfield and then on into Texas. This was after the Civil War. Grandpa Jake was a soldier in both battles of Bull Run. He was wounded in the second battle and discharged. Grandpa John Weeks also fought in the Civil War and was captured in the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee about a year or so before the war ended. Our uncles and aunts on the Weeks' side I know very little about. There were two uncles and an Aunt Kitty I knew. Uncle Willis and Uncle William. Uncle Willis' children lived in Navasota county the last I knew of them. Uncle William's children live around Zavalla, Texas.
I hope this will give some information of the family, as brief as it is. I know very little about many of the cousins, etc., or the names of many of the members. My Grandmother Pentecost was Betty (Elizabeth) Pritchard and her husband was Jake (Jacob Wesley) Pentecost. My father, Joe (Joseph Edward), was a Baptist preacher. Also, Grandpa preached some. All of our people have been Baptist or Methodist in religion.