The Alluring Silence of Hope

This is a panoramic view of the Carroll/Melton Family lives of Navarro County, Texas. A smallsouthern town located about fifty miles east of Dallas. These recounted stories into the lives of these formerslaves and former slave-owners, inspired a generation of descendants to let their stories be known. The strugglesand triumphs must have been paramount to their survival and we owe a debt of gratitude for theiraccomplishments.Inspired by the vision of Gracie Nancy Clayton Devroe, whose life was cut short due to a tragic accident,continued on by Mary Alice Carroll Powers, who started the first Carroll-Melton Reunion in 1990, at theArlington Convention Center, Arlington, Texas. This unique family comprise of many differences, such as theone of a kind, the great historian Catherine Porter and Maurice Jefferson, the late Viola Jewel Caruthers, theGreat-Grand-Daughter of Charity Carroll, the late Annie Zora Carroll, the wife of J.D. Carroll and the motherMary Alice Carroll Powers, Ruby Green Thompson the Great-Great-Grand-Daughter of Charity Carroll andfacts obtained from documented records from the Navarro County Court House, Corsicana, Texas help tell thisfamily's stories. After 20 years of research, there are a number of unexplained events and missing people thatmade this collaboration of research extremely difficult. Photographs are a novelty and would have explained alot of the color variation and "mixed races", within this family, but eye account graphics would have to be usedto restore the images of some of the family's ancestors.Charity Carroll is the starting point for the research of this family's history. Charity was small in statue withshort natural curly hair as described by Viola Jewel Caruthers and Catherine Porter. The courage that sheundoubtedly had to display is remarkable. Tracing her journey from her birth, March of 1814 in LauderdaleCounty, Mississippi to Navarro County, Texas. She died, September 1, 1912 and her legacy is unquestionably aneventful life worth telling. A daughter of a slave, owned by the White Carroll Family, Charity's mother was alsonamed Charity that was married to Emanuel Madden on August 3, 1814 in Lauderdale County, Mississippi.Both parents from Alabama whose other history remains a mystery and the poignant piece of their lives andfamily history remains silent for now.