The Alluring Silence of Hope : The Charity Carroll Story VOL I

This is a panoramic view of the Carroll/Melton Family lives of Navarro County, Texas.

A small southern town located about fifty miles east of Dallas.

These recounted stories into the lives of these former slaves and former slave-owners, inspired a generation of descendants to let their stories be known.

The struggles and triumphs must have been paramount to their survival and we owe a debt of gratitude for their accomplishments.

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 the Arlington Convention Center, Arlington, Texas.

This unique family comprise of many differences, such as the one of a kind, the great historian Catherine Porter and Maurice Jefferson, the late Viola Jewel Caruthers, the Great-Grand-Daughter of Charity Carroll, the late Annie Zora Carroll, the wife of J.D.

Carroll and the mother Mary Alice Carroll Powers, Ruby Green Thompson the Great-Great-Grand-Daughter of Charity Carroll and facts obtained from documented records from the Navarro County Court House, Corsicana, Texas help tell this family's stories. After 20 years of research, there are a number of unexplained events and missing people that made this collaboration of research extremely difficult.

Photographs are a novelty and would have explained a lot of the color variation and "mixed races", within this family, but eye account graphics would have to be used to 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 with short natural curly hair as described by Viola Jewel Caruthers and Catherine Porter.

The courage that she undoubtedly had to display is remarkable.

Tracing her journey from her birth, March of 1814 in Lauderdale County, Mississippi to Navarro County, Texas.

She died, September 1, 1912 and her legacy is unquestionably an eventful life worth telling.

A daughter of a slave, owned by the White Carroll Family, Charity's mother was also named 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 and family history remains silent for now.