Parker County Today August 2015 | Page 37

Piney Woods of East Texas would
quash that. But the Confederacy
drafted Silas to fight against Northern
aggression, to defend states’ rights
and the Southern way. With him
gone, his wife, Cynthia Ann’s sisterin-law, buckled, and mother and
daughter were moved to a nearby
house built by relatives. 
“There, Prairie Flower began to
assimilate, just as her mother had
among the Comanches,” wrote Reid.
“The girl spoke English more than
Comanche, and she was doing well
in school. But she caught the flu and
pneumonia in December 1863, and
she died the next year… .”
More devastation. And contrary to
the mythology that sprang up around
Cynthia Ann Parker, she did not die
of a broken heart soon after Prairie
Flower’s death in ’64; she lived
another six years or so. The 1870
census enrolled her, giving her age as
45. What did happen upon the death
of her daughter was self-mutilation —
the grieving, wailing mother slashed
her arms and breasts. The Parkers
were aghast. She never reconciled
with the white world. 
Family buried Cynthia Ann Parker
in Fosterville Cemetery in Anderson
County. Some 40 years later, in 1910,
her son, Quanah, moved her remains
to the Post Oak Mission Cemetery
near Cache, Okla., which, as it
turned out, would not be her final
resting place. In 1957, her remains
as well as those of Quanah Parker
were re-interred in the Fort Sill Post
Cemetery at Lawton, Okla. 
In the end, Cynthia Ann Parker
knew no release but death, but her
tragic and peculiar life remains a part
of the Lone Star story. 
 Look for part 3 of this series in
next month’s PCT. And thanks for
reading.

I don’t just want
a Mammogram,
I want

Peace of Mind.

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CM

MY

CY

CMY

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PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY

• Handbook of Texas Online
• The Warrior’s Bride, Jan Reid, Texas Monthly
Magazine, February 2003
• The White Man Newspaper, Weatherford,
Texas, November 1860
• A Fate Worse Than Death: Indian Captivities
in the West, 1832-1885, Susan Michno, Caxton
Press, June 1, 2007
• Official Report to U.S. Government from
Capt. Randolph Marcy, 1852

AUGUST 2015

SOURCES:

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