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Hidalgo County New Mexico
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Poteet/Sanders Cemetery
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Information from Margaret Mangum who has written books on this family. Contact her at mman410 AT austin.rr.com for information.
Mollie Lou Holder Sanders Deen
April 23, 1884 - July 4, 1920 |
Mollie was born in Pleasanton, TX, the daughter of John Harrison Holder and Mary Ann Frances Poteet Holder. Mary Ann was the daughter of Francis Marian Poteet, the founder of Poteet, Texas.
Mollie Lou grew up in south Texas - in Atacosa and Uvalde counties. When she was sixteen, she traveled to Hagerman, New Mexico, where she married Pleaz Wiley Sanders on August 17, 1900.
The Sanders family moved to the Rodeo, New Mexico area between 1900 and 1904. Mollie Lou and her husband, Pleaz Wiley Sanders, had four children: Meda Eva Sanders - born July 8, 1905 at Paradise, AZ, Pleaz Marian Sanders, born August 12, 1908, Bessie Ethel Sanders, born March 27, 1915, and Francis Wiley Sanders, born October 8, 1917 all at Rodeo, NM.
Mollie Lou and her husband raised cattle, horses and goats. She often rode horseback in the mountains to care for them. A pistol she carried is still in the family. She often stayed at the ranch with the children while her husband was away at jobs. One letter she wrote to him reads “if it doesn’t rain we will be without water in a few days”. Another letter described how she ordered dried apples from Sears for Christmas.
When her husband - Pleaz Wiley - died, she was 34 years old and had four children. Shortly afterwards, she married George Franklin Deen, who had worked on the ranch.
A year later - in June of 1920 - Mollie Lou and George F. Deen had a child that was born dead. They built a casket and buried the baby near the family cemetery.
After the birth, Mollie Lou developed blood poisoning and two weeks later - she too died. The family cemetery already had a fence in place with no room inside, so Mollie Lou and her infant child are buried outside the fence - near her first husband, Pleaz Wiley Sanders. |
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