Viola Slaughter
| Viola Slaughter | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 18, 1860 Missouri, USA |
| Died | March 1941 (aged 80) Douglas, Cochise County Arizona |
| Cause of death | Depression |
| Residence | Douglas, Arizona |
| Occupation | Rancher |
| Spouse(s) | John Horton Slaughter (married 1879-1921, his death) |
| Children |
Addie Slaughter (stepdaughter) |
| Parent(s) | Amazon and Mary Ann Howell |
| Relatives | Daniel Boone (great-great-grandfather) |
Addie Slaughter (stepdaughter)
Willie Slaughter (stepson)
Cora Viola Howell (September 18, 1860–March 1941), later to become Viola Slaughter, was an Arizona rancher and the wife of Sheriff John Horton Slaughter, known as Texas John Slaughter.
Viola Slaughter was born in Missouri to Amazon and Mary Ann Howell. She was the great-great-granddaughter of Daniel Boone.
By the time Viola was eighteen, the Howell family had moved to a ranch near Roswell in the New Mexico Territory. It was while living there that Viola met John Slaughter, and they quickly fell in love. Viola would confess herself that "it was love at first sight" to a writer. John was thirty-seven and Viola only eighteen when they met. John had two small children from his first marriage to the former Eliza Adeline Harris, who died in 1877 of smallpox.
Viola's mother vehemently opposed her daughter's interest in Slaughter. Her father, however, thought more positively about the relationship. By April 1879, Viola told her mother that she was getting married to John in about two weeks. Her mother screamed. With her father's blessing, the couple parted the next morning to Tularosa, also in the New Mexico Territory, where they wed on April 16.
Viola Slaughter wanted to be a mother all of her life; because of this, she admittedly took a motherly love towards John's two children. Slaughter would never become a natural mother, but she and John adopted several children, among them, an Apache baby girl found by Slaughter in Mexico. Apache May had been abandoned there.
Soon after marrying, the Slaughters arrived at Sulphur Springs, where they lived in a two-room house. This would mark the beginning of the relationship between her and John's two children, Addie and Willie. John told her that he would send them to Texas to live with his brother, Viola convinced him not to do so because she was already feeling love for the children.
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Wikipedia