Goodwin Traces Family Roots During Visit To Water Valley
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Family members and friends visiting Water Valley last month were (seated, from left) Oklahoma State Representative Regina Goodwin, Dr. John Arradondo, Jeanne Goodwin-Arradondo, Jim Goodwin and Jeanie Donnes; and (standing) Jeani Donnes, Victor Luckerson, Caleb Marshall and Cathryn Sanders. Local historian Calvin Hawkins also accompanied the group to the railroad museum and Oak Ridge Cemetery.
WATER VALLEY – A family with Water Valley roots that date back over a century visited the Casey Jones Railroad Museum and Oak Ridge Cemetery last month.
James O. “Jim” Goodwin shared that it has been over 70 years since he and his sister had visited Water Valley. His great grandfather, James H. Goodwin, moved from Water Valley to Tulsa, Oklahoma with his family in 1914.
“He was my father’s father,” Jim Goodwin said. “He left Water Valley because the racial climate was rather unsavory.”
Before leaving Water Valley, James H. Goodwin operated successful businesses including a grocery store and funeral home. He had also worked for the railroad as a brakeman before becoming a businessman, according to the 1900 census, prompting the family’s June 21 visit to Water Valley’s railroad museum to explore the railroad history from that era.
Jim Goodwin was accompanied by his sister and her husband, Jeanne Goodwin-Arradondo and Dr. John Arradondo; his niece, Oklahoma State Representative Regina Goodwin and other family members.
A day earlier the family attended an event at Square Books in Oxford as author Victor Luckerson was joined by University of Mississippi Professor Dr. Ralph Eubanks for a conservation about Luckerson’s book, “Built From the Fire.” The book features the Goodwin family after they moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Greenwood district during the early years of the 20th Century.
Luckerson explained the book is a multi-generational saga of family and a community in the Greenwood district, known as “Black Wall Street” that in one century survived the 1921 Tulsa race riots, urban renewal and gentrification.
After visiting the railroad museum the family went to Oak Ridge Cemetery to visit the grave of Sallie Williams, the mother of James H. Goodwin, and as well as other ancestors including the Weir family buried in the cemetery. Williams was affectionately known as “Aunt Salley,” and had lived on Calhoun Street with her daughter, Alberta Ware, until her death in 1941.
A prominent Tulsa attorney, Jim Goodwin is also the owner of “The Oklahoma Eagle, a Tulsa-based newspaper and Oklahoma’s longest-running black-owned newspaper. The newspaper is also thought to be the 10th oldest black-owned newspaper in the United States still publishing today.
“The newspaper is a hobby, my dad had it before me,” Jim Goodwin said.
He served as the co-publisher from 1980 until 2014 and has since served as sole publisher.
Jack Gurner shares details about the duties of a railroad brakeman in 1900 with Goodwin family members during a visit to the Casey Jones Railroad Museum last month. The family also visited the grave sites of family members buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Water Valley.
