This tag was created by Hai In Jo.
Lula Knalls
Lula married three times; none of her husbands claimed to be a Cherokee Freedman. She was first married to Lewis Gardner on Lee’s Creek in the Cherokee Nation, and had a son with him, Frank Gardner. She married her second husband, Austin French, in the Sequoyah district, and they had a daughter named Sarah French. Lula was later married to John Knalls for at least two years. Their son, Fred E. Knalls, was a little over two months old at the time of her application for enrollment on the Dawes Roll.
Her aunt Martha Albert was called as a witness in her enrollment case. She testified to Lula’s name changes due to her multiple marriages. Although the records show that Martha did not remember the name of Lula’s last husband at first, she recognized the name John Knalls because she “has heard her [Lula] say so and she has written to me and signs herself that way.”
Lula Knalls’s name is not found in the rolls of 1880 or 1896 or the Kerns-Clifton Roll. She said that her mother, Jenny/Jennie Barnes had been “the leader of us” and therefore she never went to register for herself. Nevertheless, she claimed to be registered on the Wallace Roll. Sarah French is not identified on the roll of 1896; instead, she is listed on the enrollment with her mother as a Cherokee Freedman on a doubtful card. Commissioner Breckinridge noted that Lula’s son Fred E. Knalls would be listed once his certificate of birth was filed with the Dawes Commission.