My g-g-g-grandfather was a white man named Clifford A. Howell. He fought in the Civil War for the Confederates in regiment 15 company D. He was wounded in the leg and surrendered at Appomattox. He was born around 1837. In the years following the war, he fathered children with a Mulatto woman named Mary (Mit) Ingram. My family's oral history says that she was Creek Indian, but the census lists her as Mulatto. Clifford never married. But he and Mit lived next door to one another. In one census, Mit and her children are all listed as Howells with the race listed as White. Her children did indeed take the name Howell. Their son Jefferson Clifford Howell is my g-g-grandfather. My g-grandmother says that he told her that his siblings and he could not address Clifford as father in public. In the 1920 census, at the age of 81, Clifford is living in the household of Jefferson but he is listed as 'boarder' not father. My g-grandmother was 8 years old at this time. She says that there was no issue of addressing him as Grandfather in public. Clifford died in 1929. He is buried in a field by himself with a donated Civil War Veteran head stone.