Thomas L Wiley

Pushmataha was "The Greatest and Bravest Warrior I Have Ever Known." Andrew JacksonON THE MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 27, 1830, on the banks of a small stream in present day Noxubee County, Mississippi, the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed which resulted in the transfer of all remaining Choctaw land east of the Mississippi to the United States. Within two years, removal of the Choctaws to their new home in Oklahoma began. Of the sixteen thousand men, women, and children who made the six-hundred-mile journey, almost twenty-five hundred died of exposure and starvation on this, the first "Trail of Tears and Death." The Chickasaws, Seminoles, Creeks, and Cherokees would follow later.THE LIFE OF CHIEF PUSHMATAHA parallels the tumultuous times which led up to the removal as he dealt not only with Andrew Jackson but with other greats-Thomas Jefferson, John C. Calhoun, and Shawnee Chief Tecumseh-to try to save the lands of his ancestors. From his humble beginning as an orphan, to his reputation as a vicious warrior, and later a master of oratory and diplomacy, Pushmataha led his people through a time of marginal contact with the white man into an era of submission and despair-and along the way helped ensure a victory for the United States in its Second War of Independence, the War of 1812. Sadly, in the two centuries since his rise to greatness, his name, like the struggles of his nation, has faded from the memory of the American public. PUSHMATAHA-THE FORGOTTEN WARRIOR tells the story of Chief Pushmataha, the Choctaw Nation, and early Mississippi. Thomas L. Wiley is a Retired Physician and lives with his wife in Jackson, Mississippi.

The Angels of Lockhart Based on a True Story Why did these babies die? One hundred years ago almost every family knew the sorrow of loosing a child. Sickness was a constant threat, and Death a frequent visitor. But to bury seven babies? There has got to be more than "They just died." Thomas Wiley tells the moving story of his wife's step great-grandmother and the seven angels she buried in the Lockhart Cemetery. When great-grandfather Stephen Parker's first wife dies, he is left alone to raise three young children. He soon remarries; his new bride is nineteen year old Lizzie. Ollie, the oldest of Stephen's children, grieves as he sees his mother slowly being forgotten. But his grief pales in comparison to the sorrow and suspicion that he and his family experience as Lizzie's babies begin to die. And with each new, unexplained death, Ollie becomes less willing to accept that these babies just died. Who is responsible, and why? In rural Mississippi there is an old church cemetery where seven babies, all brothers and sisters, are buried. None lived past twenty-two months and each died before the next was born. According to the family, these little ones died of common childhood illnesses: innocent victims in a time when medicine had little to offer. But has the truth really been told? Were these deaths as innocent as the family would have us believe? Based on a true story, The Angels of Lockhart is a gripping look at a family whose sorrow turns to suspicion when babies begin to die. Were these deaths unavoidable tragedies, or have dark secrets been concealed by this family for the past one hundred years? "A Heartbreaking and Heartwarming Story of Family, Sorrow, Faith, and Suspicion " "Powerful, Fascinating "