Dallas, TX
972-260-9334

Annanias S. Toppin and Emmaline Fisk Crook Toppin

From Proud Heritage, Volume I by DCPA, currently out of print.

Emmaline Fisk was born in Stockbridge, Wisconsin on 19 February 1861. She came to Texas from South Dakota with her parents when she was about 14 years old. She told many tales of living in the bottom of a wagon while the adults fought the Indians. The parents returned to South Dakota but Emmaline remained in Dallas, working as a saloon dance hall girl. She married Obadiah Crook, and there was one child born, William.
 
Emmaline married again the second time on 23 December 1886 to Annanias S. Toppin. He had been born in Rockingham County, Virginia on 12 April 1860. Toppin was a building contractor and built some of the buildings for the State Fair of 1886. (An article on Toppin appears in the Memorial and Biographical History of Dallas County published in 1892 .)
 
Annanias and Emmaline Toppin had a daughter, Lena Mabel, born in Dallas on 20 November 1887. Annanias died on 4 February 1897. Emmaline married once more on July 13, 1922 to Oscala P. Scott. He died in 1923 and Emmaline died 4 December 1942.

Lena Mabel Toppin attended the Alamo School in Dallas. She quit school at age 13 and went to work for the Bell Telephone Company as an operator. She married Lee Jackson Hayes on November 6, 1904. He was born 30 October 1877 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He came to Dallas about 1902 and took a job as a bartender. Later he owned the Hayes Saloon on the corner of Main and Market Streets. After prohibition, the saloon became an eating place and domino parlor. Lee Jackson Hayes died 7 July 1940 and Lena Mabel Toppin Hayes died 26 December 1973. Both are buried at Sparkman-Hillcrest.

They had nine children: Lee Jackson, Jr.; Irene Emmaline; Florence Mabel; Cora Toppin; Elmer Morrow; Alice Maggie; Margaret Cecelia, James Newton and Morris Henry.

By Mrs. O’Byrne Cox, Dallas