were his sister and younger cousin, James Pratt Plummer. The two boys were ransomed back in 1842. Plummer was returned to his grandfather and was able to readapt to white society, but Parker was unable to readapt and ran away from his family to return to the Comanches. In Mexico As did most young Comanche, Parker participated in many raids into Mexico during the September full moon, the "Comanche Moon," when the dreaded Comanche raids devastated Mexico all the way to Central America. On one of the raids, he contracted smallpox. The Comanche were returning from the raid with captives, horses, and other plunder, but they stopped briefly when Parker became too ill to ride, somewhere just north of the Rio Grande in West Texas. The Comanche were terrified that they, too, would catch this dreaded killer, which had killed over half the tribe during the epidemic years, and they left Parker to ride out the illness, leaving a girl they had captured on the raid to take care of him. Rather than leave to try to return to her family, the girl nursed Parker back to health. He then returned to Mexico with the girl and restored her to her home and family. He later married her. Later life Parker returned to the United States during the Civil War and served with Confederate troops in Texas. After the war, he returned to Mexico, where he died in 1915 on his ranch. He appeared to have been the only one of the Parker children who lived a happy life. Footnotes References Fehrenbach, Theodore Reed The Comanches: The Destruction of a People. New York: Knopf, 1974, . Later (2003) republished under the title The Comanches: The History of a People Powell, Jo Ella ExleyFrontier Blood: The Saga of the Parker Family External links http://www.rootsweb.com/~okmurray/stories/cynthia_ann_parker.htm 1830 births 1915 deaths People from Limestone County, Texas People from Crawford County, Illinois Comanche tribe Texas–Indian Wars Battles involving the Comanche Captives of Native Americans People of Texas in the American Civil War