Laughlin, David Lee and Martha Coker

 Seven children, a hundred head of horse a and two covered wagons, the Lauglin's arrived in New Mexico and settled south of Monument.

August 1902, is not the best time to arrive in New Mexico. Oklahoma may have seemed like a paradise compared to the bleak dry prairie where David and Martha started homesteading in a dugout just a couple miles south of Monument.

Family picture dated 1895, have these names.

Front row L-R: Grace May; Martha Coker Laughlin; Alvin Talmadge in her lap; David Lee; Essie; William Herny. Back row L-R: Liewella,; Lilly Ann and Rosa Viola.

Most of the Laughlin family had moved out of the Monument area by 1920. The ranch was leased to the Cooper family.

David Lee Laughlin died 27 Oct 1927 in Roswell and is buried there. Martha Coker Laughlin died 19 Sep 1939 in Pensicola Florida and was buried in Roswell.

A complete history can be found in the "Lea County Families and History: Then and Now" Vol II, dated Copyright 1984