Grandmother's Love for Literature and Culture

 

As I mentioned in my last post, Mamma had been raised to be a lady, and to love culture. And she wasn’t the only one. There was a poetry society in Pauls Valley. Every month the ladies would get together and read poetry, that written by famous authors and poems they had written themselves. Mamma named her second oldest son Homer, after the author of the Odyssey and Iliad. She had a pet banty rooster she named Chanticleer, the clever rooster who outsmarted Reynard the Fox in Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale.

She was also a member of the Alternate Saturday Club, formed in 1897 “to promote social, intellectual and moral culture.” The ladies wrote essays on works by leading authors, presented recitations, musical programs, and held discussions of current and past events.

In 1907, when Oklahoma became a state, small communities around the country were growing, and making an effort to improve their lives. Two national organizations grew out of this need, the Lyceum Movement and the Chautauqua Institute. The Chautauqua Institute was the one which sent teams to visit Pauls Valley. It was founded originally as a religious movement, but soon offered academic subjects, music, art and drama, sending out teams to small towns across the country. Prominent speakers and performers appearing on the Chautauqua circuit included William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, John Philip Souza and the American Opera company. They usually performed plays also, and Wenonah told me that the girls would all fall in love with the leading man.

In 1910 one of Mamma’s Chickasaw friends, Jessie Moore, visited the Chautauqua Institute in New York, and sent her this postcard. She wrote:

My expectations of Chautauqua were real, but the realization exceeds anything I ever dreamed. Could I afford it would come here every summer of my life. I nearly run my feet off for fear I will miss something. Will be home Sept – kiss Mahota (Aunt Kaliteyo’s middle name.) Lovingly, Jessie Moore^[i]

                                          Post Card from Jessie Moore, 1910

 

Mamma had an impressive library, with a set of books of poetry and literature, another about European history, and a set of children’s books called the Children’s Hour, that she read to her children from. She also had many novels, histories and biographies: the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe, novels by James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Mark Twain, you name it. Mamma never passed up a book store. She even had a copy of the Dawes Commission Rolls. My mother Wenonah said she never had to go to the school library to find background for a report. There was always plenty of information among Mamma’s books.

I gravitated toward the adventure stories: the James Fenimore Cooper books about the Algonquin Indian tribes, the Tarzan series, Pistol Pete’s autobiography, Mark Twain's tales of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, books about Comanche torture, about Isaac Parker, the “Hanging Judge,” who had sent Sam Paul, my great grandfather, to prison. Here’s a picture of Mamma’s copy of "Tarzan of the Apes," that I read surreptitiously after my bedtime, by flashlight.

                                                Tarzan of the Apes, First Edition, 1914

It was contagious. Visiting Mamma in the summers I would spend most of my time reading. My mother was an avid reader also, and she loved poetry, as did my Uncle Haskell. Actually, Pappa loved poetry too. After his death, a book of poems was found next to him open to the poem, “The House by the Side of the Road,” by Sam Walter Foss, which, as I claim in my book, “Wenonah’s Story,” was a plea for forgiveness.

Mamma left copies of several poems among her papers, none with the authors’ names though. The only one I’m sure she wrote herself is this one. which she enclosed it in a letter to Wenonah in 1948. She was sick and lonely.

Dear Jim:  I’ve neglected to write, only wanted to feel better. The wind has almost killed me. The dust has nearly choked me to deth. The mussels of my throat hirt so bad that I could hardly turn in bed. Still I have seen wind worse. I have done nothing to bring this on. I am and have taken care of myself. It is spent me. I am worn out and useless… 

The Mystic Bridge of Snow 

The nite is dim thoe snowflakes falling fast

through the still air. The earth is growing cold & while

beneath this soft pure covering through this gloom,

I see affar a Mystic Bridge of Snow

 

It falls from your high casement near yet far

Oh straight my trembling fancy to its glow.

Forms a white pathway of these falling flakes

& crosses on this Mystic Bridge of Snow            

 

The snow flakes tap against my window pane.

I heed them not. Their mistery is I cannot know.

That they have crosssed to me this winter nite.

Upon a frozen white Bridge of falling snow.

 

I stand outside the nite is dark & cold.

Within that room. There’s warmth I cannot know

the fire doth make a summers glow.

Thoe nite is white with mystic falling snow

 

Its cold as deth out here alone

the light has vanished in the cold & gloom

without some guide to light this lonely way.

I cannot cross again this Bridge of snow

 

The light has vanished it is dethly cold.

The earth is hidden in a gleam of light. I see

Only my heart’s deep longing formed. This Bridge 

Between me & this Mystic falling snow.

 

 

 

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[i] Jessie Moore was a remarkable person. She was an attorney, passing the bar in 1923, serving as clerk for the state supreme court, the second woman elected to a state office in Oklahoma. She served on the Board of the Oklahoma Historical Society for 35 years. She was appointed Assistant Commissioner of Charities and Corrections for Oklahoma, and was head of the Women’s division of Emergency Relief during the depression. And with all that she found time to serve as president of the Alternate Saturday Club in Pauls Valley. From Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol XXXIV, Number 4, 1956.

Life in the "Wild West"

 

I guess I should explain my reluctance to call Bill Paul “Grandfather” or even “Pappa,” as my mother referred to him. He died in 1930, long before I was born, so I never knew him. By the time my mother was old enough to remember much, he had become an alcoholic and was usually excluded from family events. His oldest son Willie provided most of the financial support for the family, moral support for Mamma, and parenting for the younger children. It wasn’t always that way though. For the first fifteen years of his marriage he was successful, wealthy, and shared an active social life with Mamma and the older children. Since I’ll be writing about that period of time for the next couple of posts, I’ll refer to him as “Pappa.”

 

Pappa, sitting at his desk, about 1920

 

After Mamma and Pappa, were married in 1898, Pappa became a rancher. He had bought some stock with some of his inheritance, and had gone in with a rancher named Byars. He was an expert horseman, competing in rodeos in roping, and he worked on the ranch as a foreman over the other cowboys. See my book, “Wenonah’s Story,” for more detail.

After a year or two on the ranch, Pappa was thrown from a horse, and suffered a temporary paralysis of his legs. Since he was no longer able to work as a cowboy, he and Mamma moved back to Pauls Valley.

Pappa’s brothers in law, George and Charles Brooks, Lillie and Kittie’s husbands, were both in real estate, so he decided to try his hand as a real estate broker. Pappa already had several Chickasaw allotments in his immediate family and all his relatives had allotments as well. He was outgoing and likeable, so buying, and selling property was an easy transition for him. Soon he owned several rental houses and was even building buildings. He built the First Baptist Church, the Masonic Lodge, and a large building down town. I remember as a child walking past it. It had “W. H. Paul” printed on a frieze across the top. Mamma and Pappa soon became wealthy. The couple entertained often, and took vacations to Arkansas, Texas and Colorado.

The summers were hot in Pauls Valley, so Mamma started spending the summers in Colorado. They stayed with Mamma’s “Sister Ada,” who lived in Colorado Springs with her husband, Robert Freeman, and they lived in Colorado Springs, so they stayed with her. I have a picture of Mamma at Seven Falls with her family at the time – Willie, Homer, and Victoria. Notice Mamma’s fancy dress.

 

Victoria Paul with children: Homer, William, and daughter Victoria at Seven Falls, Colorado, about 1908

 

 My mother described Mamma’s sister Ada as being kind of glamorous, wearing fancy clothes. She was also very pretty. She gave Mamma a housecoat that was covered with feathers, purple, if I remember right. Wenonah said that Mamma never wore it. I guess she thought it was too ostentatious for Pauls Valley.  

 

Sister Ada

 

The Paul family owned half a square block just three blocks from downtown, with horses, cows, chickens, a barn and a servants quarters, with a live in maid and housekeeper. Willie, the oldest son, got his grandfather, Sam Paul’s farm as an allotment. When he was older he worked the farm himself, but during the early years Pappa hired a man to farm the land for a share of the crops. Pappa wasn’t interested in farming. My mother said that she never saw him in work clothes. Every morning he got up, put on a suit and tie and walked downtown to his office.

Contrary to what you see in the movies, the people in small Oklahoma towns, at least in Pauls Valley, were very cultured and sophisticated. Mamma went out visiting once a week. She would have one of the boys hitch up the buggy an then she would visit one or more of her lady friends. She had a calling card she would leave if a friend was not home, or was unable to accept visitors.  On other days, ladies would come to visit Mamma. She had a parlor at the front of the house just for that purpose. Visitors would knock at the door. The maid would answer and accept the card. If Mamma was receiving visitors, they would be ushered back to the parlor and served tea or coffee. And if Mamma was busy they would just leave their card.

 Whenever Mamma and Pappa would go out, they always dressed up. Like I said before, Pappa always wore a suit and tie, and Mamma had fancy dresses too. She ordered them from catalogues, and she hired a seamstress to make alterations. Once a dress she ordered never came and, according to my mother, Wenonah, Mamma swore that the postmaster’s wife had intercepted it at the post office.

Just as Grandmother Lumpkin predicted in her letter to Mamma quoted in my last post: “you will have everything that you desire without having to work and make it.”

I’ve puzzled over where this elegant life style came from. These are the sort of customs I associate with 19^th century British society, not the American western frontier, but I think it came from Mamma’s parents. They had both been raised in the old South, where the ideal was to have servants to do all the work. Even though Mamma had grown up in a pioneer family, living on a farm, in a log cabin, she had still been taught to live the life of an elegant lady.  

More about that in my next post.

 

Grandmother's Wooing

 

William Paul, on Old Deck, about 1892

Around 1893 or so – Grandmother, Victoria Rosser, would have been 16 , and my grandfather, Bill Paul, 17 – Bill started riding up to the Rosser house on his horse, Old Deck, asking to see Grandmother. They had known each other since the Rossers came to Indian Territory seven year earlier, and may have been in the same school together. But apparently Grandpa refused to let Bill in, or Vick out, since their feelings for each other were mutual. I thought at first his opposition to their relationship might have been prejudice against Indians, but that didn’t really make sense since the Chickasaws were the most prominent members of the community, but Bill wasn’t just any Chickasaw. His father, Sam Paul, had been the Progressive candidate for Chickasaw governor, until he was murdered by his own son, Bill’s older brother Joe, in 1891. And if that hadn’t been enough family scandal, Joe himself was murdered in 1895 by his cousin,  Jennison. 

In the meantime, Vick’s mother died of a tumor in her abdomen, so Vick and Bill were probably drawn together even more since both had recently lost a parent. After his wife’s death Grandpa sent Vick and her younger sister, Ada, to stay with their older sister, Cora, who was divorced and living in the nearby town of Wynnewood, where she had opened a millinery (hat) shop. “Old Sis,” as Vick called Cora, was even more opposed to her love affair with the young Chickasaw than her father, so this arrangement just led to more tension. That’s when Grandpa sent Vick to Georgia to visit his mother, Sarah Rosser Lumpkin, to try and cool things down a bit.

Here’s a letter Vick received from Grandmother Lumpkin after her return from Georgia. 

 1895: Envelope: To: Miss Victoria Rosser, Wynnewood, Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory.

            From: Cedartown, Ga., 1895

To Vicie,

Dear Grandaughter

I received your letter also ---- little ears which were the first I ever saw of the kind. (Mamma must have sent her some animal ears which were intended as a good luck charm) We had a very smart statesman of whom it was said that he carried a rabbit foot in his pocket for luck. I think if there is anything in it, that one of those ears would do as well. I want you to write a long letter. When you wrote me you did not say anything about Cora and I have not heard from her since she first got home. (Mamma’s sister Cora must have recently visited their grandmother. She got a divorce from her husband about this time so it may have been that event that occasioned her visit) I am very anxious to hear from her - we should be glad if she could be near us so we could see her any time - We also hope to see you and little Sis (Sister Ada) I forgot to keep the size of the square I sent you, but you can send me the length of it in your letters, with piece. (I can’t make out all the words but Grandma Lumpkin was apparently sending her granddaughter pieces of material for a quilt Mamma was making for her hope chest.) - thanked? Ada - you and she were getting on well with your music which I want to hear (the melodian) - you must persevere and keep up your practice, and do not neglect it to make a quilt - The snow gin away very slowly - Cora carried a pacel of things for your ma’s grave but the weather has been very unfavorable to work with flowers - The cold has just withered my flowers - I have a friend in town who has saved some. I had a letter from Kittie (another of Mamma’s older sisters) last night saying all wise well - give love to all of the family and write soon to your affectionate

Grand Ma SDL (Sarah Dismukes Lumpkin - Dismukes was her maiden name)

Footnote: Scans Family - My Scans - Scan 0002 - 2-1 & 2. From family Bible.

Victoria Rosser, in about 1892

Around the time Vick visited her grandmother in Georgia, Bill got married !  To his cousin, Abbie McClure. I guess he just gave up on Vick since the Rossers were determined to keep them apart. But then something happened that changed everything. Abbie’s brother murdered Bill’s brother Joe. The Paul and McClure families’ relationships were complicated, and I won’t try and explain them since I don’t understand them either, but after Joe's death, Bill’s marriage to Abbie soured, and his relationship with Vick Rosser started up again. 

The scandals continued. In 1897 Jennison was found run over by a train, with bullet holes in his chest. Bill and his brother Buck were prime suspects in the presumed murder, but neither was indicted. When I asked my mother about it, she said simply, “Pappa and Uncle Buck were away at school. They couldn’t have done it.” Actually Sherman, Texas, isn’t that far from Pauls Valley, even on horseback. 

So, in spite of Bill’s marriage, he and Vick kept seeing each other, and in November of 1898 they were married only a month after his divorce from Abbie McClure. 

Here’s another letter from Grandmother Lumpkin, just a couple of months before her wedding. 

Cedartown, Ga                                                                     July 9, 1898

     Dear Vicie

                  Your good letter to hand, picture a fine substantial looking fellow and strong. - you say you would not have him go to the War (The Spanish American War). He looks well fitted by nature for campaigning. I hope however he will not have to go for now - I think the War may end pretty soon - we have destroyed the Spanish fleet at Santiago and will bombard the city if they do not surrender very soon - I am glad to hear that you all are well and that you have a good prospect ahead and feeling happy - large weddings have gone out of style here in Ga - They get married in a traveling suit and take a trip off somewhere - Marry at a church mostly (Mamma and Pappa got married at the Garvins' home) - You did not say that Mr Morris had married out in California - We thought it would be an easy matter for him there when Cora was here (Mr Morris was Sister Cora’s ex-husband.)- I am sorry you do not hear from her - I have replied to her last letter to me long since, but perhaps she did not get it - I hope you will be good to old Sis, as you call her - I leave it as my dieing request - I fear that crops will be short this year in Ga. for the lack of rain. People are becoming discouraged - Glad you have good seasons - We have clouds but little rain - Mr L’s (Lumpkin) health is very precarious - he complains of his head and is more and more unable to move around - I am better and more active than I ever expected to be anymore. You ask after your Uncle D’s family (Perhaps Dismuke? which was Grandma L’s maiden name) - I have not seen any of them in some time. They have had a death in the family, Tidies husband. Left her in good circumstances with 3 little ones to raise - his bro Jones lives with her - She is a thorough going woman - good woman – Bessie’s health is better. Aunt Della is badly broken down - Dave looks well and handsome - The Bookmart kin are pretty well and nice. Your Uncle Jacks wife has gone north to visit his relatives -well I suppose I shall have to quit calling you the little girl now. I hope you may enjoy a long and happy life, though I shall not be here to hear from you very much longer- You must be a very good wife- amiable and sweet tempered, as you will have everything that you desire without having to work and make it. (after all, she was marrying a rich Indian) Your lives have fallen in pleasant places. Write me soon again. I shall like to hear from you. Give my love to your Pa and Sisters.

Your Affectionate Grandma. S D Lumpkin.

Footnote: Documents - Scans family - My Scans - Scan 0002_3-4. 

Shortly after this letter was written, Mr. Lumpkin died, leaving Grandma Lumpkin alone. Grandpa Rosser brought his mother out to Indian Territory, but she didn’t live long. Grandmother’s “Old Sis” Cora married again, this time to a Doctor Glaze, and they moved to Idaho, where she opened a flower shop. They had a daughter together named Mildred. 

Cora Rosser Glaze, 1912

Grandmother's Education

 

 

           Grandmother, Victoria Rosser, and Sister Ada (standing)   

          This is the oldest picture I have of Grandmother, at age 16 or 17?

Grandmother didn’t have much in the way of formal education. She mentioned in a letter that her older sisters Kittie and Lillie got to go to school in Hyde Park,  Arkansas. They stayed with their oldest sister Cora who was married and living there, but Grandmother and her younger sister Ada were too young, so they were home schooled by their mother. 

In 1889 the family moved to Indian Territory. They settled on an acreage north of Pauls Valley, in an area that would later be known as Klondike. At first, Grandpa sent the girls to school in Pauls Valley, where they had the teacher with the big ears, described in the following paragraphs that Grandmother wrote many years later – I guess kids will always make fun of their teachers. 

The first public funeral home must have been built in 1890. It was the first public school in the Territory. The first superintendant was J W Wilkerson a small stoop shouldered man and wore a derby hat pulled down so that it made his ears stick out. The building was a square building with an upstairs & the advanced pupils was upstairs. The low grades down stairs. & we drew the water that we drank from a well. Waded mud shoe top deep. There were no sidewalks in town. It was at first a pay school. In 1896 the principal was D W McKee. He was a Quaker. Was a great educator. His wife taught us music. Miss McDaniels taught elocution & was also a primary teacher. & a Miss Ramsy from Virginia primary grade teacher. D W McKee also taught short hand & typing, was great on giving lectures to the students.

At that time there were no pavements or sidewalks. We had a Methodist Church a wood building & an old Presbyterian Church that had been moved here from Cherokee town. That is about 2 miles from our depo. We had one store C J Grants & Snede later on & then Kendal. Blacksmith shop. An opra house. One Hotel. Across the railroad known as the McClure House. & one known as the Commercial House owned by a widdow campbell. We hada no shows only what the school put on. & some time troops would come here. Our first carnival was in 1903. Our first Mayor was in 1899. Pauls Valley was incorporated in 1899. We had a beautiful park. All pecan down below the depo free Bar bque and free bakers bread. Large loaves 4 times the size that we have now. Purk Bruce had a drug store & in his drugstore a lending library that was a boon to everyone. 

According to the interview from 1937 cited in my Nov. 7 post, Grandpa and some others hired a teacher and had a building moved from Pauls Valley to Klondike so the girls would have a school closer to home. 

During the next couple of years Grandpa and Grandmother’s older brother Tom worked to try and make their acreage profitable. They grew cotton and probably other crops and the railroad went through Pauls Valley so they didn’t have far to go to sell their crops. The country was still pretty wild, and having the railroad near didn’t help. It was during this time that grandmother swore Grandpa had a visit from members of the Dalton gang. Here’s what she wrote: 

1894 J T Rosser planted 125 acres of cotton Hands were hard to get. day labor was cheap but scarce. one evening late two young men rode up into the yard. they had opened wire gates & rode thru the field. & said How Dad do you want two bad boys to chop cotton. papa hired those two young men. & they worked 10 days or 2 weeks. they were quiet had excellent manners. good choppers for cotton seemed to know good farming. Rode good horses had a pair of pistols strapted to their sadles were short shot guns. they did their work well ask for their wages & took their departure. late one eve. shook hands with papa. thanked him for giving them work they were evidently members of the Dalton gang that had just raided Coffeville Kan. 

In 1890, Grandmother’s mother, Emily Bass Rosser, died, of a tumor growing in her abdomen. At that point, Grandpa sent the girls to live with their older sister Cora again. Cora and her husband had divorced or separated – I don’t know any details of when or why. At that point, she was living in Wynnewood, about 7 miles south of Pauls Valley, and was the proprietor of a millinery shop. She made hats. There’s conflicting information about the time of Emily’s death. It might have been as late as 1894. 

I doubt if Grandmother had much schooling after her mother’s death. She started dating my grandfather shortly after that, and Grandpa sent her to Georgia to stay with his mother for a while in hopes that her feelings would cool off. Actually it did the opposite. Grandmother and her grandmother, Susan Whitehead Rosser Lumpkin, really hit it off. They shared a passion for gardening, and Grandma Lumpkin was fascinated by Grandmother’s stories of Indian Territory and of her Chickasaw beau. 

To be continued.

Gunga Din

 

Sam Jaffe, as Gunga Din

Just saw last part of the 1939 movie, “Gunga Din.” I looked it up and it was an adaptation of a poem by the same name by Rudyard Kipling written in 1890.  The setting is 19^th century India, then a colonial possession of Britain.  Gunga Din is a water carrier for the army who is abused and humiliated as an inferior. Kipling’s poem tells the story of how during a battle, Gunga Din saves the life of the narrator, and after carrying him to safety is shot and killed. It concludes with the lines:

 

Tho I’ve belted you an’ flayed you,

By the livin’ Gawd that made you,

You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

 

I remember growing up, when someone would do something generous or brave, my mother would repeat that last line: “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.” I never knew where it came from.

 

The movie version softens the abuse shown to Gunga Din and portrays the British army as honorable defenders of the realm, although blind to the suffering of the Indian people, but I suppose that was the best Hollywood could do in 1939. It’s instructive to read Kipling’s poem though, because he doesn’t pull any punches. 

How Mamma Came to Indian Territory

 

Cora, Tom and Ada Rosser

I just have just a few pieces of information about how Mamma’s[i] family came from Arkansas to Indian Territory.

When the Rossers started west from Georgia after the Civil War, they had intended to join Grandpa’s brother Ed in Texas, but circumstances changed. Their oldest daughter Cora married a man in Marvell, Arkansas, near Palmer Station, where they were living, and Grandpa was elected magistrate, so they stayed for a while, 7 years, but something else happened that caused them to change their plans.

Mamma’s mother, Emily Bass Rosser, was expecting a large inheritance from her father in Alabama, but when word of Emily’s father’s death finally came, the inheritance turned out to be only a few gold coins, the equivalent of about $50, so they realized they were on their own.

I have no proof of it, and no one is left for me to ask, but I think Grandpa might have been influenced by my mother’s other grandfather, Sam Paul, a Chickasaw Indian. Sam Paul, was a “Progressive” among the Chickasaws, favoring the influx of white settlers, and according to some notes made by my uncle Haskell, he made trips to Arkansas and also to Texas to invite settlers to come to Indian Territory. Of course this scared the be-Jesus out of the more traditional full-bloods, or “Pull Backs.” They were used to living in a communal style, sharing land and other resources among themselves, and just wanted to be left alone.

Sam Paul, probably influenced more by his more ambitious father, Smith Paul, a Scotsman, thought the Indians could make money by renting their land to settlers, and could also benefit from the businesses and “civilization” the white men brought. He was also a politician, popular among the intermarried white citizens, and leader of the Chickasaw “Progressive” party.

Anyway, I wonder if Grandpa Rosser was persuaded to come to Indian Territory by one of Sam Paul’s talks. If the farm land in the Washita River valley was as good as Sam Paul claimed, maybe Grandpa could to provide for his four remaining daughters until they were married and independent. Ada, their youngest was only 9 (est.) Mamma was 11.

Mamma told about coming to Indian Territory with her family in an interview in 1937: [ii]

I came to the Indian Territory with my father and mother. We were moving from Mississippi to the Indian Territory in wagons, working horses and oxen in 1889. I was eleven years old. I remember people telling my father that he would have to be on the lookout for horse thieves. We had some trouble while crossing Arkansas, but after we crossed into the Indian Territory we never were bothered by anyone. My father would buy feed from the Indians and they were the most accommodating people I ever met. We came through Muskogee but there wasn't much of a town there then. At that time there were but few roads and at times it looked as if it would be impossible to go any farther. After several months of traveling over rough country we located at Pauls Valley. My Father traded the ox team, a tent and a few horses to Mr John Burks for a lease that had a two room log house on it. This lease had never been worked but there was a plowed furrow around it. My father and brother began putting this prairie land in cultivation. There was open range at that time, and you could have all the hogs and cattle you wanted to own, but you had to have your brand and mark on them. 

There was an Indian law at that time between the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians that if anyone's cattle grazed over on the other's territory the person owning the cattle would be tried by the Indian laws and given the death sentence. They would carry out this sentence too but when anyone was given the death penalty for some crime under the Indian law he would be given an honor parole for a certain time in order to visit his family and straighten up his affairs. Then on the day set for him to die, this person would be at the place set and right on time. 

It cost five dollars a year permit for a family to live in the Indian Territory and two dollars and fifty cents for a single man. There would be collectors come around and collect this fee and if the collectors did not turn in all that he had collected then he would be tried under the Indian law and given so many lashes across the back. They had a whipping post at the place where the court was held. 

The Choctaws held court at Eagle Town and the Chickasaws held court at Tishomingo. 

I have heard my husband say he went to school at Cherokee town[iii] and at that time there was a church there. It was called a community church. My husband was Bill Paul, Sr., a grandson of Smith Paul, the man for whom Pauls Valley was named. 

Amos Waite built the first schoolhouse in Pauls Valley and it was a subscription school.[iv] A Mr Mackey taught this school. My father lived southwest of Pauls Valley about six miles, and my sister and I had to come to Pauls Valley to school. There were several children who lived in this community who had to come to Pauls Valley to school, so my father and several other men bought a frame building at Pauls Valley and moved it to this community. They made a school building out of it and this school was called Red Branch school. Today it is called Klondike. 

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[i] I’ll refer to my ancestors the way my mother did, since she’s my main source of information.

[ii] Indian Pioneer papers: Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma. 9/14/37. Mrs Victoria Paul, Pauls Valley Okla, Date of birth 1878. Mississippi, Father JT Rosser, born in Va, Mother Emily Bass, born in Alabama, Interview 8492 by Maurice R Anderson. OKGenWeb @ rootsweb.com

[iii] It’s interesting how Cherokee Town got its name. After Texas won its independence from Mexico, they attackedand destroyed a large settlement of Cherokees. Sam Houston, incidentally, who had been adopted by the Cherokees, tried unsuccessfully to intervene. The Cherokee families, driven from their homes, made the long journey to join their kin in the northern part of Indian Territory. On their way, they camped for a while just north of the future site of Pauls Valley. Later a small town sprung up there and it was called Cherokee Town, in their honor.

[iv] The Waites are our cousins and a quite remarkable family. My mother’s paternal g-grandmother, Ela-teecha, a full blood Chickasaw Indian, was born back in the Chickasaw homeland, near what is now Tupelo, Mississippi. Her first husband was a Scottish missionary, Jason McClure, with whom she had two children, Tecumseh and Catherine. McClure died in Indian Territory after the trail of tears, and Ela-teecha remarried, the second time to my mother’s g-grandfather, Smith Paul. Anyway, Tecumseh was quite prominent, serving for a time as Chickasaw Governor. Unlike his half brother Sam Paul, he was in the Pull Back political party and opposed white settlement. He also favored setting aside tribal land as a wildlife preserve. Catherine, Ela-teecha’s other child by McClure, married a white man, Tom Waite, who like many others, had come to Indian Territory seeking land. They had eight children together, two boys and six girls, and all were college educated. I think that is remarkable, not just that they were able to do it, but that they valued education that much. Tom Waite died in 1874 and Catherine actually moved to Ohio so that her daughters would have access to an education. Amos, as noted above, started the first school in Pauls Valley, and his brother Fred was Speaker of the Chickasaw House of Representatives, and Attorney General for the tribe. 

Grandmother in Arkansas

 

                                                           Palmer, Arkansas, 1959

 

These blog stories are in no particular order, so it’s hard for me to remember which ones I’ve told and which I haven’t. I had to leave a lot out of my book, a lot of stories and a lot of documents which I’d like to preserve, so I’m going to try and record them in the blog, with explanations, to make them easier to understand by future generations. I’m starting with Grandmother Paul. I have a lot of documents, letters, and memories about her, and she’s important. I’m so fortunate to have known her, a person who was actually a pioneer, travelling across the country in an ox drawn wagon, living in a log cabin, depending on her father and brother’s hunting skills to bring in meat, and her mother’s sewing to provide clothing for the family. 

There were dangers. My grandmother, Victoria, said that the first thing her father would do when they settled in a new location, was to plow the ground around their cabin to protect it from fire. The girls learned to stay close to home and always take with them their faithful Great Dane, Watch, to warn them of prowling wolves. They had to learn to recognize the giant king snake, who was said to be a protection against rattlers. There was always the specter of infectious diseases: pneumonia, meningitis, malaria, typhoid and polio, which her mother faced with only poultices and prayer. Victoria lost a brother, Luther, and a sister, Eula to infections, and sometimes, on clear summer nights, they would lie out on the ground, look up at the sky, and pick out stars that had become the resting places of their little brother and sister. 

They had to provide their own entertainment in those times, telling stories by candle  light, singing and dancing. They had a melodeon, which Victoria and her sisters learned to play, and they would get an occasional visit from families who lived nearby, from an old bachelor who played the fiddle, or from a traveling salesman who brought new shoes, and sewing fabric and thread, as well as news from the outside world. There was an occasional letter from relatives in Georgia or Alabama.    

One of Victoria’s most vivid memories from childhood was of the Passenger Pigeons, now extinct. She said the birds were so numerous as they migrated across the prairie, that they blocked the light from the sun, causing it to be dark outside for days. 

The girls learned to read from their mother, and to figure from Grandpa, and when they lived near Palmer Station, Arkansas, Lillie and Kittie, Victoria’s older sisters, got to go to school in Hyde Park, another town several miles away. Victoria said she was jealous of her sisters, because she was too young to go with them. 

The little Rosser family lived in Palmer station for most of Victoria’s childhood, and she loved it there, in spite of the hardships. Years later, Aunt Oteka took her back for a visit. Hyde Park no longer exists, but there are still a few houses around the train depot at Palmer – “Station” has since been dropped from the town’s name. She tried to identify the old familiar places: the places where Luther and Eula were buried, the place where her oldest sister Cora lived. Cora was married there. They took pictures, and Victoria, always armed with her little shovel, dug up wild flowers that she remembered from childhood, to transplant to her yard back in Pauls Valley.                                                                               

Here is part of a letter that Victoria wrote to Oteka after she got home. 

Dear Oteka,

It is going to rain. but the Birds are singing. & I have put feed out for them & fed my pets in the House. My Pidgeons on my Porch are a pare, because one crokes & the other does not. it is so cloudy and damp. I hope it will save my Ark Rose bushes. I am glad I got to go back to Palmer Station I must have been tirable happy there. I don’t believe that we were on the rite place where Eula was Burried they have changed those Roads & I don’t believe that we were far enough out. they had Country Roads & not verry good ones at that. we went to Mr Scruses grave all rite the House that Sister Cora lived in, also. but I think Papas place was on the opside (opposite?) Side of the road. that is still a cotton country. some day if I live I am going back. this was a flying visit. it sure made old memories come alive. in early spring will be a good time to go. Haskell is just as anxious as I am. I would have to be there several days because things have changed and people have passed away. but that old cypress will remain the same. Henry Morris who married Sister Cora was born & raised in Marvil & his people are burried there. I love those first memories. Sister Cora lived in Hide Park & Kittie Staid with her & went to School at Hide Park. & I was alway jellous because I did (not) Get to go there to. Papa had a Friend by name of Fitzpatric who lived in Helena. he is the (one) Who sent me the little Bantam Chickens. we also had a little dog. I think that he was lost & came to our House. his master had died & Papa sent little Forkerberry to the mans wife & we cride kissed little Forkerberry goodbye. 

My cousin Steve went with his mother, Oteka, on her trip with Victoria back to Palmer Station, and he told about a strange event that occurred as they were leaving. I hesitate to tell the story because it’s a little bizarre, but Victoria was 81 at the time and perhaps getting a little senile and impulsive. The incident does reveal something about her character though. She was always charming and she never met a stranger. 

They had checked out of the motel, eaten  breakfast, and were on the highway heading back to Oklahoma when they heard a siren. It was a police car. Aunt Oteka was puzzled because she hadn’t been speeding and couldn’t figure out why she was being stopped. Anyway, the officer didn’t cite her for any traffic violation, but rather asked to see inside the trunk of her car. On opening the trunk, he began to go through the luggage. When he got to Victoria’s suitcase, they found it filled with framed pictures taken from the wall of the motel. The police reclaimed the pictures and instructed Aunt Oteka to turn around and follow them back to the motel. Victoria didn’t seem upset, only disappointed. 

They were met at the motel by the owner, who was relieved but puzzled by Victoria’s theft. She explained that she had grown up near the old Palmer Station and just wanted something to remember it by. The motel owner had lived in the area all his life, and as Victoria talked about her memories, he realized that they had known some of the same people. Soon they were reminiscing and sharing stories. It was a relief for Steve, who was imagining his mother and grandmother being thrown in jail for larceny.  

 

Johnston Murray

 

                                                        Johnston Murray

When I was 8 or 9, I went on a field trip with my class to the state capitol, in Oklahoma City. As we were walking down a hall – I believe it was outside the senate chambers – a man walked up to my mother and said, “Hi Jim, how have you been doing?”-  At that time everyone called her “Jim” instead of Wenonah. They talked for a while and then the man walked on.

I asked, “Who was that?”

She replied, “That was the governor, Johnston Murray.” While I stood there with my mouth open, she explained that her brother Homer “Snip” Paul had been a senator, and that she knew a lot of people at the state capitol. There were pictures on the walls of each of the state legislatures, and we found Snip in several of them.

 Snip decided to run for the state legislature in 1926 and he won, much to everyone’s surprise – he was only 20 years old at the time of the election - becoming the youngest person ever elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives. He was reelected to the House twice after that, and in 1932, ran for the senate and won, becoming the youngest person at that time ever to be elected to the Oklahoma State Senate. 

“Alfalfa” Bill Murray was in his second year as governor in 1932, Snip's first term as a senator, and his son, Johnston, recently divorced from Marion, my violin teacher, was working as a service man for Consolidated Gas Utilities Company in Tonkawa, Oklahoma. By the end of his father’s term as governor he had worked his way up to plant manager.[i]

Wenonah was in school at OU at the time, living with her other brother Haskell, who had a job at the state capitol as head attorney for the School Land Department, a job that Snip got him. Patronage was frowned upon, even then when there were no laws against it, but in the middle of the Depression, politicians practiced it openly. My mother said it was the only way her family survived. 

She didn’t have a very high opinion of “Alfalfa” Bill. She said he was an “uncouth old reprobate.” One day, as she was walking down a street she saw him sitting on the curb, chewing tobacco and spitting into the street. My mother had no patience for people who were slovenly or uncouth. I asked her why Johnston was so different from his father, and she said, “because his mother raised him. Bill had nothing to do with it.” 

Wenonah's brothers, Snip and Haskell, had a different opinion of Bill Murray. Snip had supported his candidacy for governor and later, some of his proposals in the legislature. Haskell told me that one day Murray had called him into his office and asked him to be lenient with the farmers who were delinquent on their loans from the School Land Department. 

I don’t know when Wenonah would have met Johnston Murray, but it was probably around the time his father was governor. She was in school at OU during that time, often at the state capital visiting her brothers. She even dated one of the senators. 

In 1942, the year I was born, Johnston Murray, decided to go to law school, and in 1946 he got his degree and passed the bar. He rose quickly in the party ranks, and in 1950 ran for governor. He didn’t always agree with his eccentric father on issues, but “Alfalfa” Bill supported him anyway. He said that he’d vote for his son “even if he were not related to me,” and that he, “if elected … will be as diplomatic and careful as his mother’s uncle …Otherwise, he is a Murray. ‘A chip off the same block.’” [ii] Johnston’s mother’s uncle was, of course, the dignified Chickasaw Governor, Douglas H. Johnston.  

Murray’s campaign was almost cut short by some dirty politics by his opponent, Bill Coe, who claimed that he had deserted his first wife, Marion, and left her and his son, Johnston Jr. without any support, but she put an end to his claim with this letter, printed in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper, just before the election. 

Dear Son:

            You and I have too long been in the news as a result of half-truths and outright falsehoods for me to remain silent any longer.

            It is absurd for anyone at any time to say that your father, my former husband, Johnston Murray, ever deserted or failed to provide for you. He just doesn’t do that sort of thing. Particularly, it is absolutely false for anyone in public or private life to say that he ever deserted his family.

            I am so sorry that you and I have been so wrongfully brought into the news by Mr. Coe. We both can stand it, and certainly Johnston Murray can stand it too.

                                                                                   Affectionately,

                                                                                  Your mother, Marion[iii] 

Johnston Murray won the election and became the first Oklahoma governor of Native American descent. Murray’s plans to cut government spending were thwarted by the state legislature, and then his second wife, Willie, decided to run for governor, since Oklahoma law prohibits governors from succeeding themselves. 

Willie was kind of interesting in her own right. She had been a concert pianist- Johnston seemed to have a thing for musicians – and while living at the governor’s mansion, hosted weekly open houses, often providing the entertainment. Johnston supported her candidacy, but their relationship went down hill after she was defeated. After a bitter divorce, Johnston was ruined financially - he should have stayed with Marion. But she was probably better off without him. She married again, this time to a violinist named Thede, and they played together in the Oklahoma City Symphony. 

Johnston married again too, to Helen Shutt – I don’t think she was a musician, and they moved to Ft. Worth. He was driving a limousine there when he ran into an old friend from the Oklahoma State legislature, Gene Stipe, who convinced him to return to Oklahoma and practice law, which he did.[iv]

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[i] “Johnston Murray,” Oklahoma City (Oklahoma) Daily Oklahoman, 8 October 1950. 

[ii] James R Scales, Danney Goble, Oklahoma Politics: a History,(Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982) 268.

[iii] “Resenting the Distorted Statements Made by Bill Coe, Mrs. Unger Recently Wired Her Son…,” Oklahoma City (Oklahoma) Daily Oklahoman, 23 July 1950.

[iv] Erin Dowell, “Johnston Murray,” Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History Culture,      https://www.okhistory.org.