Even More Loose Ends

My last few posts have been as disconnected as usual so I'll try to desribe to you the thoughts that were going through my mind that led to such chaos.

After telling how important our heritage was to my mother in "Our Indian Heritage" and "Aristocrats," I wanted to follow up with some details, so I put down most of what I know about my great - great - great - great - great grand uncle, John Paul Jones, the first in a long line of colorful characters in the Paul family.

Just after writing about John Paul Jones I got my copy of the Chickasaw Times which contained my mother's obituary, so I just printed it as the next post. That got me thinking about my mother's last days and how much suffering she went through. She had told me about saying a prayer for her older sister Kaliteyo when she died, the same childhood prayer that they had said together as children before going to sleep. It was also the only thing I could think of to say for Jim when she died.

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
And if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

It's hard to explain how I felt when my mother died. When I said that prayer for her I had spent the better part of two months sharing her fear, her apprehension, and finally her suffering. During that time, memories or our lives together had been going through my mind, so much to understand, so many questions left unanswered. When it was all over, that overwhelming confusion and tension that I had felt were gone, and in their place was just a gaping hole. I felt so helpless and afraid, like a child. At the time I said that prayer for Jim, it was just as much for me as for her. Finally I understood how she had felt when she had said the prayer for her sister Kaliteyo.

That was about as much writing about Jim's death as I could stand, so I returned to our family's story. The first story that came to mind was the one about Smith Paul running away from home as a small boy, and being taken in by the Chickasaw Indians. I love that story. We don't know many details, but there's so much food for the imagination: The boldness of an eleven year old boy in striking out on his own; the hardships of those relatively primitive times; the incredible distances they traveled on horseback or in a wagon, when 15 or 20 miles was a day's journey; the hospitality of the Chickasaws; the experience of growing up with people of an entirely different culture; how the bonds of friendship and loyalty grew that caused Smith Paul to stay with the Chickasaws and to share their fate.

After telling the beginning of the story of Smith Paul, I just had to write something else about the Chickasaws. I wish I had another life to spend learning more about native American history. While most of what we know is through the writing of white men, the story you can piece together of the native Americans in general, and of the Chickasaws in particular, is fascinating.

In my opinion the Chickasaws' encounter with Hernando De Soto is one of the most incredible stories in history. The Chickasaws, instead of being awed by the advanced technology of the Europeans, were able to see them for the selfish, arrogant bullies they were, and the Chickasaws were able to prevail by using their own native intelligence and ingenuity.

Obituary, Chickasaw Times

This is a copy of my mother's obituary, published this month in the Chickasaw Times:

James Wenonah Paul Gunning died in her home in Oklahoma City on May 2nd, after a short illness.

Mrs Gunning, or “Jim” as she was known to her family and to older friends, was born on November 16, 1913, in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, and was a great granddaughter to that town’s founder, Smith Paul. Jim was the last of the third generation of his direct descendants.

The Paul family home was in Pauls Valley, but they also owned a small farm near town, the Chickasaw allotment of Jim’s oldest brother, Willie. Jim's fondest childhood memories were of the time she spent at the farm, riding the horses, climbing trees, and catching fish in the creek which ran through the property. At the home in town the family kept a cow, a goat, and chickens. Jim's chores included milking the cow and the goat, and gathering kindling for the big wood stove her mother used for cooking.

One of the highlights of Jim’s childhood was spending her first year of junior high school at Bloomfield Academy for Chickasaw and Choctaw girls in Ardmore, Oklahoma. She had a wonderful experience there, getting acquainted with other girls of Chickasaw heritage, and being free from the prejudice against Indians she had experienced at home. Jim was frustrated by the school’s policy of forbidding the girls to speak their native language, but the girls taught Jim a few words on the sly. Jim’s father, who spoke Chickasaw fluently also refused to teach Jim his native language, beyond counting to ten and a few simple words, thinking it was more important for her to fit in with the white culture.

The next year Jim decided to return to school in Pauls Valley. She said, “I probably should have stayed at Bloomfield, but I was just too home sick.” In 1931, when Jim graduated from high school, times were tough. The Depression had begun, and Jim had recently lost both her father and her oldest brother, but Jim’s brother Homer, by then a state senator, wanted his younger siblings to have a college education, so he arranged for room and board for Jim with her other brother Haskell, who had recently earned a law degree himself and worked for the state School Land Department. So at a time when women weren’t expected to go to college, with barely enough money for food and clothing, Jim attended the University of Oklahoma and earned a degree in social work. Social work was a new field at the time, created by the need for workers to administer the funds appropriated by Congress for the relief of those hit hardest by the depression.

After her graduation in 1935, Jim was assigned to work out of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, helping mostly Indian families in need due to the depression.

In 1941 Jim married Donald D Gunning, and after the beginning of WWII she did volunteer work for the Oklahoma City Hospitality Club, working with children of poor families, and for the American Red Cross, where she used her training in social work to help decide which men to release from military service to return home to support their families.

In 1942, Mr. Gunning was hired by Boeing Aircraft in Wichita, Kansas, and the Gunnings spent the rest of the War there. After the birth of her son Robin in 1942, Jim devoted herself to being a mother and a housewife. She remained active however in many civic and church projects.

After the death of her mother in 1962, Jim went back to work as a social worker, this time using her middle name of “Wenonah,” the name of Hiawatha’s mother, from Longfellow’s epic poem, “The Song of Hiawatha.” Wenonah then worked for 13 more years for the Oklahoma State Welfare Department, starting at the Oklahoma County Office and working her way up to a position as consultant for the State Director.

After her retirement from the Welfare Department in 1984, Wenonah was appointed to the Chickasaw Historical Society Board of Directors on the recommendation of her brother Haskell Paul, a member of the Chickasaw Hall of Fame. She served proudly as a member of the Board until unable to attend meetings for health reasons in 2008.

It was impossible not to be impressed by Mrs Gunning’s pride in her family and heritage, her enthusiasm for her beliefs, and her personal interest in everyone she met. In 2005, when she found out that a friend’s adopted child had been taken from him by the state, she helped him make connections to appeal the decision. In 2007, at the age of 93, she helped her nephew find an apartment at Ada in Chickasaw Senior housing. Mrs Gunning never stopped trying to help others.

Mrs Gunning was preceded in death by her husband, Donald D Gunning. She is survived by a son, Robin R Gunning, MD, of Denver, Colorado, three grandchildren, Donald Gunning, Cheryl Pichette, and Therese Pichette of Spokane, Washington, and 13 great grandchildren.