Little L

Little L

As a child, my cousin Lahoma was known as “Little L.” My mother Wenonah said that she was always generous, sweet and cheerful. “Nobody could stay in a bad mood when Little L was around.”

It must have been hard for Little L to stay cheerful, because she had a tough childhood. She grew up during the depression and during WWII, raised by a single mother, my aunt Kaliteyo, who during most of her childhood, eked out a living as a seamstress.

Kaliteyo quit school in 1931 to marry a young man from the nearby town of Paoli, Oklahoma. She stayed with him for four years in spite of the fact that he spent most of his weekends out drinking, usually with other women. Kaliteyo got a divorce in 1936, but that didn’t end her troubles. The next year she and Little L were overwhelmed by fumes in a garage apartment where they were living. It was a wonder they survived.

After their close call, Kaliteyo and Little L moved in with Grandmother in Pauls Valley, while Kaliteyo looked for a job. Grandmother was happy to have a granddaughter to spoil, and she also had a playmate for her, her cousin Tom, the son of my uncle Haskell, who was also recently divorced. As soon as Kaliteyo recovered from carbon monoxide poisoning, she enrolled in a secretarial school in Oklahoma City, staying with Wenonah, who had a job with the state highway department, and leaving Little L in Pauls Valley with Grandmother.

This was too much for Little L. She thought Wenonah had taken her mother away. One weekend when Kaliteyo and Wenonah came home for a visit, Little L kicked Wenonah in the shin  So Kaliteyo quit school and moved back to Pauls Valley. Eventually she got a job there working for the new welfare department created under President Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Little L and Kaliteyo

The next problem came when Little L started to school. Her teacher said that she paid attention in class, but just couldn’t seem to understand the lessons. She wasn’t learning to read and she couldn’t understand math. The whole family worried about her. Finally her teacher noticed that Little L couldn’t see the blackboard. Wenonah, who still had a job, went out and bought her some glasses. She never had trouble in school again.

The next year Kaliteyo was transferred to Purcell, Oklahoma, and that gave her an opportunity to send Little L to St. Elizabeth’s Academy, where she had gone to school during her high school years. Lahoma loved it, just like her mother. Wenonah told me about visiting her once during an open house. Little L was excited that Wenonah had come, and she proudly showed her around and introduced her to her teachers. There was one nun at the school whom she particularly liked and she kept looking for her. Finally she cried, “There she is,” and ran to where one of the nuns was standing. When the nun turned around, Little L said, “Oh, it’s the wrong one.” The nun just laughed and said, “We do look alike in our habits.”

Aunt Kaliteyo tried to give Little L a good childhood, but she always had trouble making ends meet. She eventually lost her job in Purcell and moved to Oklahoma City, where she tried to make a living as a seamstress. Wenonah worried about them. She said that one time she went by to visit and all they had in the refrigerator was a stick of butter.

Little L always found a way to be cheerful. As soon as she was old enough she got a job at a flower shop to help out. She always made sure her mother had flowers in their apartment. In spite of their poverty Kaliteyo managed to give Little L dancing lessons, starting in grade school, and she was really talented. She danced in recitals, and at school programs, and once for the Indian-Okla Club that Wenonah belonged to. Yvonne Chouteau, who would become a famous ballerina, was about the same age as Little L, and she danced on the same program.

Little L , 1939

When my parents were married in June of 1941, they moved into an apartment just a block down the street from Kaliteyo and Little L. On November 7 of that year, called by President Roosevelt “the date that will live in infamy,” the US naval fleet in Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese. The nation was in shock, but especially my parents, because my dad’s brother Everett was assigned to the USS Oklahoma, one of the ships that was sunk. 

After the attack, Little L came by to visit Wenonah every day after school.  "Lahoma was always cheerful," Wenonah told me. "She tried to give us hope that Everett had survived." Christmas was coming, but as the days went by, and there was still no word from Everett, celebrating the holiday was the last thing on my parents’ minds. One day Little L came in and said, “You need some Christmas decorations,” and she proceeded to hang some tinsel and ornaments she had bought with her meager savings.

It was January before Everett was able to get word to the family that he was okay. My parents thanked God that he was alive, and they thanked Lahoma for helping them get through the weeks of worry. Wenonah told me that my dad carried Little L’s picture in his wallet for years.

After about a year my mother thought of another way to show her thanks. At the time there was an annual Indian Exposition in Anadarko, Oklahoma, attended by Indians from all over the United States. The family had been going to the “Indian Fair” ever since it began in 1935, and she noticed that some of the tribes selected a “Princess” to represent them, so she called our cousin, Floyd Maytubby, then the Chickasaw Governor, and asked him if he would consider appointing Lahoma. He did, and she was crowned Chickasaw Princess in 1943. She was twelve. 

Little L with other tribal princesses, 1943

In 1948, when Little L was just 15, her dancing teacher, Molly Day, decided to start a professional dancing troupe, and she invited her to join. But she needed $500 from each girl for startup money. I don’t know what Lahoma thought. I guess the idea seemed exciting and glamorous. The surprising thing was that her mother supported her. She still regretted not being able to follow her own dreams.

When the family found out what Little L was planning, they were horrified. They tried to talk Kaliteyo out of allowing her to go. Then they refused to give her the money. We were living in Wichita, Kansas at the time, but grandmother kept Wenonah in the loop. Finally Kaliteyo got the money from her boyfriend, and so Little L, just out of junior high school, headed for Texas and later Mexico, performing with a dancing troupe.  

To be continued. 

Princess Lahoma

This month my wife and I celebrated her birthday in Las Vegas. We go every year, not to gamble, but just to walk around, explore the new hotels, see the shows we haven’t seen, and watch the people. We saw a Cirque du Soliel show based on Beatles’ songs at the Mirage, a comedy show a Planet Hollywood, and a variety show at the Rio. We wandered through the Venetian, watched the gondolas, took our pictures with celebrities at Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, and of course I had to visit the Burlesque Hall of Fame, where my cousin Lahoma is featured.

It was six of seven years ago when I found out about the Burlesque Hall of Fame. A young woman e-mailed me from New York City where she was working as a nanny. She had read an article I posted here on my blog about Lahoma and wanted to know more about her. Her hobby was collecting pictures about burlesque stars from the past. She had a web site where she had collected hundreds of pictures and newspaper articles about burlesque. She shared what she already had about Lahoma, and she told me about the Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, which she was helping with her research. We corresponded for several weeks sharing information and eventually we collaborated in writing a little article about Lahoma for the museum.

I haven’t heard from my friend for a couple of years but I hope she compiled her work into a book. She certainly did an admirable job with her research.

Just visited her facebook page. She still has our article about Lahoma posted. She’s selling burlesque memorabilia on EBAY to raise money to pay vet bills for her aging dog, so check it out. http://www.burlyqnell.com

Visiting the Hall of Fame reminds me of what wonderful memories I have of my cousin Lahoma, and makes me think that I ought to record more about her life than just her time dancing.

During the late ‘40’s and early ‘50’s, when Lahoma was dancing, I was in elementary school, and I was madly in love with her. She was beautiful, glamorous, and she sent me stuff. The walls of my room were covered with pennants from all over the United States. I wrote her letters. I used to have a copy of one. On it I had drawn a picture of “Elfie,” the hero of my mother Wenonah’s bedtime stories.  

When Lahoma recycled her costumes, she gave them to me. I remember an Indian head dress made of purple ostrich feathers. It had a long train, or at least it was a train for me. On Lahoma, who was almost six feet tall, it probably barely reached the floor. I can’t imagine what our neighbors thought, seeing me run around wearing it. My cousin Steve says that he had one of her ostrich feather head dresses too that was white. It’s probably the one she’s wearing in the picture I put at the beginning of this article.

Lahoma’s mother, my Aunt Kaliteyo, lived in Oklahoma City. She wasn’t married, and she spent a lot of time at our house. She ate my mother’s corn bread and had milk and cookies with me when I got home from school. We kept up with Lahoma through Aunt Kaliteyo.

Every once in a while, Lahoma would come home for a visit. It was always an exciting time. She would show us pictures of the places she danced, and tell us about the famous people she knew. She dated a popular song writer of the day, Johnny Cola, who had written a new song, Vienni Su, that we were all hoping would be a success, for her sake.

Once she took me to a major production down at the Municipal Auditorium, just the two of us. It starred Victor Borga. There was singing and dancing, and of course he played the piano. Lahoma was very critical of the dancers. During the performance she pointed out all the things they were doing wrong. It impressed me that although she was a burlesque queen, she was still a serious dancer.

I’ll finish with a picture of me in one on Lahoma’s more traditional head dresses. I wore it on 89er’s Day at our school’s annual reenactment of the 1889 land run into Indian Territory by early settlers. Even at an early age I knew that not everyone was happy about taking away the Indians’ land.

Indian Brave at ‘89er’s Day Reenactment at Sequoyah Grade School in about 1949

That’s a tomahawk in my right hand.

To be continued.

Newlyweds, 1941

After my parents were married, in 1941, they lived in an efficiency apartment on 25^th Street, east of Classen boulevard in Oklahoma City, in case you are familiar with the area. Aunt Kaliteyo lived about a block away, with her daughter Lahoma. (See blog entry for Oct. 5, 2011, The First Chickasaw Princess)

My mother, Jim, had quit her job at the state capital on the insistence of her brothers because jobs were scarce and it wasn’t considered right for a woman to work if her husband had a job. It would have been especially embarrassing to her older brother Snip, who was in the state senate and had got her the job in the first place.

At first Jim was busy writing 300 thank you notes for her wedding presents. Snip had invited the whole county to the wedding, and the first thing he told her when she and Don returned from their honeymoon was to be sure to write those thank you notes. She kept a record of her gifts, and she saved the cards in a scrap book. I still have them. She saved some of her gifts, like a serving tray made by Joe Raines. He pieced it together using several types of wood from trees growing in Pauls Valley. She also saved a mirror, a gift from the women she worked with, that magnified your image.

A lot of the gifts though were pieces of cut glass, candle sticks, clocks – I don’t know what all, but things which cost a lot of money, but weren’t really good for anything but show, so Aunt Helen gave Jim a clever idea. Aunt Helen was Snip’s wife. She suggested that she take all these gifts, exchange them for cash and then go buy some nice china, so that’s what Jim did. My parents never entertained, so the china was still just used for show, but it was a good idea. I have the china now, displayed in a china closet. It’s beautiful, but my wife Sarah and I don’t use it either. Maybe my kids will. 

Anyway, Jim tried to keep up with her friends, and she volunteered at the United Provident Center down town, which provided relief for the poor, but still she was alone much of the time and stir crazy. She told me that was when she learned to play solitaire. Don taught her to play to give her something to do with herself.

After a couple of months Jim found out she was pregnant, so then she had a new baby to plan for, and Lahoma would come by after school and tell her about her day. She was ten. I have a picture of Jim and Don with Lahoma on the Ferris wheel at the fair.

Meanwhile my dad, Don, was still working at Peppers oil refinery, and he didn’t like it one bit. Mr. Peppers had promised to move him into the office after he got his accounting degree, but months had passed, and Don was still working out in the refinery. The work there was hard and dangerous, and Jim said that he had nightmares about it for years.

Don gave up sports when he got married. He had played football and basketball in high school, basketball and track in college, and AAU basketball after he graduated. He was good enough that his coach at OU, Hugh McDermott, offered him a job coaching there after he graduated. I used to wonder if he missed sports, but he never mentioned it.

Both my parents kept up with their families. Jim’s sister Kaliteyo worked as a cashier. She was good at math, and later worked at the Skirvin Hotel coffee shop down town, but I don’t know where she was working in 1941. Snip, of course, was in the senate, and was building a law practice in Pauls Valley with Uncle Haskell.

Aunt Oteka and Uncle Thurman were living in Norman Oklahoma, and Thurman was working in the oil fields. Their older son Homer Dean was two. Jim’s youngest brother Tom was married and enrolled at Oklahoma A and M. He wanted to be a veterinarian. His wife, Catherine, worked and he made extra money hustling pool.

Don’s older brother Boyd wasn’t using his degree either. He had graduated from law school at OU. Instead he was working for the university, in the Extension Division, which handled correspondence courses, the university press, off campus projects, etc. He also was an announcer on the OU radio station. Don’s brother Everett had just graduated from high school, and his youngest brother J. E. was in junior high.

Don was worried about Everett. He hadn’t done well in school so wasn’t planning on following his two older brothers to college, and he didn’t have a job. Everett was wondering what to do with himself too so he asked for Don’s advice.  Don suggested that he go into the military. There was a war in Europe at the time, but no one thought we’d be involved. We had learned our lesson during WWI. Jobs were still hard to come by as the US was coming out of the Depression, and the military seemed like a good idea. It was a good way for a young man to get some structure in his life, and to grow up. So Everett joined the navy and was assigned to the Battleship Oklahoma, which was docked at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

                                                        Everett Gunning, 1941

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the Oklahoma, Everett’s ship  was sunk. That was a tough month for my parents, and little Lahoma helped to ease the suspense of not knowing whether or not Everett had survived. (see blog entry for Dec. 24, 2010, Christmas, 1941)