Disease among the Indians

 

            

      Small child with small-pox, Bangladesh, 1973.

 

I remember when I was in medical school, running across a thesis that someone had written on the health problems suffered by the Five Civilized Tribes during the "Trail of Tears," their forced removal from their homelands to Indian Territory, in what is now the State of Oklahoma. Along the 4 to 800 mile journey 1 out of 5 lost their lives. Many of the deaths were due to exposure - the winter of 1832 was especially hard. Alexis De Tocqueville, visiting from France, described blocks of ice floating down the Mississippi River. It was said that after the Indians arrived they had lost almost all of their elders and small children.  

It's really hard to imagine the hardships endured by the Indians in those days. Not only were they brutally mistreated due to the prejudice and greed of the white man, their immune systems couldn't cope with the diseases that Europeans considered minor such as chicken pox and measles, so whole tribes had been wiped out by disease even before the Trail of Tears. 

The Indians way of life before the Removal had protected them somewhat from disease. They lived in small family groups, which limited transmission of disease. They got their water from streams or wells which for the most part were not contaminated. They hunted to provide fresh meat, and by the time of the Removal had learned to cure meat by salting or smoking it.  

During the Removal Indians were forced to travel crowded together in large groups. They suffered from poor sanitation, leading to typhoid, dysentery and cholera, and unscrupulous contractors ordered food in advance and allowed it to sit out and spoil. The Indians had to choose between eating spoiled food or nothing. Many of the Chickasaw refused to follow the planned route. They made their way through the swamps, killing game along the way. This frustrated their army escorts but it probably saved lives.  

One of the few preventable diseases of the time was smallpox, a disease with a mortality rate of 30 to 50%. Vaccination of the Native American population did not start until the 1830's and it was not widespread. In 1834 there was a smallpox outbreak among the Creeks and the U.S. Army physician, Dr. W. L. Wharton, vaccinated over 7000 Indians, ameliorating the epidemic. Small pox broke out among a group of migrating Chickasaw in 1837, and it spread to the Choctaw killing over 500. The smallpox epidemic of 1837 also spread to the plains tribes, and many suffered and died. The Mandan tribe, for instance, was reduced from 1500 to 15. A witness described the devastation:  

Language, however forcible, can convey but a faint idea of the scene of desolation which the country now presents. In whatever direction you turn, nothing but sad wrecks of mortality meet the eye; lodges standing on every hill, but not a streak of smoke rising from them. Not a sound can be heard to break the awful stillness, save the ominous croak of ravens, and the mournful howl of wolves, fattening on the human carcasses that lie strewn around … Many of the handsome Arickarees, who had recovered, seeing the disfiguration of their features, committed suicide; some by throwing themselves from rocks, others by stabbing and shooting. The prairie has become a graveyard; its wild flowers bloom over the sepulchres of Indians. The atmosphere for miles is poisoned by the stench of hundreds of carcasses unburied.  

According to the memoirs of my great great Aunt, Mississippia Paul Hull, her brother Sam contracted small pox while scouting for the Army:

One of the things I remember which made such an impression on my mind was the dreadful epidemic of small pox. There were two kinds, the Black small-pox, which was usually fatal, and the red small-pox which was a milder form. My brother Sam was on a scouting expedition among the wild tribes and took the small-pox. My father heard of him being sick, and when he located him he was almost dead, but he nursed him until he got well, and brought him home.  

That was the way that small-pox was brought to our family, and we all had it. But we knew how to doctor ourselves and all of the family lived. The plains Indians had caught it by this time too and died in great numbers, sometimes an entire family died, because there was not one left to wait on the other. They did not understand how to take care of themselves and would go out and take cold. They were buried up and down the river and where the town of Pauls Valley now stands.   

This epidemic would have taken place during the 1870's when the Army was forcing the nomadic tribes onto reservations. There was a large group of Caddo Indians that lived near my great great grandfather Smith Paul's farm, and many of them died in the epidemic. My mother said that her mother used to point out a spot on Jackson Hill, overlooking Pauls Valley, where a group of Caddo's were buried.  

Small-pox was declared eradicated in 1979 by the world health organization. 

 

Footnotes:

Indian Removal, by Grant Foreman, Chap 8, P 110. Describes epidemic among Creeks

The Chickasaws, by Arrell Gibson: Chap 8, P 191. Small-pox among the Chickasaw and Choctaw

Pioneer Days in the Early Southwest, by Grant Foreman. Indian Warfare Between Texas and Mexico, P 235. Epidemic among Plains tribes, including Wichita and Caddo as well.

 

Chickasaw Education, the Golden Age, 1867 - 1898

For information about Chickasaw education during earlier periods see posts of Jan. 16, and Jan. 29, 2012.

        

                                        Mississippia Paul Hull

During the Civil War Chickasaw society was disrupted, and the Nation's schools were closed. The Chickasaw Nation officially supported the Confederacy, but many wanted no part of the white man's war. Soon after the war started, the Confederate army took over Indian Territory and occupied Fort Arbuckle. My great great grandfather Smith Paul had the foresight to move away from the fort before the war started. He moved west, into the vicinity of what is now Paul's Valley. As my great aunt Sippia put it:

Just before the war broke out he had made a trip to the locality and realized that it was a wonderful place for farming. Very soon he had a home built for us, it was of hewed logs. The house was built of single rooms but close together …. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, the friendly plains Indians came around the locality where my father had his farm. They were the Comanches, Caddos, Apaches, Cheyenne, Osages, and I think some Delawares. One mixed band located at Cherokee Town, another on my father's farm, a band of Osage across the river, and a band of Caddo Indian under old lady White Bead, five miles up the river. And the government realized that they must do something with and for these Indians, so they appointed my father as an agent, to issue them rations. This was one reason that my father did not have to go to war.  

So Smith Paul was appointed by the Confederacy, as Indian agent supplying rations to the plains Indians living the vacinity of his farm.

My great great grandmother Ela Teecha's older children, Tecumseh McClure and Catherine Waite, along with Ellen's brother Ja-Pawnee, went to Kansas with their families during the Civil War. They stayed with the Sauk and Fox tribe which remained unaffiliated with either North or South.

Aunt Sippia described her life during the war between the states:

During the Civil War we had to spin and weave all of our cloth, to make our clothes, and knit our hose. I was anxious to do what everyone else did and they let me, although I was only about nine years old, I wove enough cloth to make me a dress, even though it looked rather knottie, they made me a dress out of it. The cotton from which we spun the thread had to be picked from the seeds with our fingers, we usually did this work at night. The pecans grew in this locality in great abundance as they do today, and we ate nuts and picked the cotton off the seeds and my mother would tell us Indian legends. We learned by putting the cotton down by the fire and getting it warm, it was much easier to get the seeds out. It was during those early days that a man came through the country with what he called a miniature gin, similar to a cloths ringer of today, and this helped us to get the seeds out faster. Of course people came in to see how it worked and everyone wanted to try and turn the handle and my brother, boy like turned it and broke the handle off. My mother used to make straw hats for the boys out of wheat straw and in the winter they would catch coons and she would make them caps out of the skins. My father would make us shoes out of cow hide, he could do a little of everything, but this was only in war times. How I disliked them, and how glad I was when we could buy shoes ready made.

This is the kind of practical education Aunt Sippia got during the war. I wish she we could hear some of the stories her mother told her.

After the Civil War, the Chickasaw government was reorganized, and under the leadership of Governor Cyrus Harris a new constitution was written outlawing slavery. In 1867, with $65,700 released by the federal government from the Chickasaw trust fund, the Chickasaw Nation established 11 neighborhood schools. In 1876 that number was increased to 23, and also four academies, Bloomfield for girls, Wapanucka coed, Chickasaw Male Academy, and the Lebanon Orphan school were opened. These schools were operated by Chickasaw citizens, and most of the teachers were Chickasaw. The Chickasaw government provided $3 per student per month for the neighborhood schools, $200 per student annually for students at the academies, and $350 per student per year for 60 to 100 students selected to pursue higher education in the states.

This period of Chickasaw independence has been referred to as the "Golden Age" of Chickasaw education. At this time the Chickasaw educational system surpassed that of all the other tribes, and that of the whites in neighboring states. By 1880 60% of Chickasaws could read and write. Bloomfield Academy was known as the Bryn Mawr of the West.

There were also missionary schools at this time. The Pierce Institute in White Bead, and Hargrove College in Ardmore were operated by the Methodists, and St. Elizabeth's Academy for girls was opened by the Catholic Church near Purcell.

Footnote: The Chickasaws, Arrell Gibson. P 280. 

In addition to the Chickasaw government schools and the mission schools, some Chickasaw communities hired their own teachers. Aunt Sippia told about her father hiring a teacher for her and her brothers after the war:

For quite a while after the war, we were the only settlers in this section of the country. My father hired us a private teacher. It was not easy to get teachers to come and live on this frontier, so our education was quite limited.

It was during this time that the federal government was forcing the plains tribes onto reservations. Ulysses S. Grant, the first President after the Civil War, was approached by representatives of the Quaker church asking him to let them establish missions on these reservations so they could convert the Indians. President Grant's response was:

If you can make Quakers out of these Indians it will take the fight out of them. Let us have peace.

Grant appointed many Quakers as Indian agents, and also missionaries from other denominations. The Quaker Laurie Tatum was appointed agent to the Comanches and Kiowas near Fort Sill, and my great aunt Sippia attended his school. Here is her description:

At the early age of sixteen I was married to Jim Arnold, a Texan, and one little girl was born to us, named Tamsie. After five years I was left a widow. Knowing they had a school for Indians at Fort Sill, I decided to go up there to school. I boarded with a Mexican woman who had been ransomed and married and raised a family. She was ransomed by a soldier by the name of Chandler who afterwards married her. I took my little girl along with me and Mrs. Chandler took care of her while I attended school. While I was there I met William Hull, an Englishman, who was employed to work for the government to work under the Indian agent Tatum. After he met me he decided to come down and live near my father. He was a professional blacksmith. This was on the main travel road of the freighters to Fort Sill and Fort Cobb. He accumulated quite a fortune at that business. Then we were married.

The practice by some of the plains tribes of taking hostages deserves some explanation. The Comanche, Wichita, Cheyenne and others would raid farms in what is now Texas - then Mexico - and take horses and hostages. They traded both among themselves, and often asked for ransoms for the hostages, usually children. Chickasaw hunters played a role in ransoming some of the hostages in those early days after the Removal. Some of the hostages were treated like slaves and some were accepted as members of the tribe. The mother of the famous Comanche Chief Quanah Parker had originally been a hostage. When given a chance to rejoin her white family, she chose to remain with the Comanche. See my post of 2/12/2011, Nadua, Cynthia Ann Parker

Back to Aunt Sippia's story:

The school I attended in Fort Sill was under the supervision of the Quakers. Of course I attended their church, it all seemed strange to me, for when they went in the church they usually sang a song first, then they sat and waited for the spirit to move them. Sometimes someone would pray or talk and then again there were times when no one would either talk or pray, they would sit quietly for a while and then leave.

While my father was not such a religious man he realized that we must have the uplifting influence of having the gospel preached. So he hired a preacher by the year by the name of E. Couch from Texas, to preach to us regularly every Sunday, he made his home with us. By that time there were more people living in this part of the country but miles and miles apart, but they would come to this service and my father and mother always arranged to have a splendid meal for the entire congregation, as that was one of the pleasant occasions that we looked forward to. Then later my father built a frame church himself, having the lumber freighted from Atoka. J.M. Hamill, Superintendent of Colbert School and pastor at Ft. Arbuckle also preached to us.

The Colbert School was one of the original Chickasaw Academies. It was a boys' school.

It is remarkable to me how these people, with their own culture and traditions, so recently uprooted from their homeland and having to rebuild their society on the frontier, had the desire and the foresight to see the value of education in preparing their children to compete in white society. Aunt Sippia sent her oldest daughter Tamsie to Liverpoole, England. to school. I don't know much about the education that Tecumseh McClure provided for his children, but his sister Catherine went to great lengths to educate hers. Fred Waite, her oldest son was sent to finishing school in Bentonville Ark.. He later attended Illinois Industrial University in Champaign, Illinois, and Mound City Commercial College in St Louis, Mo. Fred Waite later became Attorney General of the Chickasaw Nation. Fred's younger brother Amos was also educated in the East, and he returned home to start the first subscription school in Pauls Valley in about 1890. Subscription schools were private schools for which parents paid a fee for their children to attend. Catherine Waite also educated her daughters. After her husband's death in 1874 she moved with her younger daughters to Oberlin, Ohio, so that they could attend college there.

        

                   Thomas and Catherine Waite and Three of Their Daughters

Aunt Sippia, Part Two

Aunt Sippia, with Three of Her Daughters and an Old Friend

          Here's the second part of my great great aunt Sippia's "Reminiscences" as she called them. The first part was posted June 11, 2011. I'll put in some explanations in parentheses when they seem necessary.  

Reminiscences of Mrs. Sippia Hull

July 2nd, 1929

          For quite a while after the war, we were the only settlers in this section of the country. My father hired us a private teacher. It was not easy to get teachers to come and live on this frontier, so our education was quite limited. (Aunt Sippia got some additional education at Fort Sill but her brother Sam only got through the fourth reader. In spite of this limited formal education he learned to speak 8 different languages, was a Chickasaw senator, edited two newspapers and became a practicing attorney) At the early age of 16, I was married to Jim Arnold, a Texan, and one little girl was born to us, named Tamsie. (Sippia named her daughter after her grandmother, Smith Paul's mother.) After five years I was left a widow (The story my great uncle told was that Arnold borrowed some money from Sippia's father Smith Paul and left, saying he was going to Sherman, Texas for supplies. He never returned. Sippia always thought he had been bushwhacked, but rest of the family thought that Arnold took the money and ran.) 

          Knowing they had a school for Indians at Fort Sill, I decided to go up there to school. I boarded with a Mexican woman who had been ransomed and married and raised a family. She was ransomed by a soldier by the name of Chandler who afterwards married her. I took my little girl along with me and Mrs Chandler took care of her while I attended school. (See Hitchcock and the Chickasaws, Posted 1/1/11 which describes the lucrative trade in hostages developed by some of the plains tribes) While I was there I met William Hull an Englishman, who was employed by the government to work under the Indian agent Tatum. After he met me he decided to come down and live near my father. He was a professional black-smith. This was on the main travel road of the freighters to Fort Sill and Fort Cobb. He accumulated quite a fortune at that business. Then we were married. (Smith Paul's farm was one of the main stops for lodging and supplies on the way to Fort Sill and Fort Cobb)

          The school I attended in Fort Sill was under the supervision of the Quakers. Of course I attended their church, it all seemed very strange to me, for when they went in the church they usually sang a song first, then they sat and waited for the spirit to move them. Sometimes some one would pray or talk and then again there were times when no one would either talk or pray, they would sit quietly for a while and then leave. (In 1868 after his inauguration as President, Ulysses Grant met with Quaker leaders who proposed approaching hostile Indian tribes peacefully. Grant was impressed and allowed them to establish schools and missions in Indian Territory. His comment was, "If you can make Quakers out of the Indians it will take the fight out of them." Agent Tatum whom Aunt Sippia mentions above was one of these Quaker missionaries and agent to the Comanches. It sounds like it was the peaceful Indians that took advantage of the schools rather than the Comanches.) 

Footnote Oklahoma, A History of Five Centuries, by Arrell Gibson, P 252

          While my father was not a religious man he realized that we must have the uplifting influence of hearing the gospel preached. So he hired a preacher by the name of E. Couch from Texas, to preach to us regularly every Sunday, he made his home with us. By that time there was more people living in this part of the country but miles and miles apart, but they would come to this service and my father and mother always arranged to have a splendid meal for the entire congregation, as that was one of the pleasant occasions that we looked forward to. Then later my father built a frame church himself, having the lumber freighted from Atoka. We had many other ministers of other denominations, but I do not remember their names now. It was not a matter of choice to him as to the denomination. J. M. Hamill Superintendent of Colbert School and pastor at Ft. Arbuckle also preached to us. (The last sentence was added later.)  

          About this time my husband had lumber freighted from Atoka to build us a home. By this time my father had accumulated sufficient wealth to build him a huge log house a story and a half high, which was about three quarters of a mile from the present town of Pauls Valley. It was there he had a large fruit orchard set out. When the fruit began to bear he gave away to everyone that wanted it and some came and hauled it off by the wagon loads. It was at this home that my mother died, in 1972.  

          In about five years my father married a young woman by the name of Sara Ann Lily, her family lived in this locality. Then he built the rock house which was about a quarter of a mile from the log house. (See story about the rock house Smith Paul built in Roots, posted 9/18/2010.) My father died in 1893, at White Bead, and left a widow and two children by the name of Steve and Tamsie. 

          During the Civil War we had to spin and weave all of our cloth to make our clothes, and knit our hose. I was anxious to do what every one else did and they let me, although I was only about nine years old, I wove enough cloth to make me a dress, even though it looked rather knottie, they made me a dress out of it. The cotton from which we spun the thread had to be picked from the seeds with our fingers, we usually did this work at night. The pecans grew in this locality in great abundance as they do today, and we ate nuts and picked the cotton off the seeds and my mother would tell us Indian legends. We learned by putting the cotton down by the fire and getting it warm, it was much easier to get the seeds out. It was during those early days that a man came through the country with what he called a miniature gin, similar to a clothe's ringer of today, and this helped us to get the seeds out faster. Of course people came in to see how it worked and every one wanted to try and turn the handle and my brother boy-like turned it and broke the handle off. My mother used to make straw hats for the boys out of wheat straw and in the winter they would catch coons and she would make them caps out of the skins. My father would make us shoes out of cow-hide, he could do a little of everything, but this was only in war times. How I disliked them, how glad I was when we could buy shoes ready made. 

          When it was hog-killing time the men dug a large pit and they brought up right near the pit dead wood for a fire and  rocks. Then they would fill this pit nearly full of water, and then roll the rocks that had been heated by this fire into the water, making it hot enough to scald the hogs and usually they were able to take care of about fifteen at a time. All the neighbors would come to help. They would have great fun with each other in the work and broiling the meats to eat. We made sausage but we had no sausage mills in those days, we had mortars and beat it with a pestle. 

          When they first began raising wheat in Pauls Valley, after they had the wheat shocked, they would first cut off the heads, get it in a low pile and drive the oxen around and around on it, then it was taken up and fanned. The husks were removed and the wheat sacked up. The nearest mill to grind the wheat and the corn was what is now Franks, Oklahoma, it was there that Gov. Cyrus Harris built the first mill, after the war. It was built on Mill Creek. It took them days and days to go and come. (Cyrus Harris was the first governor of the Chickasaw Nation in 1856 after the Constitution was written and also was governor from 1866 - 70 after the Civil War.) 

Footnote: The Chickasaws, Arrell M Gibson 

          And one of the things I remember which made such an impression on my mind was the dreadful epidemic of Small-pox. There was two kinds, the Black small-pox, which was usually fatal, and the red small-pox which was a milder form. My brother Sam was on a scouting expedition among the wild tribes and took the small-pox. My father heard of him being sick, and when he located him he was almost dead but he nursed him until he got well, and brought him home. That was the way the small-pox was brought to our family, and we all had it. But we knew how to doctor ourselves and all of the family lived. The plains Indians had caught it by this time too and died in great numbers, some times an entire family died, because there was not one left to wait on the other. They did not understand how to take care of themselves and would go out and take cold. They were buried up and down the river and where the town of Pauls Valley now stands. 

          In the year of 1874 my husband and I moved to the Washita River near White Bead Hill now called White Bead, where we erected a very commodious and comfortable home. We put in a farm of several hundred acres. It was at this home that my husband died. We had six children born to us, four girls and two boys, William Hull, deceased, La Vina Hull Merchant, Jessie Hull, Melville Hull, Lucia Hull, deceased, Flora Hull McSweeney, Bessie Hull Brim. A few years before my husband's death I went to California with a son for his health, but he soon passed away and I returned to Oklahoma. I had learned to like California and did not feel satisfied in my old home without my husband, and I returned to California with one of my daughters and I have made my home there every since, and I am quite contented there as all of my children have come there to live with the exception of one. I cannot say I love California better than my own state and country but I like the milder climate better, and I know that it is best for my health. I will always love to come back as long as I can and visit my relatives and old friends.

          Aunt Sippia and her daughters moved to California near Bakersfield, and unflrtunately we have lost touch with them.

My Family During the Civil War

                             Mississippia Paul Hull

          As late as 1858, my great great grandparents, Smith and Ellen Paul, were living right next to Fort Arbuckle, one of the principal forts on the frontier. (see posts of March 19, March 25, and April 2, 2011) They had moved there in 1851 for the safety the fort provided from roving bands of  hostile Indians. As a war between North and South became more eminent, living next to a fort wasn't such a good idea, so in 1859 Smith Paul moved about twenty miles north, to a fertile valley located where Rush Creek joins the Washita River. I don't actually know whether Smith Paul was that prescient about the events to come, or if his decision was just a coincidence, but by the time the Civil War started, he had established another farm at a fairly safe distance from the fort.  

          The land that Smith Paul chose for his new farm was remarkably productive. According to my great aunt Sippia, who was 9 years old at the time, her father's farm produced 30 to 40 bushels of corn per acre without cultivation. Smith Paul built a double log cabin for his family. A "double log cabin" was simply two log cabins built close together, with doors opening into a small space between them. Aunt Sippia said that "These houses though they were crude were comfortable." For several years Smith Paul was the only white man living in the area.  

          In 1861, Confederate troops invaded Indian Territory from Arkansas to the east, and from Texas to the south. Federal troops immediately abandoned Forts Washita, Arbuckle, and Cobb with the help of the Delaware chief, Black Beaver. (see post of April 17, 2011)

          For the course of the War, Indian Territory belonged to the South. It is ironic that the Indians would take the side of the same greedy settlers who had driven them from their homes just 24 years before, and if it had been up to the full bloods, Indian Territory might have remained neutral. Cherokee Chief John Ross sent a letter to Chickasaw Governor Cyrus Harris warning him not to enter into "a family misunderstanding" between the whites "in which…we have no direct and proper concern," but many of the mixed bloods owned slaves and shared a life style similar to southern plantation owners. Also most of the Indians blamed the federal government under Andrew Jackson for the suffering caused by the Removal, and more recently several bills had been submitted to Congress proposing to open Indian Territory to white settlement.  

          The Confederacy coveted Indian Territory for its rich farm land, and also for its strategic location between east and west. Confederate representatives promised to continue the tribes' annuities and to guarantee their independence, and possibly of more significance, they now occupied the forts. Aunt Sippia said simply:  

          When the war broke out the Government removed the troops from Fort Arbuckle, taking away the protection of the Indians, so the Chickasaws were compelled through force of circumstances to enlist with the Confederates. 

          Aunt Sippia goes on:  

          When the Civil War broke out in 1861, the friendly Plains Indians came around the locality where my father had his farm. They were Comanche, Caddo, Cheyenne, Osages, and I think some Delaware. One mixed band located at Cherokee Town, another on my father's farm, a band of Osage across the river and a band of Caddo Indians under old lady White Bead, five miles up the river. And the government realized that they must do something for these Indians, so they appointed my father as an agent, to issue them rations. This was one reason that my father did not have to go to war.  

          Smith and Ellen's family included Ellen's older brother Ja-pawne; her daughter Katherine, who was married to an easterner named Tom Waite; a son Tecumseh, who was married to a Chickasaw woman, Mary McKinsey, and two other sons too young to be conscripted into the army. Uncle Ja-Pawne, along with the two older siblings, took their families to Kansas, where they lived with the Sauk and Fox tribe for the duration of the war. Hull may have had Northern sympathies - I don't know. Uncle Ja-Pawnee and Tecumseh, I'm pretty sure, left because they wanted no part in the white man's battles.    

          Although there wasn't much fighting in Indian Territory during the Civil War, at least not as far west as Smith Paul's farm, our family certainly felt the effects of the war. First, the absence of federal troops at Fort Arbuckle exposed them again to raids from hostile tribes. Aunt Sippia: 

          During the time that my father was agent over the friendly plains Indians, there were wild Indians from Texas and what is now western Oklahoma, that came into this section of the country killing and robbing people. We were always afraid they were coming to molest us, but they never did. However, they did come near enough at one time to scalp one of the Courtney boys, whose father had a farm on "Courtney Flats." There were times when we would hear they were coming and would hide out in the corn fields and in the woods during the day and night.          

          The friendly tribes living nearby offered protection and also meat, since Smith Paul was not yet raising cattle. Aunt Sippia recalled: 

          I remember well when the buffalo roamed this country. The friendly Indians always kept us in buffalo meat. The deer, wild turkey, prairie chicken and quail were in great abundance. There was never any need for us to be without fresh meat. 

          According to Aunt Sippia, the family's main hardship during the war was the lack of manufactured goods.  

          During the Civil War we had to spin and weave all of our cloth, to make our clothes, and knit our hose. I was anxious to do what every one else did and they let me, although I was only about nine years old, I wove enough cloth to make me a dress, even though it looked rather knottie, they made me a dress out of it. The cotton from which we spun the thread had to be picked from the seeds with our fingers. We usually did this work at night. The pecans grew in this locality in great abundance as they do today, and we ate nuts and picked the cotton off the seeds and my mother would tell us Indian legends. We learned by putting the cotton down by the fire and getting it warm it was much easier to get the seeds out. It was during those early days that a man came through the country with what he called a miniature gin, similar to a clothes ringer of today, and this helped us to get the seeds out faster. Of course people came in to see how it worked and every one wanted to try and turn the handle and my brother boy-like turned it and broke the handle off. My mother used to make straw hats for the boys out of wheat straw and in the winter they would catch coons and she would make them caps out of the skins. My father would make us shoes out of cow-hide, he could do a little of everything, but this was only in war times. How I disliked them, and how glad I was when we could buy shoes ready made. 

Footnote: The quotations from Aunt Sippia, Mississippia Paul Hull, are from a talk she made in 1929. She was my great grandfather Sam Paul's younger sister.