We Cried and Kissed Little Forkerberry Goodbye

While I'm writing stories for this blog I'm also working on a larger story about our family. This is what my mother wanted me to do, and it's why she spent so much time dredging up her memories, some of which were painful to her.

Right now I'm working on a chapter about Jim's mother, or "Mamma." Jim's life and those of her other siblings too, were largely shaped by their mother's influence. Jim said to me once, "Mamma was my moral compass."

I found a scrap of paper among Jim's keepsakes entitled "My Creed." It was in Mamma's handwriting.

My creed in life is to be independant. & not be any trouble to any one. Be good to animals. such as Birds, Squirrels, & doggs. I like children. I love art. & flowers. love friends. I've just finished reading The Case of the Velvet Claugh by Earl Stanley Gardner.

And that's just how Mamma was. I don't think anyone could improve on her own description of herself.

Mamma spent most of her childhood, from the age of about seven until she was eleven, on a farm near Palmer Station, Arkansas. Mamma was like Jim in that she could remember vividly details from her past, and she especially loved to tell stories about Arkansas. Jim said, "We were always trying to get Mamma to tell us stories about her childhood."

All of Mamma's children were devoted to her. Every summer Jim's younger sister Oteka would drive up to Pauls Valley from Texas with her younger son Steve, and they would spend a couple of weeks there with Mamma. Of course while they were there the rest of us would go down to visit also. In the summer of 1958 Aunt Oteka and Steve made their usual trip to Pauls Valley, but this year they had a special plan. They were going to take Mamma to Palmer Station, Arkansas, her childhood home.

Mamma was excited about the trip. She wanted to find her father's farm, her older sister Cora's home - Cora was married while they lived there - and she wanted to see if she could find any descendents of the old pioneers she remembered. Mamma was anxious to visit the cemetery to look for the graves of her brother Luther and her sister Eula who had died there. Last but not least, she wanted to take some plants back with her to Pauls Valley that would remind her of Arkansas, like Jack-in-the-pulpits, blackberries, and paw paws.

So Mamma made arrangements with Uncle Haskell to feed her chickens, her dog Spot, and her parakeet, and after she made sure the gas was turned off, the little group left for Palmer Station. When they arrived they discovered there was no longer a town there, just a fork in the road with a couple of houses, so they got rooms at a motel in nearby Searcy and started asking around to locate land marks and old timers. The landmarks Mamma remembered, like houses, big trees and hills, were either long gone or impossible to identify. They did find an old cemetery that might have contained Luther and Eula's graves, but there were no identifiable markers.

Nothing, howeve, could dampen Mamma's enthusiasm. She talked to everyone she met, asking about the old houses, the old cemetery and the old pioneers. Steve said that she filled their trunk with plants. Mamma would see a plant at the side of the road and yell for Oteka to stop. Then they would all get out of the car and wade through the bushes to get to the plant that Mamma wanted. Steve said that one time Mamma disturbed a snake with her shovel, causing the little party to high tail it back to the car while the snake slithered off into the grass.

To me the best thing about the trip was how it pleased Mamma to be 'home' again. Here is a letter that she wrote to Oteka shortly after returning to Pauls Valley. You can just feel the excitement in her words as her memories of Arkansas gush forth.

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.

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.

Hernando De Soto

I've been reading about Chickasaw history ever since high school, and in recent years I've been able to get into more detail and put some of my fragments of knowledge into a context. This is something my mother and I enjoyed sharing with each other. She would show me a paper being discussed by the Chickasaw Historical Society, and I'd tell her about stories I had found in my reading.

In general, reading Indian history is a depressing exercise. You read one story after another about the Indians being deceived, robbed, divided against one another, and cruelly slaughtered because of the white man's greed. The story of the Chickasaws, although in the end as tragic as that of the other tribes, has some bright spots, and one of those is the story of their encounter with Hernando De Soto, the Spanish 'Conquistador.'

After successfully subjugating the powerful Incas in Peru as a captain under Francisco Pizarro, De Soto returned to Spain a wealthy hero. He was rewarded by being made governor of Cuba, and from there he was expected to extend Spain's influence across the 'new world' by colonizing North America. Hopefully he would also find some gold along the way.

De Soto landed in Florida in 1539 with nine ships carrying over 600 men, and tons of armor and supplies, including 240 horses and 200 pigs. He quickly developed a system of communicating with the natives by using the survivor of a prior Spanish expedition as an interpreter. De Soto's Spanish interpreter managed to communicate with most of the tribes they encountered by finding members of his adopted tribe among them.

De Soto moved north up the eastern seaboard during 1539 and 1540, leaving a trail of devastation and plunder in his wake. He played on the Indians' superstition by spreading the rumor that he was an incarnation of the sun god. Finally one tribe decided to stand up to De Soto's army, attacking him with several thousand warriors at the town of Mabila in what is now southern Alabama. De Soto slaughtered the warriors, burned the town, and then headed north and west toward the Chickasaws' domain, in what is now northern Mississippi.

When De Soto came to the Tombigbee River, near modern Tupelo, he was impressed with the Chickasaws' extensive fields of maize, and he decided to spend the winter there. After slight resistance at the river De Soto was received hospitably by the Chickasaws, and he chose to treat them more diplomatically than was his habit. His men even accompanied the Chickasaws in a raid on a neighboring tribe.

When spring came though, De Soto reverted to form and demanded that the Chickasaws supply 200 litter bearers, hacking the hands off an unfortunate brave to show that he meant business. The Chickasaws not only said no to the mighty Spaniards, they decided to evict them. The Chickasaw warriors routed De Soto's men in a surprise night attack, sending the Spaniards running for their lives wearing only their underwear. The Chickasaw women also participated in the attack by carrying coals in earthen pots to set the Spaniards' camp afire. De Soto lost a dozen men killed and many wounded, and 60 horses were either killed or captured. The only thing that saved the Spanish from total annihilation was the confusion caused by their stampeding horses, which caused the Chickasaws to fear a mounted counterattack. The Chickasaws lost only one man.

De Soto's men fled to a nearby village where they repaired and replaced their weapons and other equipment as best they could. The Spaniards were able to fight off a second attack by the Chickasaws at their new encampment, and when they had recovered enough to flee north toward the Mississippi River, the Chickasaws pursued them and inflicted more casualties. De Soto crossed the Mississippi and continued his expedition for another two years, but he never messed with the Chickasaws again.

I have always thought this was a remarkable story. The Chickasaws, never numbering more than a few hundred warriors and armed only with primative weapons, managed to defeat a well armed Spanish army which had previously decimated an Indian force of thousands.

The Chickasaws were and are something special, well deserving of their motto: Unconquered and Unconquerable."

Back to New Bern

Actually John Paul Jones wasn't our only family member to fight in the Revolutionary War. John's nephew Jacob was a member of the Virginia Militia. Jacob migrated down to New Bern, North Carolina, after the war, where he began farming. Jacob's son Rhesa settled there too, and in 1808 married Tamsey Whealton. In 1809 Rhesa and Tamsey had a son, and they named him Smith, Smith Paul, my great great grandfather.

Smith was the oldest of nine siblings. His mother Tamsey died in 1819, and Smith, at the age of eleven, left home and joined a band of Chickasaw Indians. He must have had some pretty exciting adventures during this time, but we know very little. What we do know is that New Bern, North Carolina, is on the east coast, and the Chickasaws' homeland in Mississippi is about 400 miles away as the crow flies, too far for an eleven year old boy to travel by himself. I think that Smith must run across a group of Chickasaws on a trading mission.

At any rate, Smith ended up living with the Chickasaws until their forced removal to Indian Territory in 1837, 17 years later, so he spent most of his childhood with them.

The Chickasaws were more influenced by the white culture than many tribes, and by this period in history many were traders and farmers, but the old Chickasaw traditions and culture were still well known and practiced by many. Smith Paul grew up speaking the Chickasaw language, and he would have learned many of the Chickasaw traditions. By the time he decided to go with them to what is now Oklahoma, "Smith Paul was an Indian," as my mother put it.

According to my Uncle Haskell's story, which he got from Uncle Buck, Smith Paul's grandson, Smith made two trips to California with wagon trains before the Removal, so he was familiar with the country west of Mississippi. His daughter, 'Aunt Sippia,' said of him: "My father was interested in farming. It was always his desire to go into the farming business on a large scale."

Apparently Smith Paul saw the Removal as an opportunity to pursue his dream. He had kept in contact with his family through the years, and before his journey west with the Chickasaws he made one last trip home to tell his family of his decision to cast his lot with the Indians.

After saying goodbye to his family, Smith Paul returned to begin the arduous journey which would come to be known as the "Trail of Tears" by the Five Civilized Tribes. Neither he nor his adopted people could have imagined the hardships that were in store for them.

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

My mother was Episcopalian like her mother. Jim said that "Mamma" had joined the church when she was 16 after her mother passed away. The Episcopal Church was one of the few churches who had missionaries in Indian Territory at that time.

The Episcopal church served Mamma well, helping her through the deaths of her three older children. She also credited the prayers of the Episcopal priest and congregation with the recovery of her daughter, Kaliteyo, who almost died from a bad case of pneumonia in 1923.

In the mid '20's, when the Episcopal Church could no longer afford to send a priest to Pauls Valley, Mamma took her children to the nearest parish which was in Sulfur, Oklahoma, 30 miles away, riding with neighbors. When the church reestablished a parish in Pauls Valley 25 years later, Mamma became one of its charter members.

In 1941 when my parents were married, my father became an Episcopalian, and during my childhood most of our family life centered around the church. Jim was a member of the altar guild, and she helped to organize many church projects. My father was elected to the vestry and I was an acolyte.

After I graduated from college and left home, my parents continued to be active in the church and after my father died in 2000, Jim continued to attend services as long as she was able.

One evening, during the last days of Jim's life, she said to me: Mamma taught us to kneel down by the side of our bed and say a little prayer before we went to sleep. I said it for Kaliteyo 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.

I also said the prayer for Jim when she died.

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.

It All Started with John Paul Jones

In one of Jim's early lessons about our heritage, she mentioned in passing that we were related to John Paul Jones. "His name wasn't really Jones though," she said. "It was Paul."

I didn't learn much more than that until much later. Oh, I learned in school that John Paul Jones had taken over the fledgling American navy and had surprised the arrogant British by defeating them on several occasions. I learned about his famous battle with the British Man of War, Serapis, during which the British commander asked if he was ready to surrender. John Paul Jones replied, "I have not yet begun to fight," and then went on to win the battle.

In recent years, while doing research about the family, I found out that John Paul Jones was notorious for more than just being the father of the US Navy. More in character for a Paul, he actually came to America as a fugitive from justice. John Paul - his original name - was born in Kirkcudbright, in southern Scotland. He left home at age 13 as a ship's apprentice, and by age 21 he had been promoted to the rank of captain. The Paul temper eventually got John into trouble though. First he flogged a sailor who died of his wounds, and later he ran a man through during an argument over pay. Ben Franklin said that John Paul told him that the man had been involved in a mutiny attempt, but John must have thought there were some holes in his defense, because he didn't stay for the trial, but instead high tailed it to the American Colonies, where his brother William had recently passed away. John was the executor of the will and received a sizable inheritance. Along the way, he changed his sir name to Jones to throw off his pursuers.

I suppose a lot of people claim to be kin to the founding fathers, but I believe that our claim is legitimate, not just because John's behavior seems to fit the Paul mold, but because when I was a teenager, Uncle Haskell travelled to Virginia and checked out the court documents. Also he corresponded with some cousins of ours who had enough proof to get themselves admitted to the DAR.

According to Haskell's research, William Paul, John Paul's brother, was the great grandfather to Smith Paul, my great great grandfather, and the founder of Pauls Valley.