How deep are your roots in Oklahoma?

[eddie gein]

My great paternal grandfather came from Sweden and landed in Nebraska. He came to Oklahoma for the run and settled in eastern Kingfisher county. The story goes that the Dalton gangs mother lived on the next quarter.

He bought out a bunch of people in Kingfisher Co. Sold his holdings there and along with his brother did the Cherokee strip run and settled in the Waukomis area.

In 1995 I was doing a project in Poteau and living in an apartment. I noticed that the pretty young girl who lived above me had Kingfisher Co. plates on her car. Pretty unusual for Poteau. When I asked her about it she told me that she had bought the car in Kingfisher but was actually from Drummond (the town next to Waukomis in Garfield county).

After talking to her for a while it turned out that her great grandfather was that brother of my great grandfather who came over from Sweden to do the Cherokee strip run.

[karibear]

Originally Posted by LadyRobyn

If you don't mind me asking...

Some things a few of you have mentioned, (jessaka's great-grandmother and the trail of tears, redbird learning the teaching of his people etc.) got me to wondering.

My father's family is from OK, mostly. His mother was half Apache and was born in a covered wagon outside Paint Rock, TX, and she married a Cavalry sergeant major who went all over the world. They had 5 kids who were born every which where, but all went back to OK when he retired from the Army. She had a lot of relatives in OK and wanted to be around them - one of them, her brother, was Farmer Ray who played ball for the St Louis Browns. One of my uncles said they all knew they were Indians, but it was 'socially inhibiting' in those days, so they just didn't claim it. One of the more interesting bits about the grands was that being in the cavalry in OK, he was busy chasing Indians, and some of her relatives worked with him as scouts to help him catch others of their relatives. My uncle said at times like that it got very tense at home, but people did whatever they had to in order to survive and feed their families. Whatever they did, it worked. My father and all his brothers and sisters went to the university at Norman, and all of them graduated with honors and some of them went on to graduate schools of one kind or another. My father went to the Naval Academy in DC, and two of his brothers went to whatever the Army equivalent was in DC. Eventually my father switched too, because he loved playing polo and the Navy didn't keep horses. So I have roots in OK. Even in Alaska I had roots, that's where my father was born when his father was stationed at Fort Seward. He claimed he wasn't even entirely sure he was American, because he was born somewhere in the Chilkoot Pass, and no one knew whether it was on the US side or the Canadian side.

I don't reallly think there's any way to trace any of them, because my grandmother apparently changed the names of her relatives and offspring on a whim. She'd just decide one day she was tired of 'Frank' and he was now going to be 'Henry' and so he was. Her name, though, before she got married was Jenny Running Deer.

[Schousse]

Originally Posted by Brasidas

Mother and Grandfather are buried there. Was born in Wichita, raised in Tulsa and Cleveland, Ok.

Adopted mom, her parents (my grandparents), all live in Cleveland area. My sister lives in Bixby, and I visit every six weeks or so.

My son lives across the highway from my mom and grandparents.

We live about 8 miles from Cleveland, in Terlton.

I was born and raised in the Netherlands and lived in Canada, Maine and Cape Cod, MA for 25 years before moving here. For the second time in my life I feel I am "home", the first time when I lived in Newfoundland.

I loce Oklahoma and as far as I am concerned I'll never leave.