Are you ready for more stories from Showmen’s Rest? I hope so because I’ve got plenty of them.

It’s been fun to look at these pictures again. When I took them, I was not inclined to linger because we had a schedule to keep and another cemetery to visit in Dekalb, Texas before we made it to Texarkana that evening. I knew I could look at them later. I just didn’t reckon on it being four years later.

Hippo Trainer

One marker I’d forgotten about is for John “Dutch” Narfski. Unlike many of the stones I saw that featured elephants, Dutch’s small marker was different. His features a hippo!

Dutch Narfski was born in Poland in 1888, far from the American circus ring. I found a 1948 Daily Oklahoman newspaper article that filled in some of the blanks about his life. Dutch got into the circus world when he left Poland for Mexico in 1902 (which would have made him about 14) with the Hagenback Animal Show, headquartered in Hamburg, Germany at the time.

The article detailed the different diets of the animals Dutch cared for and his theories on training. He said, “There’s no such thing as a trained wild animal. You can train them, but you can never be certain that they stay tamed. That’s why they are caged.” He was said to have the scars to prove that experience.

Dutch worked for various circuses and shows over the years, and spent time with trainer Leo Blondin at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo. By 1948, he’d made his home with the Al G. Kelly and Miller Bros. Circus. The article noted that “lions, tigers, leopards, and the hippo” were his favorites. The Miller circus had just added the hippo that I believe is on Dutch’s grave marker, who was called Miss Oklahoma.

Dutch retired shortly before he died. He passed away on Jan. 29, 1966 in Hugo at the age of 77.

Heart of Showmen’s Rest

Last week, I mentioned that John Carroll was truly instrumental in making Showmen’s Rest at Mount Olivet Cemetery possible because of his love for the circus and the people whom he worked with for many years. I thought I’d missed photographing his marker but it turns out I was wrong. Here it is.

From what I’ve read, it was John who worked to make sure any circus person who needed a final resting place would have one at Showmen’s Rest. You can see an indication of that on some of the markers.

Swain and Snooks

Missouri native Kennedy Swain is reported to have been a child of show business. He performed in vaudeville and the stage, and he was a comedian in Plunkett’s Variety Show.

The World War II U.S. Air Force veteran worked as a sideshow manager for the Al G. Kelly and Miller Brothers Circus He was also an announcer for the Carson and Barnes Circus. In later years, he worked for the Daily Brothers Circus of Gonzalez, Texas.

Kennedy died of cancer in Texas on Aug. 16, 1974. His stone was paid for by John Carroll’s Fund.

Kennedy’s wife Zenda “Snooks” Plunkett Swain was a member of the Plunkett family, and a drummer in the circus band. Their son, Bill, followed them into the business as well. He became part owner of the Daily Brothers Circus.

Zenda died on May 28, 1990. She is buried beside Kennedy.

The Elephant Men

Born in 1940 in Zincville, Okla., Donnie Charles Carr worked for Carson and Barnes Circus from his teens. He worked with various animals but he became known as the “Elephant Man”. His large marker is a testament to that work.

Then there’s Terry Fenne, who has a bench to mark his grave that invites guest to “Have A Seat On Me”. Not only does if feature Terry with one of his elephants, it is embossed with the emblems of the circuses he worked for. Beneath the bench is a little elephant statue. He was known as the “Mud Show Elephant Man”.

Kathleen Maca, a fellow taphophile, wrote some detailed posts about Showmen’s Rest. Her site included the following information about Terry. I encourage you to visit her site because it’s a great resource.

Fenne literally ran away from his home in Madison, Wisc. to join the circus at age 14. He worked for six different circuses including: Fisher Brothers Circus, Circus Genoa, Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus, Roberts Brothers Circus, Kelly-Miller Circus and Carson & Barnes Circus.

Known as the “Mud Show Elephant Man”, he trained elephants and drove the elephant truck across the country for many years. The last few years of his life, he operated an umbrella hot dog pushcart in downtown Paris, Texas, and became a fixture of the town.

Terry died at age 56 on June 14, 2006.

Theodore “Ted” Svertesky loved elephants from boyhood. Born in Connecticut in 1954, he ran away to join the circus at age 14 but was returned to his parents. Yet Ted would not be deterred. He returned to the circus at age 17 and never left.

Ted knew he had a prime opportunity to learn from the best and did all he could to do just that, looking to Buckles Woodcock and Fred Logan for their wisdom. His career soared and by 1994, Ted was presenting the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus elephant act in the show.

On Jan. 13, 1994, the Ringling show opened in Tampa, Fla. before heading to St Peterburg, then leaving for Orlando. At 9:08 a.m, due to a broken wheel, 16 cars of their train derailed of which five cars turned on their side. Two people were killed that day, Ceslee Conkling, a 28-year-old circus clown, and 39-year-old Ted Svertesky.

Lastly, let’s visit the grave of Kenneth Ray “Turtle” Benson. Ken wasn’t one for the spotlight. He was thorough and some said, not exactly a fast mover around the big top until showtime. Thus, he earned the nickname of Turtle. Born in Chippewa County, Minn in 1945, he had no interest in being a star. For Ken, it was all about the elephants.

The poem on his marker was written by a friend, John Herriott. You can read the entire poem in the photo below. I especially liked these lines:

He didn’t have a fancy wardrobe

And never pretended to be a Knave.

In fact, he always looked like he needed a shave.

But a Showman he is for season after season

Because it was the way of life he loved

That had to be the reason.

Kenny died on Nov. 16, 2001 at age 56. Kathleen Maca’s site says he spent his last years with Roberts Bros. Circus.

Still hungry for some circus stories? Don’t worry, I’ve got more coming in Part III.

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the day when I would write about Showmen’s Rest, which is part of Mount Olivet Cemetery in Hugo, Okla. It was my goal to wait until I got to this point in the 2019 road trip to do so. There’s so much history to this special place that I want to give it the time and attention it deserves.

For those following along on a map, Hugo is about 3.5 hours southeast of Lawton.

First, I want to point out that there are other cemeteries where circus folk are buried. There’s a Showmen’s Rest within Forest Park, Ill.’s Woodlawn Cemetery. I visited that one in 2015 when we were in Chicago for the 200th anniversary of the S.S. Eastland disaster. One of Chris’ cousins is buried at Woodlawn. There’s also a Showmen’s Rest in Tampa, Fla.

The Showmen’s League of America was formed in 1913 with Buffalo Bill Cody as its first president. The organization purchased the land at Woodlawn in part because of a 1918 circus train wreck that killed an estimated 60 people. Other circus performers have been buried there over the years since then.

Circus City, USA

Hugo became known as Circus City, USA around the 1930s. Many circuses chose to settle in Hugo during the off season and later, many circus folk chose to retire there because they felt at home. Many circus people still live there today. Carson and Barnes Circus is still performing today and winters in Hugo.

Several people have written about how Hugo’s Showmen’s Rest got started. The best explanation I could find came from a Library of Congress blog’s 2018 article by Stephen Winick called “Everybody Works: Documenting Circus Life in Hugo, Oklahoma”.

Since 1960, showmen and women from around the country, not just Hugo, are memorialized at Showmen’s Rest at the Mount Olivet Cemetery. While Hugo circus legend D.R. Miller was responsible for purchasing a large section of plots for the purposes of developing Showmen’s Rest, a man by the name of John Carroll who worked for Carson and Barnes Circus his entire adult life, is also to thank for it. A drifter, he joined the circus as a teenager and remained with the Hugo-based show until his death in 1960. According to D.R. Miller’s daughter, Barbara Miller Byrd, Carroll left a sum of money to Miller, and Miller then developed the idea of Showmen’s Rest.

Dores R. Miller (mentioned above as D.R.) and Kelly Miller were the sons of Obert Miller (1886-1969), who started the family circus in 1937. The brothers’ mother, Jennie Williams Miller, died in 1929. Obert had been a vaudeville and circus performer before that. D.R. and Kelly were his partners in running Al G. Miller and Miller Brothers Circus. D.R. actually performed as a tight rope walker in his younger days.

Eventually, Kelly sold his share of the business to D.R. in 1958, just two years before he died in 1960 at age 46. At the top of his marker are two pouncing tigers with the words “Dun Rovin” between them.

Obert Miller died in 1969 at age 83. His marker has the entrance of a theater on it with drama masks.

D.R. Miller lived to the age of 83, dying in 1999. On the front, his grave looks much like his brother Kelly’s.

On the back, you can see elephants and a circus tent. D.R. and Jack B. Moore formed a partnership in 1953. Moore had operated the Tex Carson Circus. D.R. leased from Moore tents, equipment and an elephant named Mabel to the show, which later became the Carson and Barnes Circus. You can see the words “Carson and Barnes” on the back of one of the elephants on the marker.

On the Flying Trapeze

One of my favorite markers is for Grace McFarland, who spent much of her career flying high on the trapeze. She worked with several circuses over the course of her career.

Grace Lillian Sykes was born July 25, 1915 in Canada. She was a trapeze artist, aerialist, and bareback rider traveling with Ringling Brothers, Clyde Beatty, James M. Cole, Shine Circus and Tom Mix. She was also the producer of her own show, which was M&M International Circus. Grace’s first husband was Davey McIntosh. After he died, she married Walter “Mac” McFarland.

Grace spent the last 30 years of her life in Hugo, Okla. and died there on Oct. 28, 2016 at age 101.

“To Each His Own”

Another one of my favorite markers is for Frances Stokes Loter Padilla. Her marker includes a picture of her handling snakes, one of her many talents. As a girl, she learned fancy rope spinning and practiced doing a contortion routine while balancing a glass of water on her head. WOW!

After marrying Dick Loter, Frances had seven children who learned to work the shows at young ages. Five of them dropped out of the business, reappearing in tents once in a while to sell novelties and concessions. They worked primarily for the Tex Carson Circus.

Frances died in 2003 at age 78.

Chimp Trainer

Bonnie “Jean” Warner’s stone features a photo of her with a chimpanzee. A native of Terra Haunte, Ind., she worked with a number of circuses over the years, including James M. Cole and the Kelly and Miller Circuses. I found a number of pictures of her on Ancestry with her chimps, but she also like to ride a unicycle with the clowns.

I don’t know what year Jean decided to retire, but her last years were spent in Myrtle Beach, S.C. with her husband, Norman. They owned a locksmith shop there. She died on Nov. 6, 1998. Her marker indicates she was born in 1923, making her 75. But her obituary has her birth year as 1933.

One Dog and One Pony

One of the tallest markers at Showmen’s Rest is for John “Big John” Strong, founder and owner of the Big John Circus. John started it in Hollywood, Calif. 1948 with his wife, Ruth. “He always wanted to have a circus,” she said. “It was, I think, in his blood.”

“It started with one dog and one pony,” Ruth’s son John Jr. said. Ruth trained the animals, and the young couple took their show on the road. At their winter quarters, elephants grazed under oak trees and Ruth continued to train about 50 animals.

“It was love and discipline in equal measure,” said daughter Linda, who began riding elephants when she was four.

Ruth knew she wanted to raise her children in the circus. “It was a healthy life,” she said. “Traveling was good for them and meeting different people was very good for them.

John’s marker says a lot about him. At 6′ 5″, he loved stepping into to the circus ring, donning tails and a top hat that made him appear even taller. But he also loved people, Linda said.

“He knew so many people all over the country and he never forgot anybody’s name,” she said. “That’s kind of how he became known as ‘The man with more friends than Santa Claus,’ which he had printed on the sides of his trucks. It became his motto.”

John died on Jan. 6, 1992 at age 71.

There are more stories to share from Showmen’s Rest in Part II.

Pecan Cemetery would be my next to last cemetery stop in Lawton. I did visit one more but it was a very brief one and I didn’t take enough photos to make it “blog worthy”, so to speak.

The gates of Pecan Cemetery let you know at once that it was established in 1906 when the land was still called Oklahoma Territory. Statehood would come a year later.

According to Find a Grave, Pecan Cemetery has a little over 500 memorials recorded. It’s not a very big cemetery but it appears to be well cared for by the locals. The gates look fairly new. That’s the extend of my knowledge about it.

Mother and Son

Seeing a grave marker for a mother and son is not unheard of, I’ve seen several. But I’m always curious to know what the story is behind one.

Born in 1876 in Wisconsin, Emma married German immigrant Frank Penskofer around 1896. I have seen her maiden name listed as both Tank and Faulk/Fauk. By 1910, the couple was farming in Painter, Okla. with their seven children. The township wasn’t far from Lawton.

On July 14, 1910, Frank and Emma’s oldest son, Warren, died at the age of 13. Try as I might, I could not find out what his cause of death was. I couldn’t find an obit for him.

In 1912, at age, 36, Emma gave birth to her eighth child, also named Emma, on Jan. 21, 1912. Emma (the mother) died two weeks later on Feb. 6, 1912. Her obituary said it was from blood poisoning but today it would be called postpartum sepsis. It still happens today. According to the CDC, sepsis is the second leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths.

According to her obituary, Emma’s funeral was conducted by Rev. E. C. Deyo, who founded the Deyo Mission Chapel I talked about a few weeks ago.

Frank remarried in 1913 to Annie McDonald, who passed away in 1915. He waited several years to remarry to twice-widowed Allie Amanda Thurman Smith Lockhart in 1931. Frank was about 20 years older than Allie. He died in 1954 and Allie die in 1976. They are buried together at Pecan Cemetery.

“Dropped Dead”

In researching the grave of Sarah Ward, I encountered a phrase that I continue to find in obituaries from this era: “dropped dead”. I have yet to discern why newspapers used these words when they could have simply said “died”. Maybe they thought more people would buy the newspaper to find out why with a headline like that.

Born in Tennessee, Sarah Elizabeth McKrackin married Missouri native James Ward in 1888. Contrary to what her initial obituary said, the couple had nine children together. I’ll let you read how the newspaper described her last hours. She was 57 when she died on Nov. 19, 1925.

At the time of Sarah’s death, her children were grown and many had moved away. Her husband, James, moved to Roswell, N.M. to be near his daughter Beulah. He died there in 1946. His obituary states that many of his children moved there to be near him. He is buried in Roswell at South Park Cemetery.

Homemade Stones

Pecan Cemetery has some interesting homemade markers. I’m always intrigued by the anonymous individuals who take this kind of task on, adding their unique style. It can’t be easy.

The marker for Josephine “Josie” Wilson Crook features a large star and even has a footstone behind it with her initials “JMC”.

Josie married Richard Crook about 1913 in Oklahoma. They were the parents of three children, Marvin, Leroy, and Francis. She was only 42 when she died on March 4, 1929. Her youngest child, Francis, was only 10. I’m not sure where her husband is buried but her parents are buried in Pecan Cemetery in unmarked graves.

I could find no information at all about poor William A. Carter, who only lived one day. He died on April 18, 1918. His marker says he is the “son of Mrs. Ollie Hough” but there are no other Houghs in the cemetery. The other Carter buried there does not appear to be related to him.

If you were looking only at the stone of Vilas Mitchell, you would find out nothing beyond his name. Fortunately, his Find a Grave memorial included an obituary from the Lawton Constitution that said he died 12 miles south of Lawton on Nov. 15, 1919 at the age of 16. I learned he was the son of Frank and Nora Mitchell, and was one of their several children. I think he’s the only one of the Mitchell family buried at Pecan Cemetery.

There are two Harris markers at Pecan Cemetery. One simply says “Harris” and the other “Bobbie Ray Harris”. Again, I am thankful to the Lawton Constitution for reporting that Bobbie Ray was the six-week-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Dan Harris. He died on June 28, 1932. It’s my guess that the other Harris grave marker is for a sibling.

A Double Murder

Up to this point, my research about those buried at Pecan Cemetery had been pretty tame. Then I looked up Howard Owen Reynolds and that abruptly changed.

Born in 1897, Howard and his family moved from Illinois to Lawton when he was about six. He was one of several siblings. Howard served in the 79th Infantry, 15th Division during World War I. In 1925, he married Augusta Littlepage. He was 28, she was 18.

It may have already begun but after that, his life began to unravel. According to a family tree on Ancestry.com, someone had written that by 1928, “His profession when not committing crimes and engaging in adultery was barbering.” The 1928 Lawton business directory confirms he was a barber. The 1930 U.S. Census has him residing in the Comanche County Jail. Howard and Augusta divorced that year and she went to live with her parents. They had no children that I know of. Perhaps it was for the best considering what happened later.

Howard was keeping company with Faye Hennessee, the estranged wife of 58-year-old Jim “Peck” Hennessee in March 1934. She was Jim’s third wife and they had five children together, two others dying in infancy. Her situation must have been dire because she was living in a tent on the edge of town with the children. Howard was out on bail, awaiting action on a burglary charge.

Sometime on April 12, 1934, Howard and Jim Hennessee got into a physical fight at the tent where Faye and the children lived. Later that day, Jim returned with a gun and found Howard sitting in a car with Faye and Howard’s brother, Hughey. Howard and Faye jumped out of the car and ran, and Jim shot at them. Hughey remained in the car but was also injured. Howard and Faye lay dead in the road. Hughey survived and went on to later testify against Jim. Fortunately, none of the Hennessee children were injured.

At first, Jim denied he’d had anything to do with the murders. Hughey said otherwise. Eventually, Jim confessed but claimed he had shot at Howard in self defense and had not realized he was also firing his gun toward his estranged wife. Jim was charged with murder.

Jim was first tried for Faye’s murder and the jury lowered the charge to voluntary manslaughter, with a sentence of 10 years. He was due to stand trial for Howard’s death after that. I do know he appealed the sentence for Faye’s murder but it was upheld.

I believe Jim was sentenced to an additional 10 years for Howard’s murder because the next news article I found reported that after serving 13 months of his 20-year sentence, Jim was paroled in May 1937 due to illness. He had served his time at McAlester Penitentiary, now known as Oklahoma State Penitentiary. That made me very curious as to where Jim Hennessee landed after his parole.

According to Ancestry, Jim was an inmate at the Central State Hospital Annex in Alderson, Okla. in 1940. That’s not far from the McAlester Penitentiary but about three hours east of Lawton. In 1953, it became Griffin Memorial Hospital, a 120-bed acute psychiatric hospital that’s still in operation today. I did learn that Central was where the criminally insane were housed so I’m guessing Jim Hennessee was found mentally ill.

Jim Hennessee died on March 10, 1945 and is buried in an unmarked grave in the Central State Hospital Annex Cemetery in McAlester. Faye Hennessee, his estranged wife and victim, is buried at Pecan Cemetery with two of her adult children.

Having read all this, I felt for the families destroyed and the lives lost, regardless of their actions. This took place during the Great Depression, in the throes of the Dustbowl days when life was especially hard in the Sooner State. When living in a tent wasn’t out of the ordinary and trying to survive on the edges of society was the norm for many.

On the Road to Hugo

I went to pick up Sarah after that. The next day, we headed east to begin our trek back to Georgia. Our next stop was Showman’s Rest at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Hugo, Okla. You won’t want to miss that.

Last week, I shared the origins of Lawton, Okla.’s Deyo Mission Church and Deyo Mission Cemetery, along with stories about some of those buried here. I’ve got a few more I wanted to pass along today. So let’s get started.

Chief Paddyaker

Doing research for the graves I photographed at DMC was a bit of a challenge sometimes because of the Native American names. Many had more than one and sometimes they were spelled differently on their marker. That was the case for Par-Ri-Eck-I-Vit, who has an above ground tomb with a larger monument in front of it.

When I looked up his memorial on Find a Grave, I realized that Par-Ri-Eck-I-Vit was more commonly known as Chief Paddyaker. This was the uncle of Wickkie, who I told you about last week. She was the wife of John Tabbytite, a member of Troop L of the Seventh Cavalry of the U.S. Army.

Chief Paddyaker was a Comanche, and his birth year appears as either 1843 or 1853. His 1927 obituary states that: “Paddy Aker [I have seen it spelled different ways] was one of the old-time Indians, was here when Lawton was founded, has always proved himself a friend of the white race. He professed conversion and united with the Deyo Missionary Baptist Church about 20 years ago.”

The grave of Iolene Paddyaker is nearby, a child who only lived six years and died in 1924. She was the daughter of Benton Dudley Paddyaker, who was related in some way to Chief Paddyaker.

Kosepeah

I always enjoy seeing gravestones with portraits on them, and the one for Kosepeah is no exception. She looks like a wise woman who saw much in her life. I could find little about her but she is related to the Red Elk family. If her marker is any indication, she was born around 1867.

On Find a Grave, I saw that Kosepeah had two husbands, Kiowa George Ate-Te-Wuth-Take-Wa (who died in 1901) and Po-Ah-Way (who died in 1914). Both are buried at DMC. Beside Kosepeah is her grandson Clifford Red Elk. Clifford, born in 1918 (I think) was the son of Walter Red Elk and Charlotte Tah-Hah-Wah.

According to his obituary, Clifford attended the Fort Sill Indian School later switched to the Chilocco Indian School near the Kansas border. He drew a lot of attention for his boxing abilities. One article I found said he was “rated as one of the best 118-lb. Golden Glove prospects in Oklahoma” at the time of his death.

According to several articles I found, he died of tuberculosis in late February 1938. Yet his grave marker has a death date of Dec. 27, 1938 for him. That makes no sense to me. Was there some kind of mix up with the carver? I honestly don’t know. Regardless, Clifford’s life ended much too soon.

Mystery Graves

In some cases, I could find absolutely nothing about the deceased. Cooseronah is a good example of this. She has a beautiful stone with a portrait. But there was no information about her that I could use to shed light on her past.

The grave for this baby was another mystery. She only lived four months, dying in April 1901. Who were her parents?

I saw four different flat squares that are all marked “Tosee Baby” with no date. This is just one of them.

The Maddox Sisters

I found two sisters buried beside each other at DMC. Of Comanche heritage, Lucele and Matilda Maddox were close in age and attended the Fort Sill Indian School on the reservation. Their parents were George Maddox and Eck-Ah-Sy (Grace) Maddox. They had several siblings. Two of their brothers served in the military.

I learned from the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture:

First established as a Quaker boarding school in 1871, the Fort Sill Indian School became a nonsectarian institution in 1891 and remained so until closing in 1980. During its long history the school expanded from one building to 30. Its enrollment increased from 24 in its first year to more than 300 in the 1970s, and the number of employees on its payroll went from two in 1871 to more than 75 a decade later. Because the school was located near Lawton, before World War II Fort Sill’s student body was made up largely of Indians from western Oklahoma — Comanche, Apache, Caddo, Kiowa, Delaware, and Wichita.

The Fort Sill Indian School buildings were abandoned but still exist. You can read more about there here.

Born in 1890, Lucele Maddox would have been 17 or 18 when she died on Oct. 4, 1908. I don’t know her cause of death.

Mathilda Maddox, born in 1891, would have also been around 17 or 18 when she died on July 17, 1909.

It was terrible blow for their parents. Just a few months before Lucele died, their infant daughter Daisy had passed away.

George Maddox died in 1920 at age 56. He is buried near his daughters. I did not see Grace Maddox’s grave but she is likely buried there as well.

Missionary to the Comanches

Mabel Moon Gilbert was not a Comanche. She was a white woman. But she had a heart for the Comanche and it appears they loved her back.

Born in Fairfield, Ill. in 1885, Mabel graduated from Shurtleff College in Alton, Ill. in 1904. It was later absorbed by Southern Illinois University. After that, she taught for three years in American mission colleges. She married Hervey F. Gilbert in 1911 and the pair both attended the Rochester Theological Seminary. They served as missionaries to Africa in 1913 but returned in 1916 due to Mabel’s health. Mabel and Hervey moved to the Lawton area in 1920. They had three children together, one dying in infancy.

I don’t know her cause of death but Mabel died at home on Jan. 17, 1929. She was 43. Her funeral service included both whites and Native Americans. Below is a newspaper account of that unique event that I found very interesting. Mabel had clearly made an impact among both whites and Native Americans in the four years she lived in Oklahoma.

Note that in the article, it says Mabel was buried at the IOOF (Independent Order of Odd Fellows) Cemetery. Yet she is buried at the Deyo Mission Cemetery. It would make sense for her to be at DMC due to her love of the Comanche. Is it possible she was buried there first but later moved to DMC so she was closer to the people she loved?

Rev. Hervey Gilbert remarried to Ruth Long. He died in 1963 and is buried at Pomona Valley Memorial Park in Los Angeles, Calif.

It was time to start heading back to pick up Sarah. But I wanted to stop at nearby Pecan Cemetery on the way there. Please meet me there for my next adventure.

Sarah wanted to visit some of her Lawton relatives so I dropped her off so she could do that. I decided to head over to the Deyo Mission Cemetery (DMC) that wasn’t far away. DMC is located a bit west of town. It’s another one of the KCA Intertribal Burial Grounds cemeteries.

The Deyo Baptist Church is to the right of the church’s parking lot. Because they were having an activity that day and members were present outside, I didn’t photograph it. So I headed over to the cemetery, which is on the far left side of the parking lot.

Deyo Mission History

The Deyo Mission’s history was documented online, thankfully. I don’t always get that lucky. Here’s what I found in The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture (EOHC):

The Deyo Mission, also called the First Comanche Mission, was established by Elton Cyrus Deyo in late winter 1893 near Cache. Deyo, a Baptist and 1893 graduate of the Colgate Theological Seminary, arrived at the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Reservation in October 1893 with his wife, Anna. The Comanche gave them a cool reception. Indeed, church construction began at three or four different sites before the Deyos finally found one that was acceptable to the Comanche (five miles east and two miles south of Cache). Formally organized in November 1895, the congregation struggled in its first years, and the Deyos claimed only 13 Comanche converts by 1901. Between 1902 and 1911, however, Deyo converted 150, with 36 in 1903 alone.

E. C. Deyo was also an outspoken promoter of development in the region, and he gained a reputation for supporting the opening of reservation lands to non-Indians on the grounds that it would hasten the conversion of the Comanche. He reported his own efforts “to prepare the Comanche to meet his God, and dwell with him in heaven forever,” and he looked forward to the time when “these broad prairies may be settled by industrious Christian whites, who will help to roll onward the Grand Old Gospel Car.”

The Deyo Mission, now the Deyo Baptist Church, has been in continuous use since its founding and since the middle of the twentieth century has had a succession of Comanche pastors. Like many other Indian churches, it has often provided Comanche a way to maintain elements of their traditional culture through the use, for example, of native hymns.

I’m not sure how most people, Native American or white, would feel today about E.C. Deyo’s philosophy on converting Native Americans. Regardless, the church seems to be thriving and is an integral part of the community. Pictured above is the first building of the Deyo Mission, borrowed from the EOHC website. Today, it is a brick building.

Find a Grave reports about 770 memorials for Deyo Mission Cemetery. It looks like it has more than that there. But what I did see was fascinating. In the picture below, on the left behind Sarah’s car, you can get a glimpse of the side of the church with Mount Scott in the background.

“Sun Rays Shining Through the Clouds”

If you go looking for information on John Tabbytite, you won’t find much. There’s an article about him on JSTOR.org about him but you have to pay money to read it. Fortunately, I found a 1960 newspaper article about him in The Lawton Chronicle that helped me. His Comanche name means “Sun Rays Shining Through the Clouds”.

Born on August 2, 1872 in Texas, John Tabbytite belonged to the Seventh Cavalry, Troop L. You might remember that group from my post a few weeks back about Fort Sill’s Apache South Cemetery. Clarence Bailsto was a member, along with many Apache and Kiowa. The article says John’s father, Hoawah, was a Spaniard captured by the Comanche in the 1840s, and his mother was half Comanche, half Crow. His family ended up in Oklahoma on the reservation and John worked on a nearby ranch. But he longed for a better life.

When he was 18, John and one of his cousins joined the all-Native American Troop L of the Seventh Cavalry, led by Lt. Hugh Scott. Scott was well respected by Native Americans. John and the soldiers drilled and learned marksmanship.

According to John, he was among the soldiers when Geronimo and the Apaches moved from Mount Vernon Barracks in Alabama to Fort Sill. In fact, John was the first soldier among Troop L to ride up to Geronimo to welcome him to Fort Sill. It was not a task he was happy about due to Geronimo’s reputation. He described him as a “tough, mean looking old man.”

John enjoyed his days in Troop L, living in the barracks as a single man. Married soldiers lived with their families on the reservation. The Troop disbanded in 1897. John would eventually marry his wife Wickkie, at the Deyo Mission Chapel (as it was called then). She was living with an uncle when he met her, Comanche Chief Paddyaker. John became a farmer, working the land alotments he acquired over the years, and eventually farmed over 1,000 acres in the Cache Creek area. The Depression nearly wiped him out but he and Wickkie survived.

When John died on Aug. 27, 1961, he was 89. He was also the last surviving member of Troop L.

Buried beside John is his and Wickkie’s son, Lester Tabbytite. Born in 1929, Lester served in the 97the Signal Battalion during World War II. He returned home to Lawton after the war. Sadly, he died on Feb. 4, 1947 from injuries sustained in a car accident. He was only 20 years old.

Wickkie Tabbytite died in 1977 at age 93. I found an article that said she traveled to Washington, D.C. in 1965 to visit her granddaughter, Ladonna Crawford, who was then the wife of Oklahoma state senator Fred Harris. It was Wickkie’s first plane ride. President Lyndon Johnson’s wife, Lady Bird Johnson, whom Wickkie had met the year before during a campaign stop in Oklahoma, gave her a tour of the White House. Wickkie is buried at DMC but I didn’t get a photo of her grave.

Wife of Quanah Parker

Quanah Parker, whose grave is at the Fort Sill Post Cemetery, had several wives. I was surprised to find one of them buried at DMC.

I could find little information about To-Nar-Cy. There was a HistoryNet.com article I tried to access but again, payment was required (sigh) so I skipped it. All I could see was that the article alleged that she was “considered “the “show wife” who often traveled with him”. Certainly she was much more than that. I believe she may have been sixth out of the seven wives he married. She and his last wife, To-pay, were living with him when he died in 1911.

To-Nar-Cy died at age 66 in 1931. Her birth year is not exact.

I was able to find out more about her monument thanks to a June 14, 1953 article in the Daily Oklahoman. A woman who knew her as a child, Lena Banks, was already concerned about the fact Quanah only had a wooden cross to mark his grave at the Fort Sill Post Cemetery. I didn’t know until I read this article that Lena wrote to four senators asking for help. Thanks to her efforts, the senators gave $1,500 to pay for the obelisk that now marks his grave.

Lena wasn’t aware that To-Nar-Cy’s grave at DMC was also unmarked for many years. When she did, she contacted her friend’s family members to ask what might be done. The wheels were set in motion and the marker, which is pictured below, was placed on Memorial Day 1953.

Wookvitty Lucio

Another Native American grave marker got my attention. Wookvitty Lusio’s marker has her last name spelled “Lusio” but when I went to find information on her, I came up empty. I found her listed as Wookvitty Lucio instead. I think that’s the correct spelling.

Born in 1864, she married Tomas Lucio in 1919 at age 50. I don’t believe she had any children. She was an active member of the Deyo Mission Chapel for many years. According to her obituary, she took part in Lawton’s anniversary celebrations ever year, wearing her buckskin attire.

Join me next time for Part II of my visit to Deyo Mission Cemetery.