You won’t be surprised to learn that many people who visit Beef Creek Apache Cemetery come only to visit Geronimo’s grave and leave after snapping a few pictures. When I was first there in 1999, I did the same thing. But this time, I wanted to see who else was there.

Last week, I told you that Geronimo was not a tribal chief but a warrior and medicine man. There are actually two Native American chiefs buried at Beef Creek. One of them is Chief Loco.

“Stops His Horse”

In the shadow of the more storied Geronimo, Chief Loco is often overlooked. Born around 1823, his Native American name was Jlin-tay-i-tith, which means “Stops His Horse.” He was a Copper Mines Mimbreño Apache chief and his marker classifies him as a chief of the Warm Springs Apache. While he was not afraid to fight, he was also hopeful for peace with the whites who were disrupting his people’s way of life.

Some think he earned his nickname “Loco” because he was crazy enough to trust the white men. However, this view is not widely held. Bud Shapard, former chief of the bureau of research at the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), noted that Chief Loco got his name from his actions during a battle against the Mexicans, where he supposedly braved gunfire in order to save an injured warrior.

After the deaths of Cuchillo Negro, chief of the Warm Springs Tchihende (1857), and Mangas Coloradas, chief of the Copper Mines Tchihende (1863), the Copper Mines Mimbreños and the Warm Springs Mimbreños, were forced to leave the Pinos Altos area, near Santa Rita del Cobre, and try to concentrate in the Ojo Caliente area. Both of the tribe’s bands after Delgadito’s death in 1864 had dual chiefs: the Copper Mines Tchihende were under Loco and the Warm Springs Tchihende were under Victorio.

The Mimbreños agreed to settle in a reservation at Ojo Caliente and later at Cañada Alamosa, but the Mimbreño reservation was abolished. Victorio’s and Loco’s people were sent to the Mescalero reservation at Tularosa. When the U.S. government intended to deport the Mimbreños to San Carlos in 1877, Victorio and Loco led their people back to Ojo Caliente. In 1878, the U.S. Ninth Cavalry was dispatched to bring them back to San Carlos. Victorio returned to the warpath, but Loco was arrested and could not join Victorio in his last war from 1879-1880. He remained on the San Carlos reservation.

In 1882, when a party of Apaches including Geronimo forced Loco to leave for Mexico, Loco instead waged guerilla warfare against the Chiricahuas. In 1886, Loco went to Washington, D.C. to negotiate. However, like Geronimo, he was made a prisoner of war and sent to Florida. He was later transferred to Fort Sill with his wives. Here Loco was made head of Loco’s Village. His son, John Loco, was enlisted as a scout, and they raised crops. Loco was the last living chief of the Warm Springs Apaches. He died in 1905 at age 82.

Loco was a strong believer in education and was the first chief to send his children to school while at San Carlos in 1884. Another of his sons was the first to attend the Indian school in Alabama in 1889. Son John Loco, who died in 1946, is buried in Fairview Cemetery in Caddo County, Okla.

Wives of Chief Loco

Three of Chief Loco’s wives are buried at Beef Creek Cemetery. The first is Chiz-Pah-Odlee, whose name is thought to mean “Burning Wood”. She was born around 1823 and her marker has a death date of 1895.

Another one of Chief Loco’s wives was Chish-Odl-Netln, who name means “Wood Carrier”. She was born in 1829 and is thought to have died in 1909. She was the sister of Chiz-Pah-Odlee.

One of Chief Loco’s later wives was Clee-Hn, born in 1843. I could find no photos of her.

She and Chief Loco had a son they named Fritz. Born in 1890, he died in 1908. I have no idea what his cause of death was.

The Short Life of Grace Rose Sunday

You can’t help noticing the grave site of Grace Sunday because it is the only one surrounded by a handsome iron fence. I was curious about her from the moment I saw it.

Grace was the daughter of Apache parents Ken-i-ee-nidlth and Tsedikizen (Waldo Sundayman). Grace was the great-granddaughter of Chief Loco. Ken-i-ee-nidlth gave birth to Grace in 1895 but died in 1898.

According to Alicia Delgadillo’s book “From Fort Marion to Fort Sill: A Documentary History of the Chiricahua Apace Prisoners of War”, Grace was raised in the Dutch Reformed Church Mission Orphanage at Fort Sill. She died of tuberculosis at 15 on April 25, 1911. Her granite marker and the fence around it were provided by missionary Mary McMillan.

Grace’s stone is inscribed with this verse from Matthew 19:14: “Suffer [the] little children, and forbid them not to come unto me; for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” Mary must have been especially attached to Grace and wanted her to have a special burial site to remember her. Note that Grace has a footstone with her initials “GRS” behind her larger stone.

Only when I started writing about the Oklahoma Road Trip did I make the connection between this plot and the Carter plot at Old Elgin Cemetery that I wrote about a few weeks ago. The fencing for both plots was provided by the Valley Forge Iron Fence Co. of Knoxville, Tenn. Again, the question arises in my mind. How did a company that supposedly went out of business in 1903 provide a fence in an Oklahoma cemetery in 1911? It puzzles me. We will see their work yet again at Apache North Cemetery.

Chief Nana

Last but not least, there’s Chief Nana. He’s also known as Kas-tziden (“Broken Foot”) or Haškɛnadɨltla (“Angry, He is Agitated”). His exact birth year is not known but the date of 1800 is on his grave marker.

Chief Nana’s name was Kas-tziden among the Mimbreno Apache in southern New Mexico. Some say he had the longest fighting career of any of the Apache warriors. He fought alongside Mangas Coloradas until Mangas was killed in 1863. He then aligned with Victorio in his raids through Texas and Mexico during the Indian Wars. When Victorio was killed in 1880, Nana formed his own war party with the Warm Springs Apaches.

Under his leadership, the Mimbreno and Warm Springs Apaches raided isolated settlers and U.S. Army supply trains. He was very good at eluding capture. In a surprise attack, Chief Nana was captured and sent to the San Carlos Reservation. He soon escaped and joined Geronimo in Mexico. He kept his band out of the hands of the Army for about a year but surrendered in March 1886. He was sent to Fort Marion, Fla., and in 1894, he was moved to Fort Sill where he died at the age of 96.

A thought has crossed my mind while writing these last two blog posts concerning Geronimo, Chief Loco, and Chief Nana. These men spent their last years as POWs at Fort Sill at the same time. Did they get along? Did they put aside their difference and “coexist” or did they just stick to their area? One site I looked at noted that one of Geronimo’s sisters was married to Chief Nana.

This is something I am sure somebody has written about but I simply haven’t come across those answers yet. Perhaps somebody reading this has and can share that.

Next time, I’ll be down the road at Apache South Cemetery.

This week, I’m talking about Geronimo and my visit to his grave. He’s had countless books written about him, along with several movies and documentaries. People even shout his name when they jump out of airplanes. It turns out there are a lot of theories on where that came from (including something about paratroopers at Fort Benning, Ga.), but let’s not get off track.

Geronimo was a larger than life individual who people still talk about today. I want to preface this post by stating that I am nowhere close to being an authority on Geronimo, his life, or his legacy. I’m not going to write much about his backstory for that reason. Many have already done that work.

This is Geronimo’s grave. He is buried between one of his daughters, Eva Geronimo Godeley, and one of his wives, Zi-Yeh. A debate has raged for years about whether or not his remains are still here. A long-standing rumor has it that a grave-robbing posse of Yale students that included Prescott Bush (father of George H.W. and grandfather of George W.) stole his skull and some of his remains in 1918. I’m not going to spend time on that but you can read about that here.

I first visited Geronimo’s grave in 1999 when I visited Oklahoma with Sarah the first time. If I’m remembering it correctly, we didn’t have to get a pass to visit the cemetery and we just drove past it slowly. This time, I was there much longer.

Geronimo is buried on the Fort Sill grounds at Beef Creek Apache Cemetery. According to Find a Grave, there are about 340 burials recorded there. There are two other Apache prisoner of war (POW) cemeteries nearby (which I also visited), but this is the largest. It was established in 1894.

You may have noticed there are a lot of coins at the base of Geronimo’s grave. There are many reasons for that. Some do it (as people do at other graves) as a way to leave a token of their visit. Others do it as a sign of respect. But many do it hoping their visit will bring them good luck.

One Who Yawns

Contrary to popular belief, Geronimo was not a tribal chief. But he was considered a warrior, a leader, and a medicine man. According to the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture:

Geronimo was born in the 1820s, perhaps near present Clifton, Ariz. His Apache name was Goyahkla (One Who Yawns). He achieved a reputation as a spiritual leader and tenacious fighter against those who threatened his people’s ways of life. Later he was called Geronimo (Spanish for Jerome), most likely because of the way he fought in battle against Mexican soldiers who frantically called upon St. Jerome for help. He willingly accepted the name. Geronimo’s hatred toward Mexicans intensified when Mexican troops killed his mother, wife, and children in 1850. In addition, after the United States–Mexican War ended and the United States entered the Southwest, Geronimo faced another enemy that threatened his tribe’s existence.

During the Apache wars, Geronimo fought alongside Cochise and other tribe leaders. Their guerrilla-like raids and attacks forced the United States to negotiate treaties that confined Geronimo and his band to the San Carlos Reservation in the 1870s. Finding reservation life unacceptable, Geronimo escaped and resumed his raiding activities in Mexico and in the United States. Gen. George Crook and later Gen. Nelson A. Miles pursued the Apache leader for the next several years. Geronimo finally surrendered to Miles in September 1886.

As POWs, Geronimo and his followers were sent first to Florida, then Alabama, and finally Fort Sill in 1894. Geronimo farmed at Fort Sill. As his fame grew, his presence was requested at events such as the 1898 Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition in Omaha, the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, and the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. In 1905, he rode in President Theodore Roosevelt’s inauguration parade. Geronimo received money for his appearances at such events and even sold autographed items/photos of himself.

In February 1909, Geronimo was thrown from his horse while riding home and lay in the cold all night until a friend found him. He was very ill and near death. His last words were reported to be said to his nephew, “I should have never surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive.”

Geronimo’s Children

Geronimo had several wives over his lifetime. To the right of his gave is a marker for one of them, Zi-Yeh. I don’t know exactly when he married her but it is thought to be before 1885. They had at least two children together, Fenton and Eva. Born in the 1880s, Fenton is thought to have died on July 22, 1897. He is buried at Beef Creek Apache Cemetery near his parents.

Born in 1889, Eva was the only daughter of Geronimo and Zi-Yeh. Accounts say that Geronimo was especially attached to Eva. Zi-yeh died from tubercular lupus in 1904. Geronimo was concerned for Eva, being that many of the women in Geronimo’s family suffered in childbirth. He supposedly did not want her to marry for that reason.

At the time of Geronimo’s death, Eva was in school at Chilocco, Okla. She returned for her father’s funeral. She later married classmate Robert Godeley. They had a daughter, Evaline Golene, on June 21, June 1910. Some say the baby died soon after, others say she lived two months and died on Aug. 20, 1910. That is the date on her marker. Eva died from tuberculosis on August 10, 1911. Evaline’s marker is to the left of Eva’s. I don’t know what happened to Robert Godeley.

One more child of Geronimo’s is buried at Beef Creek Apache Cemetery and that is Lulu Geronimo. Her Apache name was Dohn-Zay. She was his daughter with wife Chee-Hash-Kish. Lulu was born around 1865 and married Mike Dah-Ke-Ya, a warrior who fought with Geronimo. Dah-Keh-Ya and three of their children are buried at Beef Creek. Geronimo’s other children and wives are buried in several other states.

As you look at the dates on the markers, with the exception of Geronimo, you may be asking yourself the same question that I was. Why did they die so young, both children and adults?

From what I can gather, it was a combination of things. Native American POWs were allowed to have homes on the base and were not imprisoned in cells. Some of the men became trusted scouts. But it is undeniable that their land and way of life had been taken from them. Illness and infant mortality were other factors. In the end, when your spirit has been broken, how long can it be before your body is as well?

There are others buried at Beef Creek Apache Cemetery whose stories I want to share with you. Come back next time for Part II.

Are you ready for more stories from the Fort Sill Post Cemetery in Lawton, Okla.?

This handsome tree-shaped monument literally stands out among the other standard issue military grave markers. You can’t help but notice it. Sadly, I could find little about Private Thomas Scanlon. But what I did discover just makes me even more curious about him.

The Mysterious Private Scanlon

Born around 1870 in Patterson, N.J., Thomas Scanlon was living in New York City, working as a laborer, when he enlisted in the U.S. Army on Oct. 19, 1901. He was 32 at the time, a rather late age to be joining the military. He served as a private in the 29th Battery of the Field Artillery. I could find absolutely nothing about that unit in my searches.

The only Army record I could find (thanks to a friend) about Thomas describes him as being 5 feet 8 inches tall with dark hair and blue eyes. He died on Feb. 28, 1903 at Fort Sill. The cause of death on his Army record is “acute alcoholic poisoning”.

The tree monument erected for Thomas is stunning. On the top left is a broken branch, indicating a life cut short. A calla lily is carved into the side, indicating majestic beauty or resurrection. Near the foot of the tree are the words “Erected by His Battery.” His marker says he was 37 but he was probably actually closer to 34.

For those of you who are familiar with tree monuments, I don’t believe this is a Woodmen of the World marker. There is no WOW seal or other symbols to indicate it is one. Above his name are two crossed field guns, which is the insignia of the Field Artillery branch of the U.S. Army.

Thomas Scanlon’s fellow soldiers must have thought a great deal of him to pool their money to buy him such a beautifully carved monument. It’s sad that it’s the only thing left to represent his short life on this earth. What happened to cause Thomas to enlist? Did he have a drinking problem that had led him to seek a more stable life? Where was his family? These are questions we will probably never have the answers to.

McCune and Stewart

The next pair I want to feature are Henry P. McCune and Altha Elizabeth Stewart. Had it not been for Ancestry.com information, I’m not sure I would have figured out their connection due to the different last names. Their box graves intrigue me. I’m thinking they were created at some later time than the 1890s but I’m not at all sure.

Born in Ohio in 1850, Henry P. McCune moved to Kansas with his family as a boy. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1867 at age 17. The 1870 U.S. Census places him at Fort Coucho in Bexar, Texas as what was called a “waggoner”. I know of at least one person in my family tree who served as one during the Civil War.

In 1880, Henry married Altha Addington White. She had been married once before and her son, who came to this second marriage with her, was named Robert White. Together, Altha and Henry had six children together, one dying in infancy (the twin brother of Birdie). They are pictured below. After the family moved to Fort Sill sometime around 1888, the three younger McCune daughters were born.

I’m don’t know what his cause of death was, but Henry died on Dec. 13, 1892 at age 42. Altha remarried to J.J. Stewart in 1894. They had one child, William, together. She died in childbirth on Sept. 5, 1897 at age 42. J.J. had her buried beside Henry at Fort Sill.

According to Robert White’s Find a Grave memorial, J.J. Stewart was unable to care Altha’s children after her death. So at age 22 and single, Robert took his half-siblings and made the journey from Ft. Sill to Washita County where he homesteaded on a quarter section of land and they lived in a dugout. J.J. Stewart died in 1936 and is buried in Sentinel Cemetery in Washita County, Okla.

Per Robert’s half-sister Ethel McCune Evans, “Because of difficult circumstances raising small children, our brother thought it would be better for us if we were in an orphans’ home, so he took the three younger children to the Buckner’s Orphans Home in Dallas, Texas, in March 1899. When on his way back form Dallas to the farm, in what is now Port, Okla., Bob worked at Marietta, Indian Territory, for a few months, where he became ill and died in the fall of 1899”.

The McCune children were scattered after that. They married, had children, and died. One of the McCune children, Henry Edward, served in the U.S. Army during World War I. After he came home to Lawton, he worked at Fort Sill as a civilian. He died in 1951 and is also buried at Fort Sill Post Cemetery.

Suffer the Little Children

There are several little box graves for children that died during this mid 1870s to 1890s era at Fort Sill. Annie Alberta Keeley was the daughter of “Post Qe. M. Sergeant” James and Emma Keeley. I am guessing that his title was possibly that of quartermaster, but I don’t know for sure.

Annie’s parents are not buried at Fort Sill Post Cemetery with her. I have no idea where they might be.

I found out much more about the family of Walker Norvell. He was the second child of Col. Steven Thompson Norvell and Sarah Elizabeth Proal Norvell. A native of Maine, Steven Norvell enlisted in the U.S. Army on Jan. 23, 1858 as a private in Company A, 5th Infantry. He would go on to fight in a number of Native American incursions until the Civil War, as he steadily climbed up the ranks. He became a major on March 25, 1890 and a lieutenant colonel on July 1, 1898, retiring on February 14, 1899.

He was promoted to Colonel on the retired list on April 23, 1904. During the Spanish American War, he commanded a squadron of the 10th Cavalry at the battles of La Guasima, San Juan, and subsequent actions leading to the surrender of Santiago. He also served with future President Theodore Roosevelt at the Battle of San Juan Hill.

Born on Nov. 27, 1873, Walker only lived three days. His three siblings all grew up and lived long lives. Interesting to note, his parents and all three siblings are buried at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington, D.C. His sisters, Sarah and Alice, both married military men. Brother Guy Steven Norvell attained the rank of colonel like his father.

I’m including one last child’s marker for little William O. Lambertson. Like Annie Keeley, I know nothing about him beyond when he was born, when he died, and the named of his parents. William F. and Clara O. Lambertson are not buried with him. I did find a record for a William F. Lambertson who died in 1890 of “chronic myelitis” while serving at Fort Keough, Mont. He is buried in Forest Hill Cemetery in Moores Hill, Ind. I suspect this might be little William’s father.

“A Soldier Who Died For A Soldier”

A number of the soldiers buried at Fort Sill Post Cemetery died in combat. But in the case of Lieutenant Col. Harold Hubert Bateman, his death was brought about while trying to save one of his brothers in arms off the battlefield.

Born in California in 1887, Harold Bateman’s father was a chaplain in the U.S. Army. Harold enlisted on May 5, 1906 at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. He served in Troop D, Fifth Cavalry until his discharge at Fort Leavenworth, Kans. on May 4, 1909 as a sergeant. He immediately re-enlisted and served with the Fifth Cavalry until his discharge on August 9, 1909 at Fort Leavenworth, Kans. He wed Winnifred Maud Palmer on February 28, 1910.

In 1910, Harold was a commissioned a second lieutenant serving in Battery B First Field Artillery in the Philippine Islands. By 1916, he was serving in the Third Field Artillery and was due for promotion to first lieutenant. During World War I, Harold served in France and, following the Armistice, was part of the army of occupation on the Rhine River in Germany. By 1919, Bateman had attained the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Ninth Field Artillery stationed at Fort Sill. Being assigned to Fort Sill was a request Harold has specifically made, having been stationed there before. By this time, he and Winnifred had a little daughter, Suzanne.

On July 4, 1919, Harold and several officers went on a fishing trip four miles west of Fort Sill on Medicine Bluff Creek at a spot known as Heyl’s Hole. The deep depression in the creek was thought to be the cause of several previous drowning deaths. Private Joe Bukoby of F Battery, 14th Field Artillery, was riding Harold’s horse and somehow rode into the creek.

Harold, seeing Bukoby, yelled for him to return to the shore. Bukoby, who didn’t know how to swim, panicked and fell from his mount. Harold pulled off his boots and jumped into the water to save him. He reached Bukoby and was pulling him to shore when the young man again panicked and got a choke hold on Harold. Both men went down as Captain Francis Legette jumped in after them. When Legette reached the spot where the two men were last seen, he was pulled down by Bukoby, who was still submerged. Legette managed to break loose of the private’s hold and returned to shore without having secured either of the men. Their bodies were located later and brought up.

I learned from newspaper accounts that both Harold’s wife, Winnifred, and his sister, Evangeline (who had arrived for a visit the day before), were present on the shore when the tragedy occurred. Harold’s father, Major C.C. Bateman, had just returned home from serving as a chaplain in France during World War I. He and Harold’s mother traveled to Fort Sill to attend their son’s funeral and burial. The funeral was well attended and the newspaper reported that the Lawton Monumental Words was making the memorial stone you see in the photo above.

I could find little about Pvt. Joseph Bukoby, who was born in Austria but had lived in Muscatine, Iowa for four years before his 1916 Army enlistment. Bukoby had been at Fort Sill since 1917. I don’t know where he is buried.

Next time, join me at Beef Creek Apache Cemetery where we will visit the grave of famous Apache leader and medicine man, Geronimo.

Note: Some of the Native Americans I am writing about today have complex histories. Each one could fill an entire blog post on their own. I simply don’t have the time or space to do them justice here. I’m also aware that my grasp of Native American history is not perfect since historians dispute some of the events of the pioneer era discussed here. If I got something wrong in the details, I apologize.

Sarah and I traveled on to Medicine Park because she was participating in the Tour de Meers, an annual bike ride that takes place on Memorial Day. Meers is a small town located just north of the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. You can choose to ride 10, 22, 30, 57, or 62 miles. Sarah’s desire to participate in the Tour de Meers was actually the initial catalyst for our road trip.

While Sarah joined her fellow cyclists, I headed to nearby Fort Sill to visit several cemeteries. The first one I wanted to stop at was the Fort Sill Post Cemetery. Because Fort Sill is first and foremost an Army base, I had to stop by the Visitor Center to get permission to enter. Fortunately, all I had to do was explain why I was there, fill out a few forms, and have my picture taken. They gave me a day pass to put on the dashboard of Sarah’s car and off I went.

Located on the base is the Fort Sill National Historic Landmark and Museum, opened in 1935. I wish I had been able to stop by to look around but I didn’t have enough time.

Fort Sill Post Cemetery is a neatly tended burial ground that contains close to 7,150 graves. Most are the requisite plain white military markers. But there are a number of folks here that you might not expect to be interred at a military cemetery.

Early Fort Sill History

Long known as the home of the U.S. Army’s Field Artillery, Fort Sill started as a frontier cavalry post. Before that, the land was home to indigenous groups such as the Wichita, the Kiowa, and the Comanche.

In 1851, Capt. Randolph B. Marcy and a company of the Fifth Infantry passed through the area. Marcy suggested establishing a fort at the place that became the old post site. After the Civil War, Col. Benjamin H. Grierson (who became Fort Sill’s first post commander) and Buffalo Soldiers of the Tenth Cavalry constructed Camp Wichita there in 1868. The post was intended to serve as headquarters for the Kiowa-Comanche Reservation created under the provisions of the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867.

In 1869, the 10th and elements of the Sixth Infantry began building a more permanent base known as Fort Sill. It was named by Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, commander of the Military Department of the Missouri, after Brig. Gen. Joshua W. Sill, a West Point classmate of Sheridan’s who died during the Civil War.

Under Grierson’s watch, Fort Sill assumed an important role in policing Indian Territory. Units from Fort Sill fought on the Southern Great Plains in 1869 and in the Red River War of 1874 to 1875. Throughout the rest of the 19th century, they served in a variety of peacekeeping duties. This included policing the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889, and protecting settlers and Native Americans who lived in or were forcibly relocated to the area by the federal government.

I’ll cover more about Fort Sill’s history and Geronimo in a few weeks. He’s buried in a different cemetery on Fort Sill property.

Chief’s Knoll

At the front of the cemetery is what is known as Chief’s Knoll and the burial site for several prominent Native American chiefs. Having done minimal research before I visited, I was in awe as I began reading the names. Quanah Parker, his mother, and his sister are buried here. You can see their monuments in the picture below. You’ll remember from my post of a few weeks ago that I found the grave marker of his great-great-grandson Richard James Wahkinney at Elgin Memorial Cemetery.

Further back are grave markers for prominent Kiowa and Araphao tribal leaders.

Mother to a Chief

Born around 1827, Cynthia Ann Parker was abducted from her white family by Comanche raiders on the Texas frontier when she was only nine years old. Raised a Comanche, she wed Chief Peta Nocona and had three children with him. The oldest was Quanah, whose name translates as “fragrant” or “sweet smelling”. She was eventually discovered by white men who traded with the Comanches. Her family, having searched for her for years, quickly organized a ransom offer.

But the Comanches refused all offers, mainly because Cynthia Ann didn’t want to go. While born white, she was now culturally Comanche, the wife of a chief, with children she loved and did not want to leave. When she was 34, her camp along a tributary of the Pease River was attacked by Texas Rangers. Some believe Chief Nocona was killed but there’s some debate about that.

Regardless, her two sons fled. Quanah was 12 at the time. Along with her infant daughter Prairie Flower, Cynthia Ann was “freed” from captivity. But in Cynthia’s mind it was akin to being abducted again. She tried many times to escape and return to her family. Sadly, Prairie Flower died a few years after they were returned to white society. Cynthia herself died seven years after that at age 43. Many believe she starved herself to death. She and Prairie Flowere were originallly buried in Anderson County, Texas.

Quanah and his brother Pecos were taken under the wing of Horseback, the head chief of the Kwahadi people. Horseback taught them the ways of the Comanche warrior, and Quanah grew to considerable standing among his tribal peers. Pecos is thought to have died in 1862.

In 1875, Quanah surrendered to Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie and taken to Fort Sill where he led the Comanches successfully for a number of years on the reservation. While Quanah was never elected principal chief of the Comanche by the tribe, the U.S. government appointed him principal chief of the entire nation once the people had gathered on the reservation and later introduced general elections.

Proud of his Native American roots, Quanah was a canny observer who knew he could learn much from whites while trying to bridge gaps for the betterment of his people. Quanah quickly established himself as a successful rancher and investor. Parker encouraged Native American youth to learn the ways of white culture, yet he never assimilated entirely. He remained a member of the Native American Church, and had a total of seven wives over his lifetime.

By the time Quanah died in 1911, he had attained something akin to celebrity status. Visitors to southwest Oklahoma, including Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, made it a point to call on him. His obelisk in the cemetery was erected in 1926.

Quanah never forgot his mother, Cynthia Ann. Shortly before he died, after years of legal wrangling, he had Cynthia Ann’s remains moved to Post Oak Mission Cemetery in Oklahoma. In 1957, she was re-interred beside Quanah at Fort Sill Post Cemetery. In 1965, the state of Texas arranged for Prairie Flower’s remains to be moved from Texas and re-interred next to her mother and brother at Fort Sill.

T’ene-Angopte (Kicking Bird)

The above-ground tomb of Kiowa leader Kicking Bird intrigues me. I read on one web site that his grave was originally marked by a wooden cross that deteriorated until it was lost, so officials weren’t sure where his remains were actually located in the cemetery. This leads me to wonder if his remains are actually in the tomb I photographed.

Born of Crow and Kiowa ancestry, Kicking Bird was known as T’ene-Angopte, which can be translated as Striking Eagle. After the death of Dohasan, chief of the united Kiowa bands in 1866, he assumed leadership of the tribe’s peace faction. He was a signatory of the Little Arkansas Treaty and the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867.

Some think Kicking Bird was poisoned, but nobody knows for sure. His role as a peacekeeper between the Kiowa and whites caused him to gain enemies on both sides. He died on May 5, 1875 at age 40.

Satanta (White Bear)

Satanta, also known as White Bear, was born around 1820 on the northern Plains. Much of Satanta’s adult life was spent fighting U.S. settlers and military. He participated in raids along the Santa Fe Trail in the early 1860s, and in 1866 became the leader of the Kiowa who favored resistance against U.S. military forces.

In 1867, he spoke at the Kiowa Medicine Lodge Council and because of his eloquence, U.S. observers gave him his nickname of White Bear. At the council, Satanta signed a peace treaty that obligated the Kiowa to resettle on the reservation in Oklahoma. Shortly thereafter, however, he was taken hostage by U.S. officials who used his imprisonment to coerce more Kiowa into resettling.

For the next few years, Satanta took part in a number of raids in Texas where cattle ranchers and buffalo hunters were steadily pushing Kiowa and Comanche onto reservations. It was one of these raids that eventually led to Satanta’s arrest in 1871 by former Civil War Union General William T. Sherman and put on trial with others involved in the raids. He narrowly escaped death and was freed after two years of imprisonment at the Huntsville State Penitentiary in Texas

A short time later, Satanta was lured into a peace council, arrested for parole violation, and sentenced to death. Humanitarian groups and Native American leaders protested the harsh sentence. In 1873, Satanta was paroled on the condition he remain on the Kiowa Reservation.

In 1874, during the Red River War, Satanta presented himself to U.S. officials to prove he was not taking part in the hostilities. His loyalty was rewarded with a return to the penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. Four years later, an ill Satanta was informed that he would never be released. On October 11, 1878, he is reported to have jumped to his death from an upper floor of a prison hospital. Some of his family, however, don’t believe he would have taken his life.

Satanta was buried in the prison cemetery in Huntsville. In 1963, his grandson artist James Auchiah received permission to move Satanta’s remains to Fort Sill.

I’ll have more stories from Fort Sill Post Cemetery soon. For now, here’s a photo of my pass from the day I visited Fort Sill’s cemeteries.

Before I forge ahead with more of the Oklahoma Road Trip 2019, I want to pause a moment to recognize something important. In January 2023, Adventures in Cemetery Hopping will mark its 10th anniversary.

My son Sean started kindergarden in fall 2012, so I had more time on my hands. I wasn’t going back to work because I wanted to be available if he needed me or to volunteer at his school.

But it felt like it was time for something new.

In November 2012, I decided to try being a photo volunteer for FindaGrave.com. You’ve heard me talk about them before. If you are hoping to find a photo of the grave of a friend or loved one, chances are that Find a Grave has it. I learned that they needed people to volunteer to take pictures of graves.

That got my attention. I like history. I like helping people. Let’s try it!

A Tale of Two Cemeteries

I had no idea that this action would be the first step toward starting my blog and spending the next year exploring cemeteries, researching them, and sharing the stories behind the stones.

The first blog post I wrote in January 2013 was about my first official “hop” in Nebraska in January 2009, which was three years before I started doing any Find a Grave work. It was a quest to find the graves of my distant relatives in Blair, Neb.

But the next one came from a November 2012 visit I made to two cemeteries in Fulton County, Ga. They were Rogers Cemetery and Rogers-Bell Cemetery in Johns Creek. Below you can see pictures from that 2012 visit to Rogers-Bell Cemetery and a visit from April 2020. I was looking for a grave at Rogers-Bell that needed to be photographed for Find a Grave, the deceased had died in 2012.

I had no idea what I was doing when I went in search of Rogers-Bell Cemetery that day. I wound up down the road at Rogers Cemetery, which had no fancy iron gates or a nice fence amid million-dollar homes. It was bitterly cold, so after wandering around a bit, I went to Mellow Mushroom to warm up then headed home with intentions of returning the next day.

I found Rogers-Bell Cemetery the next day. I learned that the folks buried at Rogers Cemetery were the descendants of the slaves that had worked on the Rogers-Bell plantation down the road. There were a few former slaves at Rogers Cemetery that had continued to work there after the Civil War. I researched the families and realized there was quite a story there.

Birth of a Blog

When I started thinking of all the history that was in those two cemeteries, the wheels in my head began to turn. My background is in writing and editing. I stopped working shortly after my husband and I moved back to Atlanta after he got his law degree at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. in 2005. While I continued to do some freelance work, I was itching to write again and not about mom life.

Not that mom life isn’t important because as someone who is living it, I know the challenges that life presents. But in 2012 (and now), there were a million “Mommy” blogs. I didn’t feel like I had much to share that hadn’t been written already. But cemeteries? There weren’t a lot of people doing that. Plus, I’d get to learn about history along the way and I’ve always enjoyed that.

But would anybody read it?

Let me be real. I’m not pulling down millions of hits every day. I still don’t. But that’s okay.

In 2012, 4,379 people visited my blog page. That number doubled in 2013. Slowly, the numbers went up. That made me happy. At least more people than my family and a few friends were reading it.

Between 2019 and 2020, the number of visits went from 33,649 to 30,566. But in 2021, they went up to 38,189. Then in 2022, they went down a little to 36,135 (as of 12/21/2022).

I’m probably never going to be a “hot blogger” whose numbers skyrocket each year. That means advertising, media campaigns, and other things I’m not willing to do. Because to me, it’s not about the numbers. It’s always been about the stories behind the stones.

Yes, I’ve made some mistakes along the way. I thought I should be writing about “funeral trends” and I did a bit of that. I wrote about BIOS urn, human composting, and alkaline hydrolysis (now called “flameless cremation’). I did enjoyed that and felt I educated some folks along the way.

But in the end, it always came back to the stories about the people buried in the cemetery I visited. Some of these folks have nobody left to visit their graves and remember them. Some lived very ordinary lives. However, their lives still are important. They made a difference. Even the little baby who died the day he was born. His mother wept tears, having carried him for nine months. She never forgot him.

I still love what I do. As I told Marisa D. of the Victorian Variety Show podcast a few weeks ago, I never know what I am going to find when I visit a cemetery. I don’t know what stories I’ll uncover from the photographs I take. It is always something new. It never gets old.

Here’s to Another 10 Years!

So until something dramatic changes to point me in another direction, I’m going to continue doing what I feel God is leading me to do. To use my writing gifts to share stories from cemeteries that I visit and put them here.

I hope you’ll continue to “hop” with me on my adventures.

Last week, I introduced you to Elgin Memorial Cemetery and nearby Old Elgin Cemetery (OEC). When I was at OEC, I saw some homemade markers that I was curious about. When I say homemade, they look to have been hand carved by someone who didn’t do it as a trade. These are the kinds of stones that can truly tug at your heart because many times, the person that carved them knew the deceased well.

Often, there is no way to discern who did the work. But sometimes you get lucky and find a signature or name.

The grave marker of Vernice Whittley is simple yet poignant, even without knowing how she died. She was born in 1905 in Oklahoma, the eldest child of Newton “Nute” Washington Whittley and Rachel Geneva Campbell Whittley.

“She Will Arise”

According to her obituary, Vernice died at the family home in Parker, Okla. on July 22, 1916 at the age of 10. The cause of death was typhoid, an ailment I told you about in Part I that took many lives. Without sharing the details, I can say the account of Vernice’s last hours was heartbreaking. The author of her death notice said, “The attending physician reports that this was the worst case of typhoid fever that he ever saw.”

I don’t think this stone was carved until 15 years after she died. Nute’s stone is beside Vernice’s and is very similar. You’ll notice that on Nute’s stone it says “Erected by H.K. Galey”. I think this person also carved Vernice’s. But who was H.K. Galey?

H.K. Galey was the husband of Belvia G. Whittley, Vernice’s younger sister. Born in 1914, Belvia was only two years old when her sister died. She married Hesa Kirah Galey in 1929 at age 16. Hesa was only 10 when Vernice died so he couldn’t have carved it at that time. The Galeys were living in Holdenville, Okla. when Nute died, which is about two hours northeast of Elgin near Oklahoma City.

Nute Whittley died on July 22, 1931 at age 53. I could not find an obituary for him. Rachel moved to Holdenville, where Beliva and Hesa were living. Rachel’s son and Belvia’s brother, Thomas, listed Rachel as a reference on his World War I draft card. When Thomas registered for the draft, he was working at a CCC camp. Rachel remarried in 1955 to Robert Climer and died in 1978 at age 104. She is buried with Robert in Highland Cemetery in Casper, Wy.

There are other markers from the 1930s that look so similar to Vernice and Nute’s that I think that it’s highly probable that H.K. Galey carved those as well. Money was tight in the 1930s and it’s possible that he offered to do it for others. I’d like to share some of those with you.

A Deadly Fire

When I see a grave shared by a mother and child, I can often conclude that one (or both) of them died at the time of the birth. But that’s not always the case. When I saw the dates for Minnie Tucker Dees and her son, Olean, I wanted to know more.

Minnie married Ira Dees in 1924 at age 18. She gave birth to their son, Olean, on July 9, 1925. The family of three was living in a one-room home on the property of Ira’s father, J.Z. Dees. Minnie tried to start a fire with some kerosene and an explosion occurred. Both Minnie and Olean were killed and according to newspaper accounts, Ira barely survived.

I don’t know when the marker for Minnie and Olean was carved. H.K. Galey’s name is not on it, but I think he carved it. The lettering looks the same as that on Whittley markers and the branch-like symbols look like his style.

Ira remarried in 1959 to Ora Mae Baugh. He died in 1968. He and Ora Mae are buried beside Minnie and Olean.

Then there are the graves of Emma Lewis Melrose and her son, Isaac, who are buried beside each other. Note that Isaac’s grave is not homemade like his mother’s and has a drove on top.

A native of Illinois, Emma Lewis married Theodore Franklin Melrose in 1896 in Chandler, Okla. They had 11 children together, with two of them dying in childhood. One of those children was Isaac. He was born on Aug. 5, 1910 and died on Feb. 13, 1922. Emma died on Dec. 31, 1932 at age 53.

I tried to find obituaries for Emma and Isaac but was unsuccessful. When I looked on Find a Grave this week, I saw that Emma’s daughter, (and Isaac’s sister) Lydia, also had a Galey-style homemade stone and died in 1945 at age 32. I did find Lydia’s obituary. She had been in the hospital for a week before she died. Before that, she was employed as a nurse.

If you look to the rear of Emma’s stone, you can glimpse a small, flat stone that says “Mother” on it.

The last “Galey-esque”grave marker I want to share was for two little ones whose names are on one marker. There are no other graves with the same last name. I believe their marker is another example as a backdated marker that was made many years after they died.

Eva Combs, born on Aug. 20, 1905, died on Sept. 25, 1906. Her little brother, Billy, was born on Aug. 3, 1907. He died almost two months later on Sept. 25, 1907. That’s exactly a year to the day from the day Eva died.

I have no idea who their parents were. I did find some article that mentioned a W.W. Combs who owned the Combs Hotel in Lawton. Combs was actually stabbed by a customer who refused to pay on Sept. 18, 1906, just days before Eva died. But I cannot say for sure that he was their father.

You’ll notice that there are also flat stones to to the left and right of the marker that say “EVA” and BILLY”. There’s also a stone with the word “BABY” behind it. Notice that there is a broken “BA” stone behind the “BILLY” stone.

“How Desolate Our Home Bereft of Thee”

By contrast, the white bronze (zinc) monument I found for farmer Henry Reich was definitely not homemade. White bronze markers were made (mostly) by the Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport, Ct. and sold by regional agents around the country. A client often chose the marker they wanted from a catalog, which was usually then shipped in pieces to them by train.

I’m not sure when German-born Henry Reich and his Swiss wife, Anna, were married. But I do know they had two children, Fred and Mary. Baby Mary was born on Feb. 2, 1906, just a few weeks before her father died. Henry sold farm implements and was working to build the family farm into a productive enterprise.

The Reichs moved to Lawton from Hinton, Okla. in 1905. According to his obituary, Henry was injured when fell behind a stalk cutter while working on his farm. He died about a week later from his injuries on Feb. 27, 1906. He was only 43.

From what I could piece together, Anna raised Mary and Fred on the farm on her own. She married Emil Mauersberger sometime between 1910 and 1920. Anna died on Oct. 4, 1929 at age 56. Interestingly, her marker in OEC has her former last name of Reich inscribed on it.

Henry and Anna’s daughter, Mary, married Nelson Horschler. She died on May 20, 1996 at age 90 and is also buried at OEC. Son Fred died in 1984 and is buried in Fairlawn Cemetery in Oklahoma City.

Murder of a Railroad Mechanic

While going through my OEC photos, I found one I’d forgotten about. The Star of David at the top got my attention as it had then. I’m willing to bet John Knight was likely the only Jewish person buried at OEC. I had to find out more about him.

Born on March 17, 1896 in Nubia, Texas (which no longer exists), John C. Knight was the son of J.J. and Mollie Knight. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I as a soldier in the 141st Infantry, 36th Division. After the war, he moved to Comanche County, Okla. to live with his sister, Jewell “Jule” Knight Lamb, and her family. I noted that Jule’s middle name was Palestine, perhaps a hint of her Jewish heritage.

Later, John went to work as a mechanic in the Katy railroad shop in Osage Junction outside of Tulsa. On the night of Sept. 22, 1922, John was attacked by an unknown assailant wielding a hammer. It was alleged that John’s attacker belonged to the local union but John did not. John was found unconscious, his skull fractured, and taken to a Tulsa hospital. He died the next day from his injuries.

John’s remains were sent to Elgin by train for burial at OEC. I can’t imagine the pain his father, his sister Jule, and other family members felt as the body of this young man of only 26 years was lowered into the ground.

John Knight does have a memorial on Find a Grave. But it had his death date listed as his birth date with no other information. Jule and her husband are buried in nearby Fletcher Cemetery while she and John’s parents are buried in Texas.

There was nobody left to fill in the blanks of John’s story. How he was loved by his family and fought for his country in World War I. That he came home and found a job to support himself, only to be murdered by a co-worker and left to die alone in a supply car.

I feel honored to tell John’s story here so he won’t be forgotten. He’s one of the reasons I continue to tell the stories behind the stones.

Join me next time as the Oklahoma Road Trip 2019 continues at the Fort Sill Post Cemetery.

(Note: I don’t usually post on Mondays but circumstances required it in this case.)

We left Norman and headed for Sarah’s hometown of Lawton, which is about a 1.5 hour drive. We had an important stop to make at Elgin Memorial Cemetery first. It’s currently has 485 memorials on Find a Grave. The earliest marked burial was in 1915. It’s located a little outside of town so it’s fairly quiet.

Brothers and Sisters

Sarah’s parents, Roy and Martha Zimmerman, are buried in Elgin Memorial Cemetery. They were dear, salt of the earth people who had lived in Oklahoma pretty much their entire lives. Sarah’s maternal grandparents are also buried there.

When I visited Oklahoma with Sarah back in 1999, I got to spend time with Roy and Martha. I also met Martha’s brother, Otis Stevens, and Roy’s sister, Alice Zimmerman Stevens. Roy was Alice’s brother and Otis was Martha’s brother. There were times I had to stop and ask Sarah to explain again how everyone was related. I truly enjoyed hearing all their stories.

One of the reasons I wanted to visit Lawton back then was to talk to Sara’s family about their recollections of the 1930s and the Dust Bowl days they experienced in rural Oklahoma. Their families did not leave in search of jobs in California as described in John Steinbeck’s novel “The Grapes of Wrath.” They stayed and stuck it out, which was not easy.

At that time, I was thinking of writing a novel set in that era that would involve characters who participated in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA). I’ll talk about those programs shortly. Sarah told me later that they had told me things about those days even she didn’t know.

Otis passed away in 2001 and Alice died in 2009. They are buried together over at Sunset Memorial Gardens in Lawton. Alice’s first husband, Robert, was killed while fighting in World War II in 1945. Otis, who also fought in WW II, returned home to Lawton and married Alice in 1946. I could tell the pair was still deeply in love.

Sarah’s mother Martha died in 2006, and Roy passed away in 2010. Like Otis and Alice, they were very much been a love match.

Great-Great-Grandson of Quanah Parker

Not far from Martha and Roy’s graves was this one for Richard James Wahkinney. I photographed it because it’s shaped like an arrowhead and I’d never seen a marker like that before. I knew I wanted to look him up later. This is the front.

This week when I looked up Richard’s information, I got a surprise. Born in 1930, Richard was the great-great-grandson of Quanah Parker, war leader of the Kwahadi band of the Comanche Nation. I photographed Quanah Parker’s grave the following day over at Fort Sill Cemetery, not knowing Richard’s connection to him.

According to Richard’s obituary: “He was a member of the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma and the Comanche Little Ponies. He enjoyed fishing, artwork, building things, his motorcycles, learning his Comanche culture and heritage and most of all enjoyed watching his grandchildren at play, attending powwows and gourd dancing.”

Old Elgin Cemetery

A mile down the road from Elgin Memorial Cemetery is Old Elgin Cemetery. The first marked burial recorded on Find a Grave is 1902. That’s five years before Oklahoma became a state. Over the years, Elgin grew and the cemetery is now in the middle of several public schools and a football field. The Elgin Performing Arts Center was being built on the cemetery’s southern border when we were there. You could hear children playing and laughing as we walked among the graves.

Some of Sarah’s aunts and uncles are buried here. Two of them died in childhood. Another was Dale Burnett Stevens, born in 1914. He was a true “CCC boy” (as they were called) and a prime example of the kind of young man the program was aimed to help.

In 1933, Congress enacted legislation creating the Civilian Conservation Corps, one of the first New Deal programs initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration. The CCC was designed to relieve the economic hardships caused by the Great Depression. In the early 1930s, large numbers of young men were desperately looking for work.

In 1999, Sarah, took me to the nearby 59,000-acre Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. Yes, Oklahoma has mountains! Mount Scott is located there at 2,464 feet above sea level. During the 1930s, many CCC and WPA participants worked to complete dams and carve out roads at the Refuge. One of the dams built then was Quanah Parker Dam, pictured below. It is still in use today.

To be a junior CCC enrollee, a young man had to be between 18 and 25, unmarried, and a U.S. citizen. One of the conditions of enrollment was that out of an enrollee’s monthly $35 pay, $25 would be sent home to assist their dependent family.

Dale Stevens signed up and was accepted into the program. He was sent to work at a CCC camp in eastern Oklahoma, exactly which one I don’t know. Dale contracted typhoid, which was common in those days, and returned home to his family in a greatly weakened state. Because typhoid is highly contagious, the family had to get vaccinated. As payment for the vaccinations, Sarah’s grandfather arranged to plow the local doctor’s field. Dale died on Sept. 15, 1937 at age 22.

“There Will Be a Glorious Dawn”

I discovered a curiosity while at Old Elgin Cemetery. Amid the stones was this plot surrounded by a cast iron fence with a single marker within it. It is the only fenced plot there. Such things always attract my interest and Lillie Carter’s grave was no exception.

I did find a memorial item for Lillie in the Fletcher Herald. Born in Wisconsin in 1874, Lillie Brandenburg wed Joseph Carter in 1905 in Columbar, Kansas. According to the 1910 Census, the couple had a child at some point after they wed but it died. Lillie’s brother, Oscar, was living with them in 1910.

In September 1912, the trio moved to Elgin. According to the article, Lillie was “sick but a few hours when the death angel summoned”. She died on June 28, 1913 at the age of 38. I don’t know if Joe is buried with her in the plot. A short four-line poem was printed just below her memorial article.

The curious aspect I mentioned has to do with the fence that surrounds the Carter plot. It was made by the Valley Forge Iron Fence Co. of Knoxville, Tenn. This got my attention because my husband is from Knoxville and we visit his family there often. I couldn’t remember having seen a cemetery fence made by this company before.

I learned that the company was established by H.O. Larsen in 1873 and is thought to have manufactured wrought steel fences exclusively. I would see two more Valley Forge fences in other Lawton area cemeteries. But what is truly curious is that the company is thought to have closed in 1903. I did find a December 1901 article reporting that the company sustained a disastrous fire.

Lingering Questions

So this situation raises a few questions. If the Valley Forge Fence Works ended their business sometime in 1902 or 1903, how did this fence end up in Lawton, Okla. in 1913? From the research I did, it appears that Larsen did a booming business and sold his products in many states. Being perhaps one of only a few Southern companies that produced wrought steel fences at that time, there were plenty of customers wanting such things.

That still doesn’t answer the question of how it ended up around a plot for a woman who died in 1913. Perhaps there were unmarked Carters in this plot before Lillie was buried and the fence was placed then. That I don’t know and probably never will.

I’ll be sharing more stories from Old Elgin Cemetery next time.

I’m back at the IOOF Cemetery in Norman, Okla. to share more stories behind the stones.

In my previous post, I mentioned that there are several Woodmen of the World (WOW) tree monuments at this cemetery. I saw far more of those than any IOOF-marked graves. During a certain span of years, WOW members could receive a marker if they paid an additional rider to their insurance policy. I don’t think the IOOF was offering such a sweet deal.

A Woodman of the World

One of the first “trees” I noticed was for Thomas Jefferson (T.J.) Wall, who was only 30 when he died in 1900. Born in 1870 in Missouri, T.J. married Katherine Grotts in 1894. Their first son, Charles, was born in 1897. Second son, Jesse, was born on Sept. 11, 1900.

T.J. died on Nov. 1, 1900. His obituary tells us that his cause of death was pneumonia and that he was a fairly recent but active member of WOW. While I still find it puzzling that newspapers included such information at the time, I wasn’t surprised to see that his obit included the fact that he carried a $1,000 life insurance policy with WOW.

Why did newspapers publish such details? My theory is that those concerned about the welfare of Thomas’ widow and two young boys, one only a few months old, would want to know. However, it truly did not need to be made public and it makes me cringe reading some of these old obituaries that mention it.

Bootleggers and Murder

I was not expecting to uncover the story I found when I started doing research on the next “tree” I found for Grover Cleveland Fulkerson. When I looked him up on Newspapers.com, I found headlines describing the young Cleveland County (Okla.) undersheriff’s murder at the hands of bootleggers on Aug. 24, 1917.

The story behind Fulkerson’s murder is complex and the trial coverage was extensive. The short version is that while conducting a traffic stop two miles from Norman, he encountered Charles Holden and John Jay. The two men had no intention of agreesng to a search, so Fulkerson jumped on the running board and reached in to turn off the car. Fulkerson attempted to subdue Holden, striking him. In the process, Fulkerson’s gun fell on the floor. Holden picked it up and allegedly shot Fulkerson in the stomach.

Bleeding, Fulkerson pleaded to be taken back to Norman so he could be treated for his wound, but the pair waited an hour before doing so. Fulkerson was able to make a statement about what had happened that day before succumbing to his wounds while being taken on a train to Oklahoma City for further treatment following surgery.

Both Holden and Jay were arrested and charged with Cleveland’s murder. Holden went on trial and was found guilty of manslaughter, receiving a four-year sentence. However, he was released on a $20,000 bond pending his appeal. Only a few days later, Holden hot and killed Deputy James Coffee of the Wilbarger County Sheriff’s Department (Texas) when he stopped him for running liquor out of his county and across the Oklahoma border.

Holden was convicted of Deputy Coffee’s murder and sentenced to 99 years. To my dismay, I learned that his sentence was later reduced to 12 years and he was released in 1929. Texas authorities failed to tell Oklahoma authorities he had been released. Holden was arrested several days later in Sapula, Okla. and sent to Mcallister Penitentiary to serve his four years for Fulkerson’s murder. I believe John Jay was acquitted at the first trial with Holden. He was not involved in the Coffee murder.

Grover married Mamie Smalley in 1911 before he became a policeman. They had a son and a daughter. Sadly, the couple had just lost a son, Grover C. Fulkerson, Jr., when he died at birth on July 8, 1917. Mamie remarried in 1922 to Ben Harris and they had a daughter together in 1924.

Officer Fulkerson’s death has not been forgotten in Norman and anyone visiting the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office can see his picture on the wall. In 2015, a wall of honor was created for Norman officers who died in the line of duty and Grover is one of the three honored.

Memorial to Lives Lost

Finally, I wanted to include a memorial that I found while walking around the cemetery. It has 39 names on one side of it. On the other is this quote with no context of any kind to explain it.

I learned that on April 13, 1918, 40 patients died in a fire at the Oklahoma State Hospital, now known as Griffin Memorial Hospital. It was a mental institution. All but two of the victims were burned beyond recognition. The dead were buried in a mass unmarked grave. Apparently, until 2015, nobody exactly knew where that mass grave was located. But the suspected cemetery was the IOOF Cemetery.

The hospital staff first talked with the Oklahoma Archaeological Survey (OAS) at Oklahoma University in 2010 to search the suspected burial site at the IOOF Cemetery in Norman. But the technology for such a task was unavailable until 2015. OAS research faculty member Scott Hammerstedt said the equipment allowed them to see underground and confirm that the imaging shows the dirt was disrupted all those years before.

The grave was not excavated to prove 100 percent that the bodies were there but evidence strongly indicates they are. Newspaper articles I found from that era say they were buried at the “Norman cemetery” and the IOOF Cemetery is the logical one to conclude that it is.

The monument I saw was unveiled on April 13, 2015 at the IOOF Cemetery in Norman, 97 years to the day of the fire. This article detailing the memorial held that day also talks about the fire, the victims, and their descendants. From what I read, 40 bodies were recovered and only one was claimed by the family. Ona Havill was identified by his brother, Charlie, and he was buried in Norman’s Independence Cemetery with family.

It was a cold, windy day and few spectators came to the graveside on Sunday, April 14, 1918. This article from the Norman Transcript provides more information. At that time, it was believed that 37 bodies were buried but 39 names are on the memorial.

On the other side of the memorial are the names of the victims buried in the mass grave.

Perhaps it’s wrong of me to ask questions but I have them. Why doesn’t this memorial say where the fire took place? Does the stigma of mental illness still hover so strongly that saying it was at a mental institution simply not desirable? I wonder how many people who have come across this memorial walked away scratching their head in confusion like I did.

It wasn’t just “a fire”. It was a tragedy that took the lives of a number of people who were already living on the fringes of society. I admit that I’m glad there is a memorial for these poor souls who died in an era when mental illness was little understood and often inadequately treated.

It was time to start heading for Sarah’s hometown of Lawton. But first we made two stops just north of Lawton at Elgin Memorial Cemetery and Old Elgin Cemetery.

I’ll see you there.

After I picked up Sarah at the Clinton Library, we headed to Fort Smith for the night. The next morning, we crossed the border into Oklahoma. If you are keeping score , we’d visited six cemeteries so far in three states (Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas).

This was not my first visit to the Sooner State. That was in the late 1990s when I went with Sarah to her childhood home in Lawton to visit her parents. I loved visiting Oklahoma then and again in 2019. There’s no other state like it and the people there are wonderful.

Remembering a Tragedy

During that first visit, the Oklahoma National Memorial Museum had not yet been completed. It is devoted to telling the story of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 and memorializing the estimated 168 lives that were lost that day. Sarah had already visited it so I asked if she would drop me off there while she visited some family nearby.

There are no bodies buried on the grounds of the museum. But it is a poignant memorial to those who died in what was at that time the worst act of terrorism on American soil. I felt compelled to go there to pay my respects. The museum does a respectful, thorough job of sharing the story of that day and its aftermath.

Outside the museum, there are 168 chairs that represent those killed on April 19, 1995. They stand in nine rows, each representing a floor of the Federal Building where the field is now located. Each chair bears the name of someone killed on that floor. Nineteen smaller chairs stand for the children who died.

There are two “Gates of Time” on each end of the reflecting pool in the middle of the chairs. According to the museum’s web site:

These monumental twin gates frame the moment of destruction – 9:02 AM – and mark the formal entrances to the Memorial. The 9:01 Gate represents the innocence before the attack. The 9:03 Gate symbolizes the moment healing began.

BBQ and Cemeteries

After Sarah picked me up, we headed for Van’s Pig Stand in Norman, a suburb of Oklahoma City. Van’s is a local chain with five locations. I’m always eager to try new barbecue places and Van’s did not disappoint. I think I love visiting barbecue joints as much as I do cemeteries! I’m not loyal to any one protein. I enjoy chowing down on pork, beef, turkey, chicken, etc. You smoke it, I’ll eat it. Fortunately, Sarah didn’t mind enabling my addiction.

Sarah had some other kin to visit in Norman, so I asked her to drop me off at the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) Memory Garden Cemetery located there. I’ve written about the IOOF before but I’ve never visited a cemetery that was owned/sponsored by them. It’s a fraternal organization with deep roots that still exists today, albeit with a much smaller membership.

To refresh your memory about their history, here’s a link to the IOOF web site.

The IOOF Cemetery in Norman is large and includes Saint Joseph’s Catholic Cemetery, located in the middle of it. I didn’t realize when I was walking around that I was photographing graves of both without knowing who belonged where at the time.

According to Find a Grave, there are more than 16,000 memorials recorded for the IOOF Cemetery. According to the sign, it opened on Sept. 25, 1891. Norman’s first graveyard was located on public school property on the southwest corner of Main Street and Berry Road. When the IOOF cemetery opened in 1891, most (but not all) of the graves were moved there.

It remains an active cemetery. You don’t have to be an IOOF member or related one to purchase a plot there. The Norman IOOF chapter operates it. There wasn’t much information online about it. I don’t know exactly when Saint Joseph’s Catholic Cemetery opened but it is much smaller with about 1,800 burials recorded on Find a Grave.

Death of an Oil Man

One of the more curious looking structures I saw that day was this mausoleum for Melvin L. Howarth, his wife, Maybel Fox Howarth, and their daughter, Myrtle Howarth Welch. It’s definitely rustic, with what looks to be block construction, and could use some restoration work. But it made me interested enough to see who Melvin was, and what his life in Norman had been like.

Born in the early 1860s in Chippewa, Mich., Melvin Leroy Howarth was the son of farmer George Washington Howarth and Sophronia Godfrey Howarth. In 1886, he wed Maybel Fox in Riley, Kans. They moved to the Norman area and began farming there.

The Howarths prospered in Norman. I found an article detailing how Melvin was instrumental in bringing a dependable water system to Norman in 1902. Son Floyd was born in 1888 in Kansas, while son Carl was born in 1896, and daughter Myrtle was born in 1898 in Oklahoma.

Maybel died on Jan. 11, 1900 at age 37, a few days after giving birth to daughter Pearl. Floyd was 13, but the other children were so young. Carl, Pearl, and Myrtle went to live with their Aunt Junia (Maybel’s sister) in Los Angeles, Calif. Carl later returned to live with his father. Melvin got into the oil drilling business, using the skills he used to find water in Norman. It was that work that would end up taking his life.

On Feb. 12, 1917, Melvin was helping build an oil well in Oklahoma City for Packington & Co. when tragedy struck. According to newspaper accounts, he was up on the derrick oiling the machinery when part of his jacket got caught in the cogs. Melvin was horribly injured before it could be shut down. He died as a result at the age of 54 and is interred with Maybel in the mausoleum.

Melvin’s obituary noted that he was a Mason and a member of Woodmen of the World (WOW). I’m not entirely sure he was an IOOF member. The WOW involvement would explain the tree-shaped monument beside the mausoleum. There are a LOT of WOW markers at this cemetery.

“Asleep in Jesus”

Daughter Myrtle married tinner Edward Welch on Christmas Eve 1918 and the couple settled in Tulsa. Floyd married in 1916 and was living there, too. Edward died in 1929 at age 33. Carl, who was wounded in World War I, died in 1926 at age 30 in Sawtelle, Calif. Floyd died in 1961 at age 73 and is buried in Glendale, Calif. Pearl died in 1973, also in California.

Myrtle died at a hospital in California on July 17, 1931, having spent a year there. She was cremated and her cremains were brought back to Norman, where she was interred with her parents in the mausoleum.

Mystery Mausoleum (Now Solved!)

I photographed a mausoleum that is a mystery to me. I only know that the last name is Berry and it is likely for a female. How do I know that?

There are 42 recorded Berrys with graves at the IOOF Cemetery, none in Saint Joseph’s. None of the IOOF memorials included a photo of the mausoleum. So I couldn’t tie it to anyone there.

Then I looked at the photo I’d taken of the inscription above “Berry” and saw that the deceased had been a member of the Woodmen Circle. This was the women’s auxiliary of Woodmen of the World and Norman had an active Woodmen Circle chapter. I did a little Newspapers.com dive to find out more.

Among the Berrys on Find a Grave was Adeline “Addie” Henry Berry, who died of heart disease on March 30, 1939 at age 65. She has her own flat marker and a surname marker she shares with husband Adolphus Andrew Berry, who died in 1916. The surname marker has a Woodmen of the World seal on it, indicating his involvement. From many articles I found, Addie was very active in Woodmen Circle and was one of the officers in Norman’s chapter.

“Beyond the Skies”

Then in researching Addie’s husband, Adolphus, I stumbled upon another potential candidate. On the same page in the Norman Transcript for Dec. 28, 1916 that published Adolphus Berry’s obit was the death notice and biography of Nora Irene Pugh Berry. They were not related. But Nora had passed away on Dec. 24, 1916 in a hospital in Oklahoma City after an operation to save her life had failed. Nora was 46 and has no memorial on Find a Grave.

As I scanned her obituary, the words “Interment will be in a vault in IOOF Cemetery” leapt off the page. There it was. I’m posting part of that death notice. Among all the tributes to her, none mentions the Woodmen Circle. It notes she was a member of the Ancient United Order of Workman (AOUW), the Degree of Honor, and Order of the Eastern Star (Masonic auxiliary for women). But nothing about Woodmen Circle.

Is it possible the vault/mausoleum wasn’t ready when Nora was buried? She died on Christmas Eve and her funeral was held only four days later on Dec. 28, 1916. I don’t think it could have been completed by then. Nora’s husband, Robert, remarried in 1919. His death in January 1940 of pneumonia and funeral was reported in several Oklahoma newspapers but none of them reported where or if he was buried anywhere. Only his funeral services were noted. If he was buried in the IOOF Cemetery, there is no Find a Grave memorial for him.

His obituary did note that he was a member of Woodmen of the World (among other fraternal organizations). Perhaps it’s through that connection that Nora’s vault was obtained. Perhaps Robert’s second wife was not keen for him to be buried with her. I don’t know.

EDIT: I called the number listed for the IOOF Cemetery’s office and left a message. A very nice young lady called me back to confirm that I was right. Nora is indeed buried in the Berry mausoleum, along with her oldest son, theater owner Ray C. Berry. He died in 1932 at the age of 40.

I’m just getting started so join me for Part II soon.

It’s time to finish up at Mount Holly Cemetery before the gates are locked. As I often do in my final installments on a cemetery, I’m going to do a bit of show and tell rather than doing really deep dives into history.

A Lasting Legacy

The Folsom mausoleum is a bit different. You might call it a hybrid of sorts. It’s made primarily out of bricks, with the top made out of stone. The doors are metal. It makes me wonder if the plans changed once construction began.

There isn’t much information on the Folsoms. Born on Jan. 10, 1827 in North Carolina, Dr. Isaac Folsom he married Sallie Puckett in January 1861 in St. Francis County, Ark. They had no children. I don’t know where he received his medical degree. During the 1870s and some of the 1880s, the Folsoms lived in Lonoke, Ark., which is about 30 miles east of Little Rock.

In January 1892, Dr. Folsom was making plans for the future. He wanted to leave $20,000 to a cause that would make an impact long after his death. He did that by establishing a free medical clinic for indigent patients. The Isaac Folsom Clinic was established at what is now the he University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). At that time, it was called Arkansas Industrial University. That would be about $650,000 today.

To this day, UAMS diplomas note that the graduate has received instruction at the Isaac Folsom Clinic. I was curious about this specific request and found a newspaper article that mentions it:

You can read more about Dr. Folsom’s clinic and the fate of the plaque that was once on the building that housed it here. That’s a sad story in itself. Dr. Folsom died on Sept. 5, 1895 at age 65. His wife, Sallie, lived another 32 years. She died on March 21, 1925.

Death of a Young Wife

Seeing a white bronze (zinc) marker is always a sure way to get my attention. I only saw two at Mount Holly and they were for the same family. They were for a mother who died young and two of her children.

Born in Virginia in 1846, William Pinkney Dortch, Sr. married Alice Orr in 1867 in Ohio. It appears that they met while William was attending Miami (Ohio) University. The couple settled in William’s adopted hometown of Little Rock, Ark. Daughter Daisy was born in mid-May 1869 and died three weeks later. Frederick Dortch was born on Jan. 23, 1871, and his brother, Harry Sherwood Dortch, was born on August 1873. Their mother, Alice, died on Sept. 4, 1874 for unknown reasons. She was only 26.

Harry, who was 15 months old, died on Oct. 16, 1874. He and his sister, Daisy, share a marker.

William remarried in 1878 to Frances “Fannie” Peterson. She died sometime before 1880 because she does not appear with him and Frederick in the U.S. Census for that year. An infant daughter named Judith, however, is listed. She was born in 1879. William married again in 1885 to Nettie Steele. Together, they had five children.

Frederick Dortch grew up and attended Vanderbilt University Medical School, becoming a physician. He moved to Derider, La. to practice medicine. He died in Shreveport, La. on Jan. 1, 1909 at age 30 due to complications from surgery. His body was brought back to Little Rock for burial beside his mother and siblings.

William Dortch died on Feb. 13, 1913 at age 65. He is interred with his third wife, Nellie, and four of their adult children at Oakland and Fraternal Historic Cemetery Park in Little Rock.

“My Wife”

I’ve featured round or “cradle” style grave markers before, but this one has a little surprise on the back that I thought you’d like to see.

A native of Kentucky, Louis Lawrence Mivelaz married Lula Hyacinth Meyer in Memphis, Tenn. in 1875. Both were of French descent. The couple had four children over the course of their marriage: Louis Jr. (1879-1920), Leo (1881-1932), Milton (1883), and Nannette (1884-1965). The family settled in Little Rock after Louis Jr. was born. Louis Sr. owned and operated a restaurant in the Capitol Hotel during the 1880s and advertised frequently in the local newspapers.

Lula died on May 25, 1889 at the age of 29. Her obituary states that she had suffered from a long and painful illness.

On the back, you can see this lovely carving. Ivy symbolizes fidelity, marriage, and friendship while ferns were a symbol of humility and sincerity during the Middle Ages in Europe.

Louis remarried on June 16, 1890 in Louisville to Mary Anna Weiss and the couple moved to Memphis. They had several children together. Louis passed away on Oct. 14, 1901 at age 47 in Memphis. He is buried with Mary in Saint John Cemetery in Louisville, Ky.

“Our Mother In Heaven”

There are more questions than answers that go with this final grave marker for Sarah Cecelia Hughes Kinnear. But her stone haunts me and I feel I must share it.

Born in Ireland in 1827, Sarah married James F. Kinnear of Philadelphia, Pa. Ancestry.com says they were wed in Pulaski County, Ark. in 1847. Over the next 10 years, they had four children together: Annie (1847-1870), Cecelia Rose (1850-1937), James (1851-1938), and Josephine (1855-1922). I believe that James was in business with Sarah’s family because ads for a Kinnear & Hughes (a dry goods store and later a drug store) are frequent in the local newspapers.

Sarah died on April 6, 1857 at age 30. I could not find an obituary or death notice for her. But the carving on her stone leads me to believe she must have died giving birth or shortly afterward, and that the child also died. The motif of an angel bearing an infant aloft while holding a woman’s hand is usually what this meant. It was a common but sad fate for many women during this era.

James remarried to Mary Elizabeth Brogan Cellars sometime before 1860. He died on May 2, 1867. From various legal postings I’ve seen, I believe it took a while to untangle his affairs and probate his will. He was 41 when he passed away. He is buried at Mount Holly.

You will be happy to learn that I did not get locked in at Mount Holly. As 5 p.m. approached, I made sure I was close to the gates. Sure enough, not long after that time, I saw a car driven by a woman and her children entering the cemetery gates. A sweet little girl called out to me, “You know it’s closing time, right?” I waved, smiled, and got into Sarah’s car and made a quick exit.

Thankfully, I beat the clock. It was time to move on to Oklahoma.