Emma #91: Oil Fields and Indians—March 1935
An account of a trip to oil fields and Indian homes near Wewoka, OK.
This week we are taking a little side trip. Emma wrote this account of an excursion on March 12, 1935 while she and Tell were visiting family—Chris and Lou Boylan—at their home in Wewoka, OK. There is a lot of fascinating history behind this place and the things they saw there; I couldn’t resist digging in a bit.
Oil Fields
March 12, 1935. Today Milo Reed escorted us on a trip through the oil fields south of Wewoka. We saw a lot of wells in motion pumping oil out of the ground. They looked much the same above the ground—big derricks, with the pumps in motion, but some were only small producers while others were pumping as many as 6200 bbls a day. A barrel is 42 gallon so it wouldn’t take long for a man to “get rich quick” down here. The whole community has such an unstable atmosphere. People can get rich quicker in oil than any other way. We went to a number of different pools or fields.
In 1923, there was an oil boom in Wewoka, which became a major center of oil production. This video, made for the centennial celebration, provides some history. Milo Reed was the overseer of some oil properties in the area.
Perhaps the most interesting one was the one built across the Canadian river. Large bridges are built out to the wells in the river. Sometimes the river goes dry but its sandy bottom is treacherous. Quicksand is there, and great torrents of water may come rolling down its course catching any who may have risked a crossing.
Seminole Indians
Wewoka is the seat of Seminole County. Before Oklahoma statehood in 1907, this area was the sovereign property of the Seminole nation. There is a long and complex history here, including the removal of 3,000 members of the Seminole tribe from Florida to Indian Territory between 1835 and 1842. Today, the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma is the largest of the three federally recognized Seminole governments, and Wewoka (which is translated as “Barking Waters”), is the home of the tribal government.
Indian Homes
Mr. Reed took us to visit several Indian homes. We went first to Willie Palmer’s home. He is a rich Indian who has no idea what to do with all his money. They have a beautiful carpet on the floor but they have no idea how to care for their beautiful things. They have a number of pictures hanging about their living room, but they hang them at the very top of the room—against the ceiling and wall so that they rest about half-way on each.
Emma included a sketch of how these pictures were hung. I wonder if this practice dates back to the chickees the Seminole built in Florida—open-sided stilt huts, with raised platform and thatched roof. Objects were hung from the rafters to keep the floor space open.
Willie Palmer lives near Sasakwa and as his wife was the daughter of Gov. Brown who was once head of the Seminole tribe, Mr. Reed asked him to accompany us so we could gain an entrance into some other homes.
Sasakwa was a settlement south of Wewoka. John Frippo Brown, the last principal chief of the Seminole Nation before Oklahoma statehood, had lived in Sasakwa as well.
We visited his graves before we left. These according to Indian custom are in their back yards—just a few feet from the house. The massive marble tombs are on top of the ground—some have headstones with inscriptions giving dates of birth and death with a Bible verse inscribed also. There were about ten of these graves in the yard. Some of them are made with little houses entirely shingled—to keep the water off the grave.
I found an interesting Atlas Obscura article on Oklahoma grave houses. And here’s another of Emma’s sketches showing the graves.
We went to the oldest Indian church in Seminole County. It had records dating back eighty years. It is a small building with a pulpit in the front, seats on either side facing each other in the front part & the rest facing the front. The women sit on one side and the men on the other side. Their preachers do not expect any support from their flock, but farm or carry on some business to support themselves. I counted eight boxes made of rough wood sitting here & there in the church to be used for spittoons.
Spring Baptist Church in Sasakwa was founded in 1850. John F. Brown, the Seminole chief, was one its ministers; Wilsey Palmer, the brother of Willie Palmer from Emma’s story, became the minister in 1937.
And one more sketch from Emma, with the seating arrangements.
There are nine “camps” around the church besides a large outdoor tabernacle which has a cement floor and thatched porches extending from the roof. Here they hold a meeting in the summer—usually during the month of August. They come in crowds to the meeting and the preacher sends each camp an allotted number to eat. Willie Palmer’s house or camp was well built. It was locked up but we got to see inside it too. Three stoves and a long table was about all the furnishing of the big room.
When they have respect for some one who dies they put his pictures up in the front of the audience and ask for all who have been helped in any way by the deceased to come to the front and one by one they are called upon to speak a word of praise for him. Milo Reed’s brother had had his picture thus put up.
Milo Reed’s brother Frank was an oilman and philanthropist who was a good friend to the Seminole tribe in Oklahoma. He died in 1931.
We went to Gov. Brown’s house which is west of the church. It is a very large yellow house containing as many as sixteen large rooms. Many of the rooms are not being used at all now. We went to the second floor to call on the daughter who lives there. She was dark—quite well dressed and spoke very good English. Her sister-in-law and little niece were with her. She had a pleasant wood fire burning, three song birds in cages were singing—but again we were struck with the lack of appreciation for the things the white man values. I saw a bathroom filled with junk, carpets ruined, a grand piano covered with dust etc etc. A large mirror which must have been 6 x 8 feet with a heavy frame hung in a bedroom. The rooms are so large that the bed looks small & out of proportion. The ceilings were at least 9 ft high—possibly 9½.
Here’s an image of John Brown’s house. I wrestled with whether to omit some of Emma’s more critical comments, but decided to leave them to help give an accurate portrayal of her perceptions of what must have been a very unfamiliar culture.
Again we saw the family graves behind the house but here the evergreen trees and the fenced in lot did not seem so out of place. The marble boxes are all on top of the ground but time has covered them with a mossy growth and there is a look about this place that is quite in keeping with its purpose. There were about twenty graves here. One grave stone said Ruthie. One had just M.B.
On the large marble box that covers the casket of Gov. Brown are these words not engraved but standing out perhaps a half inch high in the marble.
John F. Brown Chief of Seminole Nation Oct. 23, 1843 Oct. 21, 1919 A servant to his country.
From here we went to the home of another rich Indian who had built him some wonderful buildings on his farm home. The barn was built better than any I had ever seen in Iowa. The cattle have individual drinking containers and when one wants a drink the pressure of its nose on a plate in the container turns on the water. A wonderful concrete floored machinery building, hen house, wash house, engine house etc. were here to be seen. This young Indian had both education and money and it looks as tho’ he is enjoying it all.
As farmers, Emma and Tell probably had a lot of curiosity about the details of this place. Individual automatic cattle waterers were first patented in 1912.
Wallace, a brother in law of Willie Palmer, has a fine brick house but he had such a lot of relatives around to live off his generosity that he went out to a little building finished inside with paste board cartons which had been tacked on the walls. A wood stove in one corner, two single beds, lamps, everything in disorder. Wallace who had been sick sitting in a chair with one eye tied up—barefooted—old dressing jacket on did not look like a man drawing $450 per month from his oil wells.
One wonders about it all—just why this poor piece of humanity should have so much & some others so little. But the Indians do better by their poor relations than do the Whites and none of the needy relatives are sent away. They come and visit for weeks at a time.
I wonder if Emma was feeling the strain of losing everything and being a poor relation, and longing for a place to stay for a while.
This is a wild and wooly place. The Indians and the Negroes make up a large part of the population. Many of the younger Indians are finely educated. These rich Indians have money to buy whatever they want but they do not care for the things we care for but what difference does it make anyhow. Life will soon be over anyhow.
Black history in Oklahoma is another complicated story, combining westward migration, the end of slavery, Indian territory, and more. I found this extensive collection of resources that had a listing of all-black towns, including Lima (near Wewoka) and information on African-American newspapers, including the Wewoka-Lima Courier, published monthly for some period of time starting in 1913.
Although Emma sounds pretty down at the end, things are starting to get a little better. We’ll get back to the regular journal entries next week, and pick back up on Emma and Tell’s adventures in Oregon.