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They may become the cultured children of the benevolent civilization, they may become bleached with the blood of the Anglo- Saxon; but they will ever revere the name of Cherokee. Wherever found they do this. In the University of Oklahoma there is an Indian club, known as Oklushe Degataga, which interpreted means "Tribes Standing together." The greatest representation of any tribe upon the rolls of membership belong to the Cherokees. Among those represented is Walter N. Chitwood, a Tulsa man by permanent residence, but now a law student and temporary resident of Norman. Mr. Chitwood was the second to be honored with the office of chief in this students' organization. He is a one-quarter Cherokee, and is an all-round college man, and one from whom a great deal will undoubtedly be heard both through his professional associations and his high minded citizenship. It was in the spring of 1914 that the Oklushe Degataga was organized in the University of Oklahoma. Six tribes of Oklahoma Indian were represented in its membership of thirty students of Indian descent, comprising some of the university leaders in the various branches of college activity. Its purpose is the duty of aiding the advancement of the Indian race, including the securing a greater enrollment of Indian students in the university and making them feel that the State University of their last home was their institution, and the efforts of the organization are also directed toward the creation of a fitting museum of American Ethnology in the university at Norman. Its members are proud of their blood; they have the right to be. Walter N. Chitwood was born December 13, 1891, in what is now Delaware County, Oklahoma, formerly is the Coocooweescowee District of the Cherokee Nation. His parents are Thomas N. and Lucy (ENGLAND) Chitwood, now resident of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. His father is a white man and his mother is one-half Cherokee, a daughter of William England, and closely related to the famous MAYES family, who have played such an important part in the politics and development of the Cherokee Nation. The grandmother of Mrs. Thomas Chitwood was "Grandmother" SNELL, who died in 1910, and who came from the east side of the Mississippi with the Cherokees during their early removal. Mrs. T. N. Chatwood's mother was a half sister to William P. Mayes and to Samuel Mayes, who was chief of the Cherokees. Thomas N. Chitwood, father of Walter N., was born in Estill Springs, Tennessee, in 1864, a son of William Chitwood, a prominent Tennessee Lawyer. After completing his education at Pea Ridge College in Pea Ridge, Arkansas, he came to the Indian Territory, and for ten years was engaged in the teaching profession. I was in the beautiful Cherokee Hills that he met Miss Lucy England, and they were married in 1890. Miss England had been educated in the national schools of the Cherokee Nation. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Chitwood are the parents of three children: Walter N.; Mamie J., who married Charley GILBERT of Okmulgee; and Floyd, now attending school at the Haskell Agricultural School of Broken Arrow. Thomas Chitwood is engaged in farming and stock raising, and has also some extensive oil interest in the vicinity of Tulsa. Walter N. Chitwood is still a very young man, but has acquired a liberal education, and is one of the high minded members of the Cherokee race, well fitted for leadership not only among his own people but among the best of the white race. He was educated in the common schools of the Cherokee Nation, in the Cherokee Male Seminary at Tahlequah, and in the Southeastern State Normal at Durant. He is an all-around college man. In athletics he plays football, tennis and baseball. While in the seminary at Tahlequah he was end and half back on the football team three years, and in the Southeastern State Normal he played half back three years and captained the victorious all- state normal team of 1913, in which year he was picked as all- normal half-back. In 1912 he presented with a colleague the claims of the Southeastern State Normal against the E. C. S. N. debating team. Mr. Chitwood entered the law school of the State University in February 1914, and during the college year of 1915 he was the law school football captain participating in the inter-class games. He is a member of the Kappa Alpha and the legal Phi Alpha Delta College fraternities. He is also a member of the Masonic Club, of the Sooner Bar, a legal society, of the Williams Club Court, and of the Democratic Club of the University. He is affiliated with Norman Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and is already an influential worker in behalf of the democratic party, and undoubtedly much will be heard of him as a public man. He is secretary-treasurer of the Inter-Tribal Council of Oklahoma Indians, which was recently organized. December, 1913, Mr. Chitwood married Miss Beatrice TIBLOW, a daughter of William S. Tiblow, of Skiatook, Oklahoma. Mrs. Chitwood is a one-half blood Cherokee, and was educated in the common schools of the Nation and in Central College at Lexington, Missouri. To their marriage was born October 27, 1914, Juanita Charlotte Ka-lee-la (Song- Bird). While Mr. and Mrs. Chitwood reside temporarily at Norman, they will take up their abode in Tulsa after Mr. Chitwood graduates from the State University law school in February 1917. At Tulsa he will engage in the practice of law and look after his extensive oil and other interest there. Typed for OKGenWeb by Charmaine Keith, January 24, 1999.