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Rufus P. Roope
Vol. 3, Page 1913

     One of the best known and most honored citizens of Lincoln County is Rufus P. Roope,
who is now serving as county treasurer and who previously has held the office of county
clerk.  He has been a resident of what is now the State of Oklahoma for nearly a quarter
of a century, and may be termed with all consistency a pioneer, his original location
having been in Lincoln County and its attractive andthriving judicial center, the
Village of Chandler, the while he has ever retained inviolable place in popular
confidence and esteem, as indicated by his having been called to offices of signal
public trust.  Mr. Roope has shown much circumspection and executive ability as a public
official, and his unailing courtesy and consideration have gained to him the good will
of all whith whom he has come in contact in his official capacity as well as int he
ordinary course of civic life.  He was elected county treasurer in the autumn of 1914,
as candidate on the republican ticket, and had served the preceding two years as county
clerk.  He is careful and methodical in his handling of all details of official work and
Lincoln County has been favored in securing his services in connection with its governmental
affairs.

     Rufus P. Roope was born on a plantation in Franklin County, Tennessee, on the 13th of
June, 1875, and is a son of Rev. Abner L. and Emarine (Protsman) Roope, both of whom were
natives of Indiana and both of whom attained to the venerable age of eighty years before
they were summoned to the life eternal. The father was a clergyman of the Methodist
Episcopal Church and at the time of the Civil War he served as captain of the Eighty-second
Indiana Volunteer Infantry, with which regiment he endured the full tension of the great
conflict, having been with the commands of General Thomas and General Sherman in many
sanguinary engagements on the battlefields of the South.  In later years he perpetuated the
memories of his military career through his membership in the Grand Army of the Republic,
and he never faltered in his allegiance to the republican party.  He labored with all of
zeal and devotion for many years as a minister of the church of which both he and his wife
were most devout members. Of their two children the subject of this review is the younger,
the elder son, Charles, being deceased.

     Passing the days of his boyhood and youth on the farm in Switzerland County, Indiana,
Rufus P. Roope duly availed himself of the advantages of the public schools, this discipline
having been supplemented by a course in a business college in Sedalia, Missouri.

     Mr. Roope came to Indian Territory and estabished his residence in what is now Lincoln
County in 1891.  He was one of the early settlers in the Village of Meeker, where he engaged
in farming and where he served five years as postmaster, besides which we was for a time a
teacherin a school maintained for children of the Creek Indians.  During the period of his
effective service as a county official he has, as a matter of course, maintained his
residence at Chandler, the judicial center of the county, and he has been progressive and
public-spirited, a loyal supporter of the measures and enterprises that have furthered the
social and industrial advancement and upbuilding of his home county and the Territory and
State of Oklahoma.  Mr. Roope gave careful attention to the study of law and is now a
member of the Oklahoma bar; in the Masonic fraternity he has advanced to the thirty-second
degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite; he is a stalwart repubican in politics; and
both he and his wife hold membership inthe Presbyterian Church.

     On the 4th of February, 1898, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Roope to Miss Elizabeth
McGee, who was born at Mexico, Missouri, where she acquired her rudimentary education.
She was a young girl at the time of the family removal to Kansas, and at Iola, that state,
she completed her educational discipline, after which she became a successful and popular
teacher in the public schools.  Amoung her schoolmates were the children of the Funston
family, of which Gen. Fred Funston is a distinguised member.  Mrs. Roope is a daughter of
the late Albert L., McGee, who was a native of Indiana, and who later became a prosperous
agriculturist and influential citizen in Audrain County, Missouri.  Mr. and Mrs. Roope
have two children-Frances Ruth and Marguerite Fern.

Transcribed for OKGenWeb by Norma Capehart, March 6, 2003.

SOURCE: Thoburn, Joseph B., A Standard History of Oklahoma, An
Authentic Narrative of its Development, 5 v. (Chicago, New York: The
American Historical Society, 1916).