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Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: May 4, 1937
Name: Susan Lewis Brown
Residence: Wynnewood, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: 1878
Place of Birth: Near Tishomingo
Father: Louis Neal, born in Indian Territory, Chickasaw Senator
Mother: Louise Alexander Neal, born in Indian Territory
Field Worker: John F. Daugherty
Interview #1297 

My parents were Louis Neal and Louise Alexander Neal. They were both born in the Chickasaw Nation.

Father farmed. There were six children. I was born in 1878 near Tishomingo. I went to an Indian school until I was twelve years old. My mother and Father died when I was quite young and I went to live with an uncle, named Walter Alexander, my mother's brother, who was a Methodist preacher for the Indians. Father was a Chickasaw senator at Tishomingo for four years before I was born.

Then I went to an Orphan's Home for Chickasaw Indian children at Lebanon, which is no longer in existence. I was there for five years. The superintendent of this Orphan's Home was a Methodist minister, named Derrick. He was greatly beloved by the children. We had good food, and were well treated while he was in charge. There were one hundred sixty girls and one hundred seventy boys when I was there. We had a big farm at this home. The larger boys worked on the farm, milked the cows, and cut wood. They raised gardens in the summer and the larger girls canned vegetables for winter use. On the farm they raised oats, wheat and corn. The wheat and corn were ground into flour and meal for our bread, and the cows were fed on farm products. They bought most of their supplies from Mannsville.

I can remember making Pashofa when I was a young woman. We got a block about three feet high and started chipping it out with an ax, in the center. We chipped it out carefully so as not to crack the block, making a hole which would hold about a gallon of corn. Then we placed the chips back in the hole and set them afire. We watched this carefully to see that the block didn't burn. After we burned the inside of this hole thoroughly we took glass and scraped it until it was perfectly smooth. Then we placed the corn in it and beat it with a maul about eight inches long, six inches wide and three inches thick. This maul was rounded at the bottom as that it would go into the hole in the block and mash the corn. After it was well beaten we cooked it for hours in a pot with fresh pork. We also ground corn for meal in this block.

I was married to Holly B. Brown in January, 1899, at Ada. We were married by a Methodist Indian preacher named George Colbert. He was also my first teacher.

I am the mother of six children. We moved near Sulphur twenty-eight years ago and have been here since. My parents are buried in a family graveyard then miles southwest of Tishomingo.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Brenda Choate.