I was born November 22, 1862, at Pigeon
Roost, four miles south of Boswell. My mother was Malinda DWIGHT, Choctaw,
born in the Choctaw Nation and my father was Robinson MCKENNEY, Choctaw, born
in Choctaw Nation.
When I started to school at Pigeon Roost
my teacher, Mr. STRONG, didn’t know how to spell McKenney so called my
brother and me ROBINSON, and we were always known as Sophina Robinson and
Loring Robinson. I attended school there in a little one-room log house for
six years. I could read history but didn’t know what I was reading about.
I later went to school at Boggy Depot and
Dwight MORROW was my teacher. I could read but it was all guesswork to me for
I did not understand what I was reading.
I was eight years old when my mother died
at the birth of twins and I will never forget the large box covered with black
material. Old Jim TIM made the coffin; the bodies were placed one on each side
of Mother. My mother and father were the parents of thirteen children, six of
whom are now living.
I stayed with Brother Lloyd for about six
months before I married and it was while I was at his home that I learned to
speak the English language.
I was nineteen when I was married to Elip
GOFORTH. We went to Garrett’s Bluff on Red River to make our home with his
parents and remained there about a year, then moved to the Chickasaw Nation.
On the way there my baby, Mattie, took sick with bowel trouble and had high
fever. The weather was very cold and my husband would break the ice and give
her water to drink. A few days after our arrival at Interprise she died and we
buried her near the two little graves of Governor Palmer Moseley’s children.
This land was allotted to my daughter, Charlotte Goforth, and given for a
cemetery and school, which goes by the name of "Interprise".
Charlotte is now Mrs. W. A. BAKER, 3824 Manitou, Los Angles, California. I was
enrolled as a Chickasaw. My father’s brother, Walter McKenney, was sheriff
and he had a hard time trying to keep whiskey from the Indians. He always
carried a quirt and if the Indian refused to give up whiskey when he was
caught with it, Uncle would use the quirt on him, sometimes knocking the
Indian down.
My husband, Eli Perry Goforth, who was
called Elip, was interpreter for the Chickasaws during legislature.
Elmiria PETERS, who was adopted and
educated by Joel P. FOLSUM, boarded at our house and taught school. She was
the most up-to-date teacher we ever had. The school was quite a distance
through the timber from our house, and each morning my brother, Loring, and
Simon Dwight would hold Miss Peter’s long train up as she followed the
little path to the school house so the morning dew would not soil her skirt.
Loring and Simon were very mischievous and would often give the skirt a jerk,
pulling it off. I moved to Interprise in 1884 into the little two room log
house that Governor Palmer Mosely built: the house still stands. About one
mile southwest of this place is a little log house where the father of Jessie
HUMES lived. Two members of the family are buried under the house. While Mr.
Humes was living there he found a horn filled with gold buried at the corner
of the porch.
Submitted to OKGenWeb by Lola Crane
lcrane@futureone.com December 2000.