Indian Pioneer History Project For Oklahoma
Date: September 16, 1937
Name: LeFlore, Joe* (Mrs.)
Post Office: Route #2 - Spiro, Oklahoma
Residence: Spiro, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: January 3, 1872
Father: David Joe McCurtain
Mother: Rebecka Krebbs
Step-father: Edward Lanier
Place of Birth: Scullyville, Indian Territory
Field Worker: Gomer Cower
Interview: #7532, pages 173 - 176
Joe LeFLore,
(feminine) was born at Scullyville, in the old Indian Agency
building, on January 3rd, 1872, and was the daughter of David
Joe and Rebecka McCURTAIN.
Her father, David Joe McCURTAIN, died when she was but two years
of age.
Her mother, Rebecka McCurtain, nee KREBBS, sometime after the
death of her husband, David McCurtain, married Edward LANIER, a
member of a very prominent Indian family which was identified
with the history of the old Indian Territory.
As a girl, the young woman, now Mrs. LeFLore, attended the New
Hope Female Academy over a period of years. She also attended
college at Quitman, near Conway, Arkansas.
The New Hope Female Academy was established by an act of the
Choctaw General Council, passed in 1842, in which it was
designated as the Female Branch of the Forth Coffee Academy at
Fort Coffee, and "to be located in the same vicinity, by a
committee to be appointed for that purpose by the General
Council".
In compliance with the terms of that act, the committee selected
as the site of the Female Academy, a point about three-fourths
of a mile northeast of Scullyville and about five miles distant
from Fort Coffee, the site of the Fort Coffee Academy for boys.
In the main, both these academies were supported by tribal
funds; however, it appears, that when these funds were not
sufficient to meet the demands of the schools, the Board of
Missions for the Methodist Church supplemented them with
contributions. They thus became to be known as joint
Choctaw-Methodist institutions.
Little, if anything can be learned from ex-scholars, now living,
regarding the first years of the existence of the New Hope
Academy. However, it is well authenticated that at the outbreak
of the Civil War and for several years prior thereto, the
Academy was in charge of a Mr. JAMES McKINNEY, a Methodist
Missionary and preacher. It was closed soon after the
commencement of hostilities and the buildings were used by the
Federal forces as quarters for the officers and men during the
period of the war. It did not reopen for students until the
early seventies, when a Mr. METHVIN became its superintendent.
It then remained in continuous operation until the Fall of 1896,
at which time it burned to the ground and was not rebuilt.
However, a new academy was established at Tuskahoma to takes its
place.
The establishment of the academy near Scullyville in that early
period, 1842, no doubt met the demands and conveniences of a
majority of the people at that time, but as the years passed,
the center of population moved westward and southward with the
ultimate result that a more centrally located point than that of
Scullyville, which was in almost the extreme northeast corner of
the Choctaw Nation, was selected as the site for the new school.
Hence its establishment at Tuskahoma.
During its most prosperous years at Scullyville the enrollment
of scholars averaged around one hundred and fifty. All scholars
residing at a distance were provided with books, tuition and
board free of cost to the parents, and every consideration was
given the matter of religious as well as secular training of
those who were thus parted from the parental roof.
The establishment of this and six other splendid schools and
their maintenance over a long period of years, reflects great
credit upon those composing the General Council at that time and
attests their desire to give coming generations of Choctaws
better scholastic advantages than those which they themselves
had enjoyed.
The old site of the school is now ornamented by a neat stucco
bungalow facing Highway 271.
It is not often that people are permitted to live their entire
lives within comparatively hailing distance of the site of the
school which they attended in their youth, as the subject of
this sketch has done since her marriage to Felix LeFlore in
1897. A sense of regret at its abandonment was discerned in her
features while she recounted the many happy days she passed
under its benign influence.
NOTES from
Submitter:
*In the Interview of FELIX LeFLORE at:
//okgenweb.net/pioneer/ohs/leflorefelix.html
"ZOE" is identified as the daughter of REBECKA (KREBBS) and
DAVID JOE McCURTAIN who married FELIX LeFLORE.
JAMES McKINNEY, Methodist Missionary and preacher in charge of
the New Hope Academy, was the father of MARY JANE (McKINNEY)
JAMES DAVIS in the following Interviews which
are online:
Page, Montie D.html
McKinney, Mary Jane
Davis, Mary Jane
Transcribed and submitted by
Peggy Joice Horton March
2002.
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