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Mrs. R. C. Rowe |
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| Rowe, Mrs. (Letitia) R.C.
Field Worker: John F. Daugherty Date: September 29, 1937 My parents were Woodford Smith, born in Kentucky and Syrena Cheadle, born in the Indian Territory on the old Cheadle place on Blue River, east of Tishomingo. Father was a stockman and later was superintendent of Collins Institute at Stonewall. There were twelve children in our family. I was born January 24, 1877 at Red Oak Springs near Lebanon in a full blood Chickasaw settlement. Father had a ranch at Woodford in the Chickasaw Nation and we moved there when I was small. The town of Woodford, in Carter County, was named for Father. He had a general merchandise store there and freighted his supplies twice a year from Gainesville. He always took three wagons and they were pulled by steers. In the Spring, these wagons were loaded with hides which Father had bought during the Winter. Our house was built of walnut logs. It was a double log house with a hall between the rooms. It was covered with walnut boards put on with wooden pegs, and the doors were of walnut lumber hung with wooden hinges. It had two small windows which slid open. The family dining table stood in this twelve foot hall through the Summer and in the Winter it was moved into a side room. Mother cooked in the fireplace and on an Early Breakfast stove which was very small. Father had a herd of sheep and it was my duty to herd them. I had a pony which I rode all day. It was not safe to walk and herd the cattle because the cattle from other ranges came into my herd many times. I didn't ride on a saddle. I just had a blanket fastened with a surcingle. It required fast riding sometimes to frighten the wolves away. Father paid me 10 cents a day to care for the sheep. Father sowed wheat in the Fall and it was cut with a cradle. It was the children's task to thresh it. We had a walnut floor in our crib and we swept that off clean, put the wheat on it and drove two or three goats in. We made these goats run around in this crib and this threshed our wheat. We blew the chaff out of it by hand and our wheat was ready to go to mill to be made into flour, shorts and middlings. The first school I attended was in the Arbuckle Mountains in a log cabin near a large spring. We had school only three months out of the year and there were only ten pupils. We paid tuition of 5 cents a day. When Ardmore began their public schools I went there after we moved there. Dick McLish gave Father a lot to build a home on and we lived in Ardmore several years. Father sold the lot later to Charley Carter and he sold it to the town of Ardmore as a site for the Federal Court buildings. Dick McLish was Superintendent of Chickasaw schools and he appointed Father Superintendent of Collins Institute for Indian girls at Stonewall in the Chickasaw Nation. So we moved there and I finished my education there. However, I received no certificate. It was necessary for the pupils from Collins to attend Bloomfield Academy to complete their work. I married instead of going there. There were three teachers and forty pupils at Collins and school was in session ten months out of a year. I was one of the pastry cooks. We had a regular man cook and four of the girls did the pastry cooking for special occasions. It was here that I met Robert Rowe and I married him in 1898. He cared for the dining room and helped in the kitchen. We have seven children. My parents are buried at the Cheadle place, east of Tishomingo. Transcribed by Brenda Choate and Dennis Muncrief, July 2001
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