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State
Historian
Angie Debo, one of Oklahoman's leading historians is remembered as a keen observer who strived for accuracy. She utilized both archival materials and oral history to describe the complicated relationship between tribes and the federal government. She was not born in Oklahoma but rather on a farm in Beattie, Marshall County, Kansas1 to Edward P. and Lina E. Debo, January 30, 1890, Angie traveled by covered wagon with her parents and her younger brother, Edwin, to Marshall, Oklahoma Territory, to be homesteaders in a pioneer community. also see http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/D/DE002.html
New York Times, The
Angie Debo, who came to Oklahoma in a covered wagon and wrote 13 books and hundreds of articles about Indian and Oklahoma history, died Sunday at a hospital in Enid. She was 98 years old and lived in Marshall, a small town in central Oklahoma.
Daily Oklahoman, The State Historian Angie Debo to be Buried in Marshall Marshall -- Angie Debo, one of Oklahoma's leading historians, will be buried Wednesday in the small Logan County town where residents consider her their greatest treasure. Debo, 98, came with her parents in a covered wagon to Oklahoma in 1899. She died Sunday at an Enid hospital, after being admitted with what was thought to be a virus. Debo, who started out teaching, turned to writing and eventually wrote 13 books on Oklahoma and western history and wrote hundreds of articles. "When you get to be 97, you know in good conscience that you won't live very long." "Angie Debo was one of Oklahoma's grand ladies," Gov. Henry Bellmon said. "She has distinguished herself through her long life in many, many ways and will be sorely missed by all who knew her." Bellman ordered Monday that flags flying over all state agencies be lowered to half-staff Wednesday.
The town of about 400 celebrates Debo's birthday each January. In April, Marshall puts on Prairie City Days, a weeklong celebration started in 1969 to celebrate a book she published under that name. That book, "Prairie City," is her only fiction work and won her the A. A. Knopf Fellowship in history.
1913 graduated from high school ?at age 23? this this w/in ? correct? 1918 graduated from University of Oklahoma [OU], 1924 got her master's degree from the University of Chicago 1933 returned to OU to earn her doctorate. - she was the first woman to receive a doctorate from the University of Oklahoma. Books by Angie Debo [list complied from metro.library catalog]
The Angie Debo Collection, housed in Special Collections and
University Archives of the Oklahoma State University Library,
consists of research material, including manuscripts of
publications and presentations by Debo and related legal papers,
correspondence, notes, etc. Unpublished manuscripts include some
by Debo as well as Grant Foreman's "The American Indian and the
Law" and World War II correspondence. It also contains personal
and business correspondence, and memorabilia, diaries, articles,
newspaper clippings, awards, books, maps and photographs dealing
with Debo's writings and personal life. In addition there is
some furniture from her home.
debo_a1.gif
Debo's Wealth Was Her Work Debo died in February at age 98. She had written 13 books about Oklahoma and its Indians, as well as hundreds of articles. A few weeks after Debo was buried in a silver casket, Loyd and several other OSU employees traveled to Marshall. At Debo's home, they filled 57 boxes with books and writings that are now stored at the university. The author-historian never married and had no family of her own. Most of her personal belongings went to first or second cousins or friends. But the cardboard boxes full of paper yellowed with age are considered a goldmine. The thoughts and wisdom of Debo are on the crumbing pages and that makes them precious, OSU officials said. They found at least one unpublished story written by Debo, but it cannot be shared with the public until legal matters are settled, officials said. Although a painting of Debo was the first picture of a woman to be hung in the rotunda of the Oklahoma Capitol, her plain, spartan lifestyle clashes with the glamorous way the public probably pictured her as a well-known author. For 60 years, Debo lived in a small, two-bedroom bungalow at Market Street and Oklahoma Avenue in Marshall. The modest house was built in 1927. The housed is evidence of the love Angie Debo had for writing and her willingness to make economic sacrifices to remain a writer. Most startling is the fact that she denied herself a desk and spent thousands of hours at an antique typewriter placed upon a tabletop, Lloyd said.
Angie Debo was born
on January 30, 1890, less than one year after the Indian lands
in Oklahoma Territory were opened for settlement. The Debo
family did not participate in the Oklahoma land rush of 1889,
but arrived ten years later when Debo was nine. She traveled to
Marshall, Oklahoma Territory, in a covered wagon with her mother
and younger brother, while her father rode ahead with the farm
machinery. Debo wrote in her diary that she was hoping to see
Indians as she reached Oklahoma, but instead only saw white
settlers. The daughter of Oklahoma sodbusters and a student of Edward Everett Dale Angie Debo was an unlikely forerunner of the New Western History. Breaking with the followers of Frederick Jackson Turner, http://title3.sde.state.ok.us/library/itv/debo/debo.html.
October 16, 1988, page 157 April 16, 1967, page 23
Angie Elberta Debo
WORKS CITED 1 some sources state "She was born January 30, 1890 on a farm about 20 miles south of Manhattan, Kansas" [Manhattan is in Riley County, Kansas] others "January 30, 1890 Beattie, Kansas" [Beattie is in Manhattan County, Kansas]
Sources: good faith fair use of sources stated above Contributed by Marti Graham, October 2007. Information posted for educational purposes for viewers and researchers. The contributor is not related to nor researching any of the above.
I believe in random acts of kindness and I believe in sharing genealogy. If you have copies of
photos, obituaries, wills, biographies, or stories relating to any of these families or other Oklahoma County families, would you consider sending them my way for publication at this site?
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For the past
30 years, she live here in a house that belonged to her parents
and to which she returned after their deaths.
Debo
attended a rural grade school and was taught very little Indian
history. Since there was no high school in Marshall until 1910,
Debo obtained her teacher's certificate at age sixteen and
taught in rural schools near the family farm. She describes this
time as miserable, because she wanted to accomplish something
with her life. She finally graduated from high school at the age
of twenty-three, one of nine members of Marshall's first
graduating class.
