Volume 10 , Issue 9

Pioneer Aunt Crosha - Oklahoma

I found these pictures recently while cleaning out some of my files. They made me think you might like a story of an early Oklahoman that you won't find in a History book.

Aunt Crosha was born in Red River County, Texas in 1863. Her Father Served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. In 1880 she married Uncle Henry, a Yankee veteran of the Civil War. He was several years older than she.

Crosha and Henry after their marriage lived in Arkansas and probably other places until 1896. They both made the RUN. Henry on horseback going for land and she with a team and wagon going for town sites.

They settled near Hunter Oklahoma and had some town lots in Pond Creek. In late 1896 her brother was shot and killed in Rising Star, Texas. He was a newspaper proprietor and editor and may have been shot because of some political disagreement. His wife died approximately 6 months later, 3 months after the birth of her 9th child.

Crosha went to Rising Star to arrange for the care of her brother's children. Not sure how she traveled there. Some say by a team of horses and a wagon, other think she took the train to Fort Worth from Pond Creek.

Either way when she got there she got some neighbors and another brother to take in the older girls. Gave the baby to a childless couple to raise and being childless herself took 5 of the children back to Oklahoma to raise. As the pictures show her home at the time was a Dugout and they later built a house.

Crosha and Henry helped start a Friends Meeting. The meetings were held in their barn until the meeting house was built. They both served as representatives to the Annual meeting. They sent the older children to the Stella Friends Academy, A boarding school near Cherokee. Where incidentally the three girls met the male students who later became their husbands.

Sometime prior to 1910 they moved to Wichita Kansas, probably due to Henry's failing health. He had been injured during a Civil War training accident when a horse fell on him causing a rupture that could not be controlled by a truss. He also lost his eyesight in his later years.

Another reason may have been to find better education for the children. Some of the children attended what is now Friends University after the move to Wichita.

Henry died in 1924. Crosha died in 1952 at the age of 89. She lived for several years in a cottage on the grounds of the homes for Civil War Widows. First at Ellsworth Kansas and later at Fort Dodge, Kansas.

There are many stories about Aunt Crosha usually emphasizing her strong will and no nonsense approach to life. I am not sure they are all true, but this one I know for sure. Crosha as a young lady, smoked a pipe. This was not uncommon. Later on it became unfashionable for a lady to smoke a pipe so Crosha gave up her pipe and started using snuff which she used for the remaining years of her life.

I am sure there are many others like Henry and Crosha that settled in the Cherokee Strip whose story has been lost. They had to be strong willed; hard working; honest and God fearing to ever have survived the rigors of living in the Oklahoma Territory.

This is why I am proud to be an Okie and a descended of those who moved to Oklahoma Territory from other parts of the United States." -- Earl Fugit - Email: erfoknym@comcast.net
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