Rule, Brittaniea! Wrapped in plastic

Archive for July 2007

The Centennial Project

In Blog on 6 July 2007 tagged Oklahoma, The Centennial Project with 3 comments

Esther Catlege, age 15, about a decade after she made the Land Run, and Walter Hoofard Old Grandma. That’s what my father called her. His grandmother, and the woman who raised my beloved Pawpaw, was so old that simply calling her grandma wouldn’t do. She was called Old Grandma, and she was 101 years old [...]

Part 1: My full name is Thomas Overton Catlege

In Blog on 6 July 2007 tagged Oklahoma, The Centennial Project with 2 comments

The account below was transcribed by a man named Edwin E. Stephens, who in 1944 was a friend of my family’s and also a reporter for a newspaper in Shawnee, Okla. Stephens appears to have been an amateur genealogist, as my family’s story is not the only one he wrote. Thomas Catlege was my Pawpaw’s [...]

Part 2: The Day of The Opening

In Blog on 13 July 2007 tagged Oklahoma, The Centennial Project with no comments

Oklahoma wasn’t settled in one fell swoop. The first land run, the most famous and largest one, occurred on April 22, 1889, and included lands in central Oklahoma — what would now be Oklahoma City and surrounding counties, even as far north as Stillwater. This is the date on which Oklahomans celebrate the holiday known [...]

Part 3: 160 Acres in All

In Blog on 23 July 2007 tagged Oklahoma, The Centennial Project with no comments

My daddy, taken in the late 1950s. The first claim chosen by Walter Catlege was just west of a part of Oklahoma that would later be known as Trousdale. In the 1944 telling of his story, Catlege mentions the town, but if you were to look on a map of Oklahoma today you wouldn’t find [...]