On
my most recent visit in July of 2000 to Oklahoma I was accompanied by
cousins Pat and Anne with husband Charles and Kendall
and John Thomas of the 11th generation..
We found Uncle Ralph as always loving, gracious and informative. He led us down section roads to "the claim," still in cultivation, on our search of Lawton-Highland Cemetery* for grave sites, and around the town of Lawton for the photographing of remembered landmarks.
After returning Uncle Ralph home in Oklahoma City. Mount Scott, called us back on Saturday evening to perform the ritual -- a repeat for only me -- we all felt the call to answer that of going to "the mountains." We were rewarded with views of grazing American Bison, one with a calf, and Elk coming into the road behind us. We visited Ft. Sill, once the home of the10th Cavalry, the "Buffalo Soldiers" and Kendall found the few remaining ceremonial horses pasturing while John Thomas viewed the Artillery weapons.
But it was Mt. Scott -- visible in the distance from "The Claim" -- "where we took the girls to get them drunk" "eh! eh!" (Uncle Ralph) that called most insitently to the ritual picnic at its foot.
Vicky
in person revealed herself, if possible, more loving and sharing
than by long-distance. She brings the offering of the discovery
of exquisite writings by her mother Margaret written as a
teen teen-ager on "The Claim."*
We,
cousins from the southeast and Betty Lucille* from the west,
Anita and Dustin from Texas, Vicky and Uncle
Ralph created rich new memories of family closeness accompanied
by grand conversations and good food and drink served elegantly.
Any even casual student of history of this final century of the second m illennium is profoundly aware of the catastrophic consequences of holding too deeply the conviction that blood is all. Yet it is something. Obligatory as it may be, it is at the least a connection and one must wonder how many of us would connect were there not that organic imperative. It provides the foundation and template upon which we form our constructions, unique, but perhaps less so than we imagine.
Maybe a family or indeed an individual life is something to be lived in the building and so enjoyed as it is lived while, as with this website, perpetually open to modification as context is altered by understanding. For me, the knowing and having an awareness of continuity with these folks adds to the depth and breadth of my joy and experience.
As they say,..........more (or less) later. "You ain't seen nuttin yet!"
Outward Bound
Creation
Intro 
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PRAIRIE TREE LETTERS, Our book of transcriptions and commentary, may now be ordered here
Note: All narrative material and photographs of family members, family letters and memorabilia appearing on this website are the property of the authors and protected under copyright law. Publication of narrative text and reproductions of covered images without permission is prohibited. © October 2000
Midi, Among my Souveniers
sequenced by Mel Webb,
by permission of Mel Webb Kmel
07 April 2005
