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Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: November 19, 1937
Name: Flo. Elisabeth Steele Corlett
Post Office: Kingfisher, Oklahoma
Residence Address:
Date of Birth: February 8, 1873
Place of Birth:
Father:
Place of Birth:
Information on father:
Mother:
Place of birth:
Information on mother:
Field Worker: Louise S. Barnes
Volume 100 page 256-258
Interview #  9282

I was born in Hamilton County, Illinois, February 8, 1873, but came to Oklahoma soon after the Opening.

Kingfisher did not make much of an impression on anyone in those days with the dugouts and shacks, no sidewalks and sand very deep in front of the makeshift stores. However, I loved those days even though we had terrible sandstorms then as well as today but we were used to them then and had too much else to do to worry about a small thing like that. I have seen the streets still crowded at midnight in those days when the farmers had to drive so far to get their supplies, but no one thought anything of distances then.

I quilted the first comforts that were quilted in Kingfisher. I had a new Singer machine that I had brought with me when I came to Oklahoma Territory, so quilted all of them on the machine. I quilted for the stores as well as for many individuals.

I made the first foot ball suite for the college on College Hill, which was in 1897, as I remember. They cut them out and I did the sewing and they paid 50 cents each for my work. These were made of very heavy duck. My husband attended the first funeral in Kingfisher and has told of it many times. It was a very sandy day and everyone was as busy as bees, getting some shelter built for their families. There was a family building a dugout and they lost a little child. There were five men, the preacher, three others and my husband, who went to where the cemetery is now located. They went in a surrey, taking the corpse, with the family and a few of the friends following in another surrey. They buried the body in a far corner of what is now the cemetery, located west of Kingfisher. The casket was made by the child's own parents, of pine. It was shaped something similar to our caskets today but was covered with black percale and lined with white percale. The body was also gotten ready for burial by the child's parents. Of course, then every one took care of their own dead.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Sherri Brownell  <just_us@terraworld.net> October, 2000.