Daughter of the Cherokee StripThe largest land grab in American history was the opening of the Cherokee strip in 1893. This book narrates the triumphs and struggles of those days as experienced in the life of Pioneer James Secord's daughter, Mildred, her sibliings, and her own family. The powerful influence of frontier preachers is told as well as the influences of the country school teacher who taught eight grades in one room. The results with the discipline of life in Cherokee Strip produced in the Secord family: college professors, ministers, missionaries, farmers and school teachers. Mildred became a school teacher at Fairview school. She married the Farmer boy who promised to get her away from it all. Starting with Horse and Buggy he went to Model T's, Farms, much Machinery, lots of Livestock, and a large family on Credit. They went through three of the greatest social and economic changes of the 20th Century. Depression, Dust bowl days, WWII. The book is the opposite of Steinbeck's GRAPES OF WRATH. We were in debt too far to sell out. Father taught us to work, Mother taught us to Pray. The Hope of next year we will get a bigger crop and a better price happened in WWII. Mildred prayed five boys through the War. When all the boys came home the large family became College professors, Farmers, Ministers and School Teachers just like the pioneer Secord family did a generation earlier. |
