Sketching untold Territorial stories

Grave of W.E. Jacobs--March 18,1835 to Jan 1. 1897

What to do when the muse seems to have gone on vacation?
Think. Imagine. Draw. The muse responds to work, not sitting still.
I've written several times, and painted as well at the Territorial Oakwood Cemetery at the end of 15th Street in Edmond, right before you get to Lake Arcadia.
It's a place I go for quiet, imagination, and memories.
Today, I took my sketch book, and three markers--light gray medium gray and dark gray or black--usually used for value sketches before I paint, and drove over there, not knowing what was going to happen.
I'm particularly attracted to the several Civil War veterans' graves, many more veterans' graves, and to the many infant graves. The cemetery is still maintained, and flowers and flags decorate many of the graves. Early Oklahoma territory was a fatal frontier for many settlers.

Plastic flowers, and a  lamb Earl. W. Kootz, Nov. 6, 1894 Aged 6 yrs, 4 mos, 2 days

Seeking shade and the breeze, I started looking at the many older tombstones. So many stories, so much art that could become a project.
So here they are, three values only, as the afternoon sun cast strong shadows on the green grass, and the wind whipped the flag and taller grass.

Broke, and tilted, Loid Waters, April 13, 1892 to May 21, 1892

Though Oakwood is still a family cemetery, these childrens' graves list their parents. Both of these were by themselves, which means the parents moved on and must be buried elsewhere.
So many stories, and thus, so much art, just waiting.
And here are five links to previous posts with photos and and artwork. Here's one watercolor done two years ago on Memorial Day.

• Stories of a Memorial Day flag on his grave
• Morning stories in an old cemetery
• Independence Day among the graves and flags
• Infant graves--hard life in Indian Territory
• Memorial Day flags tell the story

Stories of a Memorial Day flag on his grave

He was 16 years old when he enlisted in the 27th Missouri Infantry at St. Louis in 1862. Today, there's an American flag on his tombstone in Edmond, Indian Territory, where he died in 1894 at age 48. 
His unit was part of the Army of the Tennessee, and took part in the siege of Vicksburg, the battle of Atlanta, and much more in the Civil War. I think, based on a conversation today, he may have been an amputee and that helped lead to a short life.
I've found out Rees Hildreth was born in Iowa, and after the war, married in Missouri, and he and his wife Rachel had 11 children. I'm assuming he took part in the 1889 Land Run for free land. I know he received a military  pension. Some of that  comes from quick searches on the Internet. 

Hildreth's grave just inside the gate

Rees Hildreth

He's buried in the private Oakwood Cemetery about five miles straight east of our house on 15th street just before it ends in what is now Lake Arcadia. I went out there today searching for photos for Memorial Day, and found them, and more. I saw  Tim Martin, near the edge of the cemetery, working on a fresh grave near the corner of the cemetery. It was his recently departed father's, and there was an American flag in place. His father was in the Air Force in Korea. 

And I learned some of the story of the little two-acre cemetery, set aside by  Samuel Myers in 1892, part of his 80-acre allotment from the 1889 Land Run. He was also a Civil War vet, from Illinois.

The story of the cemetery is posted on what we'd call a kiosk today, along with the original charter from Oklahoma Territory. There are four main blocks of grave plots, allowing for six graves per plot. 
The cemetery association met this morning under a tree, conducting business. The only people who can be buried in the cemetery are descendants of the original participants. Martin told me about one of the early graves belonging to a Civil War amputee. A huge number of graves are infant graves, and I've written about that before, last year. It was a Hard Life in Oklahoma Territory.

The cemetery founder's grave

Today I was interested in the veterans' graves, and there are more than 20 of them, judging from the flags out today, three of them including Hildreth's for Civil War vets, and moving up through recent times.
I found Myers' grave, a concrete one from his death at age 90 in 1935, when the Edmond newspaper listed him as one of the last Civil war vets in the area. The cemetery has other stories to tell. When originally chartered, it had a section reserved for "colored" people, remarkable then. More remarkable is that in 1951 it was desegregated, far ahead of its time. 
So many stories, and flags.

Old graves

And new

Infant graves--the hard life in Indian Territory

I stopped counting the infant graves, as I wandered through the Oakwood Cemetery on east 15th street near Arcadia Lake yesterday. There were so many.

I don't know why I'm drawn to cemeteries, except there are so many stories there, and perhaps somber realization that someday I'll visit one permanently.

But after photographing the Civil War veteran's grave, and seeing an infant's tombstone near by, I kept walking, and kept seeing small red bricks with infant names on them, and some without a name. That next tombstone was the oldest with a date, 1892, of an infant boy named Loid, the same year Central Normal School for teaching teachers was founded on a treeless prairie less than 10 miles miles northwest.

A darling baby daughter

There were others too of one year olds, and darling daughters. Most were undated, but the other early graves made it likely they were before statehood. Many have little lambs curled up on top of the stones,or doves carved into stone, eroded by time like the letter on the stones.

A few months old son

They may be gone and forgotten, but they're monuments to the grief and hard times the first settlers of Indian Territory endured to stay here. No air conditioning in brutal heat. No heating other than a wood stove. No running water. Manual labor. And the hard times that killed mothers in childbirth and children as infants or only a few months old.

At Oakwood, there are new graves, up into the 1990s at least. A central display shows all the plots and available names is near an American flag. The grass is recently been mowed. Someone is attempting to care for this small plot of history. There are phone numbers to call. They've updated the infant graves and marked them the best they can after all these years.

A lonely Civil War vet's long shadow

Another Civil War vet's grave stands at a tilt, lonely. I can make out that he was from Iowa, but that is about it. Then there are the decorated graves of what I think must have been related, an eight-year-old girl who died in 1943, and a five-month old boy in 1940, linked with gravel and trinkets and other offerings. Nearby, you can sit on a broken marble bench and stare down at an eroded stone almost covered with grass, the name illegible. Flowers and more decorate the shrines.

Double heartbreak...two graves of a boy and girl

The old stones, the pillars and crosses and different shapes that catch my attention most. Unlike most modern gravestones that are boring in their uniformity, the old ones have so much individuality and tell stories of grief and love and hope eternal, read in the simple words, "Infant." 

Come and sit a spell and ponder mortality, and eternity

I think these people were much more in touch with life than we, because they were so much in touch with death, while we try to isolate ourselves from it.

The old stones...stories of hard lives and faith, and so much individuality

Morning stories in an old cemetery

It's amazing to me the stories you can find when you don't expect them. A graceful buck pranced across the road in front of me when I took a short  drive in the cool of the morning, into the "rural" roads east of the house near Lake Arcadia. Trees on both sides, no traffic, quiet.
Then I noticed a small cemetery I'd either not seen or ignored in the past. I backed up and parked, noticing some old tombstones among newer ones. "Oakwood Cemetery" the gate sign said, and an American flag flew in the distance.
What really caught my attention was just inside the gate, the distinctive shape and shield of a Civil War veteran's gravestone. In front of it, on the ground, lay a small American flag. I stooped, picked it up, and planted it in front of the grave.
This veteran served in the 27th Missouri Infantry and died at age 48 in what was then Indian Territory in 1894.
Coming back to town I looked it up on the Internet. You never know if a Missouri unit was Union or Confederate, since the border state had slaves, and citizens served on both sides. The 27th Infantry was a Union company, organized by volunteers. These volunteers came from Schuyler County, in Northeast Missouri up on the Iowa border. It was organized in late 1862 in St. Louis, and served in Missouri until called to serve in the Army of Tennessee's siege of Vicksburg in 1863. That means this vet saw some heavy fighting under Grant. 
There's a marker to his unit at Vicksburg battlefield. and then he served under Sherman in the march on Atlanta, and up into the Carolinas. He may have seen the surrender of Gen. Joe Johnston in late April, and was mustered out in June 1865. The unit lost two officers and 35 soldiers in combat, and 135 to disease.  27th Missouri Infantry service record

1892 infant grave

I don't know when Private Rees Hildreth came to Indian Territory, or the rest of his stories, but he enriched my life this morning.
His is not the oldest grave in the cemetery.  I wandered around, shoes getting wet from the sparkling morning dew, taking photos, thinking. The oldest I found was of an infant, the next grave over, who died in 1892. But then there are a large number of infant graves in this cemetery, but that's another story.