[SnarlinCubBear]

Beautiful showpiece for Oklahoma. And yes, the people are the main asset in my opinion. Salt of the earth.

My husband was born in Woodward OK. His grandmother could tell the story of how she - as a little girl - traveled by wagon train into the west, and were attacked by Indians.

The family all sat around and said “we should document this” and of course, no one did.

She and her husband lived for a time in a dug-out. They were part of the original “sooners.”

[Aquamarine]

Am afraid those pioneer stories have been taken for granted and not documented the way they should have been. I've told the one here about my great grandparents crossing the Mississippi river on a raft with everything they owned and almost losing it. They settled in Grove before it was a state.

My grandmother lived through the dust bowl and the great depression at the same time and learned to be very frugal.

[JustAmy]

A SONG OF OKLAHOMA

Oh the plains of Oklahoma
Are beautiful to me
When the gray mirages glimmer
Like the breakers on the sea.

Or when crags and buttes and headlands,
In vermilion shades, and blue
Make perpetual Indian summer
With the sunlight sifting through.

And the hills, when autumn glory
Tints with colors gay and bold,
Every knoll and ridge and canyon
With a wealth of tawny gold.

And the plains of Oklahoma,
Overspread with ice and snow,
Quiet lie in brooding silence,
Save when raging blizzards blow.

Over prairies, vast and lonely,
Where the drifting sand-dunes surge,
Or whirl and roar in desolation,
And sing to earth a mournful dirge.

In the spring the wild gaillardia
Spreads its blanket on the hills,
And the redbud's vivid-color
Shouts a challenge from the rills.

To this land of Oklahoma,
Lured by dreams of home and gold,
Came the Boomers and the Sooners --
Pioneers both young and old,

They subdued her primal wildness,
Where was heard the coyote's call,
Now are cities, homes, and churches,
Fences, farms and derricks tall.

Oh this land of Oklahoma,
In wintry blast, or summer sun,
Names her people by the thousands,
Loyal hearts that she has won.

To her cause they pledge allegiance,
From her bounds they will not roam,
For they love her hills and prairies.
Oklahoma is their home.

By Laressa Cox McBurney
Published in Prairie Panorama in 1938


My Great Half Aunt spent most of her life in Clinton, OK.
I will try to share another of her Oklahoma poems later.


Hope everyone is having a warm fuzzy Wednesday in Oklahoma today. :)