The Choctaw Freedmen Part 45

COLORADO: Fort Morgan, Gunnison, Timnath.

CONNECTICUT: Miss A. C. Benedict, Waterbury.

ILLINOIS: Cairo; Chicago, Bethany, J. H. Jones, Leslie Music Company; Fairbury, Mrs. J. J. Pence; Mason City, Springfield Second.

INDIANA: William Elliot, Lafayette $5,000 for Elliott Hall; Greensburg, Winona Lake.

IOWA: Alta, Lucy M. Haywood; Boone, Burlington First, Clarinda, Corning, Corning Presbytery, Crawfordsville, Creston, Des Moines Central, Fonda, M. E. Church, Mrs. A. S. Wood, Adele Curkeet, Adelia M. Eaton, Mrs. R.

E. Flickinger, Geo. Sanborn, Mrs. J. B. Weaver, Mrs. John E. Jordan, Clark Perry; Fort Dodge, Gilmore City, Mrs. Bert C. McGinnis, Clarence M. Patterson; Grimes, Hamburg, Knoxville, Lenox, Malvern, Manchester, Nodaway, Princeton, Red Oak, Rockwell City, Ella T. Smith, Elmer E.

Johnson, John H. Mattison; Sanborn, Sigourney, Shenandoah, State Center, Storm Lake, Washington, Bethel, Winfield, Walnut.

KANSAS: Auburn, Burlington, Clay Center, Derby, Edgerton, Herrington, Halstead, Highland, Humboldt, Junction City, Kansas City, First, Grand View Park, Western Highland; Lincoln Center, Lawrence, Lyons, Manhattan, Morganville, Mulberry Creek, Neodesha, Oakland, Osawatomie, Oswego, Phillipsburg, Roxbury, Stanley, Sterling, Syracuse, Topeka, First, Second, Third and Westminster, M. B. True; Waverly, Wichita, First.

Ma.s.sACHUSETTS: Marblehead, Mrs. J. J. Gregory.

MICHIGAN: Coldwater, Harrington.

MISSOURI: Kansas City, Montgomery Ward & Co., Maryville, Prof, J. C.

Sp.e.c.k.e.rman; St. Louis, Majestic Range Co.

NEBRASKA: Beatrice.

NEW YORK: Mexico, Mrs. Mary O. Becker, Mrs. Mamie G. Richardson; Plattsburg, Mrs. M. D. Edwards; Honoye, Anna M. Bowerman; New York, Am.

Bible Society, Oliver Swet Marden.

OHIO: Bellefontaine, Mrs. D. O. Spade; Columbiana, Mrs. Mattie C.

Flickinger; Dayton Lorenz Music Co.; Denison, College Hill, Miss H. M.

Wilson; East Liverpool First, Mansfield, Springfield First, Wellsville First.

OKLAHOMA: Alva, Mrs. H. E. Mason, Anadarko, Atoka, Annie Osborne, Ardmore, Rev. Charles C. Weith, Bartlesville, Blackwell; Mrs. Emma F.

McBride, Coalgate; Cement, Central, Cimmaron Presbyterial; Chickasha, Edmond, Elk City, El Reno, Mrs. F. R. Farrand, Enid, Eagletown, Kiamichi Presbyterial; Garvin, Rev. and Mrs. W. H. and Emma A. Carroll; Hobart, Mrs. Geo. D. Willingham; Frederick, Griffin, Charity Glover; Granite, Grant, Susan Seats, Kaw, Kingfisher, MacAlester, Millerton, Rance Cherry, Joseph Garner; Muskogee First, Mulhall, Norman, Prof. Geo. N.

Gould; Oklahoma First, Phil C. Baird D. D., Mrs. W. A. Knott; Okmulgee, Perry, Ponca, Shawnee, Stroud, Tulsa, Tonkawa, Oak Hill, Valliant, Solomon H. Buchanan, Dining Table and Chairs, Samuel Folsom, Front Door of Elliot Hall, Lucretia C. Brown Communion Service, Bertha L. Ahrens, Adelia M. Eaton, John Claypool, Malinda A. Hall, R. E. and Mary A.

Flickinger; Vinita, Wagoner, Watonga.

NORTH DAKOTA: Fillmore, Mary I. Weimer.

PENNSYLVANIA: Armagh, Bakerstown, Black Lick, Blairsville First, Blairsville Presbyterial, Braddock, First and Calvary; Buelah, Coatesville, E. Lilley; Cresson, Congruity, Derry, Doe Run, Easton, College Hill, Brainard and South Side; East Liberty, Ebensburg, Greensburg, First and Westminster; Anna B. Hazleton, Irwin, Jeanette, Latrobe, Ligonier, Johnstown, First, Second and Laurel Avenue; Lewistown, Manor, McGinnis, Murraysville, Philadelphia, Lena D. Fieber and Prof, H. W. Flickinger; Pittsburgh, First and Second, Ellen M.

Watson, Mary R. Scott; Port Royal, Parna.s.sus, Pleasant Grove, Poke Run, Plum Creek, New Alexandria, New Kensington, South Danville, Mrs. W. A.

Reagel; Turtle Creek, Westmont Chapel, Wilkinsburg, Martha Graham, Mrs.

J. J. Campbell, Williamsburg, Windber and Windsor.

SOUTH DAKOTA: Volga, Hartford, Mrs. M. E. Crowe.

TEXAS: Bushy Creek, Mary A. Pierson, Crockett, Mrs. John B. Smith.

x.x.xIX

TRIBUTES TO THE WORKERS

AHRENS.--EATON.--CLAYPOOL.--WEIMER.--WOLCOTT.--HALL.--DONALDSON.--BUCHANAN.

"Our lives are songs, G.o.d writes the words, And we set them to music at pleasure; And the song grows glad, sweet, or sad As we choose to fashion the measure."

MARY A. FLICKINGER

Mrs. Flickinger is gratefully remembered for five years of untiring service as a.s.sistant superintendent.

The sphere of her observation and suggestion included all the women's work in the buildings, occupied by the students, and the special care of the garden and Boy's Hall. In connection with this daily oversight, there was always manifested a feeling of personal responsibility, to carry to completion at the end of the day, any unfinished work, that would otherwise prevent some of the larger girls from enjoying the privileges of the school, during the evening study hour.

Trained in her youth to execute speedily all the kinds of work, usually required on a well arranged farm, and also as a sewer and nurse, one proved a very valuable helper. She became the home physician, administering the medicines and caring for the sick. Her method of treatment included the prevention of some of the milder, but common forms of disease, by the regular administration of some inexpensive antidotes. These two principles were frequently expressed: "Self-preservation is the first law of nature," and "Prevention is better than cure." The young people were also encouraged to learn, how to keep and intelligently use, a few simple remedies in the home.

She and her husband are both natives of Port Royal, Juniata county, Pa., and their marriage occurred there, June 20, 1878. They have filled pastorates at Doe Run, Pa., Walnut, and Fonda, Iowa. They raised the funds and secured the erection of churches at Marne, Fonda, Pomeroy and Varina, Iowa; and a commodious parsonage at Fonda. He has served as a trustee of Corning Academy, Buena Vista college and of the Presbytery of Fort Dodge; stated clerk and treasurer of the latter twelve and a half years, and as Moderator of the Synod of Iowa, at Washington in 1901; and by special request, as author of the Pioneer History of Pocahontas county, Iowa, in 1904. Mrs. Flickinger in her youth became a teacher in the Sunday school, and during all the years that have followed, has been an efficient and aggressive solicitor and teacher of the children, in that important department of the work of the church.

She has ever manifested an unusual degree of energy, always preferring to do all her own home work, rather than have it done by others. One who enjoyed the privilege of witnessing her unflagging energy and enthusiastic devotion to her work, rising early and working late, at a time when she was supposed to be unable to do more than take care of herself, paid to her this friendly compliment: "You work with the untiring industry of a bee, the patient perseverance of a beaver, the overcoming strength of a lion, and the double quickness of a deer."

Her liberal responses to the calls of the needy have been limited only by her ability to work, save and give.

BERTHA LOUISE AHRENS

"I'll praise my Maker with my breath; And when my voice is lost in death, Praise shall employ my n.o.bler powers."

--The Psalmist.

Bertha Louise Ahrens (B. Feb. 26, 1857), missionary teacher among the Choctaw Freedmen of Indian Territory since 1885, and princ.i.p.al teacher at Oak Hill Academy, 1905-1911, is a native of Berlin, Prussia. Her parents, Otto and Augusta Ahrens, in 1865, when she was 8, and a brother Otto 5, came to America and located on a farm near Sigourney, Iowa, after one year at Bellville, Ill.; and four, at Harper, Iowa. The schools and churches first attended used the German language. Her first studies in English were in the graded schools at Sigourney and here at seventeen, she became a member of the Presbyterian church under the pastorate of Rev. S. G. Hair. He loaned her some missionary literature to read and it awakened a desire on her part to become a missionary.

This desire was expressed to the Women's Missionary society of the church and she was encouraged to attend the Western Female Seminary, now college, at Oxford, Ohio. After a course of study at this inst.i.tution she enjoyed a year's training in the Bible school connected with Moody's Chicago Avenue church, Chicago.

During the next year, after hearing in her home town an appeal in behalf of a Negro school in the south, she was led to offer her services to the Presbyterian Board of Missions for Freedmen. In December 1885, she received a commission with request to locate among the Choctaw Freedmen at Lukfata, in the southeast part of Indian Territory. The route at that early date was quite circuitous. Going south through Kansas City over the M. K. T. Ry., to Denison, Texas, she pa.s.sed eastward by rail to Bells, through Paris to Clarksville, Texas; and thence northward forty miles to Wheelock and Lukfata. Clarksville, south of Red river continued to be the nearest town and station during the next ten years.

She has now completed twenty-eight years of continuous and faithful service as a missionary teacher among the Freedmen. During these years she has served the following communities and churches.

Lukfata, Mount Gilead 11 years 1885-1896.

Fowlerville, Forest 3 years 1896-1899.

Goodland, Hebron 1 year 1899-1900.

Grant, Beaver Dam 4 years 1900-1904.

Valliant, Oak Hill Academy 6-1/2 years 1904-1911.

Beaver Dam 1 year 1911-1912.

Wynnewood, Bethesda Mission 2 years 1912-1914.

She is now serving as princ.i.p.al teacher in the Bethesda Home and School, located three miles northeast of Wynnewood in the Chickasaw Nation. This school was opened Nov. 1, 1899. It was founded by Carrie and Clara Boles and others; and its object is to provide a home and christian education to the orphan and homeless youth of the colored people.

Miss Ahrens has been a life long and conscientious Christian worker, among the Freedmen of the Choctaw Nation. Her name is a household word to all of them. She found it necessary from the first to locate as a lonely teacher among them in territorial days, and share with them the unusual privations, incident to a life of such seclusion and unselfish devotion. During the first fifteen years, she had to live alone in little, rudely constructed huts in a spa.r.s.ely settled timber country, where quarrels and murders, among both the Indians and colored people, were events of common and almost annual occurrence; yet she never thought of leaving her work or forsaking her mission on account of personal danger.

The following is an accurate description of the little hut she occupied three years while at Forest church. It was built of saplings, eight feet square and c.h.i.n.ked with mud. It had a fire place, an opening eighteen inches square for light, and another one for entrance, that was about three inches lower than her height. The chimney was built of mud, so small and crooked that only a part of the smoke could be induced to go up it, on a windy day. The blind for closing the window opening was so open, it merely broke the force of the wind, it could not keep it out, nor the lamp from blowing out. The little door left similar openings above and below it. On windy days the smoke found its way out through these and other openings overhead. These conditions after a while were relieved, by the insertion of a window in the opening, and covering the walls of the room with sheets.

The floor s.p.a.ce was fully occupied, when it was supplied with a bed, trunk, sewing machine, book case, table and one chair. It lacked room for the organ, which had to be kept in the chapel.