Those were the days of protective living for the children in the year, 1947.  As much as possible,  the world of children, was not to be disturbed with horrifying, terrible things.  The war though, brought newsreels,  and more than one person remembers being frightened when

an airplane flew overhead. There were pictures in the newspapers,  and books showed awful scenes of war.  All this was inevitable.  The adults, still didn’t allow events they could control to come in on the children. Not one,  ever spoke of Bertha’s death and it wasn’t until I was a teenager was the event told..  It was a gentle time for us, albeit,  there was a raging World War to have just passed.  Today’s children are bombarded with so much on the television. The parents try to ride herd, on that distribution of sadness, but it still is domineering.  Still, we as children,  were aware of some things, especially in the small community of Foraker.

Weldon came through the door in the early morning. This was uncharacteristic of him.  He worked hard with his animals and his grades, so wasn’t one to carouse at night. This morning he was surly and that was rare, too.  A lighthearted and pleasant mannerism seemed to always be his way.

“You’ve been out?”  Gramma Bell was quick to catch him up short.

“To a necktie party,” Chief, a nickname he had picked up, answered.

Mother was quick to look around to see if we were listening and, of course, we were. We had no idea,  what a necktie party was.

“Come on, kids. Breakfast is ready at home.” Mother was busy ushering out of the house through the backdoor,  but not before we heard.

“He did it in the barn. Wasn’t easy to get him down, either.”

Again, nothing more was said, but when I was older Mariah told me Chief had been called,  because he was tall and strong to help take the man down from where he was swinging from an act of suicide with a rope.

It was like the whole area worked at taking the joy out of Chief’s life. I could never understand why.  Was it a challenge to destroy his happy-go-lucky ways?  How were his dark Indian looks involved, or were they?  Mostly there was no discrimination against the Osages at the time. Not to my knowledge, but I couldn’t determine that, because I was a child.  Had some of the people still remained, who  Joe had worked against at Whiz-Bang? 

The next day Chief kicked a football and bounced it off the three story school’s, chimney all through the lunch hour.  Every time he kicked the ball it hit in the same place,  so good was his co-ordination. No one said anything about what he was doing, over and over, but finally,  the principal came out and tossed the ball back and forth with Chief.  When lunch-hour was over the man, could be seen talking to Weldon.  His head was down and he had his arm around the giant of a boy, while they both walked, together, into the building. The principal was no small man. He was tall, good looking and had the same curly hair Chief had, but his was a lighter brown.  Weldon’s hair was coal black. This was the time when that principal was a father to Chief, as well as his teacher.

Chief graduated from Foraker as Valedictorian.  For days he practiced his speech, using gestures and silently mouthing the words in front of a mirror.  The family was there that night, in the sizable auditorium, all except Joe and Bell. The air was electric with anticipation.  He started his speech with so much dignity and such an attitude we were so proud of him.

Without warning, the words he said were of the greatest shock. I remember it well.

“Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Mrs. Whipkey (his English teacher) and the rest of you worms out there; Good night!”

As easily as he had walked up to the podium, he too,  left it. 

Again, we as children were shielded from the shame of what he had done.  It wouldn’t have  mattered to us though, he was our hero.  Whatever he did, our acceptance came through in our unconditional love for him. It was, as if, suddenly we, the children, were his only allies.  Even, Mariah was not in approval of his rudeness. Grampa Joe, as usual, said nothing. Who knew what he was thinking?  Bell spoke of the incident as she had been told about it, with a non-committal observance. She was a woman of great determination and worked tirelessly to see her family progress.  A poem she kept among her things said, “She would have died for her sons!”  Velma agreed years later, when the poem was read.