|
 Rose
Shunk, the woman in the middle, was an aunt to these two girls, by
marriage. When Rose's husband died, the girls continued living on with his
wife, their aunt. When Rose died, her heirs were Mrs. Shunkamola and her
sister, Mary Red Eagle. * Although Rose was Shunk, the name was probably
shortened from Shunkamola as many names were. Note the blanket wrapped to
leave the right arm free to work.
On a fragile hymnal, in the
front, is a note reaching out from the past, wagging a finger to us lest
we forget our ancestry with the words: "this book is a present from
HULDA HUNTER she gave it to her niece Elizabeth Brewer Collins in 1848.
She gave it to her daughter Bell Collins Jones in 1926 this book is over
hundred years old this is 1926." Spelling and punctuation left as it
is. Elizabeth Ann would have only been four years old, in 1848, so she
herself had to write this information in the book, shortly before she died
on November 4, 1926. She is buried at Ralston, Oklahoma.
Lee Otis Jones, brother to
Dennis Homer Flynn Jones, made the statement, "We owned a thousand
acres and we had a thousand head of cattle." This statement was in
agreement with Dennis and Lee's respect for The Strike Axe Place named for
the vast part of Osage county belonging to Strike Axe & Jones
ancestors.
To the other side of the
family, through Bellzona, Lee's mother was descendant through the Hunters
via Grandmother Mary America Hunter Brewer, Mrs. John Brewer. There are
numbers of documented land transactions on record at Polk county,
Missouri, Bentonville township of around the time l865 where the Brewers
lived.
The second part of Lee's
statement was dealing with the one thousand head of cattle. It simply was
in agreement with Lee's protection of the land, one cow to one acre of
land. This was a warning against over grazing the protein rich blue stem
grass.
Ura May, Dennis's daughter,
no doubt, was aware of their grandmother, Mary Amerika Hunter (this
spelling of Amerika in Elizabeth's old family Bible) even though Lee's
children did not know. This statement is proven by Ura May's naming of her
children, John and Arthur, going back to John and Arthur Hunter, Osage men
who lived in the Hominy area.
Some of the books written
documenting the Osage's births, death's and marriages are by the Catholic
priests who were responsible for the schools where the Osages children
were taught. The information of recording the names show the complicated
structure of the Osage nation as to being strong and powerful.
One clan, The Mystery Men
Clan, sun carriers, of the hawk, speaks of how a hawk comes to the people
of this clan at their time of death.
Lee Otis Jones, son of Bell
and Joe Jones, would go out daily onto the patio to enjoy the warmth of
the sun, shortly before his death. He was totally in command of his mind
and was alert up until his death. Lee had always been a lover of nature,
wild things, and anything of the earth. The family always joked about how
he would not even kill a spider. The spider was woven into the Osage
culture also. It wasn't an unusual thing for him to speak to the mottled
hawk as it turned its head this way and that from its perch on the
telephone wire, while it listened to him.
"Say, old man, how are
you today? Are, you waiting for me? I saw you from my window, when you
came, today." |
