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After approximately 29
years of working toward finding a place to house the antique photographs
and other artifacts we have finally comes once and for all, a decision
to simply set them in place here in our home. Rod is working to build
a special room, separate from the house so that I can display these
photographs and artifacts in a Family Museum. I worked for many years,
first for the thoughts of restoring the family home, and then to the
hopes of a Chilocco building. None of that has come to pass. I'm
coming to the age where I need to complete my work of putting the
material out, so my children and grandchildren can actually see and
enjoy. They, in fact, are all working together with me with "our"
family museum. This family is so big I can't even begin to guess the
numbers. There are, too, all the lines, Hunters, Collins, Joneses,
Floods, and more that can be casually mentioned, hundreds in fact.
We will be having
meetings in what is called "bumping." This is in reference to the
tumblers in a lock as they are pushed along in order to open it. Surely
these are the keys to open so much history and knowledge about our
ancestors.
Velma's favorite colors in the painting from which the cover of my
book, "Velma, Fleur
De Narcisus," was taken.
The star quilt she made. Her quilting skills were, to me, simply
remarkable. This is the
star quilt which was originally designed by the Sioux tribe. The rombus
is the pattern
used to put it together.
Velma's collection of dishes. The top shelf are Fire King, 1940,
stamped on the back.
This was the depression glass placed in oatmeal boxes.
Second shelf is of the Syracuse China, which has been in business close
to 100 years
but slated to close this year. On the floor is a croched pillow.
Bellzona Collins Jones
of Scot-Irish descent taught Velma this wonderful craft.
A painting I did in the year of 2001 called Storm. The buffalo mother
stands on a knoll
above the stampeding herd below. It is in reference to the times in
which we live, when
so many single mothers are raising their children alone.
Mother's sewing machine, her iron, a piece of ribbon work her
apprentice, Anna Adams,
created. The copy in the newspaper clipping here called her a Master
ribbon worker
who was preserving an art of the Native American. Indeed, she did this
over and over,
not with just Anna but many other women, too.
Velma's granddaughter models her creations. Cheryl, her friend, modeled
the contemporary
dress on the left.
Velma shows her work for the camera. I'm so happy she patiently pushed
us to take these snap shots.
Velma in the picture on the left. On the right her brother-in-law,
Dennis Homer Flynn Jones, at his wedding to Bertha Big Eagle in 1920.
His bridesmaid of the Collins family wears the ribbon work blanket.
Picture of Benjamin Gray Barbee, United States Marshall. He is in the
Jones genealogy. Benjamin was a lawman during the turbulant times of
the Osage around Bartlesville, Oklahoma, early statehood. |
