"I will try to find out when the family first shows to be living at Russett. It sounds to me like they were in the area later on after Removal, which was in the 1830’s and 40’s for the Chickasaws. Of course, the Chickasaws didn’t move right into the area they were supposed to be in because the “wild Indians” (Osage and Comanche mostly) were still trying to keep them out. That’s why Ft. Washita was built. They didn’t get their own government going again until the 1850’s. They had to buy their part of the Nation from the Choctaws at that time in order to be able to make their own laws.

I think my great great grandfather must have been born in the 1850’s. He was married in the 1870’s and hanged in 1890. I don’t know anything about his parents, his wife, or her family either. I would think that they were probably in Choctaw Nation when you get back to the 1850’s. The other side of my family was listed as Chickasaw residing in Choctaw Nation in the 1850’s, so they were probably there, too. They came to Boggy Depot at some point and lived in Stonewall later. They kind of kept going west.

My dad (Chestine Underwood) said that at the time he went to school (a hundred years later), there were no other Indian families at Russett. Most of them lived in Tishomingo, Mill Creek and other small communities around there. He did say that when he graduated from Russett, he wanted to go to college and his parents told him he couldn’t go because he was Indian. He went to Haskell, though, and graduated from college at East Central and he was the first one to do that in his family.

I never knew that Andrew (Chestine's older brother, see obituaries) was a good artist, but that doesn’t surprise me at all, since almost everyone in that family has a real talent for drawing. Ted was an artist for a while and he still likes to draw and carve. My dad doesn’t draw so much as carve little animals for fun. My sister and I do fine line pencil drawings. I graduated from East Central with a degree in art and English. My cousin, Joanna Underwood (Gene’s daughter), does Chickasaw pottery and wins art shows all the time. You may have heard of her. She won the Red Earth art show one time and always places wherever she goes. My cousins all drew and painted. I don’t know why none of them is famous but they never did it for money, I guess. They never see it as anything more than a hobby.

You ask about the schools before statehood. As far as I know, the Chickasaw Nation operated boarding schools, national schools, neighborhood schools and subscription schools, but the main problem was getting teachers to stay and teach for little or no pay. The boarding schools where most of the Indian children were sent. There were laws, you know, that said whites couldn’t attend Indian schools and vice versa, but apparently, that didn’t matter to everyone. I have seen school group photos where they were mixed together. Also, a lot of Indian people were of mixed blood and didn’t always look Indian. There were so many people on the Dawes Roll who were only 1/16 or 1/32. Lots of people who are half don’t look Indian. My sister doesn’t. Her kids are ¼ and blond and blue eyed. You never know from a picture who was mixed.

There were quite a few boarding schools—Bloomfield (Carter Seminary), Wheelock Academy, Chilocco, Jones, Burney Institute, orphanages, one or two at Tishomingo I can’t think of right offhand, etc. We have microfilms of school records from before statehood. I don’t remember anything about Russett. I don’t have lists of students, though. Most of the records are copies of checks and who was getting paid for something or lists of people who boarded kids. These are useful, but they aren’t indexed and you have to go through them page by page trying to decipher handwriting. Some of it is not readable because it is too dark or too light.

The lady who was allotted land where Russett once stood was Katie O’Brien, born 1853, and she was only 1/16 Chickasaw. She was listed on the Dawes Roll. Her father was white and her husband was white, that’s the only thing I know about her. It was her mother who was ¼ Chickasaw--Isabella Sturdivant and she was from old Pickens County. I don’t know what her maiden name was.

I suppose one of Katie’s great grandparents was a full blood, but that is a guess. Katie lived at Mead in the old Panola County when she enrolled in 1898. Her husband was Joe Frank O’Brien and she was listed with her stepson, Calvin P. Orndorff who was the son of Ed Orndorff who was white, also. She may not have had much interest in being “Chickasaw”, by that I mean being involved with tribal traditions, culture, government, etc. She may have collected annuities, but I don’t see any Sturdivants on the annuity rolls. I would say she and her husband enrolled for the land, but that is just a guess. It could have been different, but so many white people married to get land.

Whites or any other non-citizens were really not supposed to be living within the Chickasaw Nation without permits. They didn’t have any rights at all to land before the U.S. government forced allotments so they could legally buy it from Indians, which is the only reason allotment was done. But there were no fences, gates or guards keeping people out. The courts were swamped with crimes and no way to collect permits. By 1900, the population was over 70% white. Many full blood Indians tended to live back in inaccessible places and keep to themselves. Many Chickasaws didn’t even speak English in 1900. The kids who attended boarding schools were the most likely to speak English and know how to read or write and not everyone had the money or means to attend.  

My grandfather was born in 1903 and he remembered having to learn to speak English when he was almost grown. Schools were formed soon after the Removal, but the Civil War destroyed efforts at education for quite a while."