Pictures Tell The Story Of Osage Allottees

If a picture's worth a thousand words, just imagine what more than 1,300 pictures are worth. News On 6 anchor Scott Thompson reports in the case of the Osage Tribe, they're worth the very heart

Tuesday, July 31st 2007, 9:44 am

By: News On 6

If a picture's worth a thousand words, just imagine what more than 1,300 pictures are worth. News On 6 anchor Scott Thompson reports in the case of the Osage Tribe, they're worth the very heart and soul of a people with a remarkable history. Imagine the work involved searching for your own family's past, then multiply that by more than 2,000. Meet the woman who's tackled that task, so that Osage history lives for the next hundred years and more.

Digging for the family roots is so often a solitary pursuit, following leads, coming to dead ends. Frustration, punctuated with bursts of excitement and joy. Priscialla Iba knows it well. She's not spent the last seven years looking for the tendrils of her family tree.

No, she's been searching for the roots of hundreds of other families, the original allottees of the Osage Tribe. And what she's discovered, the faces that look back at her have become the most wonderful company.

â€œThey look back at you, you look at them, what do they say to you? asked News On 6 anchor Scott Thompson.

â€œOh gosh, you know, I really have a hard time believing these people are all gone. I've worked with them so long, that to me, they're just living,â€ Iba said.

All of them gone now, but see them across the years, and imagine the stories they could tell, George Baconrind with his newspaper, John McGrath with his favorite horse, Clarence Tinker about to take flight. Was it a new car they wanted to remember forever? Did the Rogers family build their own log home? And did Ella manage to keep the porch clean with her broom? Was Miniola and Solomon Smith's marriage a happy one? What did the Logans think of Washington, D.C.?

â€œIt's a unifying sort of thing. Everybody here is kind of equal, and everybody's excited about this together, because we have plenty of things that cause division, but this is not one of them,â€ said Iba.

In 1906, the United States Government compiled a list of all those who could rightfully call themselves Osage. There were 2,229 of them. Making the roll gave each land and mineral rights in what we know today as Osage County. Kathryn Redcorn, the director of the tribe's museum, wanted to track down photographs of every one of them.

She gave the job to Priscilla Iba.

â€œI've spent hours and hours going through,â€ she said.

Make that years and years, volunteering her time for countless trips to the cemeteries, cross-checking birth dates and death dates and spellings of English names and tribal names. Cemeteries are the peaceful treasure-troves for the curious. A trip to the Smithsonian netted a panorama of President Coolidge meeting with the tribe.

Folks have been coming in and circling their loved ones through the tracing paper.

â€œPeople have come in and just cried when they've seen relatives that perhaps they haven't seen a photo of before or it's that they look so special when they're up there,â€

Angeline Perrier Wooster Tucker Phillips lavished care on a garden. Fredrick Turner took his buddies fishing. Veva Saxon studied hat making in Paris. Elmer Wheeler bagged a bear. We-kah-wah-she-tun-kah never took an English name.

And as for the woman who tracked them all down? Her uncle's here, Wally Whitewing, he was known for his hats, but Ibaâ€™s never seen a photograph of her grandparents.

â€œAnd my grandparents were dead in the 20's and so maybe one of these photos here is my grandmother and grandfather unidentified, and I don't know," Iba said.

Those closest to her are furthest from her grasp, but for all the others she's found, for all they saw and all they did and all they endured, this display stands as a tribute to each and every one.

â€œWe feel like we really need to honor them, the hardships that they did go through so we have what we have today. We wouldn't have what we have today had they not done those things," Iba said.

And because Priscilla Iba's done what she's done, they'll live on for the next hundred years, and more.

Iba has managed to track down photos of about 1,300 of the original allottees, 929 to go.

The Osage Museum in Pawhuska is open Tuesday through Saturday.

For more information, visit www.osagetribe.com.

Watch the video: Tracking Original Allottees Of The Osage Nation