Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, Oklahoma, USA

Yesterday I wrote about the proposed locations of the Norwegian national 22 July memorials. The proposals are - as expected - already debated, as many feel that the park next to the Oslo Cathedral would be a more fitting place for a national memorial in the capital. The cathedral was the natural place to visit for thousands of mourners in the days and weeks that followed the terror attacks. Who will forget the vast flower garden outside the cathedral? The steering committee wrote in its report that Domkirkeplassen (the Cathedral Square) still is a living, informal memorial place and didn't want to replace it with a permanent memorial. The national memorial place is supposed to unite everyone, independent of political or religious affilation. The steering committee felt that the square/park outside the cathedral would be too exluding.

Other people find that the Government Quarter, where the first terror attack took place, would be the best place for a national memorial. Others again think that Nisseberget in the Palace Park would be a good idea, while some people feel the location is rather "irrelevant" to the tragedy that took place in Oslo.

The discussion of the location and what the memorials should look like will of course continue. I am not going to compare the 22 July attacks with other terror attacks, as the story behind the different attacks are so different. Still, many thought about the Oklahoma City bombing in the days after the 22 July bomb attack, and it has also been mentioned during the trial.

The bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on 19 April 1995 killed 168 and injured more than 680 people besides destroying or damaging more than 300 buildings. I am sure there were many debates about the memorial in Oklahoma as well, something that I will not go into. The memorial was formally dedicated on 19 April 2000, while the museum opened the year after. I visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum in July 2005, and was very moved by the way the memorial was designed and by its simple beauty, if you can use that word about a place where such a horrible crime took place. The Reflecting Pool, the Feld of Empty Chairs symbolizing the 168 people who were killed, the Survivor's Wall and Tree and the Memorial Fence were all well-chosen parts of the memorial where the victims, survivors and rescue workers are honored.

The Norwegian national 22 July memorials will of course be different in style and size, but I wouldn't be surprised if the artists and/or architects who will work on the memorials in Norway will look to elements of memorials such like the one in Oklahoma City for ideas.

Updated on Friday 27 April 2012 at 08.30 (minor language correction).

Wilma Mankiller (1945-2010), first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation

In my previous blog article today, I mentioned Will Rogers (1879-1935), who had Cherokee ancestry. I had planned to write about him earlier this week, but didn't find the time before today.

Today I received the 26th April 2010 issue of Time, which in the Milestones column reported the death of Wilma Mankiller, the first principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. She died in her home in Adair County, Oklahoma on 6 April 2010.

Mankiller served as principal chief from 1985 to 1995, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998 and was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.

Wilma Pearl Mankiller was born at Tahlequay, Oklahoma on 18 November 1945 as the sixth of eleven children of Charley Mankiller (1914-1971) and Clara Irene Sitton (b. 1921). Mankiller had 2 girls, Felicia Olaya and Gina Olaya, by her first husband, Hector Hugo Olaya de Bardi from Ecuador. Her second husband, Charlie Soap, survives her.

Obituaries

• Cherokee Nation website 6 April 2010
• The Washington Post 7 April 2010
• Los Angeles Times (AP) 8 April 2010
• Wilmamankiller.com

See also

• Wikipedia
• Statement by President Barack Obama on the Passing of Wilma Mankiller
• Cherokee Nation

The Will Rogers Memorial Museum, Claremore, Oklahoma, USA

The Rogers Family tomb.

I had not heard about Will Rogers back in 2005 when I was invited to visit relatives in Tulsa, Oklahoma. But before leaving for the United States, I checked out various sights in the Tulsa area and was therefore not surprised when my relatives took me to the Will Rogers Memorial Museum in Claremore in Oologah county.

I enjoyed the museum and later I also read a biography about Rogers, «Never met a man I didn’t like. The Life and Writings of Will Rogers» by Joseph H. Carter (New York: Avon Books, 1991). The book was even signed by the author!

How should one describe Will Rogers in a few words? «Cherokee cowboy, actor, comedian, columnist, radio personality, speaker and humorist» - Joseph H.Carter’s introduction chapter sums it up well. You can read more about the life of Will Rogers at the website of the Memorial Museum.

However, as I am interested in genealogy, I’d like to share a few details about his ancestry. Rogers «was a Cherokee by heritage, but Irish and Scottish by higher percentages of pedigree». «My ancestors didn’t come over on the Mayflower, but they met the boat», he once said. William Penn Adair Rogers was born on 4 November 1879 on a ranch in Indian territory near what was later to become Oolagah*) as the eight child of Clement Vann Rogers (1839-1911) and Mary America Schrimsher (1838-1890). Clem’s father Robert Rogers belonged to the Blind Savannah Clan of the Cherokee Nation, while Clem’s mother Sallie Vann was of the Wolf Clan of the Cherokee. Under Cherokee law, Clem adopted his mother’s Wolf clan.

Will’s maternal grandfather was Dutch, which explains Mary’s maiden name, while the maternal grandmother was equally Welsh and Cherokee, belonging to the Paint Clan. Will was thus «nine thirty-seconds Cherokee Indian and became number 11,384 on the Cherokee Nation rolls». His wife Betty Blake (1879-1944) of Silver Springs, Arkansas, was the seventh child of James Blake and Amelia Crowder, said to be of English ancestry. Or just «Southern», as Carter’s book adds. Will and Betty had four children, of whom Will Rogers, Jr. (1911-1993) was a Democratic US Representative from California from 3 January 1943 to 23 May 1944. He later became a successful actor.

Will Rogers died in a plane crash in Alaska on 15 August 1935. His body was in 1944 moved from California to the tomb at the Memorial Museum, which was opened in 1938. Interred in the family tomb are besides Will and Betty also their son James Blake «Jim» Rogers (1915-2000), Jim’s wife Astrea Kemmler Rogers (1917-1987), Will and Betty’s youngest son Fred Stone Rogers (1918-1920) as well as their only daughter Mary Amelia Rogers Brook (1913-1989). Will Rogers, Jr. is buried at Tubac Cemetery in Tubac, Santa Cruz county, Arizona.

Will Rogers made several trips abroad, and during his third around the world trip he visited Norway in September 1934. In a telegram dated 7 September he writes: «You’ve heard of Norway’s beautiful fjords, high-walled canyons of water that run back for miles into the land. I took a small seaplane and flew over them for hours. Landed on their lakes and chased herds of reindeer through the snow in the plane. Minnesota can well be proud of its Fatherland. It’s wonderful and substantial. Skol.»

On his «great flight down from Norway» Will wrote 2 days later that «These Danes took nothing but a pig and common sense enough to stay out of war for fifty years. Today they, along with Sweden, Norway and Finland, are an example to the world of how to live neighborly and tend to your own business. There’s lots to be learned from these Scandinavians.»

The year before, he commented on Ruth Bryan Owen’s (1885-1954) appointment as US Ambassador to Denmark: «Ruth Bryan Owen is going as Ambassadoress to Denmark, or Sweden or Norway, or one of those. (Americans will never become civilized enough to tell a Swede from a Dane, or a Norwegian from a Swede. I know the difference means a lot to them, but it just means another tall blonde to us.) Well anyhow, Roosevelt is trading Ruth to that party for Greta Garbo and it’s the only bad trade he has made since he got in. Ruth’s got it on her any way you jump. Those three countries we have always thought a lot of (even if we don’t know ‘em apart). They built up our great Northwest , and when we sent the talented daughter of our Great Commoner we are giving ‘em the best we got.»

* According to the Wikipedia article about Will Rogers, based on writings by the Oololagh Lake Leader, he usually «claimed Claremore as his birthplace, «because nobody but an Indian can pronounce 'Oologah».»

Sources and references

• Will Rogers’ Daily Telegrams. Volume 4. The Roosevelt Years 1933-1935, Stillwater, OK: Oklahoma State University Press, 1979 (Revised online edition by Will Rogers Memorial Museums, 2008), pp. 11-12 and 193.
• Wikipedia
• Joseph H. Carter. Never Met a Man I did’t like. The Life and Writings of Will Rogers, New York: Avon Books, 1991
• The Will Rogers Memorial Museums Official Website

Updated on Friday 23 April 2010 at 08.45.