Indian Pioner Papers - Susan Lewis Brown

Submitted by Brenda Choate  bcchoate@yahoo.com

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                    Garvin County Indian Pioneer Papers
                                      
                             Susan Lewis Brown
                                      
     Interview #1297
     Field Worker: John F. Daugherty
     Date: May 4, 1937
     Name: Susan Lewis Brown
     Residence: Wynnewood, Oklahoma
     Date of Birth: 1878
     Place of Birth: Near Tishomingo
     Father: Louis Neal, born in Indian Territory, Chickasaw Senator
     Mother: Louise Alexander Neal, born in Indian Territory
     
                                      
     My parents were Louis Neal and Louise Alexander Neal.  They were
     both born in the Chickasaw Nation.
     
     Father farmed.  There were six children.  I was born in 1878 near
     Tishomingo.  I went to an Indian school until I was twelve years
     old.  My mother and Father died when I was quite young and I went
     to live with an uncle, named Walter Alexander, my mother's brother,
     who was a Methodist preacher for the Indians.  Father was a
     Chickasaw senator at Tishomingo for four years before I was born.
     
     Then I went to an Orphan's Home for Chickasaw Indian children at
     Lebanon, which is no longer in existence.  I was there for five
     years.  The superintendent of this Orphan's Home was a Methodist
     minister, named Derrick.   He was greatly beloved by the children.
     We had good food, and were well treated while he was in charge.
     There were one hundred sixty girls and one hundred seventy boys
     when I was there.  We had a big farm at this home.  The larger boys
     worked on the farm, milked the cows, and cut wood.  They raised
     gardens in the summer and the larger girls canned vegetables for
     winter use.  On the farm they raised oats, wheat and corn.  The
     wheat and corn were ground into flour and meal for our bread, and
     the cows were fed on farm products.
     
     They bought most of their supplies from Mannsville.
     
     I can remember making Pashofa when I was a young woman.   We got a
     block about three feet high and started chipping it out with an ax,
     in the center.  We chipped it out carefully so as not to crack the
     block, making a hole which would hold about a gallon of corn.  Then
     we placed the chips back in the hole and set them afire.  We
     watched this carefully to see that the block didn't burn.   After
     we burned the inside of this hole thoroughly we took glass and
     scraped it until it was perfectly smooth.  Then we placed the corn
     in it and beat it with a maul about eight inches long, six inches
     wide and three inches thick.  This maul was rounded at the bottom
     as that it would go into the hole in the block and mash the corn.
     After it was well beaten we cooked it for hours in a pot with fresh
     pork.  We also ground corn for meal in this block.
     
     I was married to Holly B. Brown in January, 1899, at Ada.   We were
     married by a Methodist Indian preacher named George Colbert.   He
     was also my first teacher.
     
     I am the mother of six children.  We moved near Sulphur
     twenty-eight years ago and have been here since.  My parents are
     buried in a family graveyard then miles southwest of Tishomingo.