Told by our Mother
I, Lucille (Gibson) Robertson, was born August 31, 1888 on Lafayette Avenue just off 15th Street in Kansas City, Missouri. It was my grandfather's house. My Mother and Father separated before I was born so I never knew him. He was Doctor William Gibson of Morristown, Minnesota. My great-grandparents, Jonathan and Sarah Morris, founded the town of Morristown, Minnesota in 1855. My grandfather, Walter Morris, had the first store in a log cabin, My great-grandfather died that year and his wife Sarah, and their son, Jonathan, went on with the town.

Sometime in 1864 my grandparents, Walter and Selina Morris, went with a wagon train pulled by oxen to Colorado. They were on the road for 6 months. While in Colorado Indians set fire to the front door of the log cabin. Grandpa got Grandma, my Mother and her older sister out the back window. He put them on a horse and swam the river leading the horse. After this, they returned to Minnesota by wagon train. They camped one night on Plum Creek. While the men were taking the horses to water, and in women were cooking supper, some Indians came up. One of them took Grandma’s hair down and remarked what pretty hair the squaw had. Just then the men cane back with the horses. The Indian Chief knew Grandpa as when- he had been a young man, Grandpa had taken some of his people to draw their pay. The next night another wagon’ train camped in the same place and the Indians killed them all. Years later my Grandfather had another store in Morristown. One day a boy came in the store and said some Indians were camped on the creek and wanted to see Grandpa, It was the old Indian Chief who was now blind. He told Grandpa that it had been their plan to kill the whole bunch that night on Plum Creek.

Grandpa was at the opening of old Oklahoma, At the time the family lived in Wichita, Kansas, I was a baby. One day when they were looking for me, they found me on the steps of the store. The storekeeper said he had found me rolling down the street. Grandpa homesteaded on a place near Tohee which is Luther, Oklahoma now. We, the rest of the family, moved to Oklahoma in 1889.

When I was about 4 years old, Mother married again to Emri Heady. In the rest of the story,. I will call him Papa because he is the only one I ever knew. We moved to his place on Coon Creek. This is the first I learned of death when a neighbor man died and they buried him on a hill back of their borne and put a fence around it, She and her five children stayed at our place until her folks came for them. Every day until she left she took us to his grave.

When I was 5 years old, our family and Grandpa’s moved to Orlando, Oklahoma. There were, Papa, Mama, Myself, Grandpa, Grandma and my Aunt Sallie, who was only 8 years older than me, all lived together in a tent on a farm 4 miles from town. Papa had a team he called White Pete and Red Pete. He trained them to make the run into the Cherokee- strip. He had them trained so they could make the 4 miles into town in 4 minutes This is where I had my first sweetheart, whose name was Willie Green. He had 2 younger sisters. We would go out in the pasture and milk cows and give the milk to horny toads and drank it. They thought something was milking the cow until they caught us. Willie was bitten by a rattlesnake as he went to open the chicken house. His father put chewing tobacco in his mouth and sucked the poison out while Papa went for the Doctor. The Doctor said that was all that saved him. I sat by his bed and held his hand.

Grandpa and Papa both made the run into the Cherokee Strip and staked out claims. But when they filed on the places, their claims were contested. Since they had no money to fight they both lost their claims