Pawhuska People
Articles about the People of Pawhuska with uplifting, culturally rich themes.
Barbie Turns 60: Fun Facts and Memories
By: Roseanne McKee
Republished with permission of the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise
My favorite childhood toy, Barbie, turns 60 on March 9. To celebrate this milestone, I wanted to share some of my memories and some fun Barbie facts.
The first Barbie I received, at the age of four, was a hand-me-down Barbie with the eyelashes that were part of the mold. She always looked angry to me and her hair was curly and matted from years of use. I did not bond with her.
My second Barbie was much better in my opinion. She was Malibu Barbie. She was tan and had painted on eyelashes, bright blue eyes and she arrived in a one-piece light blue bathing suit with a yellow terrycloth towel. I have a vague memory that she also had round tinted sunglasses, which were soon lost. Malibu Barbie was my first, and forever favorite, Barbie. She was a reflection of what I wanted to be.
Soon I began accumulating other Barbie dolls and accessories. One that I recall being a favorite was Barbie Sweet 16, which came with a compact filled with real blush in tawny and rose colors, a brush, a comb, barrette and stickers. I also received Mod hair Ken, who had real black hair instead of molded hair and several stick-on mustaches and sideburns. So fun!
Life got even more exciting when my Uncle Bill departed from his usual robot Christmas gifts and gave my sister and me each our own Barbie campers when I was in 3rd grade. The just-out-of-the-box new plastic smell represented the scent of happy times ahead.
Opening that camper is still one of my best-ever memories. The orange camper had a fold out tent on one side, a folding camp-style chair and stickers to put on the camper.
My sister and I also got the Barbie Airship to share. When we found it recently going through my mother’s possessions, she claimed it, and I let her.
However, I proudly brought home the Barbie Country Living Home. The campers were nowhere to be found, I am sad to report.
When I was in 4th grade, a friend was moving to California and her mom put her Barbie Surprise House in their moving sale. Mom wouldn’t buy it for me but in the end the mother gave it to me. I was over the moon!
It was my first Barbie house, but I don’t recall much about it except that it had two rooms on the first floor and one on the second.
The next home I acquired was The Country Living Home (or Country Livin’ Home) consisting of three rooms, which folded up and had a handle for easy carrying. This house had furniture for a living room, eat-in kitchen and living room.
During my childhood, I also acquired the Barbie Townhouse, which had three floors and an elevator, a Barbie pool and a Barbie bicycle.
Now, here are some fun Barbie factoids I found.
Barbie’s official birthday represents her public debut at the 1959 American International Toy Fair in New York.
However, many may not know that Barbie was based on a racy, grownup German doll, marketed to adults.
According to the website http://mentalfloss.com/article/21036/facts-about-barbie-doll, the concept for an adult doll came from Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler. While in Europe with her children, Handler came across the German Bild Lilli doll, a high-class call girl who began her life as a comic strip and was sold in smoke shops and adult toy stores.
Handler had pitched the idea of an adult doll to her Mattel exec husband before and although her husband had initially rejected at the idea, seeing the Lilli dolls changed his mind.
Bild Lilli’s manufacturer sued Mattel for patent infringement, and the case was eventually dismissed. Thereafter, Mattel officially bought the rights to the doll for $21,600.
The first Barbie retailed for $3. Today, the same Barbie, in mint condition, is worth $27,450, according to the mentalfloss website. The website also states that Barbie was created by an engineer who had previously worked for the Pentagon.
The engineer, Jack Ryan, is the so-called “Father of Barbie”—also helped design the Chatty Cathy doll, which my husband got as a Christmas gift — not his favorite but he adapted by making Chatty Cathy go fast in his fleet of toy trucks.
Here are some Barbie facts from the website the historyofdolls.com.
• One Barbie is sold somewhere in the world every three seconds.
• Barbie has three sisters Skipper, Stacie and Chelsea.
• The first clothing that Barbie had when she appeared on the market was a black-and-white striped swimsuit.
• Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts, and both Barbie and Ken were named after the son and the daughter of Ruth Handler — Barbara and Kenneth.
• Barbie’s parents are apparently George and Margaret Roberts from Willows, Wis. Other family members include her siblings: Skipper, Tutti, Todd, Stacie, Kelly, and Krissy. Tutti and Todd are twins — but so are Todd and Stacie, apparently (at least according to Todd’s box). She also has cousins named Francie and Jazzie.
• Only adding to that whole twin sibling mystery: Tutti mysteriously disappeared in 1971, so we can only assume that Stacie (introduced in 1992) is Tutti reincarnated.
• Mattel, manufacturer of Barbie, sued MCA Records, for whom band “Aqua” recorded song “Barbie Girl” because they allegedly violated the Barbie trademark. Mattel lost.
Over the years, there have been some Barbie missteps. Here are two.
• In 1963, Barbie came with an accessory book titled “How to Lose Weight” on the back of which was printed “Don’t eat.” In 1965, same book came together with accessory scales which were permanently set to 110 pounds.
• A doll that arrived on the scene in 1975, when I was 10, was Growing Up Skipper. Skipper, Barbie’s kid sister, had been introduced in 1964 by Mattel. This Skipper grew taller and sprouted breasts with the twist of her arm. Yikes!
When I was a child, Barbie’s focus was personal style and fashion and while it is true that her first career was as a teen model, in years since Barbie has pursued many loftier careers for which I am proud.
Here are a few of them — flight attendant, ballerina, tennis pro, executive, candy striper, astronaut, surgeon, Miss America, gold medal gymnast, actress, aerobics instructor, reporter, a rock star, a UNICEF ambassador, an army officer, a journalist, chef, police officer, baseball player, U.S. Air Force Thunderbird Squadron Leader, a paleontologist, a NASCAR driver, a pilot, a sign language teacher, a presidential candidate, an American Idol winner, a zoologist, a Space Camp instructor, teacher and Canadian Mountie. This list is by no means exhaustive. Barbie has had more than 100 careers so far.
Sutton Avian Center
By Roseanne McKee
Republished with permission of the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise
Lena C. Larsson, the executive director of the George Miksch Sutton Avian Center, spoke about the Center’s research and conservation projects at Arvest Bank’s Friday Forum in Bartlesville.
The nonprofit was established in Bartlesville 35 years ago. The main facility is on Circle Mountain in Bartlesville on Gap Road on 40 acres.
“Our mission is to use science and education to make conservation happen. …,” she said.
It has set a goal of breeding Attwater chickens, an endangered species.
However, the Center doesn’t have Attwater chickens presently. Instead, it is practicing in-captivity breeding techniques on Greater Prairie Chickens using eggs from Nebraska.
Greater Prairie Chicken breeding
“These past two years we’ve been returning prairie chickens to the area so right now we have a surrogate. We collected eggs in Nebraska and that’s our surrogate breeder stock that we’ve been testing with. We’ve now returned them up to Nebraska these past couple of years,” Larsson said.
Before the prairie chickens are released into the wild, they are placed in acclimation pens for a couple of weeks. The staff camps out in tents near the pens to protect the chickens from predators.
The birds have leg-band transmitters when they are released to track them, she said. The females move outside the area when they breed to prevent inbreeding.
“We had one female that moved 20 miles,” Larsson said.
Masked Bobwhite Quail breeding
Quail are another endangered species breed at the center.
“It’s a cousin of the quail that we have here in Oklahoma. … the males have this rusty red plumage, and they have this dark face,” Larsson said.
The population of the masked bobwhite quail, indigenous to the Sonora Desert in Arizona and Mexico, dwindled beginning with the cattle runs in the late 1800s.
At the Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge “they’ve restored the habitat, and we’re releasing birds there again. We have about a quarter of the known population here in Bartlesville,” she said.
After a building renovation in 2016, the Center received breeder stock in 2017 and in 2018 started getting eggs. The eggs are marked to track parentage, placed in an incubator and in 22 days they hatch.
“In quail the males take care of the chicks, and they will adopt baby chicks,” she explained.
After the chicks hatch, they are introduced to adult males and families are formed.
The family groups with 10-18 chicks and an adult are transported to Arizona, and released into the wild when the chicks are three weeks old.
Other projects
Other projects at the Sutton Avian Center are bald eagle projects, lead education, white-tailed ptarmigan research, bird surveys/atlases and outreach/education.
One such outreach/education effort, which Audra Fogle, Sutton Avian Center director of development, is most proud, is the Sutton Art Award.
The competition, currently underway, is open to 10th- through 12th-graders. Up to $20,000 is given in cash prizes to students, and their teachers, for telling the conservation story through art and essays.
The work of the top 20 honorees is displayed at NatureWorks Wildlife Art Show in Tulsa, where the art of professionals is also displayed. The Wildlife Art Show reception, which is open to the public, is from 1-3 p.m. Feb. 2 at The Hive Gallery in Jenks.
“If we don’t teach kids to care about our environment and the natural world, it won’t matter what we do because there won’t be any one out there who cares about it enough to save it,” said Fogle.
To learn more about the Sutton Avian Center, visit their website at https://www.suttoncenter.org/.
Hamilton courts, weds Schuyler
By Roseanne McKee
Republished with permission of the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise
When Elizabeth “Betsey” Schuyler reached the age of 18, prospective suitors began to notice of her. An aide-de-camp of George Washington, Tench Tilghman, came to Albany to attend the Indian council early that summer and wrote in his diary that Elizabeth Schuyler was “brunette with the most good-natured, dark lovely eyes I ever saw, which threw a beam of good temper and benevolence over her entire countenance.”
Her father was serving as a general and a trusted friend of George Washington when another of Washington’s aide-de-camps took notice of her — none other than Alexander Hamilton. Elizabeth Schuyler was about 20 at the time.
Two years later, Hamilton met her again when “Gen. Schuyler had been appointed to Congress and had gone to live at Philadelphia with his family,” Brooks wrote.
During 1779-80, the army headquarters were in Morristown about 50 miles from Schuyler’s Philadelphia home, Brooks said. In November Elizabeth Schuyler visited her aunt, Mrs. Cochran, there. Her arrival was mentioned by Miss Kitty Livingston in letters and diaries, which indicated that she considered Elizabeth “a great addition to society there.”
According to Brooks, George Washington’s household was very lively at that time with two of his aides-de-camp seated at the heads of his table — Tench Tilghman and Alexander Hamilton. Washington and his wife always sat opposite one another in the middle of the table with guests all around them, including an “impetuous young Arron Burr.”
Elizabeth Schuyler appeared to be fond of both Tilghman and Hamilton, but over time she began to spend more of her time with Hamilton. Part of the reason this was possible was that her father, Philip Schuyler became a military adviser and moved his family to Morristown.
Tilghman wrote to his brother of his love for Elizabeth, “Hamilton is a gone man,” Brooks said.
The next summer the couple announced their engagement, and Philip Schuyler expressed his approval in letters to Hamilton. They were married Dec. 14, 1780, in the drawing room of the Schuyler Mansion in Albany where they had met three years prior.
Although the couple was not rich, they were popular. George Washington danced with Mrs. Hamilton and one other woman at his inauguration ball, Brooks said.
The Hamiltons, who lived on Wall Street, were always included in Washington’s dinner and theatre parties, she added.
“There are records of many elaborate dinners given by them, notably one in honor of Thomas Jefferson after his return from France,” Brooks wrote.
Theirs was a happy home. A letter written after the birth of Hamilton’s son, to Mead, one of his army friends, states: “You cannot imagine how domestic I am becoming. I sigh for nothing but the society of my wife and baby.”
Hamilton writes about his reason for resigning his position leading the Treasury Department in George Washington’s Cabinet: “To indulge my ‘domestic happiness’ more freely was the principal motive for relinquishing an office in which it is said I have gained some glory.”
Sadly, the peace of their happy home ended suddenly in July 1804 when Hamilton lost his life to political rival Aaron Burr in a duel.
Following his death, “the terrible sorrow of his family cannot be described,” Brooks wrote.
In an article from the New York State Museum website, http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/ Jenny L. Presnell wrote, “He left Elizabeth and his family virtually destitute.”
Mrs. Hamilton raised her children and never remarried. She spent the balance of her life defending her husband against his critics and preserving his papers and letters, which were published in 1850-51 by his son, John Church Hamilton, Presnell said.
“The death of her father four months after her husband’s provided her with some financial relief through her inheritance of property and money. She was able to repurchase The Grange, which had been sold at public auction. She also petitioned the government for her husband’s army pension that he had waived. Not granted until 1837 through a special act of Congress, her petition provided her with $30,000 and included land,” Presnell wrote.
According to Presnell, Elizabeth Schuyler founded orphanages in New York City and Washington, D.C., took orphans into her own home and held a position in the New York Orphan Asylum Society.
Elizabeth Schuyler lived in Washington, D.C. in her later years and died at the age of 97. She was buried next to her husband at the Trinity Church graveyard in New York City.
Colonial Women – Part II
By Roseanne McKee
Republished with permission of the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise
Due to the success of the musical about him, nearly everyone has been reintroduced to Alexander Hamilton. However, readers may not recognize the maiden name of his wife, Elizabeth Shuyler, who was born Aug. 9, 1757, and raised in Albany, N.Y.
Elizabeth, called Betsey, was the second daughter of Philip Schuyler and his wife Catherine Schuyler. When she was born, her father was a young captain under General Bradstreet, the quartermaster of the English army during the French and Indian War.
In her book “Dames and daughters of colonial days,” Geraldine Brooks writes “when she was only two months old, the frightful massacre of the German Flat occurred and the refugees fled to Albany.”
Brooks said that the Shuyler family sheltered the refuges in the barn of their home. After the war, they built their mansion, which still stands at 32 Catherine St. in Albany, N.Y. Brooks described the mansion, designed by Philip Shuyler, as magnificent and impressively placed on high ground with a view of the river. It was a long, two-storied home with a great large hall and rows of colonial pillars, Brooks said.
Philip Schuyler aspired to create a lovely country life in Albany for his family, and by Brooks’ account, he did.
“On all sides stretched the flourishing vegetable and flower gardens, the orchards and the vineyards, and the fields of flax and grain,” Brooks wrote. “The house overflowed with hospitality and generosity. … The Dutch kitchen was always redolent with the smell of delicious bread and cakes and pies.”
Brooks described candle dipping, cider making, soap making spinning, weaving and dyeing, orchard and crop harvesting along with outdoor festivities were part of the household’s seasonal routine.
However, education was also important to the family and when the time came, Elizabeth Shuyler and her sisters were sent to New York for school. Letters from relatives reveal they took to their studies, were healthy and made good progress there, Brooks said.
During her childhood, Elizabeth Shuyler had a close relationship with local Indians. In fact, she learned weaving, plaiting and other skills from them, Brooks said.
The high regard for Elizabeth and her family were evidenced by a story known to Brooks and retold in her book about Elizabeth Shuyler being named and adopted by the local tribe:
″‘All the chiefs and greatest warriors of the Six Nations,” says the chronicler, “had met in solemn council, row after row of fine specimens of manhood standing silently around an open space where a bit of greensward gleamed in the sunshine. Although they were dressed in all the barbaric pomp of war-paint, there was a peace on their faces as they stood awaiting the approach of a small group of whites — one or two officers in full uniform and a tall, commanding man in the prime of life, leading by the hand a slim girl of about thirteen dressed in white uncovered head and half-curious, half-frightened eyes. This man was Gen. Philip Schuyler, whom the Indians honored as they did no other white man; and they had met to offer him a tribute of devotion. At a sign from their great chief, their ranks parted to admit General Schuyler, who advanced into the open space, still leading his little daughter. There, with much pomp and many ceremonies, the child was formally adopted by the Six Nations, the chiefs ending the sacred rites by laying their hands upon her head and giving her an Indian name meaning ‘One of us.’”
Next week, we will take a look at Elizabeth Shuyler’s courtship, marriage and life as an adult.
Colonial Women – Part I
By: Roseanne McKee
Republished with permission of the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise
The next few columns will be a look back at some noteworthy women from colonial times. In this column I introduce readers to Sarah Kemble Knight, who decided to take a journey from Boston to New York in 1704 when travelers in petticoats were rare indeed. Her diary provides a window into her journeys. After returning from her trip, Knight became a schoolmistress and taught two students whose name readers will recognize.
Highlights are in the book “Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days” by Geraldine Brooks published in 1900 by Thomas Y. Crowell & Company.
For context here are some facts. Knight, born and raised in Boston, was one of the children of a prosperous merchant. She married widower Richard Knight and had one daughter.
In 1704 Boston had a population of 10,000. New York City was only half as large, Brooks wrote.
“The Boston News Letter” had just been published, Brooks said.
“A great deal of the best English literature was as yet unwritten or unknown,” Brooks wrote. (p. 86).
Knight was educated but likely didn’t have many interesting things to read.
The purpose of her journey is not in her diary, but Geraldine Brooks supposes it was to attend to a New York property, which may have left to her by a New York relative. It could also have been to have an adventure, Brooks said.
Knight left Boston on horseback in October with a male travel guide who was paid to accompany her. So sparse was the population that it was customary for private residents to open their homes to travelers. Despite the custom, Knight was sometimes turned away. When this happened her diary entries recorded the anger she felt at literally being left out in the cold.
She also stayed at taverns along the way in those days called “ordinary.” At such taverns she had to share a room with her male guides. Knight describes the beds therein as too high, hard and lacking coverlets. At times the ruckus in the tavern was so loud she could not sleep and simply had to sit by the fire all night and endure or write in her diary when the conversation became to course.
I’ve often wondered when Indian fry bread was introduced. Knight mentions in her diaries being served what she calls “Indian bread” at a tavern with pork and cabbage.
Knight also gives an account of riding in a canoe, which she called an “Indian vehicle.”
Along the way she stopped in New Haven in the Connecticut Colony for several weeks and was welcomed by friends and relatives with whom she stayed. The food and hospitality were fine and she made complimentary comparisons to Boston in her diary entries.
She journeyed on to New York and stayed there for two weeks.
In her diary Knight noted some differences between New York and Boston. According to Brooks diary summary, Knight had said the Sabbath was not kept in New York as it was in Boston, and Knight was also surprised by the “leniency in regard to divorce.”
Knight also noted an unfamiliar New York wedding custom wherein the groom would run away and be pursued by the groomsmen who would bring him back “to duty.”
Her return to Boston would have been even more uncomfortable since winter had set in. She traveled through woods, snow and freezing temperatures to arrive in Boston in March 1703 to the warm welcome of her mother and her only child, a daughter.
Soon after her return, Knight opened a school in her house where Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Mather were both her students.
“And it was a Mather of a later generation, Mrs. Hannabell Crocker, who called Madam Knight an ‘original genius’ and said her ideas of that talented lady were formed from having heard Dr. Franklin and Dr. Mather converse about their old schoolmistress,” Brooks wrote on page 99 of her book.
Later her daughter married and moved to New London, Conn., where Knight visited.
Knight owned several farms but her primary residence and the church she attended were in Norwich, Conn.
Her last occupation was as an innkeeper at the Livingston Farm in New London on Norwich Road.
“No doubt hers was a model ordinary,” Brooks wrote.
I speculate that it was — with excellent food, hospitality and sleeping quarters. Some might even say it was extraordinary — like the woman herself.
American Indian Style Show – Part III
By Roseanne McKee
Republished with permission of the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise
This is part three of a column a style show presented by Osage elder Margaret Bird to Tulsa tourists at the Community Center in Pawhuska on Oct. 26.
Samantha Good Eagle wore a jingle dress, which is heavy because of the metal jingles. She also had buckskin leggings on. Bird shared that as told to her by a northern tribe the jingle dress originated from a dream by an elder father following prayer due to the sickness of his daughter. The elder who had the dream instructed that the dress be made. The girl wore the dress, got better and started dancing, she said. The jingles on this dress were made from snuff cans that had been rolled, Bird said. Several tribes wear this dress, but this one is for the Menominee tribe, she said.
“In the jingle dress they don’t carry a shawl when they’re dancing. They usually have a plume in their hair and a fan,” she said.
Jacquelene Kemohah, who is Osage and Creek, wore a Navajo velvet shirt with silver sewn into it and a necklace of turquoise before it turns blue. She carried a wool shawl. The velvet worn is not like velvet as we know it, Bird said.
“It is fine velvet, and they will take this shirt with all this silver on it, and they will wash it in a pan. They’ll hang it up and they’ll put it on. … They’ll have a big concho belt that they’ll wear with it. There is a binding on the inside of the hem of the velvet skirt, which they call their slip,” Bird explained. Kemohah also wore a necklace of turquoise before it turns blue, and she carried a wool southwest shawl, Bird said.
Kimberly Brave wore “an old-time, on-contact Cherokee dress. When they saw the Cherokee Indians on first contact, this is the kind they wore. … She’s got a necklace with a spider — the Cherokee know about that. … She’s carrying a fan out of turkey, and it’s a quill work on birch bark fan. … She’s wearing a wrap-around moccasin … and this is the purse they would carry,” Bird said referring to the turtle shell purse Brave carried.
“We don’t go out and kill things to make things, we find them already dead. There were bells, so they had contact with the white people because they had hawk bells,” Bird said. The hawk bells were little brass bells the Europeans brought to trade, she said.
In the Carolinas there was a white bird, a Lune, and they took the fluff from the bird and used pitch, or tar, to attach the feathers on the dress, Bird said.
Referring to beads traded with Europeans, Bird said, “a lot of the beads they traded weren’t good for you. When you put the beads under a black light, they just shine. … the beads would have some kind of chemical, but the Europeans didn’t know that. Just like the ribbon had acid in it. After 50 years, the old silk ribbon deteriorates. The colors of the ribbon were also limited not all the vivid, bright colors we can get now.”
Next, Melissa Murray wore a purple Winnebego dress. “She’s got a silver broach. … They put a lot of silver work all over and silver washer pins. They embellished clothes and leggings with silver work and ribbonwork,” Bird said.
Murray also wore leggings that matched the dress, moccasins and carried a shawl and a fan.
American Indian Style Show – Part II
By Roseanne McKee
Republished with permission of the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise
This is a follow-up to the last article, with additional details about the regalia featured in the style show presented by Osage elder Margaret Bird to Tulsa tourists at the Community Center in Pawhuska on Oct. 26.
Rosemary Wood wore a Cherokee tear dress and carried a shawl and a tulip bag. The dress is called a tear dress because originally these dresses were constructed from torn pieces of fabric, Margaret Bird said.
Carol Revard wore a Sioux dress made of wool broadcloth with a scarf and carried a shawl, fan and wore blue beaded moccasins.
“This is a heavy dress because it has a bone necklace,” Bird said. “The original Sioux breastplate is made of foraged bones. Her dress is also embellished with elk teeth molars.”
Julie Karen Lookout wore contemporary formal Osage clothing with silk red blouse and a ribbonwork skirt, Osage moccasins, a pin and a necklace of bone and beads.
Erica Kemohah wore an Oklahoma princess style buckskin dress with cut beads. Such dresses are worn in princess competitions statewide, Bird said. Since she is Osage, Kemohah wore a ribbon with a pin, her leggings, carried a shawl and a fan. It is an honor for Osage women to have a white tail feather from a bald eagle in their fan, Bird said. The dress had beaded red hands on the pale buckskin.
“My family is the OnHands. I dedicate this to Evelyn OnHand Pitts, my aunt, and my mother, Louise May Bellmyer Brown, because they have been a huge influence all my life helping me with my collection. And, I appreciate Joan McCauley who accompanies me to the style shows,” Bird said.
“Sometimes when I make something, I will bead underneath a little hand. That’s my signature,” Bird said.
Julie Karen Lookout said, “I’ll tell you what Mark told me about where the OnHand name comes from. There were Indian cowboys and they said, ‘we’ve got these guys over here on hand,’ and they named them that.”
Paula Stabler, an Osage congresswoman, wore a Delaware buckskin dress, wrap-around skirt, moccasins and carried a tulip bag.
“Most tribes from the East will carry a bag like this,” Bird said.
Additional style show descriptions will continue in next week’s history column.
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