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Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: June l, 1937
Name: Le Roy Arrington
Post Office: Durant, Oklahoma
Residence address:  W. Evergreen
Date of Birth: August 31, 1873
Place of Birth: Polk County, Ark
Father: William Arrington
Place of Birth:
Information on father: Choctaw Indian, I.T.
Mother: Bell Haney [Labor] Arrington
Place of birth:
Information on mother:
Field Worker: Lula Austin

When a young boy, I lived two miles south of Caddo and went to school at Arrington Springs.  My father farmed and had plenty of stock.

My mother would spin, weave, and make our own clothes.  There were no gins and we children would pick the seed from the cotton to spin the thread; by warming the seed it was easier to pick off.  Mother said she would work for a week spinning thread and the pay would be a hog jowl.  We would parch sweet potatoes and grind them to make coffee, also, used parched meal for coffee.  When going on a journey, we would make cold flour to take with us.  It was made by putting the corn in a wash pot, burn pea hulls and put ashes in, get ashes hot and put corn in and brown, beat the corn up.  This, we would take and pour water over and drink.

We would sift the sand where the meat was kept for salt and put it in water and let stand, using the water to make bread.

To get iron for medicine, mother would put rusty chains in water and use the water for medicine.

When mother first married she had one quilt; they would kill deer and sew hides together for quilts.  It would take four deer hides for a quilt.  Her bed was made in the corner of her log house by using one leg and nailing the other three corners to the wall.

Mother is 107 years old, eats three hearty meals a day, very active and still smokes an old clay pipe twice a day.  She used to raise her own tobacco, and when she would get without would dry sumac leaves and smoke them.

She would take butterfly root and boil it, making a tea for spring medicine.  A poultice of meal, keeping it warm, placing it on the breast for pneumonia.  Broom weed was used to make cough syrup.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Cindy Young <CindyYoung@aol.com> 03-1999