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Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: March 17, 1938
Name: Sophina R. Goforth (Chickasaw)
Post Office:
Residence Address: Coleman, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: November 22, 1862
Place of Birth: Pigeon Roost, Choctaw Nation
Father: Robinson McKenney
Place of Birth: Choctaw Nation
Information on father: Choctaw Indian
Mother: Malinda Dwight
Place of Birth: Choctaw Nation
Information on mother: Choctaw Indian
Field Worker: Lula Austin
Interview #13289

I was born November 22, 1862, at Pigeon Roost, four miles south of Boswell. My mother was Malinda DWIGHT, Choctaw, born in the Choctaw Nation and my father was Robinson MCKENNEY, Choctaw, born in Choctaw Nation.

When I started to school at Pigeon Roost my teacher, Mr. STRONG, didn’t know how to spell McKenney so called my brother and me ROBINSON, and we were always known as Sophina Robinson and Loring Robinson. I attended school there in a little one-room log house for six years. I could read history but didn’t know what I was reading about.

I later went to school at Boggy Depot and Dwight MORROW was my teacher. I could read but it was all guesswork to me for I did not understand what I was reading.

I was eight years old when my mother died at the birth of twins and I will never forget the large box covered with black material. Old Jim TIM made the coffin; the bodies were placed one on each side of Mother. My mother and father were the parents of thirteen children, six of whom are now living.

I stayed with Brother Lloyd for about six months before I married and it was while I was at his home that I learned to speak the English language.

I was nineteen when I was married to Elip GOFORTH. We went to Garrett’s Bluff on Red River to make our home with his parents and remained there about a year, then moved to the Chickasaw Nation. On the way there my baby, Mattie, took sick with bowel trouble and had high fever. The weather was very cold and my husband would break the ice and give her water to drink. A few days after our arrival at Interprise she died and we buried her near the two little graves of Governor Palmer Moseley’s children. This land was allotted to my daughter, Charlotte Goforth, and given for a cemetery and school, which goes by the name of "Interprise". Charlotte is now Mrs. W. A. BAKER, 3824 Manitou, Los Angles, California. I was enrolled as a Chickasaw. My father’s brother, Walter McKenney, was sheriff and he had a hard time trying to keep whiskey from the Indians. He always carried a quirt and if the Indian refused to give up whiskey when he was caught with it, Uncle would use the quirt on him, sometimes knocking the Indian down.

My husband, Eli Perry Goforth, who was called Elip, was interpreter for the Chickasaws during legislature.

Elmiria PETERS, who was adopted and educated by Joel P. FOLSUM, boarded at our house and taught school. She was the most up-to-date teacher we ever had. The school was quite a distance through the timber from our house, and each morning my brother, Loring, and Simon Dwight would hold Miss Peter’s long train up as she followed the little path to the school house so the morning dew would not soil her skirt. Loring and Simon were very mischievous and would often give the skirt a jerk, pulling it off. I moved to Interprise in 1884 into the little two room log house that Governor Palmer Mosely built: the house still stands. About one mile southwest of this place is a little log house where the father of Jessie HUMES lived. Two members of the family are buried under the house. While Mr. Humes was living there he found a horn filled with gold buried at the corner of the porch.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Lola Crane lcrane@futureone.com December 2000.