The Okemah Community 

Phoenix, Arizona

Former residents of Okemah, your assistance is needed in obtaining information to expand the written history regarding The Okemah Community.  You are asked to help contribute information to expand our knowledge of the people in our community.

In the Preface to “Arizona History, The Okemah Community “, Mr. William E. (Bobby) Burt expressed hope that further research would be done on the Okemah Community. To this end, we are requesting two things from you. First a written story of your family, second, completion of the Representative Questionnaire Form on your family and the Sibling Questionnaire Form on you.  

The purpose of these questionnaires is to gather information to help build your family story. The questions can be used as a guideline to help you build your story. 

This material will be part of the second edition of “Arizona History – The Okemah Community”, “In Our Own Words”. The Research Team’s objective is to reflect the people and their lives in Okemah. We hope you will be a part of the second edition. Please let us know if we are overlooking any families you may have contact with.

 We are asking one family member to be responsible for submitting the Family Story, the Representative Questionnaire Form, and the Sibling Questionnaire Form. This will enable the Research Team to keep the information together.

 On the Representative Questionnaire Form, we included the Fraternal and Maternal Grandparents and Other, along with the Parent(s) on the form. If you and your siblings were raised by one of these parents or Other while living in Okemah, your Family Story and the Representative Questionnaire Form should be about that parent(s). The Sibling Questionnaire Form is a recount of your earlier years in Okemah.

 On the Family Story, we are asking you and your siblings to provide a recount of what life was like for you and your family living in Okemah. Your parent’s occupation, place of work, and everyday life at home, school, and church is to be included in your narrative. Recollections of friends and neighbors, fond memories, achievements, success, and or challenges and struggles may be included also, please limit your story to 1000 words or less. The representative will then submit the online Family Story and the completed Representative Questionnaire Form by clicking the submit button at the bottom of the form. We are asking that all stories and questionnaires be submitted by March 31, 2021. This will enable the Research Team to keep the family information together.

By clicking on the links below you can write your Family Story and fill-out each questionnaire online and once you are complete, click the submit button or, you can email us your Representative/Sibling questionnaires or Family Story at info@okemahcommunity.com 

To help illustrate what a story might look like we are using an example of the Sneed Family of Okemah.

Tell Us Your Story

IN YOUR OWN WORDS

Click Here to fill-out the online format of  your Family Story

REPRESENTATIVE QUESTIONNAIRE 

Click Here to fill-out the online format of  the Representative Questionnaire

SIBLING QUESTIONNAIRE 

Click Here to fill-out the online format of  the Sibling Questionnaire

Email

Also, you can email us your Representative/Sibling questionnaires or Family Story at info@okemahcommunity.com 

ADDITIONAL REQUESTED ASSISTANCE

• If you wish to send a family photo, please submit it with the questionnaire(s) response. Please identify the people in the photos and the event etc.
• Please do not send original copies of photos, they won’t be returned.
• See the sample story below; “The Sneed Family”

The Sneed Family

Gloria Jean Sneed Cudjo & Lonzetta Sneed King
Okemah Reunion Hilton Airport Hotel September 9, 1998

My parents were Frank Sneed and Marteal Boston. They were born in Marshall Texas. My father was working odd jobs in Lubbock, Texas. My father was told by a friend “if he headed west, he would make more money” and that was enough for my father to hear. He packed the family up and we caught a train from Lubbock, Texas in 1945 and headed west with my brother Frank, and sister Lonzetta. We settled in Phoenix Arizona at 4700 E. Washington Street and my father got a job at Tover’s Oil Mill. We stayed in the barracks behind my father’s workplace. He bought a 1939 Pontiac we used to get around. We started school right after we got there, however because of the segregation we were not allowed to attend Bose Elementary School which was within walking distance instead, we were bussed to Booker T. Washington School where the Arizona Informant newspaper building now stands.

 My father worked an eight-hour job but would do extra work on his days off, like cleaning the grass out of canal ditches to increase water to the crops. I remember my brother, sister, and I chopping grass out of the ditches with my father, we had to work just like they did. He would pick cotton, potatoes, and thresh pecans trees and we would help pick them up. He would stop his own work to help neighbors around their houses when needed, everybody helped each other back then.

Now let me tell you about my mother she went to work soon after we got to Phoenix.  She would catch the streetcar to Mesa where she did day work, and on her days off she would work in the fields alongside my father.

I remember catching the neighbor’s cotton trucks to the cotton fields when we didn’t go with our parents. We caught Mr. Wady’s truck, it was a nice truck filled with sandwiches, snacks, and cold soda water. There was also Mrs. Janie’s cotton truck with her drivers, Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Woodrow Wilson, and we also caught Mr. Ed Davis’s truck to the fields. I must say, the little money we made was mostly spent on snacks at the cotton trucks snack bar. It was pure fun though! It was time to meet up with your friends. By this time, my younger brother Phoenix Ray (Sonny) was born. We received Blue Cross Blue Shield health care through my daddy’s job and we went to a private doctor in Phoenix.

 When my parents saved enough money, they bought a vacant lot in Okemah for $50.00 located at 4105 E. Magnolia Street but the land was bare, with no running water, electricity nor gas.  The lot was surrounded by mounds of dirt, tumbleweeds, horne toads, and lizards; but the land had purple flowers that had the sweetest smell and there were a few steel magnolia trees as well. I guess that’s how the street got its name. There was a tamarisk tree with thin limbs that mama used to go and get switches and plat them. “You know what that was for”! 

 Before we moved to the lot, daddy got Mr. Bivens to clear the lot with his construction equipment. He made it smooth enough to put our house on.

 When my father’s workplace shut down and he had the opportunity to buy a portion of the barrack we were living in. They split the barrack in half and moved it three miles down the road to Okemah, you know at that time 40th street went straight through to Washington Street. My father had to close off the entire backside of the barrack adding a small kitchen in the process. He got some help from a neighbor Mr. John Harper, one of Okemah’s handyman. He made it into a three-room house, a sitting room, kitchen, and bedroom.

We heated by a potbelly stove and our food was cooked on a wood stove. We burned kerosene oil lamps for light, we also used an icebox and we would get ice from Mr. Moore, Mr. Pruitt, and Mr. Wilkins self-made ice houses in Okemah. The ice came from an ice house in phoenix and was brought into the community for us to buy. We also had a faucet outside the house with running water. I remembered when we finally got electric. We used a big fan to keep us cool, later on daddy bought a water cooler and that was “the best thing since sliced bread”!

My parents were skillful in growing their own food. We had hogs, cows, chickens, eggs, and a vegetable garden, and Mr. Dorsey would come by to peddle greens as well. We shopped at the Chinese store on 40th Street in Okemah called Jimmie Store for flour, sugar, and oil, just small stuff. We also shopped outside the community at El Rancho Market on 4700 Street and Washington and there was another store we didn’t know the name of but we called it the Zoo Store because it was close to the Phoenix Zoo. We would ride our bikes up there with a shopping list from mama, that was so much fun! The family did their clothing shopping at Franklin, Mollie O’Day, and Montgomery Ward. We used the layaway plan a lot.

 My father eventually built a red brick house with all the amenities. Rev. Stanley a masonry, built the house. My father later bought two more neighboring lots, all for the purposes of homes.

 By that time, I was attending Carver High School and finished my senior year at Tempe High School being the first black to graduate from Tempe High School with honors.  Frank and Lonzetta went to Tempe Mitchell, Tempe Grammar, and Tempe High School. My younger brother Sonny was in Tempe Grammar School at the time.

For family fun, on holidays like the 4th of July, we would take the bus to Phoenix and go to the parks to listen to gospel singing and visit the food and craft booths. Mama would take us to the zoo and walk us through Papago Park, we also enjoyed the Silver Dollar and Rodeo Drive-Inn theaters during the weekends. Our favorite venue was the skating rink on Broadway and don’t forget the Arizona State Fair!

 My mother was a member of Willow Grove Missionary Baptist Church, she retired from day work. My father worked for Avis Car Rental after the old mill closed down. He passed away before he retired at Avis Car Rental.

 The community became industrials and families began to sell their properties and move out. We sold our properties in the late 90’s.

This is our story “In Our Own Words”

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