Person:Peter Greemore (1)

Peter Bazil Greemore was born January 5, 1862 on the Potawatomi Reserve near St. Mary's Kansas. He was christened by Fr. Maurice Gailland on February 2, 1862. The sponsor or godfather was Louis Vieux, a friend of Bazil and a prominent leader in the Potawatomi tribe. Peter was the only child of Bazil and Catherine but he had 15 known half-brothers and half-sisters - Bazil had 4 children by his first wife Catherine Welch, and his second wife, Catherine Charet, had 11 children by her first husband, Jude Bourassa.

Peter's father died July 4, 1863 when Peter was about a year and a half old and his mother Catherine, died when he was 10. His half-sister, Delilah Bourassa, who became the wife of Leon Bergeron, took him under her wing and when the Citizen Potawatomi started moving to their new reserve in Oklahoma, she took him with her. They arrived, along with a few wagons of other Potawatomi, mostly related families, in the fall of 1872. They may have lived temporarily in some abandoned cabins that were built by the Seminole Indians after the Civil War. They had traveled in a group that also included the Joseph and Sarah Nedeau family. Sarah may have been related to the Grimard (Greemore) family. She was at least, well acquainted with them. She reported that Bazil, who was a trader among the Potawatomi, was mean and a know-it-all, according to Peter's daughter, Martha Greemore Springer.

Peter went to school and was well-educated. He probably went to Catholic school in Kansas and probably attended the Wagoza School near where Wanette, Oklahoma is now located. Brinton Wilson, a white man, started teaching at the Wagoza School on December 2, 1875, with 16 pupils and with only 4 or 5 books and some crayons and by February 1, 1876, he had 21 pupils. Mr. William Gardener, and Indian teacher, followed Wilson.

Father Dom Isidor Robot established the Sacret Heart Institute (forerunner of the Sacred Heart College) in October of 1880 but whether Peter attended this school is not known. His daughter, Martha, said he had attended college and learned to be a photographer and some of his pictures are in existence today.

Peter B. Greemore was listed as being an early day settler and homesteader in the community of Boyer, now a ghost town, before the town was started. This was before 1888 when he was given his allotment. About 1885, Peter was married to Adarka Elizabeth Ramsey. Adarka's father must have died for her mother, Martha, had remarried to a man named Clairborne Johnson, who had several children by his first wife. Those known were Hattie Johnson Goad, who lived in California; Zula Johnson; Jep Johnson, who spent some time in the pen; John Johnson who lived in California, Martha "Mattie" Johnson; and Cass Johnson.

Pete built a house near a good spring on his allotment. The house was a double-log house with a hall between the side-room on the east side. He built much of the furniture like a dresser for Adarka with 4 drawers in the bottom and 2 on the side and a round mirror. He made trundle beds and hickory-bottom chairs. They left all of these things in the house when they went to McAllister except the goods they could carry in the covered wagon. Pete worked there for some time in a coal mine. Pete and his family finally returned to the Potawatomi Reserve but Mr. and Mrs. Johnson stayed in McAllister where they passed away some time after 1900.

Pete and Adarka were the parents of three girls. Clarissa May born November 6, 1886. Isobelle, born July 22, 1888. Martha Evelyn born November 26, 1890. Martha was named after her grandmother Johnson. Adarka had the measles shortly after the birth of Martha. Pete grazed his livestock on the open range called the Greenhead Prairie. He was out on the range tending the stock and Uncle Billy Truesdale was building a smokehouse for Pete. Uncle Billy or his wife came everday to check on Adarka, the baby, and the two small girls. Adarka became chilled while milking one evening during a cold misty rain and had a relapse of the measles and passed away. This was in February of 1891. Martha was 3 months old. Adarka's mother, Grandma Johnson, took care of the children after their mother's death. This was before the move to McAllister and the Johnsons were living on part of Pete's allotment.

Pete married his second wife, Becky Jane Tucker, a daughter of "Doc" Tucker and his wife, Eleanor Patton in 1892 but she lived with him only a short time before leaving with her parents and going to the Chickasaw Nation, near Marietta, Oklahoma. Here she gave birth to a daughter, Callie, April 2, 1893. In 1893 or 1894, Pete married Nancy Ann Morris, who previously had been married to Jack Sullins. By this first marriage, she had 2 daughters, Leona and Pearl.

As Mattie said, Poppa would get mad and pout. Once when Nancy Ann couldn't get him to talk when she asked him what was wrong, she decided to try something else. She called the Doctor. When he arrived, Poppa said, "What the Hell is going on?" Momma told him she just wanted to find out what was wrong with him. The Doctor thought it was very funny and Pete loosened up and started talking again. When Pete and his half-sister, Selilah, had an argument, they believed in settling it the Indian way. Sometimes after a dispute, Nancy Ann would look out from the cabin and see Delilah coming down the road with a hatchet in her hand and Momma would tell the children, "Here comes Delilah to settle an argument." Delilah and Pete would go out into the woods and fields on Pete's allotment and they would bury the hatchet. This would settle the argument. No one was allowed to go with them. Mattie said she had no idea how many hatchets were buried on Pete's property, but it was several.

Peter never like to be tied down at one place. He spoke several Indian dialects and was welcome in the camps and at the pow-wows of the tribe. He liked to travel over the Indian Nation in the summer, visiting his friends. Sometimes he would travel with Theodore Bourassa, ("Uncle Santa") his half-brother, and his family. One time, after Pete and the family had been traveling during the summer, they returned to the allotment and found the two-room cabin had burned with all the contents. He had left the stock to graze on the Greenhead Praire. When they returned, the stock had all been stolen except 4 cows and a few horses. A squatter couple had built a one-room shack on Pete's property, near the road. Pete and his father-in-law built another house up near the sping. The squatter continued to live on Pete's property until his wife died and he moved away. Pete sold his farm and in 1909, he and Nancy Ann traveled by covered wagon to the Osage Indian Nation. Not much is known of his time there except he worked for a well-to-do Osageman named Pete Kenworthy near Fairfax, Oklahoma. Kenworthy was another of Pete's friends that he had become acquainted with in his travels through the Indian camps. He made one more visit back to the land of the Potawatomi in 1920 or 1921. He visited his daughter, Martha, and her family near Earsboro and then went on down to near McAllister to visit his two other daughters, Clarissa and Belle. He lived in a tent in their yard while he was visiting them. While he was there, Callie, his daughter by his second wife, came to see him and told him that she was his daughter. It was the first time he had met her. He had always thought that she was a boy. Peter had a heart attack while visiting Belle and Clarissa and he stayed with them until he recovered. Then he returned to the land of The Osage where he continued to live and work until he fell dead of another heart attack. His daughters were not notified of his death which occurred on a Good Friday. Clarissa finally received a letter from Nancy Ann telling of his death and burial.

Peter B. Greemore died at the age of 61, on April 25, 1923. He was buried in the beautiful Fairfax Catholic Cemetery, in a lot given by his friend, Pete Kenworthy. Nancy Ann, who married again, died October 17, 1927 and is buried by the side of Peter. Due to a mix-up, her grave was marked with the headstone of another person. This record is found at the Fairfax City Clerk's Office, Fairfax, Osage County, Oklahoma. None of Pete's children had ever attended his grave or knew where it was located until 1966 when Martha and some of her family were able to go there and place a metal marker on it. His grave is in Lot 63, Block C, Space 4, from the South End. Nancy Ann's Lot 58, Block C, Space 1.

Based on research of Jim and Mary Prine

1. ↑ Carol Kellogg. Gaynor, Grimard. (RootsWeb.com)
   http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=:1659057&id=I34191.