Person:Victoria Willmore (1)

In the 1920 census, Queenie is staying with her sister, Esther (Minnie) Mapes.

From Gwendolyn Thompson Schweitzer haroldes@@hevanet.com (Schweitzer)

Queen was my grandmother! My father's mother. I never knew her as she lived just a short time after I was born. She was a small little lady and showed her English side so I have been told. Very thrifty. My two older sisters and two brothers did remember her. Only one of the sisters remembered her as the other two are deceased. I was the baby of six. I still have two sisters living. One lives in a nurseing home in San Rafael, Ca. and the other in Tulelake, Ca.

Grandmother Queen and Sylvester had only the two sons. Judge Vern E. Thompson that lived in Joplin, Mo. and had three daughters. My father Ray W. Thompson and had six children. My father was in Real Estate. Judge Vern (my uncle) at one time had a case that won twenty seven million. He kept 7 and the other twenty went on the case. My father was considered pore. But we had a lot of love for one another.

I live on 43 A. here in Canby, Oregon where my husband was born. eighty one years ago. I am seventy three years of age. We have been married forty-eight years. Never had any children. Our place is just beautiful. A lot of trees. We built our home overlooking a spring fed pond that covers about 1 A.

As I understand it the Willmores descended from Miles Standish. Uncle Vern wrote quite a book about all this but I have not been able to contact any of his daughters.

My husband is quite ill (congestive heart failure). Thank goodness I am well and able to care for him. We Thompson/Willmores are very strong people.

I did not know my Grandmother Victoria but I do have a picture of her and her two sisters in one photo. I have some more information on her but do not know if it is accurate or not.

I have very dark hair and eyes. My sister, Theresa, was the only blue eyed out of the six children. I think my Grandmother Thompson had blue eyes and was fair of complexion. I never saw her or my Grandfather. My father had black hair and green eyes. Had a good strong chin.

She died at my Uncle's home in Joplin, Missouri. Her husband (my grandfather) died Sept. 20, 1918 and what I have they both were buried in Miami, Oklahoma or somewhere in Oklahoma or Joplin, Missouri. I have a picture of their grave stone. I just found an affidavit signed in Jasper County Missouri signed the 19th day of January, 1952 by my uncle Vern E. Thompson and he states that his mother Queen died April 7, 1936.

The one on the left (in the photo) is my father's Aunt Lide, my grandmother Victoria (Queen) and on the back the one on the left is written See See. They were all sisters.Sure look like English ladies. She was quite religious and saved every little thing. She really saved her hair pins and some of her friends had a huge hair pin made and played a trick on her and gave it to her. My older sister is the only one in my family that had deep set eyes. The rest no.

Son Vern wrote a Brief History of the Quapaw Indians (1934); he was Attorney for the Quapaw Indian Council at the time.

This little booklet is dedicated to the memory of Mes-kah-tun-ka Tract (Mrs. Slage), a noble and generous character, whose friendship with the writer was evidenced by her having had conferred upon him, through ancient Indian rites, the Indian name "Pawhuska," an honor which he has always greatly appreciated; and by her many acts of friendship and kindness, which remain among his fondest memories. V.E.T. Preface

The writer came, as a young man out of college, to Indian Territory in the fall of 1902, from the state of Michigan. The only Indian he had ever seen before coming west was an Indian travelling with a Patent Medicine Show selling Indian herbs and medicine which were guaranteed to cure all human ills. These shows were, in that day and age, very popular in rural communities. He was born and reared in a small rural community and as a boy remembers sitting on the front row of the torch-lighted tent listening to the fascinating lectures about the mysterious red men of the west, their knowledge of nature and nature's remedies.

Following these early impressions and a farm boy's dream of the Indian country, his interest in Indian affairs was further stimulated by the reading of Cooper's Leather Stocking Tales so that by the time he had finished his preparation for the law and the "World laid at his feet," his controlling urge was to make the Indian country his home. He followed the western treck, intending to locate in Tulsa, Indian Territory, then being advertised by Railway immigration literature as the coming oil Capital of the World. When he reached Tulsa he found a dirty, struggling little town of some seventeen hundred people; no pavement, poor sidewalks, and as he remembers, they had just started their first skyscraper, a three-story building. He was not sufficiently prophetic to envision the beautiful, spectacular, Cosmopolitan City of Tulsa as it stands today. Upon hearing of the discovery of oil in the new town of Miami, located in the northeastern corner of Indian Territory, in what was then known as the Quapaw Agency, now a part of Ottawa County, Oklahoma, he rushed to this new location, only to find shortly afterward that the so-called oil was a form of asphaltum overlaying deposits of lead and zinc, soon thereafter to be developed.

The Government had located seven small remnants of once powerful tribes and confederations of tribes of Indians in this Agency. One of these bands, the subject of the sketch, was the Quapaw tribe or band.

At the time of the writer's first acquaintance with the Quapaw Indians in the fall of 1902, many full bloods were living and were in the prime of life, possessed of all of the colorful history and traditions of the tribe, handed down to them through the ages, as was their immemorial custom.

Being from the first intensely interested in Indian history and folklore, he had an excellent opportunity of hearing and absorbing from quite original and pure sources, much of the Quapaw early history and traditions.

Now that most of the full bloods have passed into their "Happy Hunting Grounds," leaving only the younger generation, most of whom have intermarried with the whites and have to a large degree abandoned their old tribal customs and observances, he feels that their interesting history should be recorded and preserved.

He realizes his inability to accurately or with completeness write the history of this interesting tribe of people whom the "Lord has led out of bondage," hard- ship and despair, like the Israelites of old, into a land of milk and honey, the center of one of the earth's richest deposits of lead and zinc. However, he will attempt a resume' of the history of this people hoping that this effort may finally be taken up and elaborated upon by more able hands.

It was originally planned to include in this little booklet the biography of the prominent members of this tribe, but in view of the fact that this is primarily a history of the Quapaw tribe, the writer feels that these biographies should become the subject of a special sketch.

Vern. E. Thompson. Joplin, Mo., Dec. 10th, 1937

1. ↑ Researcher
   Gwendolyn Schweitzer.