2026-40 A Moment of Courage on the Ohio Frontier

Jacob Ringer, My Paternal 3rd Great Grandfather

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 40 of 2026

Prompt: A Moment of Courage

Three small military index cards started this story.

Each named my ancestor Jacob Ringer as a private in the Ohio militia during the War of 1812. One associated him with Adams’ Battalion, another with Price’s 2nd Regiment, and the third with Holt’s Detachment. They offered no dates, no captain’s name, and no account of where Jacob marched or what he experienced.

It was tempting to arrange those three cards into a neat military journey. But the cards do not tell us whether they represent separate periods of service, reorganizations of the same unit, or simply different ways the government indexed his records. They were clues, but they were not yet a story.

By the time the War of 1812 began, Jacob was living in Preble County, Ohio, along what was still an unsettled and uncertain frontier.

Created by ChatGPT. Click image for larger view. 

The Panic of 1812

In August 1812, alarming news traveled south across the Ohio frontier: General William Hull had surrendered Detroit, along with some 2,500 American soldiers, to the British. The loss was catastrophic to American defenses in the Northwest. With British forces now dominating Michigan and the upper Great Lakes, the scattered settlements of western Ohio suddenly seemed far more exposed. In the log cabins of Preble County, families could only wonder how far south the danger might come.

It was in the midst of this uncertainty that twenty-five-year-old Jacob Ringer entered military service.

The Pension File Tells the Story

Nearly sixty years later, Jacob described that service in his own War of 1812 pension declaration.

In August 1812, Jacob was drafted into Lieutenant Silas Fleming’s company of the Ohio Militia. His company was stationed at Fort Nesbit, where, in Jacob’s words, the men “did duty as Rangers” protecting the settlements.

He was honorably discharged at Fort Nesbit on February 28, 1813.

His military service, however, was not over.

After only a matter of weeks at home, Jacob returned to duty on April 15, 1813, this time as a private in Captain James Black’s company of the Ohio Militia. He remained in service until October 14, 1813.

The Pension Office later checked Jacob’s account against the military records and confirmed both periods of service.

The pension file finally gave me a clear account of Jacob’s service. It does not fully explain the three military index cards that first caught my attention, which associate him with Adams’ Battalion, Price’s 2nd Regiment, and Holt’s Detachment. Those names may reflect larger commands, reorganizations, or the way his service was later indexed. For now, they remain clues to be investigated.

Jacob Ringer's War of 1812 pension claim. 
Click image to enlarge.

Two Tours on the Ohio Frontier

Jacob’s first months of service came at a frightening time for the people of western Ohio. Fort Nesbit was one of a number of small defensive posts established along the frontier, and Jacob’s own declaration tells us something about what he and his fellow soldiers were doing there.

They served as rangers, leaving the relative safety of the fort to help protect the surrounding settlements.

We do not know what Jacob encountered while performing that duty. He left no diary describing nights at Fort Nesbit or days spent ranging through the countryside. We do not know what weapon he carried, what clothing he was issued, or what thoughts went through his mind as he performed his duty.

But unlike the terse military index cards that first led me into this story, his pension declaration gives us a glimpse of what his service actually meant.

After his discharge in February 1813, Jacob was home only a short time before beginning another six months of military duty under Captain James Black.

Black and other Preble County troops were associated with Fort Black, erected near present-day New Madison in Darke County during the fall of 1813. Jacob was serving in Black’s company at the time, but his pension papers do not tell us whether he was at Fort Black or took part in its construction.

What they do tell us is enough.

What Frontier Courage Looked Like

When we think of military courage, we often picture a soldier charging into battle. For Jacob Ringer, courage may have looked very different.

For nearly a year, divided between two periods of service, he was part of the military effort to defend Ohio’s frontier. During his first enlistment he was stationed at Fort Nesbit and served as a ranger protecting scattered settlements. After being discharged, he returned to military service only weeks later and spent another six months in Captain Black’s company.

A later Darke County history described that frontier country as a mixture of timber, tangled thickets, tall grasses, and swampy ground. Roads were primitive, settlements were scattered, and reliable news could be hard to come by.

Jacob left no account of a great battle or a single dramatic act of heroism. Instead, his pension papers tell the quieter story of a young man who answered when he was called, spent months guarding an uncertain frontier, returned home—and then went back to serve again.

Perhaps courage was not one dramatic moment for Jacob Ringer. Perhaps it was simply continuing to do the work that needed to be done.

From Forts to Fences

After his military service ended, Jacob returned to Preble County. On March 21, 1815, he married Catherine Eikleberger.

The following year Jacob’s neighbors elected him to the decidedly less dramatic office of fence viewer in Harrison Township’s first election. A fence viewer inspected boundary fences and helped settle disagreements between neighboring landowners. It was a small but necessary position in a community changing from frontier wilderness into farms, roads, and organized local government.

There is something fitting in that transition.

During the War of 1812, Jacob helped protect settlements on the Ohio frontier. By 1816, he was helping his neighbors maintain the fences that defined their farms and kept peace within their growing community.

First came the forts. Then came the fences.

The three little military index cards that started this search told me only that Jacob Ringer had served.

His pension file told me something more.

It placed him at Fort Nesbit. It told me that he served as a ranger. And it revealed that after completing one period of military duty, he returned to serve another.

That may be as close as I will ever come to knowing what courage looked like for my third great-grandfather, Jacob Ringer.

The Rest of Jacob’s Story: Montgomery County

After completing this story, I discovered another chapter in Jacob and Catherine’s life. Tax and land records place Jacob in Preble County through the 1820s, including an 1826 assessment for 80 acres in Section 33. He sold that 80-acre tract in September 1827 and does not appear in the Preble County tax records I found for 1827, 1828, or 1829. By January 1830, a deed identified Jacob and Catherine as residents of Montgomery County, Ohio, where they owned land in Perry Township. The 1830 census confirms the family living there, and another deed shows them still residing in Montgomery County in 1832. Interestingly, an Eikleberger household appears immediately after the Ringer household in the 1830 census, suggesting that members of Catherine’s family may also have been living nearby. I have not yet located Jacob and Catherine in the 1840 census, so when they left Montgomery County remains uncertain.

2026-39 Almost Italian

Mike Antinora, My Mother’s First Love

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 39 of 2026

Prompt: What Wasn’t Written Down

“You were almost Italian. His name was Mike.” That is all my mother told me. 

And then I found him in her 1942 diary, the writings of a sixteen-year-old. 

Mike Antinora, found in Margaret Nolen's 1942 Diary.
Image enhanced by ChatGPT. 
Click image for larger view.

I don’t know how sixteen-year-old Margaret met Mike Antinora, a soldier from St. Louis. Her parents were known to pick up hitchhiking soldiers and invite them home for dinner, sometimes even offering them a place to spend the night. Perhaps that is how Mike came into her life.

The first entry that mentioned Mike was September 15: “Got a letter from Mike. He is coming Saturday.” On Saturday she wrote, “Mike and Leon came down. They took Bet and I to a show. Got home on last street car. They stayed all night. We played cards until 2 o’clock.”  The next day they went to Bristow and “had fun with M and L”. 

By October the relationship had grown. “

20th: “Mike sent the sweetest bracelet with and Air Corps wings on it. His letters are getting more serious everyday.”

21st: “Mike proposed in a letter. Showed bracelet off at school.”

24th: “Mike and I set out on the front porch and talked until 2:00 a.m. He asked me to wait for him until the war was over. I haven’t accepted yet.” 

25th: “Went to catholic church with Mike. It was a very pretty sermon.”

Then Mike was gone. 

Nov. 3: “Got a letter and a package from Mike. He is in New Jersey. He sent me a sweetheart letter case.”

Nov 4: “Got a letter from Sam (Mike’s brother). He asked me to come to St. Louis Thanksgiving.” (She didn’t go.)

Dec 2: “Got letter from Sam. He thinks Mike is in New Oran Africa because of a picture they saw in the paper Nov. 27.”

Dec 16: “Got a nice lace table cloth from Antinora family.”

Dec 24: “Called Mike’s mother because I had a letter from him. He was 20 days out at sea.”

Jan 2: “Got letters from Mike and Leonard, They are in India.”

And that was it. Nothing else was written about Mike. 

Mike Antinora married Catherine Margaret “Kitty” Farrell in 1948 in St. Louis. They had one son, and four daughters, one of whom became a nun. Mike and Kitty both passed away in the St. Louis area. 

I don’t know what happened between Mike and Margaret. Did they continue writing? Did she eventually tell him she wouldn’t wait? Did the war and the distance simply bring their romance to an end? Her diary offers no explanation.

But I do know that more than fifty years later, she remembered him well enough to tell her daughter, “You were almost Italian.”

And now I know his name.

2026 - 38 Spent All In One Place

Ed Galloway and Vi Hooten, Friends of Leonard and Elizabeth Nolen

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

2026 - Week 38

Prompt: A Document With Personality 

I wrote about the Galloway/Nolen friendship in blog post 2026-35, A Spot On The Map. While doing research for that story which focused on Totem Pole Park near Foyil, Oklahoma I found a sweet newspaper article about Nathan E. (Ed) Galloway and his bride, Villa (Vi or Villie) Hooten. 

Kansas City Journal (Kansas City, Missouri) Friday, July 15, 1904. 
Click on image for larger view.

Spent All in One Place

“A young gentleman and young lady called at the Boston store yesterday afternoon,” says the Carthage Press, “and said they were going to get married and wished to get a good outfit there. The wish-to-be groom had just bought a good black suit somewhere, but otherwise, bought everything else there. The bride got a complete outfit, dress and all. The groom asked if they could get married there too, as they had no place else to go. He was told that they were more than welcome, and furthermore, that any assistance would be gladly rendered in helping him to get a license and someone to officiate.

“Just then Justice S. I. Barton happened to be passing and was called in. He went with the groom for the license while the bride went back to the store dressing room to make her toilet and put on her new clothes. The groom when he came back primped some too, and then Justice Barton married the two in the presence of the assembled store force and a few from the outside.

“The couple were Nathan E. Galloway, of Scotland, and Villa Hooten, of Catalo, I. T. The groom said he had returned only about three weeks ago from service in the Philippines, and had secured a railroad job at Springfield.”

A marriage license would have given me their names, the date and the place. This newspaper account gave me so much more. I can picture Vi changing into her new wedding clothes in the store dressing room while Ed went for the license—and then Ed returning and “primping some too.”

More than 120 years later, I still smile when I read it. Now that is a document with personality.

2026 - 37 Connecting Calls in Ramona, Indian Territory

Gertrude Susan Goldsmith Wallis, My Maternal Grandmother

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 37 of 2026

Prompt: A Small Detail That I Love

Years ago, during a visit with my aunt Gladys, I jotted down bits of family history as she talked. At the top of one page I wrote a small detail about her mother: “Susan Goldsmith — telephone operator in Ramona, OK. when single.”

A note I wrote during a visit to Aunt Gladys.
Click on image for larger view.

I tucked that detail away, but I never forgot it. I loved the glimpse it gave me of Grandmother Wallis as a young woman, before she became anyone's wife or mother.

Gertie’s obituary states, “In 1903 she moved with her parents to Indian Territory, and in 1910 married C.B. Wallis.” So she was a telephone operator sometime between 1903 and 1910.

C.B. Wallis & Gertrude Susan Goldsmith wedding portrait, cleaned up by ChatGPT.
Click on image for larger view. 

So when did Ramona get telephone service?

Apparently, not long after Gertie got there.

On October 7, 1904, The Ramona Herald reported that three telephone lines were “seeking admittance” to the town. Two weeks later, on October 21, the newspaper published Ordinance No. 31, granting W. H. Gates the right to use the streets and alleys of Ramona to erect poles and wires and to build, operate and maintain local and long-distance telephone lines.

By March 1905, the system was operating. The Ramona Herald was advertising its own telephone number—No. 40.

The little telephone system grew quickly. By November 24, 1905, the Pioneer Telephone Company had issued a new directory, printed by the Herald’s job department. The cable was already full with just 50 telephones, and new subscribers would have to wait until more could be accommodated.

About that same time, the telephone office was getting new quarters. Pioneer planned to occupy rooms on the second floor of the new Bass building, with the move scheduled for about December 1.

By March 1906, the company, now referred to as the Pioneer Telephone and Telegraph Company, announced a 45 percent reduction in toll rates over its lines in Indian Territory and Oklahoma.

But Ramona was growing faster than its telephone system could keep up.

On July 6, 1906, the Herald reported that the local telephone office had received a carload of new poles and that new cable would soon arrive. Residents in some of the newer parts of town had been unable to get telephones because the lines had not reached them.

The newspaper made a point of saying that the problems were not the fault of the local operators or managers. There had been little complaint about their service. The problem was the inadequate system they had to work with.

A week later, the promised improvements were underway. New poles were being set, new telephones installed, and lines extended throughout town and out to the oil fields. Another new telephone directory had already been ordered.

Was Gertie one of those “local operators” mentioned in July 1906?

I don't know. I searched the newspapers for Goldsmith, Gertie and Gertrude without finding her connected to the telephone office. Aunt Gladys didn't tell me exactly when her mother worked there, only that she had been a telephone operator before she married.

But now I can picture it.

ChatGPT imagined Gertrude Susan Goldsmith as a telephone operator.
Click image for larger view.

Gertie was about eighteen when Ramona's first telephone system began operating. During the next few years, she watched a system of only fifty telephones expand across town and into the surrounding oil fields. Somewhere during those years, she climbed the stairs to a telephone office and sat at a switchboard, connecting the calls of people she probably knew.

It is a small detail in the long life of Gertrude Susan Goldsmith Wallis.

But it lets me see Gertie, the young woman, before she became Grandmother Wallis.

2026 - 36 They Called Him "Daddy Page"

 

Charles Page, Founder of the Sand Springs Home and Colony for Widows

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 36 of 2026

Prompt: More Than a Name

For my mother's first Christmas, she received a doll from a man her parents called “Daddy Page.”

The doll Charles and Lucille Page gave my mother, Margaret Nolen, for her first Christmas in 1926. Charles Page died the following day, December 26.
Click image for larger view.

Charles Page had promised his widowed mother that when he made his fortune, he would care for widows and children. He kept that promise.

Charles Page, known to the children of the Sand Springs Home as "Daddy Page". 
Click to view larger image

Page made his fortune in the Oklahoma oil fields near Tulsa. When he acquired 160 acres several miles west of Tulsa, land blessed with abundant springs of water, he set out to create a place where widows with dependent children could have a home and where orphaned children could be cared for.

He selected B. F. Breeding, a young Salvation Army captain, to serve as superintendent of the Sand Springs Home and its Colony for Widows.

In July 1908, Captain Breeding moved his own family to the site. The following month, he brought the first mother and her children to live there, sheltering them in a tent until the first cottage could be built.

That mother was my great-grandmother, Mattie McCorkle Nolen Jones. Her children were Robert Luther and my grandfather, Leonard Nolen.

Mattie would live there only a few months. She died of tuberculosis on December 27, 1908, leaving Robert Luther and Leonard in the care of the new Sand Springs Home.

There is a complication to Mattie's story. She was not actually a widow. She had left her husband, P. J. Nolen, in Batesville, Arkansas, and married William F. Jones on May 2, 1907, in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Mr. Jones was hospitalized when Captain Breeding brought Mattie and the boys west to the place that would become Sand Springs.

Whatever the circumstances that brought them there, Robert Luther and Leonard became two of the children Charles Page had promised to care for.

Leonard grew up at the Sand Springs Home, where several men would have a lasting influence on his life. B. F. Breeding, the Home's superintendent, and Ed Galloway, his manual arts instructor, were important father figures. But it was Charles Page who seems to have guided some of the most important decisions Leonard made about his future.

When Leonard wanted to become a railroad man, Page told him he must first finish school. When the United States entered World War I and Leonard wanted to enlist, Page advised him that he was needed more on the railroad. And it was Page who gave Leonard his first railroad job—as a water boy for the Sand Springs Railway.

That water boy made the railway his life's work.

The Sand Springs Railway had begun as an interurban passenger line connecting Sand Springs with Tulsa. Leonard remained with the Railway throughout his career, eventually becoming Superintendent of Maintenance of Way. He retired on March 1, 1957.

The Sand Springs Railway still operates today, although it now carries freight rather than passengers. I remember those familiar green-and-gold cars from my own childhood—and they are still green and gold today.

Page's influence on Leonard went far beyond providing him with a place to live. He helped point a young boy toward the life he would build for himself.

And Leonard was only one of the children whose lives Charles Page touched.

Page did not simply build a home for widows and children. Around the Home and the Colony for Widows grew a remarkably self-sufficient community. Sand Springs eventually included oil refineries, a steel plant and a cotton mill. The Home had its own cattle and dairy farm, orchards, wood and metal shops, hospital, greenhouse and garage. Sand Springs Lake became known throughout the region as a place to swim, boat, picnic, enjoy rides, visit a zoo and listen to music. Page also built the Shell Creek Dam and reservoir to provide a dependable water supply.

But to the children, all of those accomplishments mattered less than the man himself.

Opal Bennefield Clark told the story in A Fool's Enterprise of the day the children decided what they would call him. One little girl caught Page by the sleeve and asked if they really belonged to him.

“Are we really yours?”

“You sure are. You can ask Cap, here,” Page replied.

Then another child asked the question that would give Charles Page the name by which generations of Sand Springs Home children would know him.

“Are you our daddy now?”

Page thought for a moment.

“Well, you belong to me and I belong to you, so I suppose you could say that I am.”

The children erupted in delight.

“Daddy Page, Daddy Page.”

Even Captain Breeding's children joined the crowd. Breeding later recalled the mixture of embarrassment and joy he saw in Page's eyes.

“No father could be prouder of his children,” Breeding said. “I've never seen him so happy.”

And “Daddy Page” he became.

My grandfather Leonard was one of those children. Charles Page was not merely the name of the wealthy oilman who founded the institution where Leonard lived. He was the man who had taken responsibility for him as a boy, encouraged him to finish school, helped guide his decisions and gave him the start in a career that would last nearly half a century.

Perhaps nothing illustrates the affection Leonard and his future wife, Elizabeth Moore, felt for the people who had helped shape their lives at the Sand Springs Home better than the names they chose.

Neither Leonard nor Elizabeth had been given a middle name. Yet on their marriage license they became Leonard Page Nolen and Elizabeth Lindsay Moore.

Leonard had borrowed the name of Charles Page. Elizabeth had borrowed hers in honor of Margaret Lindsay, a matron at the Sand Springs Home.

The names were not theirs by birth. They were names they chose for themselves—and names that honored two of the people who had helped shape their lives.

But Margaret Lindsay's name did not remain only on a marriage license.

Years later, when Leonard and Elizabeth welcomed their youngest daughter, they named her Margaret.

And that brings me back to the doll.

For Margaret's first Christmas, she received a doll from the man her parents called “Daddy Page.”

In 2001, seventy-five years later, Mom gave the doll to me for Christmas along with this note. She mistakenly remembered Lucille Page's name as Mary.
Click image for larger view

2026 - 35 Totem Pole Park, Foyil, Oklahoma

Nathan Ed Galloway and a Friendship That Spanned Generations

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 35 of 2026

Prompt: A Spot on the Map

Over the years, Ed Galloway’s Totem Pole became something of a pilgrimage spot for our family. Leonard was photographed there with Ed; later generations returned, too. I have photographs of my parents and extended family there, my father with Mom’s great-nephew, me with my great-niece—and now, once again, my husband, Bud, standing near the Totem Pole.

July 31, 2012 - Libby Russell and great niece Jessie Hart at my favorite spot in the park, the turtle's head carved out of stone. Click image for larger view. 

Ed Galloway’s Totem Pole Park features a 90-foot concrete totem pole that towers over a vivid array of colorful folk art. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NR99000354), the park contains four totems, two ornate concrete picnic tables with animal-form seats, a barbecue and four sets of animal-form gateposts and an eleven-sided fiddle house.

Ed Galloway and Leonard Nolen on one side of the eleven-sided fiddle house,
Totem Pole Park, Foyil, Oklahoma. 
Click to view larger image. 

So why have generations of the Nolen family been drawn to this “spot on the map”?

Both of my Nolen grandparents, Leonard and his wife Elizabeth, were raised in the Sand Springs Home. In fact, Leonard was the first child taken in by its founder, Charles Page. Mr. Galloway, as we always referred to him, was the manual arts instructor at the Sand Springs Home from 1916 until his retirement in 1938. Leonard would have been 19 years old when Mr. Galloway came to the Home. I don’t know if Leonard was still living there then, but he certainly stayed involved with it, working for the Sand Springs Railway, which was owned and operated by the Home.

Click to view larger image. Ed and Villie Galloway with Elizabeth and Leonard Nolen and their friends Irene and Lon Alcorn at Totem Pole Park, summer 1950.
Click image for larger view.

The friendship between Leonard and Mr. Galloway continued into the next generation. Upon Mr. Galloway’s retirement and subsequent move to Chelsea, his son Paul, who was 19 years younger than Leonard, stayed in Sand Springs to finish high school and lived with my grandparents. In return for their hospitality, Mr. Galloway gave them an ornately carved large round dining table and seven chairs. When asked why seven chairs, rather than the usual six or eight, he replied, “That’s how long the tree trunk was.”

Dining table and chairs carved and crafted by Ed Galloway.
Click image for larger view. 

During a recent file cleanup, I opened a Nolen file that contained records pertaining to the purchase of 60 acres in Rogers County, Oklahoma. I recalled my mother referring to “Mother and Daddy went to the farm” in her diaries and in letters to my father. I also recalled going somewhere outside Tulsa County with my grandmother to pay property taxes.

I had been wondering where this farm was. Could this be it?

As early as 1932, Leonard was corresponding with Morris Schuman of Tulsa, expressing his interest in purchasing 60 acres.

November 27, 1936 — Leonard Nolen purchased 60 acres from Rogers County at a resale for $60: SE ¼ NW ¼ and E ½ SW ¼ NW ¼ of Section 36, Township 23 North, Range 17 East.

December 19, 1942 — Leonard acquired an additional 10 acres, SW NE NW, Section 36, Township 23 North, Range 17 East, through a Rogers County resale. He initially offered $10; after publication of notice, he was the sole bidder and purchased the tract for $71.

Click image for larger view. Image created by ChatGPT.

January 20, 1943 — Leonard corresponded with I. C. Heaton of Sperry, Oklahoma, concerning 60 acres for sale in Section 36. A drawing was included showing that Heaton owned 40 acres in the NW NW and 20 acres adjoining Leonard’s 20-acre tract in the SW NW. No response was in the file.

Tax receipts show that Leonard paid property taxes in Rogers County at least through 1953. By then Leonard had lost the sight in one eye and was losing it in the other. I expect that his wife, Elizabeth, likely took over handling things such as paying the property taxes and did not keep receipts in the file that Leonard had been so meticulous about.

So what did I do with this information?

Of course I had to go find the property.

Bud and I like to take Sunday drives, so on Sunday, September 6, 2026, we went looking for it. I used my HistoryGeo.com subscription to find the section, township and range, and there was a county road, S 4235 Road, that appeared to go right to the acreage.

When we got there, we couldn’t find a road marked 4235, but we found 4237, so we backtracked and guessed that the next road west was 4235. We drove to the end and talked to a woman who came out of her house when she heard us drive up. She said she had lived there for 20 years and didn’t know the name of the road. She also mentioned that she had 40 acres.

I thought we had found it.

Since I knew we were only about half a mile from Totem Pole Park, a place we have visited numerous times, I told Bud we might as well go see the Totem Pole again.

The family story is that Leonard helped haul the sand and gravel needed to make the concrete. The park is maintained by the Rogers County Historical Society, and since our last visit, interpretive markers had been added. One of them mentioned that Mr. Galloway’s former students from the Sand Springs Home helped haul the sand and gravel.

That was wonderful corroboration of our family story.

And now I have found another piece of evidence that makes the story even more interesting. Among the papers I had filed with Leonard’s Foyil land records was an automobile insurance policy for a 1935 Chevrolet truck. Leonard purchased the truck used on March 5, 1938, for $450. The policy describes its use in two wonderfully appropriate words: “local hauling.”

The timing could hardly be better. Ed Galloway began building the Totem Pole in 1937, the same year Leonard purchased his land near Foyil. By March 1938, Leonard owned a truck that he used for hauling.

Then, while looking through my Nolen Family photo binder for something entirely different, I noticed this photograph of Leonard standing beside what appears to be his Chevrolet truck.

Leonard Nolen with what is very likely his 1935 Chevrolet truck, purchased used in March 1938. His 1941 insurance policy lists the truck’s use as “local hauling.” 
Click image for larger view.

Bud Russell reading interpretive signage, Sept. 6, 2026.
Click image for larger view.

While we were at the park, we met Isaac, a student at Tulsa Community College. He asked if he could record an interview with us for a class project.

I said, “Sure, and you don’t even have to ask me any questions. I have a story for you.”

I’m sure Isaac thought he had hit the jackpot when I started telling him about Leonard hauling the ingredients for the concrete and the collection of Galloway furniture that had been handed down to me.

Isaac, a student at Tulsa Community College interviewed me for a class project.
Click image for larger view. 

When Bud and I returned home from our outing, I updated ChatGPT on our findings, and it was suggested that I check the legal land description against the Bureau of Land Management’s PLSS map.

Oops.

I discovered that I had been looking in Section 35, not Section 36.

Leonard’s land was even closer to Mr. Galloway’s property than I had realized. As I went through the file again, I found a plat drawing from an abstract company showing a grid of Section 36. Leonard’s property was marked with “L.N.” in each of his 10-acre squares, while two other 10-acre squares were marked “G,” which I believe stood for Galloway.

Plat drawing of Section 36, Township 23 North, Range 17 East, found in Leonard Nolen’s land file. The tracts marked “L.N.” represent Leonard’s property; I believe the two tracts marked “G” represent Ed Galloway’s property. Click on image for larger view. 

If I had found that drawing before our Sunday drive, I could have driven right to the property.

We had to go back! It was Labor Day, nothing much going on so I asked Bud if he was willing to drive back up to Foyil. He did not hesitate to say YES!

I had determined that the road on the west side of Totem Pole Park was the dividing line between Leonard’s 40-acre and 20-acre tracts, and that his property began about 1/4 mile from Highway 28A. Our van odometer doesn’t display tenths of a mile. We estimated that the property began at the south edge of the parking lot. The road ended about where his property ended. The most noteworthy thing was a beautifully shaped mature oak tree in the middle of a cleared field. There were a few houses, but with recent vinyl siding, it was hard to estimate their age. Bud noticed the remains of a concrete block foundation. 

Mature oak tree on land once owned by Leonard Nolen, near Foyil, Oklahoma.
Click image for larger view. 

In the 1940s Leonard had submitted a request to Rogers County for assistance in building a pond. The reply was that he needed to contact the county extension office at a later date due to lack of funding for the project. I had seen a pond on a google earth view of the property but it was not visible from the road. 

There is something I can’t describe about standing on property owned by an ancestor. I’ve done it in Sedan, Kansas, Huntsville, Arkansas and Sycamore, Kansas. It’s different from visiting a cemetery. It’s walking in their shoes and imagining their life there. All I can say is it’s just pretty cool.

My mother had written the names of most of the people in a 1950 group photograph on the back, but she had crossed out Paul Galloway’s name and moved it to another person in the picture.

Now I wanted to confirm which one was Paul. And I knew just where to go. Paul’s daughter operates Nelson’s Buffeteria, one of the restaurants we go to after pickleball at least once a week. Months ago, I had approached her and asked her if she was a Galloway, and we had chatted a bit about my connection. So two days after finding Leonard’s property, we went to lunch at Nelson’s. I was glad to see Suzanne sitting at the counter. I took her some of the extra copies I had of a few pictures and then showed her other pictures on my iPad. She readily identified her father in the group photo.

Front Row: Lon Alcorn, Leonard Nolen
2nd Row: Dot Alcorn, Ed Galloway, Ralph Wallis holding Storm Wallis, Sonny Alcorn, Sonny Nolen
3rd Row: Unknown, Donnie White (standing), Paul Galloway, Allen Alcorn, Tate Lane (an Alcorn son-in-law) holding Bobby Dale Lane
Click image for larger view.

Suzanne also eliminated the possibility of Paul in some other pictures I had wondered about. Negative evidence is good, too. She also confirmed her mother in a picture with my parents and Aunt Sue at a Totem Pole Park fundraiser. She told me a story about spending the night with Sue at the Nolen’s house on the Sand Springs Line. She said it had been wild staying up all night and she had so much fun. But when she went home and her mother asked her about it she simply said she had a good time and went to bed early. 

Suzanne also confirmed something else I had been wondering about. The stone house at the corner of Totem Pole Park was Ed Galloway’s home. Then, while reading one of the park brochures, I noticed that the park encompasses nine acres. That sent me back to the old abstract-company grid. One of the 10-acre tracts marked “G” appears to coincide with the location of Mr. Galloway’s stone house and the adjoining park.

Suzanne was still a little confused about exactly how I fit into the Nolen family. Finally I said, “My mother was Margaret.”

She lit up.

“I know Margaret. She was so sweet.”

Suzanne said she would look through her own photographs because she thought she might have some pictures of the Nolens. I reminded her that we are there every week so she can bring them in. 

Suzanne’s daughter Jody was taking it all in, at first standing behind the counter and then moving around behind us to see the pictures over my shoulder. She really liked the 1950s group picture so we exchanged contact information so I could send her a digital scan. 

When I got home, I found a sweet newspaper article about the marriage of Ed Galloway and Villie Hooten. I sent that to Jody, too. So now another generation of Galloways and Nolens have connected,

I think Leonard and Ed would be pleased.

Leonard Nolen and Ed Galloway, Totem Pole Park