Oklahoma Prairie Plowed Under: The Story of the Berry Brothers in Indian Territory (in English)
Synopsis "Oklahoma Prairie Plowed Under: The Story of the Berry Brothers in Indian Territory (in English)"
If you've ever wondered what the American West was really like, the lives of the six Berry Brothers in Oklahoma Indian Territory has the answers to your questions. Well over a hundred years ago these young men rode into Indian Territory to settle among the Indians. After the ravages of the Civil War they came west and established the first trading post in Indian Territory. It was amid the Five Civilized Tribes they made their homes and raised their families. Their lives tell the stories of the land runs, the lawlessness, the cattle, the Indians, the dangers, the failures, and the discovery of oil. Their lives tell the story of early Oklahoma. Their biographies, letters, and memories describe the west as it was. It was early in the year 1989 that my mother, Camelia Uzzell Berry, asked if I would type her Family History manuscript about the Berry Brothers. After consenting I was given a steamer trunk of hand-written manuscript. There were sections of manuscript that had been cut apart and then pinned together, literally with straight pins. When Mother wanted to rearrange the order, she cut the sections apart and pinned them together in the order she felt best, then rolled them up in a scroll. Some scroll sections were over twenty feet long. Keep in mind there were no computers during my mother's early era. She had joined the Berry family with the marriage to my father, in 1941. She was a New York city girl and her new relations fascinated her. Coming from a family of writers, she gathered their stories and filed them away. These were first hand experiences from the men who had lived this era of history. She collected these stories just as others collect stamps, or butterflies. When the family pressed her, for publication, she came to me and asked me to get it ready to publish. As I began typing I realized the value of the work Mother had done. I felt Oklahoma's history needed to be folded into the Berry Brother's stories. This was my part in this work. The story of the Berry Brothers in Indian Territory is a tribute to Oklahoma and the men who settled it as well as to my mother, who took the time to make a personal record of this era of history.
