City Manager James Melson inspects the cleanup
From the Lincoln County News, 13 Feb. 2014
by Robbie McCommas, Staff
Writer
A 50th reunion
that brought classmates together last spring encouraged a few individuals to
consider the condition of a deserted graveyard. Though noticed as youth when
driving around the county roads, the men hadn’t thought of the cemetery as the
decades passed.
Chandler graduate Wayne
Pounds, who now lives in Japan, spurred a conversation with Brent LaGere who in
turn took action.
“After alumni Rick Evans and
I went out to the cemetery and looked around one Sunday afternoon,” LaGere
explained. “I had talked to Wayne and we wanted to recognize the area as sacred
ground. Wayne’s cousin Eugene Stidham had family buried there.”
LaGere talked with City
Manager James Melson. Soon he, and Board Member Rick Evans, got a city crew to
work clearing the undergrowth. Carefully, the men removed the weeds and briars
to unveil confirmation of community residents who helped to settle the area.
The cemetery, once noted as
in “reprehensible” condition, was getting groomed for the first time in a long
time.
History of
the cemetery
The Lincoln County Oklahoma History book stated in 1988, “This old
cemetery once numbering over 100 graves, was probably also used as a community
burying ground. It is now nearly lost in the scrub oak.” It is located near CR
890 and CR 3410, one mile north and two miles west of Chandler.
The farm was homesteaded in
the land run, by Elisha McCorkle and his wife Almira Smith McCorkle. Both sets
of their parents were buried there, (the Joel McCorkles’ and the John Smiths’)
according to history.
The McCorkle’s child, Bessie
McCorkle, married Joseph Gibson and they too, made their home on the farm. The
Gibsons raised three children, Emlee, James Robert and Doc.
Joseph and Bessie were
ranchers and owned a rock crushing business. They were prosperous, according to
Melson who was related to the family by marriage.
After the death of Joseph and
Bessie, the homestead was given to Emlee who was married to Clee Fitzgerald.
Emlee was the mother of Melson’s late wife.
“My wife and I would go to
the property often,” Melson said. “The old rock house is still standing. I’d
cut hay off for Emlee.”
Graves
On Nov. 23, 1962, The Indian
Spring Chapter of the National Society of Daughter of American Revolution
inspected the cemetery and found there were only 17 legible tombstones. They
said many of the graves were probably never marked.
The legible tombstones
recorded by DAR were as follows according to documents filed at the Lincoln
County Museum of Pioneer History: Joseph Brown 1803; L.A. Cook 1898; Nan Cook
1899; Alma Matthes 1897; Pauline Mathes 1897; Joel McCorkle 1907; Mary Ann
Earls McCorkle 1899 wife of Joel; Ardell Moreland 1894; Rice-three small
children; John B. Smith 1902; Liddie Smith 1894; Smith-two small children and
Mrs. Carolyn Thompson.
Bessie McCorkle Gibson told
the DAR she remembered these burials: Beulah Chinn; Mr. Walker; Mr. Hopkins;
Faultner-two small children; Nellie Mae McCorkle 1894.
In 1965, Bessie McCorkle
Gibson still owned the land. She said she counted 36 graves at one time but
knew that there were many more, according to DAR. She thought that after the
inscriptions were recorded, some of the McCorkle family was moved to Oak Park
Cemetery.
The last burials of the
cemetery were 1923.
Chandler resident Eugene
Stidham’s grandmother’s siblings are buried there.
“In 1992, I visited the
cemetery with my dad,” Stidham described. “Upon looking at unmarked sand
stones, Dad recalled the names of Glen and Loanie Rice who were siblings to his
mother, Lennie L. Rice Stidham. My dad thought the girls were ages three and
six. They were buried with native stone markers near a cedar tree in the
cemetery.”
Stidham said the children
died in the flu epidemic of 1918. Their parents were Gus and Addie Bell Stone
Rice.
“The Find-A-Grave records
reflects three Rice babies in the cemetery, though dad was only aware of two,”
Stidham pointed out.
Bell Cow
Lake caused disunion
With the construction of Bell
Cow Lake in 1986, Emlee Gibson Fitzgerald objected to the release of her
property including the McCorkle Cemetery to eminent domain, according to
Melson.
“She reasoned that her
relatives were buried there and had homesteaded the ground from the Land Run,”
he added.
Eventually Emlee relented and
40 acres, including the cemetery, were consumed for the use of Bell Cow Lake.
Though the cemetery was never touched during the lake’s construction, the
property changed hands for the first time.
On Jan. 3, 1986 a warranty
deed was filed to Chandler Municipal Authority for 40 acres, according to
Lincoln County Assessor Deputy Kala Wakely. Wakely said a note in the file
reads: the McCorkle Cemetery lies in the northeast corner. In 1972, 36 graves
were counted.
Optimistic
future
As the winter weather clears,
LaGere assured the cemetery would boast a new fence, gate and sign to complete
the project.
If the article has jogged a
reader’s memory and they have a recollection of the cemetery or an account of
someone buried there, Pounds asked for those individuals to let him know by
email at wapo@cl.aoyama.ac.jp. In
addition, The Lincoln County Museum of Pioneer History would include the
information in their file. The museum’s number is (405) 258-2425.
