Oklahoma How I Love and Hate Thee

I have never been to Oklahoma and I'm sure that the version of it that exists in my mind is very inaccurate. The Oklahoma in my mind is not a real place or even a current place. It's a mix of what was and what may have been filtered through the imagination of a girl from California.

On one hand I love Oklahoma and on the other I don't.

Oklahoma to me is a romantic arid far away land where a skinny man worked a two man job out in the oil fields from mid 1920 something to 1940 something before he moved to California. It's where this same man, Harper was born along with his 11 little brothers and sisters. Where their parents Greeley and Amanda married in 1901 when it was still called Indian Territory. It is where Harper married his first wife, a marriage that was shortly annulled, though they had a daughter together. It is also where he married his second wife Emma and where their 6 kids were born. Their first born Jerald William died around the age of two and the greatly photographed Curtis, their second son, followed him shortly after his sister Helen(my grandmother) was born. Curtis was 5 when he died and how he died is not known to me at the time of writing this. This is the place where many with the Surname Graham are buried, lived and died. The land of my paternal grandmother's childhood. A land of oil fields and farms with ring swallowing chickens and little brothers that chase you with bugs -  and they were the side of the family that took the most photos back in the day.

Oklahoma is also one of the states, like Arkansas, which doesn't have a online database of death certificates and other vital records for me and other like minded people to sort through and figure out who the parents of Greeley R Graham were or what was the cause of death for 5 year old Great Uncle Glen Curtis Graham, Greeley's grandson.

Someday I may visit Oklahoma and Arkansas and Missouri and Maryland and Virginia and maybe even Germany and Switzerland Austria, but then again I may not. I love the native lands or native states as it may be of my ancestors but they do not all like to share their secrets from the past with me without a high fee.