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| Research Note | 1950's - Okla Union Church, AKA: Hogeye
- Photo Courtesy of Wheaton Echoes, Centennial Book
Okla Union Church was a small white wooden church sitting in the Shoal creek valley, where it meets with Woodard’s creek. This site is on Farm Road 2040. The church was commonly called “Okrie Union” or Hogeye. The date of its organization is unknown. It was in operation during my father Chester Higgs’ childhood during the early 1900’s. He lived his entire life on the hill just a short distance above the Church location and attended many functions there, even though he was not a member. I have been told that several different denominations held services there at different times. In browsing the files of The Wheaton Journal, I found an obituary for Sabra E. Phillips Gillman born in 1868 and died at the age of 92. She and her husband J. A. Gillman lived in Wheaton area their entire life. “when she was a young woman she professed faith in Christ and joined the Presbyterian Church of the Okla Union community east of Wheaton”. My Mother Marguerite Hoyt sang with a quartet when she was a young woman and their quartet sang at Okla Union for the funeral of Dr. Oscar Overton held there on Nov. 12, 1935. The Solid Rock Baptist Church is located down the road (2040) about 1 mile south. Solid Rock organized in 1936 and used the Okla Union Church building for their services until their building could be finished in 1938. I have also been told that the church originally sat further west on the old road that went to Rocky Comfort, before Wheaton was built. This road crossed both Woodard’s creek and Shoal Creek. The church was moved due to flooding at the junction of the creeks. The old road was later closed when a bridge was built at the Rocky Ford crossing located north on Shoal Creek. The late Sherman Brattin told me that his parents, Date Brattin and Cora Ruppert met at “a singing” at Hogeye and they later married. Date was a long time Road commissioner in Barry County. Marjorie Barnett, lifetime resident of the area, told me that according to her father who owned a farm on Shoal creek, the Oklahoma school and perhaps Okla Union church was named in honor of the new state of Oklahoma in 1907. The area had formerly been a community named El Paso and had a post office by that name until the Wheaton Post office was organized in 1907. The old church building is no longer there but the foundation rocks can still found and the Overton (Hogeye) cemetery located just south of the church remains. Betty Higgs Lamberson |
| Resource | Family Photos and Notes |
| Submitted by | Submitted in 2011 by: Betty Higgs Lamberson |
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