Alice Curry

I was born in Love Valley in the Choctaw Nation, in 1867.

My mother was owned by Sobe Love and was brought to the Indian Territory when
only a small girl. My father was owned by a Creek Indian named Day and father's 
name was Phil Day until after the close of the Civil War. At that time he left this 
Creek Indian and changed his name to Phil Robison.

My father has told me that there was a white man whom he found lying 
beside the road late one evening. He took the white man to his master's house and in 
a few weeks, this white man who had been shot was well. The white man's name was 
Robison so when my father left the Creek Indian and came to Love Valley, he changed his name to Robison. 

It was about one year after the close of the War that my father said he went to work 
for Mr. Love who owned my mother. My mother said she had no place to go after the War so Master Love let her stay with him and help with the housework. After my 
father went to work there, he met and married my mother.  He worked for Sobe Love for two years, then he moved across the Red River and began farming for himself.

I remember when I was about thirteen years old there was store called Colbert's Station, just across Red River in the Indian Territory from where we lived. Every year there would be a big picnic held there which would last sometimes from three to four days. I have heard my father say that this picnic was put on by the cattlemen and sometimes there would be a thousand people there. It was for anybody that wanted to come and there would be free barbecue. There was always a merry-go-round which was pulled by a mule.  Besides the lemonade stands there were two big dance platforms, one for the white people and one for the colored. The Chickasaws and Choctaws had a place cleared off for their dance ground and they would have a fire in the center of the dance ground. All the music they had was a drum of some kind. My father would help make music for the white people. There would be a United States Marshal and an Indian Police there. When an Indian got drunk, the Indian police would take him and handcuff him to a tree and leave him there until he 
sobered up and then turn him loose. Sometimes these dances would go on all night.

While we were living there, my father would come to Pauls Valley every fall and gather corn and I have heard him say he helped build Smith Paul's big rock house that stands on the hill at the South side of where Pauls Valley is now.

In 1900, we moved from Texas to Wynnewood, in the Chickasaw Nation and rented a farm on the Washita river and farmed for two years. Then we moved on the river southeast of Pauls Valley and leased a farm and lived there until 1908. At that time the Washita River overflowed and washed everything we had away.  Then my father moved into Pauls Valley, and went to work by the day.

When my father died, he was guessed to have been one hundred and nineteen years old.

I now live in Pauls Valley where I have lived since 1908.

Transcribed by Brenda Choate and Dennis Muncrief, November, 2000.

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