W. T. Holland interviewed Mrs. Annie Williams Armor at her home at 440 North Cincinnati Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on January 10, 1938.

I was born at Thomasville, Georgia, March 17, 1864. Although we were Cherokee Indians, we didn’t come into the Territory until 1882. My father, Mat Williams, had come out and gone into the cattle business, his ranch being on Coody Creek, east of Muskogee, where he had a big ranch and grazed a big herd of cattle. He wanted us to come West, so my mother bundled us up and we came out to Muskogee. This was in 1882. We lived in Muskogee, never living out on the ranch. While we were Cherokee Indians, we had been used to a quiet and secure existence so the wild new country frightened my mother and she preferred to live in town.

My sister and I attended school at the Female Seminary at Tahlequah for the years 1882 and 1883. We were boarding students. At that time there were about 300 girls there. The cost of board and tuition was $25.00 per month. We paid one half of this and the Cherokee Nation paid one half. Miss Allen was my main teacher and Miss Wilson was the principal.

After two years of schooling at Tahlequah, my mother decided that the West didn’t provide the proper environment for the rearing of a family, especially for girls, as it was entirely too wild. So we decided to return to the East to our old home.

In May, 1885, I was married to James Madison Armor, a white man, at Chattanooga, Tennessee. In 1892 my husband came out to the Territory in the vicinity of Vinita [in what is now Oklahoma]. He looked about and decided he would select a place near Vinita. He returned East, and in 1893 we all came out. Back East, at Chattanooga, we were married according to the laws of the land, but upon reaching Vinita, in 1893, we were again married, this time in accordance with the Cherokee laws. This was thought best in that my husband was a white man and I an Indian woman. In doing this, he became a member of the tribe, and on equal footing with the other members.

We lived near Vinita on a farm until 1907, when we came to Tulsa. Here, Mr. Armor was engaged in the real estate business, building and owning residence property.

Mr. Armor’s ancestors originally spelled their name Armour, same family as the Chicago Armours.¹

ENDNOTES

¹ Annie Williams Armor, Interview 12635, vol. 3, Tulsa, Okla., Jan. 10, 1938, 60–62, Indian Pioneer Papers, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Okla.