Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 148, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1910 — WOMAN AND THE LAND [ARTICLE]

WOMAN AND THE LAND

Prominent Part She I* Now Taking in the Development of Oklahoma. HOW A GIRL GOT HER CLAIM. Miss Nannette Daisy’s Leap from Cowcatcher of an Engine When She “Located."

A person of persistent prominence In the development of Oklahoma is the woman homesteader. Blnce the first day of the opening of old Oklahoma to settlement in 1889, when Nannette Daisy Jumped from a cowcatcher of an engine on the first train that brought thousands of homeseekers into the territory and staked off a claim in “the promised land,” the woman homesteader has been occupying a front seat in Oklahoma’s march of progress. The instances are hot few where women have staked oft claims, superintended the cultivation for years and finally won the prize—a deed to a quarter section of land from Uncle Sam, says a Guthrie (Okla.) correspondent of the Arkansas Gazette. Leaping from the engine. Miss Daisy climbed a small embankment, made when the road was constructed, and hastily disengaging herself from a white underskirt, she pinned it to a neighboring blackjack bush and called to the other passengers as the train started ahead with renewed speed: “This is my homestead!” That tract of land, neat Waterloo and lying along the Santa Fe’s main line through this State, is still known as the Daisy farm. She made good on the claim, got a patent from the government and held the farm in her name until the time of her death in Chicago several years ago. She attained considerable prominence in Oklahoma politics in the early days and was a personal 'friend of many men who have since become wealthy and well known in political and business circles. Afterward she married a soldier, one of the men stationed at Fort Reno, and following his retirement from the service they moved to Chicago, where she died. It is estimated that more than 100 lone women held claims in Beaver County last winter, as a rule living in dugouts and waiting for the springtime in order to cultivate the land. It’s a plucky thing to do, but It’s a pluck that in practically every Instance brings success as well as health and freedom. After they have lived on their claims during the period specified by Uncle Sam they make application for final proof, the last thing necessary before obtaining deeds. J. S. Fischer, a United States land commissioner at Texhoma, says, as a rule, the women pick the choice tracts of land. In this connection it is Interesting to note that the United States commissioner at Tyrone, in Beaver County, is a woman —Mrs. Susan Healey. Many women homesteaders appear before her to file on claims and make final proofs. The woman at the head of a farm Is in almost every instance a specialist. In numerous cases they have been exceedingly successful in different lines of horticulture, agriculture and raising of live stock.