Mount Scott near Lawton, Oklahoma
Photo by C. Packer

I remember when I was still a very young child, my dad’s mother, my grandmother, Alice Watson, came to live with us in our small home in Shannon, Alabama (now called Oxmoor Valley and Ross Bridge).

Granny Scott, as I sometimes called her, was a native Arapaho Souix Indian from the area of Lawton Oklahoma and Fort Sill.   In 1876, my Grandpaw Monroe Scott purchased her.   He  traded 7 horses for her.  She was only 13 years old at the time.

Grandmaw’s Indian name was Little Feather, but Grandpaw Monroe changed her name to Alice Watson.

He brought her by covered wagon to Chilton County in the town of Thorsby, Alabama.

In 1961, my Grandpaw Monroe died.   So, at 98 years of age, Grandmaw Alice came to live with us. At first, I thought it was going to be a chore for all of us, especially for my mother, but Grandmaw Alice fit right in, helping around the house.

She had long, flowing hair down her back, which I always loved to comb at night before bedtime.  She would then sit and tell me stories of when she was a young girl on the reservation there in Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, how she lived and played, and the chores that she was expected to do for her mother.

She loved to tell me of a “Special Present” she received from her father, Elk Horn.   It was the Christmas of 1874.  The gift giving was out character for her father, but, for some reason, which she never understood, on that very special Christmas she received a little horse figurine that was painted up like a pinto pony. He had personally hand-carved and painted it for her.   She cherished it so.

That following January was very rough on the family because of the harsh winter snow and lack of food.   Elk Horn died, leaving her with just her mother and an older brother, Little Horn.

She told me that she didn’t remember much about her older brother and very little about her mother, but she did remember that extremely special Christmas, when, out of the blue, her father, Elk Horn, gave his Little Feather a hand carved pinto pony.

She loved telling me that story over and over until she died on August 15, 1966 at the age of 103.