Chickasaw citizens Twila June Adams, 87, and Betty Sue Adams, 85, grew up during hard times on allotted land near Lindsay, Oklahoma, with no electricity, running water, indoor plumbing or air conditioning.
Despite this, and maybe even because of it, the sisters’ love for the land and the refuge it provides wild animals living on it exactly matches their deeply rooted love of their Chickasaw heritage.
Of the total 270 acres, 160 of it had been allotted to their mother, Jewell Eugenia Nichols, known to them as Mannie. She was No. 40 on the original Dawes Rolls. The remaining 110-acre parcel was purchased by Mannie’s father as a gift to her when she was still a young girl.
Twila June and Susie’s paternal great-grandfather was Martin Colbert. His daughter, Velary Etta Colbert-Nichols, was an original enrollee. Her daughter was Jewell’s mother and Twila June and Susie’s grandmother.
When Twila June and Susie’s mother died in 1999, they inherited the farm, and it remains intact to this day. It is one of the few that can claim more than 120 years of continuous Chickasaw family ownership.
The ladies raised hogs, chickens and cattle, and tilled a garden in rows a quarter mile long with a horse and plow. Though there are springs on the property there was no time for swimming.
“We were too busy working,” Susie said. “Two girls and a mom keeping a farm running is no small thing, but we did it.”
“We had peach trees,” Twila June said. “My job was to cut the okra and pick the tomatoes. Susie’s was to thumb the peas and snap the beans.”
“I never remember being worried about a meal,” Susie said. “We were fortunate in that we had milk cows and plenty of vegetables, and never worried about not having meat because we didn’t eat meat.”
The girls attended school and played sports, often not getting home until well after the sun had set. “The bus driver let us off at our fence, and we crawled over in the dark, proceeding on our path through the trees, not touching a limb,” Twila June said, referring to their familiarity with the route home.
Not all of the pressures forcing the girls to grow up quickly involved physical labor.
“Being the older one, I pitched in and helped our mother a lot of the times with taxes and other decisions we needed to make,” Twila June said.
Summers were spent with their grandparents in Sulphur, Oklahoma, where they often walked to the nature center there and back to town. “I do drink the water from the Vendome Well,” Twila June said with a tingle of homegrown pride, adding, “I can grow fingernails when I drink it.”
Twila June said their mother did her part in supporting the troops overseas during World War II.
“She was a Rosie the Riveter at Douglas Aircraft Plant during the war (known today as Tinker Air Force Base),” she said.
One fateful day after the war, the girls returned from school to find the house empty.
“Our mother was not there,” Twila June said. “We did all our chores as normal, but on the second day when she still wasn’t home, we became very worried.”
The 12- and 10-year-old girls eventually learned their mother was in an Oklahoma City hospital diagnosed with polio. They hitchhiked to town and persuaded a bank manager to lend them $50 to pay for a bus ride to Oklahoma City to visit her.
“Nobody knew our mother wasn’t there the 11 months she was in the hospital, because we kept everything running,” Susie said. “We knew if they did find out they would send in the state, and we didn’t want that. We could run the farm.”
Both girls developed a deep, lifelong love for animals.
“We like the fact the farm is now a haven for wild animals,” Twila June said.
“There are a lot of (wild) animals there,” she said. “It’s their own personal sanctuary, just for them. We do not allow hunting or people with chain saws, and we see all kinds of unique animals that are almost extinct, because there’s no hunting allowed.”
Twila June said their mother was one of five Chickasaw Grand Marshals in 1989. “She was so tickled, and Chickasaw Nation Governor Bill Anoatubby presented them with a beautiful silver medallion.”
Another favorite memory is Governor Anoatubby taking time to talk with them at a Chickasaw Annual Meeting and Festival.
“I remember years ago when Governor Anoatubby stood in the rain talking to our mother. He’s on my good list forever,” Twila June said. “And now, years later he will see me in the distance (and still make a special effort) to talk with me. He does that.”
Visits today to the old homestead bring back a host of wonderful memories.
“The trees that were tiny when we were little girls are now big,” Susie said.
“When we pull onto the road of the farm and open the gate there are great big, beautiful trees, and you think, you know, I’ve watched those trees grow my whole life. How exciting!” Twila June said.
Susie said it’s one of the few places she can go to experience the tranquility of silence from the outside world’s noise.
“It’s the one place you can go, shut the gate behind you and feel like you have control of your soul,” she said. “You don’t notice any outside noises. There are no cars whizzing by, there are no guns going off.
“The animals are relaxed, and that is the thing I am most proud of. It’s a safe place for them to be, and when a local school calls and wants to take children out there to watch for the lizards, we allow it, because there is no place else they can see one. The kids get so excited because they’ve never seen a horny toad. They love going out there.”
Susie’s passion for animals has manifested itself in her work with Dreamcatcher Spay and Neuter Clinic, a nonprofit, 501C3 organization she operates out of her home in Blanchard, Oklahoma, where animals are spayed and neutered at no charge.
“We have veterinarians who come in and operate in a state-of-the-art operating room upstairs in my house,” Susie said.
Twila June said she has spent her life dedicated to the love and well-being of all animals and currently invests her energy, time and resources for Kowi’s Love Animal Rescue, a not-for-profit organization she created in 2017.
Both sisters are avid supporters of the environment and are proud their original allotment land is now a haven for wild animals.
They are also extremely proud of their Chickasaw heritage, that the land has been in their family for over a century and that it remains pristine.
Twila June and Susie plan on it being so in perpetuity.