November 4, 1938 ‘big deal’
for Peggy Morris

Peggy Lou Morris Henshall of Collinsville was a high school freshman when the Will Rogers Memorial Museum opened, but at 83, she vividly remembers the excitement of the day.

She played piano for the Claremore High School chorus and while they didn’t have a piano at the Memorial that day, she was with the chorus as they stood outside the fence at the museum and sang.

She remembers the cowboy in the big hat on a white horse and a “long car” carrying Mrs. Rogers and her family.

“I was just big-eyed,” she said, “it was a big deal.”

Although she moved to Collinsville after the death of her father, she has made many trips back to the Memorial — with her daughter, granddaughter and great-grandchildren, sharing her memories of Nov. 4. 1938.

She also remembers the day word started coming that Will and Wiley Post had been killed. “I was just 10 years old and was coming by bus from Ada.” She was in the Tulsa bus stop when she “ heard news boys crying ‘extra, extra read all about it. Will Rogers and Wiley Post have been killed.’”

During the war years while her husband was in the service, she was “Rosie the Riveter” working at Spartan in Tulsa and Douglas in San Diego. On Tuesday nights the girls would gather and fold gauze bandages for the Red Cross. “Everyone helped some way in the war effort,” she said.