Cherokee Nation contributes $10,000 to Will Rogers Memorial Museums
Cherokee donation
Steve Gragert, Will Rogers Memorial Museums’ director; Cara Cowan Watts, Cherokee Nation tribal counselor representing Rogers County; and Joe Grayson Jr., Cherokee Nation deputy principal chief; share an admiration for Will Rogers at the iconic statue in the Claremore memorial’s rotunda. A Cherokee Nation donation will help make way for a new exhibit focusing on Will’s Cherokee heritage and family history.
A new exhibit focusing on Will Rogers’ Cherokee heritage and his family history is being planned for the Will Rogers Memorial Museum.
A recent $10,000 gift from the Cherokee Nation will be used in part toward the cost of creating the exhibit in one of the main galleries, said Steve Gragert, Will Rogers Museums' executive director.
Cherokee Deputy Principal Chief Joe Grayson, accompanied by Cara Cowan Watts, Rogers County’s Cherokee Nation Council representative, presented the check at a ceremony attended by museum staff and Ropers, the docents who volunteer at the Claremore Memorial and Will Rogers Birthplace Ranch. Cowan Watts is a member of the Will Rogers Memorial Commission, the museums’ governing board.
“We value highly our partnership with the Cherokee Nation in preserving and sharing the life and legacy of Will Rogers, a Cherokee by birth and by public avowal,” Gragert said.
The museums’ curator, Jennifer Holt, is working with Cherokee Heritage Center at Tahlequah on a rotation of loaned items “that will help define and illustrate these important fundamentals of his life,” he said.
Will Rogers was born Nov. 4, 1879 in Indian Territory.
One of his most familiar quotes about his Indian ancestry is “My ancestors didn’t come over on the Mayflower, but they met the boat.”
The family of Clement Vann Rogers, Will Rogers’ father, immigrated to Arkansas Territory, from Georgia in 1832, then to Westville in 1835. Clem Rogers was born in 1839 near Westville, I.T.
His mother’s family, Martin Matthew Schrimsher and Elizabeth Hunt Gunter, emigrated from Alabama. She was born on the family plantation near Tahlequah in 1839 soon after their arrival.
Celebration
Members of the Will Rogers Memorial Museum and Birthplace Ranch staff along with Will Rogers Ropers volunteers and visitors celebrated a Cherokee Nation gift with Cara Cowan Watts, Cherokee tribal counselor and Museum Commission member, and Joe Grayson, Cherokee Nation deputy principal chief. The Cherokee Nation contributed $10,000 to the Memorial museums.