Fearless Females - March 19 Surprising Fact

My mother was a Roe. Little did I know that this family was in fact living on an Indian Reservation in 1910. I discovered the family in the 1910 census records living in Otoe Township, Noble County, OK enumerated in the Indian Population. This is where I learned that my great great grandmother was half Chipaway Indian and French Canadian. The family was not complete at that time. There are still three other older siblings I have not found. But in the family unit was my great great grandfather Jerry Roe (47), Rachel (44), and three sons, Piere (12), my great grandfather Frank (9) and the baby Jaybird "Jay" (5).

My favorite photo of my Grandpa, Von Joseph "Rusty" Roe, on the left and his father, Frank Roe  on the right. It's Frank's mother who was Half Chipewa Indian.

I believe the family migrated from Canada to the Indian Reservations of Oklahoma. Piere was born in MN about 1896, followed by Frank born in MO and then last Jay was born in KS before they end up in OK by 1910. Frank would later marry a woman from MO, May Elizabeth Rollette and live with her family for a time in MO before moving back to OK. Then in about the early 40's he takes the children, leaves May, and moves to CA where he starts a new life. The Roe's faired well in the Industrial world. Jerry was a farmer, but the future generations all went for Industrial work and seemed to be better off then those of our other ancestors during that era.

After I had discovered this I asked my mom if she knew about the Native American in the family, and she didn't. I remember asking her, "well where did Grandpa get his red hair then?" She laughed and asked me where I had gotten that. Mind you most colored pictures I had seen of him were late in life with grey hair. I said, "well I always assumed that his hair was red because his nick name was Rusty." She just laughed and told me she had no idea where he had gotten that name. For all we knew it could have been from his days in WWII, but no matter where it came from it had nothing to do with his hair. He in fact had jet black hair and very olive tone skin. When we discussed that she realized it was very possible and she could see that he was probably 1/8 Indian.