This column has become so much a part of my life that I actually look forward to sending more historical facts to you each week.

One important thing is that I have many valuable resources which includes my many friends that are older than me. I value these elders very much and look forward to their visits that are in the future.

In response to Kay Neubauer, I would like to continue with information I have been discussing regarding the post oak and black jack trees and saplings in this area of the Cross Timbers region. I would like to compliment the Neubauer ranch on their beautiful trees that are perhaps 800 to 1000 years old and are still growing on their ranch. This area of your ranch has been protected from the manmade disasters that have occurred throughout the years, and you have managed to further history of this area by conserving these trees. When the migrating Cherokees came into this area back during the 1840's and 1850's, the beautiful trees reminded them of a large orchard that was well kept and quickly became a place to locate their log houses for their homes to live and raise their families.

Many years before the Cherokees began arriving into this area, the Kiowas and Comanches along with the Wichita and perhaps some Apaches were in this area. They were very careless; and when they were disturbed, the first item on their itinerary was to leave the area burning and move on if it didn’t look like they could defend their camp.

Upon leaving the camp fire burning, the fires would develop into such large grass fires that the fires would burn from where Dallas is now to the Red River. Many of the trees would die from these fires; however, the black jack and oak trees were very sturdy and withstood many of the grass fires.

My speculation is that we have three times the number of trees now as were here when the Cherokees first began settling in the area. So Kay, take good care of the large trees because they took care of the Cherokee people as they came into this beautiful Cross Timbers region.

I received an e-mail from the Texas Cherokee Tribe Chief Hicks this week. He is encouraging each of us to learn and preserve the language of the Cherokee that was spoken many years ago. I will share some of the Chief’s intelligence as we go along, but the words have no doubt been spoken many times in this village when it was known as Onega among the Black Dutch people. The language was not shared with strangers as they ventured into the village.

The following is an excerpt from Chief Hicks newsletter:

The Iseselu Vlsgita, "Green Corn Dance," has long passed. Dunanadi, "Harvest Time," and crops have been gathered and place in adananuhi, "store houses," and the farm land had been tilled and laid aside for the winter. It is now time for nightly dances in the Gadui, "Town House," and men hunting game for use during Unulatani, "Cold Time," and when the vtsi, "snow," became deep in the mountains. The main vegetables stored were selu, "corn," duya, "beans," duyvsti, "peas," and watsigu, "squash," which were among their favorites. Many different tsahi, "nuts," and wadulesi, "honey," were also stored. During the cold days was a good time for the women to make a delicacy made up of a ball of tsahi, wadulesi, and selu anatasgisgi, "popcorn."

I will continue with this story next week.

The photo that I am sharing this week, was made on April 19, 1918. It is of the Christian Church as it lay in ruins from the destruction of the tornado that I have previously mentioned.

While it is very important to know that this church building was completely destroyed during this storm, it is also worthy to note that this building appears to be on a treeless prairie. This church stood in the same location on Main Street where the current Christian Church is standing. Note that the church that lay in ruins was not surrounded with the masses of trees that the current building enjoys.

The present day Community Building located next to the current Christian Church is a part of the original Christian Church that was demolished.

We have had several droughts during the period from this storm in 1918 to the present day, and even through these droughts, we still have an obvious number of more large trees.

The hackberry tree and the sycamore tree are fast-growing trees and require more water than the oak trees. The large oak tree was somewhat a sacred tree to the local Native Americans. The acorns were gathered by the animals for food as well as the Indians ground the acorns into a fine powder and used it as baking flour for family food.