10 December 2006

Jeane Kirkpatrick's Sooner Ancestry

Jeane Kirkpatrick died last Thursday. The former United Nations Ambassador left a rich political legacy. I guess those who help make history don't necessarily know history.

Kirkpatrick once said that one of her grandfathers was in the Oklahoma "Sooner run for land." The first and most famous land run in Oklahoma was in 1889. There were a few more in the next few years but they were over by 1895.

Kirkpatrick's maternal grandfather was Henry Kile. Born in Tennessee in 1871, he never made it to Oklahoma. He spent most of his adult years farming in Texas where he died in 1951.

Kirkpatrick's paternal grandfather was Lee Frank Jordan, also born in Tennessee in 1871. In 1900, the family was in Texas, but by the 1910 census they were in Oklahoma. Their children were all born in Texas, except the one-year-old who was born in Oklahoma. BLM land records indicate he took out homestead papers there in January of 1910.

Looks to me like Kirkpatrick's grandfather missed the Oklahoma land run by about 20 years, but he got there sooner or later.

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