01/01/19 – On 126th Street North sits the Morrow Family Home Place. Joe Morrow and his wife, Lucille Ellingwood Morrow married in 1919, and settled into the statehood home which was established in 1913.
Fast forward to 2019 and the house is still there. The Morrow Home Place is now a National Historic Site and has also been designated as an Oklahoma Centennial Ranch. A new Owasso Public School with the “Morrow” name is being built on the homesite, and a new housing development with the same name also now sits there.
The Morrow Family wasn’t a famous family. They were just a typical early Oklahoma family, just like many of your own families. They worked hard everyday, had strong faith that carried them through the hard times, and allowed them to celebrate the good times. They loved each other, their community and their country.
Granddaughter Kathleen Morrow tells us she grew up on the Morrow Home Place with her mom, dad and younger brother on the other side of the section, but spent, many hours with her Grandmother (Grammy) Morrow. Kathleen loved to help her grandmother in the kitchen, hearing about old time cooks. Every afternoon at 4 pm, after the day’s chores were finished, and they were bathed and properly dressed, they sat together on the porch with a cup of tea and her grandmother read “the classics” to her.
Kathleen says one reason she wanted to save the home is because her grandmother wrote a newspaper column “Just Thoughts of a Plain Country Woman” for many Northeastern Oklahoma papers EVERY week from April 1937 to August 1970 from that house. Because of that, Lucille may have just been the original pioneer woman blogger. For thirty-three years, Lucille chronicled events from everyday occurrences on the farm, to national events, along with memories of early statehood days. Kathleen said she could not just throw out all that original Oklahoma history her grandmother wrote about, so she saved it.
Kathleen scanned in all the columns that she had in her possession. She has taken them to Oklahoma State University where they are working to preserve them and establish a “Lucile Ellingwood Morrow Collection” that will be permanently housed in the University archives.
Articles can currently be read on the website Kathleen created: www.morrowhomeplace.com .
Kathleen is currently working to restore the home, hoping to open it up for tours.
Below is one of Lucille’s columns from January 1, 1953. Sixty-six years ago today. A little look back on what life was like, where we live today.
