A NOTE FROM OUR PROPRIETOR...

I grew up on the Morrow Home Place.  My mom, dad and younger brother lived in our house on the other side of the section, but I spent many, many hours with my Grandmother Morrow (Grammy) at The Home Place. I loved to help her in the kitchen, hearing about the old time cooks.  Every afternoon at 4 pm, after the day's chores were finished, and we were bathed and properly dressed, we sat on the east porch with a cup of tea and she read "the classics" to me.  One of her most treasured possessions was a collection of "The Harvard Classics" commonly known as the Harvard Five-Foot Bookshelf in which academicians at Harvard College selected the writings they deemed the most important writings of the world to that point, as limited to a publication that would fit on a five-foot bookshelf.

 She shared stories of her girlhood, of early Oklahoma, of statehood.  She talked about the values of family and a deep and abiding fath in God, caring for others, education, being a responsible and contributing member of society and so much more.  We picked eggs, we cleaned flower beds, we picked flowers, we drove the countryside and talked about the wildflowers, the types of trees, the types of grasses, geologic formations. . . . and we just talked.  She also served as my fourth grade teacher at Washington Elementary in Collinsville.

When I became an adult and an educator, I traveled the world and saw the value in preserving old homes and preserving the history, lifestyles and relics of a particular period.  There is so much to be learned from tradition.

I began to see the value in the old Home Place.  My family called it that to designate it from the other homes, barns, and pastures around the ranch.

Upon the passing of my parents in 2004, I decided to try to preserve the Home Place.  My decision was based on four key facts:

1. 1.  The site is located just 1/4 mile off a major highway - US 169 - so there is easy access for people to stop by.
2. 2.  We are still the owners and residents of the Home Place (purchased in 1913 from Cornelia Eliot, a Cherokee allottee) so we have been on the Place for well over 100 years.
   
3. 3.  I came across the collection of columns my grandmother - Lucile Ellingwood Morrow - had written.  "Just Thoughts Of A Plain Country Woman" published weekly in John Wright's "The Collinsville News' from April, 1937 to August, 1970. Except for the week my grandfather was killed in a car wreck, my grandmother wrote a column each and every week. With time, the column gained recognition and was published by the "Tulsa World" and many other papers across the area reaching as far away as Iowa.
4. 4.  The Collinsville/Owasso area is expanding and there will be two elementary schools (one from each district) located within walking
5. distance of the Home Place. . . a perfect field trip for children to come and experience life from the early days of Oklahoma.  

With that much original material, the preserved and documented history,  along with easy access to the home, and, potentially the number of people whom could benefit, it just seemed like the right thing to do to give this gift of history to others.

I hope you find some joy in the readings, some fun as you use our family's history to find out about YOUR family's history and do hope you will stop by and share a story one afternoon at the 4'o clock tea time.