Susie Peters

Charlotte Susan Ryan was born on 1 November 1873{{sfn|Bork|1974|p=334}} in Huntsville, Tennessee{{sfn|The Lawton Constitution|1965|p=2}} to Martha (née Davis) and Thomas Granville Ryan.{{sfn|U.S. Census|1880|p=2}} As a child, she moved with her family to the Chickasaw Nation in the area which would become Grady County, Oklahoma.

She married U.S. Deputy Marshal John Swain,{{sfn|The Lawton Constitution|1965|p=2}} on April 15, 1891, in Alex, Indian Territory.{{sfn|Bork|1974|p=334}} The couple moved to Purcell, Indian Territory, where she worked as a school teacher.{{sfn|The Purcell Register|2009}} Swain was killed in a shootout over a land dispute on January 9, 1895, near Purcell{{sfn|The Guthrie Daily Leader|1895|p=1}}{{sfn|McClain County Probate Records|1899|p=11}} and a life-sized tribute to him was erected in the Purcell Cemetery by his wife.{{sfn|Bass|1895|p=2}}{{#tag:ref|In the early 1920s, Peters loaned the statue to the Oklahoma Historical Society. In 1959, her request to have it returned was denied.{{sfn|The Chronicles of Oklahoma|1959|pp=127, 263-264}}|group="notes"}}

On July 20, 1897, in Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory, Swain was issued a license to marry James W. "Jim" Peters, but no marriage record was returned.{{sfn|Logan County, Oklahoma Marriages|1897|p=187}} A second license to marry Peters was issued on October 23, 1901, and the ceremony was performed the following day in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Territory.{{sfn|Oklahoma County, Oklahoma Marriages|1901|p=356}}{{#tag:ref|Bork states that Susan Ryan Swain married Peters twice, having divorced him and remarried him.{{sfn|Bork|1974|p=334}}|group="notes"}} Peters was accidentally shot by the Ardmore, Indian Territory police chief, Buck Garrett, on March 15, 1906, while the two men were at an informal gathering. Peters died the following day and was buried in his hometown of Newton, Kansas.{{sfn|Muskogee Daily Phoenix|1906|p=2}}{{sfn|The Daily Ardmoreite|1906|p=4}}{{sfn|The Evening Kansan-Republican|March 16, 1906|p=3}}{{sfn|The Evening Kansan-Republican|March 19, 1906|p=1}}

For a brief time, Peters managed the Monarch Hotel, located at 200 E. 2nd Street in Oklahoma City.{{sfn|U.S. Census|1910|p=1A}}{{sfn|Oklahoma City Daily Pointer|1910|p=3}}

On June 29, 1911, she married Oscar L. Shaffer in Oklahoma City,{{sfn|Oklahoma County, Oklahoma Marriages|1911|p=398}} but he was also murdered.{{sfn|Bork|1974|p=334}}

When she was widowed a third time, Peters went to live as among the Kiowa in Caddo County and was hired as a field matron by the U.S. Indian Service{{sfn|McShane|1984}}{{sfn|U.S. Census|1920|p=3A}}{{sfn|The Gallup Independent|1954|p=3}} for the Anadarko Agency. Peters identified several students at St. Patrick's Mission School with artistic talent and encouraged them to draw images representing their culture. She bought painting supplies and held informal art classes in her home{{sfn|Eldridge|2006|p=38}} from around 1918. To encourage the students, which included Spencer Asah, James Auchiah, Jack Hokeah, Stephen Mopope, and Monroe Tsatoke,{{sfn|The Lawton Constitution|1975|p=50}} Peters arranged for Mrs. Willie Baze Lane, an artist from Chickasha, Oklahoma, to give them art lessons{{sfn|Smithsonian Institution|2016}} and attempted to market their work.{{sfn|Wishart|2011}} She contacted Ponca City philanthropist and millionaire Lew Wentz to help secure an education for the students.{{sfn|McShane|1984}} By 1923, she negotiated with the University of Oklahoma to help further the artists' training and in 1926, Peters had convinced Oscar Jacobson to provide them with special courses under the direction of Edith Mahier.{{sfn|Eldridge|2006|p=38}} Asah, Hokeah, Mopope, and Tsatoke were admitted as special students and joined a short time later by Auchiah and Lois Smokey. They would become known as the Kiowa Six and gained international recognition for their works.{{sfn|Wishart|2011}}

She also was instrumental in mentoring Woody Crumbo, Potawatomi artist, whom she met during his youth while he was attending the Chilocco Indian School.{{sfn|Neuman|2014|p=323}}{{sfn|Reese|Loughlin|2013|p=140}} In 1932, Peters arranged the sale of 22 of Crumbo's painting to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, setting his career in motion.{{sfn|Neuman|2014|p=172}}{{sfn|LeComte|1990}}{{sfn|Mid-America All Indian Center|2007}} Peters continued to encourage Kiowa youth to preserve their heritage annually accompanying Kiowa dancers to programs, such as the Gallup Inter-Tribal Ceremonial, from the 1930s into the 1960s.{{sfn|The Gallup Independent|1954|p=3}}{{sfn|The Gallup Independent|1960|p=1}} Peters worked with Laura Pedrick, niece of Chief Lone Wolf and Satank, to collect folklore and memorabilia of the Kiowa Tribe.{{sfn|Wallace|1985|p=219}} She served as matron of the tribe until her death on October 14, 1965, in Anadarko. She was buried in the Purcell Cemetery beside her first husband.{{sfn|The Lawton Constitution|1965|p=2}}

In a ceremony held on November 12, 1954, Peters was adopted into the Kiowa tribe{{sfn|The Gallup Independent|1954|p=3}} and given the Kiowa name Kom-tah-gya.{{sfn|The Lawton Constitution|1965|p=2}} That same year,{{sfn|Manta Profile|2016}} she was honored by the National Hall of Fame for Famous American Indians, when the Susan Peters Gallery was established in Anadarko. She was also honored by the Anadarko Philomathic Club,{{sfn|The Purcell Register|2009}} which created an annual art scholarship award in her name in 1963.{{sfn|The Lawton Constitution|1965|p=2}} The archive which she and Pedrick created, known as the Susie Peters Collection, is housed at the Oklahoma Historical Society and played an important role as source material for the four-volume, two-book work, Kiowa Voices by Maurice Boyd (Texas Christian University Press, 1983).{{sfn|Wallace|1985|pp=218-219}}{{sfn|Irving Daily News|1979|p=10}} Peters was one of the women inducted into the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame in their inaugural year, 1982{{sfn|The Paris News|1982|p=6}} and was one of the subjects of a play, "Jacobson and the Kiowa Five", written by Russ Tall Chief (Osage){{sfn|Tall Chief|2016|p=243}} as part of the Native American New Play Festival for the Oklahoma City Theater Company.{{sfn|dAngelo|2016|pp=9-11}}

{{reflist|group=notes}}

{{Reflist|30em}}

{{Refbegin|30em}}

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• {{cite news|ref={{harvid|The Lawton Constitution|1965}}|author=|title=Mrs. Susie Peters|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5716341/mrs_susie_peters_the_lawton/|access-date=28 June 2016|publisher=The Lawton Constitution|date=October 15, 1965|location=Lawton, Oklahoma|via = Newspapers.com}} {{open access}}
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• {{cite web|ref={{harvid|Smithsonian Institution|2016}}|author=|title=Pochoir prints of ledger drawings by the Kiowa Five, 1929 (Manuscript 7536)|url=http://siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=full=3100001~!85940!0|publisher=Smithsonian Institution Research Information System|access-date=29 June 2016|location=Washington, D. C.|date=2016}}
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• {{cite web|ref={{harvid|Manta Profile|2016}}|author=|title=Susan Peters Gallery|url=http://www.manta.com/c/mmf8nsl/susan-peters-gallery|publisher=Manta|access-date=30 June 2016|date=2016}}
• {{cite news|ref={{harvid|The Paris News|1982}}|author=|title=Women's Day Saturday at Okla. state capitol|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3500333/womens_day_saturday_at_okla_state/|access-date=30 June 2016|newspaper=The Paris News|date=September 30, 1982|location=Paris, Texas|via = Newspapers.com}} {{open access}}
• {{cite web|ref={{harvid|Mid-America All Indian Center|2007}}|author=|title=Woody Crumbo: a legacy of culture and keeper of the plains|url=http://www.theindiancenter.org/Museum/CurrentExhibit.htm|website=Mid-America All Indian Center|publisher=Mid-America All Indian Center|access-date=30 June 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070620221826/http://www.theindiancenter.org/Museum/CurrentExhibit.htm|archive-date=20 June 2007|location=Wichita, Kansas|date=April 3, 2007}}

{{refend}}

{{Authority control}}

{{Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Peters, Susie}}

Category:1873 births

Category:1965 deaths

Category:People from Scott County, Tennessee

Category:Historical preservationists