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Concerning The AuthorTo make his point, he threw a book at the pot-bellied stove, in a formal debate at Goodland. Ordinarily William Lee Self is a very gentle fellow and a lot of fun to be with on a hike. But evidently he wanted to win that debate and used the drastic act of flinging a book to further his cause.Whether he won the debate or not, I don't know. But Lee has been winning out in the day to day activities of life ever since that night of the debate at the lyceum.By request, William Lee Self wrote this thumb-nail sketch of his Uncle Samuel Bailey Spring. I trust that you who knew Mr. Spring will also recall other pleasant memories of that man tremendously devoted to his Indian children.Lee, 60, graduated from Goodland in 1927. He went to Murray State at Tishomingo and to the University of Oklahoma. Most of his adult life has been spent in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, residing at Wilburton, Hugo, Idabel, Poteau, Stillwell and Muskogee.Uniting with the Presbyterian church as a youngster at Goodland, Lee has faithfully served the Lord in every opportunity. He taught Sunday school classes in the Idabel and Poteau. Seven years he taught the Men's Bible class in the Bethany Presbyterian church, where he is also now an Elder. Blood disease required the amputation of his left leg above the knee. Later the other leg was crushed in his attempt to move a refrigerator. Thus Lee's physical condition resulted in his early retirement. Now he makes his way around his home in a wheel chair and elsewhere in his old Chevrolet. When you talk with him, he leaves the impression that there is nothing wrong. I believe Lee is just like the fellow that Bailey Spring envisioned would emerge from the Goodland Indian Orphanage. Certainly Lee was the reason why Bailey took so much time, patience, and concern with each of his Indian children during his nine years as Superintendent of Goodland. Were it possible for Samuel Bailey Spring to review the ministry of the life of William Lee Self, he would gesture with his hands and say, " That's what I worked for at Goodland."Written by Grady James
In Memoriam
- The earth is of time and decay
- And into the silence of her night,
- Her liveliest flowers
- Must one by one drop away.
- The earth has lost of its beauty
- Though gardens for ever bloom,
- For there is less loveliness
- When one rose is gone.
The Life of Samuel Bailey SpringIt is only a stone's throw from the little log cabin on the hill, where he was born, to Spring Chapel Cemetery where he is being buried this Easter Sunday, April 20, 1930. The shadows of afternoon are lengthening on the hill down over the giant cedars and oaks to the clear water springs that flow on as beautifully this Easter Sunday as they did 56 years ago when he was born -- and today in 1967. Samuel Bailey Spring was laid to rest in the family plot in the cemetery named after his family, Spring Chapel Cemetery. The cemetery is scarcely a mile south of Hugo, Oklahoma adjoining the Frisco railroad on the west. His funeral procession was the largest ever in this country. The great and small; the young and the old, black, white, and Indian were here in sorrow to pay their last respects to a friend and loved one.Who was Samuel Bailey Spring? Why were more than two thousand people, great and small, at his funeral? Why is he remembered today? No, he never wrote a book, he was never a a great political figure, he never amassed a fortune nor received great fame. But of all things of earth, love lives on -- Christian love. Human faults, yes, as we all have, but he will be remembered always for his acts of love to orphans and underprivileged Indian children of his day. Now this work of love was fulfilled in his development, enlargement and security of the Goodland Indian Orphanage while he was Superintendent from August 21, 1921 to April 17, 1930. But the most important and far reaching of all was his spiritual teaching and influence on these orphans, neglected and abandoned children and children from broken homes. Thousands remember him to this day because the orphanage was their only home and he was their only father. The truth of this is witnessed today in the lives of these orphans -- they are Christians, useful, skilled in many professions, serving God and their fellowman around the world.The Goodland Indian Orphanage (now Presbyterian Children's Home) that has meant so much to so many began in this manner: A church mission was established at Goodland, Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory in 1848 by the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, a Presbyterian and Congregational organization. Two years later, 1850, the Goodland Presbyterian Church was organized, and the first little one-room school began in a side room of this two room log manse. This school was taught by the wife of the minister, Mrs. Oliver Porter Stark. This was the beginning of the orphanage, now 117 years later, said to be the oldest mission school in continuous existence in the state of Oklahoma.Bailey was man of many talents. He was college graduate and this was indeed rare for an Indian at this time in the Choctaw Nation. He was a schoolteacher, city clerk and first postmaster in Hugo, real estate dealer, merchant, and a noted public speaker1 However, as previously stated, his greatest accomplishment-- the love of his heart--was his work as superintendent of the Goodland Indian Orphanage. He succeeded Silas Leonard Bacon, a full-blooded Choctaw, who was superintendent of the orphanage for twenty years, from 1901 to 1921. Though Mr. Bacon never had a formal education he was devoted and conscientious and persistent in his work for the Church and the Choctaw children. From two log cabins Mr. Bacon had added four new buildings and a bathhouse to the campus. He had obtained a Government contract for forty children in 1901, and the enrollment under Mr. Bacon increased from 86 to 150 during his twenty years as superintendent of the orphanage.Now let us look briefly at the early live of Samuel Bailey Spring. He was born December 21 1873 in a little log cabin on a hill scarcely more than a mile south of what is now the city of Hugo, Oklahoma. He is listed in the Indian Roll Book as 3/4th Choctaw, Roll Number 4663, Census Number 1650. At the time of his birth, Oklahoma was the Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory; it became the state of Oklahoma on November 16, 1907. The grandparents of Bailey cam over the "Trail of Tears" in 1830 or 1831. This was the removal of the Choctaw Indians from their homes in Mississippi to the Choctaw Nation by the Dancing Rabbit Creek Treaty of 1830. Bailey's grandfather, Samuel SPRING (Sprang) was born in Switzerland of Swiss-German parents. There were three brothers: Samuel, John and Christian. They migrated to America early in the 18th century. They came to New York where John, silversmith, settled. Samuel and Christian were saddled makers and went on to New Orleans, then to Mississippi. There Samuel Spring (Sprang) married a full blooded Choctaw girl, Martha Brewer, and to this union one son was born, Levi, the father of Samuel Bailey Spring. during this time in Mississippi the Swiss name 'Sprang' became Spring. At an early age Levi came with his mother, Martha, over the "Trail of Tears" to Indian Territory. Levi grew to manhood in the Choctaw Nation and married a full blood Choctaw, Betsy Yale. To this union four children were born, one being Samuel Bailey Spring. Betsy Spring died April 30, 1874. After her death Levi Married Sophia Bohanan, and from this union six children were born. Levi Spring died February 16, 1902.The first school Bailey attended was about the year 1880, a brush arbor built onto the side of the small log cabin where he was born. Later there was a one-room log school house built about fifty yards north of his home. This was the school for the Spring Chapel community until sometime around 1895. Then a frame school building was constructed about one-quarter mile east of the original school. Bailey attended school there some eight years. He was in Spencer Academy from 1888 to 1890. Spencer was the largest boarding school for boys in the Nation, built in 1842 on the military road north of Fort Towson. Presbyterians were in charge of the school. In 1882 Spencer was moved to a new site, some eight miles southwest of Antlers, Oklahoma near the present community of Nelson. In 1896 the Academy was destroyed by fire in which four boys lost their lives. It was never rebuilt, but its influence was far reaching for it had furnished Christian education to hundreds of Choctaws which afterwards became useful men, many of them ministers of the gospel. Spencer was equivalent to the high school of today. There were other schools for the Choctaws, but in greater measure the Goodland Indian Orphanage took the place of Spencer Academy.From Spencer Bailey's freshman year was spent at Lamar College, Blossom, Texas. Then in 1894 he was awarded a B. A. degree from Southwestern Presbyterian University in Clarksville, Tennessee. Later he attended for about a year Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia. Due to personal and family problems he returned to Oklahoma to care for the family property.Mr. Spring joined the Goodland Presbyterian Church on April 20, 1890 when he was seventeen years of age. He became a Deacon there July 26, 1899, and an Elder April 14, 1901. He transferred his membership to the First Presbyterian church in Hugo in order to get the church organized there. He was made an Elder in the Hugo church on September 2, 1902. He again had membership in the Goodland Church on September 2, 1921, remaining a member of this church until his death, April 17, 1930.Bailey taught school some five years 1897 into 1901. He taught at Pigeon Roost, Jackson County, Choctaw Nation, and in the Long Creek neighborhood. This school was a few miles northeast of the city of Hugo. He had fourteen pupils in this school and received the huge sum of $27 a month. He reached such a degree of proficiency as a teacher that he was elected a member of the Board of Education, November 27, 1898, for the Choctaw Nation. In 1900, Mr. Spring was elected a member of the Choctaw Council. This was the governing body of the Choctaw Nation, and was the official body in the relations of the Tribe with the United States Government. He resigned as a Councilman in 1901 to manage the Hugo Township interests. His father and other family members owned practically all of what is now Hugo. Bailey sold these lots for $25 to $50 each. He became the first Postmaster of Hugo on November 1, 1901. He resigned not long afterwards to complete the sale of lots in the Hugo Township. About this time, Bailey with others assisted Father Ketcham of the St. Agnes Roman Catholic school at Antlers translate a prayer book and catechism into Choctaw. Victor Locke, later to become Superintendent of the Five Civilized Tribes, assisting in the translations said, "These translations were the purest Choctaw I have ever seen."On April 25, 1895, Bailey married Miss Maud Moore Terry, in the Terry home near Hugo. He was 21 and she was only 16 years of age. Maud was born February 26, 1879 in Redwood, Mississippi. Her father was Joseph J. Terry, and her mother's maiden name was Phoebe Nolan. Maud's mother died in 1881 and her father took her and a brother to their grandparents in Huntsville, Missouri. Her father came on to Indian Territory and settled near Hugo. Here he married again. He became a U. S. Marshall in Indian Territory, also he owned and operated a Ivery stable. He went for his children in Missouri soon after his marriage and they grew up in a community some two miles north of what is now Hugo, Oklahoma.To Bailey and Maud was born a girl, Ethel, an only child, on August 2, 1899. Ethel now lives in Phoenix, Arizona, married to Herbert G. Snowden.After the death of Mr. Spring in 1930, Mrs. Spring moved to Phoenix in 1931; there in 1932 she was married to B. C. Taylor. Many years later Maud died in Phoenix at the J. C. Lincoln Hospital on Friday, June 5, 1964. Interment was made in the Greenwood Cemetery on June 8, beside here late husband, B. C. Taylor. The children at the Orphanage in her day will remember her all their lives for her kindness and fairness; for her moral teaching of honesty, diligence, good behavior, and faith.In the year 1921 Maud's husband, Bailey, faced the greatest challenge of his life. These positions were opened to him: Superintendent of the Five Civilized Tribes; Principal Chief of the Choctaws; and Superintendent of the Goodland Indian Orphanage. Maud wanted him to take the position of Superintendent of the Five Civilized Tribes in Muskogee, Oklahoma. She said to him, "If you go to Goodland, it will be the death of you before you are an old man." Though it meant far less financial security and prestige than the other two positions, Bailey chose the Orphanage. And in August, 1921, the Spring family moved into the Little Girl's building on the campus. Now before Maud realized it she and her husband had more than one child, hundreds, and said Maud, "Since he (Bailey) was so happy working with children, we made ourselves happy for him."In an interesting and very instructive article concerning Mrs. Spring by H. Grady James, I quote: "When one's children are one's own, there's seldom any limits to parental concern. As the Bacons before them impoverished themselves of their private means, for the children of the Home, before he knew it, Mr. Spring had spent their $3000 savings for food, clothing, paint and other necessities for the Orphanage. For three years after going to Goodland, Mr. Spring was Supervisor of the Tribal Schools, and used the salary from this for the day to day needs. Moreover, the $1200 savings of their daughter, Ethel, went into the groceries at Goodland. Together Mr. and Mrs. Spring found that the Orphanage placed upon them unending demands, but through it all in turn, they continued to live through their Goodland children. Maud was Head Matron during these nine years drawing the fabulous salary of $65 per month, and many times this was not paid. In 1929, Mr. Spring fell ill, and from this time until his death, Maud had the responsibility for the management of the Orphanage. Truly Mrs. Spring was her husband's help-mate in his life and in his great work at the orphanage. Though her actions were in the background, her faith, encouragement and devotion in the trials and tribulations gave Bailey strength to triumph over all obstacles at the orphanage.To him, Bailey's greatest work in life was accomplished during his nine years at the orphanage. Although he had the choice of two other professions offering greater financial security, national recognition and prestige; he chose the love of his heart, the care of orphan children, with its multiple hardships, heart aches, disappointments and meager salary -- for the glory of God in the service of his Indian children.The material accomplishments of Mr. Spring at Goodland were many. From 1921 to 1930 Mr. Spring added four new buildings; these were three dormitories and a high school building. This brought to a total eight buildings on the campus. He increased the enrollment at Goodland from 125 to 250. It was in 1922 when high school courses began. In 1960 the Board of Directors changed the name of the institution from Goodland Indian Orphanage to Goodland Presbyterian Children's Home (so as to admit also white children) and is located some four and on-half miles southwest of Hugo, Oklahoma. When Bailey became Superintendent the last two and a half miles of the road leading to the orphanage was a rough, dirt road, and almost impassable in wet weather. Through the efforts of Mr. Spring and a County Commissioner an improved gravel road was made from U. S. Highway 271 west to the Home. It was completed in 1929.When the Home became a high school, it of course gave greater training and advantage to the students. And to acquaint members of the Presbyterian Church with the purpose, the scholastic and Christian nurture, and the accomplishments of the children, Mr. Spring took selected groups on tours. They put on programs in churches in Saint Louis, New Orleans, Richmond, Virginia, Denver, Colorado and other cities. This was truly educational to and lasting in the memory of the boys and girls. For at this time none of them had ever been more than a few miles from home or in a larger town than Hugo. I heard one of the girls say, "I will never forget that trip. I saw so many wonderful people and so many wonderful things. I do hope we did help the Orphanage that has done so much for us."Last but by no means least, let us look at the results of Bailey's leadership in the lives of these orphans who were under his guidance in the formative period of their lives. Many died in the service of their country in World War II. One of these who now sleeps beneath the soil of Korea told me, "I was among the very first to land on Attu, held by the Japanese, as we were going from ship to shore to face an unseen enemy. I thought of what I had been taught at Goodland. And I repeated over and over the 23rd Psalm: "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want . . . Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . . thou art with me." Many others at the Home during the tenure of Bailey Spring have joined him in that fairer, brighter land. There are others today in many professions and activities serving God and their fellowman in many parts of this world: ministers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, nurses, farmers, and many, many more.Here are a few of the former students who have distinguished themselves in the service of God and their fellow man. Richard Fitzgerald, distinguished and outstanding, graduated from the University of Oklahoma; an educator, Scouter, churchman, coach, dedicating his life to the education and rehabilitation of Indian youth. He is now Superintendent of the Seneca Indian School, Wyandotte, Oklahoma. Dr. B. Frank Belvin, a Minister of the Gospel, who is working in the ministry with the Creeks and Seminoles. His doctorate is from the Baptist Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has been President of the Inter-Tribal Council of the Five Civilized Tribes and resides in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. Mary Evans Webb, of Canadian, Texas. Mary was a brilliant student, finishing high school in 1926 at the age of fifteen. She went on to become a teacher. After her husband's death, she turned to the field of social work and is doing an excellent work. Orville E. James, El Reno, Oklahoma. After Goodland he finished a commercial course at Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kansas. He first worked in the Indian Service, changing later to the Department of Justice. He at present is an Associate Warden at the Federal Reformatory at El Reno, Oklahoma. He is active in church work, being an Elder in the First Presbyterian church of El Reno. Dr. Ted Key, Saint Louis, Missouri, is a Dentist. After Goodland he entered the armed service in WW II. The army opened to this soldier the door to his ambition, and he completed his education under the GI Bill of Rights. Dr. Key has been president of the South Saint Louis Dental Association. Harrell Grady James is now pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Talihina, Oklahoma. After Goodland he attended Murray State one year at Tishomingo, Oklahoma. He went on to Lawrence, Kansas. In 1935 Grady graduated from the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas. His first pastorate was at Talihina. Other pastorates were Wewoka, Cisco, Texas, Director of a Larger Parish in Durant. In 1957 he became Superintendent of Goodland where he remained four years, accepting another pastorate in Texas at Fairfield.Mrs. Helen Byington Whitehead went on to the Oklahoma Presbyterian College, graduating from Southeastern College in Durant. She is a full blood Choctaw, taught a number of years in the Broken Bow, Oklahoma schools, was also active in the First Presbyterian Church there, serving as president of the women's organization. Mrs. Hotona Walker Roebuck also finished at Southeastern at Durant. She took nurse's training in New Jersey. She served as Superintendent of nurses at the Memorial hospital in Hugo. From there she accepted a position on the staff of the Veteran's Hospital in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Julius LaCroix, Jr. is now a medical doctor in Hugo. His is a story of trials, difficulties, and interruptions in the fulfillment of his ambition to be a doctor of medicine. From Goodland to Oklahoma, A. & M., and one year from graduation entered the armed forces. Six years later he came back to graduate and complete his medical course. He would not want me to say this, but it is true; in his life and in his practice of medicine is the lasting touch of his spiritual training, his faith and trust in God and his love for his fellowman. To the needy who are without means, he is their friend and benefactor always.Today in remembrance and gratitude for the training under Samuel Bailey Spring, many have made statements. Note the following, Mary Evans Webb: "I recall that he loved all of us; perhaps the more unfortunate ones were loved more. We could tell him anything and it was never unimportant to Mr. Spring. we could do anything because he was always encouraging us. He was good man and a big man.1 * Orville Eugene James recalls Bailey saying, "You will have to work for a living. There will be no more per capita payments from the government to the Indians. So don't expect to be fed with a silver spoon out of a silver platter. You will have to work. Do something, even if you simply have to carry a pile of bricks from one side of the yard to the other." Orville also recalls, "The only thing I remember ever getting to do for him was going to the little store at the corner to by his sheroots." Another student wrote, "We always felt free to talk over any question with Mr. Spring. Not once did he turn a child away, saying, I'm too busy to see you." And we always left those meetings with something to work on, some word of encouragement, some work of praise. I like to remember the marked effort he put forth to instill ambition in each of us. Nothing was too small or too big for him . . . His simplicity of heart, his ready sympathy, and his charm of manner endeared him to us all. Though he was small in stature, yet he was big in heart and mind."Mr. Spring had wit and humor which will be long remembered. A group of women from the east on a visit to Oklahoma ashed him why they hadn't seen any Indians wearing war paint and feathers? He told them, "Oh, we Indians have long abandoned our war paint and feathers to the white woman."Samuel Bailey Spring has been dead 37 years and his wife Maud died in 1964. God's love in service rendered never ends, and the love and devotion of Mr. and Mrs. Spring of so many orphans in times past, lives on in their lives today. They are Christian men and women sharing their blessings with their fellowman.
- His work was God's work,
- The soul and essence of love;
- Gone and to share that he gave,
- To God's glory above.
- His voice speaks on in love
- Beyond his day fullfilled,
- For the voice of love never dies--
- Only the heart is stilled.
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