Turning the century mark: Comanche woman celebrates 100 years

LAWTON, Okla.  - Bouquets of flowers color the path from the entry way into the living room where Josephine Myers-Wapp, Comanche, sits in her recliner watching TV and visiting with her son Ed Wapp on a warm Sunday afternoon.  The visit is a time to reminisce as well as a history lesson.

“There were signs that said no Indians or dogs allowed,” Ed Wapp said from the edge of a recliner next to his mom.

“Yeah. Indians and dogs,” Josephine said, then laughed and teased her son, “They compared you with a dog?”

“I guess so,” Ed, 68, laughed, still in disbelief of how people were treated long ago.

Josephine and her son reflected upon the evolution of people and places, including Josephine’s own achievements in her life and her career. She turned 100 years old on Feb. 10, and has experienced drastic changes in the world as well as events like the Great Depression,  the Oklahoma Dust Bowl of 1930, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and the first trip to the moon.

The flower arrangements sprinkled throughout her home are from family and friends who helped celebrate her birthday on Feb. 10 at the Comanche Nation Elderly Center in Lawton, Okla.

What Josephine does remember from the past 100 years brings laughter, reflection and appreciation.

“There was a lot of prejudice,” Josephine said of the past. She and Ed talked about the separate drinking fountains, bathrooms and places when there was segregation, including on trains and buses.  She was born in 1912 when William Howard Taft was president. She has lived through 18 U.S. presidents at the helm, but said she does not have a favorite.

Josephine was born and raised in Apache, Okla.  Her parents are Heva Lena Fisher and James Myers. She wasn’t born in a hospital so instead of having a birth certificate, she has a letter from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She has two sisters and six brothers, who have all passed on. Her two children are Ed and Barbara; she was four grandchildren, several great-grandchildren and one nephew.

When she grew up it was, “before all these modern things developed.” She said it was the “horse and buggy days.” Her older brothers, sisters and mother all received allotments and that is where she would sometimes help on her brothers’ farm.

“We had cattle too but it was with all of the other farming,” she said. “I was too young, I didn’t get an allotment.”

Josephine said powwows back then, “were just really more formal than they are today. I know I used to dance with my grandmother and my great aunt … when I was a little girl. I always got teased. You know how the custom was, they give away when you’re dancing,” she said. “Someone threw some money under me when I was dancing and I wasn’t supposed to pick it up. Somebody else was supposed to pick it up. I picked it up myself and took to the stand to go buy some soda pop … they always tease me about it.”

Ed laughed and later added there were no contests at powwows back then either.

Josephine said while growing up in Apache, Saturdays were the day most people would go into town to trade.

“I used to go with my grandmother to interpret for her because she didn’t know too much English; mostly Comanche,” Josephine said. Her grandfather is not Comanche.

“Fisher is German. The old man is from Fredericksburg. He was a captive when he was 10 or 12 years old. He was captured by the Comanches and a family adopted him and he became part of the Comanches. He spoke Comanche fluently,” she said. “I understand (Comanche). I don’t speak it too much because I don’t have any one to speak to,  but if someone talks to me or if I heard someone speaking I understand. I learned it when I was growing up. When we went to boarding school they tried to make us forget, you know, forget that language, but I know when I discovered this one classmate, roommate, and she was from the Shoshone area,” Josephine said. “When we found out we could understand each other we used to hide in the closet and talk and compare words. It’s very much like the Comanche language, some of it varies a little bit but they’re mostly all the same.”

When her family left the horse and buggy days behind, Josephine’s family bought a car. She’s not sure of the model or how she felt but thought the invention of a car was, “interesting, especially when I first got to ride in it,” she said. “We lived out in the country so we drove it to town.”

Josephine attended Catholic boarding school at Saint Patrick’s Mission in Anadarko. She tried public school for a spell in Boone, Okla. but ended up going to high school at Haskell in Lawrence, Kan.

“I enjoyed attending Haskell … whenever we got to the 11th grade and we were 17 or older we could enroll in nursing, but I had to take home economics because I wasn’t old enough but … my learning of the home economics was real beneficial to me,” Josephine said.

After Haskell, Josephine completed an art education program established by the BIA at Santa Fe Indian School in Santa Fe, N.M.  Under the umbrella of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, American Indians were shaped into art teachers and placed in American Indian boarding schools to teach. She said 10 students were selected for this program, which included her neighbor from Apache, Allan Houser. Josephine studied the fiber and traditional arts curriculum. After graduating she was selected to teach at Chilocco (Oklahoma) Indian School. Josephine married Edward Wapp, Sr. and they had two children. This was before World War II.

“Well, I was teaching at Chilocco,” Josephine said. “ My children were small and I couldn’t get a full time housekeeper so I had to resign to take care of them. We went to California because my husband was working in the shipyard … but we didn’t stay too long because the climate didn’t agree with the children so I had to take them back to Oklahoma.”

Because of his football injuries, Edward Wapp, Sr., was not able to go to war but had to participate in the war effort and that’s why he worked in California, Ed said.

The United States has been involved in seven wars throughout Josephine’s life. She said she doesn’t remember exactly how war changed the world back then but, “It was worrisome, especially since I had brothers having to go.”

Josephine began teaching American Indian traditional arts and culture in 1963 at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe.  While there she assisted in teaching dance, which led to organizing a dance presentation for the 1968 Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City.

“The kids just really had a good time,” Josephine said. “When we came back to the art school, we were loaded down with sombreros and guitars.”

Josephine still has a gold trimmed tea set as a souvenir from their 10 day bus trip to Mexico; it sits on a shelf in her living room.

“I enjoyed spending time with the students and their learning really pleased me. I enjoyed teaching them because they were interested and really learned the things they were supposed to learn. We did some interesting things,” Josephine said.

She has visited seven countries including Germany, France, Austria and Spain to study Native American material culture and to help museums correctly label and identify artifacts.

Josephine retired as a teacher in 1973, but it wasn’t the last time she sat in a classroom.

“I took a course in computer at 92 (years old),” Josephine said. “ Yeah. I made two A’s. I couldn’t believe it. I enjoyed it. But I just haven’t continued to use it. I just didn’t want to be the only one in my family who didn’t know about computers. I think that’s the only reason I took it.”

After retirement Josephine concentrated  on finger weaving. Her work has been displayed throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, the Middle East and South America. Her oral autobiography is part of a collection in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian’s (NMAI) cultural resources center.  NMAI also recruited Josephine in the 90s for a project involving contemporary artists - their work and travel is documented in a book titled “We Travel: A Celebration of Contemporary Native American Creativity.”

“She’s been quite a role model for some of her students,” Ed said. “Wherever I’ve been and people know I’m her son, people will make comments of how she was really influential in their lives.”

Her friend Geneva Woomavoyah Navarro traveled from New Mexico along with Jerri Ahbehill to celebrate Josephine’s 100th birthday with her. Navarro said Josephine’s mother was a midwife and delivered her when they all lived in Apache. On her birth certificate it says ‘Old Lady Fisher,’ Navarro said.

“She certainly didn’t look like 100 years old. She was visiting people, up and around … I haven’t seen too many 100 year olds,” Navarro said. “There were so many people around … She was glad to see everyone there. She’s still a school teacher. She remembers everybody … she never forgets names. She’s always alert. She’s such a friendly lady.”

Josephine’s advice is to, “Just live a clean life; leave the alcohol and drugs(alone) and you’ll grow up to be 100.”

She said, “I’m just glad I got to retire and come back to be with the Comanche people. (There was) a lot of relatives I didn’t know and I got to meet them. Made a lot of friends. I’m glad I got to come.”