FORT SILL, Okla. - A concrete slab the size of a coffin lies about 3 inches into the ground. White stenciled lettering spells the word “CHILD” in capital letters near the top of it, and lying beneath is a little Comanche boy or girl.
The child was buried there decades ago along with other Comanche, some of whom remain “UNKNOWN.” In total, there are more than 200 Comanche graves on this southeast edge of Fort Sill Army Post, where a highway curves close by and a runway even closer. The actual cemetery location is on the east end of Henry Post Army Airfield, in a restricted area surrounded by a fence and sealed by a locked gate.
Throughout the years, the cemetery has been called Indian Agency Cemetery, Yellow Mission Cemetery or Comanche Indian Cemetery. Today, its official name is Comanche Indian Mission Cemetery. After years of debate, doubt and drive, it was officially placed on the National Register of Historic Places on Feb. 4. The Henry Post Army Airfield was listed on the national register in 1977, however the approximate 10-acre cemetery area was not included.
The journey to have the cemetery recognized by the National Park Service has been long, complicated and emotional. Many people have dedicated their time to see this through, both in an official and non-official capacity.
“My mother was the one who started the project,” Thomas Narcomey said of his late mother Gladys Totite Narcomey. “She was always behind the scenes.”
During the 1950s, Gladys Narcomey began collecting background information and oral history concerning the Comanche Indian Mission Cemetery; a cemetery she learned about as a young girl. Soon she became a strong advocate to protect and preserve the site, despite the obstacles, setbacks and avoidance that came with her persistence. Her son said her strength came from a song.
“We were in the kitchen and she said she heard a church song,” Thomas Narcomey said. “She asked me if I heard it and I said ‘no,’ but that (to her) meant we were doing right, from a spiritual side. She told me later that she wasn’t scared of anything after she heard that church song.”
The cemetery was maintained by the Women’s Board of Domestic Missions until 1917 when the land was annexed by Fort Sill. According to the National Park Service website, approximately 109 concrete slab markers were placed during 1917-1918 by the Army Quartermaster Corps. Some family and clergy members helped identify the graves. Forty-nine markers are inscribed with actual names, 46 have “UNKNOWN,” and 14 have “CHILD or “CHILD/SISTER/BROTHER OF” marked on them.
Thomas Narcomey said his father, Phil, informed Gillett Griswold about the cemetery in 1955. Griswold, who served as director of the U.S. Army Field Artillery Museum from 1954 to 1979, had a survey of the area done, and wrote a letter in March 1965 to the director of installation and post engineers, which stated the inspector general requested the cemetery’s existence be documented.
Yet, despite knowledge of the cemetery by some people, things went largely unchanged. In 1994, the Fort Sill Department of Public Works Cemetery Administrator advised the tribe there was a plan to remove the cemetery, Thomas Narcomey said.
While different avenues were sought to protect the cemetery, the concrete slabs were eventually covered with dirt. Then in 2007, Gladys Narcomey created a resolution to present to the Comanche Tribal Council seeking national recognition of the cemetery as a historic place. It passed unanimously. The resolution sums up oral history accounts that claim the Comanche buried at the cemetery, “died during the small pox epidemic in the winter of 1898-99, after they were issued disease infested blankets by the U.S. Army, which killed over one-half of the Comanche Tribe.”
Once another resolution passed in October 2008, other people became involved in the journey, along with the Comanche Indian Cemetery Association, which Thomas Narcomey is a member of. The tribe’s Historic Preservation Officer Jimmy Arterberry and his staff, Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) Committee, Comanche Business Committee, some Fort Sill employees, and numerous concerned tribal members worked to have the area turned into a recognized cemetery. Some people, like Gladys Narcomey, worked on the project without pay.
Tribal citizens testified before the tribe’s NAGPRA Committee and detailed oral history about the cemetery and about Comanches being buried in a cave at the foot of Mount Scott. This information was shared with officials from Fort Sill. Included in the information Thomas Narcomey has is a quote from the Rev. John Pahdocony published in a January 2006 article in Fort Sill’s Cannoneer newspaper. Pahdocony stated he was told by his grandfather that, “So many died from small pox that they couldn’t dig individual graves. Not enough members of some families were left to properly mourn the dead. The deceased were rolled into buckskins, loaded onto wagons and placed in a long ditch, which was used for mass burials.”
On May 9, a prayer ceremony was held at the cemetery, and tribal citizens were allowed into the restricted area to pay their respects and see the concrete slabs before they were once again covered. Work will now begin to place granite markers for the deceased. In addition to the “small pox victims,” there are burials there from before 1895 to 1917.
The cemetery itself lacks uniformity. The graves are scattered in clusters and some are shared by more than one person. With each concrete slab sunk below the surface, the area looks like a flat prairie from afar; and at one point it was said to have been treated as such.
“As you can see, some of those stones are cracked,” Comanche Nation Chairman Wallace Coffey said at the prayer ceremony. “That’s because when they made a helicopter pad out here, those planes would land out here.”
Coffey appointed the late Wahnee Clark to research who was buried at the cemetery, to find common ground with the Army so training exercises would not disturb the graves, and to improve access to the cemetery. His work brought about the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement between the Comanche Nation and the Department of Defense in November 2013.
One of Clark’s allies, was Towana Spivey, a retired Fort Sill museum director/curator. In 1984, Spivey relocated the graves, flagged and marked them, created a map, and he and his staff removed the dirt off the concrete slabs. He continually reminded people about the graves.
“Each year they used to have fireworks demonstrations and they used this as a parking lot and cars would park on this cemetery. Then when Dessert Storm came along, there was the welcome home celebrations that were held in these hangars back here and they used this as a parking lot, so I had to come down here each time there was an event and string this area off to keep the cars from parking on it,” Spivey said.
Spivey said Clark and his wife, Rosemarie, went to him for help about eight years ago. They wanted the cemetery to be properly respected, and together they hurdled barriers from environmental engineers to lawyers. Clark was even threatened with jail time once.
“A lot of the people, families knew where it (cemetery) was, they had not forgotten. The Army had forgotten,” Spivey said. “Wahnee was certainly a hard working individual … we managed to get this far and it’s a great day.”
Rosemarie said she appreciates everyone who supported them from day one in seeing the cemetery brought back to a place of dignity and respect.
Kenneth Karty also helped with this endeavor and said, “This is not for myself, this is for Comanches.” He placed flowers and small Comanche Nation flags on some graves before the ceremony began.
Denise Karty stood on the side of a grave marked, “KATE KARTY’S CHILDREN.” She said there were four kids buried there. “It makes me feel good that their graves are being respected. I think it’s a sacred place. I’m grateful that different individuals from the tribe went to (Washington) DC and signed an agreement. It makes me feel really good. It’s sad, but at the same time, I feel good that they’re finally recognized here,” Denise Karty said, adding that it was nice to just be able to enter the cemetery and place flowers.
George W. Karty said he feels lucky to see the concrete slabs, because the last time he was there, they were not uncovered, and Rose Nauni said it was a blessing to be able to go to the cemetery. She and her family placed flowers on the graves of the “CLARK TWINS.”
Gladys Narcomey’s daughter Phyllis was also at the prayer ceremony and spoke about how Comanches used to bury their people in rocks, and this cemetery is one of the first times they buried their people in a “non-Comanche way.” She said having the cemetery recognized was always in her mom’s heart.
Everyone’s efforts are beginning to blossom, and by November all the granite markers should be installed. Coffey said there will also be a monitor at the gate that will allow people to call someone in administration to gain access into the cemetery.
“A lot of people, who have deep respect for their elders and reliable oral history traditions, worked together in the nomination process, but our greatest help came from God, who made this possible,” Thomas Narcomey said.
Kenneth Karty hammers in a small Comanche Nation flag on the graves of “KATE KARTY’S CHILDREN” May 9, 2014 at the Comanche Indian Mission Cemetery, which is located on the Henry Post Army Airfield, in Fort Sill, Okla.
PHOTO BY DANA ATTOCKNIE