Did You Know? #55

    With the 2021 Super Bowl drawing ever closer the minds of many are focused on sports. When you think of those who have distinguished themselves in multiple sporting disciplines, one man's name may most often comes to mind: Wa-Tho-Huk. That was the Native American name, meaning "Bright Path," given to James Francis Thorpe.
    Jim Thorpe was born in what would become Oklahoma in May of 1888 "near and south of Bellemont – Pottawatomie County" (Wikipedia). In an article on his first wedding, Thorpe was described as "the world's greatest athlete" (Wedding of James Thorpe and Margaret Miller). From a page describing his third wife, the following is said concerning Jim Thorpe: "In 1950, the nations's press selected Jim Thorpe as the most outstanding athlete of the first half of the 20th Century. In 2001, he was named by ABC's Wide World of Sports as "The Athlete of the Century"" (Patricia Gladys Evelyn “Patsy” Woodbury Thorpe, Find A Grave). He would become ...

• An Olympic gold medalist (the first Native American to win gold for the U.S.).
• Track and Field.
• American football.
• Baseball.
• Basketball.

    

    Before his time as an Olympian Thorpe attended Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. While he was there he met Iva Margaret Miller, who was "known as "the prettiest girl at Carlisle"" (www.jimthorpefilm.com). They did not marry right away. It was not until 1913, after Jim signed on with the New York Giants, that the pair tied the knot on October 13, 1913. Four years later the couple purchased a house in Yale, Arkansas where he and Iva lived until 1923. They had four children: James Francis Jr., Gale, Charlotte, and Frances. James Jr. died at the age of two.

    In 1925 Iva Thorpe would file for a divorce from Jim on the grounds of desertion. The next year Jim would marry Freeda Verona Kirkpatrick (who worked for the baseball team on which he played) and that couple would have four children. Their marriage would last 15 years, after which Freeda filed for divorce in 1941. He married again in 1945, this time to Patricia Gladys Askew, and they stayed together until his death in 1953 from a heart attack. He was 65.
    It was through Jim Thorpe's first wife, Iva Miller, that our family has a connection. She and Dad were 7th cousins. The chart below shows the connection.

Richard Denton (b. 1603) & Maria Durden (b. 1604)
Nathaniel Denton b.1628	Samuel Denton b.1631
Nathaniel Denton, Jr. b.1652	Jonas Denton b.1677
James Denton b.1693	Robert Denton b.1695
James Denton b.1713	Thomas Denton b.1746
Daniel Denton b.1730	Josiah Denton b.1779
Mary Denton b.1765	Greenbury Jefferson Denton b.1816
Platt Hull b.1787	Martha Denton b.1859
Ezekiel Hull b.1813	Iva Margaret Miller b.1893
Rebecca L. Hull b.1841
Franklin Martin Bragg b.1867
Orval Bishop Bragg b.1895
Don Cicero Bragg b.1920

    It is not immediately clear Iva Miller's Native American status. Carlisle Indian School required that applicants be at least 1/4 Native American. Her mother, Martha Denton Miller, died in 1899 when Iva was five. Her application form for Carlisle was not signed by her father, James Finis Miller, which has led some to conclude that he also had died. However, it seems that he lived until the 1930s. On that form Martha Denton Miller is said to have been "half-blood Cherokee" (Tom Benjey's Weblog). Her next of kin contact on her school application was Grace Gray-Morris, Iva's older sister. According to Iva's Carlisle School student file, Iva's father was listed as white but her mother was "1/2 Indian of the Cherokee Tribe located in North Carolina" (Application for the Enrollment of). J. H. Robson testified of Iva that she "is known and recognized in the community in which she lives as an Indian; that in my opinion she can not receive proper and adequate schooling at home for the reason that the schools here do not give music or nurse training" (Vouchers of Disinterested Persons). She became a nurse after graduation.
    Piecing together comments from the Miller side of the family, it seems that Iva's maternal grandmother, Charlotte McCarty, wife of Greenbury Jefferson Denton, is where the Native American bloodline was introduced.