Remembering Uncle Frank
Let us now speak of Uncle Frank. No, not that one. My Bartlesville friends already know plenty about Frank Phillips. He’s royalty in Bartlesville. But sometimes the world’s true nobility are found in places we wouldn’t expect. “As for the saints who are on the earth,” the psalmist says, “they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.” Augustus Ward Loomis We learn about another “Uncle Frank” in an 1859 book called Scenes in the Indian Country by Augustus Ward Loomis. Rev. Loomis was a Presbyterian missionary who penned an account of his time spent “amongst the Creek Indians, who are located along the Arkansas river” in what is now Oklahoma.Rev. Loomis introduces us to Uncle Frank, “the black man, whose quarters were in the rear of the mill-house, and who ground the meal. He was entirely blind; had once been a bondman, was now free ... He kept his snug little room in good order, neater than some do who have both their eyes. He chopped his own wood; and some times we found him ...
