Choctaw Woman, a novel based on facts, covers the lives of a Choctaw Indian family during the early statehood days of Oklahoma (1907-1945). The tribe is disintegrating since the government has broken up the Choctaw Nation in 1899 and allocated each Indian a few hundred acres of land. Most Choctaws dress like cowboys and have taken up the white man’s ways. They speak Choctaw but most are slowly losing their identity and culture. In this book, a wealthy half-breed Choctaw, Simeon Winship, builds a small empire of 1500 head of cattle, 1100 acres of land, and several tenant houses. He survives a murder attempt by his eldest son and white in-laws who scheme to get his land and cattle. When Simeon dies in 1929 of TB, his widow, Eliza, must raise seven girls during the Great Depression.

In Choctaw Woman, we follow Simeon’s youngest daughter Mela as her family tries to survive a maelstrom of violence, poverty, and disease. True life stories, told in novel form, explain the life Mela and her family live as the Great Depression comes to an end and World War II rages. Follow Mela to Tulsa where she works in an aircraft manufacturing plant and on to San Francisco with her new Army husband. At war’s end, they return to her roots in Oklahoma and then on to Atlanta and his roots, where they begin a new life.