Mabel Washbourne Anderson

Mabel Washbourne Anderson descended from two well-known families in Cherokee history. Her paternal grandfather was founder of Dwight Mission to the Cherokees, and her maternal grandfather was John Ridge, the well-known leader of the Treaty Party of Cherokees. Anderson attended Cherokee public schools, graduation from the Cherokee Female Seminary in 1883. Upon graduation, she became a teacher at Vinita, where in 1891 she married John C. Anderson. The family moved to Pryor Creek in 1904, living there until 1930 when they moved to Tulsa. Anderson taught in the public schools throughout this period. In the early 1890s she also began to write for local newspapers and to make presentations before local literary societies. Some of her works were picked up by out-of-territory publications. In the early years of this century, Anderson contributed to Indian Territory and Oklahoma magazines and newspapers and in 1915 published a biography of her grandfather’s cousin, the well-known Cherokee general, Stand Watie. The biography, like much of her writing, including the biographical article on Watie reprinted here, reflects the tendency among Cherokee writers of her generation to romanticize Cherokee national heroes. That romanticism may also be discerned in her poetry and fiction.