Anna (Peterson) Shortall


Anna (Peterson) Shortall  

(3/6/1876-10/20/1959) 

By Rhonda Still, (TU, BA class of 2023) 

  

Multiple Roles with Mission Schools
Anna (Peterson) Shortall experienced many roles within mission schools and the evolution of the Presbyterian School for Indian Girls (PSIG) into The University of Tulsa. When the Indigenous Boarding School resided in Muskogee, Anna was admitted as one of the school’s only non-Native students, and she later taught at many mission schools in the area. After Henry Kendall College absorbed PSIG, was moved to Tulsa, and officially became The University of Tulsa, she returned as a non-traditional student to continue her education and graduate in 1928. Anna is one of at least two alumnae of the Presbyterian School for Indian Girls to have been interviewed for the Indian-Pioneer History Project (IPP) for Oklahoma in 1937, the other one being Susan (Hampton) Tiger. The transcript of her interview provides several details about her childhood and her time at PSIG. The Indian-Pioneer Papers Oral History Collection includes transcripts of interviews conducted in the 1930s by government workers with thousands of individuals in Oklahoma. The transcripts contain first-hand accounts of life in Indian Territory and then the state of Oklahoma from 1861 to the 1930s.

  

Early History
Anna Peterson was born on March 6, 1876, in Avoka, a borough of Lucerne County in Pennsylvania.1 Her father, Carl G. Peterson (2/22/1839-9/21/1917), emigrated to the United States from Sweden at the age of thirty in 1868 and settled in Nanticoke, PA, to work for the Pennsylvania Railroad and Mining Company. In 1874, he married Chloe “Minda” Peterson (4/23/1854-6/19/27), born in New Jersey to Irish immigrants.2  In 1878, when Anna was twenty-seven months old, her parents and infant brother Carl (9/30/1877-5/7/1895) moved to Muskogee, Indian Territory, for her father’s employment as a foreman for the M. T. & K. Railroad.3 Anna’s sister Emma was born in 1887, and another brother, Gustaf, was born in 1889, after the family moved to Muskogee.4 

  

Student at PSIG
Anna attended several public and private schools in Muskogee, including a private school in 1887-1888 that was run by Kate Shaw (later Ahrens) (Mvskoke).5 Shaw had previously taught under Alice Robertson at PSIG.6 In November of 1888, Shaw was offered and accepted a position teaching at the Government School in Ponca Agency.7 The Presbyterian School for Indian Girls began readmitting non-Native students after Alice Robertson’s return in March 1890 from being away.8 In her IPP interview, Anna stated, “The Presbyterian Boarding School for Indian Girls had been opened prior to this time but had not admitted white students, however, arrangements had been made whereby they could attend and I started to school there.”9 Under the direction of “Miss Kate Cox, who was in charge of the school,” Anna attained PSIG Honor Roll on 10/23/1890.10 

  

Adult Life: Educator in Indian Territory
In her IPP Interview, Anna reported that she had “completed the prescribed course [at PSIG] and was ready for something to do. I didn’t know exactly what. After discovering, in 1892, a classmate’s plans to teach, sixteen-year-old Anna decided to travel to Eufaula, in the Muscogee (Creek) boundaries of Indian Territory, “to stand the ordeal of examination,” from the school board, which she described as including J.M. Perryman as “Superintendant of the Creek Schools,” Taylor Chisso[m?], George Tiger, and William Harvison. Anna’s account of her preparation for this examination, which included “shopp[ing] for clothes that would impress the school board with my dignity and give me moer [sic] mature appearance,” provides an endearing portrait of a very young woman striving to look older than her years, but it also testifies to the authority that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation continued to exert over teacher certification and education in their territory into the 1890s. “[I]nspired with the promise [from her father] of a gold watch and my ambition to do something for myself,” Anna passed her examination.11 


Anna did not initially receive a teacher’s certification, but she was appointed by the school board to be teacher at “Pole Cat School” near modern-day Slick, Oklahoma, in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She taught at the school for one year beginning September 5, 1892. In 1893, she boarded with “Mr. and Mrs. Tiger” (Mr. Tiger was known as “Tiger Jack”), and taught “forty full-blood Euche [sic] children in school and not one of them understood a word of English.” Anna did not know Euchee or Mvskoke, but she and the Tigers, whose son “Mose” attended the school, developed a system: “She spoke English and Creek. He spoke Creek and Euche [sic]. I would tell her something in English. She would repeat it to him in Creek and he would interpret it to the children in Euchee.” Anna’s interview, which contains several details about the children and the local community, also notes that while she boarded with the Tiger family she “first learned to eat Indian food,” including grape soup and sofke.12

  

In 1893 Anna was assigned to the Green Leaf School near Okemah and again taught for one year, boarding with “a widow, Mrs. Cinda Mulgussie, a sister of Holulgee Fixico.” This school served “a full-blood Creek settlement,” where the children “had been taught to read parrot fashion by former teachers and did not understand a word they read.” Here again Anna received help from her host to cross a linguistic divide in her teaching, noting that she “took a book home and with Cinda’s help began to read the primer in Creek. A lesson at a time. When the children found out that I could read a little bit in Creek they were delighted and it seemed to inspire them to learn to read English.”13 


In July of 1894, Anna received certification to teach at any schools within Muscogee (Creek) Nation territory. She began teaching at “the Creek Boarding School for orphans at Okmulgee.”  The school was run by Superintendent Motey Tiger and his wife, Kizzie, who was mother to Anna’s former teacher, Kate Shaw Ahrens. In her interview Anna noted that “Miss Minnie Fryer Finnegan” and “Miss Ressie Trent of Muskogee” also taught there. At mid-term Motey Tiger resigned from this position to be replaced by Peter Ewing and his wife, Susie McCombs Ewing. During this year the Ewing’s baby became ill and died in Anna’s arms, while she was helping care for the baby, and Anna’s brother Carl was tragically killed in a rail car accident in Muskogee.14 


Soon after, Anna left the school to complete four years of college coursework in Oswego, Kansas. Returning to Muscogee (Creek) Nation territory, she again joined the teaching staff at the Creek Boarding School for Orphans, of which George Tiger, Motey Tiger’s elder son, served as Superintendent for a year, followed by his younger brother Johnson Tiger. Anna’s interview includes an account of two smallpox epidemics, in which “a number of students died.”15 She taught there for three years and then taught for one year at “the Creek Boarding School for girls” in Eufaula. She resigned from her position to get married.16 

  

Adult Life: Marriage, Family, and Teaching Career
On May 30, 1902, Anna Marie Peterson married Frank M. Shortall (3/22/1876-10/16/1957) in Muskogee, Oklahoma.17 She had met Frank, a Spanish-American War veteran, while working in Eufaula at the Creek Boarding School for Girls.  After spending a year in the Choctaw Nation jointly overseeing the Wheelock Academy, “one of the oldest schools in the Indian Territory,” Frank and Anna moved to Porter. Here, where the couple would spend the rest of their lives, Frank became the first superintendent of Porter High School, was elected Wagoner County’s first superintendent in 1907,18 and “went into business,” establishing a store.19 Anna gave birth to the couple’s five children: Carl (1904-1982), Kathleen (1906-1988), Margaret (1908-1964), Frank (1910-1928),20 and Elizabeth (1912-
1976). 21 


In a 1920 letter to the editor of The Record-Democrat, Anna publicly declined an anonymous nomination for superintendent of Porter Schools, stating, “No mother of five children can spend six days in an office without neglecting either her home or her job.”22  However, Anna did spend nine years in the 1920’s working for Porter Public Schools, where she taught English and Latin to students in sixth grade through high school.23 Newspapers during this period also note Anna’s active presence within religious, education, and cultural communities, including winning several awards at the 1922 Porter Free Fair.24 


Continued Learning at The University of Tulsa
In the summer of 1924, Anna returned to the classroom as a student at the University of Tulsa. She enrolled in classes still offered at the university for future educators: child psychology, classroom management, principals of education, tests and measurements, etc.  She passed her classes with high marks over the next four years.25 On August 10, 1928, Anna was one of ten students awarded degrees during commencement ceremonies in the university chapel. The ceremony was the first summer term graduation in TU history, and all ten graduates planned to teach in the fall.26  Anna’s graduation was testament to fortitude developed during her early pioneer teaching days as her son, Frank Jr., had just passed away on January 12, 1928.27 


Anna continued her work and involvement with the Porter, Oklahoma community until her death on October 20, 1959, in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Her obituary reports that she was survived by her son, “Carl, of Tulare, California; three daughters, Mrs. J. Willard Heisley, of Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, Mrs. S. W. Handford of Silver Springs, Maryland, and Miss Kathleen Shorthall of the home,” along with three grandchildren and her sister Miss Emma Garrett. She is buried in Greenhill Cemetery, Porter, OK. 28 




Endnotes 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  



Bibliography 

Ahrens, Kate Shaw. Interview by Ella Robinson, September 1, 1937, Wagoner, Oklahoma. Transcript. Indian-Pioneer Oral History Project, The University of Oklahoma Western  

History Collection, Norman, OK. 

Ancestry® | Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History Records.  

“Daily Record.” Muskogee Daily Phoenix, October 10, 1957. https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/759090873:61843. 

“First Territorial Teacher Dies,” Muskogee Times-Democrat. January 7, 1935. Newspapers.com. 

 Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/89457043/frank-a-shortall: accessed 19 January 2024), memorial page for Frank A “Storky” Shortall (1910–12 Jan 1928), Find a Grave Memorial ID 89457043, citing Greenhill Cemetery, Muskogee, Muskogee County, Oklahoma, USA; Maintained by Ken Townsend (contributor 46863733). 

“Frank Shortall.” Muskogee Daily Phoenix and Times Democrat, October 10, 1957, newspapers.com.  

Harris, Phil. “Continuing Anna Peterson Shortall Story.” Muskogee Daily Phoenix and Times-Democrat, August 11, 1963, sec. II. Newspapers.com. 

Logsdon, Guy William. The University of Tulsa. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1977. 

“Mrs. A.J.W. Ahrens, Wagoner Pioneer Dies in Muscogee,” The Wagoner Tribune, November 22, 1955, p. 1. newspapers.com. 

Muskogee Daily Phoenix and Times-Democrat 07 Oct 1925, Page 8. Newspapers.com.  

“Porter Free Fair Great Success.” The Porter News, September 28, 1922, p. 1, newspapers.com. 

“Presbyterian Mission.” Muskogee Phoenix October 30, 1890, P. 4. Newspapers.com. 

 Robinson, Ella M., and Kate Shaw Ahrens. Life and Experiences of a Pioneer Creek Indian Woman, Mrs. Kate Shaw Ahrens, Wagoner, Oklahoma. Other. Ancestry.Com. Oklahoma and Indian Territory, Indian and Pioneer Historical Collection, 1937, n.d. Accessed January 18, 2024. 

“A Sad Accident.”Our Brother in Red, May 9 May 1895, p. 5. Newspapers.com.  

Shortall, Anna Peterson. Letter to the Editor. The Record-Democrat. Wagoner, July 15, 1920. Newspapers.com. 

Shortall, Anna P. “Transcript.” Tulsa: The University of Tulsa, 1924.

Shortall, Anna Peterson. “Experiences of Pioneer Teacher of Indian Territory Days.” Interview  

by Ella Robinson, March 18, 1937, Porter, Oklahoma. Transcript. Indian-Pioneer Oral  

History Project, The University of Oklahoma, Western History Collection, Norman, OK.  

“Tulsa U. Summer Class Graduated.” Tulsa World August 11, 1928, p. 4.” n.d. Newspapers.com. 

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Okmulgee, Oklahoma; Roll T6245_1483; Page 5A; Enumeration District 182.