Curtis biography

[Rankin, Robert L]

Acting on Louis Garcia's idea, I did a little internet research on Curtis in
order to check out his Kaw background.  I didn't locate his Indian name, but
his early childhood makes it pretty clear that he probably had one.  As you
can see from the following, lifted from an article in the Topeka Capital
Journal, he lived on the reservation in Kansas and embraced their way of
life.

There supposedly more at vpcharlescurtis.net.  I'll look it over.

Bob
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>>From the Cap Journal, March 2003:

"His father was Oren Curtis, who was also known as Captain Jack, and his
mother was Ellen Pappan. Curtis gets his Indian heritage from his mother,
who was part Kansa, Osage and Potawatomi Indian and part French.

Charles Curtis, who was nicknamed Charley, was baptized at the Catholic
church in St. Marys, according to the Web site. Oren Curtis and Ellen Pappan
later had a daughter, Elizabeth. Oren Curtis had a daughter with another
woman, Charles Curtis' half-sister Dolly.

Ellen Pappan is the great-great-granddaughter of Osage Chief Powhuska.
Powhuska's daughter married White Plume, an Osage who was appointed chief of
the Kansa Indians. White Plume's daughter, Wy-He-See, married Louis
Gonville, and they had a daughter Julie. Julie Gonville married Louis
Pappan, the owner of Pappan's Ferry. They were Ellen's parents.

As a boy, Charles Curtis learned how to ride ponies under the watchful eye
of his mother. Andrews said by the time Curtis was 3, he could ride without
any help. Also, when he was 3, Ellen Pappan died of black fever.

Oren Curtis left his family to fight in the Civil War, so Charles and
Elizabeth went to live with Oren's parents, William and Permelia Curtis, in
Eugene, the original name for North Topeka.

But Curtis didn't stay with his grandparents very long. He returned to the
home of his mother's parents, Louis Pappan and Julie Gonville, on the Kansa
reservation near Council Grove, where he lived from 1866 to 1869.

In Ewy's paper, Curtis is quoted as saying, "Until I was 8 I lived there,
happy and contented, playing, riding horses and learning very little."
Although he took classes at a mission school, Curtis preferred riding and
playing to school work.

"As a boy, Curtis always thought of himself as an Indian," Ewy wrote.

Curtis returned to Topeka under "heroic circumstances," Ewy wrote. Cheyenne
had raided the Kansa Indians, and Curtis left for Topeka to get help in the
skirmish.

"I ran and walked for miles, summoning help for the besieged tribe," Curtis
is quoted as saying in Ewy's article. "I at last got to Topeka, where
relatives of my father lived, and I decided to stay with them for a while."

Curtis tried to return to his old life in 1874, when the Kansa were being
moved to the Oklahoma territory.

"The longing for the old life took possession of me," Curtis said in Ewy's
paper. "I wanted to go back to my customs of my childhood, and so I joined
the tribe once more."

But fate intervened when his Grandmother Pappan had a talk with Charles and
urged him to go back to Topeka to complete his education."