What we know
Caroline Croft
1875 - 1949
Married Kurt Croft at eighteen. After leaving their families’ farms in Ohio, they
moved to Indian Territory. Thwarted by the locusts1 and winter blizzards, they abandoned their homestead and moved to Marble Springs where Kurt found work as a carpenter at the lumber-yard. One living son Ellwood, and two still births.
Night Winds
It was always the wind
driving the snow that became
another cloak around her.
There had been no wind
when she had climbed beside Kurt
behind eight yoke of good oxen,
the wagon tongue obscuring
the last view of her tired mother
leaning against her Ohio picket fence.
Now the wind froze her tears,
drove the snow into fog
that covered the mountains
outside the quilt-covered door.
Now the wind would bore
holes into the mud-stuffed logs,
forever playing with the lamp wicks1.
Connections

Portal
Sources
Portal caption and links
Image of oil burning lamp.
Peggy Dagmar