Bert Eugene Mosier & Family
Submitted by Ed Mosier
My father, Bert Eugene Mosier (1919-1981) was born in Dill City. Parents were William Henry Mosier (deceased 12-2-47) and Jesse McLemore (deceased 9-67). Grandfather was W. Mosier. Will & Jesse (my grandparents) and W. (my great-grandfather) are buried at South Burns Cemetery near Dill City.
My dad, Bert E., was a professor at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas. He and my mother, Martha Fike, taught school in Oklahoma before moving to Abilene in 1954 to teach at A.C.U. Daddy taught there 26 years before his passing. He also was a well known and respected high school basketball referee having officiated the Texas State B-ball championship tournament six years. The limit was five but he was asked at the last minute to replace an official who had become too ill to call the games. He taught industrial technology and served as the department head for several years. His knowledge of technology was so vast and varied that it took three teachers to replace him after he died in order to offer the variety of coursework he had enabled to department to offer. He was truly a craftsman from the old school and they just don't make them like him anymore. He was also well known in the community for his kind-hearted compassion. He would help anybody, no matter what the need. he could also hand craft tools and machinery which had broken and no one else could fix them. He died the night he and my mother returned from sponsoring a church youth mission trip to South Carolina.
My mother still lives in Abilene and remains active. She retired after 30 years of teaching at A.C.U. and is a faculty emeritus and continues to serve the school in a number of ways. She is active in church benevolent work, also, and support the university Basketball team whole heartedly. She is "mom" to many of them and serves many a meal to several players who are far from home.
My dad was the only son with three sisters. My name is Edward Bert (Ed) and I am a minister in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My wife, Martha Blocker, and I have two kids, Bennet Ryan (age 16) and Katie Elizabeth (age 11).My sister, Dr. Virginia L. Mosier, is a professor at Texas A & M University - Corpus Christi. She resides in Corpus Christi. Contact Ed Mosier at emosier@gte.net
(C) 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Robin Mosier
Joseph, Thomas & William Mosier
From the book titled " A Standard History of Oklahoma" by Joseph B. Thoburn, Volume V. The American Historical Society, Chicago and New York, 1916. Pages 2018-2019
Joseph Mosier. The Osage tribe has had few men more prominent names among its citizens than that of Mosier. Several of the family are named in this publication and one of them requiring individual reference was Joseph Mosier.
Joseph Mosier was a son of Thomas Mosier, a Frenchman, who identified himself with the Osage people in the last century and worked as a blacksmith among the tribe. He married an Osage woman, Basille Ahsinkuh. In the early '50s they moved to Neosho County, Kansas.
It was in Neosho County, Kansas, that Joseph Mosier grew up. He received his early education in the Jesuit Mission of that county , and as a young man received one of the head - rights in the lands of Kansas. The Mosiers were one of twenty-five Osage families who were allotted land in that state by the government. Joseph Mosier and his two brothers, Thomas and John, all enlisted in the Union army, being members of the ninth Kansas Cavalry, and they were in active service through-out the conflict along the Kansas-Missouri border and in Arkansas and Indian Territory. They were finally mustered out in 1865.
Joseph Mosier, who was born August 5, 1841, had a very brief though honorable career. His death occurred near the old Osage Mission in Southern Kansas, January 7, 1871. His home was attacked in the night time when twelve inches of snow covered the ground. He was dragged in his night clothes, the house was set on fire, and he and his wife, who carried her son William, then eighteen months of age, in her arms, walked five miles to the nearest house barefoot and scantily clad. Joseph Mosier never left his bed after that, and died of pneumonia. Due to exposure and internal injuries received his widow died nearly six years later, on October 31, 1876. She was born in 1848.
Thomas Mosier, who in his time was one of the most prominent members of the Osage tribe, and who died at Pawhuska, September 20, 1912, was one of the children of Thomas Mosier by his Osage wife, and was a brother of Joseph Mosier, mentioned elsewhere in these pages.
Born among the Osages in Southern Kansas, December 18, 1843, Thomas Mosier grew up there, received his education in the old Osage Mission, and was a youthful soldier with his brothers in the Ninth Kansas Cavalry of the Union army. After the war he returned to Southern Kansas and remained with his tribe until they gave up their lands there and moved across the line into Indian Territory in 1872.
His name is of particular importance because of his prominent activities as an Osage citizen. He filled many official positions such as delegate to Washington, as national secretary of the Osage Council, national interpreter, United States interpreter in the Federal courts of Topeka, Fort Smith and other court centers, and was also connected with the department in charge of the leasing of Osage lands at Pawhuska.
William Thomas Mosier, who spent practically all his life in those various sections of country occupied by the Osages, both in Kansas and Oklahoma, has been primarily a merchant, for many years clerked in the agency store of the Osage country and laterly was engaged in merchandising on his own account, and is now one of the chief owners of improved real estate at Pawhuska.
He was born at Neosho County, Kansas, November 1, 1867, a son of Joseph and Nancy (Waller) Mosier, and a member of the prominent Mosier family elsewhere referred to. After the death of his parent's he was reared in the home of his uncle, the late Thomas Mosier, until he was fourteen years of age. Since then he has made his own way in the world. He had some schooling in the Pawhuska Government School, and spent part of two terms, during 1883-84, in the old Osage Mission, now St. Paul, Kansas. On July 5, 1885, he located at Pawhuska, and during the summer was engaged in running a mowing machine, and secured work for the winter in a general merchandise store trading with the Osage Indians on the Osage Reservation. For ten years he was an emplye in one store at Pawhuska, beginning with wages of eighteen dollars a month and board and finally being paid seventy-five dollars a month. He was hired on account of his ability to speak the Osage tongue, though otherwise he had no experience in mercantile life. In 1901 Mr. Mosier engaged in business for himself with two partners. He bought at the administrator's sale the stock of E.B. Gravelt. After six months in business he incorporated the firm of the Osage Mercantile Company, and was its vice president until he sold his interests in 1914. Mr. Mosier had been closely and actively identified with merchandising at Pawhuska for fifteen years up to 1914.
His present interests are of large scope and importance. He is vice president of the Mercantile Real Estate Company, which owns the Osage Mercantile Company Building, the best business structure at Pawhuska. This company also owns the post office or Oklahoma Building. Mr. Mosier is director in the Pawhuska Oil and Gas Company. Individually he owns the Osage Agency Building at the corner of Main and Osage avenues. This is the chief landmark in the city, having been built by the government in 1872. It is venerable stone structure, and within and around it are associated much of the history and life of the Osage people during the past forty years. Mr. Mosier also owns a substantial home at 133 Osage Avenue, in which he has lived for the past fifteen years. He and members of his family through allotment have 4,200 acres of Osage land. For four years he was a director in one of Pawhuska's banks.
In politics Mr. Mosier has been throughout most of his career a good democrat. He served on the first city council at Pawhuska and was one of the members that drafted the present charter providing for a commission form of government. During 1891-92-93 he was clerk of the Osage council and prior to that had been permit clerk. In earlier days he knew every person residing on the Osage reservation. Mr. Mosier was reared in the Catholic Church. He is now the second oldest living Mason among the Osage Indians. He was one of the charter members of Washesha Lodge No. 110, A.F. and A.M., at Pawhuska, and has also taken thirty-two degrees in the Scottish Rite, being affiliated with the Consistory at Guthrie, the Knight Templar Commandery at Pawhuska, and Akdar Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Tulsa. He was also one of the charter members of the local Elks lodge, but has since given up that affiliation.
On May 29, 1895, at Pawhuska Mr. Mosier married Louisa Prudom. She was born on the Caney River in Osage County in February, 1877, and is also od Osage Indian blood mingled with French. Her parents were Charles N. and Lydia (Nowberry) Prudom, both of whom were born in Kansas and are now living in Texas. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Mosier are enumerated as follows: Charles Prudom Mosier of Pawhuska married Louisa Plomondom, youngest daughter Mr. and Mrs. Moses Plomondom. The other children are John Thomas, Edwin P., Luther P., Christeen A., James Russell, and the youngest, Margaret, died in infancy.
