 Cleveland County, Oklahoma
Biographies
BARNARD, CATHERINE ANN (1875-1930)
One of
Oklahoma's most outstanding woman politicians, "Kate" Barnard was
born Catherine Ann Barnard, in Geneva, Nebraska, on May 23, 1875, to
John P. and Rachel Sheill Barnard. Shortly after her birth, her
parents moved to northwestern Kansas. Her mother died two years
later, and her father temporarily abandoned her to the care of
relatives and neighbors. Barnard joined her father in Oklahoma City
in 1891 and attended St. Joseph's Academy. She lived on her father's
claim near Newalla (considered part of Cleveland
County) until she moved back to Oklahoma City in 1895 to continue
preparations to become a teacher. After acquiring her territorial
teaching certificate, she taught in several one-room schools located
within commuting distance of Oklahoma City. Tired of teaching, she
enrolled in secretarial courses at a local business school. Using
her Democratic Party and Catholic connections, she obtained a
succession of clerical patronage positions in the territorial
government. In 1904 while serving as a hostess for the Oklahoma
exhibit at the St. Louis Worlds Fair, Barnard noticed urban poverty
and listened to discussions by social science experts who suggested
solutions. Returning to Oklahoma City, she discovered that her
hometown also had developed an army of indigents, so she began a
career in charity work. Believing that women had political
potential, especially in the area of social justice reform, she
entered politics in 1906 when Oklahoma statehood was imminent.
During the Constitutional Convention she convinced delegates to
adopt two reform measures: the prohibition of child labor, and the
establishment of the office of commissioner of charities and
corrections. After the convention the Democratic Party endorsed her
candidacy for the position of commissioner, and she won the office
by a greater plurality than any other candidate in Oklahoma's first
general election, in which women could not vote. Barnard's triumph
at the polls made her the first woman elected to a major Oklahoma
state office. As commissioner, she persuaded the state legislature
to adopt laws requiring compulsory education, regulating child
labor, and launching a juvenile justice system. Her 1908
investigation of the treatment of Oklahoma prisoners held in a
Kansas prison rated national headlines and enhanced her reputation
as a reformer. Her efforts resulted in the repatriation of the
convicts and the subsequent creation of a three-tier state prison
system consisting of a penitentiary, a reformatory, and a boys'
training school. She spent much of her time supervising those
facilities as well as overseeing private and public humanitarian
institutions such as orphanages and insane asylums. In 1910 she
achieved reelection by a substantial margin, but her second term
proved less successful. She embraced an unpopular cause, the
protection of Indian orphans' property rights. In 1913 and 1914 the
legislature engaged in a ferocious attack on the executive branch,
and Barnard provided a target for legislative critics, who slashed
her department's budget and thereby its size and effectiveness.
Leaving office in 1915, Barnard continued her campaign for Indian
property rights, but with little success. Poor health and depression
forced her into seclusion, and she died in Oklahoma City on February
23, 1930. Although she was one of the nation's most effective social
justice reformers and one of its most successful woman politicians,
she did not establish enduring legacies for reform and female
political activism in Oklahoma.
HAROLD GIMENO Harold Gimeno was an architech and built several buildings and homes. One of his homes was built for his father Patricio Gimeo. It is located in Norman Oklahoma and is on the historical sites list for Cleveland County. Two of his other buildings are also in Norman, built in 1929, the Sooner was designed in Spanish Colonial/Mission style, and could seat around 650. The most ornate of Norman's movie houses, the Sooner was built specifically for movies, and sound ones at that. In 1978, the theater was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today, having been restored to it's 30s appearance, the Sooner is host to a variety of performing arts, including live theater, concerts and dance. The Sooner is one of the city's most popular and well-known attractions, receiving more than 20,000 visitors each year and the 1926 Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church in Chickasha.
PATRICIO GIMENO
Patricio Gimeno
was a well-known artist and scholar. He was born December 25, 1865
in Arequipa, Peru, but was taken to Spain for his formal education.
Before coming to the new country he had lived in Cuba, Peru, and
Argentina. It was in the new world that he gained fame as an
artist. His paintings are to be found in Lima, Havana and Buenos
Aires. He married a woman named Margaret who was born October 1869
in New York. The 1900 census shows that they are living in
Manhattan, New York. Their son, Harold (shown above) became quite
reknown on his own merits. By the year 1911 the Gimeno family were
in Oklahoma where Patricio had accepted a position at the University
of Oklahoma as head of the department of art, and later as head of
the romance languages department. Professor Gimeno continued his
practice of art through his teaching career and some of his best
portraits hang in the University library, as well as the State
Historical Building as well as the homes of friends. He was a
member of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish, the state
art association; Kappa Gamma Epsilon-an honorary society; Phi Mu
Alspha-musical faternity. He is also one of the few state artists
included in the Who's Who in American art. On August 15, 1940
Patricio Gimeno passed away at his home at 1515 Glenwood Avenue. A
requiem mass was held on Saturday morning at 10 a.m. at the Mount
Carmel Catholic Church. The Smithe and Kernke Funeal home handled
his services. He was laid to rest at the Rose Hill Cemetery in
Oklahoma.
JACOBSON, OSCAR BROUSSE (1882-1966)The Oscar Brousse Jacobson House
Oscar Brousse
Jacobson was born on May 16, 1882, in Westervik, Kalmar Lan, Sweden.
He emigrated to Lindsborg, Kansas, in 1890 and studied at Bethany
College, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1908. He continued
his studies at the Louvre in Paris, in Sweden, and in Denmark. In
1916 he received a master of fine arts degree at Yale University and
in 1941 a doctorate of fine arts from Bethany College in Lindsborg.
He worked as director of the School of Art at the University of
Oklahoma (OU) from 1915 until 1954. He and his wife, Jeanne d'Ucel,
had three children, Yvonne, Oscar, Jr., and Yolanda. Jacobson's name
is synonymous with early-twentieth-century art in Oklahoma. Educated
in Europe and America, he tirelessly promoted all arts to the young
state. One genre, traditional Plains Indian art, is now inexorably
bound to him and to the University of Oklahoma. Because Jacobson
held Indian people in good regard and treated them with respect, he
became their champion and mentor. In the late 1920s he and professor
Edith Mahier, also of the OU art school, worked with a small group
of five Kiowa men and briefly with one Kiowa woman. These artists
and their style became world famous and have always been associated
with Oscar B. Jacobson. In addition, he founded the Association of
Oklahoma Artists and formally advised the Works Progress
Administration's Federal Art Project for Oklahoma in the 1930s. A
prolific painter of Southwestern landscapes, Jacobson exhibited his
work throughout the United States and Europe. He won numerous
awards, including a Gold Medal at the 1931 Mid-Western Exhibition at
the Kansas City Art Institute Invitational. He was made an honorary
chief of the Kiowa tribe and was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of
Fame in 1949. He lectured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York, at the Chicago Art Institute, and at more than fifty
universities and colleges. His works are held by the Woolaroc Museum
at Bartlesville, Oklahoma, the Jacobson Gallery in Norman, the
Oklahoma City Museum of Art, and the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art in
Norman. On September 15, 1966, he died in Norman.
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