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Biographies
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George Warren Cable
To his task as president of the Northeastern Normal School at Tahlequah George W. Gable has brought not only a record of uninterrupted success as a practical educator, but also a thorough experience and ability as a constructive administrator of schools. It was his many evident qualifications and distinctions in the latter field that undoubtedly led to his selection for his present post.
Mr. Gable is still a young man, though in the educational world he has been at work since twenty years of age, and was born April 9, 1876, near Iuka, Tishimingo County, Mississippi, a son of Levi Franklin and Elizabeth Ann (Milford) Gable. His father was a native of South Carolina and his mother of Mississippi. When he was nine years of age George W. Gable was brought by his parents from Mississippi to Dawson, Texas. His father was a farmer, and the son grew up in a rural environment, getting his first lessons from country schools. He took the preparatory course in Trinity University, Tehuancana, Texas, following which he entered Southwestern University at Georgetown, Texas, and was graduated from that splendid institution in 1900 with the degrees A. B. and A. M. Thereafter for several years he attended the summer quarters in the University of Chicago, and in 1913 won his Master of Arts degree from that university.
In the meantime he had begun his life work, having taught a term in a country district when twenty years of age. His work as a teacher and student alternated for a number of years. For a time he was teacher of Latin and Greek in the University Training School at Blooming Grove, Texas, and soon afterwards began his work as a school superintendent. He had charge of the public schools at Groesbeck, Texas, three years, and for a similar length of time was superintendent of the schools at Duncan, Oklahoma. It was at Duncan that his success as an organizer, administrator and school.
Thus Mr. Farrar has spent a number of years in the Indian and Government service, where his ability as a lawyer and his broad experience in Oklahoma affairs stood him in good stead.
In politics he is a republican, and is a member of the Episcopal Church. At Shawnee in 1898 he married Miss Elva Allen. Mrs. Farrar was born in Harrison County, Missouri.
[Source: A Standard History of Oklahoma Volume 4 By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn - Submitted by A Friend of Free Genealogy]
James Isaac Coursey
For fifteen years, his entire professional life, Mr. Coursey has practiced law in Eastern Oklahoma, and is now one of the prominent members of the bar at Tahlequah. While he has made politics and public position a very small feature of his career, he is well known throughout Cherokee County and is a lawyer who stands in the front rank of the attorneys in the First Judicial District.
A native of Texas, James Isaac Coursey was born on a farm near Bonham in Fannin County September 20, 1875. His father, Allen J. Coursey, was born near Lexington, Missouri, a son of Henry Coursey, who in turn was a native of the State of Delaware and of French descent, the name having originally been spelled IWoursey. Henry Coursey, the grandfather, came West in early manhood, was married in Missouri, but after several years, in 1853, took his little family, including Allen J., who was then four years of age, to Northern Texas, where he was a pioneer. His first settlement was in Collin County, but he located permanently in Fannin County. In the latter county Allen J. Coursey grew to manhood, received his education, and was married there to Mary E. Stark. She was born in Grayson County, Texas, a daughter of Isaac V. Stark, a native ot Missouri and of German origin. Isaac Stark went to Texas as a single man in 1848, and was one of the very earliest settlers in the northern part of the Lone Star State. He spent his life as a farmer and died on his old homestead near Howe, Texas. Allen J. Coursey by his first marriage had three sons and one daughter, including James I., who was four years of age when his mother died. His father married a second time, and by that union had eleven children.
Mr. Coursey grew up on his father's farm in Northern Texas, and lived at home until he was twenty-four years of age. In that time he shared a generous portion of the arduous toil of farm existence, and in the meantime attended the country scheols, which gave him the foundation of his education. At the age of twentytwo he also took a short course in a private school at Gainesville, Texas. Mr. Coursey studied law under the preceptorship of Judge H. S. Holman of Gainesville, and was admitted to the Texas Bar April 30, 1901. From Texas he came across Red River and at once located in Wagoner, Indian Territory, where he began practice in partnership with J. D. Cox, who is now the countyjudge of Cherokee County. He and his partner established a branch law office at Claremore, with Mr. Coursey in charge. He remained there from August, 1902, until February, 1903, and then returning to Wagoner dissolved the partnership with Judge Cox, and became one of the owners and editors of the Wagoner Sayings, a daily and weekly newspaper. Mr. Coursey had two years of active experience as a newspaper man and at the same time looked after the interests of his clients in the law. After selling the newspaper, he opened a law office at Tahlequah in the fall of 1904 and has since built up a large and important practice in that city.
Though it has been mentioned that Mr. Coursey has been inclined to leave politics alone, in the line of his profession a distinction came to him nt the time of statehood in his election as the first county attorney of Cherokee County. He held that office with credit to himself and to the countyfor three years. In politics he is a democrat, is a thirty-second desTee Scottish Rite Manson, and is a member of the Christian Church. In 1902 he married Miss Maude M. Cox, daughter of J. D. Cox, his former partner in the practice of law. They have one child, Eglah M., now twelve years of age.
[Source: A Standard History of Oklahoma Volume 4 By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn - Submitted by A Friend of Free Genealogy]
THOMAS W. SHACKLE
A native son of the West and exemplifying in his personal career its typical progressiveness, Thomas Weir Shackle has been identified with the drug business from the time of his youth and is today one of the leading exponents of this line of enterprise in the City of Tulsa, where he has maintained his residence for nearly a quarter of a century and where he now owns and conducts a finely equipped retail drug establishment of essentially metropolitan order, its substantial trade being founded on effective and careful service and on the unqualified personal popularity of the proprietor, who is with all of consistency to be designated as one of the sterling pioneer business men of the vigorous young commonwealth of Oklahoma.
Mr. Shackle was born at Aledo, Mercer County, Illinois, on the 6th of April, 1869, and is a son of Dr. Peter F. and Elizabeth M. (Weir) Shackle, the former of whom was born in the City of Toledo, Ohio, and the latter in Henry County, Illinois. Doctor Shackle, who has attained to the venerable age of eighty years, is now living virtually retired at Columbus, the judicial center of Cherokee County, Kansas, being one of the honored pioneer physicians and surgeons of that state, as is he also of the State of Iowa. His devoted wife, who endured with him the vicissitudes of pioneer life, died at the age of sixty-seven years. They became the parents of two sons and three daughters, and three of the number are yet living, Thomas W., of this review, having been the third in order of birth.
Dr. Peter F. Shackle has long been known and honored as a physician and surgeon of high attainments and as one who has labored with all of zeal and unselfishness in the alleviating of human suffering and distress. He was graduated in the Philadelphia Medical College and as a young man he established his residence in the little frontier village of Morning Sun, Iowa, where he engaged in the practice of his profession-and also established and maintained a drug store, his having been the prestige of being the pioneer physician and druggist of that section of the Hawkeye State. In the late '80s he removed with his family to Columbus, Kansas, and became there also a pioneer in his profession as well as in the conducting of a drug business. He has been one of the influential citizens of Columbus during the long intervening years, and has been retired from active practice since 1905, and is one of the best known and most revered pioneer citizens of Cherokee County, his political support having been given to the democratic party since his young manhood and both he and his wife having
been active in church work until his loved companion and helpmeet was summoned to the life eternal.
Thomas W. Shackle was a child at the time of the family removal to Columbus, Kansas, where he was reared to adult age and was afforded the advantages of the public schools. When but twelve years of age he began to assist in the compounding of medicines in his father's drug store, and his services gradually touched all departments of the business, in which he gained accurate and comprehensive knowledge of materia medica and all other details of the drug business under the effective direction of his father. He continued to be associated with his father in business until he had attained to his legal majority, and in the meanwhile had passed the required examination and become a licensed and registered pharmacist in Kansas, the same status having later been given him in Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory, even as he is one of the pioneer registered pharmacists of the State of Oklahoma.
Mr. Shackle continued his residence in the Sunflower State until 1891, when, within a short period after the organization of Oklahoma Territory, he came to Tulsa, where he arrived on the 4th of April of that year. Here he was employed as prescription pharmacist in the drug store of John M. Morrow until the 1st of January, 1897, when he engaged in the drug business in an independent way, his success in this field of enterprise having been on a parity with his recognized ability in a technical way and as an honorable and steadfast business man. The civic loyalty and progressiveness of Mr. Shackle were significantly shown in 1907, the year that marked the admission of Oklahoma to statehood, since in that year he erected, at 113 South Main Street, The Shackle Building, to which he removed his drug business. Later he sold this building, and in 1913 he erected at 922 South Main Street his present business block, which is of concrete block construction and one of the attractive modern structures of Tulsa. Here he has his finely appointed drug store, which caters to a significantly large, representative and appreciative patronage. Mr. Shackle is a prominent and honored member of the Tulsa Druggists' Association and actively identified also with the Oklahoma State Pharmaceutical Association, in the affairs of which he has been prominent and influential.
Mr. Shackle has at all times given his co-operation in the furtherance of measures and enterprises projected for the general good of the community and is essentially liberal and public-spirited as a citizen. He has manifested no predilection for political office but accords a staunch allegiance to the democratic party in all that concerns general governmental and state affairs. In the time-honored Masonic fraternity he has received the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, in which he maintains affiliation with Indian Consistory, in the City of McAlester. His basic affiliation is with Delta Lodge, No. 425, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons, at Tulsa, where also he is a loyal and valued member of Akdar Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and Tulsa Lodge, No. 946, Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks, besides being identified with the local organizations of the Knights of Pythias and the Ancient Order of United Workmen.
In 1905 Mr. Shackle wedded Miss Rosa May Dowell, who was born and reared in Kansas and whose death occurred at her home in Tulsa in the year 1908, she being survived by one son, Clarence Weir Shackle. In 1912 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Shackle to Miss Henrietta Hardin, a native of Meade County, Kentucky, and she is the popular chatelaine of the attractive family home in Tulsa, no children having been born of this marriage. ["A standard history of Oklahoma", Volume 3, 1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn - Transcribed by Cathy Ritter]
