Rogers was a Cherokee citizen born in 1879 in the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory, in what is now the state of Oklahoma. His father was a hard-working, prosperous ranch owner who had fought as a Confederate officer in the Civil War and was himself an owner of slaves. Both his parents, Clem and Mary, had Cherokee blood.
Of all the Indian tribes, the Cherokees were the most successful at adapting to the White American culture. They adopted American names. They became farmers and ranchers. They believed in education. In their nation they adopted American political structures and even wrote their own constitution. Rogers took great pride in his Indian heritage although he rarely referred to it in his professional life.
Will was riding horses when he was 3 and his father hired a man to lift him on and off the saddles. Like his father, Will did not find schools to his liking and only attended for a short time. While his father was a gruff, humorless, but savvy business man, his mother was well educated, witty and charming. It was from mother Mary that Will Rogers inherited his charismatic talent to become a national, iconic, celebrity. He delivered Mark Twain-like monologues. He acted in movies (silent and talkies). He wrote newspaper columns (the editor of the New York Times instructed those working on Roger's copy to change nothing in his spelling, sentence construction, or punctuation). He performed lariat rope routines in the Ziegfeld Follies.
In 1935 Rogers was filing copy on a ten-day flying tour of Alaska with his pilot friend, Wiley Post, when their plane went down near Point Barrow, Alaska. Both men died in the crash. America went into a shocked state of national mourning for the beloved cowboy humorist and schools all over America adopted his name.
Let's give the last word to Will:
Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.
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