Weyodee “Wer-Yoh-Ti” Parker Tahmahkera (1880-1965)

Weyodee “Wer-Yoh-Ti” Parker Tahmahkera

Birth

1880

Cache, Comanche County, Oklahoma, USA

Death

27 Jul 1965 (aged 84–85)

Lawton, Comanche County, Oklahoma, USA

Burial

Cache Kiowa Comanche Apache Intertribal Cemetery

Comanche County, Oklahoma, USA Show Map

Memorial ID

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The Lawton Constitution
Tuesday, July 27, 1965
Page 1

Quanah Parker Daughter Dies

Mrs. Werahre (Weyote) Parker Tahmahkera, 85, oldest surviving child of Comanche Chief Quanah Parker, died at 12:07 a.m. today in the Lawton USPHS Indian Hospital.

A resident of Rt. 2, Indiahoma, she had been ill five months. She was born in Indian Territory near the present town of Cache. She was reared in Quanah Parker's Star House, which was located on his lands between Cache and the Wichita Mountains.

She was born in 1880.

Prayer services will be held at 7:30 p.m. today at Becker Funeral Home Chapel, Lawton, and will be conducted by Rev. Robert Chaat, of the Comanche Reformed Church.

Services will be held at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Comanche Reformed Church, north of Lawton, of which she was a charter member, Rev. Chaat will be in charge.

Survivors include one daughter, Mrs. Sophia Mahsetky, Apache; three sons, Ben and Lewis Tahmahkera, both of Indiahoma, and Vance T. Tahmahkera, Fort Worth.

She is also survived by one brother, Tom Parker, Apache, last surviving son of the chief, and three sisters, Mrs. Alice Purdy, 414 Ferris, Lawton; Mrs. Wanada Page, Lawton, and Mrs. Neda Birdsong, Cache.

She is survived by 20 grandchildren, 68 great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren.

She was a daughter of Quanah's wife Weckeah (Hunting For Something).

Historians list eight wives of the chief. The family considers Weckeah as the first wife.

In 1884, four years after Mrs. Tahmahkera's birth, Quanah's 12-room mansion, the Star House with a roof bedecked with stars, was completed on the Parker Ranch 14 miles due west of Fort Sill.

Her father, Quanah, was the son of a Comanche warrior and the white captive, Cynthia Ann Parker.

Cynthia was captured in Texas when she was 9 years old, in 1936. She lived as a Comanche, and was recaptured Dec. 18, 1860, by Texas Rangers. She returned to the Texas settlements, where she later died.

Quanah became a chief, fought the whites at the Battle of Adobe Walls and elsewhere, and finally led his band of 100 warriors, 200 non-combatants and 1,400 ponies to Fort Sill and to reservation life June 2, 1875.

He became a cattle baron and a leader of his tribe during the reservation days.

Before his death, he had the remains of his mother returned to Indian country and reburied at Post Oak Mission Cemetery between Cache and Indiahoma, in 1910.

Quanah died Feb. 23, 1911. A granite shaft later was placed above his grave with the inscription:

"Resting here until day breaks and shadows fall is Quanah Parker, last chief of the Comanches, born 1852, died Feb. 23, 1911."

The cemetery and Star House were removed in the Fort Sill range expansion of the 1950s. Reburial of the remains of Quanah and Cynthia Ann was at Fort Sill, in August of 1957.

Other survivors attended, but Quanah's last surviving wife, Topay, and Mrs. Tahmahkera declined. A military escort went after them, but they did not come to the post.

Topay died Nov. 10 (19?), 1963.

Another child of Quanah, Baldwin Parker, died Oct. 6, 1963."

Obit provided by Lisa.