Carolyn Thomas Foreman
Carolyn Thomas Foreman
“They became an inseparable husband-wife team…devoted their time to serious research and writing…they were a team in mining source data…their threads of interest on matters historical were so interwoven, so tightly knit, it is impossible to separate one from the other.”
Biography
Carolyn Thomas Foreman was born in Illinois and educated in Illinois, Washington, D.C. and Europe. She moved with her family to Muskogee in 1897 when her father, Robert Thomas, was appointed as one of the first judges in Indian Territory. With her father, Carolyn became deeply interested in Native American culture and her interests led to a life-long study of the heritage of the region and its people. Into her father’s home came tribal chiefs, governors, agents of the federal government and, in 1903, a junior law partner, Grant Foreman, whom she married in 1905. The couple combined their talents in gleaning history from documents, missionary reports and diaries into a wide range of historical articles and numerous books, spanning a writing career of more than 35 years. Mrs. Foreman was the author of six books including Oklahoma Imprints (1936) and Indians Abroad (1943) and contributed to a vast number of writings for the Chronicles of Oklahoma. She was also an art lover and was the first to recognize the genuine talent of such famous Oklahoma artists as Acee Blue Eagle and Willard Stone.
Fun fact
Carolyn and Grant Foreman were enthusiastic supporters of the early work of the American Red Cross. At the outbreak of World War I, the pair traveled to Washington, D.C. at their own expense and became actively involved supervisors for the entire Muskogee chapter of the Red Cross.
Oklahoma connections
Foreman came with her family to Muskogee, Oklahoma when her father was appointed federal judge at large for Indian Territory in 1897.