Aren’t the potted flowers downtown pretty! Thanks to the Pride Committee for making it happen. The flowers are not only colorful, but they convey a message that ‘we care’ to the residents and to the visitors.
Don’t you believe that Tonkawa’s history is captivating because of the heritage of the Indian Tribes, the settling of the land by the pioneers, the development of the Three Sands Oil Field, the beginning of the University Preparatory School, now Northern Oklahoma College and the World War II German Prisoner of War Camp.
There are many human interest stories from the POW Camp. A few years ago I had a call from a florist in Ponca City who had received an order for a wreath to be placed at the grave site of Johannes Kunze, the German prisoner who was accused of treason by his comrades and then savagely beaten to death by his fellow prisoners. I informed the florist that he was no longer buried at the former Tonkawa Camp because his body had been exhumed and now buried at Ft. Reno and perhaps the order could be transferred to a shop in El Reno. Hopefully, this happened. I was told the order came from Denmark and was signed, “We Love You, Your Family.”
The late Wilma Parnell, who worked at Camp Tonkawa,wrote a book titled “The Killing of Corporal Kunze” and another book, “Extreme Justice” by Vincent Green, both detail the drama of the incident of the murder of Johannes Kunze.
Recalling a story that Jimmy Schatz related in 2001, will give you a chuckle.
The Schatz family lived in a 2-story house (now gone) across the road east of the POW Camp. Jimmy’s older brother, DeOrval, was an Air Force pilot. He had sent a box home and in it was a military flashlight. One night after the family had gone to bed, Jimmy played with the flashlight, flashing it off and on toward the window. Military jeeps and trucks began to surround the house and personnel broke the front door down. Guards seeing the flash of light from the house believed a prisoner had escaped and was sending messages. Jimmy proudly showed the military officers his new flashlight and admitted he was playing with it.
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