Impson Mataha Thomas
Impson Mataha Thomas was born on 20 June 1899 near Corinne, in what was then the Choctaw Nation of Indian Territory and became Pushmataha County, Oklahoma, in 1907. His parents were Josiah Thomas and Elbina Narlett, both full-blood Choctaw and both born in the Nation. His mother swore to his birth before a notary at Doaksville that October, and his father, who had attended her, swore to it too. He was enrolled by the Dawes Commission as a full-blood Choctaw on 19 December 1899, roll number 3199, and an allotment of land was applied for in his name between 1899 and 1907, as it was for every enrolled member of the tribe when the Nation's common land was divided among its citizens.
He registered for the draft in 1917 or 1918 in the Pushmataha district, aged about nineteen, and the card names his father Josiah. On 13 January 1919 he married Isabelle Frazier at Antlers; the licence gives his age as 19 and his father as Josiah Thomas. The marriage left no trace after that. In January 1920 he was single again and back in his father's house in Pushmataha County, 20 years old, the eldest of eight children at home with Josiah, 50, and Elbina, 40.
About 1926 he married Lizzie Mae Wilson, a Choctaw girl from Doaksville eight years younger than himself. They had ten children between 1927 and about 1948: Hazel Cora, Ruby Lizzie, Wrightsman Welch, Jimmy Ray, Gerald Don, McNew Islam, Lester Berry, Impson Jr., Clarence and A. J. He farmed at Kiamichi. When he registered again for the Second World War draft, on 16 February 1942 at Corinne, the registrar wrote him down as 5 feet 6 and a quarter, 144 pounds, black eyes, black hair, dark complexion, Native American, no occupation, and named Lizzie as the person who would always know where he was. On 13 April 1950 he was at Kiamichi, a farmer, 50, written as Dempsey M. Thomas, with Lizzie and six sons.
He died in 1959. He is buried at Corinne Cemetery under a wooden cross lettered I. THOMAS, beside the 1918 stone of Candace Wilson, his wife's sister. Lizzie outlived him by forty-nine years.
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Cite: Heirology, "Impson Mataha Thomas (1899-1959)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/impson-mataha-thomas-1899-1959-a77214.