One of the hoariest of the cliches surrounding my profession is that writers should write about what they know. Thanks to my old Chelsea High School pal David Anderson, I’ve just been able to do that, and the resulting book, ED GALLOWAY’S TOTEM POLE PARK, is now available on Amazon.
As a kid growing up in Chelsea, Oklahoma, I visited the nearby Totem Pole Park several times, mostly with my family after church on Sunday. Mr. Galloway was still alive then, and I remember eating our picnic lunch on one of the concrete tables in the park and then going into the building where he had his hand-made fiddles on display and listening to him talk.
Of course, I had no way of knowing about the life he’d had before building, as a retiree, what we all referred to as the World’s Largest Totem Pole. That turned out to be one of the most fascinating things I got into while researching and writing this new book. Nathan Edward Galloway didn’t only build this enduring and unique tourist attraction; he also fought in one of the most overlooked wars in American history, and, later, became a longtime associate of the famous oilman and philanthropist Charles Page, who hired Mr. Galloway to teach manual arts to the orphaned and underprivileged kids at his Sand Springs Home.
I was also able to write about the sad years of the park, following Mr. Galloway’s death, before the family and a flurry of good folks began restoring it to its former glory. In fact, the very first story I ever wrote for the TULSA WORLD was about the Totem Pole and its then-current state of disrepair.
The curtain falls, time passes, and David Anderson and his wife, Patsy — another high school friend of mine — have returned to the area and become the Totem Pole Park directors, under the auspices of the Rogers County Historical Society. With tourists coming through every day from all over the world, detouring about four miles off Route 66 to take it all in, the Andersons thought it might be nice to have a book available to park visitors, and that’s where I came in.
At just over 82 pages, it’s no WAR AND PEACE, but it’s a wonderful story and I’m glad to be the one picked to tell it. It also sells for under 10 bucks. Check it out on Amazon or, better yet, drop by the park, a few miles east of the Mother Road on Oklahoma 28A, just outside of Foyil. And tell ‘em Wooley sent you.
