My Contribution To My Personal Tulsa History

Both sides of my family have contributed to my personal Tulsa history. Whether it is my mother's parents growing up just outside the military base in Midwest City, a small town just outside of Oklahoma City, or my father’s parents growing up in small farm towns in Oklahoma before moving to Tulsa to raise my father, Oklahoma is in my DNA. My mother’s parents met in high school in Midwest City and ended up going to the University of Oklahoma together for college. After this, my grandfather joined the Marines and had to leave Oklahoma to travel all around the world, but his love for Oklahoma football and his passion for his hometown of Midwest City always forced him to remember his home. Even after settling down in Kansas City to raise my
mother, my grandparents passion for Oklahoma rubbed off on her and she ended up attending the University of Oklahoma and eventually settling in Tulsa. On my father’s side, my grandmother was raised in a small town called Coyle, Oklahoma. Coyle has a population of 361 people building the down to earth woman who was connected with the state she was born in. Her entire life she lived in Oklahoma where she met my grandfather in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. Wanting my father to grow up in an established city with a good infrastructure for schools, etc. my grandparents chose to move to Tulsa. Ever since that decision, they have stayed in the city. My parents met in college at the University of Oklahoma and then moved to Houston together for work after college. For a few years they lived there until my mom got pregnant with me. Realizing that she was going to have to raise a family now, my parents picked up and moved back to Oklahoma, settling in Tulsa. They thought Tulsa was a perfect place to raise a family: a small city with good schools and low cost of living for a young family. My entire life I have been a Tulsan, it was a part of my family history who then transferred that identity onto me.