THE OKLAHOMA GIANT Grave!

hey everyone today I'm in WA comas Oklahoma and we are in the WA coma Cemetery and there is a person here that is big and I mean really big let me show you who I'm talking about so this is just a small town this is the high-school baseball stadium and field over here in school you can see a wheat field right there we're not too far away from Enid Oklahoma so you're gonna hear some fighter jets flying over overhead really a nice Cemetery a lot of nice upright markers a lot of them with a lot of money spent on them but who we're looking for is right over here this is the Wilkins family and this is kind of a person that you probably don't know about but should so we are at the back of the cemetery in the Wilkins plot and there are quite a few people of the Wilkins family here you have Norah V 1871 to 1956 and then Frank L Jr 1898 to 1962 he does have sort of this marker here which I can this little a constructed pullout of bolts and some spare metal and that is for a veterans flag so he must have been some sort of veteran and I say that because of this one right here this Festa si Barker there's one right here and there's a post Grand Army of the Republic right there and it does say father right here this is a large monument right here and then like I said there's Frank L jr. right there there's also Frank L senior right here 1868 to 1926 now loosen 1838 to 1920 does have the Grand Army of the Republic metal medallion symbol right there along with this veterans flag marker unfortunately I don't have any flags it's just right after Memorial Day weekend and I have passed out all the flags that I had and I tried to go find more and they're sold out this is a mother Bernice Wilkins barker 1881 to 1963 and it says mother right there right in front is Matilda 1843 to 1933 you said you can probably hear jets flying over not too far away from Enid Air Force Base so quite a bit of activity so here we have Edwin H Wilkins 1885 to 1955 and right here is the man that we came to see Lewis w Wilkins 1869 to 1902 he was known as the Oklahoma giant and there is a story behind him that will tell here Lewis Wilkins was born in st. Paul Minnesota mr. and mrs. ml Wilkins had six children and they all seem normal at first except for one son which was Lewis he never seemed to stop growing in fact he grew so much that he became known as the Oklahoma giant the Wilkins family began in Butler County Kansas shortly after the Civil War when the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma opened for settlement in 1893 the Wilkins family moved to a farm near Wu comas at 10 years old Lewis was tall and gangling and by the time he was 12 he stood more than six feet tall even though he was tall he was still very much active and good at wrestling newspapers of the time reported that he reached the height of 8 foot 2 inches they also stated that he weighed 365 pounds he also had a 58 inch waist size 24 shoe and a size 16 glove and wore an eight and a half hat size it was also said that he could pass a half-dollar through his finger ring luis traveled the world as an entertainment attraction billed as the tallest man in the world the guinness book of world records includes wilkins in its list of giants but they have his height as seven foot four and a half inches rather than the 8 foot 2 inches according to the guinness book of world records the same time that the papers were touting Louis as the tallest man in the world there was another man that was taller living at the exact same time his name was John William Rogan of Gallatin Tennessee and he was 8 foot 6 inches tall but people who ran into Lewis were never questioning his true height instead they just stared in awe of him being so large as Lewis grew older he began having vision problems in March of 1902 he returned from Europe complaining of his difficulty of sight in April he and his brothers James and Edward took a trip in which he contracted malaria this seemed to aggravate his sight problems even more he went to some doctors in Enid Oklahoma to see what they could tell him about his problem following the examination by the doctors they revealed a tumor that was as large as a goose egg at the base of his brain and it was pushing on his optic nerves the doctor suggested that he go to Chicago where the specialists at the Presbyterian Hospital might be able to operate and remove the tumor so Lewis made his way to Chicago he was accompanied by his brother Frank once there at the hospital the doctor said such an operation was far too dangerous and it might kill him a few weeks later he died anyway on July 11th 1902 at the Chicago hospital the father and another brother Fred went to Chicago to bring Lewis back home to woe comas on July 16 1902 a crowd estimated at 2,000 people gathered in the yard outside of the Wilkins home for one last look at the Oklahoma Giant in his huge casket the casket was placed in the front room of the quiet farmhouse surrounded by family there were 12 pallbearers who were all friends of Lewis they carried him approximately fifty feet to an oversized temporary grave there the casket was open and it took the large crowd an hour to file past the family wanted to keep the grave near because they feared grave robbers would take the body you see they had been offered $25,000 for Lewis but his mother refused the Enid daily waved newspaper reported that Lewis left three $5,000 life insurance policies as well as $25,000 in personal property to his mother the publication the Enid daily eagle reported the grave 10 foot long by 6 feet wide while the Enid daily wave newspaper said it was 11 feet long by 5 foot wide either way it was a massive sized grave at the time the family stated that they would build a vault for the body of the tallest man on earth but that never happened he was later moved to the family plot next to his brothers and sisters his Cemal marker tells nothing about who he was just a simple marker for a giant man now mr. Wilkins was a big character but he is not the only big person in this cemetery there are a lot of veterans in this cemetery war one world war two and all sorts of conflicts this just happens to be one year Jhansi Hill United States Army World War two born in 1912 and died in 1990 but as you walk throughout this cemetery there are a lot of nice markers and a lot of veterans but I want to show you one in particular that's here so this is one of the entrances into the cemetery they just kind of have these straight shots in here or several of them I think four or so and I parked down this one just because of the trees that were here I thought they were pretty neat that they were on both sides and I wanted to shade although there is a nice cool breeze out here so that feels good but just by where I parked I happen to find the Medal of Honor recipient this is in memory of Leon Robert Vance Jr Medal of Honor lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Air for in World War two August 11th 1916 to July 26 1944 there's one of those sort of homemade constructed flag holders right there as you look through the cemetery you can see quite a bit of them there's even one right here one right over there pretty neat that they have that I haven't seen any flags in them though flags that I have seen or just kind of beside the markers on the ground can hear the jet flying over but this is the front part of the vance family and this is Leon are but if you'll notice the dates are different February 11th 1892 to July 5th 1944 so clearly that's the father right here but what's sad about it is July 5th 1944 is right before Leon died on July 26 1944 this would have been his mother right here Nell Dee March 1st 1898 - July 21st 1967 Leon Robert Vance Jr was a world war 2 Congressional Medal of Honor recipient he was born in Enid Oklahoma and served as a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Air Corps in the 400 89th bomber group On June 5th 1944 he led a heavy bombardment group in an attack against a defended enemy coastal position in the vicinity of Weimar Oh France approaching the target his aircraft was hit repeatedly by an anti-aircraft fire which crippled the ship killed the pilot and wounded himself in spite of this injury he led at formation over the target bombing it successfully gradually losing altitude on the return from the English coast he ordered the crew to bail out knowing that they would all safely make it to land he received a message over the inner phone one of the crew members was unable to jump due to his injury so he made the decision to ditch the ship in the channel and save his life as a plane crashed in the water an explosion occurred which threw him clear of the wreckage inflating his life vest he began searching for the crew member whom he believed was still on board filling to find anyone he began swimming and was found later by air sea and rescue craft due to his flying skills in leadership he completed a successful bombing run and was returned to his crew to a point they could all Bill out to safety a month later while being evacuated to the United States the aircraft on which he was a passenger went down somewhere between Iceland and Newfoundland no trace of it was ever found his citation was issued on January 4th 1945 I thought this one was pretty interesting right here says Rhodes and there's actually a car on the back of it it says our children Vicky and Robert certainly been visited here for Memorial Day with all the patriotic stuff on it flags and flowers this is Bobby ye Rhodes may 23rd 1928 to October 13 2017 and right beside it I thought this was interesting someone's been out here to visit this as well and there is a fishing pole there so someone liked fishing Oh maybe both of them did I'm not sure right in front of it this is actually a fungus I'm not sure what you call these they kind of grow up in a ball and then they split like that so if someone knows just leave a comment below you can see them over here here's one over here that has split they're kind of funky looking they almost look like a ostrich egg or a dinosaur egg or something like that there's one right over here some people even think they might look like a school or something in the cemetery but this is r.j. Donaldson US Army World War two March 22nd 1922 to March 12th 2004 but who we came to see is right over here and I just happened to notice it wasn't really looking boring I did know he was here but this is a US congressman the last name is camp his marker is right here John in camp yeah the nickname happy that his father had given him may eleventh 1908 to September 27th 1987 you can see the corner marker see for camp and you can see that seal right there where it says a member of Congress and there's a lot of other camp family members here one of them John our camp was a Mason it's pretty interesting right over here there is a veteran from the US Navy Roy Gilbert Rainey April 14th 1932 November 19 2013 this is a little bench here that's pretty neat and Patricia camp Pat Rainey married April 29 1955 but you can see this picture of an old car there and they're sitting inside of it and it has their children's name that is quite the monument here for the camp family certainly not a cheap one to have constructed here and see you live plants there oh you over here young Jung Lee camp and John Gregory you can see they're riding on a motorcycle there and they even have their pet dog on the back of it 1964 to 2018 don't know if there's anything on the back side of this or not now it just says camp right there on the back but pretty interesting US Congressman John in camp was born in Enid and died in Enid Oklahoma he was known for his pleasant personality and his father nicknamed him happy he was educated at Phillips University and engaged in banking and was president of the Hwa coma State Bank he was a member of the state of Oklahoma Legislature from 1942 to 1962 and chairman of the Oklahoma State Board of Public Affairs from nineteen 67 to 1968 in 1969 he was elected as a Republican to the 91st Congress and to the next to succeeding Congress's he served until 1975 he died from a heart attack at age 79 so that's going to do it for today's visit at the WA coma cemetery hope you learned a little bit of something about history and also a veteran that is very honorable and certainly a hero of mine anyways thanks for watching we'll see you guys next time you

Channel: Rhetty for History

Views: 50,503

Keywords: Exploring, Adventure, cemetery, Oklahoma, history, Waukomis, Enid, The Oklahoma Giant, The Tallest Man On Earth, Lewis Wilkins, Forgotten Oklahoma, Famous, Vance Air Force Base, Leon Vance Jr, Medal of Honor Recipient, Congressman, John Newbold Camp, Small Town, Back Roads, showman, stories, larger than life, carnival show, carnival man, Oklahoma Cemeteries, Cemetery Explore, grave exploration, cemetery tour, Lewis Wilkins Grave, Famous Grave, Grave Explorations, Rhetty for History, OK

Id: 4fvNSPl3lWo

Length: 16min 54sec (1014 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 05 2020