First Indian to win Miss Oklahoma dies
Published: September 19, 2009
The first American Indian to win the Miss Oklahoma title died Sept. 10, two weeks before her 91st birthday.
Ada Martyne Caudell, whose maiden name was Woods, won the Miss Oklahoma pageant in 1940 when she was a fine arts student at Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University). Caudell went on to place sixth in the Miss America pageant that year and appeared in the March 1941 issue of National Geographic magazine. Caudell was one-quarter Choctaw and became the first Choctaw woman to attain a degree in nursing, according to information provided by the Bishinik, the Choctaw Nation newsletter. She studied nursing at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and became a registered nurse. "She was a great person — very calm, cool, collected. Very modest,” said Norma Austin, director of the community health representative program for the Choctaw Nation. She was close friends and worked with Caudell for more than 25 years. Caudell was buried Tuesday in Tuskahoma near her mother, Geraldine Nelson, and her husband, Harry Caudell. Caudell was devoted to her Catholicism and her Choctaw roots. Austin said her friend loved to visit the Choctaw Nation’s Museum in Tuskahoma where her buckskins have been on display. "She would make trips almost weekly to the museum and buy little artifacts and things like that. She loved to go over and visit with them,” Austin said. Caudell also loved to play the organ and read. Caudell had suffered for years from cancer. On one side, her tombstone is engraved with the Choctaw Nation seal and on the other with "Miss Oklahoma 1940.” CONTRIBUTING: News Researchers Billie Harry, Linda Lynn and Kristen Keyser
Related Topics:
Health and Fitness, Medicine, Medical Specializations, Entertainment, Nursing, Beauty Pageants
Prev
