Sapulpa Showcase (February 2019)

Artifact of the Month

Distinguished as the first Osage woman to receive a Master's Degree, Theresa Bell Trumbly Keefer was born this month in 1914. Born in Osage County, Theresa would graduate from an Independence, Kansas high school and junior college. She began teaching in 1934. She earned her Bachelor's of Arts Degree at Northeastern Teachers College in Tahlequah. She later earned her Master's from Oklahoma A&M (today Oklahoma State University) in Stillwater. Theresa moved to Sapulpa in 1942, and worked for the Department of Public Welfare; later teaching in the Sapulpa Public School at the end of WWII. She kept teaching until retiring in 1977. Information taken from her obituary.