Janna  "Doc"  Rogers

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Can a neglected rural cemetery become a place for healing, celebration, and cultural renewal? Yes. I believe it can. ​Bennett Beautification has been my childhood dream. I love this cemetery and those resting here. Preserving this pre-statehood cemetery is a way of connecting the past to the future. This conservation project is my gift to those who came before us. 

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Bennett Cemetery is rich with families associated with American Indian, local, state, and U.S. histories. Historic names at Bennett include Kerr, Hattfield, McCoy, and relatives of Belle Starr (Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed). Many older family names are rooted in social uplift including Rogers, Dorris, Crittenden, Smithson and many others. Dr. Jack Clark  (J.C.) and Margaret Rogers are still remembered for the Rogers Medical Center and Countryside Estates retirement community.

 

Charles Leo Smithson (1935 - 2024) his wife Barbara are icons of the community. Leo Smithson was Chair of the Warner Memorial Cemetery Association and oversaw the activity and care of Bennett since the 1990s. Mr. Smithson served as liaison for the Cherokee Nation and the community nutrition center that serves up to 50 residents a day. Most of those served are elders. Hot meals are possible through a 2020 grant from the Cherokee Tribal Council. Barbara Smithson is a retired educator who remains actively involved in the community. 

 

Former County Commissioner, Bruce Crittenden and his wife Marilyn (1941 - 2025) have longstanding generational roots in the community. Bruce Crittenden is a descendent of Mose Crittenden (Cherokee Nation.) Marilyn Crittenden is a direct descendant of  Governor William Bradford who emigrated to Plymouth Colony on the Mayflower in 1620. Bradford is a signatory of the Mayflower Compact along with my ancestor Thomas Rogers. 

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Bennett Cemetery Preservation Project inspires cross-cultural understanding and respect for a rich and diverse history. During the pandemic of 2019 I decided to make a life-long dream come true. On June 5, 2020 I told father I have always wanted to make Bennett Cemetery a beautiful memory park where people come when they need to connect to the past and traditions of veneration. Please, come visit. Bring your family, share stories, and enjoy the memories of those who rest at Bennett and other memory parks.

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​​Janna "Doc" Rogers

Bennett Beautification Founder and Benefactor

Founder of ONAN Cross-Cultural Forums

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COMMUNITY HISTORY

 

Bennett is the resting place for relatives of Chief John Ross, Joseph and Missouri Ann Rogers, and many others Indigenous families. This cemetery is directly linked to the history of forced removals of Indigenous peoples and slaveholding in pre-statehood Oklahoma. Pre-statehood Muskogee and McIntosh counties were Cherokee and Muscogee slave country. The underpinnings of southern society continue to reverberate throughout Oklahoma and the state's history. 

 

 

We are the peoples I have coined as the Oklahoma Trinity: multi-ethnic descendants of forced removals and slavery in a history steeped in Protestantism.

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As a southern plantation economy, pre-statehood Oklahoma grew from many ethnic groups. Today's multi-cultural and multi-ethnic families from the pre-statehood community of Bennett are blended ethnicities of Indigenous, Caucasian, and African American families.

 

Federal promises of exemption from forced removals for Native peoples in the southeastern United States required assimilation into white society, Christianization, and adoption of chattel slavery. Yet, forced removal of the Five Southeastern Nations and persons they enslaved was carried out. This history of ethnic cleansing brought the southern plantation economy, southern politics, and racialized attitudes of the South to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) in the 1830s. 

 

Pre-statehood Oklahoma was included in battles of the Trans-Mississippi Theater. Bennett Cemetery is directly linked to this history through the Union, Confederate, and Native American factions of the American Civil War. Some Civil War battles in Indian Territory were fought by families connected to the Bennett area. These family names can still be found etched in local headstones.

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PHILANTHROPY

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Bennett Beautification is a didactic philanthropic project.

The project has been solely funded by Janna LM Rogers as the sole benefactor. Preservation upgrades, have included planning and design, collaboration with monument companies, historical societies and archives, negotiating contractor bids, overseeing contractors, communicating with cemetery board members, and networking with volunteers. ​Historical research is a central component that anchors this cemetery preservation project to primary sources. Extensive travel, communicating with archives, libraries, and endless city, county, and state agencies makes this project a success.  

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2020 Upgrades

 

Upgrades to the cemetery include 8 plots, 2 north entry black metal fences, and a new 4-tier Bennett Cemetery sign made of 5000 pounds of American black granite. The new Bennett sign includes laser etching of the community's historical background.  

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2021-2022 Upgrades

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Phase-one Construction of Bennett Cottage quickly became a community gathering place to reflect, forgive, heal, share old memories, make new ones, hold services, and even enjoy picnics. Please come by and make it your special meeting place. Bennett Cottage is an open-air building made of simple red brick with 12 columns and 12 column caps. The columns as suitable for plants or decorations during memorial services or family gatherings. 8 wall caps function well for seating with a full few of the landscape.

 

Installation of Bennett Angel, a large statute featured inside Bennett Cottage, welcomes all faiths. 

 

Near the cottage is an antique church bell donated by Susie Crittenden-Chambers and her husband Jack Wade Chambers (1961 - 2023).

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CEMETERY ASSOCIATION 

 

The Warner-Bennett Memorial Cemetery Association installed a black chain link fence across the east end of Bennett cemetery during June 2022. Funding for this fence came from the Cemetery Association, 1 private donor, 3 volunteers, and donations from Deb Hart and Janna LM Rogers. Deb Hart  is a retired educator in Charleston Tennessee and does not have family resting at Bennett but respects the passion for preserving the cemetery for future generations. Hart served as president of the Charleston Cumberland Presbyterian Church Historical Society. The Charleston Cumberland church was used as a hospital in 1863 during the American Civil War and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

 

*Charleston Tennessee was originally Fort Cass. Fort Cass was the headquarters for Cherokee removal. The Fort included concentration camps near Mouse Creek that held Cherokees and their enslaved. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was enforced by militia and the U.S. military. Many of the families who rest at Bennett Cemetery are descendants of those who survived forced removal from the southeastern United States.  ​​

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