It’s a legend that has been told around the Fort Gibson area for close to 150 years, about the woman buried in Gravesite 2119 of the Fort Gibson National Cemetery.
This grave is located in the cemetery’s Officers Circle, an area reserved for those who have distinguished themselves in military service. The white headstone is engraved with only a cross, the name Vivia Thomas, and the date of her death, Jan. 7, 1870.
The story behind that gravestone is that of a young woman who came from Boston to Fort Gibson in pursuit of the army lieutenant who jilted her shortly before they were to marry, saying he wanted a life of adventure rather than being confined to the high society of Boston.
As a woman traveling alone would be a prime target for all manner of nefarious attention, Vivia Thomas disguised herself as a man to make the journey, and once in Oklahoma, enlisted as a soldier to keep an eye on the man who had humiliated her.
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The legend states that when Thomas learned her one-time fiancé was courting a young woman from the Cherokee Nation, she lay in wait and shot the lieutenant, killing him.
Thomas was never charged with the murder, but it was said that her guilty conscience made her visit his grave repeatedly — where one day she herself was found dead, most likely of pneumonia.
Beth Brannon has lived in Fort Gibson for most of her life but had never heard the story of Vivia Thomas until, as an English teacher at the town’s high school, she assigned her students to write an essay about some ghost story or legend associated with the town.
“I’m an old-school sort of person, and I thought they would approach their grandparents, or other people who have been around a while, for stories,” Brannon said, laughing. “But this was the early days of the internet, so all my kids went online, searched for ‘Fort Gibson legends,’ and found this story. I got all sorts of papers retelling Vivia Thomas’ story.
“It turned out that a lot of my relatives were aware of the story — I guess it kind of skipped my generation,” she said. “But once I heard it, it kind of stuck in my mind, because there were some aspects of the story that really bothered me.”
Brannon got the chance to deal with those troubling elements of the Vivia Thomas story when the school superintendent thought it would be a good idea for the high school’s Tiger Theater Company to present a show tied to the town’s bicentennial this year.
“Vivia” will debut this weekend, with performances April 18, 20 and 21, at the Fort Gibson High School auditorium, 500 S. Ross Ave.
Brannon wrote the show’s book and lyrics, with fellow Fort Gibson native Brad Henderson composing and arranging the music. Melanie Wicks is the show’s director.
Senior Emma Perdue will portray Vivia Thomas in the musical, with Addison Rause, the current Junior Miss Cherokee, as Tsula, the Cherokee woman who caught the eye of Vivia Thomas’ former fiancé.
Henderson, a Worship Associate at First Baptist Church in Tulsa, has worked as an arranger and conductor for such ensembles as the Signature Symphony at Tulsa Community College, Bartlesville Symphony, the Cherokee Nation Youth Choir, Up with People, jazz artist Grady Nichols and more.
Like Brannon, he was not aware of the Vivia Thomas legend until he was approached to work on the musical.
“I knew Beth from when we were in school together, and this seemed like a worthwhile project,” he said. “She had come up with the melodies for the songs, and sang them into her iPhone, and sent the files to me. I would transcribe what she sent, and then began to work out arrangements.
“There has been a lot of back-and-forth between us to get this into shape,” Henderson said, laughing. “We were changing things two days, because one of the songs as it stood really didn’t fit the mood of the scene it was in. But Beth has been a jewel to work with — she’s open to my ideas, but she’ll stand her ground if she feels strongly about something.”
Henderson said the score incorporates a number of musical styles, from jazz and pop to rock and swing, which will be performed by an ensemble that includes members of the Signature Symphony, along with well-known Tulsa artists Shelby Eicher on fiddle, Pat Savage on guitar and Dean Demeritt on bass.
As for how Brannon is telling the story of Thomas in the musical “Vivia,” she said it was how the legend concludes that always troubled her.
“The fact that archetypal story has her grieving herself to death over the man she killed never seemed right to me,” Brannon said. “Here’s a young woman who has to be incredibly brave and daring even to think of disguising herself as a man and traveling to what was then practically the edge of civilization, only to grieve herself to death over a man who had made her angry enough to kill.
“Someone once said to me, ‘I’ll bet that story was started by a man,’” Brannon said, laughing. “So we’re trying to tell this story as if Vivia herself had a voice, so that she can set the record straight.”