Music captures composer's admiration of settlers' spirit

By Rick Rogers
Fine Arts Editor

On May 11, 1953, Gov. Johnston Murray signed into law a bill that made Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma” the official state song. More than a half century later, Oklahoma still enjoys the distinction of being the only state whose official song was taken from a Broadway musical. But what of the 46 years that came before that momentous spring day in 1953?

The Sooner State did have an earlier state song, one titled "Oklahoma, A Toast.” Written by Harriet Parker Camden prior to statehood, "Oklahoma, a Toast” became the official state song March 26, 1935. More recently, another song celebrating the pioneer spirit of Oklahoma's earliest settlers came to light.

Titled simply "Oklahoma,” the song was composed by Harvey Hostetter, a Kansas native who settled in Oklahoma Territory in the years before statehood. Hostetter was teaching in one-room schoolhouses when he wrote the words and music for what would become an unofficial state song.

Hostetter's son Clyde, an Arizona resident who taught journalism at California Polytechnic State University until his retirement in 1983, said that his father composed the song in 1907, in celebration of Oklahoma becoming the 46th state. Newspaper accounts of the day indicate the song was widely performed.

"I've seen clippings that he saved from those days in which the song was sung all over Oklahoma,” Clyde Hostetter said. "Every summer, many of the state's teachers got together for a short course to improve their educational qualities. They probably became aware of the song at one of those sessions and then took it back to their schools. That was how the song got spread around.”

Clyde Hostetter said his father was recognized early on as an accomplished writer, evidence of which is apparent in the scores of poems he wrote throughout his lifetime. In one example titled "Adios?” the elder Hostetter reached the conclusion that at age 78, his working days were over.

"Where things are made in tempered shade / Of factory or shop / Employers say, in their nice way, / At fourscore you should stop. / So I suppose an old man goes / Out to his garden rows / And fights the weeds like evil deeds / Till Gabriel's trumpet blows.”

In another poem titled "My Funeral,” Hostetter ponders his final moments on earth: "When my old body is worn out / And cannot eat or chase about / Please put it back into the soil / From whence it came to live and toil. / With brief delay, put it away / But don't allow yourself to say, ‘That is the last of him!' / But read my rhymes at lonely times / With eyes that are not dim / And do believe as mortals can / There is no death to soul of man!”

Harvey Hostetter's musical training was less well documented, his son said.

"My father was one of those people who saved everything, so I have all sorts of newspaper clippings that offer a glimpse of what life was like in the years preceding and following statehood,” Clyde Hostetter said.

"Somewhere, he learned to play the violin, but he had no formal musical training. And since he only attended school through the fifth grade, he was obviously self-educated.”

While Hostetter wrote the words and music to "Oklahoma,” he received help from Oscar J. Lehrer to create a piano arrangement that could be performed. Lehrer, who collaborated with Hostetter on two other songs, went on to become director of bands at the University of Oklahoma from 1917-26.

Hostetter spent only 10 years in Oklahoma, leaving in 1912 for a job in the Philippines. For the next three years, he worked for the U.S. government expanding the then-new public education program in the Philippines.

Upon his return to the U.S., Hostetter returned to teaching, married and started a family.

"He got a job as missionary to Potawatomi Indians in Kansas, which included teaching agriculture,” Clyde Hostetter said.

"I was born on the reservation in 1925. Later, he was elected clerk of a district court in Kansas. And many years later, he took a job in a Kansas City lapidary. He was 94 years old when he died in 1978.”

Clyde Hostetter said he really didn't get to know his father until after his death. Only then did he discover his father's poems and sheet music in an old tin crackerbox.

The newspaper clippings and letters proved most informative because they filled in some gaps during his father's early years in Oklahoma.

"Here was a 20-year-old kid who came to Oklahoma wanting to be part of a brand-new state,” Clyde Hostetter said.

"I think he wrote the song ‘Oklahoma' because he identified with the whole pioneer spirit of people who were pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. He received letters — most written with pencil on tablet paper — from people who were very appreciative of what he had done.”