The Guardianship

A N G S and he sued his Guardian. I was curious about Myron because the Drummond brothers were his guardians, some of the white men the US government had put in charge of the finances of o s ages and other native Americans. In total, the three Drummond brothers were guardians to at least ten o s ages, children and adults in the United States. Sued them over how they handled my affairs. Yeah, they've never heard of him. Okay, all right, and handld spread the word. I need to

know who he is. Of course he used to Safetan gons for quite some time. I found the lawsuit in the National Archives. My Iron had commissioned a private audit on his accounts and sent what he learned to the government. He left behind a ton of documents with his lawyer other than Myron Byan's juniors records. There isn't a whole lot in the archives about the Drummond brothers guardianships. The official records are under seal in the O s age county courthouse. So this is one of the most complete

looks inside a guardianship that I've seen. When I've asked members of the Drummond family today about the three brothers, Fred Gettner, Cecil and Jack and whether any of knew anything about their guardianships, the either told me they didn't know the brothers were guardians or, if they did, they had always heard it was because their ancestors were trustworthy. There's a moment in the tapes with Jack Drummond and his biographer, Terry, where Jack brings up guardianships. It's in

the middle of an unrelated conversation. Actor Terry asked Jack about his relationship with his brothers. You seem too, as a boy, have been a friend with your sil then with them with Gantner. Is that so? Would that be true? Yes, Gattner, see gettner was always jealous macy from them news. To be safe, he's griping about his brother Fred ginner again. Remember, Jack was mad he didn't get that bonus after he

made a huge profit at the store. He was also mad his brother ended up with control of the store once their dad died. Jack Las All this out to Terry, all his frustrations with Fred Gettner. Then he says I wouldn't want this said. Are repeated and never bring out in in in anything. You right, but getting with a hipocrap. He was very selfish and he was the administrator of my fathers, the state, and somehow he ended up with the began thom. Of course, he said, that's him shared.

But then he dealt with the Indians. Of course he made a lot of money off the Indians and he was administrator of the states and he was he was guardian for several Indian to handle all our money and all the money never passed through getting Roman's hands. Some of it stuck to him, uh, stuck to hit hand, stuck to his hands. Jack seemed to say his brother Fred Getner had been up to something, and what I learned from Iron Banks Jr was that Jack Wasn't alone

in thinking so. One of Fred Getner's boards thought so too, and at one point so did the United States government. This isn't trust. I'm Rachel Adams hurt. Myron banks junior's lawsuit was filed in the nineteen forties, but to understand what led to it you have to know that the Drummond's involvement with his family starts way earlier, back when Myron was a baby. Not long after the nineteen of six a lotment. Myron was born just a little too

late to have a head right in his name. His mother, father and older brother got them, as well as land. But right after the Allotment Act Myron's father, Myron being senior, and his infant brother Percy both died. Myron's mom, Lucy, was left to raise him on her own. Frederick Drummond, the Scottish immigrant who ran the store, he handled myron senior in Percy's estates, which passed their land and head rights to Myron Jr and Lucy. This made them both

incredibly wealthy. But when Myron was twelve years old, his mom became sick. The records say she had tuberculosis and all of a sudden, a lot of men became very interested in her affairs. There was a man named Robert White Cloud, who married Lucy right when her health took a turn. Not long after, she went to New Mexico, hoping the dry air would help her symptoms. That's when a second man took an interest. His name was bright roddy. He followed her to New Mexico, all the way from Pahaska.

He wanted to write her will. By February, lucy was back in harmony. That's when a third man got involved. It was another Drummond, Fred Getner, who by now had taken over the store. He wanted to write lucy a different will. According to probate testimony, Fred getner visited her every day while she was so sick she couldn't get out of bed. Lucy died a few weeks later, on February, at just thirteen years old. Myron had lost his entire family.

The homony trading company was Lucy's undertaker, just like it was for a lot of other o sages who lived in Hominy, and Fred getner became executor of her will, the one he wrote for her. Three estates, myron seniors, Percy's and Lucy's all handled by the drummonds and then a guardianship of myron banks Jr. He was orphaned and all his folks and his grandfather, grandmother, his mother and his dad, aunt and uncle whatever, they all died and that's why he came into all that money. This is Myron,

Read Eagle. His name was on a Business Card Billy Panka gave me when she was trying to help me track down someone who knew myron banks Jr, my cousin Openmar Banks Jr. I live here in Pahaska. Myron's on the O sage Minerals Council, the elected officials who oversee the O stage mineral estate. When I sat in that big room with Everett Waller asking about non Os age head right holders, I was just inches away from where Myron sits whenever there's a meeting. I think that Nabe

after him because I kind of looked lacking. That's what my mom used to say. It looks like brother Mayron, she used to say. So this is a picture I found of him at Um the Oklahoma historical society. Yeah, that's hiamh. Yeah, do you think? Do you think you look like him? Yeah, the way I do. Yeah, what features do you see? Probably a small yeah, for what it's worth, I see it too. Myron read Eagle has a big smile. I thought a lot as he told

me about his cousin. He don't give me a dollar every time he came to the e. You just give everybody a dollar and they were silver dollars in those days. You know, by the time Myron Read Eagle met myron Banks Jr, Myron bigs junior was in his forties. He had airplanes. He could fly airplanes. He was smart, he wouldn't they were no dumb guy, you know, he knew how to fly a plane. I don't know what the restrictions for on those days, but he had his own plane.

There was a story about it. In those days they had what they call feast, big feast, you know, and they had to start a fire but they couldn't get it started and uncle Martin flew into the field. They came in there and they said what's going on? You know, they were all talking oak stage and they were trying to start this far. You know, you give me that thing and he grabbed grabbed one and he stuck. At one time got a spark got started just like yeah, and he said, okay, I want to go back to Talso,

I'll be back later. He got into you got the fire started. I gotta kick out that. The Drummond Brothers guardianship of myron banks Jr started when he was just a child, but it lasted well into his adulthood because even though he was educated, could fly an airplane served in the army, the US government considered him incompetent. He said he couldn't control his own money and kept the drummond brothers in charge instead. A lot of myron's personal records are in an archive in Oklahoma City at the

Oklahoma historical society. There are boxes of old handwritten letters, postcards and telegrams from Myron's travels, his honorable discharge from the army. Even an old date book of his Maroon embossed with junior on the front, old the week he got married, is full of reminders to pick up pants from the dry cleaner and check in about the marriage license. Looking at all this, I felt like I got a little peek into what Myron might have been like as

a person. Intelligent, persistent, a bit sarcastic at times and later, when he became a husband and father, doting and pretty religious. In that archive there are also boxes and boxes of legal records, because this collection belonged to Myron's lawyer, a man named Paul Comstock, and when I met with Myron Read Eagle, I showed some of these records to him.

They're old, some handwritten, kind of hard to read. We have had so much trouble with our guardians that we do not want to at least and to either his or or any of his employees. This is a letter Myron bings Jr wrote directly to the Commissioner of Indian affairs, the head of the whole agency, right before he hired Paul Comstock. He was in his twenties and Myron he had a few choice words for the US government about

his guardian, Fred Ghetner Drummond. He titles the letter one example in the Os age and then starts describing exactly the kind of scheme you might find in the gray book, that report from the fifties that listed so many guardianships gone wrong. Myron said Fred Getner was leasing his land to Horace Burkhart, a nephew of William Hale, the one allegedly behind a lot of the murders during the reign of terror. But myron said Horace wasn't actually using the land.

Fred Getner was, and according to this letter, Fred Getner was trying to discount the rent for himself and charge Myron for a barn and offense that he had put up. Myron told the commissioner that Fred Getner was perfectly capable of paying the full price. He ran the hominy trading company, after all. Myron wrote stand incognito in his place of business for one were and ascertained the prices that he charges the Indians. I remember mom saying a lot of

time he was always fighting for against the system. You know, that's what it was right there. It's always fight, trying to get something going. He he had sound enough evidence to do it. You know, according to that he was trying to get everybody's attention. Evidently, you know, he wasn't the only one. There was a lot of people in that same situation. Myron Jr said he had written to the O s age agency and PAASCA that oversaw guardianships.

They apparently didn't do much. He was fed up. He wanted someone, anyone in the US government to care in other words, they went along with the Guardian. You know, that's what they did. They didn't. They didn't really take up for Uncle Maron. They just passed the buck and give it to them. Let's say get the Guardian makes the decision, and if he makes the decision, they're noting uncle American. So myron was complaining to the agency about his guardian and the agency was telling him to go

back to his guardian with his complaints. Yeah, yeah, exactly what it raged. Okay, no, Mr Springer tries to discourage us and taking an interest in our affair. Mr Dabble or dibble or whatever it is, is the only one in a Plaska to see that seems to take any interest in our affairs, and it's hard to read him. Yeah, sorry, this one is tough. Yeah, I mean, did you see the point though? And it's crooked. Even the agency was crooked reopening in affairs. They were crooked. They didn't want

to mess with it. They knew that the Guardian would get whatever we wanted and went along with it. In this letter that Myron sent to the Commissioner of Indian affairs, he says we are writing to you personally because we cannot get action elsewhere. A couple of weeks later Myron wrote the O C age agency again. He said he wanted his guardian removed, that he preferred the agency have control of his finance. Says not, Fred Getner. And yet, as far as I could tell, the office of Indian

affairs didn't step in. So myron took matters into his own hands. He hired comstock at the end of n four and a few months later Fred getner resigned as his guardian. Myron and comstock had enlisted a team of accountants in Tulsa to conduct an audit of his account the accountants came back with a five page report. The word confidential is written on the front. They offer a

disclaimer of sorts at the beginning. They say there wasn't any standard way that guardians submitted receipts, so it would have been, quote, almost impossible for the US government to conduct any sort of accurate review of how the Drummond brothers were handling Myron's money. But even without a lot of those receipts, the auditors filled five pages with discrepancies.

Were issues they found after coming through Myron's affairs. According to this, Fred Getner was leasing out land that Myron wasn't getting paid for and he was making loans to people from Myron's funds that were in default for years before Fred Getner did anything about it. Another example stood out to me. Fred Getner Drummond apparently sold some of

Myron's property to a man named you Nelson. He Got Myron a thousand dollars for the land, but a few months later Fred getner about the same piece of land back, paying seven thousand dollars of Myron's money. According to the audit, Myron was left with the same piece of land, but he was out six thousand dollars. It's only after the audit myron commissioned that the federal government took an interest

in his complaints. A U S attorney used one of the examples in the report and sued the drummonds in the lawsuit is filed in federal court in the northern district of Oklahoma, the United States of America, versus Fred G Drummond, R C Drummond and Alfred a drummond. I showed it to Myron ready. Goal R C Drummond, a guardian of the said Mayron banks junior and Fred g drummond conspired in the devised a scheme. Due to Aud

the said moner banks junior in the following manner. The case names all three brothers because, even though Fred Getner was calling all the shots, Cecil was the one who

is technically listed as Myron's guardian. Jack Drummond was involved to in order to be a guardian, you needed a surety bond, basically a promise from someone else that if you didn't act in the best interests of your reward or took advantage of your position, they'd be on the hook to a lot of times these bonds came from banks, but in Myron Junior's guardianship the bond was issued by

Jack Drummond. So all three brothers had a hand in controlling myron junior's affairs and all three brothers were sued by the federal government. Out of everything in the audit, the US focused on one specific land dispute from when Myron Junior was thirteen, when Lucy banks died, Fred Getner, who was acting as myron junior's guardian, transferred a piece of land into Myron Junior's name. He paid himself three thousand seven hundred thirty two dollars and ninety nine cents

from my iron's account. The US thought this transaction showed fraud because what the auditors found was the Land Fred Getner sold to Myron Junior. It already belonged to Myron Junior. It was Lucy's and when she died it passed to Myron Jr. The US was arguing there was no reason for Fred Getner to sell it him. It's further lands.

R C Drummond, the guardian of this ward, had allowed to said Fred G Drummond to draw and checks upon the funds of Said Ward, to incur claims against this ward and generally assumed in conduct the affairs and official authority of such guardianship, without authority of law and contrary to the statutes of Oklahoma. Yeah, that was illegal. He didn't do that. The Drummond brothers had a drastically different

version of events, one a federal judge agreed with. They argued that this was all part of a well orchestrated plan, a plan lucy was in on. According to the brothers, they were just trying to keep Lucy's husband of less than a year, Robert White Cloud, from getting her land after she died and the three thousand seven hundred thirty two dollars and ninety nine cents that Fred Getner paid himself for my iron junior's account. That was just to cover a debt Lucy owed him from before she died.

The judge who presided over this case was actually the same one who gave William Hale a life sentence, judge Kennemer, and what Kennemer said in his order in this case was that there wasn't any evidence the drummonds cheated or defrauded Myron bings Jr. He said the Drummond brothers had in fact helped Myron by getting him land that he

would have had to share with Robert White Cloud. The money Fred Getner paid himself was a quote, irregular way to settle a debt, Kinnamer wrote, but Fred Getner was just acting in accordance with Lucy's will, the one Fred Getner wrote and executed. Judge Kinnamer said the county court had signed off on all this and the superintendent of the O s age agency had full knowledge of it. I'm not sure why the US didn't include any of the other transactions that came up in the audit myron commissioned.

Maybe Fred Getner had information that explained a lot of the questionable transactions. When Fred Getner resigned, Paul compstock filed a bunch of objections to the Guardians Final Report. The County Corps overruled those objections and the stage agency signed off on it. But I'm not sure the auditors found everything, because while I was going through Jack Drummond's financial records I found something else. This one's kind of interesting. This

was actually part of the Drummond's personal collection. In yeah, this piece of paper is unlike a lot of the other records in Jack Drummond's collection. Most of those were formal written to business colleagues or bankers, but this one it's written more like notes from a conversation between two brothers. The top says getting her Drummond told a, a d, The initials for Jack's given name, Alfred Alexander. Below it there's a list numbered one through ten, each a description

of some sort of transaction. It's number two, the one about May and banks, G D N And Guardian. Guardian. Fifteen thousand views in payment Bill Hill Land, repaid by a, a and D. Jack writes myron banks Guardian. Fifteen thousand dollars used in payment Bill Hale Land, repaid by a a D fifteen thousand dollars that the drummonds borrowed from Iron Banks Jr to buy Bill Hale's land, land that belonged to the mastermind of the O s age murders,

land he sold before he went to prison. I had read in Jack's biography that the drummonds bought Bill Hale's ranch. It was that single reference to the reign of terror. It read Bill Hale, a local rancher, had to sell his land because he was going to prison for conspiring to murder most of an O s age Indian family so their head rights would evolve to his nephew. Despite the auditors and the lawyers, no one ever noticed that the drummonds seemed to have bought this land with Myron's money,

or if they did, they never said anything. This note was the first I had seen of it. When the DRUMMONDS bought Bill Hale's land in x Myron bangs was eighteen years old. Part of the land included three hundred fifteen acres that hale had gotten from an o sage man named George Bigheart. Five years before bigheart mysteriously died in what is now one of the most well known examples of an unsolved order during the reign of terror.

And what this note written by Jack seemed to say was that O s age money, Myron's money, helped the drummonds buy it from Hale. I've looked into what happened to this land after the drummonds bought it. It turns out a lot of the bill hall ranch they bought in partnership with another big ranching family in Osage County, the mullandors. Eventually the Drummond brothers sold their interests in

the land to the mullandors. Today it's owned by a bunch of different people and ranching incorporations, including one affiliated with the Mormon Church. By the time Fred Genner resigned as his guardian on January three, Myron Banks Jr was twenty eight years old. He had spent most of his life under the drummonds financial control, and that whole time Fred Getner was collecting a fee for doing it, more than fifteen thousand dollars over the course of Myron's guardianship,

something like a quarter million dollars in today's money. In y eight, after more than two decades of O s age guardianships like Myron Juniors, the acting secretary of Interior sent a letter to the head of the OS age agency. He said a series of audits the government had conducted on O s age guardianships showed that many of these

guardians were profiting directly or indirectly off their wards. He wrote that it was a generally accepted rule of law that guardians shouldn't have business dealings with their awards, that it was against public policy. He told the superintendent to make a copy of the letter and send it to all the existing guardians and their lawyers. Meanwhile, Myron wasn't stopping at his own guardians. In nineteen thirty nine, he wrote a letter to Paul Comstock asking for his help

with a young o sage man named Otis Penn. Myron said he told Otis about Paul Honesty and ability to help him in the past. According to Myron, Otis wanted an audit of his account. He didn't know who was leasing his land where his money was being invested. Myron thought Paul Comstock would be able to help him out. After reading this letter, I looked into Otis Penn's guardianship. Otis was an orphan too. He had been under guardianship

since he was just a kid. Just like Myron. His Guardian was Fred l shed, the man who worked in the Drummond store. At one point Fred l shed was leasing Otis's land to Cecil, Drummond and Hugh Nelson, the same Hugh Nelson who had bought and sold Myron's land through Fred Gentner and apparently made six thousand dollars. So you Nelson was also in business with the DRUMMONDS, leasing

land and partnership with Cecil through Fred l shed. At one point, it seems Cecil and Hugh Nelson weren't paying rent. In n the Department of Interior threatened to sue them if they didn't pay two hundred dollars in rent on six hundred forty acres of Otis's land they were leasing. And just like Fred Getner loaned out myron's money, Fred l shed loan money from Otis Pen's account. He lent

Cecil Drummond six thousand dollars. All these records revealed so much about the inner workings of an O s age guardianship. And it was all because one os age man, Myron Baines Jr, hired a lawyer, he trusted, a lawyer who kept his files and donated them so that decades later, we can see what one of these guardianships really looked like. They knew how to get around people, you know, and I'm not saying the off ring are that way, but they managed to buy the land and there. Now they

weren't telling you what. There were other people that bought land into you know, but the drums just had to be the one family that they got the most of it, and our people were. They weren't dumb, you know, they weren't ignorant at all, but things like it went on. It was beyond their control. Everything that happened between Myron bangs and the Drummond brothers was because the United States considered myron incompetent, even though he had his pilot's license,

he was formally educated. He was writing letters to federal officials at the Department of Interior begging them to look into his guardianship. In one note, scrawled and Pencil, Paul Comstock wrote to someone. If you considered Myron so childish and incompetent, why did you write him those comprehensive and detailed letters which are in evidence. M M M M M, m HM, M hmm. It's kind of an irony about it,

the drum harmony. We're kind of like. Uh, if if an ending end in person or stage ending needed money, they were always there to give it to him. You know, they always had money. And if they needed credit at the store, you know, the partneer store, whatever, whatever they owned down here, they would give them credit and uh, and then they just thought they were good people, you know, as Myron ready equal, and I looked over these documents, myron told me this wasn't the only time his family

had crossed paths with the Drummond brothers. Sometime in the fifties his mom wanted to buy a house in Pasca. It's actually the one myron lives in today. My mom had a little bit of land left and they had wanted to move up here because he had to drive back and forth to Pascal all the time, you know, sign things, and she said I'll just a little bit land and and see if we can find a house

in Pasca. So they weren't looking for a home and they found one out here and so she went to season Drummond, the old man, he's a real big guy. But they I walked in and they all walked in and he said, Veril Virgie, what do you want? What do you want? You know, and it's just see's a lot. I got a house and they have a house in Pahuska. I'd like to have it, you know. He said, well, what do you got? He said Yeah, he had about forty acres over here, across the road. He said, all right,

you give me that land, I'll buy that house. That's how we're to trade it. So and it was an auction. So there's about four or five different families were wanting at home and they started that at five thousand dollars, and there was a lot of money in the fifties, you know. Hu and they went up to six thousand and Mr Drummond raised he had big cowboy had on. He raised his hand. Six thousand, seventh island, he raised his hand. He just kept going up. You know, they

couldn't that did him. You know, he wanted that forty acres and he said whatever you you should Birdie, whatever you want, I'll get it for you. He out bit everybody and I still live in that house today. Do you ever wish you had lapa? No, no, it's it's gone. It's gone. They don't sell their lamb. As myron and I spoke, we talked about members of the Drummond family today, the descendants of Cecil and Fred Gentner, and Jack Iron told me he knows a few of them, gets along

with some of them. Yeah, they're there's just a big family. It's a big family. Times change, you know, to be there as it may. It's like a phrase says, you know, we can't do nothing about the past. You know that the past is gone. What happened then and it's all in the past. You know, it's just too bad that it happened away. It's kind of it kind of hurss me in a way, but I don't think it urked me as much as it did my folks. You know,

and and other people that that generation. The grass is so pretty, like how the gold contrast with the Blue Guy. Even after Myron spent years fighting the DRUMMONDS, a lot of his lands still ended up in their hands. A non O sage wife of one of Myron's relatives inherited some land after he died in the eighties. She sold it to a drummond. This section I drove out to. It's part of the eighty acres of Percy's land now owned by Drummond Ranch LLC. So this is Percy bangs

original allotment. Today it's owned by Drummond Ranch LLC and that Drummond entity is owned by getting her Drummond, and he is the one who's running for Oklahoma Attorney General. So this is all his ranch now. It's a very large ranch, much larger than just Percy's original. All that. We'll be right back. Good Morning. I help you. Um. We're with Bloomberg. We have an interview with Gettner Grummond. Yes, you will go on in the boardroom. I went to

interview getting her last January. At that point I was just beginning to put together what these records all meant. No one from back then is still alive today, but I was curious what their descendants thought of all this, if they had any other information that I wasn't finding in the archives. Good Morning. Hi, I'm Rachel. Getting her owns Blue Skye Bank and several US cellular stores. He still owns the pioneer store building in hominy. He's been practicing law in and around Os age county for a

long time. When we talked getting her how ton't get one the Republican primary for Attorney General. So talk to me about the attorney general race. Why? Why are you running? Well, Um, when I was about twelve, my great grandfather sat me down and said you're the oldest of sixty five of my great grandchildren and none of them are going to do more than you. You'RE gonna you're the oldest and so you need to just aim as high as you can and be as straight as you can and be

as successful as you can. And I think it's appropriate that when your family has grown, that you serve in state government. It wasn't lost on me as a twelve year old, I mean I was. I took very serious my role as the oldest of that generation and the leader of my clan. And then now my children are all grown and established in the communities that they live and have the time and the opportunity to run for a statewide office. And that was Cecil who told you this.

So do you remember, like where that conversation was? We were driving in his car. Um He drove at that at that point in his life, he would drive around the county all day long checking on his sons and grandsons operations and his brothers and cousins operations, and he loved to drive into his big cadillac and smoke a

cigar and he liked company. I think that day I was driving him and yes, at twelve I was driving him around the county and he was telling me, as we were passing pastures, the heritage of the land, who owned it and and when we purchased it, and then talking about my role as the family, the eldest of the family. Do you think about that conversation often? A lot of the conversations from parents, grandparents great grandparents have

been very impactful on me. One of the things gettinger's run on is a commitment to work more with tribal nations in Oklahoma. He talked about that when we met our governor, for some reason just can't see it in himself to act rationally, and so he's driven a wedge between the native American tribes and the State of Oklahoma and I can, I think that I can undo that.

I'm respectful of their sovereignty and can foster our relationship such that we can figure our way forward gettner also holds the title to about twenty six thousand acres of ranch land in Oth Age county, more than anyone else in the extended Drummond family. The base of my cattle ranch, Cecil purchased was passed down to my grandfather, Ghent ghet

nerve drummond. He has some of that original land and some of that was passed to my father, Leslie, and then some of that was passed down in my instance. I did not take any inheritance from anyone. I bought all of my land from siblings and mother neighbors. So when, when did you personally first get involved in ranching and

what led you there? It's an interesting segue into your question because a native, a neighbor of our ranch who was also a native American Um liked me and I didn't necessarily like my father, but as a fourteen year old she approached me to acquire her ranch and I was fourteen and had no money and it was a minor and she arranged for me to become emancipated and in her into contract to buy her are ranch. So that's when I began as a landowner in the o

sage and effectively a rancher. And why did you have to become emancipated? Because you can't enter into a contract until you're eighteen. You're not an adult until you're eighteen. So for a fourteen year old to enter into a contract I had to go to court. The court had to deem the competent to become emancipated to enter into the transaction. I can remember it clearly. The judge called me back into his chambers with my attorney and asked me many questions that judges now, I realized as a lawyer,

asked a determined competency. You know, where were you born? Where do you live? WHO'S THE PRESIDENT? WHO's the governor? WHO's the vice president? What are you studying? What do you want to do? What's the purpose of this? Why are you doing do you understand the consequences of entering into a contract and signing a mortgage and becoming obligated? How are you going to make the payments? Things like that, and how are you going to make the payments at

fourteen at least? The land back to my father. When I met with Getner, I had already learned his great grandfather, Cecil, and Cecil's two brothers, Fred, Getner and Jack. They had all been guardians. Gettner told me he hadn't known that. Before we talked, I brought with me some of the archival records I found, including the Myron bings junior lawsuit. I'm curious if the name myron banks Jr means anything

to you if you've heard it before. I've not heard Myron BANGS UM, but I've heard of the I know the banks family. Yes, how do you know them? I just know the name. I know the one of the O sage families. Looks like my great grandfather and his two brothers were sued by the United States and I'm unaware of this lawsuit. I told Getner I didn't expect him to read the whole lawsuit while we were sitting there during that first meeting. I mostly wanted to share

what I had learned so far. I also brought him the note from Jack Drummond's records with that line about the bill hall land. And then this is actually, Um, a personal communication. Um, it says gettinger Drummond told a a D Um, but it looks to me, and I would be curious what you see from this, that Um dollars was used from Myron bangs account for the Bill Hale Land Um and I it says it was repaid. So it just looks like it was borrowed from that account.

I'm curious. Did do you know where the bill hale ranch was and how did you guys know that you bought that ranch? Um? Now the Gantner referenced is Fred Getner, and so he's not my direct lineage. So I don't know the Bill Hale Land. I assume a D is Alfred Alexander Drummond. It looks like basically somebody's notes Um evolved multiple transactions. Yeah, the one, the one that stood

up to me was the second one, just given this lawsuit. Yeah, Myron banks leadership, fifteen thousand used in payment of Bill Hale Land. Yet it looks I mean it could be that somebody was borrowing from the guard the wards account to buy land and then pay it back and if that was the case that would have been inappropriate. If a guardian borrows money from awards account facially, that's inappropriate.

It's unethical and this instance it looks like it's in it an accounting of hey, this was borrowed, it was repaid and maybe back then it was permissible, but it's not permissible today. So obviously I'm not expecting, you know, like a statement on any of this. I want you to have time and tell me what you see, because I am not a lawyer, so I would love to kind of care what you think of all this. But

have you heard any of this before? I mean, you didn't know that Cecil or his brothers were guardians, right, I did not. What what do you associate with the Word Guardian? Well, there's a lot of good reasons for guardianships and they're multiple guardianships in Os age county today. Um, typically it's somebody who's infirm, either mentally or physically. There's a frequent there's a lot of guardianships over physically infirmed people. Um,

a lot of voluntary guardianships. Now, back in the day, back in the twenties and thirties and forties, the the law looked on native Americans less favorably, as though they were infirm, and the use of guardianships was more frequent than than than it is today. And clearly, I think in hindsight they were inappropriately used. Now, a lot of these O s ages were not educated and didn't understand the American way of business, and so guardianships were used

to protect them from unscrupulous actions. The lawsuit I brought Gettner was nine pages and I brought some other documents too, so I wanted to give him time to read all of them before we talked again. But before I left I asked gettner how he was feeling about all this. Because ancestors guardianships, that they were named in this lawsuit. Does it challenge what you've been told about your family? Oh, I'm a realist. I mean we only pass along the

good stories. We don't pass along the bad stories, typically Um. So it would not surprise me at all if there's bad stories out there, but those would not have been the subject matter of the family lure passed down. Do you want to know those bad stories? I'm on notice and I will inquire. Yes, I would like to know that, so I'll look into it. Happy to visit with you some more. Okay, just a second so you can hear me. Okay.

The next time I talked to Gettner was after he had read through the myron banks junior lawsuit, the case the federal government brought the Drummond Brothers response and then the judge's order. So you said you had had a chance to read through that. Yes, Rachel, I read the litigation that you left me and I don't have it in front of me. I'm in DC right now. But I did read through the allegations about the government that alleged that the drummonds acted inappropriately, malfeasant and the like.

But yet the court found that they were not malfees into or exploitive of their roles. Is Guardian in trustee. There's an order and the final adjudication that finds them rules in favor of the drummonds and against the state, the government. So I mean, I I mean certainly. I mean if your agenda is let's make white people look bad, then go for it. I mean I think you've got all sorts of allegations and when you read the complaint by the government, I was like, Oh my God, I

can't believe that my forebears were so horrible. But then don't want to read their response, and then I see the court's final adjudication and I'm like, well, okay, yeah, they're guilty of being really good men that did the right thing to help this woman. I mean, are you interested in seeing some of these other I'm happy. I mean listen, I'm I'm intelligially intrigued with the historical record and and to the extent that my family was about actor. I'd like to know that. I mean truly, I would

like to know that. Yeah, and I mean to be to be totally transparent with you, like we've we've heard from some people who have allegations against your family and our job here is to see what's true and what's not. I no, I mean did not mean. Well, I did mean that. Didn't mean to push you gently in your chest, because if your objective is simply just to paint all why it's bad, then you're going to do that regardless

of my input. But if your objective is to parts through the historical record that determine if there were bad actors, and there certainly were, and if there were good actors, and I believe there certainly were, and be fair to the record, I'm I'm game to continue to participate and look at documents and visit with you. I I am the eldest of my generation. I am manifestly interested in that historical record that you have spent significant effort to ascertain.

I've not gone to that effort that you have, but I do think I mean to in defense of the system. The Federal Judiciary also was not corrupt at the time and the federal judiciary looked at this and there wasn't it was acutely concerned about the exploitation of anybody white, Brown or black and a guardianship capacity. So you know the fact that the court, the Federal Court, said in ruled in favor of the drummonds tells me that all acts of the drummonds were appropriate. I mean the Department

of Interiors since acknowledged that the guardianship program was extraordinarily flawed. No, Oh, I think that it was probably flawed. I mean the whole system was flawed back in there. But you view the federal government's role in this as found. I think the federal government would have handed the my forebears heads on a platter had to determine that they had embezzled or misappropriated funds and and like. Do you have any any qualms about benefiting from that system at all? I

mean the the guardianships and the executorship? I don't know that I would say that I've benefited indirectly or directly from any of those things. Why is that? I don't see the I don't see any indirector direct benefit for a getting or drum and benefited from the guardianship system. I mean, what about the drum in land itself? Well, that was purchased from natives and non natives, and if it were from a native that was in a status of incompetency, then it had pure Omanian affairs or its

predecessors approval. So if there are hard feelings today, then it kind of lies at the feet of the federal government. Well, of course there's gonna be hard feelings today because the twenty one century host stage looks around and goes, why do we only own six percent of our original landholdings? And you know, the same could be say said of the Carnegie Eras. Why are they not lavishly multimillionaires? Well, something happened in between those four or five generations and

they've lost some of it. Not all rockefellers are multimillionaires and there are some very well off hostages, but they had to assimilate right, and that's anathema to a lot of traditional low stages. They don't like that word. I don't like assimilation. I mean, would would you like assimilation if if that were your culture? Did? Came from Scotland and Germany and we assimilated into the American way. But isn't that the difference though? You guys came here, they

were already here. No, clearly, and now did that go back to that Jackson Ian Genocide? It was forced assimilation. But I think that there is a significant effort by the government, which is of the people, of which I'm one, that wants to recognize an honor and build up the the heritage of the native Americans and Poma. I am one of those. I'm a big proponent for that. I mean, I get all the most ages agreeing with you, but you can talk to the choctaws and the chickasaws and

Cherokees with whom I work a weekly basis. I asked Gettner again, what do you thought about one of the other documents I left him, that memo from Jack Drummond with the one line that seemed to say the Drummond brothers borrowed money from Iron Banks Jr to buy the Bill Hale Land. I mean, I read those notes, but I mean I'm a trained litigator and you know, seeing disparate notes without getting testimony or other sources. I mean you can read it either way. And so he does

have notes and they do appear cryptic. I mean it was hard to follow exactly what is doing. And I mean and are there terms of art being used or these uh shorthand for other terms? You know, it was I didn't put a lot of stock in the notes that were transcribed by Jack Drummond. Since that conversation, Getner has won the Republican nomination for Attorney General. His only challenger in the general election is Libertarian Linda Steel. I've

also continued to send documents to Gettner. He said he's proud of his family history and not from what he can tell, they did what they could help o St Ages and the ways that were available at the time. There was one other document I shared with Gettner, written by someone within the federal government back then who was concerned that the Drummond there's might be abusing their power, and not just in Myron banks Jr's case. His name was Lewis Divers. He was the tribal attorney for the

O S age nation in the thirties. This was a u s government position meant to look out for O s age legal interests, and in this letter he objects to Fred getner becoming the executor of yet another O s ages state. Stiver says the will in this case is valid. That's not why he was objecting. stivers was objecting because of the person named as executor. He said Fred Getner and his brothers were part of a quote association.

According to stivers, it worked like this. Along with at least five other white men in O s age county, the Drummond brothers would use their positions as guardians and administrators to extend each other loans from their os age towards accounts and to prove each other's claims against Oth

age estates. STIVER's enlists a series of examples where he saw this play out, including one of Fred l shed's guardianships and the drummonds guardianship of myron banks Jr, cases where I could see firsthand how the Drummond brothers made o s age money work for themselves. But there were other names in this letter from stivers that I hadn't seen yet, and when I started looking into what happened with those O s age families. I found a story that took me beyond deeds and mortgages, a story that

I had hoped I wouldn't run into. That's next time on in trust. In trust is a production of Bloomberg and I heeart media. It's reported and hosted by me Rachel Adam's heard additional reporting by Alison Eda. Davis land is our senior producer. Samantha story is our executive producer. Jeff Grocott is our senior editor. Additional editing by Francesco leavy and Daniel Ferrara. Additional production by Victor Ebayez, production support from Jelda de Carli, sound engineering by Blake Maples,

fact checking by Molly nugent. Theme Music by Laura Orman. Photography by Shane Brown. You can email us at podcasts at Bloomberg Dot net. Find more about this episode at Bloomberg Dot Com. Slash in trust. Find intrust anywhere you get your podcasts.