Jessie Duke Richardson, The Tulsa Years

Last week, the first episode told about Jessie Duke Richardson's arrival in Muskogee. Accounts of her teaching music and speech included her founding the Jessie Duke Richardson School of Fine Arts located just north of the old West High School.

During the summer of 1928, Jessie closed her school and headed to the east and west coasts. She spent part of her time coaching performers in Hollywood and on Long Island in New York.

The Great Depression, however, forced her to return to Muskogee when her coaching contracts dried up. Exactly when she returned is uncertain. She was, at least, back in town during 1932 according to a city directory.

She apparently returned with insufficient funds to reopen her School of Fine Arts. Yet, Jessie took a room at the Severs Hotel down town instead of renting a house as she did during the years prior to her stint in coaching.

In November, Jessie went to Oklahoma City to spend the holidays with Anna Lynn Cook, her former pupil. She returned to Oklahoma City to attend Anna Lynn's June wedding the next year.

During 1933, Jessie moved to South Twelfth Street. This address was still only a few blocks away from the students at West High. She lived in this home less than a year. Perhaps her financial circumstances improved. The next year she returned to the Severs Hotel. However, her savings must have remained slim.

Jessie moved to Tulsa about 1935. Her motivation is clear. Tulsa was a larger city. Despite the ravages of the depression, it contained more wealthy families than Muskogee. Jessie had always taught the students of wealthy. This move to Tulsa, however, led directly to Jessie's impoverishment and tragic death.

Olivell Graves recalled Jessie having suitors call on her while she lived in the Severs Hotel. Perhaps the initial meeting occurred there. Jessie married June 1, 1936 after close to two decades without a mate. Her second husband was none other than another former Muskogeean, James D. Simms.

Lawyer Simms is noteworthy for having built the Simms Apartments on 1220 W. Okmulgee. He built the three-story building after having won a court case. The building is still in use eighty years later.

Simms began his legal profession in association with the noted Grant Foreman. At the time of Jessie's death in 1939, he was representing parties involved in the famous Jackson Barnett case where millions of dollars were at stake.

Unfortunately, the marriage between the lawyer and the musician failed. After months of being alone without any support, Jessie filed for divorce on the last business day in July. The following week she went to church on Sunday and then committed suicide on Tuesday, August 8.

In a note to her husband, Jessie wailed. "Devotion, then desertion. What made you do it? How could you be so cruel? You, of all others! God forgive you. In despair, your devoted wife." Jessie's purse nearby contained only two one-dollar bills and some change.

Jessie lived in a luxurious apartment on the third floor of the Ambassador Hotel. Finding an unoccupied apartment on the sixth floor, she crossed to the windows. Opening one, she climbed out and fell. She was barely sixty years old.