Louis F. Wilkie, making his home in Bartlesville, is actively identified with farming interests in Osage county and is also the owner of oil lands, from which he derives good royalties. Mr. Wilkie is a native of Osage county, Oklahoma, his birth having there occurred January 12, 1886. He is a son of Andrew Wilkie, who was a native of Germany and came to the United States when a youth of eighteen years. He arrived in Indian Territory when a young man of twenty years and for an extended period engaged in farming and stock raising. He was a close friend of George B. Keeler, one of the best known of the pioneers of this part of the state. and, like Mr. Keeler. Mr. Wilkie was closely identified with many of the early improvements of this section of Oklahoma and with many events which have left their impress upon the records of the commonwealth.
He married Miss Leona Tayrien, a daughter of Cyprian Tayrien, one of the earliest of the pioneer settlers and a well known farmer living in Bartlesville. For about a half century her father has lived upon a farm near Bartlesville. He was born in Clay county, Missouri, in 1836, a son of Enoch and Mary Louise (Borboney) Tayrien, the former a French-Canadian and the latter a native of Missouri, one-half French and one-half Osage Indian. At the time of his mother’s death Cyprian Tayrien went to live in the home of an aunt, Loraine Trubley, at Kansas City, Missouri, and following the marriage of his sister, Louise, he made his home with her. In 1850 he was sent to the Osage mission in what is now Neosho county, Oklahoma, and at the age of eighteen years he secured a clerkship in the store of his brother-in-law, A. B. Canville, with whom he remained for ten years and during that period acquired splendid knowledge of the Osage Indian language. In 1860 he wedded Mary Louise Revard and began farming, which he followed until the outbreak of the Civil war, when he became a scout for the home guards. When his military service was ended he resumed agricultural life and was also employed in various stores and engaged in trade with the Osage Indians, his knowledge of the language being of great value in this connection. In 1870 he settled three and a half miles west of Bartlesville and accumulated five hundred acres of valuable land, of which he brought two hundred acres under a high state of cultivation. After the granting of the allotment he was left with one hundred. and sixty acres and his children received as their allotment the rest of the land, which was formerly included in their father’s homestead. He developed a fine modern farm :with splendid improvements and became one of the practical, progressive and substantial agriculturists in his community. It was his daughter, Leona, who became the wife of Andrew Wilkie and the mother of Louis F. Wilkie of this review, and she now resides at Winona, Missouri.
Louis F. Wilkie was educated in the schools of Pawhuska and when his school days were over he took up the occupation of farming. He is now the owner of one hundred and sixty acres of rich and productive land in Osage county, which is cultivated under his supervision, and he also receives royalties in oil. He makes his home at No. 1207 Jennings avenue, Bartlesville, where he has an attractive residence, he and his family being most pleasantly situated there.
It was in 1906 that Mr. Wilkie was united in marriage to Mrs. Rosie Murcer Huffman, a native of Missouri, and they have become the parents of six children: Andrew E., who is now fourteen years of age; Nina Frances, deceased; Clara May; Louis Manford; Treva Rose; and Ida Marie. Mrs. Wilkie also has a son by her previous marriage, Edgar S. Huffman, who is now a farmer in Osage County.
Mr. and Mrs. Wilkie have a wide acquaintance in Bartlesville and the hospitality of the best homes of the city is freely accorded them. In business affairs Mr. Wilkie has ever shown sound judgment and enterprise, and the careful management of his business affairs, together with the discovery of oil, has brought to him a substantial measure of prosperity.