Mabel Geraldine Schaefer

Mabel Geraldine was born to Dr. John Stephens Doc Rollins and Jennie Agnes Meinecke Rollins in Shawnee, Oklahoma on December 30, 1918 and was christened in the First Methodist Church in Guthrie, Oklahoma on Easter Sunday April 20, 1919. Doc Rollins and Jennie Agnes Rollins lived in Paden at the time and Shawnee was the nearest town with a hospital. As a bonus, Doc Rollin''s mother, Necie, was living there and could help Jennie Agnes with the newborn while he returned to attend his medical practice. On August 29, 1923 John Gordon, Mabel''s brother, was born in Shawnee. Mabel Geraldine moved to Paden at 5-weeks old. Paden is a small town located near the geographic center of Oklahoma and in the middle of Indian Territory. The town was founded in 1902 and named after US Marshall Tolbert Paden. In 1903, when the expansion of the Fort Smith & Western Railroad by-passed Paden for Prague, Paden''s growth slowed dramatically. However, it was peaceful and a safe haven in the otherwise wild and, sometimes dangerous, frontier territory. In 1927 the Rollins family moved to Prague, Oklahoma where Doc and Jennie Agnes opened an Emergency Hospital, the first in Lincoln. Mabel Geraldine and her brother had free rein to roam Prague''s streets where all the merchants waved to them as they pulled their little red-wagons along Broadway, the main thoroughfare of Prague. Prague is famous for being the home of Jim Thorpe, arguably the greatest athlete of the 20th century. The Sac & Fax Indian was born in 1887 in a cabin just outside of Prague and went on to win gold metals in the Pentathlon and decathlon in the 1912 Olympic Games. He was an All-American football player and played both professional football and baseball. The main thoroughfare in Prague where those children pulled their wagons so long ago was renamed Jim Thorpe Boulevard in the year 2000. Mabel Geraldine graduated from Prague High School in 1936 and spent the next two years at Ward Belmont in Nashville, Tennessee. Ward-Belmont was considered a prestigious finishing school for girls and, as the first junior college in the South to be fully accredited; it was always a popular choice of young southern women. The college achieved national recognition, particularly in music and speech. One of the more famous alumnae was Sarah Colley Cannon, the woman subsequently known to generations of country fans as 'Minnie Pearl.' After graduating from Ward Belmont in 1938, Mabel Geraldine entered the University of Oklahoma and graduated in 1941 with a degree in radio & drama. Remember, radio was still the media 'king'. The explosion of television into the American marketplace occurred later with NBC airing its first nightly newscast in 1948. While at Oklahoma University, Mabel Geraldine met and fell in love with William Alvin Schaefer and they were married in the First Christian Church in Norman, Oklahoma on November 1, 1940. The newly weds moved into the Logan Apartments where they lived until William A. earned his degree in Civil Engineering in 1941. He accepted a job with Humble Oil Company and they moved to Midland, Texas. In Midland Mabel Geraldine used her degree in Radio to host a 30-minute talk radio program 3-times a week. Her topic was 'society' and discussions revolved around the cities social events. She fondly remembers her fan mail, like that of one rancher: 'Little lady, you brighten my day. Don''t care much for the uppity people in Midland, but love to hear your voice.' In 1943 North Texas became an important oil-producing region for Humble and they were transferred to the company''s North Texas district office in Wichita Falls. It was the first of 5 transfers within Texas they would make over the next 16 years. Mabel had two sons while living in Wichita Falls: William Alvin, Jr. and John Stephens. However, because Mabel''s father, Doc Rollins, owned a hospital in Prague, she went there to give birth. As a result, the boy''s birthplace will forever be in that small town in Lincoln County, Oklahoma. In 1948 Mabel and her family moved to New London, a small town in East