Dora Owl’s daughter, Kathy Rose, is shown holding her favorite picture of her mother.
By BROOKLYN BROWN
One Feather Reporter
CHEROKEE, N.C.—With help from the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Fund for Indigenous Journalists: Reporting on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two-Spirit and Transgender People (MMIWG2T), the Cherokee One Feather is detailing each of the 35 documented Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) cases in a monthly article.
Dora Owl (Photo courtesy of Owl Family)
Dora Owl, a member of the EBCI, was a 24-year-old mother of two when she was murdered on April 1, 1947. Dora’s killer, Loye Brock, served five years for her murder. The Cherokee One Feather is currently researching Dora’s case, searching through court documents, arrest records, and newspaper articles from 1947, 1948, and 1949 to unearth the trial that left Dora’s family with an injustice of five years for cold-blooded murder.
Dora was shot in the stomach on April Fools’ Day. Her mother, Callie Owl, believed the news of her daughter’s gunshot wound to be a bad April Fools joke.
“They said Callie was out in the garden working with her flowers or something, when one of Dora’s brothers told her that she had been shot. She said, ‘This better not be an April Fools’ joke.’ They said, ‘No, Mama, it’s true.’ She went to the Cherokee Hospital and Dora was still alive, but she didn’t live,” said Kathy Rose, Dora Owl’s daughter who was only eight months old at the time of her murder.
“The doctor said if they’d got her there maybe 30 minutes earlier, she probably could have lived. She just lost so much blood. That woman kidnapped her and Edith McCoy, I guess around the bus station. Dora worked at the bus station. That woman took them to Panther Creek, shot my mother, and refused her medical attention until it was too late.”
Shown, left to right, are Dora’s great grandson, Dylan Rose; daughter, Kathy Rose; granddaughter, Rhonda Rose; and grandson Albert Rose, who all pose with pictures of Dora. (BROOKLYN BROWN/One Feather photo)
Rhonda Rose, Dora’s granddaughter, is saddened by the pain her grandmother had to experience in her death. “I always heard gut shots were one of the slowest and most painful ways to die because you just slowly bleed to death,” Rose said. “They say she was real petite and small, but they said she was a spitfire. She wouldn’t take crap off anybody.”
Kathy, Kathy’s children Rhonda and Albert Rose, and Albert’s son, Dylan Rose, say they continue to feel the generational impact of Dora’s murder. “I never got to meet my grandmother and mom never really got to meet her mom. We were robbed of the generational knowledge she could have passed down to us,” Albert said.
Kathy was adopted by Willie Owle and Stella McCoy Owle upon her mother’s death. “Our grandma and grandpa, Willie and Stella, were the best grandparents you could have, and we loved them, but not knowing Dora was such a loss,” Albert added.
“It took away from all of us. It took away from mom, it took away from me and Albert, now it took away from Dylan,” Rhonda said.
“I feel like Nana didn’t get to experience memories with her family because that was taken away from her. It makes me mad,” Dylan said. “It’s just one of those things you just got to deal with. I think seeing Nana turn into the woman she is pretty dope.”
Kathy’s brother, Johnny George, was 3 years old when their mother was murdered. Kathy and Johnny were separated and raised in separate families, creating a reverberating fracture in their families. Kathy and her family have since rekindled their connection with their other family.
Dora George-Cyphers, Kathy’s niece and Johnny’s daughter, was overjoyed to meet Kathy and the rest of her family whom she had been separated from for years.
“I met my father’s family when I was 27 years old. My Aunt Kathy welcomed me with such open arms, and she was just so happy to meet me, and I was so happy to meet her. It was like I finally knew who I was, and then to be named after my grandmother and how special that was,” Dora said. “I believe her brothers always felt that, too. They would just stare at me because I guess I resembled her a lot. That was very special to me. My aunts would tell me stories about her, that she was the feisty one, but she was such a sweet, kind, and loving person.”
Dora Owl is Dora George-Cypher’s namesake. “I’m so honored. I’m just so honored, and I just feel so bad because her death affected my father tremendously. My mother always told me that my father never got over his mother’s death. She said at times when he was going through down periods he would cry for his mother,” she said.
Photos of Dora, her children, and a handwritten letter penned by Dora. (BROOKLYN BROWN/One Feather photo)
“I was not raised with my father. I met my father when I was 14. I asked him, ‘You don’t know who I am, do you?’ And he said, ‘I sure do.’ And I said, ‘How do you know that?’ And he went back into his house, and he brought out a picture of Dora, and he goes, ‘She looked just like you.’”
Dora George-Cypher has felt the pain of losing Dora through generations, just like her Aunt Kathy’s family. “It’s just been so sad to know that such a wonderful, beautiful person was taken so young and how it affected my Aunt Kathy and my father and many others. I believe she was very loved.”
The Cherokee One Feather hopes to continue reporting the facts of Dora Owl’s case as more information is discovered.
This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Fund for Indigenous Journalists: Reporting on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two-Spirit and Transgender People (MMIWG2T).
