Margie Burkhart, the granddaughter of Mollie and Ernest Credit
65After Mollie divorced Ernest, she lived with her new husband,
John Cobb, on the reservation. Margie was told that it had been a
good marriage, a period of happiness for her grandmother. On
June 16, 1937, Mollie died. The death, which wasn’t considered
suspicious, received little notice in the press. The Fairfax Chief
published a short obituary: “Mrs. Mollie Cobb, 50 years of age...
passed away at 11 o’clock Wednesday night at her home. She had
been ill for some time. She was a full-blood Osage.”
Later that year, Ernest Burkhart was paroled. The Osage Tribal
Council issued a resolution, protesting that “anyone convicted of
such vicious and barbarous crimes should not be freed to return to
the scene of these crimes.” The Kansas City Times, in an editorial,
said, “The parole of Ernest Burkhart from the Oklahoma state
penitentiary recalls what was possibly the most remarkable