The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

MCDANIEL, WILMA ELIZABETH (1918–2007).

Poet and storyteller Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel was born on December 22, 1918, near Stroud, Oklahoma. She was the fourth of eight children born to Benjamin Fletcher McDaniel, a sharecrop farmer, and Anna Elizabeth (Finster) McDaniel, a homemaker. Wilma attended country schools until age seventeen when the family migrated to California in 1936 for work. She completed correspondence courses for a high school diploma and took community college classes but was largely self-educated by a wide reading of books. Merced County, California, became her permanent home.

Writing was her true calling, nearly an obsession; she wrote almost daily and for all of her life. An astute observer with a sharp memory, she composed in “free verse,” primarily about Oklahoma and Oklahomans, but also about California and Californians. Her poetry is uniquely placed by time and geography. Among her subjects are migrant experiences, lives of working-class people, perceptions of world events and popular culture, religion, and cultural and gender differences. Her poetry’s simplicity is deceiving; she almost always ends with some powerful truth or surprise.

Beginning in the 1970s, when she was in her fifties, she began to publish poetry and prose from a three-decade accumulation of writing. Her poems first appeared in the Tulare (California) Advance-Register in the 1960s, and she became increasingly popular. Her first book, The Carousel Would Haunt Me, was self-published in 1973. Over time, she published fifty-one books of poetry and prose. Her collections include Sister Vayda’s Song (1982), A Primer for Buford (1990), and The Last Dust Storm (1995).

Wilma McDaniel’s writing has historical value and is recognized for its authenticity, uniqueness, and universality. She became known in California through her publications and newspaper articles about her. California college professors taught her works in their classes, calling her “the Okie Poet” or “the Gravy Poet.” Her work has also appeared in numerous poetry journals, periodicals, newspapers, and anthologies. In 1976 the Tulare City Council recognized her as its Poet Laureate and Bicentennial Poet. The American Library Association’s sanctioned Wilma McDaniel national Literary Landmarks™ monuments at the Stroud Public Library, in 2013 and at the Tulare Historical Museum in 2022, posthumously honoring her life and writing. She was featured in Sageland Media’s award-winning short documentary, Down an Old Road: The Poetic Life of Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel, released in 2001, and National Geographic Magazine published an article on her life, “The Okies: Beyond the Dust Bowl,” in 1984.

Generally reclusive, McDaniel never married, lived with and cared for her mother, and did not drive. Health issues limited her job opportunities, but occasionally she performed farm labor, retail work, childcare, and housekeeping. She was a Protestant Fundamentalist but became a devoted Catholic and member of the Third Order of Saint Francis.

Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel died on April 13, 2007, and is buried in the Tulare District Cemetery near her mother, sister, and two brothers. Three Oklahoma sites hold archival collections devoted to her: Oklahoma State University-Stillwater, Stroud Public Library, and Lincoln County Museum of Pioneer History. Four California sites hold archives of her work, including the UC (University of California) Merced Library, which owns her literary rights.

Karen Neurohr