Evelyn Varden was a prominent stage, film and television character actress from 1910 through the late-1950s. She is probably best remembered for playing landlady Monica Breedlove in the 1955 cult classic “The Bad Seed” starring Nancy Kelly, Henry Jones and Patty McCormick.
Mae Evelyn Hall was born in June 1893 in Adair, Indian Territory. In 1867, the Delawares, once a powerful tribe, had been given rights within the Cherokee Nation. In March 1903, ten-year-old Delaware tribe member Hall, chose as part of her Cherokee Nation allotment forty acres of land near Bartlesville, soon to be one of the leading oil towns of Indian Territory. At first her tract appeared to be ordinary agricultural land, but subsequent development of the oil industry put it in the heart of a valuable oil field, and worth a large amount of money.
The Cherokee Allotment Act of 1902 provided that contests against selections of land in allotment must be instituted within nine months from the date of an allotment’s original selection of the land. Sometime after the allotment certificate had been issued to Hall, Ida M. Swannock instituted contest proceedings whereby she sought to obtain the land selected by Hall. She claimed that the nine months’ contest period didn’t apply to her.
Dawes Commissioner Tams Bixby ruled in Swannock’s favor and required Hall to return the allotment certificate. In 1907, Hall sued Secretary Garfield of the Interior Department to enjoin him from issuing a patent to the land to Swannock, require Commissioner Bixby to return her allotment certificate, and set aside contest proceedings on the grounds that the Dawes Commission had no jurisdiction whatever on the matter. The results of what was ultimately decided is unclear.
Hall’s acting career began when she was still a baby – in her aunts’ repertoire company, with her father as company…
