Betty Lou Baumer

Betty Lou Tenadooah Baumer

Daw-Ts'ie Kaw Gaw Aun

Betty Lou Tenadooah Baumer passed away on Friday, October 10, 2025, in Carnegie, Oklahoma. She was 94 years old and died of natural causes. She was born at the Lawton Indian Hospital and grew up in the Hobart and Carnegie communities-Kiowa Indian country. She attended schools in Carnegie, Fort Cobb and graduated from the Riverside Indian School.

After finishing high school, she went to work in Shawnee, Oklahoma at the Sylvania Electric Plant as an assembler. She then moved to St. Louis, Missouri and later relocated to Carrollton, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. While in the Dallas area she worked for the Dallas Intertribal Center as a Job Developer. She took great pride in working with young Indian men and women as she helped them to develop a professional work etiquette and adjust to the corporate work environment by arranging on-the-job training with local businesses. Dallas was a relocation center for reservation Indians.

Betty went back to college to improve and build up her credentials. She loved to work with special needs children and special needs adults. She began working with the school system and assisted special needs adults with making the transition to living on their own. While working full-time she attended the University of Texas at Arlington, where she was six hours short of receiving her bachelor's degree.

She moved from Carrollton, Texas to Stigler, Oklahoma, where she continued her education and teaching endeavors with special needs children within the Haskell County area. She finally decided to retire at the young age of 74. She married Gerald Baumer, who predeceased her in 2021. She then moved back to Carnegie, Oklahoma, where she resided in the Carnegie Nursing Home until her passing.

Betty grew up in a traditional Kiowa family where the Kiowa language was her first language. Her father was a well-known spokesman, Kiowa spiritual leader, and faith healer, Henry Oliver Tenadooah. He practiced the Kiowa Sainpe (Native American Church) and raised her in that way. Her mother, Minnie Domah, was a strong Christian woman who was one of the founders of the first Kiowa churches in Hobart, Oklahoma in the early 1900s. Betty was raised in a well-grounded environment where Kiowa culture and traditions were most important. She was the last living matriarch of the Tenadooah family.

Betty had no biological children, but she had one son by Kiowa custom, Henry A. Ware, who she raised from the age of six. Henry has one son, Henry Oliver Tenadooah Ware, who was named after Betty's father. Betty had several siblings, but many of them passed away during the first influenza epidemic in the early 1900s. She had two sisters, Alice Palmer and Vivian Joyce Ware, who predeceased her. As per Kiowa custom, she became the mother and grandmother of all her sisters' children. She loved being the mom and grandmother of so many children, all of whom treated her with much love and affection.

Those that recognized her as mom are Andrew Ware, Wesley Ware, Jr., Loretta McCarthey, Randall Ware, Katherine Ware, Vivian Ware, Gus Palmer, Tugger Palmer, Darwin Palmer, and Phyllis Palmer. Her grandchildren included Henry Oliver, Angela Silverhorn, Samuel Ware, Matthew Ware, Thomas Blackstar, Benjamin Blackstar, Lonnie Tsotaddle, Alvin Reeder, Michael Satepauhoodle, Silas Reeder, Corey Ware, Wesley Ware III, Joseph Ware, Renae Ware, Betty Lou Ware, Randall Ware, Jr., Patricia Ware, Linda Sue Ware, Katina Smith, Bunny Palmer, Sonja Palmer, Christopher Palmer, Frankie Palmer, Phillip Palmer, Tara Palmer, Dustin Jameson, Bobby Dean Jameson, Cinder Griego, Mark Palmer, Jeff Palmer, and Melissa Palmer. She has many great-grandchildren who called her Grandma.

Funeral: 11:00 a.m., Saturday, October 18, 2025

Red Wolf Hall, Carnegie, OK

Visitation: 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m., Friday, October 17, 2025

Ray & Martha's Funeral Home, Carnegie, OK

Interment: Carnegie Cemetery, Carnegie, OK

Under the direction of Ray & Martha's Funeral Home, Carnegie, OK