Sarah Rector was 11 when oil was discovered on her land in Oklahoma in 1913. Her sudden wealth became the object of racist news coverage.
Brown, then a grade-schooler living in a two-bedroom house with three siblings, her parents and her grandmother, marveled but didn’t dare ask questions.
The truth: At the time, Rector was living with both her parents in a two-room cabin. She’d yet to become a millionaire, crossing that threshold at about 18, with oil earnings that would be worth $14 million today. Joe Rector’s attempts to lease it for oil and natural gas exploration at first netted little. Yet the possibility of riches teased the imagination as landholders throughout Oklahoma began striking oil. In 1913, a speculator produced a gusher on Sarah’s land. Soon, the wells, which would come to number in the dozens, were pumping 2,500 gallons a day, with about $300 a day — a 12.5 percent cut — flowing Sarah’s way, Bolden writes.
The rags-to-riches story made its way around the world, with American newspapers reporting that several German youth wrote Leahy requesting the child’s hand in marriage.For their part, Black-owned newspapers, including the influential Chicago Defender, speculated anxiously that Rector’s White guardian was taking advantage of her and shortchanging her education.The facts, including that Rectors themselves had selected Porter, a family friend, went unacknowledged.
entertained Duke Ellington, Joe Louis and Count Basie in the house that soon became known as the Rector Mansion.
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