What does home mean to you?

At the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, we pride ourselves on preserving and celebrating our many unique traditions. Together, we celebrate and honor the rich traditions passed down to us from our ancestors.

Home is not a place but a feeling. My home is wherever I live with my husband. No one can take my home away from me.
– Gina Powell

Home is where your heart and family is and to feel safe and blessed.
– Michelle Vaughn-Weems

Our home is our safe place from the world. Our refuge. Where love and faith run deep. Where Jesus sits at the head of our table at every meal. You come through the door, you become family. We build each other up, support and help each other. We study and learn from each other.
– Sandy Pogue

I’ve moved a lot in my life, so I’ve had many homes. I’ve traveled to places where I stay for long periods of time and that residence can feel like my home-away-from home. I’m currently in France in an ancient home-away-from home, just arriving today. This place has many wonderful memories from previous visits, so I feel a great comfort returning here. The taste of a savory cheese paired with local wine. The sound of the clock tower bell, followed by church bells. The smell of the inside of an ancient stone house. This is home to me for a month. I feel wrapped in love and beauty from times gone by.

I will go back to home in Coweta, OK, where my husband of 49 years lives with our three dogs, and our daughter lives in Tulsa. Home is long-sustained love and devotion. Home is living a dream that was dreamed 49 years ago.

Home is sisters, brothers, cousins, old friends who remind me that our parents, grandparents and ancestors made me who I am today.

Home is more than a place. It’s something tangible, yet intangible—even spiritual. One could say home is where they belong, such as a church or workplace. We humans need each other and have an instinctive desire to belong, to sink roots into the earth, to bind together in this journey through life.
That’s what I think home means to me.
– Patricia Ridge Bradley

Family, love, security, and peace.
– Judy Tollett Lambert

Home was where my grandparents lived in Buffalo Valley. Little did I know that my family now includes being Choctaw. Thank you for providing many blessings throughout the years for my family.
– Dennis R. Moon

Safety and Peace.
– LaNell Joyce Lyles Mitchell

Family and friends with safety and laughter and plenty of hugs and love.
– Judy Flournoy Goldwire

Home is something I have made for me and my family. A place to be yourself away from the outside, enjoy peacefulness and relaxation.
– Lawanda James

Home is in the heart of Choctaw Nation where I love to be!
– Margee Peterson

Home to me is a place where the ones I love most reside. Home is a safe place; home is a comfortable place; home is where the heart is!
– Katie Wooten

Home is where my family gathers to enjoy a meal and thank God for all He has done for us and remember our Indian heritage. My grandfather was a great Choctaw man.
– JoAnn McLain Hicks

My home is the heart of my existence while walking in this world. It’s the place where all my love begins and flows out for those around me and my family.
– Rose Sabine

Home is our sanctuary from the outside world. Our family can gather together and take their shoes off, make themselves comfortable, and help themselves to something to eat or drink. You can take a nap, play a game, or tell stories. Family in our lives comes in many forms. We have our birth family, our church family and our neighbors. God has blessed us with so much, we are willing to pass this blessing along.
– Jan Guiterrez

Peace from a busy world.
– Diane Hensley

Home is my oasis in an ocean of chaos and confusion.
– Wanda Brinkley

Everything–it’s my comfort place!
– Sonia Craft

Home is not a place – it’s my people.
–

Judy Bench Woodard
Wherever my husband is, that is home!
– Faye Durant

It’s where I am at peace.
– Valerie Feeler

Peace.
– Terry Taylor

Peace.
– Lanelle Ridge Shelton

To have a home is a blessing, especially when you’re at grandma’s house. Watching her work in the kitchen preparing food for us. It was hard times, but it was sweet.
– Carolyn Vazquez

Where my heart is.
– Judith Magers Bailey

Everything.
– Donna Bartram

Where your people come from.
– April Skinas

Safe haven, family gathering.
– Norman Bell

Home is everything.
– Kevin Shrum

Home is whatever you make out of it.
– Linda Hunt

Having a place to call home is my dream. I have been renting for a long time, never owning a place I can call home and take pride in ownership.
– Cindy Mose

Home is where my kids are and my internal being.
– Sarah Elizabeth

The place I want to be after all.
– Crisel Yassir-Martin

It’s where my children are.
– Jessica Jones

Home is a safe place where you can relax and be yourself with the ones you love.
– Amy Leigh Bourque

Everything.
– Lesa King

Home is anywhere my wife is…. She brings peace to my chaotic life. Any location could be home, as long as she is there too.
– Tony Templeton

Anywhere that you are with people who love you and make you feel safe.
– Anita Zurline

Home? It’s where I can sit on my porch, wave at my neighbors, talk to my family, hold my kids, and look out in my yard–my little part of this world that is mine! I can plan for my future think about my past. My home, my peace of mind.
– Don Weddle

It’s a gathering place. We come together and love each other. It’s our place to be us.
– Jean LeFlore

My castle with the Lord.
– Michael Dirt Oge

Home is where everything comes together, where love is always welcome, and a place when you walk into your home a peace comes over you because all of your loved ones are waiting for you with open arms and kisses.
– Anthony J. Cotter

Home means family with parents and kids. Money can buy a house, but money can’t buy a home. Family means:
F father
a and
m mother
i I
l love
y you.
– XaivTub Yaj

Family.
– Marilyn Wade

Home is where ya make it.
– Kevin Gentry

Wherever my husband and kids are.
– Leslie Eaves

Being able to see the water tower and the midway at the carnival during Labor Day!
– Jason Branch