Editing Joseph Yoakum (section)

==Early life==
Joseph Elmer Yoakum's biographical information is difficult to verify but he also claimed to be of African, French, and Cherokee descent.<ref name="Foun" /> New York Times critic Will Heinrich called his biography "tricky...It’s poorly documented, and the artist himself was not a reliable narrator."<ref name="Heinrich">{{Cite news|last=Heinrich|first=Will|date=2021-12-22|title=Joseph E. Yoakum Isn't Who You Think|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/22/arts/design/joseph-yoakum-moma.html|access-date=2021-12-27|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> His birthdates have also been given as 1886, 1888, and 1891, and his Veteran's Administration record says he was born in [[Springfield, Missouri]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Spriggs|first1=Lynne E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wA4WZ4uzL8oC&dq=%22Joseph+Elmer+Yoakum%22+Ash+Grove+MO&pg=PA174|title=Let it Shine: Self-taught Art from the T. Marshall Hahn Collection|last2=Cubbs|first2=Joanne|date=2001|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|isbn=978-1578063635|page=174}}</ref> A 9 year old Joe Yoakum does show up in the 1900 U.S. census in Greene County, Missouri, listed as Black with his father's birthplace being listed as Indian Territory.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/29473628:7602 | title= Join Ancestry®| website=[[Ancestry.com]] }}</ref> His father John Yoakum is listed in the 1880 census as Black with his birthplace listed as Cherokee Nation.

Yoakum was born in [[Ash Grove, Missouri]], but told a story of being born in [[Arizona]], in 1888, as a [[Navajo Nation|Navajo Indian]] on the Window Rock Navajo reservation.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite web |title=Joseph Yoakum |url=http://ci13.cmoa.org/artists/joseph-yoakum |website=Carnegie Museum of Art |access-date=16 December 2018}}</ref><ref name="Cong" /> Taking pride in his exaggerated Native heritage, Yoakum would pronounce "Navajo" as "Na-va-JOE" (as in "Joseph"). He spent his early childhood on a Missouri farm.<ref name="gse">{{cite web|title=Joseph E. Yoakum (1886-1972)|url=https://www.gseart.com/artist/Joseph-e-Yoakum/bio|access-date=16 December 2018|website=Galerie St. Etienne}}</ref> 

Yoakum left home when he was nine years old to join the [[Hagenbeck–Wallace Circus|Great Wallace Circus]]. As a bill poster, he also traveled across the U.S. with [[Buffalo Bill]]'s Wild West Show and the [[Ringling Brothers]], among the five different [[circus (performing art)|circuses]]. He later traveled to Europe as a stowaway.

In 1908, he returned to Missouri and started a family with his girlfriend Myrtle Julian, with whom he had his first son in 1909; the couple married in 1910.<ref name=":1" /> Around 1916, he worked in a coal mine, Hale Coal and Mining to support his family.<ref name=":1" /> Yoakum was drafted into the [[United States Army]] in 1918 and worked in the [[805th Pioneer Infantry]] repairing roads and railroads.<ref name=":1" /> After the war, he traveled around the United States, working odd jobs, but never returned to his family. He later remarried and moved to Chicago. In 1946, Yoakum was committed to a psychiatric hospital there. He soon left and by the early 1950s he was drawing on a regular basis.