Okemah in Oklahoma Woody Guthrie's Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, childhood home as it appeared in 1979 Guthrie was born July 14, 1912, in Okemah, a small town in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, the son of Nora Belle (née Sherman) and Charles Edward Guthrie. [16] His parents named him after Woodrow Wilson, then Governor of New Jersey and the Democratic candidate who was elected as President of the ...