Nana. 1/2 Choctaw, 1/8 CherokeeI have traced her family back to a mention in the Chronicles of Oklahoma where our grandfathers and grandmothers and grand uncles and grand aunts are found established at a fork in the river.
Sent to the Wheelock School for Orphaned Indian Children, she assimilated.
Later she would marry an Indian Affairs' man raised in Greenwich Village, favored with the services of St. Lukes in the Field, under the direction of "Father" Schleuter, after the death of my grandfather's father.
When I was 19 I witnessed her tears as she realized she no longer could speak the language of her birth.
She would be 102 if she were alive today. She lay to rest the first morning Clinton became The President Elect.
Uncle Steve said she made no big deal that Clinton was from her home state, she voted Republican. She once told me that she always voted as the men directed, 'they must know more about these things than I do.'
sometimes I think she chose to leave this world just to get away from the men, and that when she went into her secret voting booth she voted for Clinton as an act of self-determination and an up-yours, finally voting for her choice.
who knows
It was not a smile that I saw on the corpse, it was a defiant grimace.
good for you Nana! no more false smiles.
may our names bring joy to our ancesters.
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