ABOUT ME

Once upon a time long ago...I was born...giggle.  I'm a Aries, but a refined Arian as they would say... possessing some of the negative attributes but working on them... Phewww, hard work too.

The family came from extremely tough stock, I'm glad to say, as far as them being hard workers.
Women back then stayed at home and did all the domestics stuff but, the women on my dads side...well they weren't

your standard domestic type.

I favor that side of my family.  They too were hunters and fisherman/women, as I am. Grandpa was also into gardening (flowers) that's right a man who loved his flowers and tended them with a love that produced a spectacular display of colors throughout the yard. 

Both my father and his father were steel workers much like the Mohawk are...its in their blood I think being dubbed "SKYWALKERS" they were the ones that did all the steeplejack high steel beam construction work during the industrial era.

Many pictures can be found with men "high walking" with no safety gear...these were the "Skywalkers"...Mohawk. My dad and his father, who I adored both these men,

the sun rose and set on each to me, were in the steel foundries, my dad a licensed electrician for the industry, and my grandpa

worked with the melting of the steel directly... I must say... during one of their open house tours to the public

(AMERICAN STEEL AND WIRE)... I got to see all the inside operations at a young age and was absolutely amazed at the entire process... and the heat... oh the heat... gawd how they withstood that  can only be because of being used to sweat lodges

I think.

Again like many of us ...I didn't know at that time I came from native blood...it simply was taboo to  speak of... now however, 

I see how many things that were done, were done with the family tradition  of native ways.

You have to realize... while some start to pick up their heritage with great grandparents... I got mine  as close as my grandparents...in fact...my Huron born grandmother was born in the late 1800's...approximately fifty years after the 

"TRAIL OF TEARS", only a couple of years after the bloody massacre  of "WOUNDED KNEE"... my grandfather being a only a couple of years older... so the trauma and fear  of those times were still foremost in the minds of Native Americans and you never spoke of Native blood  for the fear the government was looking to come and extract you from your homes and create more havoc.

In fact... still during the mid 1950's... children were being pulled from families and being forced into the schooling of the "WHITE MAN", and the horrors of those days are even way too despicable to imagine... the beatings... the forcing of not speaking their language... cutting of the hair, and being made to dress    in white mans dress style in the early days... if children spoke in their language... they were put into solitary confinement cells and mostly left to die... which many did. The kids were not allowed to see     their homes and families again... and in the 1950's... it was rare they were allowed back for visits.

                                                                                                                                                 
Now put all of that together along with the fact that in the early 1970's... there was also the major  standoff at Pineridge where many were killed... children included... and its understandable why you  didn't breathe a word you were native.

Even my ex-husband can date his heritage back to his grandmother being a full blood and has the  pictures to prove it, she also never spoke a word of being native... his roots go back to the Kansas  Plains Indians where he was born. So my kids have quite

a bit of Native blood in them from both parents.  one of whom is proud and acknowledging of it... my Daughter... and tells her  children they are native... my Granddaughter having accompanied me to some powwows... my Son however, he is in complete 

denial of it with shame... so the stigma continues even today.

It was quite by accident one day while in the kitchen of my grandmother, when I was a lil'   Top

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WOUNDED KNEE MEMORIAL