PIONEERS
My father was one
of the original pioneers that came
and settled Blanding in 1880, called
by the President of the Church to establish
friendly relations with the Utes
and Navajos.
There had been considerable
hostility on the part of the Navajos
because three
of their young men were killed
on the west side of the Colorado River.
But it was the women of the community
who fixed up
a banquet and they had a big
dinner out under the cottonwoods.
And the Navajo left with a very
friendly feeling toward us: the settlers
never had trouble like that again.
We overcame them
with friendliness.
The trouble came after
because the Navajo children
weren't going to school. My dad,
I heard him say
quite a few times, they'd never be able
to take care of themselves
if they hadn’t learned the gospel.
He wanted Bluff turned
into a Navajo school where white men
would teach. When he died,
he pleaded with me to do
all I could to see such a school
put up. But, of course,
the BIAs didn't seem interested. Not
until the mines, and suddenly
they held a meeting up at Shiprock, and I brought
that question of a Navajo school
back up--I wanted to know,
like my dad did, why the Navajo people
had been so discriminated against.
And there wasn't anybody that could answer.
We had a problem child
at the time, a Navajo
girl who’d been living with white people and become
quite incorrigible: she was twelve
years old and in first grade.
All the school principals refused
to accept her, tried to pass her
between Blanding
and Shiprock. Of course,
I brought her up
at that meeting to ask
what could be done for girls
like her. I think
what I said prompted them
to set up that school
near Aneth mines. And ever since
they’ve been putting forth
real effort to get the Navajo children
here in school.
Where did that girl go
after the meeting?
I don’t know: she disappeared.