Family Lives

Sioux Family Lives

Winona, Elizabeth

Winona, was a Yankton Sioux woman. She was born around 1830 in the Dakota Territory. It is unknown who her parents are, but there are family members who reported she was the daughter of the Yankton chief, Struck by the Ree. Her baptismal records say that her parents were Mahpiyakmikma and Hotewin. Some Yankton men had multiple wives, until that practice was ended by Episcopal Missionaries, so her lineage remains unclear. She was baptized under the name “Elizabeth” right before she died of tuberculosis in May, 1879. Winona was married to William Penn Lyman, who was a non-Indian. He built the Todd-Frost trading post in the Dakota Territory in 1857. They had seven children, Max, Frank, Edward, John, Cecelia Anna, Mary and Henry. At least three of their children attended the Hampton Indian School and their son Henry even attended Yale Law School! He graduated in 1891 and worked at a law firm in New York, but two years later, he died from tuberculosis.

Cecelia “Annie” Lyman

My ancestor, Cecelia Anna (“Annie”) Lyman, was born June 24th, 1864 in Yankton City. Her mother was Winona/Elizabeth, who died when Annie was 16. Her father had gone to Montana, so she was placed in the Indian Education Program at Hampton Institute in Virginia. She returned to the reservation in 1885, working as a seamstress. There she met Thomas Arrow, who became her husband. They had four surviving children together: Edna, Arthur, Luther, and Guy. Their first daughter, Bessie, died in infancy. She managed the Arrow Hotel and operated a restaurant and icehouse in Greenwood, South Dakota. She enjoyed beadwork and traditional crafts; her eldest granddaughter has the beaded buckskin dress she made for her eldest daughter Edna. Annie died on August 31, 1942 and is buried in the Holy Fellowship Episcopal Cemetery in Greenwood, South Dakota. She was described by her grandson, Clifford Eddy, to be a tiny woman who was an excellent housekeeper and cook. When he visited the reservation as an adult, she liked to put on her hat and go with him to get ice cream in town.

Thomas Arrow

Annie’s husband, Thomas Arrow, was also known as Tiogabdaga to his family. His name means “Puts His Hand on the Door” and reflects his love of going out and exploring the world. He was Santee Sioux, the son of Francis Arrow and Alice Arrow. He was about two years of age when the Minnesota Massacre of 1862 started. He was educated at St. Paul’s Episcopal School in Wahehe on the Yankton Sioux reservation in the Dakota Territory. He met his wife, Annie Lyman, on the reservation, and after they were married, he moved his family several times. They lived on the Flandreau Santee Reservation and the Yankton Reservation, both in South Dakota, and the Santee Sioux Reservation in Nebraska. He was bilingual and worked away from home as an interpreter and in land sales.

Alice Arrow

Thomas’s mother, Alice Arrow, was the wife of Francis Arrow, and she was known as Ohiyewin or “Winning Woman”. She was born around 1835. She and Francis Arrow had four children. Their daughter, Hannah, attended the same school as Annie Lyman during the last year Annie was there. Alice passed away just a few weeks after her greatgrandson was born on May 22, 1917. She is buried at River Bend Presbyterian Cemetery in Flandreau.

Edna Georgia Arrow

My great-great grandmother, Edna Georgia Arrow was born on October 14, 1889 to parents Thomas and Annie Arrow. As a child, according to her cousin Ellen Westen, she was called Hapan meaning “Second Daughter”. Edna married Elmo Eddy, a non-Indian, on August 15, 1912 in Bon Homme, South Dakota. After the Dawes Act was passed, Edna has obtained land, which she and Elmo lived on. They had six children together: Melvin, Clifford, Ethel, Elmo, Peggy, and Ida. Edna Arrow died on February 23, 1965 from complications caused by diabetes at Wagner Indian Health Service Hospital in South Dakota. She is buried at Holy Fellowship Cemetery in Greenwood, South Dakota.

Edna loved crafts. She was excellent at beadwork and quilting, making Sioux star quilts for her children and grandchildren. She beaded moccasins, cigarette cases, and coin purses. My grandmother says she made delicious silver dollar pancakes for her grandchildren. She was said to be found often next to her wood stove, cooking for a large family and visitors. In her later years, she needed two canes to walk, likely the result of having rickets as a child.

Clifford Eddy

My great-grandfather, Clifford Eddy was born on May 12, 1917 in Greenwood, on the Yankton Reservation in South Dakota. He went to the Greenwood Public School for two years. During his third year of school, he developed a bad case of pneumonia, and because there were no antibiotics developed yet, he had a slow recovery. His family thought he might die. He didn’t go back to school until the age of ten, when his brother Melvin, his sister Ethel, and he were all enrolled at the Genoa U.S. Indian Industrial School in Nebraska. He told my grandmother that during this time, he missed his mother so much that Clifford and another boy planned to run away from school together to go home. They would have had to travel 145 miles by foot and cross the Missouri River to get home. They prepared for the journey by taking ripe corn from the fields near the school and stealing eggs from farms to eat. They were caught when they got to the Missouri River and were returned to school.

Clifford completed third and fourth grades at the Genoa school and returned to Greenwood Public School for the fifth and sixth grades. He was sent to Flandreau Indian School, a boarding school in Flandreau, South Dakota for seventh grade. He enjoyed life there, as he had relatives nearby and his brother and sister were also enrolled there. At this boarding school, he loved music and learned to play the clarinet. He also had vocational training in animal husbandry. After he graduated high school, he got a scholarship to South Dakota State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts to study Dairying for three months. After he finished, he was offered a temporary job as a Dairyman at Seneca Indian School in Wyandotte, Oklahoma. He took a bus to get there taking the few clothes he had and a bag of fry bread his mother, Edna, made for him. Completely penniless, he made the fry bread last for the entire trip to Oklahoma and his first few days of work. Apparently, a co-worker eventually told him he could delay payment for meals until he was paid. This temporary job became a permanent one and he remained there for 20 years. While working, he took college courses, getting a degree in Agriculture and Agronomy at Oklahoma State University. This career change moved his

family to Arizona and New Mexico to work in land operations and soil conservation. He ended his career at the United Tribes of Kansas, then raised cattle in Oklahoma after recovering from a serious stroke. He died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm on November 30, 1998 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is buried in Fairview Cemetery in Vinita, Oklahoma.

While in Oklahoma, he married my great-grandmother, Lois Jackson, who attended school with Clifford’s sister Ethel. They had three daughters: Phyllis, Clifreda, and Carol. Clifford was an outdoorsman, loving fishing, hunting, and gardening. He enjoyed music and listened to a little bit of everything. Like his great-grandfather Wahinkpe, Clifford was a great athlete, playing basketball with his friends after work. When visiting South Dakota, he would swim in the Missouri River, and in Oklahoma he would skate and gigged fish in the frozen Lost Creek.

Phyllis Eddy

My grandmother, Phyllis Eddy, was born September 1, 1942 in Joplin, Missouri. She is the eldest of Clifford and Lois Eddy’s daughters. She lived with her parents at Seneca Indian School but attended Wyandotte Public Schools because the employee’s children could not attend the Seneca school. She remembers walking with the other children to and from school daily, no matter the weather. After high school, Phyllis married George Pittman, who was a soldier stationed in Denton, Texas. In Texas, she attended North Texas State University for one year before having their twin sons, Russell and Robert, in November while George was in Korea.

Phyllis and George divorced. In 1980, Phyllis married Joe Deffenbaugh, a pharmacist at the Indian Health Service (IHS) with a long career in pharmacy and health policy. When Russell and Robert were in school, Phyllis completed college, earning degrees from the University of Arizona, University of Tennessee, and USC. She had a long career with IHS, retiring as Deputy Director for Management Operations, IHS Headquarters, and as a member of the Federal Senior Executive Service.

In retirement, Phyllis and Joe remained in their home in Gaithersburg, Maryland. They enjoy being around Russell and Robert and their families who live nearby. Phyllis is a wonderful cook and baker; she is an incredibly talented quilter making her family lovely quilts and sewn goods. She and Joe enjoy travel together and have been to many places across the globe.

Phyllis Eddy around age 6

Shawnee Family Lives

Charles Tucker

Charles Tucker, also known as Wet-Ta-Kah or “The One Who Comes” was born around 1815 in Ohio. When he was around ten years old, land in Kansas was being set aside as reservations to make land open in Ohio for White settlers. Charles, Mary Tucker and their relatives who we are related to were some of those who moved to Kansas on the Trail of Tears. Tensions were rising in the 1860’s between the Shawnee and the settlers moving onto Shawnee territory. The United States Government decided the best course of action was to move the Shawnee to Indian territory, settling in the unoccupied Cherokee Nation lands. The Shawnee tribe and the Cherokee needed to come to an agreement, Charles Tucker and Graham Rogers were appointed to negotiate for the tribe. They met in Washington, D.C. where on June 9, 1869 they signed a treaty stating that the Shawnee would pay the Cherokee for the land and become citizens of the Cherokee Nation. They became known as the Cherokee Shawnee for the next 130 years.

In 1871, Reverend Charles and Mary Tucker moved their children: Dudley, Buler, Bonner, Seers, Maria, Samuel, Joshua, Alice, Charles Jr., Henry, and John M, and their daughter-in-law, Ella Daughtery Tucker, to Indian territory to start their new lives. Rev. Charles Tucker was a minister, tribal council member, Assistant Chief, and Head Chief. He died December 24, 1890 after getting a bad cold. He is buried in the Tucker Family Cemetery, located on the family’s land.

Charles Tucker

Dudley Haynes Tucker

Dudley Haynes Tucker, he was born around 1840 in Kansas to Charles and Mary. He married Ella Daughtery on June 11, 1860 in Johnson County, Kansas. Their children were: Julia, Dudley Haynes, Jr., (known by the family as “Bud”), Ida Mary, John Melton, Ada Marie, Mary Frances, James Logan and Annie.

Dudley was a United States Postmaster at Daniels Springs in Cherokee Nation, Arkansas. He was appointed on July 15, 1871. He was an Assistant Chief for his tribe and was a founder of the Vinita, Oklahoma Masonic Lodge No. 5. Dudley died February 10, 1899 in Okoee, Craig County, Oklahoma. He’s buried in the Tucker Cemetery.

Ella Daughtery

Ella Daughtery (Chakakumseh) was born in Kansas in September 1844. She was the daughter of George Daughtery and Polly Bluejacket. Both George and Polly were Shawnee. Ella was a widow for almost 30 years, even outliving her eldest daughter who died in 1911. Ella was ill for a while, but she had family nearby who were able to help her. In her last years, “Grandma Tucker”, as she was known, was said to frequently sit outside her house in the evening, smoking a little clay pipe. Her death announcement reported she lived to be 86 years old. She died at 4:00 pm on January 29,1927. Her funeral was held two days later, and she was also buried in the Tucker Cemetery.

Mary Frances Tucker

Mary Frances Tucker was the daughter of Dudley Haynes Tucker and Ella Daughtery. She was born March 2, 1881 in the Tucker home on Mustang Creek in Indian Territory. She married David Nathanial (Nat) Dickerson who served as a Deputy U.S. Marshall. They had four children: a daughter, Ollie Willie (known as “Willie”), Lea Ray, David Nathanial Jr. (known as “Bus”), and Calvin Dudley (known as “Callie”). Mary Frances died November 23, 1911 in her home in Craig County, Oklahoma. She had been sick with catarrhal pneumonia. Her mother, husband, four children, sister, and two brothers were with her when she died. She is buried in the Tucker Family Cemetery.

Willie Dickerson

My great great-grandmother, Willie Dickerson was born September 15, 1898 in Ketchum, Oklahoma. She attended a very small one room school called Wayside School when she was a child. Willie and her sister were both sent to Haskell Indian Institute after their mother died, with their father keeping both of their younger brothers at home. Both girls were unhappy at Haskell. In a letter, she asked her father when they could return home.

Before Willie married Percy Ray Jackson, she was a teacher who had eleven students. When she was 33, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was hospitalized in the Shawnee Indian Sanatorium in Oklahoma. Her family was 160 miles away from the sanatorium and did not have not enough money to travel to visit her. She died at the sanatorium on November 6, 1933. Her body was returned to her family for burial in the Tucker Family Cemetery.

Lois Maxine Jackson

My great-grandmother, Lois Maxine Jackson was born June 28, 1921 to Willie Dickerson and Ray Jackson. She and her four siblings were enrolled as Cherokee Shawnee. While her parents seem to both have had some education, it is believed that neither of them finished high school. The family often dealt with financial difficulties, especially during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Lois attending Wayside school for seven years. She was in fifth grade when her mother was diagnosed with tuberculosis, making the family’s struggle even harder. She frequently took care of her siblings, finding and preserving food for later and foraging for small game or wild fruit. After their mother died, Lois and her sisters were sent to Seneca Indian Boarding School, where they were grateful for shelter and stable food sources. The superintendent and his wife, who was a teacher, became life-long friends of Lois and her family. Lois applied to Haskell Indian Institute which is where she finished high school. She was an excellent student, and each summer would return to Seneca Indian School to work and use the money she earned to buy fabric to make clothes for the following year. After she graduated, she worked full-time at Seneca Indian School as a seamstress and later became a dormitory matron. She met, and later married, Clifford Eddy who also worked at the school. They had three daughters, a small house on campus, and a garden. They were later able to purchase a small farm close to the school. When her daughters got older, Lois completed more than a year of community college.

She was an excellent cook and seamstress. She was active in several women’s organizations and church. She would always find a job at the various places her husband worked when they left Oklahoma in 1960. She worked in two banks, a United States Park Service Office, and in a Realty Office in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. After Clifford retired, they bought a nice home close to where Lois was born where they raised beef cattle. Lois had a heart attack in her home and died in a Tulsa hospital on June 30, 2009. She is buried in the Fairview Cemetery next to her husband.