The Life of Elaine Goodale Eastman (Women in the West)

The Life of Elaine Goodale Eastman

women in the west Series Editors Sarah J. Deutsch Clark University Margaret D. Jacobs New Mexico State University Charlene L. Porsild Montana Historical Society Vicki L. Ruiz University of California, Irvine Elliott West University of Arkansas

the life of

Elaine Goodale Eastman

Theodore D. Sargent

University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London

Previously unpublished materials and photographs are used with permission of the James W. and Miriam M. Dayton Collection at Lodestone in Amherst, Massachusetts, and the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. ∫ 2005 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America $ 䊊 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sargent, Theodore D., 1936– The life of Elaine Goodale Eastman / Theodore D. Sargent. p. cm. – (Women in the West) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-8032-4317-0 (cloth : alkaline paper) – isbn 0-8032-0524-4 (electronic) 1. Eastman, Elaine Goodale, 1863–1953. 2. Eastman, Charles Alexander, 1858–1939. 3. Santee Indians – Social life and customs. 4. Teton Indians – Social life and customs. 5. Teachers – Great Plains – Biography. 6. Indians of North America – Education – Great Plains – History. 7. Frontier and pioneer life – Great Plains. 8. Great Sioux Reservation (n.d. and s.d.) – History. 9. Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (s.d.) – History. I. Title. II. Series. e99.s22e27 2005 2004029023

978.3004%975244%0092–dc22

contents List of Illustrations

vii

Preface

ix

Acknowledgments

xv

1. Sky Farm Home

1

2. Berkshire Farewells

15

3. Serving the Sioux

26

4. Love and Marriage

41

5. Your World or Mine?

52

6. Back in New England

72

7. The Writing Game

86

8. Flower of the Forest

95

9. Stresses and Separation 10. Life Goes On

106 121

Notes

135

Bibliography

161

Index

169

illustrations 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

Henry Sterling Goodale, ca. 1870 Following page 74 ‘‘Dora’’ Hill (Read) Goodale, ca. 1875 Elaine at age three Elaine and her sister Dora Read Goodale in 1868 Elaine at age twelve Steel engraving of Elaine at age fifteen Steel engraving of Dora Read Goodale at age twelve Elaine at age twenty Elaine at age twenty-six Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa) in 1904 Elaine’s sister Rose Sterling Goodale, ca. 1890 Charles and his daughter Dora Winona in 1892 Elaine and her daughter Virginia in 1897 Dora Winona Eastman in 1897 Irene, Virginia, and Dora Eastman at Carlisle Indian School, ca. 1900 The five Eastman children at Crow Creek Reservation in 1902 Henry Sterling Goodale, ca. 1902 Dora Winona Eastman, Christmas 1904 Irene Taluta Eastman, Christmas 1904 Virginia Eastman, Christmas 1904 Charles Alexander Eastman II (Ohiyesa II), Christmas 1904 Eleanor Eastman, Christmas 1904 Florence Bascomb Eastman, ca. 1912 Elaine, ca. 1910 Irene Eastman in costume for singing appearances, ca. 1915 Charles II (Ohiyesa II) in his U.S. Navy uniform, 1918 Irene Eastman by Granite Lake, ca. 1917 Eleanor Eastman, ca. 1920 Florence Eastman, a nursing graduate of Boston Children’s Hospital, ca. 1927 30. Charles Eastman II (Ohiyesa II), ca. 1936 31. Elaine, ca. 1930

ashes of roses Soft on the sunset sky Bright daylight closes, Leaving, when light doth die, Pale hues that mingling lie,— Ashes of roses. When Love’s warm sun is set, Love’s brightness closes; Eyes with hot tears are wet, In hearts there linger yet Ashes of roses. Elaine Goodale (1874)

preface My first acquaintance with Elaine Goodale occurred many years ago when I found an old volume of poems in my favorite antiquarian bookshop. AppleBlossoms: The Verses of Two Children was the title, and it included two beautiful steel engravings of its young authors, Elaine Goodale (born October 9, 1863) and Dora Read Goodale (born October 29, 1866). These girls lived at a place called ‘‘Sky Farm’’ in the tiny town of Mount Washington, high in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts. The book was published in 1878. My initial interest in this book stemmed from a long-standing project that involved cataloguing poetic references to the flora and fauna of New England. Apple-Blossoms was replete with such references, and, surprisingly, the poetry itself was quite good. A little investigation revealed that the book had been a remarkable success in its day and that both young poets were included in Stedman’s classic turn-of-the-century American Anthology. One selection that the book featured was Elaine’s lovely ‘‘Ashes of Roses,’’ which remains her most widely known poem. A question that intrigued me then, and that eventually led to this biography, was that of how people who are outstandingly successful as children manage to live out the rest of their lives. Elaine, for example, had published four books of verse (three with sister Dora) before she was eighteen years old. Yet today one rarely finds any references to her poetry – even in works specifically devoted to female American poets. Whatever happened to Elaine? Later on I would learn that Elaine had indeed lived a long and productive life. After leaving Sky Farm she made her first mark as an Indian reformer, then married a Sioux Indian, Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa), and went on to rear six children. She would be best known as a collaborator and editor of her husband’s books, but she also continued to write and publish books and articles of her own throughout her long and active life. Before I learned any of this, however, Elaine was a mystery to me, and I began searching for information at my local library in Amherst, Massachusetts. A quick search at the Jones Library revealed that they had some materials on both Elaine and Dora Read Goodale in their Special Collections. These women, it seems, were considered Amherst authors. Amherst? Where I have lived for most of my life? I rushed up to Special Collections and asked the ix

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nonplused curator to bring me anything they had about either Elaine or Dora Read Goodale from their time in Amherst. A quick search turned up a copy of Dora’s Test of the Sky, a volume of poetry published in 1926. A letter was tucked into this book and I read this first. In it, Dora thanked the Jones Library for their interest in her book and then pointed out that she had lived in Amherst for five years, from 1892 to 1897. ‘‘Out near the Belchertown line,’’ she wrote, ‘‘where the stone house now stands.’’ That sentence changed my life. I began a search for the stone house. The Belchertown line was three miles east of the center of Amherst, just beyond Harkness Road on Route 9. A little driving back and forth – and then – yes! Hidden behind hemlocks, fifty yards o√ the road, was a stone house – with a car in the yard. I drove in and knocked on the door. A woman opened it, and I stumbled through some kind of explanation as to why I was there. The woman was pleasant and said that she knew about Dora – and Elaine – and Charles – and Henry – and Robert – and Rose. . . . She was, she noted, the widow of Rose’s grandson. Rose? Elaine’s sister Rose. That was my first meeting with Miriam Dayton, the present owner of the home she calls ‘‘Lodestone.’’ This was also the first of many history lessons. I learned, for example, that Elaine’s father, Henry, and her brother, Robert, had built this stone house around 1900. Rose was responsible for the name Lodestone – which was intended to describe its magnetic attraction for family and friends over the years. Elaine’s mother and sister Dora had actually lived at this site before the present stone house was built, in a small wooden cottage that burned down in 1897. Then Elaine, with her husband and six children, lived in Lodestone for about eight years, from 1911 to 1919. Rose had lived here in the 1940s and was responsible for most of the landscaping and plantings around the house. Finally, as my head was spinning, Miriam mentioned that there was ‘‘a trunk full of letters upstairs in the attic’’ that Rose had left behind when she died in 1965. A trunk full? Needless to say, this visit was followed by many more. The trunk proved to be a treasure trove. There were hundreds of letters, yes. But there were also scrapbooks, journals, diaries, brochures, newspaper clippings, and photographs. Some things were organized, especially certain groups of letters that were tied together and labeled; for example, ‘‘letters from Dora in Tennessee,’’ ‘‘Theo’s camp letters,’’ ‘‘love letters from Red.’’ Many of the photographs were also grouped, including an important ‘‘Sky Farm collection.’’ Others, however, were scattered – though most of the photographs had idenx

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tifications in Rose’s handwriting on the back. Miriam was most kind and generous, permitting me to go through everything, take notes, and work at Lodestone whenever I wanted. For the next two to three years, I spent at least one morning a week at Lodestone. My primary interest centered on Elaine’s letters, of which there were perhaps one hundred, most written to Rose, that spanned 1892 to 1948. There were many other related letters, including hundreds from sister Dora to Rose, and others from people such as Henry Sterling Goodale (Elaine’s father), Dora Hill (Read) Goodale (her mother), Robert Goodale (her brother), and Charles Eastman. One of my aims was to organize these letters by author and date – or estimated date. I also filled several notebooks with quotes and made photocopies of the letters that I considered the most important. Meantime, I was learning a great deal about Elaine’s life after she left Sky Farm. The letters helped, though Elaine never dated her letters and Rose almost always threw the envelopes away. Elaine’s handwriting was also a challenge; fortunately, she typed most of her letters, especially in her later years (after 1920). I quickly learned that Elaine had become an Indian reformer after leaving Sky Farm. She had taught at the Hampton Institute in Virginia then traveled and taught in day schools on the Great Sioux Reservation and became the first government-appointed supervisor of education for the Sioux nation in 1890. That same year, she met Charles Alexander Eastman (‘‘Ohiyesa’’), a Santee Sioux who had grown up as an Indian but who had since graduated from Dartmouth College and gone on to obtain his md from Boston University. Charles had recently been appointed the government physician at the Pine Ridge Reservation. Charles and Elaine immediately fell in love, and they announced their engagement at Pine Ridge on Christmas Day 1890. The Wounded Knee massacre occurred shortly thereafter, and both Charles and Elaine were deeply involved in caring for survivors. However, they went through with the wedding in New York City in June 1891. This dramatic event attracted wide attention, though some members of Elaine’s family, and particularly her mother, had vigorously opposed the marriage from the outset. Part of this opposition was certainly based on racial bias, but there was also some concern that Elaine was giving up the chance for an independent literary career. Many issues surrounding this wedding were addressed in the letters Rose preserved, and I felt privileged – and grateful – to have access to them. The early years of the Eastman marriage were very di≈cult. Charles failed as a government physician in the Indian Service at both Pine Ridge and Crow xi

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Creek and in his one attempt to establish a private practice (in Saint Paul, Minnesota). Other e√orts, including as a lobbyist in Washington dc and an outing agent at the Carlisle Indian School proved similarly unsuccessful. Finding gainful employment as an educated Native American was proving to be nearly impossible. Meanwhile, Elaine bore a child every other year. From her perspective, the first ten years of her marriage had yielded five children, no real home, and almost no money. Something had to be done, and Elaine now took charge. Her first decision was to move the family to Amherst, Massachusetts. Here, the children could be properly educated and Charles could concentrate on a new career – writing about his Indian reminiscences. That career had actually already begun. Back in Saint Paul, Elaine had urged Charles to write down some of the stories that he had been telling his young daughter Dora. Eventually, with Elaine’s editorial assistance, some of these stories were published. Indeed, Charles’s first book, Indian Boyhood, was published in 1902, well before the Eastman’s move to Amherst. However, the remainder of Charles’s nine books were written in Amherst, as were three of Elaine’s seven books (written while she was Elaine Goodale Eastman). The Amherst years, and especially those spent at Lodestone, were clearly productive. Despite this productivity, and even taking Charles’s success as a lecturer into account, the Eastmans were still in fairly dire financial straits. There were college expenses for two of the daughters – Dora at Mount Holyoke and Virginia at Wellesley; Irene, who had a remarkable singing voice, was taking advanced voice lessons. To help with these expenses, the Eastmans opened a summer camp for girls, Camp Oáhe, in Munsonville, New Hampshire, in 1915. This e√ort was a family a√air, with Charles serving as the resident Indian, Elaine as manager and bookkeeper, and the various children as workers, counselors, and campers. Overall, the Amherst years were exciting – the children were popular and successful, Lodestone was conducive to Charles’s and Elaine’s writing e√orts, and Charles was rapidly becoming the bestknown Native American in the country. Fortunately, a good deal of information and insight into this period comes from two sets of letters that Rose preserved – the correspondence between herself and her two sons, James and Theo, who attended college in Amherst and remained in close contact with the Eastmans throughout their college careers. The Eastman marriage had been under tremendous stress almost from the outset. Financial di≈culties were always part of the problem, but other matters – including the fundamental di√erences between Charles and Elaine xii

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in terms of their backgrounds and personalities – were equally important. The Amherst years, while appearing successful, served only to exacerbate some of these problems. In particular, Charles’s absences from home – long a source of discontent for Elaine – became more frequent as his lectures became more popular. Elaine’s letters to Rose became more critical of Charles and her complaints more sustained. Communication between Elaine and Charles was apparently impossible, and the marriage seemed largely a matter of perseverance. This state of a√airs might have continued indefinitely, but events soon dictated otherwise. A significant event in the eventual breakup of the Eastman marriage was the tragic death of daughter Irene in the flu pandemic of 1918. Irene was just at the threshold of a promising musical career, and her death devastated both parents. Neither could console the other, however, and the distance between them remained. Then, sometime shortly after Irene’s death, Charles apparently had a brief a√air with another woman. This was seemingly not the first event of its kind, for rumors and allegations of sexual impropriety had arisen before, but this was the first time that there were charges of an illegitimate child. Elaine learned of this and, satisfied that the facts implicated Charles, demanded that he leave the marriage. The separation was abrupt – and permanent. Charles died and was buried in Detroit in 1939. Elaine died in Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1953 and was buried in nearby Florence, Massachusetts. Elaine’s side of this story is told in her letters, and it is basically consistent with her fictional account of a similar episode in her last novel, Hundred Maples (1935). Elaine remained embittered by this experience for the rest of her life. She essentially denied that Charles had ever existed, and removed all references to him from the materials that she donated to Smith College in 1950. But Elaine did not stop writing. The last thirty years of her life, most of which were spent in the homes of her two married daughters in Northampton, Massachusetts, were quite productive. She wrote four books after the separation: The Luck of Old Acres (1928) (a fictional account of a summer camp, modeled after Camp Oáhe); The Voice at Eve (1930) (a volume of poetry); Pratt: The Red Man’s Moses (1935) (a biography of Richard Henry Pratt); and Hundred Maples (1935) (her final novel). In addition, Elaine wrote numerous articles, letters, and book reviews that appeared in a variety of magazines and newspapers. She was interested in many of the issues that concerned post–World War I America, though she continued to concentrate on topics relating to Indians and Indian reform. Hundred Maples was Elaine’s most ambitious work and stands today as an xiii

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important historical treatment of the seemingly eternal dilemma for women: choosing between family and career. Here Elaine writes of three women who made di√erent choices – early marriage, late marriage, and no marriage – and compares the advantages and disadvantages of these choices. In the end, and despite the di≈culties and ultimate failure of her own marriage, Elaine recommends marriage – but ‘‘only if a man grants his wife the independence and opportunity for self-expression that he demands for himself.’’ Here Elaine sounds thoroughly modern. Elaine’s letters to Rose became more frequent after her separation from Charles. These late letters reveal Elaine’s thoughts on many of the events in her life and include her impressions of many people who shared in these events. It is very rare, I believe, to have such a body of letters, and I must acknowledge once again the remarkable opportunity that I was given and the women who made it possible. Rose Sterling (Goodale) Dayton set the stage, of course, and her foresight and courage are hereby applauded. Miriam (Johnson) Dayton then displayed great generosity, along with admirable patience and gentle encouragement, without which this book could not have been written. Miriam has also ensured that all the materials that Rose so carefully accumulated will now be widely accessible, as she has donated them to the Sophia Smith collection at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. This collection, known as the Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers, augments the extensive materials that Elaine herself left to the Sophia Smith Collection in 1950. This latter collection is referred to as the Eastman Papers and has been kept distinct from the Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers in order that scholars may compare materials from the two di√erent sources. At any rate, it is important to note that the Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers will always bear witness to Rose’s industry as a collector of family documents and to Miriam’s appreciation of their lasting historical importance. Elaine Goodale Eastman has become, in my view, a more interesting person with the passage of time. Her early and bold decision to marry a Native American has attracted renewed attention as interest in such interracial marriages has increased in recent years. At the same time, more attention is being focused on her writings, and particularly her mature poetry, as these seem to provide especially revealing glimpses into her own personal world. Finally, by reason of both her writings and the actual practice of her life, Elaine is receiving long overdue recognition as an important forerunner in the women’s studies and feminist movements. Beyond all this, however, she was an interesting woman who lived in interesting times. xiv

acknowledgments There are many people who helped in many important ways during the writing of this book. This project, however, has taken the better part of seven years to complete, so I may not remember everyone who should be acknowledged. I begin, therefore, by extending my heartfelt thanks and humble apologies to those whose contributions may have been inadvertently overlooked. That said, I would like to express my deep appreciation to the sta√ members and their assistants who have guided me through the collections at the following libraries and institutions: the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts (Sherrill Redmon and Amy Hague); the Special Collections, Jones Library, Amherst, Massachusetts (Daniel Lombardo, Tevis Kimball, and Kate Doyle); the Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire (Anne Ostendarp); the Cheshire County Historical Society, Keene, New Hampshire (Alan Rumrill), and the Northfield–Mt. Herman School, Northfield, Massachusetts (Peter Weiss). Many other individuals have provided important information and encouraged my writing e√orts. I would especially like to thank Marion ‘‘Ronnie’’ Copeland, who has written extensively on both Charles and Elaine Eastman, and who allowed me access to her unpublished book manuscript, Only a Change of Worlds: The Marriage of Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa) and Elaine Goodale Eastman. This was an act of uncommon selflessness, and I am most grateful. Raymond Wilson, a professor of history at Fort Hays State University and the author of the definitive biography of Charles Eastman, has been a tutor, colleague, and friend throughout this project. I have especially valued our lively e-mail exchanges on many matters of mutual interest. Marybeth Lorbiecki, whose publications include Painting the Dakota: Seth Eastman at Fort Snelling, has also been very helpful – and again, particularly through e-mail conversations. Others writers who have shared manuscripts, notes, and ideas include Mary-King Austin, Mary H. Benson, Katherine Ellinghaus, Renée Sansom Flood, and David R. Miller. Other people who have assisted my e√orts in various important ways include LaMaia Cramer (Albuquerque, New Mexico), James Ewing (Keene, New Hampshire), Judith Hooper (Amherst, Massachusetts), John Moner xv

acknowledgments

(Amherst, Massachusetts), Robert Prentiss (Granby, Massachusetts), Elizabeth (‘‘Betty’’) Ripley (Keene, New Hampshire), Cynthia Risk (Cummington, Massachusetts), and Lucille Van Deusen (Mount Washington, Massachusetts). I would also like to thank my children, David and Meryl, for their love and understanding; my grandchildren, Elliot and Lydia, for simply being; and my wife, Katherine, for her constant support and patience in the face of my seven-year obsession with another woman. Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to Miriam Dayton, the present owner and occupant of Lodestone in Amherst, Massachusetts, for her generosity, encouragement, and wisdom in all things. I hope this book provides some small measure of justification for her boundless faith.

xvi

The Life of Elaine Goodale Eastman

chapter one

Sky Farm Home But you and I were farmhouse born . . . — Dora Read Goodale, ‘‘Jewelled Morn’’ Elaine Goodale was born in a century-old farmhouse, high on the side of Fray Mountain, in the tiny Berkshire town of Mount Washington, Massachusetts. She was the first child of Henry and Deborah Hill (Read) Goodale, who, in keeping with their literary inclinations, named her after Tennyson’s lovelorn heroine. The year was 1863, and the Civil War raged on – though with little e√ect on daily life in the Berkshire hills. The old colonial farmhouse in which Elaine was born, together with its seven hundred surrounding acres, had been named ‘‘Sky Farm’’ by Henry Goodale. Here he hoped to make a living at potato farming, though this ambition was never fully realized. However, the farm was home for Elaine until she was eighteen years old. Later, Elaine described this site as ‘‘a rugged hill-top farm, lying at one end of a sparsely settled township in the Berkshires, three to five steep mountain miles from church or store, doctor or posto≈ce.’’∞ It was here, in this remote mountain setting, that Elaine would become, along with her sister Dora, a famous child poet. Elaine’s father, Henry Sterling Goodale, had been born in nearby South Egremont, into a family that traced its American heritage back to 1632. He was ‘‘Yankee to the backbone,’’ as Elaine would say.≤ He was also a studious, if rather frail, young man who had graduated from Williston Academy in Easthampton, Massachusetts, and hoped to go on to Yale. His frailty deemed otherwise, however, and after a year-long trip through the West, he took up teaching – first at the village school in Egremont and then as an assistant principal in a boarding school in Nassau, New York. While he was teaching at Nassau, his father decided to give him the seven-hundred-acre farm in Mount Washington that was to become Sky Farm.≥ Henry’s father, Chester Goodale, had settled in the Berkshires around 1820 and was a highly successful businessman who now owned and operated a 1

sky farm home

marble quarry in South Egremont. He was not entirely convinced that his poetically inclined youngest son would ever succeed in business and probably felt it best to encourage Henry’s budding interest in farming by giving him a farm. Henry was delighted, for he had always loved this beautiful property, and he quickly moved into its old, woodbine-covered farmhouse. Soon Henry began to think about finding a young woman with whom he could share his life on the mountain. A letter to his young niece, Caroline Goodale, describes the fruition of that search – and, incidentally, reveals Henry’s loving and romantic nature: Carrie. my dear, dear girl: – For two or three weeks after you went away I was so sorry and missed you so much that I really grew quite pale and shadowy. . . . Something or other must be done. What should I do, dear Carrie, since you had left me? I’ll tell you (in a whisper) what I did do. I brushed my hair perfectly smooth one fair morning, stopped in the boat in Hudson and sailed thoughtfully down to New York. Now where on earth should I look for a brilliant little lady who would love me always and go and live with me on the blue mountain? Well, while I was wondering and wandering about, looking into all the pretty bonnets on the streets, I suddenly found a face that pleased me very much. It had a low forehead and black hair and thoughtful dark eyes and a red mouth quite like yours, Carrie. Yes, it really was a nice bright sweet-mannered girl & called itself Dora. So all that evening I was real good to Dora in a quiet bashful way, and Dora was rather good and pleasant to me and half promised to ride up to Berkshire sometime and look about.∂ Thus, Henry describes meeting ‘‘Dora’’ and goes on to describe Dora’s first visit to the Berkshires, especially a tryst by ‘‘a happy waterfall.’’ He concludes with, ‘‘that October day & that happy waterfall will always be pleasant things for me to think about as long as I shall live.’’ Years later, Elaine, writing about her parents, said, ‘‘Their romance culminated on a gorgeous October day, beside the silver thread of a ‘nameless waterfall’ deep in many-colored woods.’’∑ In recollecting this story, undoubtedly told to her by her father, Elaine reveals, as she often would, her closeness to him. Elaine was seemingly never that close to her mother. In her memoirs, she describes her mother as ‘‘the pretty, penniless daughter of an old Colonial family’’ and ‘‘a city-bred girl of fine and fastidious tastes, passionately craving beauty and distinction, unused to hard work and indeed somewhat spoiled as 2

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the ‘baby’ of a large and a√ectionate household.’’∏ On the other hand, she admired some of her mother’s qualities, especially her ‘‘genuine love of knowledge’’ and freely admitted that she ‘‘adored her as a child.’’π Henry Goodale and Deborah (‘‘Dora’’) Hill Read were married on August 14, 1862, and immediately set up housekeeping at Sky Farm. Elaine would conclude, years later, that her mother was ‘‘hardly born to fit so primitive a setting.’’∫ Events eventually proved the point, but at the outset of the marriage Dora struggled valiantly with the demands of her rugged mountain home. As Elaine recalled: The ancient farmhouse, solidly built, sat as close to the ground as a bird to her nest. There were four fireplaces, the great one in the kitchen unused since stoves were available. Most of the bedchambers were unheated, defying the fierce cold of a mountain winter. Water was all fetched in pails from an outdoor pump and wood from a shed close by. Kerosene lamps had to be trimmed, cleaned, and filled daily. Great washings were done by hand and hung to dry in the open air. Butter was churned by hand and bread baked at least three times a week. Such were a few of the tasks confronting a dainty city girl.Ω After one year of marriage, however, Dora seemed happy enough, as witnessed by these comments to her sister Ella: ‘‘I must tell you something about our anniversary, although now more than a week past – it was a very happy day – lovely weather, and we took a fresh early morning drive to MossGhyll, our troth-plight brook – had a dear, loving, and happily serious talk by the waterfall – ate our lunch, home at 12 pm – a resplendent tea in the afternoon.’’∞≠ When Elaine was three years old, a second daughter, Dora Read Goodale, was born. Dora, or ‘‘Baby Doe,’’ as she was called early on, would quickly become Elaine’s constant companion. ‘‘Dora and I were inseparable both by night and day. We slept, studied and played together. Together we wandered for long blissful hours over pasture and meadow, canvassed the secrets of beast, bird and tree, and came as near to sharing every thought and dream as two sisters can.’’∞∞ A third daughter, Rose Sterling Goodale, was born when Elaine was seven, and her only brother, Robert Chester Goodale, was born when she was fourteen. By the closeness of their years, however, Elaine and Dora maintained a childhood bond that essentially excluded these younger siblings. The only other resident at Sky Farm during Elaine’s childhood years was her maternal grandmother, Eleanor (Lyon) Read (1802–78). This elderly woman 3

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was sometimes described as a ‘‘household saint,’’ and she exerted a profound e√ect on Elaine’s later views on women and their ‘‘lot.’’ One senses her significance in one of Elaine’s earliest poems, which Rose later annotated as ‘‘written probably in 1871, when Elaine was seven or eight – I was the baby.’’ grandma’s room Sitting by the evening fire, In a quiet, cosy, room, Little think we of the storm, Or of winter’s cold and gloom. Grandma in her easy chair Smiling sits, the centre bright, Of the happy children there, Of the comfort and the light. Baby lies upon her lap, Playing with her little toes While the firelight shining so Dances oer her cheeks of rose. Dodo, on the little stool, Bits of silk and cotton rends, While nearby, between the two, Jenny Goslin sits and mends. And Elaine, with nimble pen, In her sweetest verses writes, Of the circle round the fire, Of their happy, busy, nights. When we sit in Grandma’s room, We should kind and gentle be, And be careful of her joy, Whom we may not always see.∞≤ This poem captures some of the seemingly happy home life at Sky Farm during Elaine’s early years. There were, however, signs of discontent in the Goodale household, even at this early date. One line of evidence is found in the pages of the journal that Grandmother Lyon kept in 1866. Here, for example, is her entry for April 14: ‘‘Saturday morning – lovely – Dora busy in 4

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the kitchen, which makes her unhappy – consequently others. Elaine su√ers some from the cloudy day. How very desirable an enduring, self denying spirit is, my own spirits flag. depressed beyond controll almost, strive hard to conceal my feelings.’’∞≥ Other entries note such things as ‘‘Dora complains almost incessantly’’ and ‘‘Henry’s patience is called into exercise.’’ On July 8 she wrote, ‘‘Dora lies in bed until evening.’’ One Sunday entry says, simply, ‘‘H and D go to church after great trouble.’’ Clearly there were problems in the marriage, and they would get worse with time. Despite these problems, however, home life at Sky Farm was reasonably normal, at least to outward appearances, during Elaine and Dora’s childhood years. Henry, especially, appears to have been a loving parent who tended to spoil his precocious daughters. A number of his handwritten poems to both Elaine and Dora survive, and this one, written to Elaine in 1875, is typical: In seven days – or less – from date, I promise to pay our Laureate For value every day received – Assertion meant to be believed – Fifty-five cents, with interest (At 10 percent, if she insist.) The bearer to be soundly – kissed. Papa∞∂ Elaine’s mother, on the other hand, came across as a more demanding parent, especially as she took on the task of educating her young daughters. The girls were not permitted to attend the district school that was only a mile away; Dora, a former schoolteacher herself, devised a demanding schedule of home lessons that emphasized the standard and classical literature. The girls were also trained in Greek and Latin, and an artist friend of the family instructed them in sketching and botany. It is not surprising that Elaine and Dora showed extraordinary early promise in writing, especially in writing poetry. Both parents were poetically inclined and, genetics aside, they provided the girls with many homespun examples of the craft. Mother also made certain that their daily readings included large doses of classical poetry. However, it was probably the social isolation from other children of their own age that really forced the issue. Elaine and Dora had to devise their own amusements – and one of the things that they quickly settled on was preparing a hand-done journal, called the Child’s Monthly Gem, with a prominent ‘‘Poets’ Corner.’’ These e√orts were read 5

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aloud at family gatherings beginning around 1870 when Elaine was six or seven and Dora no more than four years old. The practice continued for some eleven years, though the name of the journal was changed to the ‘‘somewhat more mature’’ (in Elaine’s words) Sky Farm Life in 1876. Henry Goodale, proud father that he was, could not resist copying some of his young daughters’ poems to send on to some of his literary friends. In this way, a number of the girls’ poems eventually reached Mary Mapes Dodge, the well-known author of children’s books and longtime editor of St. Nicholas Magazine. Dodge was favorably impressed and asked Henry’s permission to publish some of the poems in her magazine. Permission was granted, somewhat reluctantly, and the December 1877 issue of St. Nicholas included six poems by Elaine and Dora under the heading, ‘‘Poems by Two Little American Girls.’’∞∑ One of the poems was Elaine’s melodic ‘‘Ashes of Roses,’’ written when she was eleven. This has since become her most frequently anthologized work. Reaction to these poems was enthusiastic, and it was now readily apparent that these Goodale girls were truly exceptional children. There was, however, one other totally unexpected outcome, and that involved a charge of plagiarism against Elaine with respect to ‘‘Ashes of Roses.’’ The basis for the charge was the appearance of a very similar poem, entitled ‘‘Attar of Roses,’’ in the Louisville Courier-Journal soon after Elaine’s poem was published in St. Nicholas. This similar poem was copied rather widely and at some point the name of F. W. Bourdillon, a contemporary English poet, was appended to it. This led to editorials in several prominent newspapers that accused Elaine of ‘‘precocious plagiarism.’’ Eventually, the editor of the Courier-Journal conceded that the ‘‘Attar of Roses’’ lines had been written after Elaine’s poem had appeared, and Bourdillon himself denied any connection with either poem.∞∏ It was at this point that the girls’ parents began to realize how precocious their young daughters were, and this led to much soul-searching as to how these girls should be treated and, specifically, whether publication of their poetry should be encouraged. To answer these questions, the parents sought advice from many of their friends and relatives, as well as from some of the most prominent luminaries of the day. Of particular interest is a long letter they received from Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the highly respected colonel, clergyman, and author, perhaps best remembered today for his association with Emily Dickinson.∞π Higginson, in responding to a letter from Henry Goodale, provides both a review of the kinds of questions that the Goodales were asking and his own personal opinions regarding their talented daughters. The letter begins: 6

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Dear Sir I have rarely been so much interested by any letter as by yours. You may be surprised to hear that I had already been told of your children, & had even heard the names of some of these poems. A friend of your wife’s had heard of them from a New York lady who knows you & who had some of the verses, especially ‘‘Ashes of Roses.’’ They are certainly the most remarkable verses I have ever seen from writers so young, & all you say of your children is intensely interesting. It is a very serious responsibility to have charge of any children, & when they are so gifted, it becomes almost formidable.∞∫ The letter goes on to assure the Goodales that precocity itself should not be seen as alarming, but that some thought might be given to making some changes in the girls’ circumstances. He cautions that ‘‘over seclusion & the privation of childish companionship is a serious evil & threatens future danger, especially in very gifted children.’’ This leads him to suggest that the girls ‘‘should in some way enlarge their horizon of acquaintances,’’ perhaps by attending a village school, or even a good boarding school. In the latter event, he notes, ‘‘I should think the atmosphere of Boston on the whole more favorable than [that] of N.Y. – the children one meets at school are simpler.’’ Higginson also expresses grave reservations about the Goodales’ e√orts to prohibit the girls from reading fiction, especially novels. Here he is very clear: ‘‘In view of the isolated lives of your children, the prohibition of fiction seems to me an evil, not a safeguard & keeps the world afar o√, even from the imagination. We get a sort of vicarious experience of life from fiction, & it enlarges our area of sympathy & knowledge very much.’’ Finally, Higginson cautions against encouraging the girls to pursue literary careers to the exclusion of an ‘‘active’’ vocation, such as teaching. He concludes with the recommendation that ‘‘nothing of theirs should be published yet. There is time enough for that.’’ As we now know, most of Higginson’s advice was not followed. The girls were eventually enrolled for two terms (1881) in a boarding school in New York City. Elaine later summed up that unhappy experience: ‘‘Our schoolmates were hardly congenial, our teachers wholesomely critical, and we una√ectedly homesick.’’∞Ω But except for sending the girls to a boarding school, the Goodales seemed to ignore Higginson’s suggestions, and novel reading was never allowed in the home. Despite the rather widespread opinion that early publication might harm 7

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the young poets in the long run, the decision was made to go ahead and publish a volume of their poems. Part of the reason may have been financial. The Goodales were in rather dire straits during most of their Sky Farm tenancy because Henry’s farming e√orts almost invariably failed. Even Chester Goodale’s largesse could barely keep the family afloat. We also know that Dora Goodale received a check for seventy-five dollars from St. Nicholas Magazine for the six poems published there in 1877, and this was a fairly substantial amount of money at that time.≤≠ So, when the Putnam publishing company made an o√er for the girls’ poems, Henry succumbed to temptation. A respected friend at the Springfield Republican described the o√er as ‘‘a liberal proposition,’’ and subsequent events suggest that that opinion carried the day.≤∞ Apple-Blossoms: Verses of Two Children, complete with steel-engraved portraits of Elaine and Dora, was published in 1878.≤≤ The book was an instant success and went through five editions in the next two years. Total sales amounted to some ten thousand copies – a remarkable total for those days. Contemporary reviews were laudatory, and Henry Goodale kept all of them, together with letters from admirers and well-wishers, in ‘‘bursting’’ scrapbooks – taking, as Elaine would say, ‘‘greater satisfaction in this wholly unexpected outcome of his romantic ‘Sky-Farming’ than in any more personal success.’’≤≥ Most gratifying, certainly, were the unsolicited praises of some of the leading poets of the day. Thus, Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, ‘‘What miracles these young Goodales are!’’≤∂ Helen Hunt Jackson added, ‘‘Really there has never before been a time in literature when a young thrush and a bobolink have printed a book!’’≤∑ It is perhaps worthwhile to examine Apple-Blossoms a little more closely at this point. The book was 255 pages long and included sixty-two poems by Elaine, seventy-one poems by Dora, and three that were jointly authored. Elaine’s poems tended to be more stylized – she had, for example, mastered the sonnet, and her selections included seven examples in that form. Dora’s poems, on the other hand, were less studied – partly owing, no doubt, to her younger age – but many reviewers felt that Dora was the more naturally poetic of the two, and this had probably always been true. Both girls devoted most of their poems to the natural world around them – to the seasons, and to the birds, trees, and wildflowers of their Sky Farm home. Surprisingly, perhaps, they both generally avoided the moralizing overtones that characterized much of the poetry of their day, and we find little evidence of the ‘‘lessons’’ that many poets drew from their observations. 8

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It is important to remember, of course, that these were the verses of two children. Elaine’s poems were written when she was between nine and fifteen, and Dora’s when she was between nine and twelve. Yet many of these poems compel, even today. There is innocence, a childhood joy in the beauties of nature, careful craftsmanship, and enviable powers of observation. Dora’s ‘‘In the Loft,’’ written when she was ten years old, illustrates these points: In the hay-loft, dark and sweet, With the breath of new-mown hay; There the lights and shadows fall Weird upon the seamed, scarred wall, And the dusky swallows soar High above the broken floor, Lightly poise on tiny feet, Quiver, dip, and dart away.≤∏ Perhaps no single poem of Elaine’s quite matched this. But her poetic abilities, including an eye for detail and a skill with words, are readily apparent in many verses, such as these, from ‘‘Thistles and Roses’’: There purple pansies quaint and low, Forget-me-nots and violets grow, Or stately lilies shine; Geraniums, vivid white and red, Frail, bright-hued poppies, lightly shed, And clasping, clinging, overhead, Long wreaths of tangled vine.≤π or these, from ‘‘Nature’s Coinage’’: Now Autumn marshals her brilliant train, With ripened fruitage and garnered grain, And the golden-rod by the roadside waits As entrance fee to her palace gates.≤∫ Lately there has been a tendency to dismiss these poems out of hand and perhaps without a reading. One author, for example, recently described these poems as ‘‘childish scribblings,’’ and another suggests that Elaine was always ‘‘cloyingly sentimental.’’≤Ω Such characterizations seem unduly harsh at best. Certainly, Putnam was delighted with sales of Apple-Blossoms, and they nego9

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tiated for two more books of verse: In Berkshire with the Wild Flowers (1879) and All Round the Year: Verses from Sky Farm (1881). In Berkshire with the Wild Flowers was a more elegant production than Apple-Blossoms had been. Though it contained only thirty-one poems (seventeen by Elaine and fourteen by Dora), it also included twenty-four drawings of wildflowers by the well-known illustrator William Hamilton Gibson. All the poems were devoted to specific local flowers, treated in seasonal order – arbutus, violet, laurel, thistle, gentian, and so on. These poems also appeared (without illustrations) in All Round the Year: Verses from Sky Farm. In addition, this latter work contained seventy-four new poems (twenty-one by Elaine, fifty-one by Dora, and two jointly authored). Dora was far better represented in this third book than was Elaine, owing in part to the fact that Elaine was simultaneously working on yet another book for Putnam, Journal of a Farmer’s Daughter (1881). The new poems in All Round the Year revealed some real growth in both of the young authors. Elaine, now seventeen, was approaching womanhood, and her poems give hints of the changes that she was experiencing. One delightful example is provided by these verses from ‘‘The Chestnut Flower’’: Dark against yon forest margin Richard found a chestnut tall, Clambered through the leafy branches, Broke the top and crown of all; This he brought, and, bolder now, Gave to her his blossomed bough. So she took and shyly wears it, – Sweet and stately where she stands; Subtle perfumes floating round her, Drooping tassels in her hands; Like a Dryad, fair and free, Wandering from her chestnut tree. Nay, the human passion enters, – Fateful thought for good or ill! For its beauty half she wears it, Half for reasons sweeter still; Flushed with girlhood’s conscious power Sylvia wears the chestnut flower!≥≠ 10

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Young Elaine was undoubtedly learning a great deal about ‘‘girlhood’s power,’’ for she was, as her photographs reveal, quite lovely. Dora had not yet developed physically as far as Elaine had, but her already remarkable poetic gifts had developed further. Here, for example, are a few lines from ‘‘A Berrying’’: Swallows atilt on the lichened rail, Wait a little until you pass, And the snake slips by and leaves a trail, Like to the wind in the meadow grass.≥∞ Elaine never quite achieved this magic touch. Elaine did, however, have a book of her own – Journal of a Farmer’s Daughter – the only full-length book that Elaine published without Dora in their childhood. (One of her Apple-Blossoms poems, ‘‘The Coming of the Birds,’’ was published in a handsome facsimile edition around 1880 with color illustrations by Alexander Pope.) In the Journal, Elaine describes the day-to-day activities at Sky Farm – beekeeping, berrying, haymaking, potato digging, and the like – in beautiful, if sometimes stilted, prose and poetry. It is essentially a loving portrayal of New England farm life in the late 1800s; occasionally, by reading between the lines, one sees hints of the problems, especially the poverty, that would eventually dissolve the Sky Farm home. The ‘‘disharmonies’’ that haunted Sky Farm seem to have resulted from two negative factors. The first was the deteriorating marriage of Henry and Dora Goodale, which finally led to their permanent separation when Elaine was nineteen. The second factor was the puritanical home atmosphere at Sky Farm, with its unrelenting emphasis on the importance of duty and service and the exclusion of playmates and pleasure. As far as the failed marriage is concerned, the seeds were planted early. Elaine’s maternal grandmother had noted signs of unhappiness in her daughter very early in the marriage, and this discontent became more pronounced as time went on. Elaine’s sister Rose once described her mother as ‘‘highly nervous and emotional,’’ and Elaine observed that ‘‘mother had become a nervous invalid’’ by the time the family finally broke up in 1883.≥≤ Today, we might find that Dora Goodale su√ered from some form of clinical depression; in her day, however, there was no such diagnosis, and certainly no medical treatments or psychotherapy to help. 11

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One source of Dora Goodale’s unhappiness was certainly her husband Henry’s repeated failures as a farmer. The financial hardships that ensued could only have exacerbated the di≈culties associated with rural living. Dora’s response to these troubles seems to have been to endlessly criticize her husband. Years later Elaine wrote of ‘‘mother’s persistent belittling’’ of Henry and added ‘‘very sad that was.’’≥≥ Rose, too, recalled, ‘‘My parents’ marriage relationship was far from smooth, and worsened as I grew older. I was in my 13th year when they separated.’’≥∂ Elaine once stated that her mother ‘‘was hardly born to fit so primitive a setting.’’ But the primitive setting was not the entire problem. What Dora Goodale especially resented was the fact that the duties imposed by her primitive setting interfered with the pursuit of her writing. She had had some success in placing poems in local newspapers; after the separation, she was able to support herself through her writing for some thirty years. Rose once described these later writing e√orts as ‘‘tiresome & ill-paid hack work – mainly domestic articles,’’ but she applauded her mother’s perseverance. Both Elaine and Rose were highly critical of their mother over the marital separation itself. Elaine was quite direct, saying, ‘‘Her unquestioned abilities were never fully developed – owing as much, perhaps, to lack of emotional balance as to the chafing bonds of circumstance.’’≥∑ All three sisters seem to have been very fond of their father. His poetic temperament, whimsical humor, and unfailing a√ection were always endearing. Elaine seems to have sided with him with respect to the marriage breakup, although she recognized that her mother’s decision was ‘‘modern.’’ This separation undoubtedly served as a basis for Elaine’s lifelong preoccupation with ‘‘women’s issues,’’ especially the seemingly eternal dilemma of talented women: choosing between family and career. In the short run, however, it may simply have fostered her determination to avoid a similar ‘‘mistake’’: the tenacity that she displayed in her own marriage may owe something to that commitment. The home atmosphere at Sky Farm was probably the most critical factor influencing Elaine’s childhood development. Thomas Wentworth Higginson commented critically on this restrictive environment as early as 1877. He noted, with disapproval, the absence of playmates that resulted from the parents’ decision to home school the girls, and he particularly criticized the Goodales’ prohibition of fiction from their daughters’ reading. These two circumstances alone provide evidence of a ‘‘sheltered’’ home environment and overtones of intolerance. Elaine later described her mother as ‘‘an aristo12

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crat by temperament and conviction,’’ who ‘‘chose to remain aloof from such society as o√ered, and was doubtless termed ‘stuck-up’ and proud by our country neighbors.’’≥∏ Elaine, herself, picked up some of this ‘‘snobbishness’’ as shown, for example, in her condescending attitude toward ‘‘country girls and boys’’ in Journal of a Farmer’s Daughter. Here we find descriptions of a boy who was ‘‘a quiet, hard-working fellow, honestly ashamed of his bad ‘bringing-up,’ ’’ and of a girl ‘‘who is not a bad type of her class of New England girls.’’≥π Understandably, perhaps, Elaine never entirely overcame this tendency to make ‘‘class’’ distinctions. The prohibition on fiction is perhaps the clearest example of Sky Farm’s mixed messages. On the one hand the girls were encouraged to pursue knowledge; on the other they had to be protected from the knowledge of some of life’s ‘‘unpleasantries’’ – like sex and violence. This was, however, only one of many mixed messages that Elaine received. Another resulted from the contradictions between her mother’s pious maxims, like ‘‘love thy neighbor,’’ and her obvious disdain for most of her own neighbors. Undoubtedly, many other of her mother’s beliefs contradicted the actual behavior exhibited. Here, for example, Dora’s persistently belittling Henry seemed particularly hypocritical to Elaine. One of the most confusing conflicts for Elaine was fostered by her mother’s constant preaching about the importance of duty and service to others, while insisting on pursuing a literary career. As Elaine would later realize, her mother ‘‘had developed a firm belief in ‘women’s rights,’ and became what is known as a feminist.’’≥∫ But how to reconcile this pursuit of self-interest (selfishness) with devotion to duty and service to others (selflessness)? This question haunted Elaine throughout her life and was the theme of her last and most ambitious novel, Hundred Maples (1935). Elaine’s home life during childhood was perhaps not so very unlike that of many youngsters reared in rural New England in the mid- to late nineteenth century. Many mothers undoubtedly followed the child-rearing advice of contemporary writers like Catharine Beecher, who asserted that ‘‘the only legitimate object of amusement is to prepare mind and body for the proper discharge of duty’’ and that ‘‘novel-reading tends to throw allurements around vice and crime, and should be banished.’’≥Ω What seems to have di√ered in Elaine’s case, however, was the degree to which she was isolated – especially from children of her own age (except her sister). Because of this, Elaine missed the experience of school-day chums – exchanging ideas, competing, 13

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taunting, playing games, telling lies – in short, educating each other. As a result, Elaine had very little exposure to di√erent points of view and very few models upon which to pattern her life. This sheltered childhood must have had some lasting e√ects, and certain of Elaine’s personality traits may have originated in her Sky Farm days. Her characteristic aloofness, which led some to describe her as ‘‘cold,’’ and her inability to ‘‘let herself go,’’ for which she often expressed regret, may have developed in response to the social deprivation of her childhood years.∂≠ She did describe herself as ‘‘socially awkward, shy, and unsophisticated’’ when she first left home in 1883.∂∞ Some unease in social situations seems to have persisted throughout her life. Elaine was also rather easily angered and, when so inclined, could become a fierce antagonist. Her published battles with John Collier display this fiery side. In this, her sister Dora felt that she resembled their mother, and once wrote to Rose, ‘‘Elaine argues as mother did – by raising her voice, literally or on paper, & misquoting or ignoring contrary opinions.’’∂≤ Elaine probably did owe some of her characteristics to the example set by her mother, however much she may have resented the fact. She did eventually admit, for example, that her mother’s ‘‘idealistic maxims’’ had had a deep influence on her.∂≥ It appears that Elaine always did find fulfillment in the performance of duty and in serving others and, like her mother, took some satisfaction in a stoic acceptance of her fate.

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chapter two

Berkshire Farewells A glorious haste was his, a quenchless fire – A motive and an energy divine! — Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘In Memoriam: Samuel Chapman Armstrong’’ The Berkshire idyll was never entirely idyllic. Tensions lurked beneath the surface, as we have seen, from at least the time of Elaine’s birth. As Rose put it, things simply ‘‘worsened over the years.’’ The family fortunes became increasingly precarious, and the parents increasingly embittered. Elaine notes that her mother ‘‘was at heart a disappointed woman and gradually sank into a state of nervous invalidism.’’∞ Eventually, when Elaine was nineteen, Henry and Dora gave up the struggle and agreed to separate. The actual breakup of the Sky Farm home began when Henry Goodale left in 1882. As Elaine would describe it later, her father ‘‘turned sadly to a salaried post in New York City.’’≤ Sadly, because he was leaving his beloved Berkshires – and, of course, because this event underscored the failure of both his farming e√orts and his marriage. But, as it turns out, Henry proved to be quite successful in his new position as a hotel manager and certainly must have enjoyed some aspects of his newfound freedom. The Windermere Hotel, on Fifty-seventh Street in New York City, was actually a rather progressive apartment house that catered especially to what was then referred to as the ‘‘new’’ woman.≥ That ‘‘new’’ woman was, first and foremost, financially independent. She was also career-oriented, and often a writer or artist – exactly the kind of woman who would appeal to Henry Goodale – and he reveled in his managerial role. He created a most unusual apartment for himself, involving a suite of rooms on the upper story of the Windermere, with a circular staircase leading to a rooftop penthouse that he named ‘‘Sky Parlor.’’ If we look at this apartment more closely, we can see why it was described in one contemporary account as an ideal ‘‘bachelor’s den.’’ The three main rooms were ‘‘ornamented with much taste, with the flotsam and jetsam accumulated during many years by this devotee of the antique, the odd, and the beautiful.’’∂ 15

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The few photographs that we have of the apartment show a situation that many men might describe as ‘‘paradise’’ – though many women, I suspect, would not agree. Surely Henry’s wife disapproved – and she would not set foot in it until forced to do so by Elaine’s wedding arrangements in 1891. Sky Parlor, the rooftop ‘‘study,’’ was especially interesting. Here, Henry fully indulged his love of nature. His plantings included ‘‘roses, honeysuckles and passion vines, filling the air with fragrance.’’ A flower garden included ‘‘the convolvulus, the phlox, the carnation, [the] forget-me-not, the pitcher-plant and the nasturtium.’’∑ Other denizens included a small white dog, a cote of doves, and a hen – ‘‘Dame Atticus Hennica’’ – and her o√spring, all hatched from a nearby grocery store’s eggs.∏ In this parlor we can see the ‘‘whimsical humor and gay adventurousness’’ that Elaine would always remember in her father.π It is not clear how familiar Henry’s daughters were with his New York apartment before Elaine’s wedding reception in 1891. However, one bit of evidence confirms that at least Rose once stayed overnight. A handwritten poem, found among her letters in an envelope addressed simply ‘‘H. S. G.,’’ confirms her presence, delightfully: Of all the windows that adorn your fascinating Attic – Artistic or mechanical, electric, hydrostatic – There is not one among them all so marvelously wrought As is this perfect consequence of Nature’s lightest thought∫ Below the poem, in Henry Goodale’s handwriting, is the notation, ‘‘from Rose – with a sample of the nocturnal Lepidoptera.’’ This little memento is comforting – suggesting as it does that Rose sometimes shared Henry’s playfulness and, incidentally, that she was not without poetic skills of her own. Elaine was the next one to leave Sky Farm. She was now nineteen, and the time to fledge had arrived. One might have expected her to go on to college at this point but, as she noted, ‘‘the required funds were not forthcoming.’’ This explanation is not entirely convincing. For one thing, Elaine’s later education, both at home and at the New York boarding school that she attended for one year, had been designed with an eye to college-entrance requirements – especially those of Radcli√e.Ω Elaine would later complain, ‘‘I wonder that no e√ort was made to launch me upon the journalistic or purely literary career 16

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for which I had shown most fitness,’’ but she also notes, ‘‘I was actually o√ered a scholarship in the new ‘Harvard Annex’ (now Radcli√e).’’ However, she adds, ‘‘we were too poor to avail ourselves of this opportunity.’’∞≠ Considering Elaine’s literary accomplishments to this point, it seems unusual that more scholarship aid was not forthcoming – notwithstanding that she was a woman in a far more gender-biased era than today’s. On the other hand, it may be that Elaine was not terribly enthusiastic about going to college. We do know that she thoroughly disliked her one boarding-school experience, and perhaps a paying job was more attractive to her than further schooling at this point. She was, after all, a very successful author – without any college education – and she may have felt that she could easily continue to write without formal training. At any rate, her lack of further schooling undoubtedly limited her personal and literary horizons and hampered her progress from time to time. Elaine later recognized this problem and made every e√ort to insure that her own daughters did graduate from college. In 1882 Elaine felt that only two options were available to her: tutoring small children in a private family or accepting a teaching position at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Hampton, Virginia. She chose the latter. How that second option became available to Elaine dates back to a ‘‘glowing midsummer day’’ in 1878, when Elaine was fourteen, and ‘‘a gallant figure on horseback’’ drew up to the Sky Farm farmhouse.∞∞ This figure was none other than Gen. Samuel Chapman Armstrong, who had risen to command the Ninth U.S. Colored Troops Regiment in the Civil War. After the war he had been an agent of the short-lived Freedmen’s Bureau and then went on to establish the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute for African American education in 1868.∞≤ Later, Hampton developed a department for teaching Native American students, and this is where Elaine would enter the picture. There can be no question but that General Armstrong made a very strong impression on young Elaine: ‘‘Armstrong’s dramatic personality instantly gripped our imaginations. His shining countenance and rapid speech, overflowing with enthusiasm for humanity and bubbling with wit, proved irresistible. Even Mother succumbed. From the hour of that first auspicious meeting under the lilacs, the famous champion of the red and black races was no stranger in our home.’’∞≥ This first visit of General Armstrong was associated with the sad occasion of his first wife’s funeral in nearby Stockbridge. Thereafter, though, it seems that he returned to Sky Farm on a number of occasions, probably in connection with some of his famous ‘‘begging trips’’ to the North in search of funds for Hampton.∞∂ 17

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Elaine was not alone, of course, in finding Armstrong charming. Another Hampton teacher described him in the following terms: ‘‘He caught up any topic that was touched upon and tossed the ball of conversation most nimbly to and fro. A delightful gaiety is my most general recollection. . . . But geniality, wit, humanity, all these showed in his speech, and when he came in it was always as if a wind of strength and healing blew.’’∞∑ This woman also noted that ‘‘he told delightful stories’’ to her children. Armstrong’s daughter relates his propensity for outbursts of ‘‘nonsense,’’ including the singing of his ‘‘famous Chinese song’’: When all had expressed a desire to hear it, he would procure a tin pan and fork for each and tell every one to beat on the pan when he gave the word. He would then sit down in the center of the circle, and with a perfectly solemn face sing gibberish which sounded su≈ciently like Chinese, declaring it was a classical love song in that tongue. At intervals he would call for the pans, and all would solemnly beat their pans, producing dreadful discords; at last some one would burst out laughing and a general laugh would ensue, which is what he made the performance for.∞∏ We can imagine the delight of the Goodale children on such occasions. This man, who hated ‘‘melancholy, long-faced gatherings,’’ must have brought a welcome breath of fresh air to the Sky Farm household. General Armstrong’s major interests were, however, philosophy and education. And it was these interests that attracted Elaine’s attention. He had always been committed to the education of blacks: ‘‘The education of the freedmen is the great work of the day; it is their only hope, the only power that can lift them up as a people, and I think every encouragement should be given to schools established for their benefit.’’∞π The education that he envisioned was primarily vocational – ‘‘the training of the mind through manual labor.’’∞∫ As he saw it, ‘‘The temporal salvation of the colored race for some time to come is to be won out of the ground. Skillful agriculturists and mechanics are needed rather than poets and orators.’’∞Ω This emphasis on manual labor as the key to the development of ‘‘character’’ in Negroes sounds paternalistic, or even racist, today – especially when it involved criticism of blacks, as in this assertion: ‘‘The average Negro student needs a regime which shall control the twentyfour hours of each day; thus only can the old ideas and ways be pushed out and new ones take their place.’’≤≠ 18

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Basically, Armstrong viewed his mission as one of providing blacks, and later Indians, with the tools to succeed in the ‘‘dominant’’ culture – namely, his own hardworking, white, and Christian world. This explains his emphasis on the ‘‘hand’’ (manual labor), the ‘‘head’’ (Western literature), and the ‘‘heart’’ (Christianity) in Hampton’s curriculum. ‘‘Indians,’’ he once asserted, are ‘‘grown-up children,’’ and ‘‘we are a thousand years ahead of them.’’≤∞ They were seen as heathen and their education was designed to make them civilized and Christian. Today we would describe Armstrong as well-intentioned but hopelessly naive. He undoubtedly felt that he was helping the people that his own people had wronged, but his unquestioned assumptions of racial and religious superiority are now rejected out of hand. Listening to Armstrong at Sky Farm, Elaine, however, was untroubled by the concerns that we have voiced. She had been brought up with similar notions of superiority, and in a devoutly Christian home. She saw only a ‘‘champion of the red and black races’’ before her. Armstrong was undoubtedly caught up in the recent introduction of Indians at Hampton at this time. Just a few months earlier (April 1878), Gen. Richard Henry Pratt, who had been in charge of seventy-two Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, and Arapaho prisoners of war being interred at Fort Marion, Florida, brought seventeen of them to Hampton and started a new Indian department there. Pratt had experimented with an education program similar to the one at Hampton for his prisoners in Florida, and some of them decided to go on to Hampton to continue that education. Armstrong was optimistic about this new venture, writing at the time, ‘‘I think this school can indicate one way in which the Indian can be educated to his own great advantage, and to that of the country.’’≤≤ Whatever General Armstrong’s failings, he was a ‘‘champion of the red race’’ at heart. As his daughter noted, ‘‘He threw the force of his personality and influence into the work of convicting the conscience of the nation of criminal negligence toward the red men.’’≤≥ This kind of compassion would have impressed Elaine. For the first time, perhaps, she saw a ‘‘cause’’ that might merit her devotion. Such a cause might also satisfy her mother’s demand for a commitment to ‘‘service and duty.’’ We do know that Armstrong made an overture. Elaine later noted, ‘‘Either on that initial visit or a later one, the General let fall an apparently casual suggestion destined to bear fruit some five years afterward.’’ Then, Elaine continued, ‘‘Mother shaped my whole future by her decision to accept for me the tentative o√er of a share in the Hampton experiment,’’ adding that ‘‘the 19

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altruistic motive appealed to us both.’’≤∂ Elaine seems to be a little devious here, claiming that her mother made the decision. But elsewhere she contends that her mother had ‘‘failed, indeed, to sympathize with [her] plans or . . . enthusiasm.’’≤∑ Reading between the lines, it appears that Elaine wanted to go to Hampton and that her mother gave her lukewarm support. As Elaine would put it, ‘‘A post in a missionary school was no doubt less wounding to her pride than . . . tutoring small children in a private family.’’≤∏ In a letter to her sister Rose much later, Elaine expressed regret for the decision to go to Hampton, but she still attributed it to her mother: ‘‘I did not mean to ask you whether you would like to start life over with the benefit of the experience gained in one lifetime! I suppose in such a case most of us would do things quite di√erently – in so far as I had a choice I certainly should, if I could go back to twenty years old, when mother largely determined my destiny by sending me to Hampton!’’≤π Elaine, now eighty-one, still sees herself as the victim – though the record itself suggests otherwise. But she is, after all, human – and rewriting personal history is a seemingly universal human characteristic.≤∫ There is one other matter that might have had some bearing on the decision to go to Hampton. This is the possibility that Elaine had a teenage ‘‘crush’’ on General Armstrong – perhaps from the time of his first visit to Sky Farm. Her early description of ‘‘a gallant figure on horseback’’ is suggestive, but more to the point are three poems that she published under the title ‘‘Moods’’ shortly after her arrival at Hampton.≤Ω One of these poems was ‘‘When Did We Meet?’’: When did I know thee and not love thee? How could I live, and know thee not? The look of thine that first did move me I have forgot. Canst thou recall thy life’s beginning? Will childhood’s conscious wonder last? Each glance from thee, so worth the winning, Blots out the past! This poem clearly reveals a romantic interest, as do these lines from ‘‘In a Crowd’’: Thy name exacts some costly token The instant blush, the trembling tone≥≠ 20

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It is true that Elaine had known admirers of the opposite sex from a very young age, but she had been totally unimpressed. In her memoirs she mentions ‘‘an unwise family friend’’ who ‘‘embarrassed me profoundly by a premature declaration of love, even before I had put up my hair.’’≥∞ This event occurred when she was only fifteen, but she also had several other ‘‘admirers’’ before she was twenty. She confesses that ‘‘their respectful advances aroused only a most unconscionable indignation!’’ Finally, she received ‘‘two or three marriage proposals’’ at about the time that she was deciding about Hampton but says, ‘‘I was not yet ready to consider marriage.’’≥≤ This was undoubtedly true, but she was probably ready to fall in love. General Armstrong was an older man, certainly, but Elaine had always preferred the ‘‘society and conversation’’ of her elders to that of ‘‘boys and girls’’ her own age.≥≥ Armstrong, at forty-four, was a vigorous, handsome man who undoubtedly aroused romantic interest in many women. He was presumably aware of her infatuation but, to his credit, did not take advantage of the situation. He did eventually remarry, in 1890; his second wife, Mary Alice Ford, who had also been a teacher at Hampton, was two years younger than Elaine. One can only wonder what Elaine thought of this woman and of the marriage. Did she ever have any regrets? The point here is that Elaine’s attraction to General Armstrong may have increased the appeal of Hampton and tempered any resistance she might have felt about accepting her mother’s advice. As with the question of going on to college, Elaine probably played a more decisive role in the ultimate decision than she seems willing to admit. Whatever her role in the decision, Elaine set o√ for Hampton in the fall of 1893 and described herself as ‘‘mentally rather mature’’ for her age, but ‘‘socially awkward, shy, and unsophisticated.’’≥∂ Armstrong and his sta√ were understanding, however, and Elaine quickly adapted to her new life. She even embraced Armstrong’s ideas on the importance of manual labor in a wellrounded education, confessing that there had been a ‘‘marked predominance of the intellectual’’ in her own early training.≥∑ Also, for the first time, she made friends with people her own age and became one of a ‘‘strong body of teachers, remarkably successful in working together.’’≥∏ Finally, Hampton solidified her commitment to education as the solution to the ‘‘Indian problem’’ and initiated her public involvement with groups like the Indian Rights Association (founded in 1882) that advocated the assimilation of Indians into white civilization.≥π 21

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In the end, Elaine would say, ‘‘Hampton was my normal school, my college, my introduction to the world, and I have always believed that its founder has been the strongest influence in my life, after my own parents.’’≥∫ After Henry Goodale had left for New York and Elaine had committed to Hampton, Dora took the rest of the children (Dora, 17; Rose, 13; and Robert, 5) back to her hometown of Redding, Connecticut. Here they moved into the tenant house of Dora’s brother, George, and lived there along with her maiden sister, Ella (Read). Redding was something of a literary center, even then; the poet Joel Barlow (1754–1812) had lived there, and Daniel Carter Beard, the scouting pioneer and author of the popular American Boys’ Handy Book (1882), was living there at the time. Later, Mark Twain built his final home (‘‘Stormfield’’) in Redding in 1908, and this ensured its lasting literary reputation. Rose and Robert attended Redding’s public schools – something that neither Elaine nor Dora had ever done. Sister Dora, meantime, was writing poems and natural-history articles for local newspapers and magazines and had begun to experiment with painting, especially watercolors. Mother Dora was also writing, mainly poems, and mostly for the local newspapers.≥Ω After about four years, in the fall of 1887, the entire family moved to a home on Paradise Road in Northampton, Massachusetts. Here, sister Dora entered the Art School of Smith College, Rose attended the Burnam Preparatory School (for one year), and Robert went to the public high school. A year later Rose also entered Smith. Family finances were very tight at this time, and eventually Rose was given the choice of breaking o√ her budding romance with Redington Dayton (who had ‘‘declared himself ’’ back in Redding in 1886) or continuing with college. Rose would not acquiesce and so took a teaching job in a small private school in Southport, Connecticut, before marrying Redington (‘‘Red’’) in 1891 (three months after Elaine’s wedding).∂≠ Sister Dora continued on at Smith and graduated with a degree in art in 1890. Sometime during these Northampton years Dora also got engaged. Her fiancé was one Thomas Sanford, variously described as ‘‘a tutor at Yale College’’ and ‘‘a professor at the University of California at Berkeley’’ – both of which were probably correct.∂∞ The engagement lasted some eight years before it was finally broken o√, in part, it seems, because Dora felt obligated to stay home and care for her ailing mother (who died in Redding in 1912). Dora’s unrequited romance seems to have taken a severe toll on her, and she su√ered from recurring bouts of depression for most of her life.∂≤ 22

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Perhaps the most poignant of Dora’s remarks on depression were these, written in Redding around 1912 and annotated by Rose as ‘‘Found among D. R. G.’s old papers.’’: ‘‘I am writing this during one of my very worst days, in the hope that it may give me strength at some future time. I must not kill myself because it would make life harder for others – for Rose, Elaine, and Robert, who are struggling now under heavy burdens. . . . I have been for two days in a state of mental distress utterly impossible to describe – nerve torture that I could never have conceived of – su√ering that seems as if it must be the precursor of acute mania.’’∂≥ It would appear that Dora su√ered from a ‘‘nervous’’ condition similar to that of her mother, suggesting an inherited predisposition. Elaine, however, seems to have been free of the most severe symptoms, though she once described herself as having ‘‘a deep underlying sadness.’’∂∂ But she was never debilitated for days on end and never suicidal, as far as we know. Elaine was more the stoic – another of her mother’s traits – and sometimes complained of an inability to ‘‘let herself go.’’∂∑ The two sisters, so alike in many ways, were very di√erent in others. The single most important development during these Northampton years, at least in terms of its impact on Elaine’s later life, was Henry Goodale’s purchase of a cottage in nearby Amherst. Henry acquired this property, located three miles east of the center of Amherst out toward the Pelham Hills, with his retirement in mind. Henry hoped that until he retired it would serve as a live-in studio for his daughter, Dora, who was finishing her art degree at Smith. In fall 1891 the Northampton Goodales moved into the Amherst cottage. Here, mother and daughter pursued their literary and artistic careers, while brother Robert finished high school and went on to Harvard in 1896. Rose, who had been married in Northampton that fall, was moving into her new home in Redding, Connecticut. Henry, though he owned the cottage, remained in New York. Meanwhile, Elaine, whose wedding had taken place in June, was beginning her married life at the Pine Ridge Agency in South Dakota. In May 1897 a tragic fire destroyed the Amherst cottage. Sister Dora’s eyewitness account tells the story: ‘‘During the last three hours we have had a hard blow – our little home, with the barn, the horse & carriage & all our furniture & possessions of every kind, with scarcely an exception, have become a heap of smoking ashes. The fire had gained such headway before it was discovered that we had only about five minutes to save anything. . . . I have lost everything, dear Rose – every stitch of clothing except what I have on, all my 23

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letters, my dearest possession – my camera – in fact everything.’’∂∏ The Amherst Record provided a few additional details: The destruction by fire of the home of Mrs. D. H. R. Goodale, in Amherst, where she has resided for several years with her second daughter, Miss Dora Read Goodale, and her son, Robert Sterling [sic] Goodale, was a calamity not measured by the pecuniary estimate of $1500. Besides that loss, the mother and daughter, both constantly engaged in literary work, lost nearly all their manuscripts and literary materials, as well as their books and personal belongings of every kind. The brush fire which caused the destruction of the house and which was said to have been set by young Goodale was, as we are informed, ‘‘the result of a culpable and secret act of a boy, a waif of the state, who had been on the place less than 24 hours.’’∂π Soon after this, mother and daughter returned to Redding, where they lived together in a home they named ‘‘Roadside’’ until the elder Dora Goodale’s death in 1912. The younger Dora then stayed on there until 1929, when she moved to Tennessee, where she would remain for the rest of her life. Back in Amherst, Robert Goodale, with some help from his father, set about building a new stone house on the site of the burned-out cottage. This ambitious undertaking required nearly six years to complete, and the result was a remarkable structure, built entirely of native stones and local timber.∂∫ This building, which Rose would name ‘‘Lodestone,’’ still stands, and it has been the site of much of my research for the present book. A sense of history pervades the home, for here is where Henry Goodale retired, and where he died in 1906. Elaine, Charles, and their six children lived here for nine busy years (1911–19). Rose also spent many of her latter years here, and her important collection of family mementos eventually found its way to the attic. Years later, I too found my way to this attic. Surely, ‘‘Lodestone,’’ meaning ‘‘magnet,’’ is an apt description for this magical place. At the age of twenty, Elaine had discovered a ‘‘cause’’ – the ‘‘plight of the red man’’ – and her devotion to that cause had profound e√ects on the rest of her life. Ultimately, it would preclude any possibility of pursuing an independent literary career. For what Elaine seems to have done, at this relatively early age, is put ‘‘service’’ and ‘‘duty’’ first. As we shall see, this would prove to be characteristic. Her decision to marry Charles, and many of the choices she makes as a wife, mother, and grandmother, reveal a similar pattern. It is as 24

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if her mother’s pious maxim about ‘‘the beauty of service’’ should always prevail.∂Ω Lydia Maria Child once said, ‘‘Young ladies should be taught that usefulness is happiness, and that all other things are but incidental.’’∑≠ Elaine seems to have learned that lesson all too well. Much later in life she would write to Rose, ‘‘I am spending the week-end keeping house for Eleanor so she could take a pleasure trip to N.Y. and it is anything but a pleasure trip for me! The maid is gone, the house chilly, the children cranky, and my own work interrupted – but at least I am useful.’’∑∞ Useful. But how close that can come to being resigned, resentful, or even martyred. And how di≈cult for others. Elaine sometimes sensed that possibility, as in this confession: ‘‘Of pure recreation there has been so little in my life that I have never really learned to play.’’∑≤ What made matters especially di≈cult for Elaine, of course, was her mother’s ambiguity. On the one hand she had extolled ‘‘service to others,’’ but, on the other, she had demanded dedication to a literary career. Now, when Elaine was leaving home, her mother showed little enthusiasm for the work she was about to begin. And later on she would show even less enthusiasm for Elaine’s marriage decision. She seemed to regard these choices as threats to Elaine’s literary future. Elaine’s response to what she saw as her mother’s hypocrisy seems to have been an exaggerated devotion to ‘‘duty’’: She would show her mother what ‘‘service to others’’ really meant. It meant placing others – including one’s husband and children – above oneself. This response, however, would never be totally satisfactory. For Elaine would always be aware of her mother’s disappointment; and sometimes, when things were not going well, she would feel that disappointment herself. There was no winning at this game. For now, however, Elaine was ‘‘going down alone’’ to Hampton.∑≥ She probably realized, perhaps for the first time, how very alone she really was. Mother would never be satisfied; but with that thought, Elaine began to achieve her independence. There could no longer be any question about who was making the decisions. Elaine had become a woman.

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Serving the Sioux At Lake Mohonk, for past three days. . . . Met Elaine Goodale, a very sweet and attractive face; serious, self-conscious, genuine. Expect great things from that girl. — John Burroughs, journal entry, October 11, 1886 Elaine’s first class at Hampton Institute involved teaching English to a dozen or so young Indian men. In her own words, ‘‘The appearance of a slip of a girl in the role of taskmaster, issuing mysterious orders and requiring instant obedience, must have been to these potential warriors a bewildering anomaly.’’∞ She had had no formal preparation for teaching but made good use of her ingenuity and quick intellect and was soon recognized as an excellent instructor.≤ At the same time that Elaine was finding herself as a teacher, she was coming under the influence of the Indian reform spirit that pervaded Hampton at the time. General Armstrong was one of the most prominent spokesmen for the ‘‘Christian reform’’ movement that would dominate thinking on the so-called Indian problem for the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Basically, the Christian approach advocated assimilating Indians into the mainstream white culture in order to save them from the adverse e√ects of white expansion into their territories. The annihilation of the bu√alo on the Great Plains had already destroyed their way of life, and the reservations to which they were now confined seemed entirely inadequate, either to meet their needs, or to protect their long-term interests. As one historian describes it, ‘‘The signs were there for all to read, and the plight of the Indians and the threat of their imminent destruction did not escape the attention of Christian men and women, whose humanitarian impulses made them cry out for the unfortunate red men.’’≥ For the Christian reformers the key element was education – or, more specifically, teaching Native Americans the white man’s ways, and especially the English language. Toward that end, most reformers advocated some means of breaking up tribal allegiances among the Indians. The most extreme method 26

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involved removing the young from the reservations and placing them in distant boarding schools (like Hampton and, later, Carlisle) to prepare them for entry into mainstream America. This was the viewpoint of Richard Henry Pratt, who brought the first Indians to Hampton in 1878 and went on to found the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1879. In this scenario, the reservations would disappear (along with tribal a≈liations) when the old, unassimilated Indians on the reservations eventually died o√. A somewhat less catastrophic dismantling of the reservations was envisioned by many other reformers, including General Armstrong at Hampton. In this case the Indian graduates of the eastern boarding schools would return to the reservations where, by leadership and example, they would begin to introduce the ways of mainstream American culture. As we shall see, the later practice of allotting land in severalty to Indians on reservations, as mandated by the Dawes Act of 1887, was an extension of this belief in the possibility of turning Native Americans into copies of white Americans. Elaine Goodale envisioned yet another way in which reservations might be absorbed by the ‘‘dominant’’ culture, and this early di√erence with Generals Pratt and Armstrong persisted throughout her life. In her view, Indians should remain on the reservations, and schools should be brought to them. In this case, the young would be taught English and the skills needed to participate in the white world; with the youth remaining on the reservations, the old would be exposed to and thus acquire many of the same skills. Eventually, she thought, the reservations would become indistinguishable from the surrounding American cities and towns.∂ Elaine’s early di√erence with her mentors in the Indian reform movement was reflected in her unusual interest in acquiring direct experience with Indians on the reservations. After her first year at Hampton, she went to General Armstrong and spoke of her ‘‘ardent wish’’ to see what was then the Great Sioux Reservation in the Dakota Territory.∑ Until that time, Armstrong had fostered what he saw as Elaine’s greatest strengths – writing and speaking about Hampton and the Indian reform e√ort. He had asked her, for example, to edit an Indian page in the school journal, the Southern Workman. But now he must have sensed other strengths in his young teacher, for he immediately arranged a tour of the Sioux agencies for her and another young Hampton teacher, Florence Bascom.∏ So, in the ‘‘golden and memorable autumn of 1885,’’ Elaine and Florence, in the company of Herbert Welsh (president of the recently established Indian Rights Association), set out for the Great Sioux Reservation. 27

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This journey – by train, ferryboat, steamboat, covered wagon, and horse and buggy – included visits to all six Sioux agencies (Crow Creek, Lower Brulé, Cheyenne River, Standing Rock, Rosebud, and Pine Ridge) that served some 18,500 Indians then living on the reservation.π Elaine wrote numerous letters to New York and Boston newspapers during the trip detailing her impressions of the Sioux and their customs. Clearly, she was fascinated by these people and admired their friendly ways and their expertise in ‘‘primitive’’ living. She appreciated the e√orts that missionaries and missionary schools were undertaking on the reservation but deplored the ‘‘inhospitable doors’’ and ‘‘silent bells’’ of the untended government schools that had been erected to fulfill earlier treaty pledges. She committed herself then and there to serving as a teacher in one of these schools. In Sister to the Sioux, Elaine later described her experience: Meantime, one young teacher came home in spirit deeply committed to her task as she saw it. She had made up her mind to begin at the beginning, in the heart of a newly transplanted, leaderless, bewildered little community. Others could carry on in more solidly established institutions where there was ample support and companionship. Few, perhaps, would care to blaze a new trail in the obscure corner of a wild land, among recent ‘‘enemies’’ speaking an unintelligible dialect. Behind such considerations lurked, no doubt, a taste for adventure and a distinct bent toward pioneering, possibly handed down through a long line of early American forebears.∫ Once back at Hampton, Elaine continued to express her hope of creating ‘‘a little center of sweetness and light’’ among the ‘‘savages.’’ General Armstrong listened with patience and encouraged her to describe her ideas at the next Mohonk conference. So, in October 1886 she addressed that body. One newspaper account described her appearance as follows: ‘‘Miss Goodale is scarcely out of her teens, beautiful, finely educated, refined, intellectual, full of life, and a warm lover of nature. . . . She believes that the best educational centre, the place where the greatest results can be secured, is in the day school on the reservation. She has visited the day schools; has seen how little good they accomplish, what di≈culties they have to encounter. She was not discouraged.’’Ω Here is the Elaine Goodale that John Burroughs described in the journal entry that opens this chapter. Young, articulate, and very attractive – and, predictably enough, soon to have her way. General Armstrong would provide 28

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a letter to the then commissioner of Indian A√airs, John D. C. Atkins, supporting Elaine’s ideas for a ‘‘model day school’’ at the White River Camp site in the Lower Brulé Agency that she had visited the year before. Atkins, although perhaps ‘‘more amused than impressed by his youthful caller,’’ approved the enterprise.∞≠ So, just one year after her first visit, Elaine was back at White River Camp in the Lower Brulé Agency on the western bank of the Missouri River. This time her companion was Laura Tileston, a slightly older Hampton teacher who had volunteered to participate as a missionary. The two women would spend the next three years at White River Camp in a primitive four-room lodge that served as a day school and mission to the local population of some two hundred Sioux. About fifty boys and girls attended the school, and Elaine provided them with a varied mix of formal classes, especially instruction in English, interspersed with livelier activities such as singing and marching. A noon lunch was a popular feature, and this gave the older girls opportunities to practice cooking. During the warmer months the boys worked in a nearby school garden and learned to cultivate a wide variety of vegetables. Community suppers, school picnics, and magic-lantern shows were among the ‘‘wholesome diversions’’ that Elaine instituted, and the schoolhouse soon became the social center of the community.∞∞ Elaine was a highly dedicated teacher who entered wholeheartedly into the life of the community she served. She often assisted the local government physician, for example, preparing and delivering medicines and food to the homes of the sick. In the course of such interactions with the Sioux, Elaine learned their language. This remarkable achievement had not been recommended: ‘‘Prim-lipped mentors had gravely advised me not to learn the language, assuring me that I would often prefer not to understand what was being said.’’ But she persevered and found the acquisition ‘‘a pleasure, as well as a real gain in promoting understanding and intimacy.’’∞≤ This ability was highly unusual in a government employee, and it proved to be a real advantage for Elaine on many occasions. Thus, she could always understand exactly what was being said by the Sioux without waiting for the often tedious, and sometimes inaccurate, translations. This was especially useful when members of the community were discussing agency personnel or government policies. In one case, involving a Pratt Commission visit to the Lower Brulé Agency, Elaine was invited to attend a ‘‘secret’’ council meeting and was able to summarize the discussions, from the Sioux point of view, for 29

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several eastern newspapers.∞≥ In this case, General Pratt expressed considerable concern about Elaine’s fluency in the ‘‘Dakota tongue’’ – an apprehension that only underscores the exceptional nature of her achievement. Elaine undoubtedly got much closer to Indians than most of the reformers of her era, and that intimacy fostered a deep appreciation of these people and their ways. This closeness was particularly evident in her obvious a√ection for Sioux women – ‘‘Dear, lovable, intensely feminine Sioux women of days gone by! How a√ectionately I recall their devotion to their families, their innocent love of finery and gossip, eager curiosity, and patient endurance.’’ Elaine openly emulated their simple dress, the ‘‘most modest ever devised,’’ and habitually wore moccasins, despite occasional objections from whites. The Sioux women, in turn, found Elaine entirely trustworthy and often sought her counsel, especially on matters of love.∞∂ Elaine found Sioux men ‘‘less plain-spoken’’ than the women but noted that they were invariably respectful, even chivalrous, and that she trusted them completely: ‘‘Solicitous white friends urged me never to travel with Indians unarmed. They were poor psychologists and poorer realists. A revolver in my baggage would only have served to advertise lack of trust in my companions – and in the fact that I did trust them completely lay my sole and su≈cient guarantee of safety.’’∞∑ Another line of evidence that points to Elaine’s acceptance by the Sioux at White River was her participation in a number of activities that would normally be closed to whites. These activities included rough-and-tumble games, wedding and funeral ceremonies, and even the sacred Ghost Lodge ritual. Elaine would always be proud of this acceptance, and that pride is evidenced by her pointing out that ‘‘one day the old chief [Medicine Bull] bestowed upon me in private, with a confidential air, the common and not too flattering nickname of his band – the ‘Lame Horses.’ ’’∞∏ It is undoubtedly true that none of Elaine’s contemporaries in the Indian reform movement was ever accorded that particular honor. While teaching at White River, Elaine was able to take July and August as vacation months. After her first year (1887) she returned east for these months, visiting her mother and siblings in Redding. The next year, however, she spent her vacation traveling the Great Sioux Reservation. She purchased an Indian pony, had a small tent made, and joined various family parties traveling across the reservation. In this way, she familiarized herself with the Dakota 30

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countryside and the personnel at some of the Sioux agencies. Her young accomplice to this point, Laura Tileston, had returned east at the close of the preceding school year, so Elaine’s traveling companion now was one of her mother’s unmarried sisters, Ella Read (‘‘Auntie Ella’’). Elaine had tried to persuade her own sister Dora to take Laura’s place. Dora, however, was busy pursuing her degree in art at Smith College, and so, at the insistence of her mother – who felt that Elaine could use a conscientious chaperone – Elaine settled for her elderly aunt. ‘‘Auntie’’ may have been conscientious, but that did not prevent Elaine from enjoying the attentions of a man during the summer of 1888. ‘‘Mac’’ was an ‘‘alert and agreeable young man fresh from college’’ who was serving as a secretary to the Pratt Commission at the time. Elaine recalls that they ‘‘flirted harmlessly under Auntie’s watchful eye for a short three weeks.’’∞π A poem that she published later – with the line ‘‘Electric kisses scorched my hand!’’ – suggests that her aunt may have nodded o√ occasionally.∞∫ At any rate, this man appears to have been the first true love interest in Elaine’s life. She may have had an early ‘‘crush’’ on General Armstrong, and there were other men who had shown some interest in her previously, but this time she seems to have been seriously smitten. However, their mutual interest was short-lived and Elaine would write of only one other attractive man, a ‘‘persuasive, blueeyed bachelor’’ whom she had met in Nebraska in the summer of 1889, before meeting her future husband at Pine Ridge in 1890. After her third year of teaching at White River, Elaine felt that the time had come to return east and push for more day schools on the reservation. She was more committed than ever to the idea of ‘‘little camp schools, close to the lives of the people,’’ and she wanted to ‘‘put the whole case before people with influence and see what could be done.’’∞Ω But, first, there was to be one last summer vacation – and she decided that this would be a good opportunity to gain experience with the ‘‘wilder’’ elements of this country and its people. She made arrangements to accompany an ‘‘unreconstructed old pagan from the other side of the White River,’’ Whirling Hawk, and his two wives, on a camping and hunting trip in the sandhills of Nebraska. The party included four other men, along with their wives and children, and the entire entourage required five covered wagons and included ‘‘several loose colts and a rabble of noisy dogs.’’ Elaine usually rode sidesaddle on her pacing pony alongside the wagon of Whirling Hawk and his wives. The trip proved to be everything that Elaine had hoped it would be. She camped out 31

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every night and learned a great deal about wilderness food – both plant and animal – including, among the latter, such exotics as badger, skunk, and mud turtle. She also enjoyed her close association with the Indian women and often shared in their work. They ‘‘laughed and chatted freely,’’ she noted, approvingly adding that they were ‘‘treated as equals and companions’’ by the men.≤≠ This trip also introduced Elaine to some of the early white settlers in Nebraska. In general, she found these people living in wretched poverty – in their ‘‘unattractive’’ sod shanties – but noted that they were always friendly, even generous in their way, and seemed to bear no ill will toward her Indian companions. Trading between the Indians and the settlers was common, and Whirling Hawk often posed as a destitute wanderer in order to receive better deals in these transactions. He was particularly proud of three hats that were given to him, though never worn, and sometimes made fun of these gifts and their givers. In fact, the Sioux were living better than most of the settlers at the time and sometimes showed their contempt for the white man’s poverty. Elaine, for her part, admired the courage of these white pioneers but admitted that she more readily identified with the cause of the ‘‘dispossessed Indians.’’≤∞ All in all, this trip made an important contribution to Elaine’s personal development. She was thrown into close association with a very di√erent people and shared in their joys (such as the birth of a child) and their sorrows (when, for example, Whirling Hawk died on the trip home). She felt accepted and, in turn, accepted those around her. Indeed, Elaine may never have been happier than during the summer of 1889. At one point she admitted that ‘‘it would have been the simplest thing possible to stop o√ somewhere and ‘grow up with the country.’ ’’ This sense of independence was undoubtedly exhilarating. She must have felt, perhaps for the first time, that she was in total control of her life. But she also felt, and properly so, that she was now an authority on Indian matters and that it was time to promote her own ideas on serving these people. ‘‘When I went east again in the autumn of 1889, I had no money and no job, but I had ideas to spare and plenty of self-confidence. Believing that I knew the Sioux and their needs, I had made definite plans for my next campaign. Looking back . . . I am amazed by such rashness on the part of a young woman barely twenty-six years old without family or political backing and lacking even a college diploma!’’≤≤ One thing that Elaine did not lack was physical attractiveness. Lean and tanned from her summer on the prairie, buoyed by her successes, and supremely confident in her new mission – hers was a formidable presence. Her 32

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sister Dora described her as ‘‘young, healthy, and handsome; confident of her own powers; and doing work that she truly loved.’’≤≥ When Elaine returned east in the fall of 1889, she made her headquarters at the Northampton home that her mother was renting and where her siblings also lived. Here Elaine wrote newspaper articles and embarked upon a series of paid talks arranged by Herbert Welsh of the Indian Rights Association, Mrs. A. S. Quinton of the Women’s National Indian Association, and others. Her message remained constant: only education would protect the Indians from further exploitation in the form of usurpation of land and betrayal of treaties by whites, and education was best accomplished in day schools on the reservations themselves. To properly educate the Native Americans, much more money would have to be allocated – to improve existing schools, build new schools, and upgrade supplies and teachers’ salaries. During this time, Elaine often shared the platform with Thomas J. Morgan, the recently appointed Indian commissioner who shared similar views on Indian education.≤∂ Basically, Morgan was looking for ‘‘youth, health, and enthusiasm’’ to reform the ine≈cient Indian school system, and he saw a promising leader in young Elaine. After his formal approval as commissioner, Morgan created the o≈ce of Supervisor of Education in the two Dakotas – and appointed Elaine the first incumbent.≤∑ Morgan’s top priority was to improve the day schools on the reservations, and he charged Elaine with visiting these schools and detailing her criticisms and suggestions in reports to him. For her part, Elaine asked for ‘‘a team of horses, wagon, and complete camping outfit with a Sioux couple of [her] own choice as driver and cook.’’≤∏ Commissioner Morgan agreed and also gave her a short letter of introduction to hand to the Indian agents at each reservation. Thus equipped, Elaine headed back to Sioux country in the spring of 1890 to begin what she would describe as ‘‘a year on wheels,’’ which included visits to more than sixty government and missionary schools. Elaine took her task extremely seriously. Unlike most government inspectors, she preferred to arrive at the agencies unannounced: ‘‘A teacher’s first intimation of my existence was often my appearance at the schoolhouse door.’’ She then proceeded in her typically thorough way: ‘‘It may be taken for granted that mine was no conventional call some twenty minutes long, ending in a formal handshake and an inscrutable smile. I gave no less than a full day to each little camp school at each visit, and to every boarding school a week or more. Then I o√ered such encouragement as I honestly could, together with a 33

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few constructive suggestions, and repeated their substance in a carefully written letter soon afterward.’’≤π The teachers themselves were often criticized. At one point, with typical frankness, she noted, ‘‘Too many of the teachers were middle-aged men, not only incompetent but totally unadaptable. Young women as a rule did better.’’ This was probably Elaine’s first public comment on what we might now call ‘‘women’s issues,’’ and, once she had asserted women’s competence, she lost few opportunities to point out that women were capable leaders. Thus, in describing the reservation agents, she wrote: ‘‘Only one of the five agents with whom I had dealings responded cordially. . . . One man particularly seemed resentful of my unsupervised conversations with the Sioux. He evidently preferred to see all women in properly subordinate positions and was accustomed to have visiting o≈cials dependent upon the use of his own team and the services of his trusted interpreter.’’ She also tersely noted that her ‘‘very small salary was increased by fifty percent for the benefit of [her] male successor.’’≤∫ Sometimes Elaine’s frankness got her into trouble. On one occasion, her criticisms of a Jesuit boarding school drew a formal protest from the Catholic Indian Bureau, and Commissioner Morgan felt compelled to send her an o≈cial reprimand (though he later exonerated her in a private letter). Formal protests aside, many o≈cials found her unconventional methods – arriving unannounced and talking privately with pupils – and her penchant for such things as tasting the school food and checking dormitory conditions, ‘‘both unnecessary and meddlesome.’’≤Ω Here we begin to glimpse the more rigid aspects of Elaine’s personality that would become so prominent in her later years. In the meantime, however, Elaine was getting caught up in the events that would lead to the tragedy of Wounded Knee. In October 1890 she arrived at the Standing Rock Reservation and shared a meal with Sitting Bull at the Grand River day school. This was just at the time when the Sioux at Standing Rock were beginning to perform a ‘‘ghost dance’’ in connection with some strange new beliefs that had originated among the Paiute in Nevada and recently spread to the Sioux reservations. Elaine had first encountered these beliefs on her trip to Nebraska a year earlier when a traveler, Chasing Crane, told her of how Christ had returned to the Indians and promised to save them by destroying the whites and restoring the bu√alo to all the lands that the Indians had lost.≥≠ Sitting Bull would not discuss this ‘‘new religion’’ with Elaine, and it is generally felt that he viewed it with some suspicion.≥∞ There 34

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can be no doubt, however, that the Messiah story, with its mixture of Christian and Indian elements and its promise of a better future, was taking hold among the Plains Indian tribes. It is also certainly true that Sitting Bull’s violent death less than two months later was an important contributing factor to the violence that ensued at Wounded Knee.≥≤ The ‘‘Messiah Craze,’’ as it was known to whites at the time, seems to have appealed most strongly to the Sioux populations at the Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, Rosebud, and Pine Ridge reservations. Conditions there, including two summers of severe drought, and epidemics of influenza, measles, and whooping cough, had resulted in great privation. Furthermore, government rations had recently been cut by nearly one-half as a result of a new census. The Sioux had also lost some eleven million acres of land in recent negotiations with the government.≥≥ It is therefore hardly surprising that the promise of a savior held great appeal – especially for the more traditional members of these populations who actually remembered the old ways of life. Elaborate rites, including the famous Ghost Dance, were developed, and the ‘‘new religion’’ quickly caught on. The high priests of this new religion taught believers that dancing would hasten the return of the Messiah and that, while dancing, they could see the regenerated world to come and their dead relatives by falling into trances. Dancers were told to wear particular sacred garments (the whites called them ‘‘ghost shirts’’), painted with the sun, moon, stars, eagle, magpie, and bu√alo. These garments, the new priests said, were bulletproof.≥∂ Elaine actually witnessed a ghost dance herself in the late fall of 1890. She had made the long overland trip from Standing Rock to Pine Ridge, which included camping overnight at Chief Big Foot’s village, below the forks of the Cheyenne River. ‘‘Little did I dream,’’ she later noted, ‘‘that our next meeting – only a few weeks later – would be a tragic one.’’ Once at Pine Ridge, despite ever-increasing tensions concerning the Ghost Dance, Elaine continued to visit the scattered schools in the region. On one such visit, at Porcupine Tail Butte, she joined a crowd of spectators – ‘‘the only person who was not a Sioux’’ – to watch a ghost dance performance. She later wrote: ‘‘Under the soft glow of the hunter’s moon perhaps a hundred men, women, and children, with clasped hands and fingers interlocked, swung in a great circle about their ‘sacred tree,’ chanting together the monotonous Ghost Dance songs. The hypnotic repetition of the words: ‘Once more we shall hunt the bu√alo – Our Father has said it!’ alternated with short invocations by prophet or priest and occasional intervals of wailing by the women – that musical heart-piercing sound which, once heard, is never forgotten.’’ Her account described trances, 35

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including one of an old woman who later declared, ‘‘My children, I have seen those dear ones we lost long ago. . . . They are living in a most beautiful country covered with bu√alo!’’ Like most experienced government workers, and virtually all the missionaries on the reservations, Elaine dismissed any suggestion that the Ghost Dance represented a threat to whites. In her words, ‘‘No one with imagination could fail to see in the rite a genuine religious ceremony, a faith which, illusory as it was, deserved to be treated with respect.’’ And she agreed entirely with Gen. Nelson A. Miles, the overall commander of the military troops, who once said, ‘‘Let the craze run its course and die of itself.’’≥∑ Unfortunately, however, there were other factors at work. A new agent, Daniel P. Royer, was appointed to Pine Ridge in October; he was young, inexperienced, and totally unable to control the Indians, who referred to him derisively as Young-Man-Afraid-of-Indians. Agent Royer sent repeated requests to Washington for military assistance. On November 15 he telegraphed, ‘‘Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy. . . . We need protection and we need it now.’’≥∏ A few days later, on November 20, U.S. Army troops under the command of Gen. John R. Brooke arrived at the Pine Ridge Reservation. Soon there would be nearly thirty thousand troops scattered throughout the Sioux country – under the overall command of General Miles, who directed military operations from his headquarters in Rapid City.≥π The soldiers’ arrival only exacerbated an already tense situation. Many white settlers had felt threatened by the ghost dancers, and their fears were fanned by journalists who were writing sensationalist articles for local and eastern newspapers. Now the presence of troops seemed to confirm the possibility of war; indeed, some of the Indians were becoming more united and defiant. The military strategy was to segregate the ‘‘well-disposed from the illdisposed Indians,’’ and agents were ordered to call in the ‘‘well-disposed’’ (friendly) Indians, while the ‘‘ill-disposed’’ (hostile) Indians remained behind. Often, however, the hostile Sioux retreated to isolated locations, where they felt more independent. The most prominent of these isolated locations was a section of the Badlands northwest of Pine Ridge that became known as the Stronghold. At its height, this retreat was occupied by some thirty-five hundred ghost dancers, mostly from the Pine Ridge and Rosebud agencies. General Brooke did make a great e√ort to bring these hostile Sioux back to the agency. His tactics, combining intimidation with promises of fair treatment in the future, eventually worked quite e√ectively, as these Sioux were returning to Pine Ridge when the Wounded Knee tragedy occurred.≥∫ 36

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A second aspect of the overall military strategy at the time was the attempt to arrest the most important leaders of the Ghost Dance ‘‘craze.’’ This was the strategy that had led to Sitting Bull’s death at the hands of his own people (agency police) on December 15, 1890. After his death a number of his followers joined forces with another venerable old chief, Big Foot, who lived on the Cheyenne River. The army saw Big Foot as a major troublemaker, though he had already abandoned the Ghost Dance religion himself and wished to live in peace. Some of the young men in his band, however, were more aggressive. At any rate, the army issued an order to arrest Big Foot and when it was discovered that he was moving his band south toward the Badlands, he was intercepted by the Seventh Cavalry, led by Maj. M. S. Whitside, on December 28. Whitside then demanded, and received, Big Foot’s unconditional surrender. Though extremely ill with pneumonia, Big Foot met with Major Whitside and agreed to camp that night at a specified spot on Wounded Knee Creek, about twenty miles northeast of Pine Ridge. Here, additional troops from the Seventh Cavalry, under the regimental commander Col. George A. Forsyth, surrounded the Indians. These new troops brought the total government force to 470 men, as compared to perhaps 106 warriors in Big Foot’s band. In addition, Forsyth’s troops set up four Hotchkiss guns on a nearby hill and trained them directly on the Indian camp. The idea was that Big Foot and his band would be disarmed in the morning and then taken to the agency to be transported by railroad to stay in Omaha until the Ghost Dance troubles were over. This, of course, never happened. On the morning of December 29, as the Indians were being disarmed, a gun was discharged (apparently by a young Indian identified as Black Fox, or Black Coyote); accounts di√er as to whether or not the discharge was accidental. This shot unleashed a furious assault by the troops surrounding the camp. As one historian describes it, ‘‘At the first volley the Hotchkiss guns trained on the camp opened fire and sent a storm of shells and bullets among the women and children, who had gathered in front of the tipis to watch the unusual spectacle of military display. The guns poured in two-pound explosive shells at the rate of nearly fifty per minute, mowing down everything alive.’’≥Ω Certainly most of the casualties at Wounded Knee occurred within these first few minutes. In his o≈cial report Commissioner Morgan said that ‘‘most of the men [Indians], including Big Foot, were killed around his tent.’’∂≠ It is generally agreed that many, if not most, of the twenty-five soldiers who were killed were also victims of the Hotchkiss guns. But the troops continued to 37

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hunt the fleeing Indians for several hours, and a total of 146 Indians – 84 men, 44 women, and 18 children – were interred on the battlefield, revealing the full extent of the carnage that ensued.∂∞ Meanwhile, back at the Pine Ridge Agency, Elaine was engaged in some belated Christmas preparations on the morning of December 29 when, as she later wrote, ‘‘the distant thunder of big guns, some eighteen miles away, sent cold shivers down our backs.’’ Shortly thereafter messengers brought word of the slaughter at Wounded Knee. Toward evening, wagons began to arrive with some of the wounded survivors. The wounded soldiers were taken to a field hospital that accommodated sixty patients, but most of the Indians were taken to the Episcopal mission chapel, where Rev. Charles Cook had the pews torn out and the floor covered with straw.∂≤ Dr. Charles A. Eastman, the Sioux physician who had only recently arrived at Pine Ridge, recalled: We laid the poor creatures side by side in rows, and the night was devoted to caring for them as best we could. Many were frightfully torn by pieces of shells, and the su√ering was terrible. General Brooke placed me in charge and I had to do nearly all the work, for although the army surgeons were more than ready to help as soon as their own had been cared for, the tortured Indians would scarcely allow a man in uniform to touch them. Mrs. Cook, Miss Goodale, and several of Mr. Cook’s Indian helpers acted as volunteer nurses. In spite of all our e√orts we lost the greater part of them.∂≥ The first few days were, in Elaine’s words, ‘‘nothing short of a nightmare.’’∂∂ For one thing, there was the search party, which Dr. Eastman headed, that on January 1, 1891, went looking for survivors at the scene of the ‘‘battle.’’ This harrowing e√ort turned up the bodies of many women and children, some as far as three miles from Big Foot’s tent. In four instances, babies were found alive under the bodies of their mothers. Only one of these survived, however. That one, a girl, was later adopted and raised by whites and became widely known as the ‘‘Lost Bird of Wounded Knee.’’∂∑ As the bodies were being discovered, the Indians accompanying Dr. Eastman on this rescue mission were ‘‘crying aloud or singing their death songs.’’ Understandably, Dr. Eastman found that ‘‘it took all [his] nerve to keep [his] composure in the face of this spectacle.’’ We can certainly appreciate the disillusionment that is evident in his observation: ‘‘All of this was a severe ordeal for one who had so lately put all his faith in the Christian love and lofty ideals of the white man.’’∂∏ 38

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Fortunately, Dr. Eastman was able to find sympathy and understanding from one significant source – the woman he was soon to marry. In her memoirs, Elaine confesses that ‘‘for many years I had only painful associations with the sight of my country’s trig dark-blue uniform.’’∂π She clearly condemned the army for killing women and children at Wounded Knee. Her firsthand report, written at the request of Commissioner Morgan, is unambiguous: ‘‘I do not credit the statement which has been made by some that the women carried arms and participated actively in the fight. The weight of testimony is overwhelmingly against this supposition. There may have been one or two isolated cases of this kind, but there is no doubt that the great majority of the women and children, as well as many unarmed men and youths, had no thought of anything but flight. They were pursued up the ravines, and shot down indiscriminately by the soldiers.’’∂∫ This report, agreeing in every detail with the observations of Dr. Eastman, is now seen as one of the most accurate of the early accounts of the Wounded Knee tragedy. And it is abundantly clear where Elaine’s sympathies lay. Further evidence of Elaine’s sensitivity to the mental turmoil that mixedblood and acculturated Sioux faced during these days is seen in her compassion for Reverend Cook, the Episcopal rector at Pine Ridge: ‘‘Himself half Sioux, the minister was visibly torn between his natural sympathies and his loyalty to the government. . . . Day by day his fine features sharpened; his eyes, burning and black, sank deeper in his head; and no self-control could keep the strain entirely out of his voice.’’ Reverend Cook would survive less than two years, an apparent victim of his ‘‘bitter mental struggle.’’ Elaine would describe his death as one of the ‘‘deeper tragedies’’ that resulted from the ‘‘spectacle of extreme agony and violent death’’ that was the Wounded Knee experience.∂Ω By mid-January 1891 the situation at Pine Ridge had settled down and Elaine could look forward to her upcoming wedding. She and Charles Eastman had fallen in love shortly after their first meeting in November, and the couple had announced their engagement on Christmas day. Then the Wounded Knee tragedy intervened. But Elaine’s behavior during these tragic days could only have reinforced Charles’s first impressions: ‘‘I thought her very dignified and reserved, but this first evening’s acquaintance showed me that she was thoroughly in earnest and absolutely sincere in her work for the Indians. I might as well admit that her personality impressed me deeply. I had laid my plans carefully, and purposed to serve my race for a few years in my profession, after which I would go to some city to practice, and I had decided 39

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that it would be wise not to think of marriage for the present. I had not given due weight to the possibility of love.’’∑≠ Elaine could never be this e√usive, but we can safely assume that she too fell in love at this time. She would later say of her decision: ‘‘When, only a few weeks after our first meeting, I promised to marry Dr. Eastman, it was with a thrilling sense of two-fold consecration. I gave myself wholly in that hour to the traditional duties of wife and mother. . . . At the same time, I embraced with a new and deeper zeal the conception of life-long service to my husband’s people.’’∑∞ To be fair, we must remember that Elaine wrote these words almost forty years after her wedding. She and Charles lived together for thirty years, but that ended in a bitter separation in 1921. Now, looking back, Elaine reflects, ‘‘How simple it all seemed to me then – how far from simple has been the event!’’

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chapter four

Love and Marriage At last you told your love, dear! Oh, rapt, enchanted day When burning joys undreamed of Stole my white peace away! I could not close my eyes, dear – Such bliss was all too new; Your face swam on the darkness, Each star, a prayer for you! — Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘Three Ages of Love,’’ in The Voice at Eve ‘‘Love at first sight.’’ That seems to be an apt description of the e√ect that Elaine Goodale and Charles Eastman had on one another when they first met at Pine Ridge in November 1890. Charles had just arrived as the newly appointed government physician, while Elaine had been there for about a month in connection with her duties as supervisor of education. Their first impressions of one another were very favorable. Charles spoke openly of ‘‘love’’ after their first evening’s acquaintance, and Elaine recalled in her memoirs that ‘‘we were from the first mutually attracted.’’∞ This reserve, so characteristic of Elaine’s later writing, does scant justice to her real feelings at the time. We find a better measure of her emotions, however, in her poetry; and, in this case, the heartfelt ‘‘Three Ages of Love’’ clearly reveals a woman in love. Charles seems to have been faintly aware of Elaine’s life to this point, having read Apple-Blossoms as a student in Boston and being familiar with some of her more recent articles on Indian education.≤ Elaine, however, was almost totally unaware of Charles’s history but learned a great deal about it early in their courtship.≥ Charles was born on February 19, 1858, near Redwood Falls, Minnesota, and was the fifth and last child of the Sioux Ite Wakanhdi Ota (Many Lightnings) 41

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and Wakantankanwin (Great Mystery Woman), whose English name was Mary Nancy Eastman.∂ Mary Nancy’s mother was Wakan Inajin Win (Stands Holy Woman), who was the first wife of Capt. Seth Eastman (1808–75), the noted white painter of North American Indians.∑ Seth Eastman is the source of the Eastman surname in Charles’s family and accounts for one-quarter of Charles’s genes. Mary Nancy Eastman died at about twenty-eight, shortly after her last son’s birth, and because of this the infant was given the name Hakadah (The Pitiful Last). Hakadah was then taken by his paternal grandmother, Uncheedah, who raised the boy in the traditional Sioux fashion, preparing him, physically and mentally, to become a hunter and a warrior.∏ Competitiveness was encouraged, and Hakadah was given his second name, Ohiyesa (The Winner), in honor of a victory by his band in a lacrosse game in 1862. Ohiyesa retained this new name and used it along with his adopted English name for the rest of his life.π The most significant event in young Ohiyesa’s life was precipitated by what has come to be known as the Great Sioux Uprising of 1862.∫ This tragic episode, which cost so many lives, eventually led some Sioux to flee Minnesota for Canada and the western plains. Ohiyesa was among a band of Sioux that escaped to the Canadian wilderness – specifically Ontario’s Turtle Mountains. Meanwhile, more than 400 Sioux warriors were captured in Minnesota; 306 of them were tried and sentenced to death. Because of President Lincoln’s intervention, only 38 men were hung, in a mass execution at Mankato, Minnesota, on December 26, 1862.Ω In Canada, it was assumed that Ohiyesa’s father (Many Lightnings) was among those who had been hung, and Ohiyesa was adopted by his father’s brother, Mysterious Medicine. For the next ten years, Mysterious Medicine and Uncheedah were the boy’s teachers – grooming him specifically to avenge his father’s death. Discipline and sacrifice were the most prominent themes in Ohiyesa’s boyhood. As he put it, ‘‘All boys were expected to endure hardship without complaint.’’ He describes instances in which his uncle would awaken him by shooting guns or giving bloodcurdling war whoops over his head, expecting the boy ‘‘to leap up with perfect presence.’’ On other occasions his uncle would awaken him and challenge him to fast all day. Sometimes Ohiyesa would be sent o√ to get water in a distant place, and when he returned with the water, his uncle would ‘‘empty out the precious contents of the pail’’ and ‘‘order him to go a second time.’’∞≠ 42

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When he was eight years old, Uncheedah asked Ohiyesa to make his first o√ering to the Great Mystery. ‘‘You must give up one of your belongings – whichever is dearest to you – for this is to be a sacrificial o√ering,’’ she said. Young Ohiyesa o√ered his bow and arrows, his paints, and his bear’s claws necklace, but his grandmother insisted that he part with his faithful friend and companion – his dog: ‘‘Hakadah, you are a young brave. I know, though young, your heart is strong and your courage is great. You will be pleased to give up the dearest thing you have for your first o√ering. You must give up Ohitika. He is brave; and you, too are brave. He will not fear death; you will bear his loss bravely.’’∞∞ Ohiyesa recalled that ‘‘he swallowed two or three big mouthfuls of heart-ache,’’ but that soon ‘‘the little warrior was master of the situation.’’ (This episode, even when placed in the context of Dakota society and values, suggests some parallels between Charles’s and Elaine’s childhoods.∞≤ Both, for example, faced similar demands relating to ‘‘duty,’’ and both were expected to find satisfaction in self-denial and su√ering. These parallels undoubtedly exerted influences that played important roles in their later marital di≈culties.) When Ohiyesa was fifteen years old, he was presented with his first gun, a flintlock. This occasion represented his passage from boyhood to manhood, and he remarked at the time, ‘‘I shall soon be able to go among the whites whenever I wish, and avenge the blood of my father and my brothers.’’∞≥ Soon thereafter, however, his father would actually appear at his camp in Canada – very much alive. Many Lightnings had not been hung at Mankato, as rumored, but had instead been among the prisoners that President Lincoln had pardoned. Furthermore, while imprisoned, he had converted to Christianity and taken the English surname of his late wife – calling himself Jacob Eastman. Upon his release from prison, Jacob, along with his sons who had also been pardoned, took a homestead near Flandreau, South Dakota, and was attempting to make an independent living outside the Indian reservation system. During his imprisonment, Jacob Eastman had become convinced of the inevitability of white domination over the Indians, and he now believed that the only route to survival for Indians lay in adopting the white man’s ways. It was with this thought in mind that he sought his youngest son. But when he finally found Ohiyesa, his son was not impressed – ‘‘One day, when I was away on the daily hunt, two strangers from the United States visited our camp. They had boldly ventured across the northern border. They were Indians, but clad in the white man’s garments. It was as well that I was absent with my gun.’’ Soon, however, Ohiyesa was introduced to his father, who spoke immediately 43

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of his intent to take his son back to Flandreau. Shortly thereafter, garbed in white man’s clothing, Ohiyesa was headed south. So ended Ohiyesa’s Indian boyhood. In his own words, ‘‘Here my wild life came to an end, and my schooldays began.’’∞∂ Once back at Flandreau, Ohiyesa was baptized and given the English name Charles Alexander Eastman. Then slowly, and reluctantly, he acceded to his father’s insistence that he adopt the white man’s ways. He later recalled that Jacob was ‘‘anxious to have his boys learn the English language and something about books,’’ for ‘‘these were the ‘bow and arrows’ of the white man.’’ So Charles was enrolled at the mission day school at Flandreau, some two miles from the family farm. Charles initially found that experience humiliating – especially the requirement that he wear white man’s clothing and have his hair cut short. He thought that if he ‘‘had to look like these boys in order to obtain something of the white man’s learning, it was time . . . to rebel.’’∞∑ Indeed, rebellion was much on Charles’s mind during these early Flandreau days. For one thing, Uncheedah, who had also returned from Canada, opposed Jacob’s views. Charles admitted that the subject of running away often occupied his thoughts. Finally, as he would during other crises in his life, he sought counsel in nature: ‘‘I took the situation seriously enough, and I remember I went with it where all my people go when they want light – into the thick woods. . . . I had been taught to seek the ‘Great Mystery’ in silence, in the deep forest or on the height of the mountain.’’∞∏ By the time he came back, he had decided ‘‘to follow the new trail to the end.’’ He finished two years at the Flandreau day school and then enrolled at the Santee Normal Training School in Nebraska – considered one of the best schools for Indians. Charles actually walked the 150 miles from Flandreau to Santee, still debating the question of going back to the ‘‘old ways.’’ But his first experience with a kindly white man – a farmer who gave him food and lodging without taking any money in return – was persuasive. He recalled, ‘‘Then and there I loved civilization and renounced my wild life.’’∞π Once at Santee Normal, Charles came under the influence of its superintendent, Rev. Alfred A. Riggs, who sensed the shy young Indian’s latent abilities and encouraged him at every turn. Charles would later write, ‘‘Next to my own father, this man did more than perhaps any other to make it possible for me to grasp the principles of true civilization.’’∞∫ Because Charles did so well in his studies, Riggs was able to arrange his admission to Beloit College, a state-supported institution in Beloit, Wisconsin, after only two years at Santee. After three years at Beloit (1877-79), Charles attended Knox 44

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College in Galesburg, Illinois – Riggs’s alma mater – for another two years (1879–81). Then he returned to Flandreau, where his brother John, now in charge of the mission school that Charles had first attended, o√ered him a teaching position. It was clear, however, that Charles was not yet ready to settle down to a reservation job. He had demonstrated academic excellence, but teaching at a mission day school seemed a waste of his talent. Then, once again, Alfred Riggs came through, this time securing a scholarship for Charles at prestigious Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire – a school that had originally been founded as a school for Indians. So Charles left for New England in January 1882. Upon his arrival by train in Boston, he was met by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Wood, friends of Alfred Riggs, who were deeply involved in the Indian reform movement that was then in vogue. The Woods introduced Charles to the Boston social world and advised him on all matters, including dress and deportment, in his new environment. Charles would later describe the Woods as his ‘‘white parents,’’ as he could always count on their encouragement and generosity.∞Ω At the Woods’ suggestion, Charles attended Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, New Hampshire, for a year and a half to remedy some deficiencies in his academic background. So Charles did not actually enroll at Dartmouth until fall 1893, when he was twenty-five years old. Charles’s Dartmouth years were marked by outstanding academic and athletic accomplishments. He elected the Latin scientific curriculum, which required extensive training in languages (Latin, Greek, French, German) and science (physics, chemistry, botany, zoology), and graduated with honors. In addition, he participated in a number of varsity sports, including football, baseball, track, and boxing.≤≠ After graduating from Dartmouth in June 1887, Charles, with financial backing from the Woods, enrolled in the Boston University School of Medicine. Here, again, he distinguished himself academically, and he was the unanimous choice of his graduating class to give the student oration at his commencement in June 1890.≤∞ Unfortunately, details of Charles’s years in Boston are sketchy. We do know that he gave some lectures, perhaps to help with expenses. He seems to have been active socially, having had a number of girlfriends, and he confesses to having been ‘‘particularly struck with the audacity and forwardness of the women.’’ He expressed some surprise at seeing ‘‘the pretty women clad so scantily’’ in the Boston ballrooms.≤≤ Here we see the ‘‘eye for the ladies’’ that seems to have been one of Charles’s lifelong characteristics.≤≥ 45

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With his medical degree in hand, Charles expressed an interest in returning to serve his people. Toward that end, Frank Wood introduced him to then Indian commissioner Thomas Je√erson Morgan – the same man who had appointed Elaine supervisor of education in the two Dakotas one year earlier. With Wood’s strong support, Charles was eventually appointed government physician at the Pine Ridge Agency.≤∂ He arrived there on November 1, 1890, and soon met his future wife. Within a few weeks of their first meeting, Charles and Elaine were engaged. Things had indeed moved swiftly. But this is not surprising, really, considering that both were of marriageable age (he, thirty-two; she, twenty-seven), physically attractive, and strongly committed to serving the Sioux people. Some authors have suggested that Elaine’s agreeing to marry Charles was politically motivated: ‘‘Eastman’s personal decision to marry a Native American man was made in the context of her belief in assimilation through interracial marriage and thus her contribution to the project of assimilation would be twofold. Not only was she advancing the project of diluting Native American blood by marrying Charles and bearing his children but, as Ruth Alexander has argued, her family would become a ‘model of the assimilationist ideal.’ ’’≤∑ However, Elaine’s mother was probably closer to the mark when, in Rose’s words, she had ‘‘anticipated and dreaded what finally occurred – a serious sex interest.’’≤∏ (I also suspect that Elaine, like Corabelle Fellows before her, took some pleasure in her mother’s aggravation.≤π) It is undoubtedly true that Elaine was influenced by her deep-seated commitment to service and duty. This legacy of her upbringing had already resulted in her commitment to a cause – the ‘‘plight of the red man.’’ Now her marriage would demand further commitments – to her husband and to her husband’s people. One senses that Elaine found some real fulfillment in serving others and that the self-sacrifice, and even su√ering, that such service entailed was an integral part of its fulfillment. The old Puritan ethic – ‘‘su√ering is good’’ – seems to have been deeply ingrained in Elaine, and as time went by, it would become an increasingly important part of her personality. While Elaine may have satisfied some aspects of her New England heritage with her decision to marry, there were others in New England who were simply appalled that she should choose a Native American. Elaine’s mother was one of them. Her sister Rose, upon learning of the engagement, wrote to her fiancé, ‘‘Poor Mamma takes it very hard.’’≤∫ Rose also described others, like Uncle George (Henry’s brother), as ‘‘completely horrified,’’ and Auntie Ella 46

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(Dora’s sister), as ‘‘shocked beyond words.’’≤Ω Later, Rose would write in her journal that her mother (and many other relatives) felt that ‘‘such a union constituted betrayal of the most fundamental and sacred obligations.’’≥≠ Even sister Dora was upset, and noted years later that ‘‘Elaine’s marriage shocked, shocks, and will shock me as long as I live.’’≥∞ Rose herself, though always somewhat more accepting of Charles, later confessed, ‘‘I have always shrunk from having strangers learn of the connection, and I know it has been the same with Dora and Robert.’’≥≤ Elaine seems never to have fully fathomed the extent of her family’s disapproval of Charles. It may be that she simply could not imagine the amount of racial prejudice that existed in her professedly Christian family. Did she know that her mother regarded Indians as ‘‘a wholly inferior, ignorant, dirty, miserable section of humanity’’? And that her mother also felt that it was of paramount importance to ‘‘keep the blood stream pure’’? It seems that Elaine ascribed her mother’s disapproval to the sacrifice of literary aspirations that any marriage would entail. But there was much more to it than that. In its coarsest form, as later expressed by Uncle George, it was blatantly racist: ‘‘as for her halfbreed brats, I spew them out of my mouth.’’≥≥ It is probably true that none of Elaine’s immediate family expressed overtly racist remarks directly to her after learning of her decision to marry. But there were certainly concerns, and Elaine later described the ‘‘earnest pleadings and arguments’’ that she had to use to overcome ‘‘the objections that at first naturally arose’’ among the members of her family.≥∂ Some of these objections were conveyed directly to Charles, as evidenced by a reply from Charles to Rose that addresses questions that had obviously been raised. This letter reads, in part: My dear Miss Goodale: Your very kind letter was received a few days ago. Let me assure you it was appreciated. Naturally I feel the unpleasant way in which the press has announced our engagement, that is, it is shown in romantic view of the entire thing. Perhaps, the matter has sicken you all. My life has been given out in two or three of the eastern papers which were full of errors. You can judge for yourself in case of Elaine’s – they have made some erroneous statements about her. My life has been a very pleasant one, especially my student life, free from all sad, capricious events and mistakes. Never dreamed for a moment that I should make such a surrender out here. I love her dearly. We are comparatively well corresponded in many ways. We have many common ideas, desires, and purpose of life. It 47

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seems rather hasty but the fact that we knew each other’s purpose and objects of life – this, of course assured us opportunities of closer acquaintance and when this was gained we suited each other well and a spontaneous respect and love came on both sides.≥∑ It is clear that Elaine was aware of her family’s reservations, though perhaps not of their intensity. These reservations, however, probably account for her apparent lack of interest in having a big wedding back East. As she would put it years later, ‘‘Our wedding was planned entirely according to his [Charles’s] wish. . . . I preferred to be married at Pine Ridge by Mr. Cook and take a camping trip into Canada to visit his uncle!’’≥∏ Family disapproval, however, did little to dampen Elaine’s or Charles’s ardor, and their love a√air was described by one contemporary observer as ‘‘public property.’’ Dr. Lauderdale, then at Pine Ridge, even described Elaine as ‘‘frivolous’’ during her Pine Ridge courtship days – a description that tends to belie the widely held impression of Elaine as a ‘‘strait-laced New England lady.’’≥π At any rate, wedding plans soon occupied much of the young couple’s time. Elaine resigned her position in March and went east to help with the arrangements. Charles followed later, spending some time in Boston with the Woods, who planned to host a gala wedding reception after the New York festivities. Public interest in the wedding was high. Interracial marriages were not all that common, and here a white woman was marrying an Indian man – a reversal of the more usual white man–Indian woman interracial union. Furthermore, Elaine Goodale was an ‘‘ultra-respectable’’ woman, who challenged the prevailing assumption that only a ‘‘lower order’’ female would ‘‘voluntarily choose an Indian paramour.’’≥∫ Newspapers then, as now, capitalized on the sensational, and headlines like ‘‘Miss Elaine Goodale to Marry a Sioux,’’ ‘‘Wedded to a Sioux Indian,’’ and ‘‘Will Be Mrs. Ohiyesa,’’ were typical. Unfortunately, many of these articles were replete with errors: ‘‘Word has reached Washington that Miss Elaine Goodale, the poet and philanthropist, who is now at work in the Sioux country as Superintendent of Schools, is engaged to be married to Dr. Charles A. Eastman, the full-blooded Sioux who was graduated last summer from the Boston University, and whose letters descriptive of the recent troubles near Pine Ridge have been widely published. Dr. Eastman took his professional degree at the Harvard Medical School.’’≥Ω Elaine, however, had more important things to think about – specifically, her wedding details. Here we know that Elaine received considerable help from her father. Indeed, the very fact that the wedding was held in New York City shows that he was a willing, and probably eager, assistant. We know that 48

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his apartment at the Windermere Hotel was used for the wedding reception and that he went to considerable trouble to decorate it with mountain laurel blossoms from Sky Farm.∂≠ He undoubtedly assisted as well in obtaining the services of Rev. E. Winchester Donald and the use of his church – the Church of the Ascension at Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street – for the ceremony itself. The fact that Henry Goodale o√ered his complete cooperation is not surprising, but this demonstration of unconditional love must have been very important to Elaine. Meantime, Elaine was able to persuade her two sisters, Dora and Rose, to serve as bridesmaids. Both these women were themselves engaged at the time, though Dora’s engagement would eventually be broken. Rose, however, later married Redington M. Dayton, who served as an usher at Elaine’s wedding that fall.∂∞ Elaine’s mother steadfastly refused to consider attending the wedding until the very last moment, when she ‘‘decided to go to New York and see her married after all.’’ Rose was happy about this decision, noting, quite correctly, that ‘‘her absence would have seemed so strange and di≈cult to explain.’’∂≤ The wedding itself took place on June 18, 1891, and, though brief, was a very impressive a√air. Elaine was dazzling: It was a few minutes past the hour set for the ceremony when the bride arrived at the church with her father. She looked well in her bridal gown of heavy white corded silk, made with long train and high corsage, and a full tulle veil, which was confined to the coi√ure with a simple wreath of small white roses and mountain laurel. She carried a bouquet of lilies of the valley. as were her bridesmaids: Miss Dora was attired in a pale yellow silk, and carried a bouquet of yellow roses; while her younger sister, Miss Rose, appeared in rose colored silk, and carried a bouquet of Catharine Mermet roses. and Charles: The bride was met at the chancel steps by the dark-skinned bridegroom who was in full morning dress and wore a boutonniere of white sweet peas.∂≥ After the short service, the bride and groom and ‘‘a few of their relatives and intimate friends’’ retired to Henry’s Sky Parlor at the Windermere for a wedding breakfast. One can imagine that most of the guests were fascinated by 49

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Henry’s accumulated flotsam and jetsam, especially, perhaps, the well-known writers and poets noted in contemporary accounts. These luminaries included Moncure D. Conway, Mary Mapes Dodge, Kate Sanborn, John Ward Stimson, and Charles G. Whiting. Elaine’s sisters, Dora and Rose, undoubtedly enjoyed themselves, but her mother was uncomfortable – though she did manage to ‘‘assist in receiving,’’ in her modest ‘‘toilet of gray silk and velvet.’’∂∂ Overall, as Rose noted, ‘‘the whole thing has been a satisfaction to Papa.’’∂∑ Later in the afternoon, the newlyweds left for Sky Farm and spent their wedding night in the room in which Elaine had been born.∂∏ They then went on to Boston, where Mr. and Mrs. Frank Wood hosted a second wedding reception on June 25. This event, attended by many of the city’s leading socialites and Charles’s friends from his medical school days, probably taxed Elaine, but she seems to have carried the day quite nicely. In the words of a columnist from the Boston Globe: ‘‘She was a perfect picture as she stood by the side of her husband in a lovely gown of creamy white surah which fitted her slender figure exquisitely. It was trimmed with bands of white ostrich feather trimming and those which adorned the flaring Medecis [sic] collar of the bodice formed a becoming background for her dark hair and her beautiful face.’’ The writer of this account did not limit her enthusiasm to Elaine, however: ‘‘Dr. Eastman himself is of ‘a goodlie aspect,’ as all his friends know, for his bronzed face set o√ by a ‘pompadour’ of the blackest hair and a pair of soft dark eyes, is very attractive in the frank and strong manliness of its expression; while not even the conventional American dress can hide the lithe, well-developed grace of form of the young man.’’∂π These descriptions certainly capture the physical appeal of this young couple. Perhaps we can sense, as well, one of the problems that would plague their union – other women. Years later, Elaine would confess to Rose that she ‘‘should have refused to marry Dr. Eastman’’ because of his ‘‘tragic failure of character.’’∂∫ We also find, in her highly autobiographical last novel, Hundred Maples, that she may have been warned about Charles’s having a weakness for other women even before the wedding. ‘‘An older woman,’’ she says, ‘‘had had the courage to come to her [the character Amy] and beg her frankly to give him [Jim] up’’ – saying that he ‘‘couldn’t be trusted where women were concerned.’’∂Ω For now, however, things were going very well. Rose would write to Redington from Northampton, ‘‘Elaine seems as entirely happy and satisfied as one could wish, and Dr. Eastman very fond and proud of her. It is beautiful. May it last!’’ Nonetheless, ever perceptive, she adds, ‘‘but I don’t feel any great con50

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fidence in it.’’ Part of this uneasiness undoubtedly stemmed from Rose’s own di≈culties in totally accepting Charles. ‘‘I am trying to get acquainted with him,’’ she wrote, but ‘‘it is a little hard to not be a√ected repellantly [sic] by the strange, dark face, the thoroughly Indian look and demeanor.’’ However, Rose also had reservations that were not related specifically to Charles’s Indian attributes, and these included her ‘‘chief objection to him as a companion,’’ which was ‘‘his egotism.’’∑≠ Elaine and Charles undoubtedly had trepidations of their own as they contemplated their future together. Elaine, however, was absolutely determined to make her marriage work at this point. She had made ‘‘the gift’’ of herself to her husband, she had ‘‘relinquished all thought of an independent career,’’ and she had ‘‘embraced the concept of lifelong service to her husband’s people.’’∑∞ She had also stood up to the criticisms and dire predictions of many, including her mother and other members of her own family, and they must never be right. So after a few days in Boston and brief visits with family, the young couple embarked by train for Montreal, and thence headed west. A visit with Charles’s brother John, at Flandreau, South Dakota, provided yet another celebratory family occasion – this time with Charles’s relatives. Finally, the couple arrived at Pine Ridge, where their new home was being built. After a few weeks in the old barracks, they moved into the new house.∑≤ Now they were truly man and wife. As a footnote to this chapter, it seems appropriate to o√er a few comments on the conspicuous absence of photographs of the Goodale–Eastman wedding in the public record. This can be explained, in part, by the 1897 fire that destroyed Henry Goodale’s cottage in Amherst (see chap. 2), where many wedding memorabilia were stored. It seems strange, nonetheless, that no photographs have been found in any other family files, especially in the extensive collection of materials that Rose Dayton amassed at Lodestone in Amherst. One can only suppose that no one, including Elaine herself, felt that the photographs should be kept – a sad commentary, it would seem, on the family’s prejudice and on Elaine’s eventual bitterness toward her husband of thirty years.

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chapter five

Your World or Mine? That first little home built for us, the center of so many loving hopes, was sorrowfully abandoned within two years for what proved to be a series of dubious experiments. — Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘All the Days of My Life’’ (1930) A fundamental question for any interracial marriage concerns the world in which the couple will live. Will it be his, or hers? In this case, would it be Indian or white? Of course, the question is an oversimplification – perhaps especially so here. For while Elaine was clearly a product of the white world, Charles had experienced both worlds. So in some ways their decision to start life together on an Indian reservation was a compromise – a choice between worlds in which neither Charles nor Elaine had had extensive experience. It might even be argued that Elaine was more at home on a reservation, given her recent positions as a teacher and supervisor of education to the Sioux nation. However, in terms of lifestyle and geography, it was clearly Elaine who was making the greater sacrifice. She said it herself, as we have seen: ‘‘I gave myself wholly in that hour to the traditional duties of wife and mother.’’∞ One doubts, however, that she was ever quite as submissive as some newspaper articles implied. One reporter, for example, noting Elaine’s ‘‘warm interest in everything pertaining to her husband’s race,’’ suggested that she would find ‘‘plenty of good work awaiting her as the physician’s wife at Pine Ridge.’’≤ To be fair, however, it is important to note that Elaine willingly started her married life in Indian country. For it is easy, in light of the Eastmans’ eventual settlement in the East, to think that Elaine forced Charles into her world from the very beginning. One writer has described Elaine as ‘‘an independentminded Massachusetts bluestocking, who would enter his life in 1891 and would insist on leading Eastman into paths he found disagreeable.’’≥ There is probably some truth in this observation, especially as the marriage wore on; but at the outset Elaine willingly ‘‘returned to the old and well-worn road, trodden by women’s feet throughout the ages,’’ and ‘‘wholly subordinated’’ herself to the ‘‘business of helping her talented husband.’’∂ This commitment 52

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meant that any children of the marriage would start their lives in Indian country – and, again, we must assume that Elaine consciously decided as much. In short, the couple at first clearly chose to live in the Indian world. Elaine was very much responsible for that choice, if only insofar as she was unwilling to oppose Charles’s wishes early in the marriage. Later on, as we shall see, Elaine became far more assertive, and eventually she would make most of the family decisions. It is important to recognize that the relationship between Charles and Elaine changed dramatically during the first ten years of their marriage. Here we will examine those years and look for the factors that led to the increasing frustration and impatience, and even hostility, that she turned onto Charles. The key factor seems to have been Charles’s inability to provide adequate financial support for the family – in spite of a variety of attempts, both within and outside government service. The reasons for his failures were many. Some were probably related to his own personality, but many resulted from whites’ deep-seated prejudices against Indians and, to a lesser extent, his own people’s distrust of ‘‘educated’’ Indians. The first of Charles’s ‘‘adversities’’ came very early at Pine Ridge. He was carrying out his duties as agency physician, under the overall direction of the acting Indian agent, Capt. George Le Roy Brown, when an incident occurred that would lead to a long and bitter confrontation between himself and Agent Brown. The trouble began when Charles was asked to assist in the payment of a one-hundred-thousand-dollar congressional appropriation to the Sioux at Pine Ridge – this being a reparation for losses to property and livestock that the ‘‘non-hostile’’ Indians had su√ered during the Ghost Dance a√air. Commissioner of Indian A√airs Thomas Morgan had placed Special Agent James A. Cooper in charge of these disbursements. Soon after Cooper had begun making payments, some Indians complained to Charles that they had not received their rightful shares. Unfortunately, Charles then committed an error in protocol by not reporting these complaints to his immediate supervisor, Agent Brown. Instead, Charles described the complaints in letters that he wrote to a number of other people, including Commissioner Morgan. Thus began what has been described as a ‘‘bitter, and sometimes farcical, feud’’ between Agent Brown and the agency physician.∑ The original controversy escalated quickly into a ‘‘shouting match,’’ with each man accusing the other of impropriety, deception, and general incompetence. Both men also enlisted support from some of the prominent and powerful individuals in the Indian reform movement. Thus, Charles was sup53

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ported by Commissioner Morgan, Senator Dawes (the Massachusetts senator who had sponsored the General Allotment Act of 1887), and Charles’s everloyal friend, Frank Wood. Agent Brown, on the other hand, received support from Herbert Welsh, the influential secretary of the Indian Rights Association, and Theodore Roosevelt, who was then a civil-service commissioner.∏ Morgan and Dawes attempted to plead Charles’s case with John W. Noble, the secretary of the interior, and Dawes, at least, presented supportive materials to Pres. Benjamin Harrison. Meantime, Agent Brown, in letters to Commissioner Morgan, repeatedly requested that Charles be transferred to another agency because of his ‘‘disrespect and insubordination.’’ Eventually, as more and more persons became involved in the controversy, Secretary Noble ordered an investigation of the entire matter, to be headed by Indian Inspector Benjamin H. Miller. Miller returned his findings in short order, concluding that there had been some irregularities in the Cooper payments – though failing to condemn any persons specifically. Noble, however, was not satisfied with Miller’s findings, and he ordered yet another investigation – this one to be headed by Inspector James H. Cisney. Cisney’s final report completely exonerated Cooper – and, by extension, Agent Brown – and Noble was satisfied.π Charles had o≈cially lost. But he continued to fight on, asking Commissioner Morgan for a thirty-day leave in order to argue his case in person before o≈cials in Washington dc. This request was granted, but it was already too late. Secretary Noble had finally decided to take action. On January 25, 1893, he announced that ‘‘for the good of the service,’’ Dr. Eastman ‘‘shall be suspended’’ and ‘‘unless he can be assigned or appointed to another place that he is willing to accept within fifteen days, he must resign or he will be removed.’’∫ Charles chose to resign. This account outlines the Brown-Eastman controversy. However, there are a few other matters to consider, especially those that relate to Elaine’s role. Charles could be a very formidable opponent, particularly in situations that involved what he perceived as a matter of principle. Here, for example, he issued a bold challenge to authority and persisted until it cost him his job. I believe, however, that Elaine also played an important, and perhaps pivotal, role in this particular case. Specifically, I suspect that Charles was pushed into a more confrontational stance than he might have adopted on his own. I say this for two reasons, the first being that Charles seemed to me far more diplomatic than Elaine in social situations. He had, after all, graduated from both Dartmouth College and Boston University and had become quite familiar with the political complexities of the white man’s world. Given this experi54

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ence, it would not be surprising to find him trying to negotiate a resolution to this conflict. Indeed, there is some evidence that he was willing to drop this particular matter at one point. Agent Brown actually says as much, in reporting one of his conversations with Charles: ‘‘At the close of our talk the Doctor said he was fully satisfied that I intended to do him no injustice, and further said, ‘I wish you would explain this matter to my wife.’ ’’Ω This seems to describe a man who is willing to settle the issue. And this picture is entirely consistent with the general view of Charles as an amiable, engaging person. As Maj. John Lauderdale remarked when he was getting to know Charles and Elaine in 1891, ‘‘The Doctor is really the most agreeable of the two,’’ adding that there was ‘‘something queer about her.’’∞≠ At any rate, here Charles was clearly asking for assistance in explaining things to his wife. It is also interesting to read Charles’s references to Elaine in his own account of this controversy in From the Deep Woods to Civilization (1916). At one point he notes, ‘‘On my return [from Washington dc], the same inspector [James Cisney] who had white-washed the payment was directed to investigate the ‘strained relations’ between the agent and myself; and my wife, who had meantime published several very frank letters in influential eastern papers, was made a party in the case.’’ He then goes on to describe the ‘‘farcical nature’’ of the ensuing investigation and its ending, noting, ‘‘I was o√ered a transfer.’’ But then he adds, ‘‘We [emphasis added] declined to accept the compromise.’’∞∞ Elaine, who had little sympathy for compromise in what she saw as moral issues, may have expressed strong disapproval whenever she felt that Charles was straying from a hard-line position. This really amounts to saying that Elaine may have begun to assert dominance in the marriage and that Charles was unwilling, or unable, to counter her opinions. We may, then, be seeing the first signs of the ‘‘overbearing’’ wife that Charles would eventually come to resent.∞≤ Some might argue that Elaine’s behavior in this instance was only the unselfish support of a dutiful wife for her beleaguered husband, and there is no doubt some truth in that view. But I suspect that Elaine’s behavior also served to keep her husband on the track that she wanted him to follow. The second piece of evidence that implicates Elaine as a major antagonist in the Brown-Eastman controversy is her own actions in the case. We know that she wrote a number of candid letters criticizing Agent Brown and the conditions at Pine Ridge and that these letters were widely published in eastern newspapers. We also know that she reacted angrily and publicly when Herbert Welsh, her traveling companion on her first trip to the Great Sioux Reserva55

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tion, went on record supporting Agent Brown.∞≥ Elaine immediately resigned from the Indian Rights Association (of which Welsh was still president) and released a statement to the press describing Welsh’s behavior as ‘‘unjust and partisan.’’ Welsh’s position was that the Eastmans could not provide proof of their charges against Brown, but Elaine felt that his report was ‘‘a highly personal attack on her character.’’∞∂ Elaine’s high visibility in the Pine Ridge a√air has led some to suggest that she really wanted to see Agent Brown replaced by her husband. Whether or not this is true may never be known. It is interesting to note, however, that Brown himself felt that someone was encouraging Charles with this goal in mind, and Herbert Welsh suggested as much when he described ‘‘a few persons at the Agency,’’ who had made ‘‘e√orts to secure the removal of the Agent during the past winter.’’∞∑ Whatever the case, the Eastmans soon found themselves in an untenable position at Pine Ridge. Now that Agent Brown had been vindicated, he wielded his ‘‘almost autocratic power’’ to make Charles’s life miserable: We soon found ourselves hampered in our work and harassed by every imaginable annoyance. My requisitions were overlooked or ‘‘forgotten,’’ and it became di≈cult to secure the necessities of life. I would receive a curt written order to proceed without delay to some remote point to visit a certain alleged patient; then, before I had covered the distance, would be overtaken by a mounted policeman with arbitrary orders to return at once to the agency. On driving in rapidly . . . I might be rebuked for overdriving the horses, and charged with neglect of some chronic case of which I had never been informed.∞∏ One might have expected the Eastmans to welcome transfer to another agency under these circumstances, but they were convinced that that course of action would be taken as an admission of guilt. So resignation, as Charles put it, ‘‘seemed to us . . . the only thing to do.’’ Both he and Elaine felt ‘‘utterly disillusioned and disgusted with these revelations of Government mismanagement in the field.’’ Given these feelings, it was impossible for them to continue in the Indian Service. In Charles’s words, ‘‘I resigned my position in the Indian Service, and removed with my family to the city of St. Paul, where I proposed to enter upon the independent practice of medicine.’’∞π We must note one far more pleasant event that occurred at Pine Ridge during all the turmoil: the birth of the Eastmans’ first child, Dora Winona Eastman, on May 31, 1892. Childbirth itself was always di≈cult for Elaine; as 56

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she once pointed out to her sister Rose, ‘‘I doubt if I could have su√ered more physically than I did in child-birth, when I repeatedly fainted from the agony.’’∞∫ But we also have the following lines from one of her later poems: The sweetest sound I ever heard? . . . Ah, rest from agony! Oh, precious poignancy of life! My first-born’s earliest cry!∞Ω Clearly, this was a great event for both Elaine and Charles, and the photograph that we have of Charles and infant Dora certainly captures the pride of a young father. Now the family was o√ to Saint Paul. Elaine would later count this as one of the many ‘‘disastrous’’ decisions that Charles made during the early years of their marriage. She made this point explicitly in a letter to Rose: ‘‘To return to important family decisions, the whole series beginning with war with the Pine Ridge agent, leaving the Indian Service, attempting to open practice in a strange city with a family and no money or friends . . . these I had nothing to do with except to try to make the best of them. I tried to think that it was his place to decide and that he knew best!’’≤≠ This summation is not, of course, entirely fair. Just as she had done when she went to teach at the Hampton Institute years before, Elaine dissociates herself from a decision that eventually proves to have negative consequences. This is an understandable human tendency – indeed, Robert Trivers has described it as a universal mechanism of self-deception, labeling it ‘‘bene√ectance.’’≤∞ But we know that Elaine played a role in all these decisions. She clearly participated in the ‘‘war’’ that she describes, and the loss of that ‘‘war’’ left the family with very few options. So Charles’s attempt to enter the profession for which he had been trained seems understandable. The fact that he chose to go specifically to Saint Paul probably had little to do with his failure: he undoubtedly would have failed anywhere, and for the same reason – racial prejudice. The Eastmans had almost no money when they arrived in Saint Paul. This was primarily because Charles had received a very small salary at Pine Ridge (one hundred dollars per month). To make matters worse, Agent Brown was now holding Charles’s last monthly check because of some alleged confusion about the e√ective date of his retirement. In fact, the Eastmans had to sell the furniture from their first home to finance the trip to Saint Paul.≤≤ Once there, they were ‘‘forced to board for the sake of economy’’ – and this state of a√airs would never change. 57

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Charles had to take a three-day medical examination in order to practice in Minnesota; to his credit, he was among the applicants who passed (nearly half failed). He then opened an o≈ce, but patients were scarce indeed. In fact, the only real opportunities that presented themselves were ones that Charles himself described as illegal.≤≥ This was the era of ‘‘patent and proprietary’’ medicines that were widely purveyed as miraculous cures for all the ills of mankind, and one very popular claim of many nineteenth-century quack physicians was that their medicines were ‘‘Indian.’’ As one authority has put it, ‘‘The very name Indian came to inspire confidence in many medicines, so deep was the public’s respect for Indian medicinal concoctions, if little or none for their discoverers.’’≤∂ Medicines in this category included such items as ‘‘Dr. Morse’s Indian Root Pills,’’ ‘‘Mrs. Gardner’s Indian Balsam of Liverwort,’’ and ‘‘The Great Indian Beverage: Loveridge’s Celebrated Wahoo Bitters.’’ The label on the latter bottle claimed that Wahoo Bitters were composed of ‘‘some twenty di√erent roots and barks’’ that were procured from ‘‘the most eminent Indian Physicians known among our North Western Tribes.’’≤∑ Charles, however, would have nothing to do with any such venture: ‘‘A large number came to me for Indian medicine and treatment. I told them, of course, that I had no such medicine. Again, one of the best known ‘doctors’ of this class in the Northwest invited me to go into partnership with him. Finally, a prominent business man of St. Paul o√ered to back me up financially if I would put up an ‘Indian medicine’ under my own name, assuring me that there was ‘a fortune in it.’ ’’≤∏ Charles refused to consider anything of the sort. This integrity, sadly, meant that there would be no future for Charles in the practice of medicine. One positive result of Charles’s unsuccessful medical e√ort in Saint Paul, however, was that it gave him the time for what would eventually become his primary occupation – writing. He began to write when Elaine, impressed with the stories of his boyhood that Charles related to little Dora, suggested that he write some of them down. When he did so, Elaine edited his e√orts and thought that the results might indeed be publishable. She then persuaded Charles to send the stories to the magazine that had first published her own childhood poems, St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks. The stories were immediately accepted and were published in six installments between 1893 and 1894.≤π Eventually, these articles were incorporated into Charles’s first book, Indian Boyhood, which was published in 1902. In the meantime, Charles was forced once again to seek a position as a government physician among the Indians. This e√ort failed, but another 58

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entirely unexpected opportunity arose. One day a stranger showed up at Charles’s o≈ce, and it turned out that he was Charles K. Ober, secretary of the International Committee of the Young Men’s Christian Association (ymca), who was looking for someone to organize new ymca associations among Indians throughout the country. After some discussion, Ober urged Charles to accept that position. Charles was initially reluctant, feeling that he was not qualified for what seemed to be religious work. Ober persevered, however, and Charles finally agreed to accept the o√er. Thus, in June 1894, he began his duties as the Indian secretary of the International Committee of the ymca.≤∫ During this period, the Eastmans’ second daughter, Irene Taluta Eastman, was born in Saint Paul on February 24, 1894. Elaine wrote to Rose: ‘‘I am sitting up, wrapped in a blanket, and intend to get in my clothes tomorrow. I had a pretty hard time and am so thankful to be safely through the ordeal. The baby is a dear little creature, plump and healthy.’’ Despite the obvious hardships, Elaine seems to have been very happy in her role as mother and wife during this period. Another excerpt from the letter conveys acceptance, and even contentment, despite her trials, ‘‘We have a new anxiety, however, for dear little Dora has just come down with the measles. Of course, my nurse is still here, and Dora’s Papa is with her constantly. I have only to be patient and try to get strong as soon as possible.’’≤Ω Soon after this, however, things began to change. It is probably fair to say that Elaine would never again sound so contented. One critical factor at this juncture was the beginning of Charles’s extensive travels in connection with his ymca work. In a letter written about four months after Charles began that work, Elaine expressed her unhappiness with his being away: ‘‘I have scarcely written to anybody this summer, except the Doctor. We correspond almost daily when he is away. It has been a hard summer – I miss him so dreadfully.’’≥≠ Nowhere else, in all of Elaine’s correspondence, is there a stronger expression of her love for Charles. Unfortunately, one also senses the beginnings of her discontent and resentment. Eventually these emotions would completely erode the love that she once felt. Charles’s ymca work did entail a great deal of travel. He describes himself as ‘‘traveling over a large part of the western states and Canada’’ and organizing ‘‘some forty-three associations’’ during the five years that he held this ymca position. One trip involved a return to his boyhood home in Canada, where his uncle (Mysterious Medicine), who had been his father for some fifteen years, still lived. Charles visited the grave of his grandmother, Uncheedah, describing this experience as ‘‘one of the great moments’’ of his life.≥∞ Charles 59

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also made several speaking trips back east, visiting Chicago, New York, and Boston. Clearly, Charles enjoyed this nomadic life, and traveling would always be important to him. Just as clearly, however, his wife resented these absences, which left her with the task of rearing their young children almost entirely alone. In her memoirs, she succinctly wrote: ‘‘He traveled widely, and met hosts of interesting people. I was inevitably house-bound.≥≤ These periods of separation certainly strained the Eastman marriage. Elaine’s resentment, whether or not overtly expressed, must have interfered with communication between her and Charles when he was at home. One wonders, for example, whether they were able to discuss Charles’s obviously di≈cult position when it came to promoting Christianity among the Indians. He seems to have accepted the tenets of Christianity, which he felt were similar to the spiritual beliefs of Indians. He once noted, for example, that ‘‘the Christ ideal might be radical, visionary, even impractical, as judged in the light of my later experiences; it still seemed to me logical, and in line with most of my Indian training.’’ But he also recognized that the white man’s civilization was far from Christian. He quoted an ‘‘old battle-scarred warrior’’ whom he had encountered on one of his trips: ‘‘I have come to the conclusion that this Jesus was an Indian. He was opposed to material acquirement and to great possessions. He was inclined to peace. He was as unpractical as any Indian and set no price upon his labor of love. These are not the principles upon which the white man has founded his civilization.’’≥≥ Charles had to conclude that ‘‘Christianity was not at fault for the white man’s sins, but rather the lack of it.’’≥∂ However, he never really found that position comfortable and actually became more and more convinced that ‘‘Christianity and modern civilization are opposed and irreconcilable.’’≥∑ This ambiguity may explain his restrained summation of these ymca years: ‘‘I do not know how much good I accomplished, but I did my best.’’≥∏ It seems entirely possible that his decision to resign from the ymca (e√ective April 1, 1898) may have reflected some uncertainty as to the appropriateness of this particular way of serving his people. As for Elaine’s thoughts on this entire matter, we know that she described Charles’s ymca position as a ‘‘fair job,’’ and that she was disappointed when he resigned, referring to his new job (lobbying for Indian claims) as ‘‘a pure gamble.’’≥π We also know that she publicly supported his work in this area and went with him to the Lake Mohonk Conference in 1895, where she stressed the importance of the ymca movement to Indians.≥∫ However, we will probably never know whether Elaine fully appreciated, or even understood, Charles’s 60

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misgivings about Christianity and his sympathy with what he termed the ‘‘Indian racial attitude toward God.’’≥Ω I suspect that she was already beginning to show the kind of ‘‘certainty’’ about these sorts of issues that would become so prominent in her later years, and that this attitude probably discouraged Charles from speaking to her about his views. Elaine had her own frustrations to deal with, as her burdensome home responsibilities increasingly interfered with her writing e√orts. So it seems unlikely that Charles’s frustrations, confusion, or self-doubt received much attention at home. To be fair, it also seems clear that Charles was unable to address the real sources of Elaine’s unhappiness. There is some evidence that dissimilarities of the sort that we have been describing, which undoubtedly had their origins in the very di√erent early experiences of Elaine and Charles, were now beginning to threaten the marriage. Thus, while Elaine gave some support to Charles’s ymca e√orts in her address to the 1895 Mohonk conference, we also know that she used that occasion to deliver a withering indictment of the role of grandmothers in Indian society: The Grandmother is the tyrant of the Indian community – sharp, shrillvoiced, and determined to have the last word; and, if that last word is not for progress, but, as it usually is, for the old-time thought, she becomes a barrier, a real hindrance and obstacle in the way of civilization. It is the grandmother who almost invariably predicts an early death for the child who goes to school, and who prophesies every misfortune for those who accept the new way. She is invariably suspicious of the white man, and takes no pains to hide her dislike of him. She revives some of the worst features of the old Indian life in her tales, her death-dirges and songs, upon every possible occasion.∂≠ This unusual intemperance reveals a good deal about Elaine’s state of mind at the time. As Marion Copeland has rightly noted, Elaine is very angry here, and the focus of that anger seems to be Uncheedah, Charles’s grandmother.∂∞ Copeland goes on to suggest that Elaine is resentful – perhaps even jealous – recognizing, as Charles talked of visiting his boyhood home and Uncheedah’s grave, that he was recalling his boyhood and the old Sioux ways. He also seemed to be implying that these ways were no worse, and perhaps even better, than the ways of white civilization. Ohiyesa, the boy that Elaine had never known, was reemerging. This had to be threatening to Elaine, and attacking Uncheedah may have been her way of fighting back. 61

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To Elaine, Uncheedah represented the ‘‘old way’’ – the tradition of specific women’s duties, consisting entirely of ‘‘making and keeping the home.’’ What Indians needed, Elaine thought, was some ‘‘enlightenment.’’ Under that banner, she sought to change the Indian world – and to make clear to Charles that she was no Uncheedah. I suspect, however, that Charles was mostly bewildered. Why, he must have asked, is Elaine attacking the woman who reared me – a woman whom I have always regarded as brave, self-sacrificing, and wise? Clearly, the Eastman marriage was by now far from idyllic. And, as was often the case, Elaine revealed some of her inner feelings in a poem – this one appearing in the Midland Monthly in 1897: a wife’s tokens You loved a maid, when Love was king, And gave her kisses, and a ring – An opal’s lambent flame: Months later, with the golden band You slipped, in church, upon this hand, Went honor, home, and name. Through constant years, these pledges twain – The jeweled circlet and the plain – On wedded hand have shone; Symbol of passion – Duty’s sign – Both dear, since in this heart of mine Duty and Love are one.∂≤ Here, of course, is the Elaine that we have come to know – placing duty above all other human endeavors. Sadly, there is as well the suggestion that whatever passion she may once have known is now subsumed in duty. That feeling would not bode well for any marriage. Indeed, there is some evidence that problems in the Eastman marriage were quite obvious to others during these early years. Thus, for example, at a ymca meeting in 1894 Charles Ober publicly condemned a rumor that Charles and Elaine had separated.∂≥ Also, at about the same time, a newspaper article on Elaine appeared with the subtitle, ‘‘She Declares Marriage Not a Failure.’’∂∂ Perhaps it was only a matter of someone’s overhearing Elaine express her unhappiness with Charles’s absences, or perhaps the couple tended to squabble in public, as they would later in Amherst. It is possible, too, that Charles 62

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had already revealed what one observer would describe as his ‘‘eye for the ladies.’’∂∑ Whatever the case, the marriage was clearly troubled. For now, though, Elaine would still defer to Charles’s decisions, at least those regarding his employment. And this time his decision involved a return to the East. During Charles’s years with the ymca, he was approached from time to time by various influential Sioux asking whether he might be willing to look after the Santee tribe’s interests in Washington. Among those applying pressure along these lines was Charles’s brother, Rev. John Eastman. The interests in question centered on a petition that the Santee tribe had drawn up in 1884 to ask for restoration of government annuities that had been ended in 1863 in retribution for the alleged responsibility of these Indians for the Great Sioux Uprising of 1862. However, special congressional legislation would be needed before the Santee petition could be taken up by the U.S. Court of Claims. So, Charles was pressured to go to Washington as a legal agent of the tribe – and he eventually agreed to assume that responsibility. In the summer of 1898 the family moved to Washington, where Charles, while freely admitting that he was ‘‘not a lawyer,’’ would spend a frustrating year as an advocate for the Santee tribe’s claims ‘‘before the Indian Bureau, the President, and Congress.’’∂∏ Unfortunately, Charles was ‘‘in over his head’’ as far as legal matters were concerned, and he also showed a disturbing tendency to become involved in emotionally charged confrontations (much like the one he had had with Agent Brown at Pine Ridge) with virtually anyone who questioned his ideas or motives – whether in Washington or back on the reservation. In addition, questions were raised as to whether his interest in this matter might be based on an anticipated financial gain (in the form of attorney’s fees).∂π There can be no question about the Eastmans’ dire financial straits at this time. When the family left Washington (in November 1899), they owed five hundred dollars for room and board at the place they had been staying. The landlady, Mrs. C. B. Cutler, pushed vigorously for payment – asking both the Indian commissioner and the secretary of the interior to intervene on her behalf. Eventually, at the urging of the commissioner, Charles agreed to pay this debt in monthly installments. When he defaulted again, Mrs. Cutler hired attorneys and once more brought the matter to the attention of the commissioner. This embarrassing matter actually dragged on until the bill was finally paid in the spring of 1906.∂∫ Whatever the extenuating circumstances, this financial debacle clearly underscores the Eastmans’ truly desperate financial situation in these years. 63

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We have very little evidence of Elaine’s state of mind during this year that the family spent in Washington. We do know that she joined her husband in some of his lobbying e√orts and even found some time for social activities.∂Ω It seems safe to assume, however, that most of her time was taken up by her duties to her four children (Virginia had been born in Saint Paul on November 3, 1896, and Ohiyesa (Charles Alexander, Jr.), had been born at Rose’s farm in Redding, Connecticut, on September 18, 1898 – shortly after the family’s arrival in Washington). As is often the case, we learn more about her feelings from a poem than from any other source. This particular poem, written shortly after her son’s birth, dates to late 1898 or early 1899: mother and son Within her fond, encircling arm Safe slept her little child – A helpless weight, sweet-breathed and warm; Her eager look down-bent, to scan That face, all lovely innocence, The features of the full-grown man She seized on with prophetic sense – Foresaw the hero that should be, Clothed in his manhood’s majesty, And seeing, smiled. Relaxed in every massive limb, The man, sore wearied sleeps; His bearded cheek is rough and grim. She, hovering near him wistfully, And gazing long, is fain to trace One line of childhood’s purity In that toil-marred, world-hardened face. Now once again she feels and sees Her nursling warm upon her knees, And seeing, weeps.∑≠ For Charles, the year in Washington seems only to have furthered his disillusionment with politicians and public institutions. He had had some unfortunate experiences with what he described as the ‘‘lower type of political henchmen’’ on the reservations, but he had expected fair and honest dealings in the nation’s capital. However, he quickly encountered dishonest politicians, 64

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and lawyers who demanded kickbacks for their help, and he had to admit, ‘‘I had overmuch faith in the civilized ideal, and I was again disappointed.’’∑∞ This frustration, coupled with severe financial hardship, led Charles to seek some other employment. Then, in November 1899, through the influence of Col. Richard Henry Pratt, superintendent of the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, he was o√ered the position of outing agent for that institution.∑≤ (It seems likely that Elaine actually secured this o√er for Charles after she had assumed the position of editor of the school newspaper, the Red Man. She had, of course, known Colonel Pratt since Hampton.) The Carlisle Indian School was established in 1879; as we have seen, its founder, Colonel Pratt, was an ardent assimilationist. He was convinced that Indians should be fully integrated into white American culture, and his school stressed industrial training that, he believed, would further that goal. As part of their training, Pratt’s students were sent to live with white Christian families for the summer. This was the famous ‘‘outing system,’’ that was intended to teach young Indians the ways of the ‘‘dominant culture.’’ Charles, as the outing agent, was expected to oversee the assignments of children to white families, and then check on their progress and handle any problems that might arise. He was also asked to do some recruiting for new pupils on various western reservations. Information regarding the Eastmans’ year at Carlisle is scant. There are occasional chatty references to family members in the Indian Helper, the Carlisle weekly newsletter. The following, mentioning all four children, is typical: ‘‘ ‘Gin-gin’ Eastman was quite sick for a day or two, but her friends rejoice to see her bright little face as smiling as ever. O-hi-ye-sa, the baby boy, is as happy as happy when on the ground, down among the girls. . . . Dora is a girl of seven, and makes herself quite at home among her little Indian sisters, and curly haired Irene is always manifest with her pointed questions and baby-like logic.’’∑≥ Elaine was also mentioned occasionally, usually in connection with her duties as editor of the Red Man. We know that she wrote a school song, ‘‘Comrades All,’’ and that a few of her poems appeared in the Helper.∑∂ We also find that she went on a three-week lecturing trip to New York and New England in the spring of 1900, giving ‘‘parlor talks on interesting and up-todate topics pertaining to the Indian and to the duties of a mother.’’∑∑ This speaking opportunity was undoubtedly a welcome change of pace, and the fact that she was able to leave Carlisle for such an extended period suggests that she had some assistance in caring for the children. Overall, however, she seems to have remained disenchanted with her lot. 65

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As usual, she expressed satisfaction in meeting the demands of duty – as in this Thanksgiving poem that she wrote for the Helper : For life – and life is more than meat; For health of body, more than raiment; For skillful hands and willing feet; For love of work and not of payment – For these, O Lord of all, we raise Our thankful hearts in prayer and praise! For Conscience, lighting all our sky; For Duty, sweeter far than pleasure; For strength to live, and grace to die, And joy in service beyond measure – For all that makes man’s life divine, Shepherd of souls, the praise be thine!∑∏ We can almost hear Elaine’s mother here – preaching about the importance of duty and service to others. There is certainly a hint of the puritanical tendency to find worth, or even superiority, in self-sacrifice and su√ering. Cheryl Walker has described poems like this as ‘‘reconciling’’ poems, and they seem rather typical of nineteenth-century female poets.∑π They convey a sense of martyrdom that, in turn, suggests underlying feelings of resentment. It often seems that this resentment is directed at persons who are perceived as not su√ering enough. In Elaine’s case, we can presume that Charles fell into that unenviable category. We do know that Elaine considered separating from Charles at the end of their year with Carlisle. In a letter to Rose, years later, she wrote, ‘‘I should have gone to work on my own responsibility and in my own way, even if it meant a separation, as it probably would have done. I did consider it at one time – before he went back to work in the Indian country, having failed in Washington and at Carlisle. But you see I had three young children then – no, four! – and it was very hard to know what to do.’’∑∫ Her reason for considering a separation was that Charles ‘‘never did earn enough to provide for the family.’’ Clearly, however, there were other factors – especially Charles’s frequent absences and what Elaine perceived as his indi√erence to her burdens. At any rate, Elaine was unhappy – of that there can be no question. As we have noted previously, Elaine rarely showed much appreciation for Charles’s di≈cult road. At Carlisle she described his e√orts as a failure. There is little, if any, evidence of sympathy for the torment that he must have felt in 66

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this assimilationist environment.∑Ω Elaine seems to have assumed that Charles could have, and should have, operated in one world – hers. She seems not to have understood that this was not a matter of choice for Charles: He was an Indian. As such, he had to work out an individual identity in what might be termed the ‘‘borderland’’ between the two worlds in which he lived. This is not to deny Elaine’s own problems. Charles was as poorly equipped to face her problems as she was to face his. The result, not surprisingly, was resentment on both sides. Charles could not understand his unhappy wife, and Elaine became increasingly critical of her ‘‘improvident’’ husband. If the future is any guide, Elaine was becoming more and more irritable at home, and Charles probably felt less and less inclined to spend time there. In this regard, one of the things that most bothered Elaine – Charles’s absences – probably led to criticism that tended to exacerbate the problem. At any rate, Charles was ‘‘on the road’’ for much of the Carlisle year, and he would travel even more after the family moved to Amherst. Before Amherst, however, there would be one more stop for the Eastmans in the Indian world. This detour was probably driven primarily by what Elaine described as ‘‘absolute necessity’’ – meaning financial necessity.∏≠ Charles was only earning eight hundred dollars a year at Carlisle, and he had a family of six to support.∏∞ Something had to be done. Charles had already expressed a willingness to return to the Indian Service, despite his earlier problems at Pine Ridge. So, when he was o√ered the position of government physician at the Crow Creek Agency in South Dakota at a salary of twelve hundred dollars a year, he accepted it immediately.∏≤ Despite the fact that neither Charles nor Elaine really wished it, the Eastmans packed everything and arrived at Crow Creek on September 19, 1900. In a way, Elaine seemed to be giving her husband one last chance to ‘‘make a go of it’’ in his Indian world. Unfortunately, however, the next two and a half years were even more trying than the years at Pine Ridge had been. Things started reasonably well, and Charles was able to successfully carry out an extensive smallpox vaccination program. After that, however, his relationship with the Indian agent, Harry D. Chamberlain, began to deteriorate. Just as at Pine Ridge, an important contributing factor to the ensuing unpleasantness was the white agent’s belief that Charles’s fluency in the Sioux language enabled him to ‘‘stir up contention among the Indians.’’∏≥ Chamberlain believed that Charles was collaborating with some disgruntled Indians who were writing letters of complaint to the Indian commissioner and various other influential politicians. 67

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Chamberlain then seems to have become obsessed with removing Charles from his agency. His first request to that e√ect was written to the Indian commissioner, William A. Jones, in July 1902, and it stated his willingness to provide specific charges against Eastman. Jones then sent Indian Inspector J. E. Edwards to Crow Creek to investigate. At this point, Chamberlain gave Edwards ten reasons why Charles should be removed – including charges that he had created turmoil at the agency, had conspired with others to undermine the authority of the agent, had neglected his duties, and had taken undue liberties with one female patient and attempted the same with others.∏∂ These latter charges – alleging that Charles had had sexual relations with the wife of James Fire Cloud, an agency employee, and had made sexual advances toward other employees of the Crow Creek Boarding School – reveal the full depth of the animosity that Chamberlain felt toward his agency physician. He seemed intent on Charles’s total destruction. Charles denied all the charges and provided statements from Mrs. Fire Cloud and her husband denying that he had acted in any improper manner. However, before Edwards’s investigation was completed, Chamberlain made an additional charge of immorality. This time he accused Charles of immoral conduct with Miss Augusta S. Hultman, the superintendent of the Grace Boarding School at the agency. Edwards then expanded his investigation to include this new allegation. Finally, based on a≈davits that he had collected from various employees, Edwards concluded that there was ‘‘no reasonable doubt’’ that Eastman and Hultman had had improper relations, and he recommended that Hultman be immediately removed and that Eastman be reprimanded and transferred to another agency.∏∑ A rather bizarre series of events ensued. Hultman objected to being treated more harshly than Charles had been, and Commissioner Jones agreed with her complaint and returned her to her duties, pending additional investigation. Miss Hultman then became involved in a heated quarrel with another teacher at the school, Henrietta Freemont, who had testified that she had found Charles and Miss Hultman together in the superintendent’s o≈ce late one evening. Freemont, believing that Charles and Hultman had tried to sully her personal reputation, actually struck Hultman twice and was immediately suspended.∏∏ This incident drew yet another Indian inspector, Frank C. Churchill, who had been examining conditions at the Grace Boarding School, into the picture. Eventually, Churchill released his own report, suggesting that the Grace Boarding School be closed and that both Hultman and Freemont be trans68

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ferred to other agencies. Interestingly, Churchill found the evidence for immoral conduct on Charles’s part circumstantial, but he also concluded that Charles had conspired to undermine Chamberlain’s authority, and he recommended that Charles, too, be transferred to another agency – specifically, to an agency ‘‘where the Sioux language [was] not spoken.’’∏π It was now clear that Charles could no longer serve as an agency physician on a Sioux reservation. His ability to communicate with the people, it turns out, was a liability, as white agents were invariably suspicious of his allegiances. After lengthy investigations, he had twice been removed from his position. It may well be that the agents in both these cases felt unduly threatened and reacted with inappropriate vigor. But the fact remains that Charles was unsuccessful – whatever the merits of his case. Unfortunately, we have very little information about how all the drama at Crow Creek a√ected the Eastmans’ already beleaguered marriage. Charles omits these years from his autobiography, From the Deep Woods to Civilization, and I can find no reference to any of these events in Elaine’s letters, or in her autobiographical Sister to the Sioux (1930). One can only speculate that the nature of the charges leveled against Charles must have mortified Elaine. But we will never know whether the charges were true or false or whether Elaine herself knew the answer to that question. She must have resented the publicity and anything that Charles might have done to fuel the suspicions that swirled around him. Her public silence in this case, so unlike her behavior at Pine Ridge, might be read as a lack of support for her husband. However, the issues here were extremely personal. Elaine was, after all, being labeled a dishonored wife. Under these circumstances, silence – or a refusal to enter the fray – may have been the most appropriate response. We do know that Elaine was already beginning to plan a new future for the family. As she would later put it, ‘‘After about ten years of this [Charles’s decisions], I began to plan, and the decision to come East, push writing and lecturing, educate the children and finally go in for camp work, were on my initiative.’’∏∫ With Charles’s resignation from Crow Creek on March 12, 1903, the stage was set to implement these plans. Commissioner Jones had o√ered Charles a permanent position in the Indian Service that involved assigning surnames to the Indians to improve their allotment rolls. Jones expected that Charles would perform this work in Indian country, but Elaine was able to push Charles into a move to Amherst, Massachusetts, for the winter of 1903– 4. Then, after some rather sharp exchanges, Jones finally accepted the fact that the renaming e√ort could be done there.∏Ω 69

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Although Elaine had at first agreed that she and Charles would live in his world, now, after twelve years of disappointments, she insisted that they must live in hers. And so it would remain for the rest of their married lives. If there is one conclusion that can be drawn from observing the first twelve years of the Eastmans’ marriage, it might be that neither Elaine nor Charles was really prepared for the di≈culties they would face. Could Elaine have imagined that Charles, with all his education, would fail in every e√ort to serve his people? Could Charles have imagined that Elaine would be so unhappy in the role of wife and mother? The fact is, of course, that they really did not know each other when they married. Also, they both had had extremely unusual backgrounds that severely limited their abilities to adjust to one another. Perhaps the greatest gulf between them derived from Charles’s Indian boyhood and Elaine’s understandable inability to appreciate the impact of that experience on his entire life. She seemed to feel that Charles, upon exposure to the white world, would recognize the superiority of the dominant culture and reject whatever he had been taught as an Indian child. Charles, with his experience in both worlds, invariably compared the two and often decided that the Indian way was better than that of whites. He felt, for example, that Indians were clearly superior in terms of health and physical fitness and that they also had a much deeper appreciation of the natural world. He had also learned that whites rarely lived up to their Christian precepts, and he felt that Indians came much closer to actually following their own religious teachings. What this meant, of course, was that Charles often expressed a longing for the world of his boyhood; this was something that Elaine could scarcely comprehend, much less condone. The other side of the coin was that Charles could not begin to imagine Elaine’s Sky Farm childhood – that isolated, sheltered, and puritanical home environment. Henry, her father, he might have understood. But a mother who complained incessantly about her lot in life? A mother who actually left her husband in order to pursue a literary career? Nothing in Charles’s boyhood could have prepared him for these kinds of possibilities. And although Elaine disagreed with her mother about many things, she did share her mother’s view that marriage and a career should be possible for women, just as it was for men. This ‘‘modern’’ notion implied, of course, that married men should shoulder more of the homemaking and child-rearing duties that had traditionally fallen to women. Charles, however, like most white men of the time, 70

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was unwilling to concede this point. So, just as Elaine could not fully understand the Indian in her husband, Charles could not fully understand the feminist in his wife. Finally, Elaine’s and Charles’s responses to the frustrations that they felt were very di√erent but equally destructive to their marriage. Elaine, harried almost beyond endurance, assumed the role of a martyr but made no secret of her unhappiness and resentment. This had to create a very strained atmosphere at home. Charles, on the other hand, assumed the role of a warrior – o√ fighting battles, or whatever else would keep him away from home. The marriage endured partly, it would seem, because marriages were supposed to endure in those days, and partly because neither party had any real alternatives. Elaine had no source of income and now had five children to care for (Eleanor had been born at Crow Creek on November 30, 1901). Charles depended on Elaine in order to write and publish his books, and his conscience would not permit him simply to walk away from his family responsibilities. It seems quite likely that Elaine was at one of the lowest points in her life at Crow Creek. No real comforts, no real home, no money, and no relief from her child-rearing duties. And now another burden – public charges that her husband was having sex with other women. One is inclined to think that she may have stopped caring, that her burdens were simply too heavy to bear. That, however, surely underestimates her strength. In fact, she seems to have taken the reins into her own hands at this point. Changes had to be made, and she would make them. New England – that might work. She would be back in a world that she knew and understood. Perhaps there was a glimmer of hope.

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Back in New England You will enjoy seeing Elaine, I know; but I don’t like to think of you taking care of seven people in the heat of July, and one of them a helpless old lady! — Dora Read Goodale to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1910 The Eastmans’ arrival in Amherst signaled the beginning of an entirely new life for the family. For one thing, there was a big new home to fill – a threestory mansion on Snell Street, right next to Amherst College and close to the center of town. Henry Sterling Goodale had selected the location and was paying the rent – and this generosity permitted many changes in the family’s lifestyle. Now, for example, there was a furnace, a kitchen, and separate rooms for each of the children. There was even a live-in servant – thanks again to Henry’s largesse. There were schools nearby and the exciting array of social and cultural opportunities that a college town always provides. The family was now in Elaine’s world, and this was the most important change of all. Elaine was very familiar with the kind of people who lived in Amherst: white, upper-middle-class, and highly competitive – but also intolerant and socially exclusive. She knew the kinds of pretenses that these people employed and the importance of ‘‘keeping up appearances.’’ Such people always lived in very fine homes that were tastefully appointed, on grounds that were meticulously attended. The wives were marvelous homemakers whose e≈ciency allowed them to devote many leisure hours to a variety of worthwhile causes. Their husbands held important positions in the business and academic worlds and were invariably ‘‘well connected.’’ The children were always ‘‘exceptional’’ and busy preparing for college and rewarding careers. For some reason (or reasons) that we must eventually analyze, Elaine immediately joined in this game. New burdens were placed on everyone in the family. Dress and manners were now important. Who you knew mattered. There were many new expectations, such as going to church and attending various social events – lectures, concerts, and the like. New skills were recommended, like playing the piano or learning a foreign language. In short, 72

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the Eastman children were expected to become typical upwardly motivated youngsters, indistinguishable from their white Amherst counterparts. Why did Elaine behave this way? Whatever happened to the poet, the reformer, the rebel? The most likely explanation seems to be that Elaine looked upon her new behavior as a strategy for survival – a way of protecting her Indian husband and ‘‘half-breed’’ children in the shark-infested waters of Amherst. We do not know how much dissent the children may have o√ered (or been allowed), or what role Charles may or may not have played in the decision-making process. These questions are important – for they raise fundamental questions about Elaine and about the state of her marriage at this point. One hint that Elaine was the prime mover in this Amherst environment is provided by the formal portraits of the children that were commissioned in 1904, about a year after the family moved to Amherst. These are delightful images, but there is a curious ambiguity about them that seems to underscore Elaine’s e√orts to comply with her new Amherst standards. As one viewer put it, ‘‘These children look like Indians in Victorian clothing!’’ Indeed. It is hard to imagine that Charles had anything to do with these getups. One other important consequence of the Eastmans’ return to the East was that Elaine was back among her own family members. Henry, her father, was living just three miles away at Lodestone – the stone house that Elaine’s brother, Robert, was building on the site of the 1897 fire that had driven her mother and sister back to Redding, Connecticut. Her mother was still living in Redding, and sister Dora was burdened with her care. Meantime, sister Rose was also living in Redding, and her two sons, James and Theo, would soon be accepted at Massachusetts Agricultural College and Amherst College, respectively. None of Elaine’s family, other than Henry, would ever really accept Charles as a family member. Sisters Dora and Rose were outwardly friendly and courteous toward him. Robert, however, was openly hostile – as was his mother. She was also upset with Robert, having strenuously opposed his close relationship with one Helen Brennan, a young woman he had met while a law student at Harvard. Helen’s mother had written to Mrs. Goodale, accusing Robert of ‘‘forcing himself ’’ on her daughter, and pleading for help in breaking up the relationship.∞ Robert’s mother did go to visit the young couple in Newfane, Vermont, where they were living, and did ‘‘all that seemed possible to shake Helen’s confidence’’ in marrying her son. She confessed to daughter 73

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Rose, however, that Helen was ‘‘even more ‘impossible’ than she could anticipate’’ (being ‘‘very Irish in looks and apparently in character’’) and concluded, ‘‘I fear that it will come to the very worst.’’≤ And her idea of the worst came true when Robert Goodale and Helen Brennan were married in Springfield, Massachusetts, on February 8, 1902. A daughter, Margaret, was born on September 6, 1903 – just after the Eastmans’ arrival in Amherst. This whole episode reveals yet another facet of Yankee bigotry of the time – namely, prejudice against the Irish, or, more generally, Roman Catholics. As a result of this, Mrs. Dora Goodale was not welcome at Lodestone – though it seems doubtful that she ever really wished to visit there. However, this also meant that she was now totally isolated from her husband, her son, and her new grandchild. Robert, in turn, was not willing to have Charles visit at Lodestone, and Elaine could not persuade her mother to visit her family in Amherst. Only Dora, Elaine’s sister, seemed able to move from household to household. Dora, of course, had not married – and she thereby avoided having either an unacceptable husband or a burdensome family. Dora’s letters to her sister Rose provide some insight into the situations at both Lodestone and Snell Street at this time. Clearly, Dora found the scene at Lodestone appalling. She loathed Helen’s ‘‘laziness,’’ noting that ‘‘she doesn’t get up until seven or 8 o’c, and shows no interest in, or intention of, getting things in order at all.’’≥ Robert, on the other hand, seemed to be ‘‘doing almost everything that is done there,’’ including taking care of the baby.∂ Dora’s main concern, however, was for her father, who, she claimed, ‘‘almost starves out there.’’ She then went on to say, ‘‘You know Papa is naturally careless and doesn’t mind a disorderly menage. But he is thoroughly disheartened by the dirt and chaos at Lodestone. . . . Elaine is as kind and thoughtful as possible, and urges him to return to her house for the summer, but he feels unwilling to do so.’’∑ Meantime, the Eastmans had settled in at Snell Street in downtown Amherst. Dora paid a number of visits, and described things there as ‘‘pleasant’’ and ‘‘comfortable.’’ On one occasion she mentions ‘‘the Doctor,’’ and describes him as ‘‘busying himself with the furnaces, grates & plumbing.’’∏ (One suspects that Elaine regarded these activities as masculine chores, though Charles, like Elaine, had little, if any, experience with such contraptions.) Elaine herself, in a letter to her mother, said that she was being ‘‘rather social, for me’’ – and mentioned ‘‘paying calls’’ that she owed. Elaine also extended an invitation to her mother to ‘‘visit us,’’ though this was apparently never accepted.π 74

1. Elaine’s father, Henry Sterling Goodale, ca. 1870. 2. Elaine’s mother, “Dora” Hill (Read) Goodale, ca. 1875.

3. Elaine, age three, in 1866 at Sky Farm, Mount Washington, Massachusetts. 4. Elaine and her sister Dora Read Goodale in 1868 at Sky Farm.

5. Elaine at age twelve in 1875. 6. Steel engraving of Elaine at age fifteen, reprinted from Apple-Blossoms: Poems of Two Children (published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1878).

7. Steel engraving of Dora Read Goodale at age twelve, reprinted from Apple-Blossoms: Poems of Two Children. 8. Elaine at age twenty in 1883.

9. Elaine at age twenty-six in 1890. 10. Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa) in 1904.

11. Elaine’s sister Rose Sterling Goodale, ca. 1890. 12. Charles and his daughter Dora Winona in 1892, at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

13. Elaine and her daughter Virginia in 1897, St. Paul, Minnesota. 14. Dora Winona Eastman in 1897, St. Paul, Minnesota.

15. From left: Irene, Virginia, and Dora Eastman, ca. 1900, at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. 16. The five Eastman children at Crow Creek Reservation in 1902. From left: Charles (Ohiyesa II), Dora, Irene, and Virginia, with Eleanor in the carriage. (Florence was born in Amherst the following year.) 17. Henry Sterling Goodale, ca. 1902, in Amherst, Massachusetts.

18. Dora Winona Eastman in Amherst, Massachusetts, Christmas 1904. 19. Irene Taluta Eastman in Amherst, Christmas 1904.

20. Virginia Eastman in Amherst, Christmas 1904. 21. Charles Alexander Eastman II (Ohiyesa II) in Amherst, Christmas 1904.

22. Eleanor Eastman in Amherst, Christmas 1904. 23. Florence Bascomb Eastman in Amherst, ca. 1912.

24. Elaine in Amherst, ca. 1910. 25. Irene Eastman in costume for singing appearances, Amherst, ca. 1915.

26. Charles II (Ohiyesa II) in his U.S. Navy uniform, 1918. 27. Irene Eastman, by Granite Lake at Camp Oahe near Munsonville, New Hampshire, ca. 1917.

28. Eleanor Eastman, ca. 1920. 29. Florence Eastman, upon graduation as a nurse from Boston Children’s Hospital in 1927. 30. Charles Eastman II (Ohiyesa II), ca. 1936.

31. Elaine in Northampton, Massachusetts, ca. 1930.

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Actually, it would not be long before both of Elaine’s parents passed away – Henry at Lodestone on July 20, 1906; and Dora in Redding on December 28, 1910. Henry’s obituary described him as having ‘‘a true literary gift,’’ a ‘‘rich vein of Yankee humor,’’ and – in words that Elaine herself may have written – a ‘‘sincere, gentle, delicate and honorable nature.’’∫ Henry remained a loving father to the end. One of the most touching items that I found among Rose’s e√ects at Lodestone (1997) was a note, handwritten by her sister Dora and signed in Henry’s frail scrawl, ‘‘Father.’’ The note says simply, ‘‘One last lingering Lodestone rose, for my faithful Rose Sterling, from her still lingering and forever loving – Father.’’Ω The note was dated June 29, 1906, and with it was a pressed red rose. This note, like the a√ectionate poems he had written to young Elaine some thirty years earlier, captures Henry’s essence . . . ever the romantic, ever the loving father. It seems sad that such a man lies buried alone, in an unmarked grave, somewhere in Wildwood Cemetery in Amherst. Some words written many years later by his daughter Dora seem like an appropriate eulogy, ‘‘Poor Daddy, didn’t his life have a vein of real pathos – almost of tragedy! I wish I had loved him more, and shown my love more.’’∞≠ Elaine, too, expressed regret in later years. Writing to Rose, she mentions ‘‘our father, whom I, at least, utterly failed to appreciate at the time.’’ She goes on to attribute this failure, in part, to the ‘‘thoughtlessness of youth.’’ But an even more important factor, she felt, was ‘‘mother’s persistent belittling of him in every way,’’ – and she adds ‘‘very sad, that was.’’∞∞ On another occasion, she described herself as a similar victim of her mother’s scorn: ‘‘Still, she was much the same about everything that I was interested in, after I left home.’’∞≤ Small wonder, then, that Elaine remembered her mother as ‘‘severe, unbending, and extremely self-centered.’’∞≥ Elaine tried very hard to be di√erent – an e√ort at which she never fully succeeded. Dora, as the only unmarried o√spring, was burdened with the care of Mrs. Goodale during the old woman’s final years. This was not an easy task. Even as far back as the late Sky Farm years (ca. 1880), Rose had felt that her mother was ‘‘highly nervous and emotional,’’ and Elaine noted that her ‘‘temperament was her greatest enemy’’ and that she had become ‘‘a nervous invalid.’’∞∂ Small wonder that Dora sometimes complained bitterly about her lot: ‘‘Mother insists in talking about having ‘made a home for me,’ when for the last fifteen years I have certainly done two thirds or three quarters of the actual work. . . . Isn’t it strange that she can take such a tone? The care of her in her ill health & 75

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nervousness has been a great drain on my time and vitality.’’∞∑ Dora had indeed su√ered a great deal. Her long engagement to Thomas Sanford eventually ended over her commitment to care for her aging mother. Dora also had to give up ‘‘a good o√er of a position at Atlanta University’’ because ‘‘mother declared that she couldn’t bear it to have me leave her.’’∞∏ These disappointments undoubtedly contributed to the episodes of severe depression that haunted Dora for most of her life. Elaine’s reaction to her mother’s death was presumably more ambiguous than what she had felt upon her father’s death. For Henry, there had been grief, perhaps tinged with regret, for her father had loved her unconditionally. Her mother, however, had always been a more troubling figure. She was a ‘‘modern’’ woman, in some ways – especially in terms of separating from her husband in order to pursue an independent literary career. But she still paid lip service to the old Puritan values of ‘‘duty’’ and ‘‘service to others.’’ Elaine deplored these inconsistencies, and especially the dismissal of her husband (and to some extent, her children) from the category of ‘‘others’’ to whom service should be rendered. Elaine’s mother had also reacted very negatively to Elaine’s marriage. Though she may have couched her disapproval in terms of the threat that marriage posed to a woman’s career, there was a clear underlying prejudice against Charles because he was an Indian. Such intolerance, which Mrs. Goodale had also revealed in her opposition to Robert’s choice of an Irish Catholic wife, troubled Elaine deeply. For there was racism and prejudice just beneath the surface. Even Rose’s choice of Redington Dayton, who was white and Protestant, had drawn opposition. Mrs. Goodale actually wrote to Redington on one occasion, pointing out that ‘‘Rose’s education has prepared her to maintain herself in dignity and usefulness and to take an excellent place in society. But it has not fitted her for the hard, monotonous life which is the usual lot of a farmer’s wife.’’∞π Here, the disapproval of Redington’s lack of social standing reflects Mrs. Goodale’s own inability to combine a career with marriage to a farmer. When it came to marriage for her daughters, Mrs. Goodale invariably stressed the primary importance of a career. Elaine had also heard her mother’s other message – the call for devotion to ‘‘duty’’ and ‘‘service.’’ Did this not apply to one’s spouse? Elaine wrote, ‘‘I always thought Mother ambitious for honors – for herself, rather than for her husband. She never seemed to pour all her energies into building him up, as I did mine. I was trained, on the other hand, to think either fame or money a low aim – the only goals worth while being those of pure art, and of service to 76

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others – the last to rule, if conflict occurred. And I still believe this, at the end of a long life!’’∞∫ Here we see the essence of Elaine’s ultimate tragedy – the fact that a lifelong commitment to serving others, and especially her husband, would fail to bring its expected reward. For now, however, we need only note the emotional distance that separated Elaine and her mother at the time of her mother’s death. ‘‘When I make an e√ort,’’ she once wrote to Rose, ‘‘I can recall dimly a sweet face and winsome manner,’’ but then adds, ‘‘very unlike her later one.’’∞Ω Many years later, when the question of providing a gravestone for their mother arose, Elaine wrote, ‘‘Since it was felt to be of no importance at the time, why call attention to the matter now?’’≤≠ Clearly, she never really made peace with her mother. An interesting glimpse into the Eastmans’ home life during their early Amherst years is provided by the letters of Rose’s oldest son, James W. Dayton, to his parents during his first two years (1909–11) at Massachusetts Agricultural College. Arrangements had been made for James to room at the Eastman household in exchange for doing ‘‘chores.’’ The Eastmans had moved from Snell Street to 25 College Street (the so-called Field House) in 1906, and James, like each of the Eastman children, had a room to himself there. Elaine liked the arrangement from the outset, writing to Rose: ‘‘I was intending even before your letter came to write you today, to tell you how nicely James fits into our big family. He is just as thoughtful, helpful and kind as possible, and will be a real help to me, and the girls and we get on splendidly together. . . . I think his ‘chores’ will regularly take about an hour a day – perhaps a little extra on holidays; and he is so ‘handy’ about odd jobs that it will be a great convenience.’’≤∞ In this letter, Elaine also revealed several important factors relating to her home environment. These include the fact that Charles was away much of the time, the children were fitting into the Amherst social scene nicely, and Elaine herself was becoming more and more demanding – or, in sister Dora’s rather unkind words, was turning into a ‘‘helpless old lady.’’≤≤ James’s own letters shed further light on these matters. The fact that Charles was often away during the Eastmans’ early years in Amherst is amply documented in a series of ‘‘letters’’ on Amherst matters that were published by W. R. Brown in the Springfield Sunday Republican between 1906 and 1912. There one finds accounts of Charles’s ‘‘six months among the Indians of the Cheyenne River and Crow Creek agencies’’ in 1906, some notes on his ‘‘fifth summer’s work in the West giving family names to the Indians of the reservations,’’ and a detailed description of ‘‘an extended trip among the 77

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Ojibway Indians’’ of Minnesota and Canada in 1910.≤≥ James’s letters to his mother and father convey these facts as well but add some sense of the family’s reactions to Charles’s returns. Sometimes there was obvious pleasure: ‘‘Then just before supper Dr. Eastman came in. He had been expected all along. So now everyone is jolly and happy.’’≤∂ And there was often excitement, as in this account of his return from the Ojibwa trip: ‘‘Doctor back from the wilds! He has a lot of interesting yarns. Has had a dandy time and got a lot of fine old relics.’’ Overall, it seems that the ‘‘Doctor’’ had a calming influence when he was at home. After noting Charles’s return, James wrote that ‘‘things will be more peaceful for a while now!’’ Indeed, James often commented on the family’s ‘‘noisiness’’ and once said that ‘‘the only way to get along without going crazy is to pay no attention whatever to any body!’’≤∑ Actually, the ‘‘noisiness’’ that bothered James should probably be viewed as evidence of a house full of healthy, high-spirited youngsters. Elaine, despite her outward severity, was apparently unable to exert much control over the general boisterousness at home. Sister Dora described Elaine’s children as ‘‘di≈cult’’ and ‘‘undisciplined’’ at this time, and one can understand why Elaine undoubtedly wished that Charles could spend more time with them.≤∏ Certainly, the number of children, the range of ages, and their diverse personalities posed formidable challenges to someone who was essentially a single parent. Dora, eighteen and a recent graduate of Amherst High School (class of 1910), was closest to James in age, and he seemed most comfortable with her. They occasionally walked out to Lodestone together, and James accompanied her to her senior dance.≤π Dora entered Mount Holyoke College in the fall of 1911 and lived on campus in South Hadley – but James always noted her visits back home. Irene, sixteen and very pretty and outgoing, seems to have set James back a bit and sometimes elicited remarks like, ‘‘I don’t think she does much.’’≤∫ But he also sought her attention and welcomed her approval (‘‘Irene says she thinks my new suit is very pretty & she likes it very much!’’≤Ω) In the fall of 1912 James’s brother, Theo, who would be a freshman at Amherst College, was more smitten and often asked Irene to dances at the college. Virginia, thirteen, was rarely mentioned in James’s letters home, perhaps because she was neither noisy enough nor old enough (or young enough) to elicit much attention. She was apparently a very good student and especially interested in music. Ohi, eleven, was the only boy in the family and was frequently mentioned in James’s letters – perhaps, in part, because of his gender. James talked about playing ball, shooting rifles, and skating with him. 78

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Ohi also had considerable academic di≈culty at school, and Elaine arranged for James to tutor him in arithmetic. This project frustrated James, as Ohi was generally indi√erent and uncooperative, and James complained, ‘‘I wish he would do a little thinking once in awhile!’’≥≠ Unfortunately, Ohi would continue to have academic problems, even at Amherst High School, where he excelled in sports. He batted over .400 in baseball during his sophomore year there, but poor grades forced him to withdraw during his junior year.≥∞ Elaine then attempted to teach him at home for a time, and eventually sent him to a boarding school, but it seems that he did not complete high school before enlisting in the navy in 1918. Stephen Allen, a son of Baxter Allen, Ohi’s longtime Amherst chum, recalls Baxter’s talking about Ohi’s free-spirited nature, and how Charles was the only one who could exert much control over his son.≥≤ It was Eleanor, however, that really got under James’s skin. At eight she was apparently the loudest of the children and invariably insisted on attention. On one occasion he wrote, ‘‘Eleanor’s birthday tomorrow – I guess she has told me at least 15 times today!’’≥≥ On another occasion, after spending an evening alone with her, James wrote, ‘‘I did a lot of studying I can tell you?!!!?’’≥∂ But Eleanor, despite her ‘‘rough and boisterous’’ ways, was popular in school and would eventually be voted ‘‘best dancer,’’ ‘‘second prettiest,’’ and the ‘‘last word in fashion’’ in the Amherst High School class of 1919.≥∑ Finally, little Florence, the five-year-old, was a favorite. James noted that she often ‘‘seemed more glad to see me than any one else’’ and that she ‘‘constantly’’ followed him around.≥∏ Theo, writing a few years later, described her as ‘‘the dearest quiet little thing you ever saw.’’≥π James’s letters to his mother could not be as candid about ‘‘Aunt E.’’ as they were about the Eastman children. For one thing, Elaine was his mother’s sister, and for another, Elaine was providing him with room and board. Nonetheless, James did sometimes reveal some displeasure with Elaine, especially in connection with her demands on his time. Then, almost inadvertently, James provided some intriguing insight into the inner dynamics of the Eastman home. Quite often, James listed his various chores and clearly implied that they might be excessive: ‘‘Saturday I gave my room a good thorough cleaning – everything a dusting. I then went through all my drawers & trunk & fixed things generally in better order. I also washed all the bottles, jelly glasses, etc. which had contained goodies in the last 3 months! Among other things for Aunt E. I cleaned rugs & did my best to get up their clothes hanger and put it 79

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away for the winter.’’ At other times, his complaints were more direct: ‘‘Just now things look pretty gloomy as Aunt E. seems to be ruling my fate every spare hour I have.’’≥Ω In general, Elaine comes across as being overwhelmed with household and parental responsibilities and struggling to maintain some sense of control in a chaotic world. There were six children living at home – six children to feed, clothe, discipline, and counsel. There were meals to prepare, laundry to do – and shopping, sewing, canning, cleaning, and household repairs. There was a yard to keep up, letters to write, bills to pay – and Elaine’s heightened sense of duty probably added a million other jobs as well. On top of all this, of course, was Elaine’s anger and resentment over Charles’s absences – which resulted in frequent complaints that she had ‘‘no one to help.’’ This, in turn, led her to place unending demands upon Charles whenever he was at home and to treat James in much the same way. James’s resentment appeared in his letters, but we have no record of Charles’s reactions. However, given some of the duties that Charles was assigned (James mentions such things as painting furniture, varnishing floors, making screen windows, putting up storm doors, and pruning trees), one suspects that Charles harbored considerable resentment as well. One can also understand how Elaine’s litany of things that needed to be done, and her complaints that no one ever helped, might have led sister Dora to describe her as a ‘‘helpless old lady.’’ Dora, it seems, was never entirely sympathetic to Elaine’s plight and once wrote to Rose, ‘‘You have met your deprivations far more patiently & successfully than she [Elaine].’’∂≠ Another probable consequence of Elaine’s frustration and unhappiness was further deterioration in the marriage itself. There are always di≈culties in maintaining meaningful intimacy in a long-term marriage, especially in busy households like the Eastman home. But there were other problems here, including mutual resentments of long standing and the honest (however regrettable) inability of both parties to communicate with one another. A passage in one of James’s early letters to his mother underscores the apparent waning of sexual relations in the marriage at this time. ‘‘Dr. and Ohi have rigged up a room in the attic & are going to sleep up there till it gets warm enough to use the tepee.’’∂∞ It is only fair, however, to note that Florence, the Eastmans’ youngest daughter, was conceived in Amherst. Indeed, Elaine once confided to Rose that ‘‘erotic love’’ in her marriage had ‘‘lasted for many years.’’∂≤ But ‘‘many years’’ may not have meant twenty years. Unfortunately, we can never know for certain when, or whether, sexual relations may have ended or whether 80

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decisions in that regard were mutual. This ignorance should temper our judgment of transgressions that may have occurred, such as Charles’s possible infidelities. If Elaine felt overwhelmed by her household and parental responsibilities to this point in Amherst, there were, unfortunately, even more di≈culties to come. At College Street there was a lot of room, a furnace, plumbing, and proximity to town; they even hired a servant girl to help with household chores. However, the money to continue this lifestyle was dwindling. Henry Goodale’s legacy was largely exhausted, and Charles had not yet established himself as either a writer or a lecturer. There was also college to consider for Dora and Virginia, as well as voice lessons for Irene and boarding school for Ohi. There seemed to be only one choice for the Eastmans, and that was to move the whole family to Lodestone, three miles from town on Belchertown Road. This small home had been left to Rose by her mother, and Rose was willing to let the Eastmans live there. The whole process of preparing for the move to Lodestone is described in James’s letters, and it was a time of great stress for everyone involved. Elaine organized any number of work parties to prepare the rather primitive stone house and its untended yard for the family’s move. James’s work seemed unending: ‘‘Meanwhile there is lots to be done. I think I’ll keep busy enough all right. I must take down those storm doors which Dr and I put up with so much trouble . . . paint chairs, stools, desks, tables & seats of all kinds & descriptions, build boxes of many sorts to keep clothes in, finish o√ the ceiling at ‘L’ & many other things I can’t think of now, besides many others which will appear later! Oh! I’ll stay busy all right!’’∂≥ And even when the move itself was made, there were problems. James wrote, ‘‘I believe they moved out Monday. . . . Aunt E. is having troubles in various ways! Lost lids to tea pots, lost boxes of papers which she wants immediately, & lost keys to drawers and her desk. Locked up full of more or less important stu√ !’’∂∂ Eventually, however, with James’s ever-patient help, everyone settled in and he could write, ‘‘Went out to ‘L’ in the A.M. I found all well & happy out there.’’∂∑ James had already decided not to move out to Lodestone himself, fearing that ‘‘Aunt E. would always find more . . . to do’’ and arguing that he could get ‘‘just as good stu√ ’’ as he got from Elaine by getting his ‘‘grub’’ downtown.∂∏ This did not end James’s connection with the Eastmans, however, as both he and his brother Theo were frequent visitors at Lodestone over the next three to four years. Both brothers continued to write to their mother, and these 81

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letters – saved by Rose – provide an intimate glimpse into the Eastmans’ Lodestone years. Life during what Elaine has described as ‘‘those interesting and homey Lodestone years’’ was certainly hectic, and James’s and Theo’s letters reveal that.∂π There was also a sense of excitement about the place that dominated their letters. Clearly, Lodestone was a magnet (as Rose had suggested when she gave it that name) and especially attractive to the younger set. Here are two typical descriptions of visits there, one from James and one from Theo: I went out to Lodestone Sunday a.m. It was a beautiful day & I enjoyed the walk ever so much. When I got there I met Irene & Cornelia going to get the milk, so I turned around & walked back a little way with them. Dr. was out there & seemed to be enjoying himself. He has caught 3 muskrats in the last few days & is greatly elated. Everyone seemed well & happy out there. . . . We had a dandy dinner in the shape of roast beef & potatoes with string beans, & squash and mince pie to finish o√ on. . . . In the afternoon Irene made some fudge which we all enjoyed greatly. After tea we had the customary singing & then I walked home by moonlight.∂∫ Theo, in a similarly enthusiastic vein, wrote: ‘‘I went out to Lodestone with Ruth on Sunday and the five of us . . . had a dandy good time. Tea out-ofdoors on the hillside under the pines – campfire – moon – whip-o-wills – cushions – blankets – stories – Luna moth flitting ’round – pretty good sport!’’∂Ω Lodestone must have put enormous strains on Elaine. All the cooking had to be done either in the large living-room fireplace or on a wood-burning kitchen stove. These fires also had to be maintained constantly, at least during the winter, as they were the only sources of heat in the house. All the laundry had to be done by hand and then hung out to dry on clotheslines in the yard. There were no toilets – only a ‘‘two-seater’’ outhouse located some fifty yards from the house. There were usually four children living at home, with Dora and Irene sometimes returning for a few days (from Mount Holyoke College and Northfield Seminary, a nearby preparatory school for girls, respectively). Guests, especially friends of the older girls, including James and Theo Dayton, were frequent – resulting in constant uncertainty with respect to preparing meals and arranging overnight accommodations. At the same time, however, there were fewer pressures to keep pace with the neighbors. There were also frequent visitors – most of them high-spirited, 82

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college-age youngsters. But drudgery and poverty were constant companions as well. As Elaine herself once put it, ‘‘We were living there in actual poverty and the Doctor earning almost nothing!’’∑≠ One suspects that she remained a fundamentally unhappy woman. Nonetheless, she continued to promote white, middle-class values for her children, including the expectation that they would all go on to college. For better or worse, she seems to have thought, ‘‘My children are now in the white world. This is where they must compete, and this is where they will succeed or fail.’’ Elaine, of course, knew a thing or two about failure. Her own life, in her now jaundiced view, was a clear example: no money, no college, no credentials, no career. Her children, she vowed, would not su√er that fate. Some authors have suggested that Elaine embraced white middle-class values and enforced them with her children to foster her ‘‘assimilationist agenda’’ – to eradicate everything Indian in her children. This suggestion, however, has little merit – at least in my view. Elaine did not see the situation as a matter of choice. The children were living in Amherst. This did not mean that they should forget their Indian heritage – far from it. But, they were living in Amherst ! In a way, this is the same Elaine who sometimes countered critics of assimilation with the comment, ‘‘But the bu√alo are gone!’’ The children themselves seemed to adapt quite nicely to their new circumstances. The girls were very popular with their classmates, and, with the exception of Eleanor, they earned good grades. Eleanor was ‘‘a little rough and boisterous as well as intractible [sic]’’ at home, and Elaine seemed to single her out for considerable scorn. Indeed, Theo once wrote to his mother, ‘‘I can’t help resenting the way Eleanor is treated.’’∑∞ Some antipathy between Elaine and Eleanor persisted over the years, and this may account for Eleanor’s seemingly closer ties to her father later in life. The two oldest girls, Dora and Virginia, were college bound (to Mount Holyoke and Wellesley, respectively), and Irene was beginning to distinguish herself as a concert singer. Ohi, as we have already noted, had more di≈culty in school than did the girls. He was also far more rebellious at home. Elaine emphatically disapproved of his friendship with Baxter Allen, a rather ‘‘wild’’ young man in her view, and this disapproval reached a peak when Ohi, following Allen’s lead, joined the navy in 1918.∑≤ Overall, however, the Eastman o√spring were quite typical for Amherst, and their assimilation does seem to have been the result of Elaine’s parenting decisions. One important question remains. What was Charles’s role in this ‘‘Amherst strategy’’? Many writers have assumed that he opposed Elaine on this issue, 83

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and, indeed, that this disagreement was the primary reason for their eventual separation.∑≥ I think, however, that the assimilation-acculturation issue, at least with respect to the children, has been overemphasized. The problems besetting the Eastman marriage ran far deeper than this. There was, for example, Elaine’s increasingly critical and dismissive attitude toward Charles generally. The di≈cult years in Indian country had set the stage for this attitude, and now Elaine had taken the reins into her own hands. She was also back on her own turf. These factors undoubtedly fostered Elaine’s relatively dominant personality and her tendency to be ‘‘certain’’ on most issues. Charles was thereby relegated to an essentially untenable position at home and, following his long-established pattern, withdrew, both physically and emotionally, from the domestic scene. Charles’s withdrawal served to exacerbate the problem. Elaine complained more than ever about his absences. In a later letter to Rose, she recalled, ‘‘It is fortunate for my family, as well as myself, that I had no illnesses calling for hospital, operations etc. while the children were growing up! My husband neglected me almost entirely. Usually he was away from home, but if not, he appeared very indi√erent.’’∑∂ This indi√erence was especially galling: ‘‘My thought was, and is still, that even after I was doing three-fourths of ‘his’ work, he reluctantly and ungraciously, if at all, vouchsafed the least help with ‘mine.’ That one ‘partner’ should sit around smoking and playing solitaire, most of the day, while the other worked somewhat beyond her strength and without relief at tasks which he could quite well ‘spell’ her at, surely can’t seem to you right.’’∑∑ For Charles, however, the real issue at home was respect or, more precisely, lack of respect. He may not have disagreed with some of Elaine’s attempts at ‘‘keeping up appearances.’’ He had, after all, spent many years in the white world – and he had real successes to show for it in the form of a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth in 1887, and a medical degree from Boston University in 1890. He had learned how to ‘‘play the game.’’ Indeed, keeping up appearances tapped some of the same skills that Charles employed in storytelling – his strongest suit. Impact was the point – not accuracy. So when Charles insisted, as he was wont to do, that ‘‘all of the girls [his daughters] graduated from di√erent well-known New England colleges’’ or that ‘‘Dora has been a teacher in several of the best young ladies’ finishing schools,’’ Elaine was probably pleased.∑∏ But the fact that his input, on this or any other matter regarding the children, was never sought was surely a serious problem. 84

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How did Charles actually feel about college for the children? Elaine often expressed shock at his ‘‘amazing indi√erence’’ to their higher education. But did she ever discuss the matter with him? We do not know how he felt about his own college degrees and whether or not they had helped his career. Perhaps he felt that success – in the white world, at any rate – was more a matter of chance or connections than of college. These are the kinds of things that Charles could have addressed – and as a man, especially an Indian man, and a husband and father – undoubtedly would have addressed if he had been asked. But neither Charles nor Elaine was good at communicating. Both were proud – and stoical. Charles placed silence among the highest of virtues: ‘‘The Indian believes profoundly in silence – the sign of perfect equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise of balance of body, mind, and spirit. The man who preserves his selfhood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence – his, in the mind of the unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude and conduct of life.’’∑π Elaine, as we have seen, could make a virtue of su√ering. In some ways, then, nothing had changed within the marriage, despite the many outward changes that marked the Eastmans’ move to Amherst. This undoubtedly led to a sense of resignation – a feeling that enduring was all that was left for the marriage. So, as must be true in many marriages, a sense of duty and a commitment to keeping up appearances might have kept Charles and Elaine together until their deaths. However, for better or worse, this did not happen.

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The Writing Game I’d like to know what you now regard as your greatest mistakes. I have been thinking lately that – aside from choice of husband, my chief one was in failing to take up and persist in a definite line of self-supporting work thro life. — Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Eastman, 1935 We have neglected one very important aspect of the Eastmans’ lives in Amherst: their writing. Indeed, one of Elaine’s primary reasons for coming east in the first place was to ‘‘push writing,’’ especially Charles’s books.∞ This she did – and with considerable success. However, despite Charles’s growing reputation and the improved finances that followed, the marriage itself continued to su√er. Ultimately, of course, the couple separated, and conflict relating to their writing was one of the many contributing factors. One might have guessed that the success of Charles’s writings and his subsequent success as a popular lecturer would have helped save the marriage. These activities did provide a steady, if modest, financial return; they also gave the appearance of a respectable career. But many long-standing problems remained. Elaine still felt thwarted in terms of her own career, even though she was able to write two books for children during the Amherst years. These books, however, were simply ‘‘potboilers’’ in her view – written in haste and intended only to augment a basically inadequate family income.≤ Most of Elaine’s time was spent preparing Charles’s manuscripts for publication. Here, Elaine played a critically important role, both as editor and as the typist who submitted all of Charles’s manuscripts to his publishers.≥ But therein lay an enormous potential for serious problems: two writers in the same house. This had to result in frequent di√erences of opinion over words, grammar, and the exact meaning of virtually every sentence. Here in the trenches, so to speak, Elaine had all the advantages. For one thing, she had the larger vocabulary – and she was surely more familiar with the nuances of the English language. She also tended to be more certain about everything than he – certain, for example, that she knew a better way to say whatever 86

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it was that Charles was trying to say. Finally, Elaine was the one who actually put the words on paper – the only words that the publishers would ever see. It seems important to note that Charles was never entirely happy with his role. Other authors, quoting relatives who knew Charles well, have spoken of his long resenting Elaine’s ‘‘overbearing manner’’ and her ‘‘revisions’’ to his manuscripts.∂ All this has made it di≈cult, of course, to assess the extent of Elaine’s influence on Charles’s books. Or, to put it another way, the extent to which Charles’s books are his own. I would suggest that these questions are basically unanswerable – since we cannot, with hindsight, identify a ‘‘real’’ Charles, untainted by his experiences in the white world. Various authors have attempted to analyze Elaine’s influences on Charles’s writings. Ruth Heflin, for example, has recently suggested that ‘‘it is doubtful Elaine had as much of a hand in her husband’s writings as she claimed’’ and implies that Elaine exaggerated her role in that regard, since that was ‘‘one of the few avenues of prestige open to women of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.’’∑ Most authors, however, feel that Elaine did play an important role in Charles’s writing, especially as his typist and editor – and they point to the fact that Charles did not publish anything after their separation.∏ This conclusion does leave room, however, for a variety of opinions on how much Elaine may have altered Charles’s words or, more importantly, his meanings. Generally, those authors who grant Elaine a significant role in Charles’s writing tend to interpret that role very negatively.π Thus, she is often held responsible for passages that are seen as unduly poetical, sentimental, or stilted. Karin Luisa Badt, for example, contends that Elaine ‘‘can probably be blamed for the romantic turns-of-phrase and cloyingly sentimental passages that riddle Eastman’s works and make them seem at times not the work of a former Sioux warrior but of a New England gentleman accustomed to drawing rooms and high tea.’’∫ However, Charles probably had more experience with New England drawing rooms and high teas than Elaine ever had. He had also encountered his share of romantic and ‘‘cloyingly sentimental’’ writing during his Dartmouth days. So it is never easy to decide where Charles leaves o√ and Elaine begins. My own guess is that Elaine was critically important in putting Charles’s words into acceptable English but that she made far fewer alterations (in terms of his meanings) than is commonly believed. When the Eastmans first arrived in Amherst (1903), Charles described himself as a ‘‘physician’’ and he kept that designation in the annual ‘‘Street List of 87

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Table 1: Charles A. Eastman’s Books Year

Title

Notes

1902

Indian Boyhood

dedicated to Charles (Ohiyesa) II (son)

1904

Red Hunters and the Animal People

foreword by Ohiyesa (Charles A. Eastman)

1907

Old Indian Days

dedicated to Dora, Irene, Virginia, Eleanor, and Florence (daughters)

1910

Smoky Day’s Wigwam Evenings: Indian Stories Retold (with Elaine Goodale Eastman)

preface by Elaine Goodale Eastman

1911

The Soul of the Indian: An Interpretation

dedicated to Elaine Goodale Eastman

1914

Indian Scout Talks

dedicated to the Boy Scouts and Campfire Girls of America

1915

The Indian Today: The Past and Future of the First American

includes brief biographical note

1916

From the Deep Woods to Civilization

foreword by Elaine Goodale Eastman

1918

Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains

Charles’ last book

Poll Tax Payers of Amherst, Mass.’’ through 1908. Then, for the next six years (1909–15), Charles identified himself as a ‘‘government employee’’ and sometimes specified his employer as the ‘‘United States Indian Service.’’ This change undoubtedly was meant to reflect the fact that Charles was never a practicing physician in Amherst, though the title undoubtedly had some prestige value early on. Charles’s association with the Sioux renaming project ended in 1909, but it was not until 1916 that Charles described himself as a ‘‘lecturer’’ – a designation that he kept for as long as he lived in Amherst.Ω A glance at the dates of first publication of Charles’s books reveals that most of them were written while he was living in Amherst. Indian Boyhood (1902), 88

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his first book, is an obvious exception, and we have already discussed the circumstances of its origin when the family was in Saint Paul. Much of Red Hunters and the Animal People (1904) was written while the family was staying at Bald Eagle Lake in Minnesota in the summer of 1903.∞≠ These two books aside, all of Charles’s writing was done during the years that he lived in Amherst. This seems especially remarkable given the fact that he was away from home for much of this time and that even when he was at home, his heavily burdened wife had to find the time to edit and type his manuscripts. Actually, Elaine’s hectic life would suggest that she made very few revisions to Charles’s writing beyond straightforward grammatical corrections and rewording his most awkward passages. I cannot believe that she ever had the time to ‘‘determinedly revise his books to reflect her assimilationist views.’’∞∞ Or that she felt it worthwhile to add her own ‘‘purple prose’’ to Charles’s colorful writing style.∞≤ She was still, for better or worse, ‘‘helping her talented husband express himself and interpret his people.’’ She would always believe, even through the worst of times that were yet to come, that Charles was ‘‘the literary interpreter of his race’’ and that no other books by Indians ‘‘were equal to his.’’∞≥ Elaine’s own words on her role in Charles’s books are very clear. The following quote is often cited: ‘‘Dr. Eastman’s books left his hand as a rough draft in pencil, on scratch paper’’; from this she typed copies, ‘‘revising, omitting, and re-writing as necessary.’’∞∂ Elaine provides much more information, however, in several letters to her sister Rose. Evidently you haven’t quite the correct impression with regard to my part in his books. . . . He was and is the author – altho he wrote very carelessly and would not even try to correct or revise, therefore I did all the drudgery – but took conscientious pains to preserve his style and tone and not to obtrude my own. . . . Naturally, I thought it all over at the time and knew that to appear as joint author would be misleading.∞∑ While I deliberately preserved his ideas and style, suppressing my own, still I should have been recognized as collaborator. However, I have reason to believe that most readers – all who know him well, have corresponded with him and seen how poorly he writes – know that I must have done much of the work on all the books. . . . Wishing to save his pride, I made little of my help, even to him in private. I was quite wrong, I now think.∞∏ 89

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Ohiyesa told me several years ago he [Charles] had been trying his best to get another book published, without producing anything worthy of a moment’s consideration. His Mss. was chaotic, in spite of wasting hundreds of dollars on having it typed. That was no surprise to me of course, as I know I had done a good half of the work on the books credited to him.∞π Clearly, Elaine readily admitted that Charles was the author of his books, but she also believed that her work as his ‘‘literary assistant’’ was absolutely essential to the books’ publication. In that light, she felt entitled to half the royalties that the books generated, and Charles’s failure to give her any royalties after the separation grated on her for the rest of her life. If any further evidence is needed to support the position that Elaine did not ‘‘determinedly revise’’ everything that Charles wrote, then the books themselves seem to provide that evidence. Many passages are very poorly written, and sometimes even grammatically incorrect, indicating that Elaine could not maintain constant vigilance. Also, there are many passages with which she certainly disagreed, especially those comparing white and Indian ways – where the white ways invariably came out second-best. These put-downs had to tax Elaine’s patience, especially when it came to things like religion, ethics, and communing with nature. The following examples of such passages will, I hope, make the point – though a far more extensive study along these lines must eventually be made. The first passage, taken from ‘‘The Great Mystery’’ in The Soul of the Indian (1911), is typical of the awkwardness that characterizes much of the writing in Charles’s books: ‘‘Nor were its publicity and its Phariseeism the only elements in the alien religion that o√ended the red man. To him, it appeared shocking and almost incredible that there were among this people who claimed superiority many irreligious, who did not even pretend to profess the national faith.’’∞∫ Surely, Elaine could have improved on that. I suspect that she simply capitulated from time to time, though one can almost see her wince. There were many of these kinds of problems in Charles’s writing. His own letters, for example, like the early one he wrote to Rose and those he wrote to friends after his separation, are revealing in this connection. Clearly, ‘‘he did not express himself easily on paper.’’∞Ω The awkwardness that found its way into Charles’s books suggests that Elaine was not the unrelenting editor that some have envisioned. But what of her disagreements over matters of substance? Here, again, is a paragraph from Charles’s Soul of the Indian – a work that has been described as his ‘‘most 90

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expressive and articulate essay’’ – that must have raised Elaine’s hackles:≤≠ ‘‘Long before I ever heard of Christ, or saw a white man, I had learned from an untutored woman the essence of morality. With the help of dear Nature herself, she taught me things simple but of mighty import. I knew God. I perceived what goodness is. I saw and loved what is really beautiful. Civilization has not taught me anything better!’’≤∞ Here, Charles essentially dismisses Christianity as a moral factor in his life and extols instead the lessons learned from his ‘‘untutored’’ grandmother. We have already seen evidence of Elaine’s disapproval of older Indian women, whom she viewed as impediments to Indian progress, and this homage must have opened old wounds. Further on, Charles extols the Indian manner of giving birth, and this must have reminded Elaine of her own painful birthing experiences. Was she being criticized? ‘‘And when the day of days in her life dawns – the day in which there is to be a new life, the miracle of whose making has been intrusted to her, she seeks no human aid. She has been trained and prepared in body and mind for this her holiest duty, ever since she can remember. The ordeal is best met alone.’’≤≤ Elaine may have ‘‘bitten her tongue’’ as she typed these sentences, but her unfailing sense of right and wrong seems to have prevailed. She was recording her husband’s thoughts, and these were his books. Whatever failings Elaine may have had, dishonesty was not one of them. So she obeyed her literary conscience. She probably also took some measure of satisfaction in ‘‘doing the right thing.’’ For this, after all, was her ‘‘duty’’ – and duty, as we have seen, had long since become Elaine’s primary source of satisfaction and self-esteem. Finally, in looking at Charles’s books, we might make note of his increasingly critical attitude toward ‘‘civilization.’’ In Soul of the Indian, he writes, ‘‘It is my personal belief, after thirty-five years’ experience of it that there is no such thing as ‘Christian civilization.’ I believe that Christianity and modern civilization are opposed and irreconcilable.’’≤≥ Clear enough. But he goes even further in From the Deep Woods to Civilization: ‘‘Why do we find so much evil and wickedness practiced by the nations composed of professedly ‘‘Christian’’ individuals? The pages of history are full of licensed murder and the plundering of weaker and less developed peoples, and obviously the world today has not outgrown this system. Behind the material and intellectual splendor of our civilization, primitive savagery and cruelty and lust hold sway, undiminished, and as it seems, unheeded.’’≤∂ These expressions of disappointment with the world that his father had asked him to enter, and his consistent praise for the simpler world of his boyhood, provide evidence, I believe, of an important change in Charles’s 91

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view of himself over the years of his marriage. This change seems to have begun around 1910, during his visit to the Ojibwas of northern Minnesota and Ontario, when he expressed his eagerness ‘‘to realize for a few perfect days the old, wild life’’ he recalled from boyhood. As he savored this experience, he freely admitted, ‘‘Every day it became harder for me to leave the woods.’’≤∑ Charles seems to have come to the realization at this time that civilization would never be his true home. Increasingly, he sought the peace, solitude, and companionship of the ‘‘deep woods.’’ This kind of spiritual identification with nature was probably di≈cult for Elaine to comprehend. Nature, for her, had always been a source of poetic inspiration, but she never seemed to need the kind of intimate relationship with the natural world that Charles required. Charles used nature as a retreat, or escape, from a world that seemed to o√er him little understanding, little compassion, and little love. And Elaine, I fear, was always excluded. At the close of From the Deep Woods to Civilization, Charles wrote, ‘‘When I let go of my simple, instinctive nature religion, I hoped to gain something far loftier. . . . Alas! it is also more confusing and contradictory.’’ How could it be otherwise? In the civilized world, the ‘‘higher and spiritual life’’ was ‘‘clearly secondary, if not entirely neglected.’’≤∏ And his own acceptance in that world was clearly conditional: He must be an Indian, but not a real Indian! But if he was not a real Indian, what was he? Unfortunately, to many – and this included his wife – he was ‘‘what an Indian could become.’’ Or, more pointedly, ‘‘what an Indian should become.’’ This, however, gave him no real identity – he was neither ‘‘red’’ nor ‘‘white.’’ Elaine never seemed to appreciate fully the ‘‘confusing and contradictory’’ world in which her husband had to live. Understandably, Charles must have often felt ignored or dismissed and trivialized in many ways. This cannot have helped the marriage. In that sense, then, the fact that Charles and Elaine worked together on his books probably did little to ease the tensions between them. Lest we make this situation too one-sided, it seems important to point out that Elaine was also writing books during this period. While we know that Charles did not contribute to the writing of these books, we can ask whether he ever read them. For in her stories and her poems, we are most likely to find the ‘‘real’’ Elaine – the woman with hopes and dreams and emotional responses to a life that provided little satisfaction and many bitter disappointments. Many of Elaine’s children’s stories, for example, seem to paint a world similar to her 92

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Table 2: Elaine Goodale Eastman’s Books Year

Title

Notes

1910

Little Brother O’Dreams

dedicated ‘‘To the Memory of My Father’’

1911

Yellow Star: A Story of East and West

fictional account of a Wounded Knee survivor

1919

Indian Legends Retold

introduction by Charles A. Eastman; acknowledgment, Bureau of American Ethnology

1928

The Luck of Oldacres

dedicated ‘‘To the Memory of Our Singer’’ (Irene Eastman)

1930

The Voice at Eve

poems; and the autobiography, ‘‘All the Days of My Life’’

1935

Pratt the Red Man’s Moses

biography of Richard H. Pratt

1935

Hundred Maples

dedicated ‘‘To My Son’’ (Charles A. Eastman, II)

own but with changes that she would have preferred and outcomes that would have made her happy. These, then, are her dreams – the things that she wished had happened – and, as such, they reveal the human side of Elaine, a side that is otherwise rarely seen. One of Elaine’s Amherst ‘‘potboilers’’ provides an excellent example of this ‘‘wishful’’ approach. Little Brother O’ Dreams (1910) is a delightful love story and easily Elaine’s most endearing work. The protagonist, ‘‘Little Brother,’’ is a rather strange little boy – frail and apparently handicapped in some way – who loves nature and delights in making up pretty poems. This boy is clearly modeled after Elaine’s father, Henry, to whose memory she dedicates it. Little Brother lives with his overly protective mother, who loved him with ‘‘just the toil and sharpness of love, without the sweet!’’ (like Elaine’s mother loved Elaine), in a century-old farmhouse high on the side of Fray Mountain. The setting is Sky Farm, of course, and the story includes references to many of Elaine’s beloved childhood haunts, including Sunset Rock and the ‘‘nameless waterfall’’ where her parents had ‘‘culminated their romance.’’ 93

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As the story unfolds, Little Brother meets a beautiful little girl, Elva, who summers on the other side of Fray Mountain and who becomes his ‘‘Little Sister.’’ The two children often meet in the woods, enjoying the natural beauty around them and sharing their childhood treasures and talents – his poems, and her songs and dances. Eventually, events force them to separate for some fifteen years. But, in Elaine’s beautiful words, Little Brother always knew that ‘‘Some day . . . some opal-colored day in spring . . . some long, long summer afternoon . . . some red October morning . . . some purple winter twilight . . . she would surely come back to Fray Mountain!’’ And, happily, Elva does come back. Little Brother invites her: ‘‘Stay here with me – stay on my side of the world forever,’’ and then the ‘‘whole world seemed to fill and overflow with solemn music’’ and we presume that the loving couple lived happily ever after.≤π There is beauty here. Beauty of setting, beauty of words, and the beauty of young love. All this does honor to her father’s memory. Clearly, Elaine wishes that he had found his own Elva and lived happily ever after. Of course, if that had happened, Elva would have been Elaine’s mother – and then she might have known that ‘‘love with the sweet’’ that she never felt from her own mother. Here we see Elaine in a more open, more loving, and more vulnerable position than we have seen her previously. I have often wondered whether Charles ever read this ‘‘potboiler.’’ I suspect that he did not. Even if he had, perhaps too much water had already passed over the dam. Elaine and Charles must have simply been going through the motions by this time – feeling neither fully appreciated nor fully understood by the other. To us, now, it seems sad that these two people, so much alike in so many ways, could not actually communicate. This failure, however, was probably preordained, given their childhood backgrounds and the di≈cult roads they had traveled together. At that point, however, there seemed to be little likelihood of a complete marital separation. That would soon change.

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Flower of the Forest In a hush like that of a congregation expecting the bride, all breathlessly wait upon the entrance of the Flower of the Forest. — Elaine Goodale Eastman, The Luck of Oldacres The most consistent of Elaine’s complaints about her marriage concerned being left alone. Indeed, in one terse summary of her marriage, she noted simply that Charles was ‘‘usually away from home.’’∞ His absences fueled a sense of frustration and obvious resentment. She once described herself as ‘‘a good deal overburdened’’ as a wife and mother, and then added, ‘‘My husband, on the other hand, led a very easy life, with abundant leisure and recreational opportunities, often traveling for pleasure months at a time.’’≤ This resentment was expressed in her memoirs, as well, when she noted that Charles ‘‘traveled widely, even to London, and met hosts of interesting people’’; she added, ‘‘I was inevitably house-bound.’’≥ Elaine’s specific reference to London refers to Charles’s participation in the First Universal Races Congress held in that city between July 26 and 29, 1911. Missing events like that, which involved travel to faraway places and association with famous people, must have been especially hard on Elaine. She also missed Mark Twain’s seventieth birthday celebration in New York City on December 5, 1905 – where Charles, in formal attire, was clearly evident in photographs of the many dignitaries in attendance.∂ Elaine always implied that domestic duties prevented her from participating in these sorts of social events, but one wonders whether some insecurities of her own – relating perhaps to her lack of formal education or some dissatisfaction with her appearance or wardrobe – may have played a role as well. Elaine, as we have seen, could minimize her own role in outcomes that she later regretted. However, the question of most interest here is whether Charles ever insisted that she accompany him. We will never know for certain, of course, but the record suggests that he did not. 95

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Elaine’s major disappointment, however, was probably not a matter of missing such highly publicized social events over the years, but rather of missing a husband who would participate fully in the life of his family and home. Elaine had started expressing this disappointment way back in Saint Paul; her complaining no doubt peaked during the Amherst years. Elaine’s late letters to Rose contain frequent expressions of this lingering discontent. In one case, after describing ‘‘the Doctor’s completely casual and almost uninterested attitude’’ toward his children, she continued: ‘‘I grew gradually so accustomed to Dr. E.’s irresponsibility that I never cease to wonder at my daughters’ husbands and to think them amazingly fortunate. He did not even give thought or e√ort to the education of his only son – all was left to me – and anything he did not like in any of the children was instantly and openly laid to some fault of mine! If I had brought them up right, it would not have happened!’’∑ A husband’s frequent absence from the home, coupled with a seeming indi√erence to family matters when at home, was (and is) a frequent source of marital discord. One marriage guide, under the heading ‘‘How to Be a Good Husband,’’ advised men to ‘‘stay at home’’ because ‘‘habitual absence is sure to bring sorrow.’’ It also suggested that a husband should ‘‘consult with his wife,’’ ‘‘help to bear her burdens,’’ and ‘‘take her with him into society.’’∏ Clearly, for a variety of reasons, Charles was unable to heed much of this advice. One suspects that he was unwilling to do so, as well, and that he probably never fully comprehended all the issues that were involved. The battle for women’s rights was well underway, but Charles, like most of the white men of his day, was not yet ready to take up that cause. Indeed, in his writings on Indian women, he emphasized the ‘‘duties of their sex’’ and noted that ‘‘it is woman’s work to make and keep a home.’’π There was nothing in Charles’s boyhood to suggest that Indian women might want anything more, though he eventually came to recognize the constraints that tied them to the home. Thus, he stated, ‘‘Had her husband remained long enough in one place, the Indian woman, I believe, would have developed no mean civilization and culture of her own.’’∫ These may have been Elaine’s words, of course. But, at any rate, Charles always seemed most comfortable living the ‘‘old way’’ and leaving the management of home and children to his wife. One of the problems with a nomadic husband, a marriage manual cautioned, is that while he is ‘‘mingling constantly in society with cultivated people; brought into daily contact with the great movements of the day; reading, thinking and attending lectures; . . . [and] constantly advancing – 96

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gaining new ideas, new views of life, new interests and new aspirations,’’ his wife is ‘‘confined to home by domestic duties; debarred by maternity and the care of her children from mingling in society; deprived, mainly by lack of time and opportunity, of the advantages of lectures and books; and finally, perhaps, remains stationary, or rather deteriorates intellectually.’’ And so, ‘‘Harmony is lost.’’Ω One doubts that Elaine ever ‘‘deteriorated intellectually,’’ but it seems likely that this scenario, otherwise, is a fairly accurate description of one fundamental problem that plagued the Eastman marriage. Aside from the two worlds we have previously considered – the ‘‘red’’ and ‘‘white’’ worlds – there were the two very di√erent worlds of men and women, and the di√erent social ‘‘rules’’ that applied to each sex, that must have introduced even more tension into an already di≈cult home situation. One additional element, which probably added to Elaine’s frustration, was the fact that Irene, the Eastman’s second-oldest daughter, would often accompany Charles on the lecture circuit. Irene Eastman, who turned twenty in 1914, had been taking private voice lessons for several years and was about to embark on an independent career as a concert soprano. In the meantime, however, she enjoyed traveling with her father and would often conclude his lectures with a selection of Indian songs. The following account of one such occasion, when Charles and Irene were the guests of Ernest Thompson Seton in Greenwich, Connecticut, was written by Hamlin Garland: ‘‘At night we all attended his [Charles’s] lecture at the little church in Greenwich. At the close of his fine talk, his daughter Irene sang the songs of her people delightfully. She is an attractive, clear-eyed, and graceful girl with a captivating smile. She won her audience instantly. Together they gave a singularly clear and noble concept of the Sioux, a concept which few were able to accept. Eastman is very proud of his daughter, as he has a right to be. He stood beside her to receive the praise of her auditors.’’∞≠ Several things are noteworthy here. Garland’s appreciation of Charles’s ‘‘fine talk,’’ for example. However, most of Garland’s account is devoted to Irene. She seems to be the ‘‘star’’ in his view. He does point out Charles’s pride in his daughter, and we begin to sense the very special place that Irene held in the hearts of both of her parents. Garland’s enthusiasm is echoed in review after review of Irene’s concerts. Thus, in the Vineland News (New Jersey) we read, ‘‘Miss Eastman has great beauty, and a magnetism which is alluring. In her magnificent doeskin costume she was every inch the Indian princess, and carried her audience spell97

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bound back into the life of the tribes.’’∞∞ And, again, in the Rockford Morning Star (Illinois): ‘‘Miss Eastman’s personality gave the same delight as her voice. . . . No one will ever forget the beauty of her ‘Echo Song,’ which served to disclose the purity of tone and the mellow qualities which characterize her voice.’’∞≤ Clearly, Irene had what we might now describe as ‘‘star’’ potential. Reviewers almost invariably referred to her beauty, her magnetism, and her ‘‘dramatic temperament.’’ These qualities also endeared her to virtually everyone she ever met. Theo Dayton, her cousin, who sometimes took her dancing while he was in college, mentioned her often in his letters to his mother: ‘‘You must hear her sing,’’ ‘‘Irene looked awfully nice,’’ ‘‘I like Irene better than ever.’’∞≥ No one, however, appreciated Irene more than her mother. On many occasions, especially after Irene’s tragic death, Elaine spoke most fondly of her, as in this remark to Rose, ‘‘Of all my children, Irene was closest to me in sympathy and understanding.’’∞∂ She later expanded on this, ‘‘I would not say so to anyone else, perhaps, but the truth is that the only one of my six who was really, devotedly attentive and thoughtful for me was the one I lost twenty years ago.’’∞∑ What makes this especially interesting is the fact that Elaine could describe Irene as the ‘‘most gifted and ambitious of my own,’’ while also admitting that she was ‘‘the most impulsive and emotional,’’ and the ‘‘most di≈cult’’ of her children.∞∏ One of Elaine’s recollections is particularly memorable: One day when Irene was about sixteen or seventeen, she was angered and hurt by her father and rushed out of doors in a thin dress, without a hat – it was November, at Lodestone. She remained away all that day and late into the night – no one knew where – we searched and called in vain. I was almost wild and feared suicide or some terrible misfortune. . . . Long after dark I was still roaming about with a lantern and found her crouching on the ground – almost sti√ with cold and exhaustion, and even then had di≈culty in persuading her to come in.∞π Irene could certainly be ‘‘emotional,’’ but this characteristic was also manifest in a remarkable enthusiasm for life. Only two of her letters survived in the materials that Rose accumulated at Lodestone, but these two, written to her aunts, are undoubtedly typical. Everyone and everything is described in glowing terms: Cousin Grace Goodale is ‘‘the most wonderful combination of everything nice,’’ Aunt Florence (Bascom) is ‘‘such a wonder,’’ sister Dora is 98

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‘‘having a very gay time,’’ brother Ohi has just sent ‘‘a jolly letter,’’ and so forth.∞∫ Perhaps the most interesting of her observations, however, is a comment on her parents’ wedding: ‘‘Ask Aunt Dora if she remembers a Mrs. Morse – who says she attended mother’s wedding. I told her that I was jealous of the people that witnessed that occasion!’’∞Ω This is as bright and supportive a statement on Charles and Elaine’s marriage as any I have encountered, and it underscores the closeness that Irene felt toward both of her parents. Another result of Charles and Irene’s traveling was their exposure to the ideas and feelings of people ‘‘out on the stump.’’ One of the prevailing attitudes of that time was a feeling that the American wilderness and the native people who had originally occupied that wilderness had a great deal to o√er, especially to young people. Nature was seen as a great American resource, and its usefulness – both as a tonic, and as a temple – was being widely touted. An outdoors movement, spawned by men like Ernest Thompson Seton, Daniel Beard, John Muir, and Theodore Roosevelt was fully underway. Organizations like the Boy Scouts of America, and its sister organization, the Campfire Girls of America, were founded and quickly became very popular. Charles himself was quite active in this connection, writing articles for Boys’ Life, the Boy Scouts’ magazine, starting in 1910, and writing a book, Indian Scout Talks, in 1914. The thrust of this movement, and the organizations it spawned, was to make nature accessible to everyone, and the establishment of summer camps for boys and girls was one very important result. This camping phenomenon also led to a renewed interest in the ‘‘first Americans’’ and their way of life. Charles served as the director of a camp for boys in the summer of 1914. Camp Archibald Butt, located on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, was one of the largest Boy Scout camps in the country at that time, and it provided an opportunity for Charles to experience firsthand the various activities and the administrative details that were part and parcel of such an operation. The emphasis on sports, nature study, and Indian skills – like tracking, archery, sign language, and ceremonial dancing – was certainly tailored to his interests, and it must have seemed an ideal setting for teaching young people about the old Indian ways. Meantime, Irene was also getting camping experience, serving for two summers as a counselor for the Campfire Girls in Pittsburgh. She had taught swimming and folk dancing at city parks in New York and had developed a strong interest in directing dramatic pageants in a summer-camp setting.≤≠ 99

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It seems likely that Irene was the real impetus behind the Eastman family’s subsequent decision to open their own summer camp for girls. Charles was undoubtedly interested as well, and the idea of having a ‘‘real Indian’’ as director of the camp must have been compelling. Elaine, however, was probably cautious at first, recognizing that most of the administrative responsibilities would certainly fall on her shoulders – and she was already overburdened. She was editing, typing, and submitting Charles’s manuscripts – and trying to work on her own writing as time permitted. She was also handling most of the correspondence relating to both Charles’s lecture tours and Irene’s concert appearances. In addition, of course, there were her duties as a homemaker and mother. However, as always, there was the matter of money – or, more correctly, lack of money. Dora had one more year to go at Mount Holyoke College, Virginia was entering Wellesley College in the fall, and Irene was taking private voice lessons. Could the proceeds from a summer camp add some much-needed money to the family co√ers? This financial argument, and Irene’s likely enthusiasm about the appropriateness of such a family venture, probably carried the day. After all, Dora, Irene, and Virginia could certainly contribute as counselors, and Ohi (now seventeen) and Eleanor (‘‘Bobbie’’) (now thirteen) could help with all sorts of odd jobs. Florence (‘‘Flossie,’’ or ‘‘Billie’’) (now nine) would enjoy simply being a camper. So, in the spring of 1915 Charles traveled up into the Mt. Monadnock region, just east of Keene, New Hampshire, where a number of summer camps had already been established, and searched for an appropriate situation. Eventually he ran into Harry Wilson, a local farmer, who agreed to rent his large family homestead and several acres of land on Granite Lake in Munsonville, New Hampshire, for the Eastmans’ use.≤∞ Soon thereafter, plans began in earnest for opening ‘‘The School of the Woods,’’ a summer camp for girls, that very summer. Early brochures provide considerable information on this camping venture. The very first one announced, ‘‘To Girls, their Parents and Friends! Doctor Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa) will open a school of the woods at Granite Lake, New Hampshire, July 1, 1915.’’ Then it added, tellingly, ‘‘The Summer Camp with a Di√erence.’’ The di√erence, of course, was the fact that this was ‘‘the only camp in the country that has at its head a ‘Real Indian.’ ’’ Other features that were emphasized included the fact that Dr. Eastman was ‘‘himself a physician’’ and would have ‘‘personal charge of the health of the camp,’’ and that Dr. and Mrs. Eastman, with five daughters of their own, were ‘‘deeply sensible of the responsibility involved in the care of 100

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young girls.’’ The first brochure also noted that ‘‘traditional indian ceremonies of great historic interest’’ would be adapted to camp use and an ‘‘original play or pageant’’ would be given by all the campers at the close of the season.≤≤ After this first season, Charles and Elaine put together an even more elaborate brochure for the 1916 season, renaming the girls’ camp ‘‘Oáhe: The Hill of Vision,’’ and adding a camp for younger boys, ‘‘Ohiyesa,’’ a half-mile away. The girls’ camp was now described as ‘‘an enlargement of our family circle,’’ featuring Charles and Elaine, and specifically included daughters Dora and Irene on the list of sta√. Another feature was the addition of Angel DeCora Dietz, the ‘‘well known Winnebago artist,’’ who would conduct classes in sketching and handicrafts, including Indian beadwork and basketry. Clearly, however, Charles was still the main attraction, being depicted in full regalia on the opening page, and later in a full-page photograph entitled ‘‘A Lesson in Archery.’’≤≥ In a subsequent brochure for Camp Ohiyesa (1917), Charles is even more prominently featured, as might be expected. Here, one full page is devoted to a list of ‘‘Books by Dr. Eastman’’ and another to laudatory quotes from various newspaper reviews of From the Deep Woods to Civilization (1916). ≤∂ The camps seemed to live up to their billing during the early years. Elaine’s nephew Theo Dayton, who worked several summers at the camps, was always enthusiastic about his ‘‘pleasant summer experiences,’’ though he did note the ‘‘rather strained atmosphere’’ created by ‘‘family scraps.’’ We also have some recollections of one camper from the early years, Mrs. Walter (Miriam) Remmers. Writing to Jim Ewing, the current owner of the original camp headquarters, who had sent her a brochure on the history of the Wilson Homestead, Mrs. Remmers wrote: I cannot recall ever receiving and reading a booklet that gave me more joy. . . . The pictures are wonderful, many of which were taken when I was at Oahe during July and August of 1919 and 1920 when I was ten and eleven years old. The middle photograph on the page entitled ‘‘Oahe, the Hill of Vision’’ really delights me, as I recognize every single camper listening to Dr. Eastman. . . . Dr. Eastman, in those early years of Camp Oahe, used to hunt and fish frequently with my father and he would often appear at our hill-top cottage, later owned by the Eames, almost out of nowhere, having come up the hill through the woods, never using a road or pathway.≤∑ 101

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We catch a glimpse here of the ‘‘real Indian’’ of the camp brochures, the ‘‘expert woodsman, trained in the unsurpassed school of the open air.’’≤∏ It also appears that Charles was a prominent presence during the early camp years. Elaine, however, seems to have been much less active with the campers and during the later years was described by one camper as ‘‘an old lady rocking in her chair, watching over our comings and goings.’’ This camper, Mrs. Katharine Dorr Sommers, could not remember ‘‘having any interchange with her, or seeing her converse with other campers.’’ Mrs. Sommers noted with regret, ‘‘After reading Mrs. Eastman’s memoirs I realize how much understanding and appreciation of Indian life and traditions she could have given us campers, but failed to give.’’≤π To be fair, of course, a lot of personal tragedy had befallen Elaine during the Oáhe years, and Mrs. Sommers’s suggestions that she was ‘‘embittered’’ and ‘‘old before her time’’ are probably accurate. We will elaborate on those tragedies shortly and note here only that Irene, who had been the heart and soul of the camp, died in the flu pandemic of 1918. Charles and Elaine, after an angry public falling-out, separated permanently in 1921, leaving responsibility for the camp entirely on Elaine’s shoulders. The fact that Irene was the real spirit of Oáhe, until her tragic death, is clearly indicated in all the later camp brochures. In the 1920 brochure, for example, her photograph appears with the inscription, ‘‘The embodiment of oáhe happiness, her radiant personality is with us still.’’≤∫ In 1924 another photograph, with the caption, ‘‘The Spirit of oáhe,’’ appears on the title page.≤Ω Irene had been most prominent in connection with the extravagant musical pageants that concluded each camp season. She always played the leading female role, which fully displayed both her dramatic acting ability and her wonderful singing voice. In the 1916 pageant, ‘‘The Trail Makers,’’ for example, she was featured as ‘‘The Bird’’ (a Shoshone maiden taken captive by Crows) and sang a plaintive solo, ‘‘Song to the Morning Star.’’≥≠ Perhaps the most poignant of all the tributes to Irene was her prominent portrayal as ‘‘Lorna’’ in Elaine’s 1928 novel, The Luck of Oldacres. This book was dedicated ‘‘To the Memory of Our Singer,’’ and the setting was a summer camp similar to Oáhe. Many of the characters are obviously modeled on Elaine’s own family members. ‘‘Lorna,’’ as we have noted, is Irene; ‘‘Nancy’’ is Dora Winona; ‘‘Dan’’ is Ohi; ‘‘Mrs. Bell’’ is Elaine; and ‘‘Harry Bell’’ is Charles. Basically, the book is a tribute to Irene and conveys Elaine’s regret that she did not live – not least because she might have saved Elaine’s marriage. Elaine describes Harry Bell as ‘‘brilliant, but rather irresponsible’’ and then, after noting that Lorna ‘‘loved him dearly,’’ acknowledges that ‘‘she was like him in 102

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many ways.’’ One sees, once again, Elaine’s love of her ‘‘most di≈cult child’’ and, perhaps unexpectedly, some of the things that she loved in Charles. In the novel, Harry Bell has been gone for three years, and when he returns – to Lorna – he asks her to intercede on his behalf with her mother. Presumably this is done, and the story ends: ‘‘Lorna started up and clasped her hands behind her supple waist; the deep chest swelled; she threw back her gallant head, wreathed with massy bands the color of oak leaves after frost. Once more a veritable fountain of golden notes poured triumphant into the golden air, hung for a long moment beneath the skyey roof, and showered the reverberating forest floor with tuneful alms.’’≥∞ As in her earlier Little Brother O’ Dreams, Elaine has depicted a world much like her own, but with outcomes that she would have preferred, rather than those that actually occurred. Whatever the literary merits or demerits of these works, they do provide considerable insight into Elaine’s thoughts about some of the most significant events in her life. In real life, of course, Irene died – suddenly and tragically – on October 23, 1918. Some background is necessary, however. While no real sense can ever be made of such a tragedy, there were circumstances that made it less unexpected than we might think today. For 1917 and 1918 were the years of a great worldwide flu pandemic that claimed more than 40 million lives – more than 650,000 in the United States alone.≥≤ This flu, sometimes referred to as the Spanish flu, took disproportionately more young adults than any such epidemic before or since. To be sure, antibiotics had not yet been developed, but many epidemiologists believe that the virus of 1917–18 was a particularly virulent strain, whose like has not since reappeared. Charles and Elaine were very much aware of this flu threat at the time and had even taken the precaution of enrolling Ohi and Eleanor at Charles’s old alma mater, Kimball Union Academy, in Meriden, New Hampshire, for the 1917–18 school year. Better to be in rural New Hampshire than in any city – even Amherst – was their feeling. Dora, who had graduated from Mount Holyoke in 1916, had taken a teaching position at the Genoa Indian School in Nebraska, and Virginia was back at Wellesley College for her senior year. Irene, who had persuaded her mother to allow her to live with a cousin in New Jersey so that she could take voice lessons in New York City, was busy working to build an acting and singing career. Finally, Florence, the youngster at thirteen, was enrolled in the Munsonville grade school.≥≥ There were added tensions at this time, of course, because of the war in Europe, which the United States had entered on April 6, 1917. Ohi, who was 103

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much influenced by his Amherst chum, Baxter Allen, made it very clear that he wanted to enlist in the navy at the earliest opportunity. Elaine, ever the pacifist, vigorously opposed this idea, and part of the decision to enroll Ohi at Kimball Union may have been an attempt to separate him from Baxter Allen. Whatever the case, Ohi did enlist in the navy immediately after his 1918 graduation. Meanwhile, Virginia, who had graduated from Wellesley College, was o√ered a job in Washington with the Bureau of War-Risk Insurance by Elaine’s brother, Robert, who was then serving as a special adviser to Secretary of War Newton D. Baker.≥∂ Charles himself traveled a great deal during the winters of 1917 and 1918. He made numerous trips to Washington to work on the Boy Scout Liberty Bond Drives and to assist Gertrude Bonin in writing and editing articles for the American Indian Magazine (the journal of the Society of American Indians). Elaine, too, spent some time in Washington and was actually there with Eleanor and Florence when Irene died.≥∑ Despite their assumed exposure to the flu, the family managed to escape illness until October 1918. Early that month Irene called her parents from New York and made plans for a visit to Munsonville. Immediately upon her arrival, she made a dramatic revelation – the New York Metropolitan Opera had o√ered her a contract. Later that same day, however, she complained of feeling ill – and Charles, apparently suspicious, called for an ambulance that took her to the hospital in Keene. There she seemed to rally for a while, but five days later she was dead.≥∏ She was buried in Sioux fashion under a large tree on a hill overlooking Granite Lake at Camp Oáhe.≥π Charles and Elaine were devastated. Unfortunately, however, their grief over her death did not bring them closer together. Years of silence, misunderstanding, and mutual resentment precluded their sharing the sympathy, understanding, and tenderness that each so desperately needed. Both parents undoubtedly felt some guilt over Irene’s death: Charles as the doctor who had been unable to help, and Elaine as the mother who was not at her daughter’s bedside when she died and had had no opportunity for ‘‘even a look or word of farewell.’’≥∫ These feelings of guilt, undeserved as they were, probably fueled anger in both parents that they then turned on one another. Elaine’s resolute spirit is revealed in a letter that she wrote to Redington Dayton, Rose’s husband, shortly after Irene’s death: ‘‘And my wonderful, gifted girl who was so near to me in spirit, whom I had not dreamed could go before me – she is gone! Life is very strange. I have never yet expressed my grief, never let myself go, because it would hurt the others if I did, and yet 104

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sometimes it seems as if it would be a relief to give way.’’≥Ω It hurts to read this. The pain, the endurance – but, above all, the loneliness. Charles’s reaction was probably similar – at least in public. For the evidence that we have (and we have no written record), indicates that he retreated into himself and into his beloved woods for many days.∂≠ It seems safe to say that life would never be the same for either Charles or Elaine. We have only Elaine’s words, written to Rose: ‘‘For myself, I know I have cared much less to live since I lost Irene.’’∂∞ Charles, one assumes, felt the same. Heartbreaking as this loss must have been for Elaine, one shudders to think that even more grief lay ahead. However, if we let her finish that last sentence, we read, ‘‘and I was willing, and even anxious to die after the terrific shock dealt me by her father.’’∂≤ Then, in another despairing letter, she wrote, ‘‘I used to think that the loss of a child or of one’s husband was the most terrible grief – I could hardly bear to think of it at all – now when I hear that a friend’s husband has died, I envy her! If I think she is able to cherish his memory. And I don’t mourn for Irene at all, I think she was fortunate.’’∂≥ This is more than grief, of course. This is rage and bitterness – and a sense of overwhelming defeat. In her own words: ‘‘Nothing matters much after one has fairly met and faced the worst.’’∂∂ We turn now to those darkest days.

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Stresses and Separation And now, ah, me! I covet No other boon but sleep; Now eyes grown blind with weeping Their watch unending keep. Oh, night of desolation, Stoop down and hide from view The last, the saddest vigil Of love – betrayed by you! — Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘Three Ages of Love,’’ in The Voice at Eve It has long been obvious that the Eastman marriage was in trouble. However, given the times in which they lived, we might have expected Elaine and Charles to struggle on, separating only when death claimed one or the other of them. But instead, we find that they separated in 1921 and never saw each other again. They lived the remainder of their lives (he, eighteen years; she, thirty-two years) in totally separate worlds; and even in death they lie hundreds of miles apart – he in Detroit, Michigan, and she in Florence, Massachusetts. Theirs was a complete and irrevocable break – and this after thirty years of marriage, six children, and untold hours of collaboration in writing and various other endeavors. We know, of course, that there were always problems. Early on, Charles could not hold a job, and children were coming along every other year. Then there were the traveling years, when Charles was poorly paid and often in trouble with the people who had authority over him. The move to Amherst solved some of these problems but further estranged the couple in other ways. Still, there were some areas in which Elaine and Charles were able to work together. There were Charles’s books, for example, where he put his thoughts on paper and Elaine served as his typist and editor. But even here, there must have been underlying tensions. Elaine undoubtedly suggested alternative wordings on many occasions, and Charles – often confused, one suspects – 106

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probably felt patronized, misunderstood, or even betrayed. Certainly his resentment must have been building. Elaine had to feel resentment as well, since Charles’s growing reputation as a writer was largely due, in her view, to her own considerable e√orts. These kinds of problems beset many marriages, of course. Misunderstandings, the inability to communicate, long-simmering resentments – some might say that these things are typical. Troubled marriages, at least back in the Eastmans’ era, usually remained intact – the couples bickering much of the time, until death brought release. So we are led to believe that something quite beyond the usual disagreements broke up the Eastman marriage. Some have suggested that their di√ering views on how to best integrate Native Americans into the white culture (assimilation versus acculturation) was ‘‘the rock on which their marriage would eventually break.’’∞ This, however, seems unlikely for at least two reasons: first, their di√erences in this connection have undoubtedly been exaggerated, and second, they had lived together for thirty years with these di√erences – so why separate now? Clearly, a critical event – something that occurred outside the marriage – must have triggered the emotional confrontation between Charles and Elaine that forced them to separate. That event, it turns out, was an a√air that Charles was alleged to have had and which resulted in a child – a daughter – whose fate became the fundamental issue for Elaine. This incident was, in her words, ‘‘the a√air that broke up our home.’’≤ We will shortly provide such details as are available regarding this a√air, primarily from Elaine’s letters, and also from her fictionalized version of the incident in her last novel, Hundred Maples (1935). It is important to note that we have only Elaine’s side of this story. Charles is silent on this matter. We do know that questions regarding Charles’s fidelity had arisen before. As early as 1894 there were hints of marital problems that might have involved infidelity. The first explicit charges, however, were those that Agent Harry Chamberlain leveled at Charles during his days as government physician at the Crow Creek Agency (1900–1903). These allegations included charges of sexual advances, immoral conduct, and sexual relations with patients and various employees at the agency boarding schools. In the long run these allegations were unproved and the evidence for them was dismissed as circumstantial. Thus, as stated previously, we will never know whether any of the charges in this case were true or false. We can imagine, however, the chagrin that Elaine must have felt, whatever the facts. 107

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There is also the rather curious case of Dr. Herbert B. Fowler, a nationally known psychiatrist, who publicly and repeatedly claimed that he was a grandson of Charles Eastman. He is described as ‘‘the son of Herbert B. Fowler Sr., and Mary Eastman, a half-blooded Sioux woman,’’ in Dockstader’s Great North American Indians.≥ He himself claimed that he was one-fourth Sioux on his American Association of Indian Physicians (aaip) vita and membership card.∂ When he was awarded the Lenin Prize in Science in 1976, he was described as ‘‘the grandson of America’s second Indian physician, Dr. Charles Eastman.’’∑ Finally, in his obituary in the aaip newsletter, it is noted that ‘‘Dr. Fowler collected and recorded the history of his grandfather, Charles Eastman, throughout his career.’’∏ Raymond Wilson, who was writing a biography of Charles Eastman at the time, interviewed Dr. Fowler in October 1976. Dr. Wilson later reported on those interviews and included some quotes from Dr. Fowler in his biography.π Since then, there have been some negative reactions to Fowler’s claims, and to Dr. Wilson’s reporting of his comments, from a number of family members, including two of the Eastmans’ daughters, Virginia (Whitbeck) and Eleanor (Mensel).∫ In essence, Dr. Fowler’s credibility has been questioned, especially with respect to his claim of relationship to Charles Eastman and, by implication, with respect to his comments regarding Charles and other family members. So it seems appropriate to look a little more closely into Dr. Fowler’s claim. Is it possible that Dr. Fowler’s mother, Mary He√eran Eastman, was a daughter of Charles Eastman? Her birth certificate states that she was the daughter of Frederick Eastman (no relation to Charles) and Ellen (Blake) Eastman and was born on June 9, 1892, in Bloomington, Illinois.Ω Birth certificates do not establish genetic paternity, of course, and it is possible that Ellen Eastman knew something that her husband did not. But the birth date, if correct, does raise questions about Charles’s involvement, since conception would have occurred in the fall of 1891, not long after Charles’s marriage to Elaine. Charles would have been at Pine Ridge, where Dr. Fowler places the event, at the time. But was Ellen Eastman there? It has also been suggested that Frederick and Ellen Eastman adopted Mary He√eran Eastman, and that Frederick Eastman’s younger half sister, Mary He√eran, was the real mother. Mary He√eran was born on June 24, 1873, in Eastmanville, Michigan, and would have been eighteen years old when Mary He√eran Eastman was born. However, it is di≈cult to find some way to put Mary He√eran and Charles Eastman together during the fall of 1891. This 108

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scenario would also mean that Mary He√eran Eastman’s birth certificate was falsified. Perhaps supporting this theory is the fact that Mary He√eran Eastman’s recorded birth date is di√erent on several di√erent public documents. Her birth certificate says that she was born on June 9, 1892, but her birth record gives the date as January 9, 1892.∞≠ Her marriage certificate (dated March 17, 1917) gives her age as twenty-three (which would mean an 1893 or 1894 birth date), and her death certificate gives a birth date of June 9, 1895.∞∞ These discrepancies may simply be inadvertent errors – but since the birth dates span a period of three years, it is di≈cult to rule out the possibility that Mary He√eran was Mary He√eran Eastman’s mother. The fact that the Eastmans chose the name Mary He√eran for their daughter is interesting, and perhaps suggestive. It has proven di≈cult to find any real evidence that would support Dr. Fowler’s claim that Charles Eastman was his grandfather. But, conversely, it is probably impossible to prove that his claim was false. Whatever the truth may be, this case was almost certainly unknown to Elaine. There is no mention anywhere in her letters of anyone named Fowler or of any illegitimate child other than the one whose birth around 1920 led to the Eastmans’ separation. So, while the Fowler claim is certainly interesting from a variety of perspectives, it seems to have had no impact on Elaine and therefore played no role in the drama that we are now exploring. Nonetheless, it seems important to acknowledge the case, since it involves the same issue – an illegitimate child – that broke up the Eastman marriage. The situation that led to Charles and Elaine’s permanent separation is sometimes referred to as the ‘‘camp counselor’’ incident. This description follows from David Miller’s statement that ‘‘a major breaking point between Charles and Elaine occurred when one of the counselors announced that she was pregnant and threatened to bring a paternity suit against Charles.’’ Miller based this observation on his August 13, 1974, interview with Mrs. Harry Wilson, the widow of the original owner of the Camp Oáhe property. Mr. Wilson had been a good friend of Charles for many years, and his wife insisted that her husband ‘‘never ‘took any stock’ in that paternity suit.’’ Mrs. Wilson went on to say that the child in question had a ‘‘dark complexion, but not curly hair,’’ which does little to support her husband’s suggestion that ‘‘the father of the child was an Italian, not an Indian.’’ Miller concluded that there ‘‘seemed to be no basis’’ for the paternity charge but noted that Charles had ‘‘reacted with a type of resignation’’ and left the camp.∞≤ 109

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A number of authors have repeated this story, describing the pregnant counselor, Charles’s denial of responsibility, and the subsequent Eastman separation.∞≥ Herbert Fowler, in his interviews with Raymond Wilson, also mentioned the matter of the pregnant counselor and said that Charles had insisted that he was not the father but had used the situation as an excuse to leave Elaine.∞∂ In any case, it has never been entirely clear how the separation came about. Did Elaine, believing the counselor’s story, ask Charles to leave? Or did Charles, denying the counselor’s story, leave Elaine? Or, as seems most likely, is there more to the story than has been revealed? Elaine’s recently discovered letters to her sisters Rose and Dora, reveal her side of this unfortunate incident.∞∑ For her, as we shall see, there was no ambiguity. She makes frequent reference to Charles’s ‘‘illegitimate child’’ – and claims that she had compelling evidence of his paternity. In one letter to Rose, written long after the separation, she discusses that evidence in the context of a ‘‘story’’ that Charles had apparently told a mutual friend: ‘‘how unjust to me, as well as to the mother of his little girl – for undoubtedly she was the mother – I have ample proof. You remember, I suppose, that it was I who investigated, and that he flatly refused to do so or to accept my findings, though Mr Dorr [an attorney?] told him they were entirely convincing.’’∞∏ Another letter reveals, however, that she had destroyed a good deal of that evidence some years previously: ‘‘I have been in some doubt about the letters and evidence regarding the a√air that broke up our home – up to this time I had kept them all – O. saw two or three and Dora as many, the others none of them, and I told them just the bare facts, making it as easy on their father as I could. . . . I think I will preserve just a very few of the ‘key’ letters and statements with a short explanation and leave it to my children. Have this afternoon read and burned all the rest.’’∞π Unfortunately, none of these ‘‘key’’ letters or Elaine’s ‘‘short explanation’’ have ever surfaced. Elaine apparently expunged any references to Charles, as her husband, from the materials that she donated to Smith College in 1950, and nothing else relating to the Eastman separation has been found since. Now that all six Eastman children are deceased it seems unlikely that Elaine’s ‘‘proof ’’ will ever be found.∞∫ What, then, remains? What else is revealed in the letters to Rose? There are a number of intriguing observations. For one thing, we have repeated references to the mother of the child as someone named ‘‘Henrietta,’’ though a surname was never used. We also have an account of Elaine’s attempt to make contact with the girl through a friend, presumably Dr. Cora Smith King, in California. Writing to Rose, Elaine says, ‘‘My doctor friend in Los A. who is 110

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entirely in sympathy with my motive, has been delayed in making investigation and has only just now, since his [Charles’s] death, gotten on the track. I shall keep trying to get in touch with the girl and help her, if I can.’’∞Ω A little later her friend was successful: Ironically enough, I heard from my friend in California about Dr. E.’s illegitimate daughter, just a few days after his death. She was not able to find the mother, but the girl willingly came to see her when invited and talked with her confidentially. It seems she knew about her father (tho Henrietta claimed she didn’t). . . . Bonno Hyessa (as she calls herself, using part of her father’s name) is in junior college and helps herself by serving as a model for artists, in Indian costume I judge. My friend was very favorably impressed by her and says she hears only good of the girl – now almost twenty.≤≠ This remarkable letter contains a number of revelations. It seems clear, for example, that the girl was raised in California, presumably by someone other than her biological mother (‘‘Henrietta’’). It also appears that Elaine had considerable di≈culty finding the girl, suggesting that there had been a concerted e√ort to ‘‘cover the tracks’’ after her birth. Thus, it seems likely that the child was given up for adoption, presumably as a baby, and that the identity of the biological parents was supposed to be unknown to the child. Recently, a granddaughter of Bonno Hyessa, LaMaia Cramer of Albuquerque, New Mexico, has provided new information about her grandmother, based primarily on conversations with her mother, Maya (Cowper) Cramer, who was Bonno Hyessa’s second child. Thus, we learn that shortly after Elaine’s interchange of letters with Dr. Cora Smith King, Bonno enrolled at the University of California at Los Angeles but only remained there for one semester (fall 1940). Sometime thereafter, Bonno married James Denis Cowper (reportedly in Las Vegas, though no marriage certificate has surfaced) and then had two daughters: Ann Hyessa Cowper (born May 2, 1942), and Daphne Maya Cowper (born January 14, 1944). After Ann’s birth, Bonno enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley and was a student there from January 1942 to June 1943, not completing a degree program. During Bonno’s student days at Berkeley, daughter Ann was cared for by an aunt of her father, Anne Cooper Evans. Little Ann Cowper died in 1946. Meantime, daughter Maya had been born, but Bonno then suddenly disappeared – apparently having left for Brazil as a research assistant on an anthropology research project – in April 1944. Her husband was working 111

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in a shipyard in San Francisco at the time (during the war) and immediately assumed the responsibility of rearing Maya from infancy through young adulthood. Bonno did contact Anne Evans once, sometime after her older daughter’s death, but no one in the family – including her husband, who died in 1974, heard from her after that. Unfortunately, information on Bonno’s own childhood is even sketchier. According to Maya Cramer, her mother was reared by a Norwegian woman whose maiden name was Martindale. Maya also recalls that someone named Henrietta was associated with Bonno’s childhood, although she is unsure of how this person was involved. As for the father, the family believed that he was a Rainy Lake Sioux named Hyessa Hyessa. No one seems to have had any inkling, however, as to where Bonno was born or whatever became of Hyessa Hyessa. If, as seems to be the case, Hyessa Hyessa was actually Ohiyesa (Charles), then the living family members have not been so informed.≤∞ Whatever the actual case, we know that Elaine believed that she had it right: Charles had cheated on her, had had an illegitimate child, and had failed to take responsibility for that child. The remainder of Elaine’s life must be considered in this light. Whether or not she was right is a di√erent matter – important, but of little consequence in terms of understanding the woman who believed that she had been betrayed. The main focus of Elaine’s anger was what she saw as Charles’s abdication of parental responsibility. She repeatedly made the point that Charles’s infidelity was not the reason for their separation. She said it was instead his refusal to accept responsibility for his illegitimate child that led to their breakup. She tries to make this clear to Rose, ‘‘But as time goes on, and especially after he and I are gone, I feel the impression may gain in the family that we parted because of his infidelity! – or even suspected infidelity! – and that is so far from the truth.’’≤≤ Then, in another letter, she repeats the point: ‘‘Yet all of this leaves out the most essential fact of all – that our final separation was on the sole issue of an honest recognition of the truth, and his assent to my wish that we do what was in our power for his illegitimate child.’’≤≥ In this connection, it is important to examine Elaine’s last novel, Hundred Maples. This work was dedicated ‘‘To My Son, for His Better Understanding of Woman’s World’’; the chapter ‘‘A Hollow Shell’’ seems to be Elaine’s e√ort to explain her feelings about Charles’s illegitimate child to her son, Ohiyesa. The chapter ends with its main character, a woman named Amy, saying of her unfaithful husband, ‘‘Forgive him – for infidelity? But we’ve long passed that point!’’ Then Elaine concludes, ‘‘And yet there are those who believe to this 112

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day that Amy parted from her husband because he took a mistress.’’≤∂ This sounds very much like the Elaine whom we have been hearing in her letters and suggests that we should take a closer look at her novel. Hundred Maples was Elaine’s most ambitious literary undertaking. It is concerned with the eternal drama of ambitious women struggling with the competing demands of family and career. The book follows the lives of three women, each of whom makes very di√erent choices with respect to family and career, and this approach allows Elaine to provide her ‘‘woman’s perspective’’ on some of the critical events in her own life. Ultimately, she is able to draw conclusions as to how women might best find fulfillment in their lives. In the novel, the three women graduate together from Mount Hope College. Then Ellen, the narrator, marries a farm boy (Bart) from her rural hometown immediately after graduation. Amy, on the other hand, goes on to become a lawyer and then marries a carefully chosen, ‘‘ideal’’ husband (Jim). Finally, Marcia (modeled on Elaine’s lifelong friend Florence Bascom) chooses a research career and never marries. By following these three women throughout the book, Elaine is able to compare the outcomes of these very di√erent approaches to solving the marriage versus career dilemma. Each woman’s choice di√ers from Elaine’s, but she is able to discuss significant events in her own life in the context of these three women’s lives. Thus, Ellen su√ers the loss of a spirited, much-loved child (Tommy) and explores her feelings of loss, guilt, and rage over this event. This is clearly a review of Elaine’s own feelings over the loss of Irene (Elaine reverses the sex in a number of instances in her novels, presumably to conceal the real identities of her characters from casual readers). But the most significant event in this book, at least from our point of view, is a case of adultery by Amy’s husband (Jim) that results in an illegitimate son. The character Amy explores her feelings about the entire incident, much as Elaine explored her own feelings after the incident with Charles. From Amy’s discovery of her husband’s infidelity to ensuing discussions with both the woman who bore the illegitimate child and her own husband, we see Amy (Elaine) trying to explain her feelings and justify her subsequent actions. The ‘‘other woman’’ in the novel is a girl – ‘‘in years she was hardly more’’ – named Cara Hines, who comes to Amy with an infant whom she claims was fathered by Amy’s husband, Jim. Amy describes the girl as ‘‘a creature tall and lean and graceful, almost gypsy-like’’ but also notes that ‘‘there seemed something subtly menacing about her.’’ Cara tells Amy of her love for Jim and 113

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hopes that Amy will understand her e√ort to do right by the child, either by giving the child ‘‘outright to Jim and you’’ or by securing a ‘‘suitable and dignified provision from you both.’’ In the course of this shocking encounter, Cara also produces a letter from Jim in which he describes Cara’s child as ‘‘our love-bought little one.’’ This may, of course, be the kind of evidence that Elaine herself acquired in connection with Henrietta’s child. After this encounter Amy confronts her husband. She wants Jim to be honest. However, he insists that Cara ‘‘can’t prove a thing.’’ Amy reacts with anger and asks Jim to ‘‘stand up’’ to what he has done and choose ‘‘one woman or the other, and take the consequences.’’ Jim, however, ‘‘wouldn’t dream of marrying Cara’’ and suggests that the child be put up for adoption. ‘‘There are always well-to-do childless couples eager to adopt,’’ he says, adding that ‘‘they won’t need to know anything about the parents, over and above my personal guarantee that they’re of good, sound stock.’’ Amy would not be deterred, however, and insists that a father cannot shirk his responsibility to a child. Jim had paid the expenses of Cara’s confinement and childbirth and had even o√ered to arrange for the adoption of the child, but Amy was still unmoved. ‘‘Since you wouldn’t marry her [Cara], even if free, I suppose that means you’d like me to stand by? That leaves us only one course – to accept responsibility for your son. Not because she demands it under threat of publicity – not that at all – but simply because it’s obviously the right thing. We’ve shared alike up to now. This is your burden and therefore mine-as your wife.’’≤∑ Jim responds with anger, ‘‘This isn’t any of your damn business!’’ Then he continues, ‘‘All I ask is to be let alone to attend to my own personal a√airs.’’ But Amy continues to insist that she be involved: ‘‘If this isn’t my a√air, as well as yours – then we can have nothing in common.’’ At this point, Jim decides to leave the marriage, and he ‘‘never came back.’’ In parting, he declares, ‘‘People may talk; for that matter they always do; but every man I know will stand by me till it blows over. And nobody on earth can prove it’s my child.’’≤∏ So concludes Elaine’s account of what is probably very similar to what occurred in her own marriage and, more importantly, her reactions to those events. The result, as might be expected, is clearly a self-serving document. She is the betrayed partner, her husband a ‘‘coward and a sneak.’’ She is thinking only of the unfortunate child; he is thinking of his reputation. She wants to do the right thing; he just wants to evade his responsibility. And she su√ers: ‘‘I never knew before what a woman can su√er!’’≤π One does not want 114

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to trivialize Elaine’s pain, of course, and we will shortly examine the resentment and bitterness that she felt toward Charles from this point on. However, fairness demands that we attempt an explanation of these events from Charles’s perspective. No documents exist, of course, but I will try to outline a tentative case – recognizing, however, its speculative nature. I suspect that Charles would have admitted to straying from his marriage vows – at least in this particular instance. He might have noted, however, that his marriage was troubled, almost from the outset, and that communication between he and Elaine was always di≈cult, if not impossible. Also, Elaine was always a staunch opponent of any form of birth control, other than abstinence. Her sister Rose once noted in her journal, ‘‘Letter from Elaine, harping on her disapproval of birth control. She does hammer on one subject if you disagree with her!’’≤∫ Elaine herself put it this way, ‘‘Unless I am much mistaken, the discovery and exploitation of these drugs and unnatural practices [birth control] will prove to be one of the greatest misfortunes that has overtaken the race – a sign and token of degeneracy.’’≤Ω This attitude was maintained, of course, along with recollections of the very di≈cult childbirth experiences that Elaine once described to Rose: ‘‘I have never cried out with agony except in childbirth – it was really inhuman! Hour after hour of entirely unrelieved torture!’’≥≠ Thus, it seems entirely possible that sexual relations with Charles may well have ended after the birth of their sixth child, Florence, in 1903. We have already mentioned, in this connection, James Dayton’s observation that Charles slept in a separate room with Ohiyesa, or in an outdoor tepee, during the Eastmans’ Amherst years. This is only a supposition, of course. Even if true, it would not justify Charles’s apparent adultery. Charles knew that adultery was wrong, whether considered from the white or the Indian perspective, but this was not what led to the breakup of his marriage, at least from Elaine’s point of view.≥∞ Adultery is one thing, but paternity, as an outcome of adultery, is quite another. So we must ask, how would Charles have justified his course of action with respect to his illegitimate child? Here, I believe, he had a fundamental disagreement with Elaine. She felt, apparently with utter conviction, that an illegitimate child of Charles’s would be best served by having she and Charles as parents. Leaving aside for the moment the fact that such an arrangement would have been unthinkable for Charles, there remains the very real question as to whether this would have been best for the child. Charles may well have felt that Elaine’s child-rearing approach, with its uncompromising emphasis on succeeding in the white 115

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man’s world, would not have been ideal for this child. There were, after all, elements of racism in Amherst, and even in Elaine’s own family. Also, the Eastmans’ children, except for Florence (now fifteen), were all out of the home, and Elaine was in her late fifties. Wouldn’t a fresh start, perhaps in a less prejudiced environment, be as good – or better? Wouldn’t it be better if the child were unencumbered with the knowledge of its true parents and its own illegitimacy? These kinds of decisions with respect to the children of unwed mothers who are put up for adoption are, after all, made even today.≥≤ Charles probably would have seen Elaine’s demands – that he acknowledge his wrongdoing and help rear the child – as her way of punishing him forever. Life with Elaine was never easy, but what would it have been like with another child – and this one an ever-present reminder of his ‘‘failure of character’’? No, there had to be another way. So Charles left and, presumably, found some way to place his illegitimate daughter. The fate of the mother has never been revealed; apart from Elaine’s brief references and some fragmentary information from her own daughter, Charles’s daughter, Bonno Hyessa, remains largely unknown. One suspects, however, that more details will eventually emerge – and one hopes that they will o√er greater clarity. Elaine always insisted that adultery was not the issue that led to the separation. In one letter to Rose, she said, ‘‘I did plainly o√er to wipe it [the separation] all out completely and return to him, on the sole condition that he would admit the truth and stand by it.’’≥≥ Elaine was probably being somewhat disingenuous here. She envisioned only two situations, one of which had already led to the separation, and the other of which would result in Charles’s total humiliation. In either event, the fact that she was the injured party would remain, and one doubts that she would have let that be forgotten. Thus, when she says that her husband’s behavior ‘‘poisoned’’ all of her ‘‘memories of married life’’ or that she ‘‘should have refused to marry Dr. Eastman’’ as his ‘‘tragic failure of character outweigh[ed] . . . all the blessings of children and grandchildren,’’ she seems to be referring to his betrayal, in the usual sense of marital infidelity.≥∂ She actually uses the phrase ‘‘Of love – betrayed by you!’’ in the final verse of her poem, ‘‘Three Ages of Love,’’ which opened this chapter. Her anger at Charles surfaces in another letter to Rose, responding to her sister’s suggestion that she visit her son in Detroit: ‘‘As for my visiting in Detroit, I have often thought how much I should like to do so, and would have gone years ago, before O’s marriage, had not the Dr been there. I would not go now because he might return to the house any day, without notice, and I 116

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should not wish ever to see him again or to be in fear of accidental meeting.’’≥∑ And on another occasion, when Rose suggested that Elaine’s separation from Charles was similar to their parents’ separation, she bristled: ‘‘How can you suggest a parallel between the case of our parents and the one we have been discussing! . . . Our father was invariably kind and devoted – we knew not one thing against him. There was no crime committed – no threatened disgrace and scandal – no moral issue at all – simply personal friction between man and wife. . . . In every instance the exact contrary was true as regards the Doctor.’’≥∏ Elaine’s obvious pain, and her ensuing bitterness, is certainly understandable. Her courageous choice to marry Charles in the first place had alienated her family, especially her mother. Then she had put ‘‘everything she had’’ into her husband and family and thereby sacrificed any possibility of an independent literary career. Finally, she had persevered for thirty years – serving her husband and her children. Now this was her reward? Small wonder that anger, resentment, and total alienation from Charles should mark the rest of her life. As far as the public was concerned, however, Elaine essentially erased Charles from her life after the separation. Her comments to Rose, just after Charles had passed away, more or less summarize the intervening years: ‘‘I thought perhaps you would have seen mention of Dr. Eastman’s death in the Times, or somewhere – he went o√ very easily about two weeks ago, after only a few days of what seemed a slight illness . . . for us here who never see or hear from him there is hardly any di√erence.’’≥π We know, too, that Elaine removed almost every reference to Charles from the materials that she donated to Smith College around 1950. She also omitted any mention of her husband in connection with the various talks that she gave during her Northampton years. But perhaps the most striking omission of Charles’s name comes in connection with Florence’s wedding in 1928 and her death just two years later. In both instances, the newspaper accounts, presumably written by Elaine, contain no reference to Florence’s father. Her wedding account mentions that ‘‘the bride appeared on the arm of her cousin, Dr. Theodore Read Dayton of Redding, Ct.’’≥∫ Her obituary states, ‘‘She is survived, besides her husband, by an infant son, Robert; her mother, Mrs. Elaine Goodale Eastman, of this city; three sisters, Miss Dora Eastman, Mrs. Sterling R. Whitbeck, Mrs. Ernest E. Mensel, of this city, and a brother, Ohiyesa, of Detroit, Mich.’’≥Ω Such instances reveal the Elaine who ‘‘sanitized’’ everything that she could by omitting any mention of Charles or her marriage, no matter what the 117

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context. This is the angry Elaine, the embittered Elaine, the long-su√ering Elaine – the Elaine that wore heavily even on those closest to her. Sister Dora, the intimate confidante of her childhood, grew weary of her letters. At one point she wrote to Rose, ‘‘Your letters are always wonderful, but the last seemed better than the best, & served as an antidote to one of Elaine’s gloomy screeds! She demands ‘confidential’ letters, but everything I write calls out acid comments or gloomy predictions. I never saw anyone less understanding in responses.’’∂≠ A basic problem for both Dora and Rose was Elaine’s insistence that she had su√ered more than they had. This was usually expressed with reference to Charles’s infidelity, as in the following comment to Rose: ‘‘I am inclined to say that you ought to thank your stars every day of your life that you have never had any such agonizing choice to make as I was faced with.’’∂∞ This su√ering was almost invariably described as ‘‘undeserved.’’ She felt that she had been ‘‘punished for right doing,’’ that she was ‘‘a creature of circumstance,’’ and ‘‘a victim of others’ ignorance, errors and struggles.’’ But Rose and Dora were not entirely convinced. As Dora once put it to Rose, ‘‘I fully agree with you about reaping what we sow. . . . I think E. [Elaine] resents the very idea that any of her misfortunes are due to personal defects; but I see clearly that mine are.’’∂≤ The point seems to be that Elaine tended to find some satisfaction in su√ering. This tendency seems to have increased over the years of her marriage, perhaps because other sources of satisfaction had fallen by the wayside. No career, no especially gifted children (except the one who died young), no home of her own, no loving husband. As she wrote in one of her late poems, all that seemed to remain was the ‘‘strength to su√er and endure!’’∂≥ This acceptance of su√ering seems to have been a product of the puritanical element in Elaine’s upbringing, which demanded a commitment to duty and service. As we have often noted, she tended to find worth, and even superiority, in su√ering. This, in turn, manifested itself in a kind of martyrdom that would become an increasingly important part of Elaine’s personality. She needed some evidence of worth, some sense of accomplishment, and some measure of satisfaction in her life; unfortunately, she had no place to turn. Her father, who was perhaps the only person who had ever loved her unconditionally, was long since dead. Irene, who had also loved her, was dead. Everyone else, it seems, had failed her – her mother, her sisters, her brother, her other children, her husband: They did not understand; they did not love her enough. 118

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Somehow, through all this, Elaine exhibited remarkable inner strength. The last thirty years were the most productive of her life. Her self-discipline never wavered – her duty, as she saw it, would be done. And this in spite of her bitter sense of defeat at life’s game. In one of her letters to Dora, she wrote, ‘‘Life is like that! The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Frequently the innocent su√er for the guilty, and we are punished for our highest and best qualities. All we have to cling to is the ‘undefeated human heart,’ or in other words, moral heroism, the God within us.’’∂∂ One of Elaine’s last poems perhaps best expresses this indomitable spirit: a vision of judgment I slept – and started broad awake with fear! My room was light as in the noonday clear, And lo! an angel with a look severe! In awful silence he did then unroll My past before me like an open scroll – The Day of Judgment overtook my soul! ‘‘Have I so deeply sinned?’’ I faintly cried; ‘‘Waste – waste is crime!’’ the accusing Voice replied; ‘‘Look on the record, and thyself decide!’’ Then self-convicted, weeping and abased – ‘‘Alas, my heedless youth!’’ I cried in haste, ‘‘When all life’s golden moments ran to waste!’’ ‘‘Not so!’’ – grave voice that any rash thought condemned – ‘‘Youth’s folly oft is wisdom in the end; ’Twere ill to hoard what God has given to spend! ‘‘Look once again upon thy later days, When trials came, thou shouldst have turned to praise, And sorrows, sent to teach thee heavenly ways! ‘‘Those priceless pains-those sacred, stricken yearsHow thou hast squandered them too well appears – In useless protests and unworthy tears.‘‘ The final words died on some far-o√ shore, And all was dark, and I alone once more And broad awake – but I had dreamed before? 119

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O warning dream! O timely, saving fear! Even loss is welcome now, and hardship dear, Angel of Judgment! Till thou dost appear.∂∑ It is hard to imagine a more chilling summation of the Puritan ethic. However, one other noteworthy item in this poem is Elaine’s admission that she has squandered far too much time in ‘‘useless protests and unworthy tears’’ – and, specifically, in her ‘‘later days.’’ Was Elaine beginning to change? Would acceptance, forgiveness, and even some measure of peace mark her final days?

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Life Goes On Wouldst be victor at the last? Take my gift and hold it fast! Take the only good that’s sure – Strength to su√er and endure! — Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘The Christening,’’ in The Voice at Eve I once made the observation that Elaine Goodale Eastman lived a ‘‘full, albeit sad and tormented life.’’∞ This was probably a fair summation. Most of the last third of her life was marked by unhappiness. She frequently complained of poverty and loneliness and brooded on her dashed hopes and unrealized dreams. At one point she wrote to Rose, ‘‘I believe my life has been largely wasted.’’≤ In short, she was ‘‘gloomy’’ – the ‘‘old lady rocking in her chair’’ that one of the girls at Camp Oáhe had described. There can be little doubt that the death of Irene and the betrayal of her husband were the primary factors that had fueled this seemingly all-consuming bitterness and depression. Certainly the period just after her separation from Charles was agonizing. We noted earlier that Elaine had felt ‘‘willing and even anxious to die’’ after this shock. Somehow, however, she held herself together for the wedding of her daughter Virginia to Sterling Whitbeck of Northampton, which had been scheduled to take place on September 10, 1921, at Camp Oáhe. This event had been planned well before Charles and Elaine’s breakup, and both parents decided that they should attend. However, this would be the last family event at which Charles was present. Immediately after the wedding, which was surely rather strained, Elaine went to visit relatives in Florida while Charles returned briefly to the Northampton apartment that the family had rented following Eleanor’s graduation from Amherst High School in 1919. Elaine did not want to see Charles ever again, and she only returned to Northampton after he had departed for the Midwest, sometime in the spring of 1922. From this point on, Elaine would live in rooms or apartments in North121

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ampton, usually in the homes of two of her daughters – Virginia (Whitbeck) at 12 Bright Street, and later 187 Elm Street; or Eleanor (Mensel) at 319 Elm Street. Elaine briefly had an apartment of her own that she sometimes shared with her oldest daughter, Dora Winona, at 25 Kensington Avenue.≥ Financial constraints, however, soon forced her back to living with her daughters and their families. This dependent style of living was a constant source of irritation to Elaine, who once told Rose, ‘‘I still resent the fact that I never had a real home of my own and never shall have.’’∂ This lack of a ‘‘real home’’ was one of the galling consequences of what Elaine described as her ‘‘life long poverty.’’ A few quotes from her letters to Rose speak to this point: I simply can’t a√ord much-needed clothes – barely manage postage and stationery quite an item.∑ Does the C.S. Monitor pay for poetry? So many do not! The last two poems I had published in leading religious weeklies brought me a check for $2. for one – the other, nothing!∏ I am beginning seriously to wonder what is to become of me now that my money is most gone and I find it impractical to earn anything to speak of by my writing.π ‘‘Pratt’’ had excellent reviews, more than fifty of them, but a very small sale. . . . It has not brought me a dollar in royalties so far.∫ These comments are sad to read, but they are also very revealing. They show, for example, that Elaine’s later writing e√orts yielded very little income. They also suggest that Elaine’s daughters (and their husbands) did not provide much in the way of financial assistance. Indeed, in one frank letter, Elaine says as much: ‘‘I have no complaint to make of my girls – I am quite sure they would never let me su√er from hardship or conspicuous neglect, and would resent any criticism of their conduct. Still, it does not go far beyond what the conventions require.’’ Then, reverting to form, she concludes, ‘‘I would not say so to anyone else, perhaps, but the truth is that the only one of my six who was really, devotedly attentive and thoughtful to me was the one I lost twenty years ago.’’Ω The real villain in Elaine’s mind was always Charles, of course; and she may have had a particularly good case with respect to her financial woes. Charles’s refusal to share the ‘‘considerable royalties’’ of their ‘‘joint work’’ angered and puzzled her. ‘‘I really supposed that meanness was one fault that he could not 122

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be suspected of,’’ she once confessed to Rose.∞≠ However, as far as one can tell, he never sent her any royalty money. Elaine always felt that half of the royalties should have been allotted to her, and in her words, ‘‘I asked for it. He agreed at first, then stalled for a long time, and finally refused.’’∞∞ As we have noted previously, Elaine felt that she ‘‘did all the drudgery’’ in connection with these books. She also insisted, ‘‘All who know him well would know how poorly he writes’’ and ‘‘would surely know that I have done much of the work on all the books.’’ It seemed incredible to her that ‘‘he should not know what I have done for him in a literary way.’’∞≤ The amount of money involved in this situation was not very large. In one letter Elaine estimated that the royalties Charles received were ‘‘about a thousand dollars a year for some years,’’ but she also noted that ‘‘it would have made a big di√erence’’ to her. And given the times, she was undoubtedly right. Furthermore, in her view, Charles had no real need for this money: ‘‘I consoled myself with the hope that, with a little home in the country which he had bought with lecture proceeds, he could manage on his income and not trouble any of his children. As it turned out, he threw away his royalty checks on things he didn’t need at all and came back on Ohiyesa for support.’’∞≥ Here she is referring to the cabin that Charles built on Lake Ontario, near Desbarats, Ontario, in 1928, and in which he spent most of his summers until his death in 1939.∞∂ During the winters, Charles lived with his son, Ohiyesa, in Detroit, and Elaine often described the di≈culties that this created. In one letter to Rose, she quoted extensively from a letter that Ohiyesa had written to her regarding Charles. In Ohi’s words, ‘‘We had a few words and the upshot of it was I haven’t seen him since. His story is that he has plenty of friends who will gladly have him stay with them. Because I would not give him the money to go to camp last summer – partly because I knew he would pile up several hundred dollars more in debt, and partly because I don’t think he is able to take care of himself alone, he has become restless. It’s a problem.’’∞∑ Elaine adds, ‘‘By now Ohi must have a faint idea of what I was up against for so many years.’’ Charles’s refusal to share book royalties only furthered Elaine’s feelings of anger and resentment toward him. Her reaction, however, was essentially a denial of his very existence. We have already described how she removed all references to her husband in the personal materials that she donated to Smith College in 1950. She also omitted Charles’s name from the newspaper accounts of Florence’s wedding (1928) and funeral (1930). Even in her personal letters, she never referred to ‘‘Charles’’ or ‘‘my husband’’ – it was always ‘‘the Dr.,’’ or ‘‘Dr. E.,’’ or ‘‘Dr. Eastman.’’ 123

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Elaine did, of course, keep the Eastman name. Since she and Charles were never divorced, this was correct. Elaine seemingly found the idea of divorce completely unacceptable. On the other hand, she never felt obliged to call attention to her marriage, since that might bring up the fact that she and Charles had separated. There were rare occasions when she simply had to confirm that Charles no longer lived with her, and then she referred to a ‘‘sort of breakdown’’ that Charles had su√ered some years previously.∞∏ This characterization, which was undoubtedly Elaine’s euphemistic phrase for Charles’s adultery, probably served as a usefully vague justification of the Eastmans’ separation. It is important to note, however, that Elaine never publicly blamed Charles for the breakup, never mentioned his infidelity, and never implied that the marriage had deteriorated because it was interracial. This last point was especially important to her, given the dire predictions of her mother, and many others, when she and Charles had announced their marriage intentions back in 1890. Elaine’s anger, however, cannot be denied. She invariably attributed it to Charles’s ‘‘failure to take responsibility for his illegitimate child’’ and insisted that ‘‘infidelity was not the issue.’’ This position allowed Elaine to claim the moral ‘‘high ground’’ in the separation, but, as we have seen, it is di≈cult to accept her explanation at face value. Did she really believe that adoptive parents would not be able to rear the illegitimate child as well as she? And didn’t she realize that her attempts to find this child would be considered illadvised and inappropriate by many? No, it seems that she was primarily interested in promoting what she thought was right in this case and, incidentally, in the process, making Charles look bad. This suggests that Charles’s infidelity – his ‘‘cheating’’ – angered her far more than she was willing to admit, perhaps even to herself. Whatever the case, Elaine’s ‘‘dismissal’’ of Charles – from both the public and private parts of her life – was clear and undeniable. What is less clear, and certainly less understandable, is the fact that his daughters seem to have dismissed him as well. There is no evidence that any of them had any contact with their father after the separation. Given the ages of these girls in the summer of 1921 (Dora Winona, twenty-nine; Virginia, twenty-four; Eleanor, nineteen; and Florence, fifteen), this seems all the more remarkable. It is true that Charles was often away from home when these girls were growing up, but he was their father. However, it is also true that all the daughters were living in Northampton – where Elaine lived – and this may have made them reluctant to incur their mother’s wrath, should they have been inclined to contact their 124

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father. Elaine’s position on this matter was clearly expressed in a letter to Rose: ‘‘I should be ashamed of any child of mine who, by making advances to their father, without a clear explanation, gave him and others the impression that they were on his side, or considered the whole matter of little consequence.’’∞π It is di≈cult, however, to believe that Elaine could prevent any and all contact between her daughters and Charles, had they really wanted to stay in contact. Perhaps some letters, or other evidence of contact, will eventually be found. This seems particularly likely in Dora Winona’s case, since she was the oldest daughter and was generally regarded as the family genealogist.∞∫ The two middle daughters, Virginia and Eleanor, were married to prominent businessmen in Northampton, and it is possible that they felt pressure to hide their Indian connection, since such a revelation might have jeopardized their social standing in the town. Florence’s case, however, was di√erent, since she was never interested in the Northampton social scene and eventually married a local farmer, becoming – for a tragically short time – a housewife and mother. It may be that Florence was young enough to be bullied by Elaine and forced to deny her father. But this seems unlikely. Elaine once confided to Rose that she was unable to exert any e√ect on Florence’s ‘‘unwise’’ choice of vocation (nursing) and ‘‘hasty’’ marriage‘‘ – so Florence surely had a mind of her own.∞Ω I suspect that she also had her own reasons for erasing Charles from the public account of her wedding. This might be related to some knowledge that she had of his adulterous behavior, and a fear that mentioning him might elicit some embarrassing revelations. As Elaine herself once said, ‘‘How thankful my girls must be that the story was never made public! Had the whole truth come out in the papers, sensational as it was in some respects, they would never have recovered from the humiliation.’’≤≠ She also noted that there were plenty of people who ‘‘knew all the facts’’ and ‘‘had no motive for concealing them.’’≤∞ So it may be that what looks like a callous disrespect of Charles may actually reflect an honest attempt to spare everyone involved from yet another reminder of his unfortunate transgression. Whatever Elaine’s pain and su√ering may have been, the fact remains that she was an extremely productive writer during her Northampton years. Just in terms of books, she published The Luck of Oldacres (1928), The Voice at Eve (1930), Pratt: The Red Man’s Moses (1935), and Hundred Maples (1935). These include two novels, a historical biography, and a collection of poems (as well as the autobiographical sketch, ‘‘All the Days of My Life’’). These books, however, were only a part of her total output, which included numerous 125

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essays, a large number of newspaper articles (and letters to the editor), several poems, and many book reviews. A good deal of her writing was in connection with her active participation in a number of local organizations, including the Northampton chapter of the Women’s Club of America and the Daughters of the American Revolution. She was also active in the Northampton Motion Picture Council. Aside from The Luck of Oldacres, which was a tribute to Irene, most of Elaine’s later writing focused on a very few issues that she found especially important. One such issue was the continuing question of how the U.S. government should deal with Indians, and, in particular, whether the assimilation e√orts of Elaine’s generation of Indian reformers had been a misguided and tragically failed approach. The appointment of John Collier as the commissioner of Indian A√airs in 1933 and the subsequent passage of his Indian Reorganization Act (1934), which challenged prior assimilation policies, was a ‘‘red flag’’ to Elaine, and she reacted with vigor.≤≤ Collier responded in kind, and this contentious exchange probably did little to enhance the reputation of either antagonist.≤≥ Elaine fumed for many years about what she regarded as condescension on Collier’s part, and his tendencies to overgeneralize and oversimplify. Thus, for example, Collier never seemed to take notice of Elaine’s long-standing disagreements with the more extreme assimilationists like Gen. Richard Henry Pratt, nor did he note her more recent questioning of the assimilationist approach.≤∂ Elaine never did advocate the total abolition of all tribal ways, though she felt that some degree of assimilation was necessary – if only for practical reasons. Learning English and understanding such things as the monetary system and the laws of this country could only protect Indians from white abuse, as far as she was concerned. She also insisted that many of the ‘‘old ways’’ were simply no longer viable (e.g., bu√alo hunts). Basically, she opposed anything that ‘‘fostered paganism,’’ including the use of shamans and medicine men, and any rituals that involved whipping, self-mutilation, or peyote use.≤∑ She deplored what she saw as ‘‘sentimentalism’’ on the part of many New Deal Indian reformers and pointed out the irony of Indians’ sometimes having to learn their ‘‘old ways’’ from whites.≤∏ Finally, she emphatically insisted that anyone with less than one-half Indian ‘‘blood’’ was not an Indian.≤π These views were not modern, to be sure. But it seems unfair to think of her as an advocate of cultural genocide, as some recent critics of assimilation have implied.≤∫ She was a woman of her time – absolutely convinced that her white 126

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Christian culture was superior to any other on earth. We must remember, too, that she had no formal education beyond her restrictive home schooling. In addition, her reading was always highly circumscribed, and she never traveled abroad. She was, in short, a woman of rather limited knowledge and even more limited experience. To be fair, though, we must also recall her heartfelt expressions of love for Sioux women, her long-standing appreciation of Indian arts and crafts, and her unfailing encouragement of Irene’s interest in Indian music.≤Ω Finally, we cannot overlook her essential role in bringing her husband’s recollections of his Indian boyhood into permanent book form. There remains one area, however, in which Elaine seems a much more typical woman of her day. I am referring to her attitudes toward sex and especially her opposition to any form of birth control other than abstinence. In general, she was disapproving whenever sex was the subject. Thus, in her letters to Rose, Elaine voiced her disapproval of such things as Dora Winona’s love life: ‘‘ ‘Change of life’ will soon be due . . . and it is quite possible that some of her erratic and what seem to me flighty ways are traceable to that. I have known women of her age (unmarried) become very peculiar and give way to violent attachments to the opposite sex as embodied in persons of most unsuitable age and character. . . . She has certainly made a pet and protégé of this Billy.’’≥≠ She also disapproved of explicit language in books: I picked out a new novel called ‘‘Rome Hanks –’’ a civil War story, highly praised by the reviewers, but could not read it for disgust at the incredible grossness – unprintable we would have said a few years ago!≥∞ and, of course, extramarital sexual activity: Surely you don’t follow [Havelock] Ellis in his argument that ‘‘sex experience’’ outside of marriage is or ought to be freely available both to men and women? I feel certain that any such creed, if generally adopted, would destroy the family and humanity’s finest ideals with it.≥≤ In Northampton, Elaine found an outlet for some of her crusading zeal with respect to these issues through her membership on the Northampton Motion Picture Council. In this capacity she was able to publish letters in the local newspaper with titles like, ‘‘Mrs. Eastman Writes on Indecent Films.’’ In this particular instance Elaine argued that ‘‘the indecent, unmoral, and antisocial type of film has flourished and grown steadily more brazen’’ and noted that ‘‘these unclean and unnatural spectacles have been permitted to defile the minds of our Northampton school children.’’≥≥ 127

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Here we clearly see the puritanical side of Elaine’s personality. We knew that she could be rigid and self-righteous – but this view of sex as sinful had not been quite so obvious. Her vigorous crusade on behalf of ‘‘decency’’ suggests that there had always been elements of repression and denial – and probably considerable confusion – in Elaine’s dealings with her own sexuality. To be sure, the kinds of responses that she exhibited were probably commonplace at the time, especially in women who had lived through the kind of repressed childhood that Elaine had endured. We must remember her mother’s e√orts to protect her from life’s ‘‘realities’’ – even to the extent of prohibiting the reading of novels. Indeed, Elaine would later confess, ‘‘I have often wondered how a woman of mother’s intelligence could have been willing to let daughters go out from the home in complete and fantastic ignorance of what are now matters of common knowledge. . . . I wondered if I had really been stupid, when I read lately that no child brought up on a farm could fail to grasp the processes of life and procreation. I think I was fully grown before I had any idea why the rooster so maltreated the poor hens!’’≥∂ This situation was not helped, of course, by Elaine’s total isolation from children her own age (other than her sister Dora) while she was growing up. Then, too, she never went to college. In short, she was almost entirely deprived of socialization opportunities – among peers, at any rate – throughout her childhood and adolescence. Small wonder that Elaine never felt comfortable in social situations. Perhaps she tried to mask that unease by assuming rigid, uncompromising positions on issues whose exploration might have uncovered some deepseated insecurity. So, on a wide variety of controversial issues – including such things as body piercing and peyote use by Native Americans, sexual activity outside marriage, and ways to prevent pregnancy – Elaine’s position was always clear and unmistakable. In a word, it was no. Negativity seems to have been intrinsic to Elaine’s nature, and it tended to complement her commitment to duty and service. The combination virtually ensured that her life would be joyless. Elaine sometimes realized that she was altogether too serious. In her autobiography, ‘‘All the Days of My Life,’’ she noted, ‘‘Of pure recreation there has been so little in my life that I have never really learned to play.’’≥∑ She made the same point in one of her letters to Rose: ‘‘I wish I could enjoy games and that sort of thing! It would make life much more amusing. Somehow, I have never been able to. Most women of my age here play cards and attend the movies a great deal. . . . But it is much too late to change!’’≥∏ One suspects, however, that she never really wanted to change: ‘‘Unfortunately, practically all the people I 128

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am thrown with here in Northampton are women, elderly, of a conventional type, whose conversation appears to be limited to illnesses, ordinary domestic a√airs, the movies and light plays and books – seldom one which I care the least about.’’≥π Even her daughters and their husbands were of little help in this connection: ‘‘I too am alone a good deal but what I really mind more, is the lack of sympathy or understanding of my views in the family. It is just no use to try to join in the conversation anymore.’’≥∫ Nowhere does Elaine seem to realize that she was a part of this problem. Friendship requires openness, tolerance, and a willingness to give and take – and these were qualities that Elaine never did cultivate. Because of that, she often su√ered. Not only here, relatively late in her life, but also over the long years before Northampton. As we have noted, she could not be a good friend to Charles. Indeed, she seemed to see him, as she now saw her older daughters, as unworthy of conversation. Elaine was unhappy in Northampton but perhaps not quite as unhappy as one might think. After all, there was still some service to perform. Her letters to Rose describe many examples, including this one: ‘‘I am spending the weekend keeping house for Eleanor so she could take a pleasure trip to N.Y. and it is anything but a pleasure trip for me! The maid is gone, the house chilly, the children cranky, and my own work interrupted – but at least I am useful.’’≥Ω Elaine was just as committed as ever: ‘‘Last weekend I took care of Virginia’s children, the week before Eleanor’s, to let them go away. E. was gone four full days. I got pretty tired. But you can imagine that I hate to say, I’m no longer able for it!’’∂≠ Actually, Elaine seems to have been a very good grandmother. In a recent interview, Robert Prentiss, Florence’s son, recalled her with considerable affection, saying, ‘‘Grandmother often took me for walks in Northampton when I was a young boy. She usually bought me an ice cream cone, and sometimes bought me clothes.’’∂∞ This recollection underscores Elaine’s complexity. Severe, contentious, and uncompromising on the one hand but gentle, kind, and considerate on the other. Spontaneity was never her strong suit, but she had a real compassion for underdogs – Native Americans, women, the poor, the handicapped, and children especially. Her own children brought her much heartache – as we saw with Irene’s tragic death in 1918. She was also to lose Florence and Ohi during her Northampton years. Florence’s death was especially sad, coming during childbirth when she was only twenty-five and her firstborn barely a year old. Elaine wrote to Rose: ‘‘Yes, we were all gathered around her bed at the hospital – in a breathless silence, broken by faint sobs – all eyes on the poor child gasping out her last painful breaths. It was all but unendurable.’’∂≤ 129

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Ohi’s death, ten years later, was also very di≈cult for Elaine. He had not been so close geographically – having gone to the College of Idaho (in Caldwell) for four years (graduating in 1924) after his discharge from the navy. At Idaho, Ohi, nicknamed ‘‘Chief ’’ Eastman, was an outstanding end on the football team and served as captain of the squad in his senior year.∂≥ Later Ohi moved to Detroit, where he worked as an appliance salesman for many years. He also provided living quarters for his father there, especially during the winter. Ohi married Marion Nutting, a woman who had had a daughter by a previous marriage, in 1936. This marriage was generally seen as unhappy, and Ohi’s sister Eleanor seems to have summed up the general impression when she described the marriage as ‘‘a very grave mistake’’ in a letter to Rose.∂∂ Ohi occasionally came east to visit his mother and sisters, as well as his young nephews and nieces – who, in Eleanor’s words, ‘‘were so fond of him.’’ Elaine, as we have noted, did not attend Ohi’s wedding, but she did visit in Detroit some months later. Apparently, Ohi had a serious heart condition at that time, and Elaine wrote to Rose that ‘‘the past few months’’ had been ‘‘sheer cruelty’’ for him, and that ‘‘just going to work every day exhausted him to the point of faintness.’’∂∑ After Ohi’s death, Elaine described him as ‘‘entirely resigned to die’’ and cited his ‘‘uncongenial work, continuous financial anxiety, and worst of all that incredible marriage which poisoned his last days.’’∂∏ She also grieved, of course, and expressed this sorrow in another letter to Rose: ‘‘Perhaps it is best as it is – we never know – but there are times when it seems too much to bear – the tie with my son was very close, in some ways nearer than with any of the girls.’’∂π Elaine’s responses to her children’s deaths can be contrasted with her seeming indi√erence to Charles’s death in Detroit in 1939. That event elicited only a brief notice in a letter to Rose, ‘‘I thought perhaps you would have seen mention of Dr. Eastman’s death in the Times, or somewhere – he went o√ very easily about two weeks ago . . . and for us here who never see or hear from him there is hardly any di√erence.’’∂∫ She made no e√ort to attend Charles’s funeral (Dora Winona was the only family member who did attend), and most of her later comments about her husband were complaints about his failure to draw up a will, which made her life more di≈cult – entailing expenses that she could ill a√ord. Basically, Elaine acted as if Charles had never existed. In the meantime Elaine persevered. In fact, one of her most outstanding characteristics was her endurance in the face of adversity. Nothing, including her painful childhood, her disastrous marriage, the deaths of three of her children, or her lifelong poverty, could keep her down. If anything, adversity 130

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seemed to spur her on. This may indicate, as we have noted previously, that su√ering was a source of satisfaction to Elaine – evidence, as it were, that she was serving others and not simply pursuing her own selfish goals. Cheryl Walker has described this characteristic as ‘‘reconciliation,’’ or a feeling of worth that results when su√ering is met with dignity and self-control.∂Ω The last line of Elaine’s 1928 poem, ‘‘The Christening’’ (which opens this chapter), makes this point. What would be the finest gift that a baby girl could receive at her christening? ‘‘Strength to su√er and endure!’’ said Elaine. This brings us to what was arguably Elaine’s most important lifelong preoccupation – the search for meaning in a woman’s life. She was especially interested in what has been described as the eternal dilemma of ambitious women: choosing between family and career. As we have seen, her final novel, Hundred Maples, was devoted to that issue. In the end, despite the di≈culties and ultimate failure of her own marriage, she preferred marriage over remaining single – provided that a husband granted his wife the independence and opportunities for self-expression that he demanded for himself. Although this did not happen in her own case, it is what she would have wished. In a way, Elaine saw her life as a contest between the attitudes of her ‘‘modern’’ mother and her ‘‘old-fashioned’’ grandmothers. Her mother, as we have seen, had forsaken her husband in order to pursue a career, while her grandmothers had forsaken any career possibilities by choosing to serve their families. Finally, at the end of Hundred Maples, we read her verdict: the grandmothers had won.∑≠ Their victory, however, was only partial. For Elaine always insisted that husbands in the future must permit their wives to pursue ‘‘some useful and absorbing work of their very own.’’ This, she felt ‘‘was of more importance in the long run than husband, children, and kin.’’∑∞ So, men must change – a modern viewpoint after all. Toward the end of her long life, Elaine also showed some signs of change in her own outlook and attitudes toward others. Some ‘‘mellowing,’’ as it were, especially with respect to Charles. We saw evidence of this in the last chapter, when we noted her regret for the ‘‘useless protests and unworthy tears’’ of her later years. Elaine seemed to be coming to the realization that self-pity had consumed too much of her time. Her e√ort to have a number of Charles’s papers published in the New Bedford Sunday Standard Times in 1949, when she was eighty-six years old, provides further evidence for this altered view. The twelve articles were published in serial form as ‘‘ ‘Peace Pipe and War Bonnet’ – authored by Charles A. Eastman and edited by Elaine Goodale 131

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Eastman.’’ The articles were mostly reprints of some of Charles’s previously published essays; the point, for us, is that Elaine carried out the project and wrote a brief but appreciative biography of Charles to introduce the series.∑≥ Additional evidence of Elaine’s changed outlook is that she changed the wording after her name in the annual Northampton directory in 1949. Between 1920 and 1948 she had always listed herself as ‘‘Goodale, Elaine Mrs. – writer.’’ But in 1949 the listing was changed to read ‘‘Eastman, Elaine Goodale – wid[ow of ] Charles A.’’ This new entry was repeated every year until her death in 1953. Some might think little of this change, but I believe it was the considered act of a fundamentally changed Elaine. The reason for Elaine’s new acceptance of her long-dismissed husband lies, I believe, in a kind of ‘‘conversion’’ experience that marked the last years of her life. A key event in this connection, at least to my mind, was her visit to the site of her Sky Farm home in l942. We spoke of this event in chapter 1 and noted the poem that she had written at that time: the old cellar hole Heaped in a hollow the chimney stones lie – No wall save the forest, no roof but the sky. Strangled by leafy arms, lost among briars, Mother, your lilacs light memory’s fires! Where the first apples reddened and fell, Where the filled bucket rose cool from the well, Father, your dream is still living and dear – Shrine in the wilderness, heart’s home is here! ‘‘Heart’s home is here.’’ Surely Elaine was recalling her childhood days and her life as a farmer’s daughter – and regretting that those days and that lifestyle had all but disappeared. Inevitably, Elaine’s thoughts must have turned from her childhood days to her maidenhood and womanhood. Surely she thought of Charles and the oneness they had once had. Charles of the ‘‘deep woods’’ – which was his ‘‘heart’s home’’ – and a lifestyle that was also disappearing. Were they so very di√erent after all? This realization was the beginning of a more forgiving Elaine. She had never known Charles’s home, just as he had not known hers. They were, to that extent, strangers. Children of two very di√erent ‘‘woods’’ – shaped, for better or worse, by circumstances beyond their control. Both had been grievously wounded in the process, but they had been unable to recog132

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nize, much less assuage, each other’s wounds. Yes, they had tried. But it was not to be. Elaine was weary of anger. Perhaps, in the end, she could let her anger go. Perhaps she also discovered that she could still love. That, at least, is my hope. We will never know for certain how Elaine dealt with Charles in the end. But we can be certain that she was lonely. We have seen the coolness that had developed in her correspondence with her sister Dora. And Dora, of course, had moved to Tennessee in 1929 and remained there until her death in 1953. Sister Rose was closer, but she had her own busy life to live, and Elaine rarely visited her after 1930. Elaine did live with her daughters Virginia and Eleanor and their families for most of the last thirty years of her life, but she never felt very close to them, at least intellectually. There were probably emotional barriers there as well. Eleanor once described her mother as ‘‘cold and austere,’’ confirming, perhaps unintentionally, that they were not particularly close.∑∂ In fairness, however, we should remember that it was never easy to get very close to Elaine. One bright spot in Elaine’s latter days must have been the kind letter that she received from her brother, Robert, in 1947. Robert had long been cool toward Elaine, which perplexed her a great deal. Perhaps she had always underestimated his opposition to her marriage. Whatever the case, Robert now wrote most graciously: With greetings and congratulations, again, on your wonderfully interesting, varied, creative, adventurous, useful and unselfish life. I do regret – and very keenly regret – that I have had so little opportunity to really know and understand it. Your old brother, Robert∑∑ There was, of course, very little time left. Elaine kept writing until nearly the end. But physical infirmities finally took their toll and she had to be moved into the Shady Lawn nursing home in Hadley in 1952. She died there, quietly in her sleep, on December 22, 1953. Sister Dora, the inseparable companion of her childhood, had died just ten days earlier – far away in Tennessee. Her father was buried in Amherst, her mother in Redding, and her husband in Detroit. Elaine was also buried alone – in Spring Grove Cemetery, Florence, Massachusetts, on December 24, 1953.∑∏

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notes Chapter 1. Sky Farm Home 1. Elaine Goodale Eastman, Sister to the Sioux: The Memoirs of Elaine Goodale Eastman 1885–91, ed. Kay Graber (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978), 2–3. 2. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 1. 3. Gerard Chapman, ‘‘Henry Sterling Goodale,’’ Berkshire Eagle, undated photocopy, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton ma. 4. Henry Sterling Goodale to Caroline Goodale, October 1861, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Family Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton ma (hereafter Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers). 5. Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘All the Days of My Life,’’ in The Voice at Eve (Chicago: Bookfellows, 1930), 14. 6. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 2. 7. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 18. 8. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 14. 9. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 2–3. 10. Dora Hill Read Goodale to Eleanor Read, August 23, 1863, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 11. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 15–16. 12. Elaine Goodale, ‘‘Grandma’s Room,’’ handwritten poem, 1871, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 13. Eleanor (Lyon) Read, handwritten journal, April 1–July 16, 1866, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 14. Henry Sterling Goodale, handwritten poem, January 1, 1875, Eastman Papers Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton ma (hereafter Eastman Papers). 15. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 9. 16. ‘‘Not ‘A Case of Plagiarism,’ ’’ Scribner’s Literary Notes, March 1879 (includes copies of D. Padman, letter to the editor of St. Nicholas, December 14, 1878; and F. W. Bourdillon, letter to the editor of St. Nicholas, January 13, 1879). 17. Richard B. Sewall, The Life of Emily Dickinson, vol. 2 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974). See especially chap. 23, ‘‘Thomas Wentworth Higginson.’’ 135

notes to pages 7 – 14 18. Thomas Wentworth Higginson to Henry Sterling Goodale, February 25, 1877, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 19. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 13. 20. Check for seventy-five dollars to Mrs. Henry Goodale, July 25, 1877, for ‘‘six poems written by Elaine and Dora Goodale,’’ from Scribner and Co., New York ny, Eastman Papers. 21. Charles G. Whiting to Henry Sterling Goodale, July 25, 1878, Eastman Papers. 22. Elaine Goodale and Dora Read Goodale, Apple-Blossoms: Verses of Two Children (New York: Putnam, 1878). 23. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 12. 24. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 9. 25. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 20. 26. Dora Read Goodale, ‘‘In the Loft,’’ Apple-Blossoms, 203. 27. Elaine Goodale, ‘‘Thistles and Roses,’’ Apple-Blossoms, 84. 28. Elaine Goodale, ‘‘Nature’s Coinage,’’ Apple-Blossoms, 126. 29. Ruth Ann Alexander, ‘‘Elaine Goodale Eastman and the Failure of the Feminist Protestant Ethic,’’ Great Plains Quarterly 8.2 (Spring 1988): 89-101; Karin Luisa Badt, Charles Eastman: Sioux Physician and Author (New York: Chelsea House, 1995). 30. Elaine Goodale, ‘‘The Chestnut Flower,’’ All Round the Year, 121. 31. Dora Read Goodale, ‘‘A Berrying,’’ All Round the Year, 192. 32. Rose (Goodale) Dayton, autobiography (typescript), James W. and Miriam M. Dayton Collection, Lodestone, Amherst ma, 1 (hereafter Dayton Collection); Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 14. 33. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose (Goodale) Dayton, February 15, 1931, Eastman Papers. 34. Rose Goodale Dayton, handwritten journal, April 19, 1925–December 31, 1932, entry for November 8, 1927, Dayton Collection. 35. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 18. 36. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 16–17. 37. Elaine Goodale, Journal of a Farmer’s Daughter (New York: Putnam, 1881), 47–49. 38. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 18. 39. Catharine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, The American Woman’s Home; or, Principles of Domestic Science; Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes (New York: J. B. Ford, 1869), 287–92. 40. Elizabeth Ripley, a camper at Camp Oáhe from 1922 to 1925, described 136

notes to pages 14 – 20 Elaine as ‘‘cold’’ in a personal interview, November 29, 1998, Keene nh; Elaine herself admitted she was unable to ‘‘let herself go’’ in Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 22. 41. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 22. 42. Dora Read Goodale to Rose (Goodale) Dayton, ca. 1936, Eastman Papers. 43. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 14–15.

Chapter 2. Berkshire Farewells 1. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 21. 2. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 21. 3. ‘‘Sacred to the New Woman,’’ New York Times, undated, ca. 1895, Dayton Collection. 4. Hester M. Poole, ‘‘A Sky Parlor or a Bachelor’s Den,’’ Decorator and Furnisher, August 1895, 171, Dayton Collection. 5. Poole, ‘‘A Sky Parlor,’’ 171. 6. ‘‘A Philosopher’s Attic,’’ New York Times, June 23, 1895, Dayton Collection. 7. Elaine Goodale Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 7. 8. Rose Sterling Goodale, handwritten poem, ca. 1890, Dayton Collection. 9. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 13. 10. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 23, 19. 11. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 16. 12. Susie Han, ‘‘Education of Native Americans: Hampton Institute 1878– 1923,’’ www.duke.edu/7Esah4/susie.html. 13. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 16–17. 14. Edith Armstrong Talbot, Samuel Chapman Armstrong: A Biographical Study (New York: Doubleday, 1904), 241. 15. Talbot, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, 248. 16. Talbot, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, 249. 17. Talbot, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, 148. 18. Francis Greenwood Peabody, introduction to Education for Life, by Samuel Chapman Armstrong (Hampton va: Press of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, 1914), 8. 19. Armstrong, Education for Life, 21. 20. Armstrong, Education for Life, 40. 21. Talbot, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, 277. 22. William Hannibal Robinson, ‘‘The History of Hampton Institute: 1868– 1949’’ (PhD diss., New York University, 1953), 341. 23. Talbot, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, 275. 24. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 17. 25. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 24. 137

notes to pages 20 – 23 26. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 17. 27. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, April 23, 1945, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 28. Robert Trivers, ‘‘Deceit and Self-Deception,’’ in Social Evolution (Menlo Park ca: Benjamin/Cummings, 1985), 419. 29. Elaine Goodale, ‘‘When Did We Meet,’’ ‘‘In a Crowd,’’ and ‘‘Nothing to Give,’’ published as ‘‘Moods, by Miss Elaine Goodale,’’ The Independent (1894). 30. Elaine Goodale, ‘‘In a Crowd,’’ The Independent (1894) (reprinted as ‘‘My Heart Thy Refuge,’’ in Voice at Eve, 76). 31. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 13. 32. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 18, 24. 33. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 18. 34. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 22. 35. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 18. 36. Talbot, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, 203. 37. The Indian Rights Association was one of several eastern-based groups that promoted reform in Indian policy. Other groups included the Boston Indian Citizenship Committee (1879) and the Women’s National Indian Association (1880). These groups started meeting annually at the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian, Lake Mohonk, New York, in 1883. 38. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 22. 39. Many of Dora Read Goodale’s published contributions from this period are in the Eastman Papers, especially box 1, file 6, and scrapbook 9. A packet of more than a hundred published poems by Dora Hill (Read) Goodale, dated 1880–1910, is located in the Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 40. Rose Goodale Dayton, autobiography (typescript), Dayton Collection, p. 1. 41. ‘‘Will Be Mrs. Ohiyesa; Poetess Elaine Goodale’s Coming Marriage to a Sioux,’’ New York World, June 7, 1891, Dayton Collection; ‘‘Elaine Goodale’s New Life: As a Happy Wife and Mother, She Declares Marriage Not a Failure,’’ unidentified newspaper clipping, ca. 1893, in scrapbook compiled by Henry Sterling Goodale, Dayton Collection. 42. The subject of her depression comes up frequently in Dora Read Goodale’s letters to her sister Rose, ca. 1880–1950; see box 2 of the Eastman–Goodale– Dayton Papers. 43. Dora Read Goodale, handwritten note, Redding ct, ca. 1912, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 44. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Dora Read Goodale, September 25, 1930, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 138

notes to pages 23 – 29 45. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Redington Dayton, April 4, 1919, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 46. Dora Read Goodale to Rose Goodale Dayton, May 1, 1897, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 47. ‘‘The Misfortune of the Goodales,’’ Amherst Record, May 2, 1897, Dayton Collection. 48. Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘The Hand-Made House,’’ Country Life in America (October 15, 1912): 33–36. 49. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 14. 50. Lydia Maria Child, ‘‘Education of Daughters,’’ in The American Frugal Housewife (Boston: Carter, Hendee, 1832), 92. 51. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, March 4, 1930, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 52. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 32. 53. Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 22.

Chapter 3. Serving the Sioux 1. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 19. 2. Talbot, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, 203. 3. Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Policy in Crisis: Christian Reformers and the Indian, 1865–1900 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976), 4. 4. Elaine Goodale, ‘‘How to Americanize the Indian,’’ New Englander and Yale Review 52 (May 1890): 452–55. 5. Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 23. 6. Florence Bascom (1862–1945) would later achieve distinction as a professor of geology at Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. She remained a lifelong friend of Elaine’s and some correspondence between the two women may be found in the Florence Bascom papers in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts. Elaine named her last child Florence Bascom Eastman (1905–30) in honor of this old friend. (See Isabel Fothergill Smith, The Stone Lady: A Memoir of Florence Bascom [Bryn Mawr: Bryn Mawr College, 1981].) 7. Eastman, ‘‘The Call,’’ in Sister to the Sioux, 23–31. (This is Elaine’s own account of her first trip through the Dakotas.) 8. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 29. 9. ‘‘Miss Elaine Goodale’s Life Work,’’ Hartford Courant, ca. January 1887, clipping in scrapbook, Eastman Papers. 10. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 31. 11. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 48. 139

notes to pages 29 – 35 12. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 35. 13. The Pratt Commission, headed by Capt. Richard H. Pratt (founder and principal of the Carlisle Indian School), was appointed to secure the signatures of three-quarters of adult Sioux males on the ‘‘Sioux bill’’ of 1888. Other members of the commission were Judge John V. Wright of Tennessee, and the Reverend William J. Cleveland (‘‘Long Pine’’), an Episcopal missionary; Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 91. 14. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 34, 43, 100, 123, 50–54. 15. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 65. 16. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 43, 55, 56, 45. 17. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 93. 18. Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘On the Banks of the Missouri,’’ in Voice at Eve, 86. 19. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 94. 20. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 95, 104. 21. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 99. 22. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 108, 114. 23. Dora Read Goodale to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1930, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 24. Thomas Je√erson Morgan, a former Baptist minister, was appointed commissioner of Indian A√airs in 1889. He subsequently appointed Charles Eastman to the post of government physician at Pine Ridge in 1890. 25. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 117. 26. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 118. 27. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 121, 125. 28. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 126, 126, 118. 29. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 120, 128. 30. Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘The Ghost Dance War and Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890–91,’’ Nebraska History 26 (January 1945): 28–30. 31. Stanley Vestal, ‘‘The Ghost Dance,’’ in Sitting Bull, Champion of the Sioux: A Biography (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957; Boston: Houghton Mi∆in, 1932), 271–77. Citations are to the 1957 edition. 32. James McLaughlin, My Friend the Indian (Boston: Houghton Mi∆in, 1910), 194–222. Other accounts include James Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 100-108 (originally published as part 2 of the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, 1892–93 [Washington: Government Printing O≈ce, 1896]); Vestal, ‘‘The Fight in the Dark,’’ Sitting Bull, 293–307; and Robert M. Utley, ‘‘The End of Sitting Bull,’’ The Last Days of the Sioux Nation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963), 146–66. 140

notes to pages 35 – 42 33. Utley, Last Days of the Sioux Nation, 151. 34. Richard E. Jensen, R. Eli Paul, and John E. Carter, Eyewitness at Wounded Knee (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991), 10. 35. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 142, 149, 146. 36. Utley, Last Days of the Sioux Nation, 111. 37. Mooney, Ghost-Dance Religion, 95. 38. An excellent account of the events leading up to and including the Wounded Knee massacre is provided by Utley, Last Days of the Sioux Nation, chap. 9–11. Other accounts include Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion, chap. 5; Jensen, Paul, and Carter, Eyewitness at Wounded Knee, chap. 1 and 2; and David Humphreys Miller, Ghost Dance (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1959). 39. Mooney, Ghost-Dance Religion, 118. 40. Thomas J. Morgan, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian A√airs, 1891, 130; quoted in Mooney, Ghost-Dance Religion, 119. 41. Utley, Last Days of the Sioux Nation, 227. 42. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 160–61. 43. Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa), From the Deep Woods to Civilization: Chapters in the Autobiography of an Indian (Boston: Little, Brown, 1916), 110. 44. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 162. 45. Renée Sansom Flood, Lost Bird of Wounded Knee: Spirit of the Lakota (New York: Scribner, 1995). 46. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 110–14. 47. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 155. 48. Eastman, ‘‘Ghost Dance War,’’ 38. 49. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 152, 167. 50. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 86–87. 51. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 172.

Chapter 4. Love and Marriage 1. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 86–87; Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 169. 2. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 86. 3. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 170. 4. The definitive biography of Charles Eastman is Raymond Wilson’s Ohiyesa: Charles Eastman, Santee Sioux (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983). Other biographical sources include Marion W. Copeland, Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa) (Boise: Boise State University Western Writers Series, No. 33, 1978); David Reed Miller, ‘‘Charles Alexander Eastman: One Man’s Journey in Two Worlds,’’ (Master’s thesis, University of North Dakota, 1975); and ‘‘Charles Alex141

notes to pages 42 – 46 ander Eastman, The ‘Winner’: From Deep Woods to Civilization,’’ in American Indian Intellectuals, ed. Margot Liberty (New York: West, 1978), 61–73. 5. Sarah E. Boehme, Christian F. Feest, and Patricia Condon Johnston, Seth Eastman: A Portfolio of North American Indians (Afton mn: Afton Historical Society Press, 1999). 6. ‘‘Uncheedah’’ means ‘‘grandmother’’ in Dakota. Rather than giving her personal name, Charles followed the traditional practice of addressing his grandmother in the appropriate kinship term. 7. Charles A. Eastman, Indian Boyhood (New York: McClure, 1902), 36–45. 8. C. M. Oehler, The Great Sioux Uprising (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959); Duane P. Schultz, Over the Earth I Come: The Great Sioux Uprising of 1862 (New York: St. Martin’s, 1992). 9. Charles A. Eastman, ‘‘A Half-Forgotten Lincoln Story,’’ The Rotarian 76 (February 1950): 34. 10. Eastman, Indian Boyhood, 58. 11. Eastman, Indian Boyhood, 102–12. 12. David Reed Miller, introduction to Indian Boyhood, by Charles A. Eastman, xvi. 13. Eastman, Indian Boyhood, 285. 14. Eastman, Indian Boyhood, 285–89, 289. 15. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 16, 22. 16. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 26. 17. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 39. 18. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 48. 19. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 64–71. 20. Ernst Jerome Mensel, ‘‘John, Charles, and Elaine Goodale Eastman: Their Story – A Contribution to the American Indian’’ (ba thesis, Dartmouth College, 1954); Rob Eshman, ‘‘Stranger in the Land,’’ Dartmouth Alumni Magazine 73.5 (January-February 1981): 20–23; Wilson, Ohiyesa, 20–37. 21. James Graves, ‘‘Ohiyesa (Med 1890),’’ Bostonia: The Alumni Quarterly of Boston University (Spring 1993): 50–54. 22. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 73. 23. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 164. 24. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 40–43. 25. Katherine Ellinghaus, ‘‘Reading the Personal as Political: The Assimilationist Views of a White Woman Married to a Native American Man, 1890s– 1940s’’ (typescript, 1999); Ruth Ann Alexander, ‘‘Finding Oneself through a Cause: Elaine Goodale Eastman and Indian Reform in the 1880s,’’ South Dakota History 22.1 (Spring 1992), 1–37. 142

notes to pages 46 – 50 26. Rose Goodale Dayton, handwritten journal, April 19, 1925–December 31, 1932, entry for December 14, 1931, Dayton Collection. 27. Bruce David Forbes, introduction to the reprint edition of Blue Star: The Story of Corabelle Fellows, Teacher at Dakota Missions 1884–1888, by Kunigunde Duncan, (1938; repr., St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1990). 28. Rose Sterling Goodale to Redington M. Dayton, January 1, 1891, Collection of Deborah Read (Dayton) Scoblick, Baltimore md (hereafter Scoblick Collection). 29. Rose Sterling Goodale to Redington M. Dayton, January 12, 1891, Scoblick Collection. 30. Dayton, journal, December 14, 1931, Dayton Collection. 31. Dora Read Goodale to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1930, Eastman–Goodale– Dayton Papers. 32. Dayton, journal, December 14, 1931, Dayton Collection. 33. All quotes in this paragraph are from Dayton, journal, December 14, 1931, Dayton Collection. 34. ‘‘Elaine Goodale’s New Life,’’ unidentified newspaper clipping, ca. 1894, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 35. Charles Alexander Eastman (‘‘Ohiyesa’’) to Rose Goodale, January 20, 1891, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 36. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1928, Dayton Collection. 37. Jerry Green, ed., After Wounded Knee: Correspondence of Major and Surgeon John Vance Lauderdale while Serving with the Army Occupying the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, 1890–1891 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1996), 125; Wilson, Ohiyesa, 191. 38. Brian W. Dippie, The Vanishing American: White Attitudes and U.S. Indian Policy (Middletown ct: Wesleyan University Press, 1982), 257. 39. ‘‘Miss Elaine Goodale to Marry a Sioux,’’ unidentified newspaper clipping, 1891, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 40. ‘‘Wedded to a Sioux Indian,’’ New York Sun, June 19, 1891. 41. ‘‘Will Be Mrs. Ohiyesa,’’ New York World, June 7, 1891. 42. Rose Sterling Goodale to Redington M. Dayton, May 23, 1891, Scoblick Collection. 43. All quotes from ‘‘Wedded to a Sioux Indian,’’ New York Sun, June 19, 1891. 44. ‘‘Wedded to a Sioux Indian,’’ New York Sun, June 19, 1891. 45. Rose Sterling Goodale to Redington M. Dayton, June 21, 1891, Scoblick Collection. 46. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 125. 143

notes to pages 50 – 57 47. Jean Kincaid, ‘‘Greeted by Friends: Dr. Eastman and His Wife Given a Reception,’’ Boston Daily Globe, June 26, 1891. 48. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1941, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 49. Elaine Goodale Eastman, Hundred Maples (Brattleboro vt: Stephen Daye, 1935), 205. 50. Rose Sterling Goodale to Redington M. Dayton, July 5, 1891, Scoblick Collection. 51. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 172. 52. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 126.

Chapter 5. Your World or Mine? 1. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 172. 2. Kincaid, ‘‘Greeted by Friends.’’ 3. Graves, ‘‘Ohiyesa (Med 1890),’’ 52. 4. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 173. 5. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 77. 6. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 67–817, 72, 74–75. 7. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 72. 8. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 76. 9. George Le Roy Brown to James H. Cisney, December 1, 1892, Elaine Goodale Eastman File, Hampton University Archives, Hampton va. 10. Green, After Wounded Knee, 124–25. 11. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 134. 12. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 164. 13. Herbert Welsh, Civilization among the Sioux Indians: Report of a Visit to Some of the Sioux Reservations of South Dakota and Nebraska (Philadelphia: Indian Rights Association, 1893), 49–50. 14. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 73–77. 15. Welsh, Civilization among the Sioux Indians, 50. 16. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 133. 17. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 135. 18. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. October 13, 1929, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 19. Eastman, ‘‘The Ultimate Moment,’’ Voice at Eve, 79. 20. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1930, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 21. Robert Trivers, Social Evolution (Menlo Park ca: Benjamin/Cummings, 1985), 418. 144

notes to pages 57 – 62 22. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 82. 23. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 137. 24. Helen McKearin and Kenneth M. Wilson, American Bottles and Flasks and Their Ancestry (New York: Crown, 1978), 297. 25. McKearin and Wilson, American Bottles, 303–5. 26. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 138. 27. Charles A. Eastman, ‘‘Recollections of the Wild Life,’’ St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks 21 (December 1893–May 1894): 129–31, 226– 28, 306–8, 437–40, 513–15, 607–11. 28. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 82–83. 29. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, March 4, 1894, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 30. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, September 12, 1894, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 31. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 145. 32. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 173. 33. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 138; 143. 34. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 149. 35. Charles A. Eastman, The Soul of the Indian: An Interpretation (Boston: Houghton Mi∆in, 1911), 24. See also Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 193–95. 36. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 150. 37. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1930, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 38. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 85. 39. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 141. 40. Proceedings of the Annual Meetings of the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian, 1890–1916, 13th session, 93. 41. Marion W. Copeland, ‘‘An Unhonored Place (1893–1903),’’ in Only a Change of Worlds: The Marriage of Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa) and Elaine Goodale Eastman (typescript, ca. 1985), 141–43. (This unpublished manuscript was kindly made available to me by Ms. Copeland. It has been an important source of information, especially concerning the Eastman’s Amherst and Munsonville years. Ms. Copeland interviewed both Virginia (Eastman) Whitbeck and Eleanor (Eastman) Mensel in 1984.) 42. Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘A Wife’s Tokens,’’ Midland Monthly (April 1897). 43. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 83. 44. ‘‘Elaine Goodale’s New Life: As a Happy Wife and Mother, She Declares Marriage Not a Failure,’’ unidentified newspaper clipping, ca. 1893, in scrapbook compiled by Henry Sterling Goodale, Dayton Collection. 145

notes to pages 63 – 74 45. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 164 (remark attributed to Herbert B. Fowler). 46. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 152. 47. Wilson, ‘‘Eastman and the Santee Claims,’’ Ohiyesa, 92–104. 48. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 97. 49. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 94. 50. Eastman, ‘‘Mother and Son,’’ Voice at Eve, 84. 51. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 155. 52. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 105. 53. Indian Helper, A Weekly Letter from the Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, Pa. 14.44 (August 25, 1899): 5. 54. Indian Helper 15.16 (February 16, 1900): 6. 55. Indian Helper 15.18 (March 2, 1900): 5. 56. Indian Helper 15.24 (November 24, 1899): 1. 57. Cheryl Walker, The Nightingale’s Burden: Women Poets and American Culture before 1900 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982). 58. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, February 9, 1938, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 59. Jennifer Best, ‘‘ ‘Kill the Indian and Save the Man!’ Charles Eastman Surveys His Past,’’ Wicazo Sa Review 15.1 (Spring 2000), 7–28. 60. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1930, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 61. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 105, 62. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 106. 63. Wilson, ‘‘Government Physician at Crow Creek, 1900–1903,’’ Ohiyesa, 105-19, 109. 64. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 110. 65. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 111–14. 66. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 114. 67. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 115. 68. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1930, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 69. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 124–26.

Chapter 6. Back in New England 1. Helen L. [Mrs. Martin] Brennan to Dora Hill (Read) Goodale, October 11, 1901, Scoblick Collection. 2. Dora Hill (Read) Goodale to Rose Goodale Dayton, October 27, 1901, Scoblick Collection. 146

notes to pages 74 – 77 3. Dora Read Goodale to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1904, Eastman–Goodale– Dayton Papers. 4. Dora Read Goodale to Dora Hill (Read) Goodale, July 5, 1904, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 5. Dora Read Goodale to Rose Goodale Dayton, Spring 1904, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 6. Dora Read Goodale to Rose Goodale Dayton, Winter 1903–1904, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 7. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Dora Hill (Read) Goodale, July 5, 1904, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 8. ‘‘Death of Henry S. Goodale, at His Home at Amherst Yesterday,’’ Springfield Republican, July 21, 1906, Dayton Collection. 9. Henry Sterling Goodale (dictated to Dora Read Goodale) to Rose Goodale Dayton, June 29, 1906, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 10. Dora Read Goodale to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1931, Eastman–Goodale– Dayton Papers. 11. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, February 15, 1931, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 12. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, April 11, 1929, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 13. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, February 2, 1931, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 14. Rose Goodale Dayton, autobiography (typescript), Dayton Collection; Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 14. 15. Dora Read Goodale to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1908, Eastman–Goodale– Dayton Papers. 16. Dora Read Goodale to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1908, Eastman–Goodale– Dayton Papers. 17. Dora Hill (Read) Goodale to Redington M. Dayton, May 30, 1890, Scoblick Collection. 18. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, April 15, 1940, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 19. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, February 15, 1931, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 20. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, August 13, 1945, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 21. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, September 19, 1909, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 22. Dora Read Goodale to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1910, Eastman–Goodale– Dayton Papers. 147

notes to pages 78 – 80 23. W. R. Brown, ‘‘Dr. Eastman’s Interesting Work,’’ Springfield Sunday Republican, October 20, 1906, W. R. Brown Scrapbooks, Special Collections, Jones Library, Amherst ma (hereafter W. R. Brown Scrapbooks); Brown, ‘‘Dr. Eastman’s Recent Return,’’ Springfield Sunday Republican, October 17, 1908, W. R. Brown Scrapbooks; Brown, ‘‘Dr. Eastman’s Investigations,’’ Springfield Sunday Republican, October 29, 1910, W. R. Brown Scrapbooks. 24. James W. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, November 1, 1909, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 25. James W. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, Fall 1910, Eastman–Goodale– Dayton Papers. 26. Dora Read Goodale to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1910, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 27. James W. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, April 18, 1910, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 28. James W. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, November 11, 1909, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 29. James W. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, January 1910, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 30. James W. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, Spring 1912, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 31. ‘‘Athletics,’’ The Graphic: Amherst High School 2.6 (Amherst ma), June 1916, 16. 32. Stephen Allen, personal interview, November 23, 1998, Keene nh. 33. James W. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, December 2, 1909, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 34. James W. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, January 17, 1910, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 35. The Gold Bug: 1919, Senior Class Book, Amherst High School, Special Collections, Jones Library, Amherst ma (hereafter Jones Library). 36. James W. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, Fall 1910, Eastman–Goodale– Dayton Papers. 37. Theodore Read Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1915, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 38. James W. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, January 1910, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 39. James W. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, March 1911, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 40. Dora Read Goodale to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1910, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 148

notes to pages 80 – 86 41. James W. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, April 12, 1910, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 42. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, January 6, 1928, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 43. James W. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, March 1911, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 44. James W. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, Spring 1911, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 45. James W. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, Spring 1911, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 46. James W. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, Spring 1911, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers 47. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1934–35, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 48. James W. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, Fall 1911, Eastman–Goodale– Dayton Papers. 49. Theodore R. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. May 1914, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 50. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, February 15, 1931, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 51. Theodore R. Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1916, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 52. Stephen Allen, personal interview, November 23, 1998, Keene nh. 53. Graves, ‘‘Ohiyesa (Med 1890),’’ 50–54. 54. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, November 21, 1939, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 55. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1930, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 56. Charles A. Eastman to M. C. Bacheller, March 4, 1931, Charles Eastman Folder, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College, Hanover nh (hereafter Eastman Folder, Dartmouth). 57. Eastman, Soul of the Indian, 89.

Chapter 7. The Writing Game 1. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1930, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 2. Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 31. (This was later published in the South Dakota Historical Review 2 [July 1937]: 171–84.) 149

notes to pages 86 – 91 3. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Harold G. Rugg, April 19, 1939, Eastman Folder, Dartmouth. 4. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 164. (Here two nieces and a self-proclaimed grandson of Charles A. Eastman are quoted regarding his views on his wife’s role with respect to his writing.) 5. Ruth Heflin, I Remain Alive: The Sioux Literary Renaissance (Syracuse ny: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 56–57. 6. Miller, ‘‘Charles Alexander Eastman, The ‘Winner,’ ’’ in American Indian Intellectuals, ed. Margot Liberty (St. Paul mn: West, 1978), 66; Wilson, Ohiyesa, 164. 7. A. LaVonne Brown Ruo√, introduction to reprint edition of Old Indian Days, by Charles A. Eastman (New York: McClure, 1907; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991); Hertha Dawn Wong, introduction to ‘‘Native American Identities and Autobiography,’’ a special issue of Auto/Biography Studies 7.2 (Fall 1992): 157–62. 8. Badt, Charles Eastman, 110. 9. Amherst Directories (1904–1919); Street Lists of Poll Tax Payers of Amherst Mass. (1904–1919), Jones Library. 10. Miller, ‘‘Charles Alexander Eastman: One Man’s Journey in Two Worlds,’’ 219. 11. Graves, ‘‘Ohiyesa (Med 1890),’’ 50–54. 12. Ruo√, introduction to Old Indian Days, xviii. 13. Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘Dr. Charles A. Eastman’’ (typescript, 1950), Eastman Folder, Dartmouth; Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1941, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 14. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Harold G. Rugg, April 19, 1939, Eastman Folder, Dartmouth. 15. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1936, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 16. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, February 9, 1938, Dayton Collection. 17. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. February 3, 1937, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 18. Eastman, Soul of the Indian (Boston: Houghton Mi∆in, 1911), 21. 19. Mrs. Malcolm Wallace, ‘‘Desbarats History,’’ manuscript, ca. 1943, cited in Miller, ‘‘Charles Alexander Eastman, The ‘Winner,’ ’’ 69. 20. Miller, ‘‘Charles Alexander Eastman, The ‘Winner,’ ’’ 63. 21. Eastman, Soul of the Indian, 87. 22. Eastman, Soul of the Indian, 31–32. 23. Eastman, Soul of the Indian, 24. 150

notes to pages 91 – 98 24. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 194. 25. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 175, 178. 26. Eastman, Deep Woods to Civilization, 194. 27. Elaine Goodale Eastman, Little Brother O’ Dreams (Boston: Houghton Mi∆in, 1910), 163–64.

Chapter 8. Flower of the Forest 1. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, November 21, 1939, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 2. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, April 28, 1939, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 3. Eastman, Sister to the Sioux, 173. 4. Photograph in Charles A. Eastman Folder, Special Collections, Jones Library, Amherst ma (hereafter Charles A. Eastman Folder, Jones Library). (This photograph was later published in the Springfield Union, under the title ‘‘Amherst Woman Was among Guests at Mark Twain’s 70th Birthday’’ – the woman in question was seated next to Charles in the photograph and is identified as Margaret Sutton Briscoe Hopkins; she is not Elaine Goodale Eastman, as is sometimes assumed). 5. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, January 20, 1940, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 6. R. G. Je√eris and J. L. Nichols, Safe Counsel; or, Practical Eugenics (Naperville il: Nichols, 1893), 79–82. 7. Eastman, Old Indian Days (New York: McClure, 1907), 169–80. 8. Eastman, Old Indian Days, 184–85. 9. Know Thyself; or, Nature’s Secrets Revealed (Marietta oh: Mullikin, 1912), 127. 10. Hamlin Garland, My Friendly Contemporaries: A Literary Log (New York: MacMillan, 1932), 59–60. (The quoted account is dated May 14, 1915.) 11. ‘‘Irene Eastman: Taluta,’’ promotional brochure, ca. 1915, Irene Eastman Folder, Special Collections, Jones Library, Amherst ma (hereafter Irene Eastman Folder, Jones Library). 12. ‘‘Irene Eastman: Taluta,’’ promotional brochure, ca. 1915, Irene Eastman Folder, Jones Library. 13. Theodore Read Dayton to Rose Goodale Dayton, 1912–16, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 14. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Eastman, February 15, 1931, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 151

notes to pages 98 – 103 15. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Eastman, May 31, 1938, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 16. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, September 17, 1940, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 17. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, January 24, 1928, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 18. Irene Eastman to Dora Read Goodale, February 13, 1917, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 19. Irene Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, February 28, 1917, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 20. Marybeth Lorbiecki and Paula Schanilec, ‘‘Dakota Footprints on a New Trail: Dr. Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa)’’ (typescript, 2000), 136–38. 21. Marcia Leversee, The Wilson Homestead: Stoddard, New Hampshire 1797– 1997 (Keene nh: Sentinel Print Shop, 1997), 16 pp. (This pamphlet includes six pages of text and photographs for ‘‘The Eastmans and Camp Oáhe,’’ ‘‘Oáhe, the Hill of Vision,’’ and ‘‘Charles Alexander Eastman, ‘Ohiyesa.’ ’’) 22. ‘‘School of the Woods’’ (promotional brochure, 1915, 4 pp.), Charles A. Eastman Folder, Special Collections, Forbes Library, Northampton ma (hereafter Eastman Folder, Forbes Library). 23. ‘‘oáhe: ‘The Hill of Vision’ – A Camp for Girls’’ (promotional brochure, 1916, 27 pp.), Charles A. Eastman Folder, Jones Library. 24. ‘‘ohíyesa (The Winners) – A Camp for Boys’’ (promotional brochure, 1917, 15 pp.), Eastman Folder, Forbes Library. 25. Mrs. Walter E. Remmers to Jim Ewing, November 16, 1998 (provided courtesy of Jim Ewing, editor, Keene Sentinel [nh]) 26. ‘‘School of the Woods,’’ Eastman Folder, Forbes Library, p. 3. 27. Katharine Dorr Sommers, ‘‘Remembering Camp Oahe,’’ in Grapevine-2: News for Nelson and Munsonville 13.3 (August 1996). 28. ‘‘oáhe: ‘The Hill of Vision’ – A Camp for Girls,’’ promotional brochure, 1920, 28 pp., Eastman Folder, Forbes Library. 29. ‘‘oáhe: ‘The Hill of Vision’ – A Camp for Girls,’’ promotional brochure, 1924, 24 pp., provided courtesy of Mrs. Elizabeth (‘‘Betty’’) Ripley, Keene nh. 30. ‘‘The Trail Makers: An American Indian Pageant by the Girls of Camp Oahe and the Boys of Camp Ohiyesa,’’ descriptive program, August 26 and 28, 1916, 8 pp., Charles A. Eastman Folder, Jones Library. 31. Eastman, The Luck of Oldacres (New York: Century, 1928), 238–39. 32. Michael B. A. Oldstone, ‘‘Influenza Virus, The Plague that May Return,’’ in Viruses, Plagues, and History (London: Oxford University Press, 1998), 14. 33. Copeland, ‘‘In the Pent-Up Heart of Home (1910–1918),’’ in Only a Change of Worlds. 152

notes to pages 104 – 108 34. Copeland, ‘‘In the Pent-Up Heart of Home (1910–1918),’’ in Only a Change of Worlds, 62–72. 35. ‘‘Death of Miss Irene Eastman,’’ Keene Evening Sentinel (nh), October 23, 1918, p. 3, Dayton Collection. 36. Edward T. Davis, ‘‘Brought to Stoddard for Burial: October 25 – Irene Eastman, Died at Keene,’’ Annual Town Records for Stoddard nh (1918) (provided by Alan Rumrill, director, Cheshire County Historical Society, Keene nh). 37. Copeland, Only a Change of Worlds, 73. 38. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, June 24, 1928, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 39. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Redington Dayton, April 4, 1919, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 40. Copeland, Only a Change of Worlds 5, 73. 41. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1940, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 42. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1940, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 43. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, May 18, 1925, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 44. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, May 18, 1925, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers.

Chapter 9. Stresses and Separation 1. Graves, ‘‘Ohiyesa (Med 1890),’’ 52. 2. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1932, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 3. Frederick Dockstader, Great North American Indians: Profiles in Life and Leadership (New York: Van Nostrand, 1977). 4. Herbert B. Fowler, Association of American Indian Physicians (aaip), membership vita and membership card, June 15, 1973 (copies provided by Raymond Wilson, courtesy of Katherine Fowler). 5. ‘‘Soviets Honor Portland Psychiatrist with Lenin Prize in Science,’’ Portland Oregonian, November 5, 1976, p. A18. 6. ‘‘Dr. Herbert B. Fowler,’’ O≈cial Newsletter of the Association of American Indian Physicians 4.1 (July 1977): 1. 7. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 164, 185–88. 8. Marion W. Copeland, interview, December 1999, Pelham ma. 9. ‘‘Certificate of Birth,’’ Mary H. Eastman, June 9, 1892 (copy provided by P. A. Milton, County Clerk, McLean County il, July 13, 1999). 153

notes to pages 109 – 112 10. ‘‘Birth Record, Eastman, Mary H., January 9, 1892’’ (copy provided by P. A. Milton, County Clerk, MacLean Co. il, July 13, 1999). 11. ‘‘Certificate of Marriage,’’ Mr. Herbert B. Fowler, of Weston Co. wy, aged twenty-one years, and Miss Mary H. Eastman of Converse Co. wy, aged twentythree years, March 17, 1917 (copy provided courtesy of Mary Benson and Raymond Wilson); ‘‘Standard Certificate of Death,’’ Mary He√eran Fowler, Laramie wy, April 11, 1942 (birth date entered as June 9, 1895) (copy provided courtesy of Mary Benson and Raymond Wilson). 12. Miller, ‘‘Charles Alexander Eastman: One Man’s Journey in Two Worlds,’’ 268–69, 269. 13. Ruth Ann Alexander, ‘‘Elaine Goodale Eastman and the Failure of the Feminist Protestant Ethic,’’ Great Plains Quarterly 8.2 (Spring 1988), 97. 14. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 164. 15. These letters from Elaine Goodale Eastman to her sisters, Dora Read Goodale and Rose Goodale Dayton, were recently donated to the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, Northampton ma by Miriam M. Dayton. These letters make up a part of the ‘‘Eastman–Goodale–Dayton family papers’’ at Smith and should be distinguished from the letters that Elaine herself left to the Sophia Smith collection, which are part of the ‘‘Elaine Goodale Eastman papers.’’ 16. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. February 9, 1938, Dayton Collection. 17. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1932, Dayton Collection. 18. The dates (and places) of deaths of Charles and Elaine Eastman’s children are: Irene Eastman, October 23, 1918 (Keene nh); Florence (Eastman) Prentiss, December 30, 1930 (Holyoke ma); Charles Eastman Jr. (‘‘Ohiyesa’’), January 15, 1940 (Detroit mi); Dora Winona Eastman, August 22, 1964 (Northampton ma); Virginia (Eastman) Whitbeck, April 2, 1991 (Amherst ma); Eleanor (Eastman) Mensel, May 2, 1999 (Pittsford ny). 19. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, early 1939, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 20. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1940, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 21. This new information on Bonno Hyessa was provided by LaMaia Cramer and her mother, Maya Martindale Cramer, in a series of e-mail communications, April 1–June 15, 2003. 22. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1932, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 23. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. November 3, 1933, Dayton Collection. 154

notes to pages 113 – 118 24. Eastman, Hundred Maples, 221–22. 25. Eastman, Hundred Maples, 217. 26. Eastman, Hundred Maples, 217–18. 27. Eastman, Hundred Maples, 220. 28. Rose Goodale Dayton, handwritten journal, April 19, 1925–December 31, 1932, entry for May 14, 1930, Dayton Collection. 29. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, June 24, 1928, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 30. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1933, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 31. Charles A. Eastman, Soul of the Indian, 65–66. (Eastman here describes the secret ‘‘Grand Medicine Lodge’’ of the Sioux, noting that ‘‘its commandments were essentially the same as the Mosaic Ten.’’ He also states, ‘‘No person might become a member unless his moral standing was excellent . . . and murderers and adulterers were expelled.’’) 32. Interview with Meriel (Andrews) Moner, February 18, 2002, Amherst ma (Ms. Moner was adopted just after her birth in 1957, but her o≈cial birth certificate gives only the names of her adoptive parents; her biological parents had waived all rights – and responsibilities – with respect to her upbringing.) 33. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, January 26, 1941, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 34. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Dora Read Goodale, December 20, 1940, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers; Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1941, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 35. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, February 9, 1938, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 36. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, November 3, 1933, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 37. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, January 1939, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 38. ‘‘Weddings: Eastman-Prentiss,’’ Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton ma), September 4, 1928. 39. ‘‘Obituary: Florence Eastman Prentiss,’’ Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton ma), December 31, 1930. 40. Dora Read Goodale to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1937, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 41. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, December 12, 1937, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 42. Dora Read Goodale to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1930, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 155

notes to pages 118 – 124 43. Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘The Christening,’’ in Voice at Eve, 88. 44. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Dora Read Goodale, January 16, 1931, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 45. Eastman, Voice at Eve, 110–11.

Chapter 10. Life Goes On 1. Theodore D. Sargent and Raymond Wilson, ‘‘Elaine Goodale Eastman: Author and Indian Reformer,’’ in The Human Tradition in America between the Wars, 1920–1945, ed. Donald W. Whisenhunt (Wilmington de: Scholarly Resources, 2002), 89. 2. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. 1942, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 3. Cynthia (Whitbeck) Risk to Theodore D. Sargent, November 1, 1998. 4. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, February 26, 1936, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 5. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, November 22, 1928, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 6. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, April 2, 1930, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 7. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, June 5, 1931, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 8. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, Fall 1936, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 9. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, May 31, 1938, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 10. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, February 9, 1938, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 11. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. February 3, 1936, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 12. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, February 9, 1938, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 13. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, February 3, 1936, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 14. Wilson, Ohiyesa, 185. 15. Elaine Goodale Eastman (quoting Ohiyesa Eastman) to Rose Goodale Dayton, ca. February 3, 1937, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 16. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Henry G. Miner, January 30, 1930, Smiley Family Papers, Quaker Collection, Haverford College, Haverford pa. 156

notes to pages 125 – 128 17. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, November 3, 1933, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 18. Robert Prentiss, interview, Granby ma, July 27, 2001. 19. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, January 7, 1931, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 20. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, early 1939, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 21. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, November 3, 1933. 22. Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘Does Uncle Sam Foster Paganism?’’ Christian Century 51 (August 8, 1934): 1016–18. 23. John Collier, ‘‘A Reply to Mrs. Eastman,’’ Christian Century 51 (August 8, 1934): 1018–20. 24. Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘Uncle Sam Does an About-Face in His Dealings with Indians,’’ Boston Evening Transcript, September 9, 1933. 25. Sargent and Wilson, ‘‘Elaine Goodale Eastman: Author and Indian Reformer,’’ 100. 26. Elaine Goodale Eastman, Pratt: The Red Man’s Moses (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1935), 196–97. 27. Evelyn Yellow Robe Finkbeiner, telephone interview, May 2001. Evelyn Yellow Robe Finkbeiner is the youngest daughter of the Native American activist and educator Chief Chauncey Yellow Robe (ca. 1867–1930). 28. Jennifer Best, ‘‘Kill the Indian and Save the Man! Charles Eastman Surveys His Past,’’ Wicazo Sa Review 15.1 (Spring 2000): 9. 29. Evidence of this interest includes her hiring of Angel DeCora, the wellknown Winnebago artist, to run the crafts programs at Camp Oáhe from 1915 to 1918. Ms. DeCora died in the same flu pandemic that claimed Irene Eastman, and Elaine delivered the eulogy at her funeral on February 15, 1919. 30. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, September 24, 1932, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 31. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, September 7, 1939, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 32. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, January 6, 1928, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 33. Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘Mrs. Eastman Writes on Indecent Films,’’ letter to the editor, Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton ma), July 16, 1934. 34. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, January 24, 1928, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 35. Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘All the Days,’’ 32. 36. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, November 21, 1939, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 157

notes to pages 129 – 133 37. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, November 22, 1927, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 38. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, January 22, 1942, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 39. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, March 4, 1930, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 40. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, October 2, 1929, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 41. Robert Prentiss, interview, Granby ma, July 27, 2001. 42. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, January 2, 1931, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 43. ‘‘The Squad,’’ in The Trail, Yearbook of the College of Idaho (Caldwell id, 1925), 85. 44. Eleanor Eastman Mensel to Rose Goodale Dayton, January 1940, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 45. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, late January 1940, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 46. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, October 12, 1940, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 47. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, February 9, 1940, Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers. 48. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, 1939, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 49. Cheryl Walker, The Nightingale’s Burden: Women Poets and American Culture before 1900 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982). 50. Eastman, Hundred Maples, 285. 51. Elaine Goodale Eastman to Rose Goodale Dayton, June 5, 1931, Eastman– Goodale–Dayton Papers. 52. Charles Alexander Eastman, ‘‘Peace Pipe and War Bonnet,’’ New Bedford Sunday Standard-Times (twelve articles, February 6–April 24, 1949). The series was introduced and edited by Elaine Goodale Eastman; photocopies are included in the Elaine Eastman File, Jones Library. 53. Elaine Goodale Eastman, ‘‘Author of Articles on American Indian Was Born in Tepee, Now Is Recognized as Writer of Merit,’’ New Bedford Sunday Standard-Times, February 6, 1949. An essentially identical article, entitled ‘‘Dr. Charles A. Eastman,’’ typed, and annotated in handwriting, ‘‘Written by Elaine G. Eastman about her husband about 1950,’’ is included in the Eastman Folder, Dartmouth. 54. James D. Ewing to Ted Sargent et al., October 16, 2000 (includes ‘‘Notes on Conversation with Eleanor Eastman Mensel, Northampton ma, May 1983’’). 158

notes to page 133 55. Robert Chester Goodale to Elaine Goodale Eastman, October 9, 1947, Eastman Papers. 56. ‘‘Elaine Eastman Dies at Age 90; Was Author at 12,’’ Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton ma), December 22, 1953, Dayton Collection; death certificate, Elaine Goodale Eastman, December 22, 1953 (copy provided by Joanna P. Devine, town clerk, Hadley ma).

159

bibliography Unpublished Archives Charles A. Eastman Folder, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College, Hanover nh (Eastman Folder, Dartmouth) Charles A. Eastman Folder, Special Collections, Forbes Library, Northampton ma (Eastman Folder, Forbes Library) Charles A. Eastman Folder, Special Collections, Jones Library, Amherst ma (Charles A. Eastman Folder, Jones Library) Deborah Read Dayton Scoblick Collection, Baltimore md (Scoblick Collection) Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Family Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton ma (Eastman–Goodale–Dayton Papers) Elaine Eastman File, Special Collections, Jones Library, Amherst, Massachusetts (Elaine Eastman File, Jones Library) Elaine Goodale Eastman File, Hampton University Archives, Hampton va Elaine Goodale Eastman Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton ma (Eastman Papers) Irene Eastman Folder, Special Collections, Jones Library, Amherst ma (Irene Eastman Folder, Jones Library) James W. and Miriam M. Dayton Collection, Lodestone, Amherst, Massachusetts (Dayton Collection) Smiley Family Papers, Quaker Collection, Haverford College, Haverford pa Special Collections, Jones Library, Amherst ma (Jones Library) W. R. Brown Scrapbooks, Special Collections, Jones Library, Amherst ma (W. R. Brown Scrapbooks)

Published Works Alexander, Ruth Ann. ‘‘Building a Cultural Bridge: Elaine and Charles Eastman.’’ In South Dakota Leaders: From Pierre Chouteau, Jr., to Oscar Howe, edited by Herbert T. Hoover and Larry J. Zimmerman. Vermillion: University of South Dakota Press, 1989. ———. ‘‘Elaine Goodale Eastman and the Failure of the Feminist Protestant Ethic.’’ Great Plains Quarterly 8.2 (Spring 1988): 89–101. 161

bibliography ———. ‘‘Finding Oneself through a Cause: Elaine Goodale Eastman and Indian Reform in the 1880s.’’ South Dakota History 22.1 (Spring 1992): 1–37. Armstrong, Samuel Chapman. Education for Life. Hampton va: Press of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, 1914. Badt, Karin Luisa. Charles Eastman: Sioux Physician and Author. New York: Chelsea House, 1995. Beecher, Catharine E., and Harriet Beecher Stowe. The American Woman’s Home; or, Principles of Domestic Science; Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes. New York: J. B. Ford, 1869. Best, Jennifer. ‘‘ ‘Kill the Indian and Save the Man!’ Charles Eastman Surveys His Past.’’ Wicazo Sa Review 15.1 (Spring 2000): 7–28. Boehme, Sarah E., Christian F. Feest, and Patricia Condon Johnston. Seth Eastman: A Portfolio of North American Indians. Afton mn: Afton Historical Society Press, 1999. Child, Lydia Maria. ‘‘Education of Daughters.’’ In The American Frugal Housewife. Boston: Carter, Hendee, 1832. Clark, Carol Lea. ‘‘Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa) and Elaine Goodale Eastman: A Cross-Cultural Collaboration.’’ Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 13.2 (Fall 1994): 271–80. Collier, John. ‘‘A Reply to Mrs. Eastman.’’ The Christian Century 51 (August 8, 1934): 1016–18. Copeland, Marion W. Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa). Boise: Boise State University Western Writers Series, No. 33, 1978. ———. ‘‘Ohiyesa and Elaine: The Eastmans in New England.’’ The Country Side 1.2 (Winter 1981–82): 28–35, 62–64. ———. Only a Change of Worlds: The Marriage of Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa) and Elaine Goodale Eastman. Typescript, ca. 1985. Davis, Edward T. ‘‘Brought to Stoddard for Burial: October 25 – Irene Eastman, Died at Keene.’’ Annual Town Records for Stoddard nh, 1918. Dippie, Brian W. The Vanishing American: White Attitudes and U.S. Indian Policy. Middletown ct: Wesleyan University Press, 1982. Dockstader, Frederick. Great North American Indians: Profiles in Life and Leadership. New York: Van Nostrand, 1977. ‘‘Dr. Herbert B. Fowler.’’ O≈cial Newsletter of the Association of American Indian Physicians 4.1 (July 1977). Eastman, Charles A. (Ohiyesa). From the Deep Woods to Civilization: Chapters in the Autobiography of an Indian. Boston: Little, Brown, 1916. 162

bibliography ———. ‘‘A Half-Forgotten Lincoln Story.’’ Rotarian 76 (February 1950). ———. Indian Boyhood. New York: McClure, 1902. ———. Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains. Boston: Little, Brown, 1918. ———. Indian Scout Talks: A Guide for Boy Scouts and Campfire Girls. Boston: Little, Brown, 1914. ———. The Indian Today: The Past and Future of the First American. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1915. ———. Old Indian Days. New York: McClure, 1907. ———. ‘‘Recollections of the Wild Life.’’ St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks 21 (December 1893–May 1894). ———. Red Hunters and the Animal People. New York: Harper, 1904. ———. Smoky Day’s Wigwam Evenings: Indian Stories Retold. Boston: Little, Brown, 1910. ———. The Soul of the Indian: An Interpretation. Boston: Houghton Mi∆in, 1911. Eastman, Charles A. (Ohiyesa), and Elaine Goodale Eastman. Wigwam Evenings: Sioux Folk Tales Retold. Boston: Little, Brown, 1909. Eastman, Elaine Goodale. ‘‘All the Days of My Life.’’ In The Voice at Eve. Chicago: Bookfellows, 1930. ———. ‘‘Does Uncle Sam Foster Paganism?’’ Christian Century 51 (August 8, 1934): 1016–18. ———. ‘‘The Ghost Dance War and Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890–91.’’ Nebraska History 26 (January 1945): 28–30. ———. ‘‘The Hand-Made House.’’ Country Life in America (October 15, 1912): 33-36. ———. Hundred Maples. Brattleboro vt: Stephen Daye, 1935. ———. Indian Legends Retold. Boston: Little, Brown, 1919. ———. Little Brother O’ Dreams. Boston: Houghton Mi∆in, 1910. ———. The Luck of Oldacres. New York: Century, 1928. ———. ‘‘Mrs. Eastman Writes on Indecent Films.’’ Letter to the editor. Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton ma), July 16, 1934. ———. Pratt: The Red Man’s Moses. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1935. ———. Sister to the Sioux: The Memoirs of Elaine Goodale Eastman 1885–1891. Edited by Kay Graber. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978. ———. ‘‘Uncle Sam Does an About-Face in His Dealings with Indians.’’ Boston Evening Transcript, September 9, 1933. ———. The Voice at Eve. Chicago: Bookfellows, 1930. ———. ‘‘A Wife’s Tokens.’’ Midland Monthly (April 1897). ———. Yellow Star: A Story of East and West. Boston: Houghton Mi∆in, 1911. ‘‘Elaine Eastman Dies at Age 90; Was Author at 12.’’ Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton ma), December 22, 1953. 163

bibliography Ellinghaus, Katherine. ‘‘Reading the Personal as Political: The Assimilationist Views of a White Woman Married to a Native American Man, 1890s–1940s.’’ Typescript, 1999. Dayton Collection. Eshman, Rob. ‘‘Stranger in the Land.’’ Dartmouth Alumni Magazine 73.5 (January/February 1981): 20–23. Flood, Renée Sansom. Lost Bird of Wounded Knee: Spirit of the Lakota. New York: Scribner, 1995. Forbes, Bruce David. Introduction to the reprint edition of Blue Star: The Story of Corabelle Fellows, Teacher at Dakota Missions 1884–1888, by Kunigunde Duncan. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1990. First published 1938. Goodale, Elaine. The Coming of the Birds. Boston: Estes and Lauriat, ca. 1880. ———. ‘‘How to Americanize the Indian.’’ The New Englander and Yale Review 52 (May 1890): 452–55. ———. Journal of a Farmer’s Daughter. New York: Putnam, 1881. ———. ‘‘When Did We Meet,’’ ‘‘In a Crowd,’’ and ‘‘Nothing to Give.’’ Published as ‘‘Moods, by Miss Elaine Goodale.’’ Independent. 1894. ———, and Dora Read Goodale. All Round the Year: Verses from Sky Farm. New York: Putnam, 1881. ———. Apple-Blossoms: The Verses of Two Children. New York: Putnam, 1878. ———. In Berkshire with the Wild Flowers. New York: Putnam, 1879. Garland, Hamlin. My Friendly Contemporaries: A Literary Log. New York: MacMillan, 1932. Graves, James. ‘‘Ohiyesa (Med 1890).’’ Bostonia: The Alumni Quarterly of Boston University (Spring 1993): 50–54. Green, Jerry, ed. After Wounded Knee: Correspondence of Major and Surgeon John Vance Lauderdale while Serving with the Army Occupying the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, 1890–1891. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1996. Han, Susie. ‘‘Education of Native Americans: Hampton Institute 1878–1923.’’ www.duke.edu/sah4/susie.html. Heflin, Ruth. I Remain Alive: The Sioux Literary Renaissance. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000. Indian Helper, A Weekly Letter from the Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, Pa. 14.44 (August 25, 1899). Je√eris, R. G., and J. L. Nichols. Safe Counsel; or, Practical Eugenics. Naperville il: Nichols, 1893. Jensen, Richard E., R. Eli Paul, and John E. Carter. Eyewitness at Wounded Knee. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991. 164

bibliography Johnson, W. Fletcher. Life of Sitting Bull and History of the Indian War of 1890–91. New York: Edgewood, 1891. Karttunen, Frances. ‘‘From Deep Woods to Dartmouth: Charles Eastman (1858-1939).’’ In Between Worlds: Interpreters, Guides, and Survivors. New Brunswick nj: Rutgers University Press, 1994. Kelly, Lawrence C. The Assault on Assimilation: John Collier and the Origins of Indian Policy Reform. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983. Kincaid, Jean. ‘‘Greeted by Friends: Dr. Eastman and his Wife Given a Reception.’’ Boston Daily Globe, June 26, 1891. Know Thyself; or, Nature’s Secrets Revealed. Marietta oh: Mullikin, 1912. Leversee, Marcia. The Wilson Homestead: Stoddard, New Hampshire 1797–1997. Keene nh: Sentinel Print Shop, 1997. Lorbiecki, Marybeth, and Paula Schanilec. ‘‘Dakota Footprints on a New Trail: Dr. Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa).’’ Typescript, 2000. Marks, Paula Mitchell. In A Barren Land: American Indian Dispossession and Survival. New York: William Morrow, 1998. McKearin, Helen, and Kenneth M. Wilson. American Bottles and Flasks and Their Ancestry. New York: Crown, 1978. McLaughlin, James. My Friend the Indian. Boston: Houghton Mi∆in, 1910. Mensel, Ernst Jerome. ‘‘John, Charles and Elaine Goodale Eastman: Their Story – A Contribution to the American Indian.’’ ba thesis, Dartmouth College, Hanover nh, 1954. Miller, David Humphries. Ghost Dance. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1959. Miller, David Reed. ‘‘Charles Alexander Eastman: One Man’s Journey in Two Worlds.’’ Master’s thesis, University of North Dakota, 1976. ———. ‘‘Charles Alexander Eastman, The ‘Winner’: From Deep Woods to Civilization.’’ In American Indian Intellectuals. Edited by Margot Liberty. St. Paul mn: West Publishing, 1978. Mooney, James. The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965. Morgan, Thomas J. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian A√airs. 1891. ‘‘Not ‘A Case of Plagiarism’.’’ Scribner’s Literary Notes, March 1879. ‘‘Obituary: Florence Eastman Prentiss.’’ Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton ma), December 31, 1930. Oehler, C. M. The Great Sioux Uprising. London: Oxford University Press, 1959. Paperback edition, New York: Da Capo, 1997. Oldstone, Michael B. A. ‘‘Influenza Virus, The Plague that May Return.’’ In Viruses, Plagues, and History. London: Oxford University Press, 1998. 165

bibliography Peabody, Francis Greenwood. Introduction to Education for Life, by Samuel Chapman Armstrong. Hampton va: Press of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, 1914. Poole, Hester M. ‘‘A Sky Parlor or a Bachelor’s Den.’’ Decorator and Furnisher. August 1895. Dayton Collection. Proceedings of the Annual Meetings of the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian. 1860–1916. 13th session. Prucha, Francis Paul. American Indian Policy in Crisis: Christian Reformers and the Indian, 1865–1900. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976. Robinson, William Hannibal. ‘‘The History of Hampton Institute: 1868–1949.’’ PhD diss., New York University, 1953. Ruo√, A. LaVonne Brown. Introduction to Old Indian Days, by Charles A. Eastman. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991. First published New York: McClure, 1907. Sargent, Theodore D., and Raymond Wilson. ‘‘Elaine Goodale Eastman: Author and Indian Reformer.’’ In The Human Tradition in America between the Wars, 1920–1945. Edited by Donald W. Whisenhunt. Wilmington de: Scholarly Resources, 2002. Schultz, Duane P. Over the Earth I Come: The Great Sioux Uprising of 1862. New York: St. Martin’s, 1992. Sewall, Richard B. The Life of Emily Dickinson. 2 Vols. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974. Sommers, Katharine Dorr. ‘‘Remembering Camp Oahe.’’ Grapevine-2: News for Nelson and Munsonville 13.3 (August 1996). ‘‘Soviets Honor Portland Psychiatrist with Lenin Prize in Science.’’ Portland Oregonian, November 5, 1976. Talbot, Edith Armstrong. Samuel Chapman Armstrong: A Biographical Study. New York: Doubleday, 1904. Trivers, Robert. Social Evolution. Menlo Park ca: Benjamin/Cummings, 1985. Utley, Robert M. The Last Days of the Sioux Nation. New Haven ct: Yale University Press, 1963. Vestal, Stanley. Sitting Bull, Champion of the Sioux: A Biography. Boston: Houghton Mi∆in, 1932. Reprint, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957. Walker, Cheryl. The Nightingale’s Burden: Women Poets and American Culture before 1900. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. ‘‘Weddings: Eastman–Prentiss.’’ Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton ma), September 4, 1928. Welsh, Herbert. Civilization among the Sioux Indians: Report of a Visit to Some of the Sioux Reservations of South Dakota and Nebraska. Philadelphia: Indian Rights Association, 1893. 166

bibliography Wilson, James. The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America. London and New York: Macmillan, 1998. Paperback edition, New York: Grove, 1999. Wilson, Raymond. Ohiyesa: Charles Eastman, Santee Sioux. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983. Wong, Hertha Dawn. Introduction to ‘‘Native American Identities and Autobiography,’’ a special issue of Auto/Biography Studies 7.2 (Fall 1992).

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index Adkins, John D. C. (commissioner of Indian A√airs), appoints Elaine to White River Camp, 29 Allen, Baxter, and friendship with Ohiyesa II, 79, 83, 104 Allen, Stephen, 79, 148n32 Armstrong, Gen. Samuel Chapman: on assimilation, 27; at Hampton, 27, 28; impresses Elaine, 20–22; at Sky Farm, 17–20 assimilation: Elaine’s frankness about, 126; and views held by Armstrong, Pratt, and Elaine, 27 Bascom, Florence, 139n6; as character in Hundred Maples, 113; and travels with Elaine, 27 Beloit College (Beloit wi), Charles attends, 44 Big Foot, Chief: arrested by Seventh Cavalry, 37; death at Wounded Knee, 37; meets Elaine, 35 birth control, Elaine’s views on, 115, 127, 128 Bonno Hyessa. See Hyessa, Bonno Boston University School of Medicine, Charles as student at, xi, 45 Brennan, Helen (sister-in-law), 73 Brooke, Gen. John R. (Pine Ridge commander), 36 Brown, Capt. George Le Roy (Indian agent at Pine Ridge), 53–56 Brown, W. R., on Charles’s travels, 77–78 Burroughs, John, comment on Elaine, 26 Camp Oáhe, 100–102; Irene’s prominence at, 102; Irene’s burial at, 104; other campers’ recollections of, 101–2; site of Virginia Eastman’s wedding, 121 Chamberlain, Harry D. (Indian agent at

Crow Creek), 67; levels charges against Charles, 68–69, 107 Churchill, Frank C. (inspector at Crow Creek), 68–69 Child’s Monthly Gem (early Sky Farm journal), 5 Cisney, James H. (Indian inspector), reports on Pine Ridge controversy, 54 Collier, John (commissioner of Indian A√airs), on assimilation, 126 Cook, Rev. Charles: death of, 39; Elaine’s compassion for, 39; at Wounded Knee, 38 Cooper, James A. (special agent at Pine Ridge), 53 Copeland, Marion ‘‘Ronnie,’’ 61, 145n41 Cowper, James Denis (husband of Bonno Hyessa), 111–12 Cramer, LaMaia (granddaughter of Bonno Hyessa), 111–12 Cramer, Maya Martindale (daughter of Bonno Hyessa), 111–12 Cutler, Mrs. C. B., 63 Dartmouth College (Hanover nh): Charles at, xi, 45 Dayton, James W. ‘‘Jim’’ (nephew): comments on Charles, 78; comments on Eastman children, 78–79; comments on Elaine, 79–80, 81–82; letters from Amherst by, 77, 78–80 Dayton, Miriam, x–xi, xiv, 154n15 Dayton, Redington (brother-in-law): courtship of and marriage to Rose, 22; at Elaine’s wedding, 49; and letter about Irene’s death, 104–5 Dayton, Rose Sterling Goodale (sister): attends Smith College, 22; birth of, 3; and Eastmans at Lodestone, 81; and

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index Dayton, Rose Goodale (continued) Elaine’s wedding, 46–49; marries Redington Dayton, 22; and Charles, 47–48, 51; poem to father by, 16 Dayton, Theodore ‘‘Theo’’ (nephew): at Camp Oáhe, 101; at Florence’s wedding, 117; letters to mother from, 82, 98 DeCora, Angel. See Dietz, Angel DeCora Dietz, Angel DeCora (instructor at Camp Oáhe), 101, 157n29 Dodge, Mary Mapes: at Elaine’s wedding, 50; publishes Goodale poems, 6

(Ohiyesa II) (son): in Amherst, 78–79; birth of, 64; at Camp Oáhe, 100; at Carlisle Indian School, 65; at College of Idaho, 130; death of, 130, 154n18; family’s reaction to marriage, 130; joins U.S. Navy, 83, 104; at Kimball Union Academy, 103; lives with father, 123; marriage of, 130; moves to Detroit, 130; visits family in Northampton, 130 Eastman, Dora Winona (daughter): in Amherst, 78; birth of, 56; at Camp Oáhe, 100; at Carlisle Indian School, 65; death of, 154n18; Elaine’s disapproval of, 127; at father’s funeral, 130; at Mount Holyoke College, 83, 103; in Northampton, 122; in St. Paul, 58; teaches at Genoa Indian School, 103 Eastman, Elaine Goodale: in Amherst, 69, 71, 72–73; battles with John Collier, 126; birth of, 1; and births of children, 56, 59, 64, 71, 80; and Bonno Hyessa, 110–12; cares for Wounded Knee survivors, 38; at Camp Oáhe, 100, 102; at Carlisle Indian School, 65–66; and Charles’s death, 117, 130; contribution to Charles’s writing by, 86–87, 89–91, 131–32, 158n52; and controversy at Pine Ridge, 54–56; criticizes Charles, 84–85, 95, 96, 111, 113–14, 116–17, 122–23; criticizes Indian grandmothers, 61; criticizes motion pictures, 127; at Crow Creek, 69–71; death of, 133, 159n56; and deaths of children, 102–3, 104–5, 129, 130; and deaths of father and mother, 75–77; engagement and wedding, 39, 41, 48–50; first trip to Sioux agencies by, 27–28; as a grandmother, 129–30; home schooling of, 5, 7, 127; learns Sioux language, 29; at Lodestone, 81–83; meets Sitting Bull, 34; at Mohonk Conference (1886), 28; at Mohonk Conference (1895), 60, 61; in Northampton, 122, 128–29; opinion of white settlers, 32; reports on Wounded Knee, 39; separation from Charles, 66, 102; as supervisor of education, 33; teaches at Hampton Institute, 26; teaches at White River Camp, 29–30; travels on the Great Sioux Reservation, 30–32; views on sex and

Eastman, Charles Alexander (Ohiyesa): at Amherst, 69, 83–86; birth and childhood of, 41–43; at Camp Oáhe, 101–2; at Carlisle Indian School, 65; charged with moral o√enses, 68–69; at Crow Creek, 67–69; death of, 117, 130; directs Boy Scout camp, 99; education of, 44–45; engagement and marriage to Elaine, 39, 43, 49–50; and Elaine’s contribution to his writing, 86–87, 89–91, 127; initial writing e√orts of, 58; and Irene’s death, 104; at Lake Ontario cabin, 123; on the lecture circuit, 86, 97; as legal agent in Washington dc, 63–65; letter to Rose from, 47–48; and end of marriage, 106; in the Midwest, 121; o√ers dog to Great Mystery, 43; with Ohi in Detroit, 123; paternity suit against, 109, 110–12; at Pine Ridge, 53–56; in private practice in St. Paul, 56; and ‘‘quack’’ medicines, 58; recollections of Wounded Knee Massacre, 38; and renaming of Sioux, 69; reunites with father, 43–44; takes name Ohiyesa (The Winner), 42; thoughts on Christianity, 60; at Virginia’s wedding, 121; and ymca, 59–61 —Works: From the Deep Woods to Civilization, 55, 56, 60, 65, 88, 91–92; Indian Boyhood, 58, 88; Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, 88; Indian Scout Talks, 88, 99; The Indian Today, 88; Old Indian Days, 88; Red Hunters and the Animal People, 88, 89; Smoky Day’s Wigwam Evenings, 88; The Soul of the Indian, 60, 88, 90–91 Eastman, Charles Alexander ‘‘Ohi,’’ II

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index birth control, 126–27; in Washington dc, 63; witnesses Ghost Dance, 35–36 —Works: All Round the Year, 10; ‘‘All the Days of My Life,’’ 128; Apple-Blossoms, ix, 8–9; Hundred Maples, 93, 112–14, 131; In Berkshire with the Wild Flowers, 10; Indian Legends Retold, 93; Journal of a Farmer’s Daughter, 11, 13; Little Brother O’Dreams, 93–94; The Luck of Oldacres, 93, 102–3, 125; Pratt the Red Man’s Moses, 93, 125; The Voice at Eve, 93, 125; Yellow Star, 93 —Poems: ‘‘Ashes of Roses,’’ viii, 6; ‘‘The Chestnut Flower,’’ 20; ‘‘The Christening,’’ 121; ‘‘Grandma’s Room,’’ 20; ‘‘In a Crowd,’’ 20; ‘‘Mother and Son,’’ 64; ‘‘Nature’s Coinage,’’ 9; ‘‘The Old Cellar Hole,’’ 132; ‘‘On the Banks of the Missouri,’’ 31; ‘‘Thanksgiving,’’ 66; ‘‘Thistles and Roses,’’ 9; ‘‘Three Ages of Love,’’ 41, 106, 116; ‘‘The Ultimate Moment,’’ 57; ‘‘A Vision of Judgment,’’ 119–20; ‘‘When Did We Meet?’’ 20; ‘‘A Wife’s Tokens,’’ 62 Eastman, Eleanor (daughter): in Amherst, 79, 83, 121; birth of, 71; at Camp Oáhe, 100; death of, 154n18; at Kimball Union Academy, 103; letter to Aunt Rose from, 130; in Northampton, 122, 129 Eastman, Ellen (Blake), mentioned, 108 Eastman, Florence Bascom. See Prentiss, Florence Bascom Eastman (daughter) Eastman, Frederick, mentioned, 108 Eastman, Irene Taluta (daughter): in Amherst, 78; birth of, 59; camping experiences of, 99; and Camp Oáhe, 100, 102; at Carlisle Indian School, 65; as concert singer, 83, 97–98, 103; death of, 103, 104, 154n18; enthusiasm of, 98–99; as Lorna in The Luck of Oldacres, 102–3; recalled by Elaine, 98 Eastman, Jacob (Ite Wakanhdi Ota, Many Lightnings) (father-in-law): and education for son, 44; family history of, 41–42; in Great Sioux uprising, 42; pardoned by Lincoln, 43; reunited with son, 43 Eastman, Mary He√eran. See Fowler, Mary He√eran Eastman (mother of Herbert) Eastman, Rev. John, 45, 51, 63

Eastman, Mary Nancy (Wakantankanwin, Great Mystery Woman) (Charles’s mother), 42 Eastman, Seth (Charles’s grandfather), 42 Eastman, Virginia (daughter): in Amherst, 78; birth of, 64; at Camp Oáhe, 100; as a child at Carlisle, 65; death of, 154n18; in Northampton, 122, 129; wedding of, 121; at Wellesley College, 83, 103; working in Washington dc, 104 Edwards, J. E. (Indian inspector), at Crow Creek, 68 Ewing, James ‘‘Jim’’: current owner of Camp Oáhe headquarters, 101; and Eleanor Eastman Mensel, 133, 158n54 feminist: Elaine as, xiv; Elaine’s mother as, 13 Finkbeiner, Evelyn Yellow Robe, 157n27 Flandreau day school, 44 flu pandemic of 1918: characteristics of, 103; Eastman family’s precautions against, 103; Irene’s death in, 103 Forsyth, Col. George A. (regimental commander at Wounded Knee), 37 Fowler, Herbert B., 108–9, 153n4 Fowler, Mary He√eran Eastman (mother of Herbert), 108 Garland, Hamlin, 97 Ghost Dance: Elaine witnesses, 35–36; performance of, 34; as threat, 36 Goodale, Chester (paternal grandfather), 1–2 Goodale, Dora Hill Read (mother): death of, 75; and Elaine’s marriage, 46, 49; home-schooling her daughters, 5, 7; marriage to and separation from Henry, 2, 15; opposes Robert’s marriage, 73–74; opposes Rose’s marriage, 22, 76; recalled by Elaine, 75–77; sends mixed messages to Elaine, 13–14, 25, 76–77; unhappiness at Sky Farm, 5, 11–13 Goodale, Dora Read (sister): birth and childhood of, 3; attends Smith College, 22; cares for mother, 75–76; criticizes Elaine’s letters, 118; death of, 133; describes Amherst fire, 23–24; at Elaine’s

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index Indian Rights Association, 22; Elaine resigns from, 56; sponsors Elaine’s talks, 33

Goodale, Dora Read (continued) wedding, 49; engagement of, 22; moves to Tennessee, 24; observations on family, 74; poems in Apple-Blossoms, 8, 9; poems in All Round the Year, 10, 11; su√ers depression, 23, 138n42 —Poems: ‘‘A Berrying,’’ 11; ‘‘In the Loft,’’ 9; ‘‘Jewelled Morn,’’ 1 Goodale, Elaine. See Eastman, Elaine Goodale Goodale, George (uncle), 46–47 Goodale, Helen Brennan. See Brennan, Helen (sister-in-law) Goodale, Henry Sterling (father): birth of, 1; courtship of, 2–3; death of, 75; and Elaine’s wedding, 48–50; and generosity to Elaine in Amherst, 72; letter to Caroline Goodale by, 2; at Lodestone, 74; marital problems of, 5, 11; poem to Elaine from, 5; purchases Amherst cottage, 23; recalled by Elaine, 75; and Sky Farm, 1–2, 15; at Windermere Hotel (New York), 15–16, 49 Goodale, Margaret (niece), 74 Goodale, Robert Chester (brother): in Amherst, 23; birth of, 3; birth of daughter, Margaret, 74; builds Lodestone, 24; and late letter to Elaine, 133; and marriage to Helen Brennan, 74; in Northampton, 22; in Redding, 22; in Washington dc, 104 Goodale, Rose Sterling. See Dayton, Rose Sterling Goodale Great Sioux Uprising (1862), and Charles’s flight to Canada, 42

Jones, William A. (Indian commissioner), at Crow Creek, 68 Kimball Union Academy, Eastmans at, 45, 103 King, Dr. Cora Smith, meets with Bonno Hyessa, 110–11 Knox College (Galesburg il), 44–45 Lauderdale, John Vance, 48 Leversee, Marcia, writes about Camp Oáhe, 100, 152n21 Lodestone: construction of, 24, 73; described by James and Theo Dayton, 82; Eastmans move into, 81–82; Henry Goodale at, 73–74; o√ered to Elaine by Rose, 81; recalled by Elaine, 83; Robert Goodale and family at, 74 Lorbiecki, Marybeth, provides unpublished manuscript, 99, 152n20 Many Lightnings (Ite Wakanhdi Ota). See Eastman, Jacob (Ite Wakanhdi Ota, Many Lightnings) (father-in-law) Mensel, Eleanor (Eastman). See Eastman, Eleanor (daughter) Miles, Gen. Nelson A., 36 Miller, Benjamin H. (Indian investigator at Pine Ridge), 54 Miller, David, describes ‘‘camp counselor’’ incident, 109 Moner, Meriel Andrews, 155n32 Morgan, Thomas J. (commissioner of Indian A√airs): appoints Elaine as supervisor of education, 33; appoints Charles as physician at Pine Ridge, 46, 140n24; and controversy at Pine Ridge, 54; reprimands Elaine, 34 Mysterious Medicine (Charles’s uncle), 42, 59

Hakadah (Pitiful Last, Ohiyesa’s first name), 42 He√eran, Mary, 108–9 ‘‘Henrietta’’ (Bonno Hyessa’s mother), 110– 11 Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, letter to Henry Sterling Goodale, 6–7 Hill of Vision. See Camp Oáhe Hotchkiss guns, 37 Hultman, Augusta S., 68 Hyessa, Bonno, 111–12

Oáhe. See Camp Oáhe Ober, Charles K.: denies rumor, 62; o√ers ymca position, 59 Ohi. See Eastman, Charles Alexander ‘‘Ohi,’’ II (Ohiyesa II) (son)

172

index Ohiyesa. See Eastman, Charles Alexander (Ohiyesa)

Sanford, Thomas (fiancé of Dora Read Goodale), 22 Santee Normal Training School, 44 School of the Woods. See Camp Oáhe Sitting Bull: death of, 35; shares meal with Elaine, 34 Sky Farm: described, 1, 3; Elaine leaves, 21; Elaine visits site of, 132; home life at, 3–6 Sommers, Katherine Dorr, recollections of Camp Oáhe, 102, 152n27 Spanish flu. See flu pandemic of 1918

Pine Ridge Reservation: Charles appointed physician at, 46; Eastman controversies at, 53–56; Eastman engagement announced at, 39; Elaine visits, 35; Wounded Knee survivors at, 38 Pratt, Richard Henry: on assimilation, 27; Elaine’s biography of, 125; and Pratt Commission, 30, 140n13 Prentiss, Florence Bascom Eastman (daughter): birth of, 80; at Camp Oáhe, 100; childhood days in Amherst, 79; death of, 129, 154n18; relationship with mother, 125; wedding of, 117 Prentiss, Robert (nephew): recalls Elaine, 129

Tileston, Laura: missionary at White River Camp, 29; returns east, 31 Twain, Mark: in Redding ct, 22; 70th birthday celebration of, 95, 151n4 Uncheedah (Charles’s grandmother): and Charles, 42, 43, 59, 142n6; criticized by Elaine, 61–62; disagrees with Mysterious Medicine, 44

Read, Eleanor Lyon (maternal grandmother): journal entries of, 4–5; at Sky Farm, 2–3 Read, Ella ‘‘Auntie Ella’’ (maternal aunt): reaction to Elaine’s engagement, 46–47; in Redding, 22; as traveling companion, 31 Remmers, Mrs. Walter (Miriam), recalls Camp Oáhe, 101 Ripley, Elizabeth ‘‘Betty,’’ 136n40 Riggs, Rev. Alfred A: assists Charles, 44, 45; as superintendent at Santee Normal School, 44 Risk, Cynthia (granddaughter), recalls Elaine in Northampton, 122 royalties, conflict between Charles and Elaine over, 90, 122–23 Royer, Danial P. (Indian agent at Pine Ridge), 36

Walker, Cheryl, on Elaine’s poems, 66, 131 Welsh, Herbert: and Pine Ridge controversy, 54, 55–56; travels with Elaine, 27 Whirling Hawk: death of, 32; travels with Elaine, 31 Whitbeck, Sterling (husband of Virginia Eastman), 121 Whitbeck, Virginia Eastman. See Eastman, Virginia (daughter) Wilson, Mr. and Mrs. Harry (farmer in Munsonville nh): on paternity suit, 109; rents land and building for Camp Oáhe, 100 Wilson, Raymond, interviews Herbert Fowler, 108–9 Wood, Frank: assists in Charles’s education, 45, 46; and controversy at Pine Ridge, 54; hosts wedding reception, 48, 50; meets Charles, 45

St. Nicholas magazine: Charles’s stories in, 58; Goodale sisters’ poems in, 6

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In the Women in the West series When Montana and I Were Young: A Frontier Childhood By Margaret Bell Edited by Mary Clearman Blew Martha Maxwell, Rocky Mountain Naturalist By Maxine Benson Front-Page Women Journalists, 1920–1950 By Kathleen A. Cairns The Art of the Woman: The Life and Work of Elisabet Ney By Emily Fourmy Cutrer Emily: The Diary of a Hard-Worked Woman By Emily French Edited by Janet Lecompte The Important Things of Life: Women, Work, and Family in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, 1880–1929 By Dee Garceau The Adventures of the Woman Homesteader: The Life and Letters of Elinore Pruitt Stewart By Susanne K. George Flowers in the Snow: The Life of Isobel Wylie Hutchison, 1889–1982 By Gwyneth Hoyle Engendered Encounters: Feminism and Pueblo Cultures, 1879–1934 By Margaret D. Jacobs The Colonel’s Lady on the Western Frontier: The Correspondence of Alice Kirk Grierson Edited by Shirley A. Leckie A Stranger in Her Native Land: Alice Fletcher and the American Indians By Joan Mark So Much to Be Done: Women Settlers on the Mining and Ranching Frontier, second edition Edited by Ruth B. Moynihan, Susan Armitage, and Christiane Fischer Dichamp

Women and Nature: Saving the ‘‘Wild’’ West By Glenda Riley The Life of Elaine Goodale Eastman Theodore D. Sargent Moving Out: A Nebraska Woman’s Life By Polly Spence Edited by Karl Spence Richardson