Native American Biography: Aaron Yazzie

Aaron Yazzie is Native American Diné (Navajo) engineer who works for NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.   He graduated from Stanford in 2008 and has worked for NASA since.  He works specifically with recovery systems with Mars landing.  The goal is to recover rocks and materials from Mars.  He says that the surface of Mars is very similar to his native Arizona and Navajo lands.  

Yazzie also works with youth groups, recruiting them for STEM studies, particularly Native Americans.  He is involved in American Indian Science and Engineering Society.  He was president of the Stanford chapter.

Excerpts from Notable Native Americans by Adrienne Keene.

Native American Biography: Mabel Pike, Bead and Moccasin Maker

Mabel Pike is from Alaska, Tlingit and a sewer of beads and moccasins.  Her moccasins are warm ones, with fur on the inside, and decorated with beadwork.  Her grandmother taught her to bead at age six.  she was a Native American master artist.  She taught at the University of Alaska Anchorage and also at the Anchorage Museum.  She would also travel to Stanford University in California where she would serve as an artist in residence where she would guide hundreds of students in the process of making moccasins.  She also taught in local high schools.  She would help keep her language and native customs alive.  She was a board member of the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage.  She was active until she passed away in 2012 at the age of 92.

Information taken from Notable Native People by Adrienne Keene.

Native American Biography: Tommy Orange, Author

 Tommy Orange is a Native American Author.  He has published two books about the Urban Native American, "There There in 2018 and "Wandering Stars" in 2024.  His first book won The American Book Award.  He also writes numerous short stories and teaches writing at The Institute of American Indian Arts.  He maintains a residence in Angel's Camp, California.  His father was a Native American ceremony leader.  Tommy has ties to the Cheyenne and Arapahoe communities in Oklahoma where he would visit often as a youth.  

Book Review: Bellevue, Images of America

 Bellevue Images of America by Ben Justman of the Sarpy County Museum, Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, South Carolina, 2011.

This book is written in an interesting format.  Each chapter takes about one page to introduce a theme--early history, naming of Bellevue, early history, transportation, work, lay education, aerospace and later boom growth.  In then presents pictures with descriptions to support each are of study.

Of interest in this book was the growth the military base offerred to Bellevue.  At one point the city almost died for lack of residents until the Offutt base turned that around.

Book Review: The ABCs of Omaha

 The ABCs of Omaha by Ashlee Coffey, illustrated by Matt Haney, Omaha World Herald, Omaha, NE, 2019.

This is a children's book which I checked out to see if it would give me any ideas of where to visit in Omaha.  Just about everything I had already discovered from other resources.  It did mention the Keystone Trail which basically follows Papillion Creek from the Culver's trailhead which I visited, to Omaha.  The book also mentions the yellow goldenrod flower which I will now be on the look out for.  Some of the otherthings mentioned in this book include: College World Series, Joselyn Art Museum, Durham Museum, Boys Town and the river front.

As far as the book goes it seems the author was sgtruggling to make rhymes because some are not very good.

Historical Atlanta, Illinois: Along Route 66

 In addition to large statues and trail of Lincoln, Atlanta has other history in the schools and the old buildings.

Mormon Trail As per Grand Island Westbound Rest Area

The Grand Island rest area is close to Mormon Island.  This is a place where the Plate River flows in several different streams creating "islands" between the streams.

THE MORMON TRAIL
From 1847 to the 1860s, the Mormon migration along the Great Platte River Roas marked a distinctive chapter in the history of westward expansion.  In contrast to the random migrations of individual families or companies that charactgerized much of the activity to California or Oregon, the Mormon migration was the organized movement of an entire people in a new place of refuge in the mountains of the far west.

Searching to escape religious persecution that had followed them in the east, the pioneer Mormon company traveled the Great Platte River Road in the spring and summer of 1847.  The group purposefully stayed on the north side of the Platte instead of using the more heavily traveled Oregon Trail on the south side.

On July 24, 1847, Brigham Young's pioneer party founded Salt Lake City, a magnet that drew an estimated 60,000 Latter-day Saints to Utah along the Platte River Road for the next 20 years.

Pictures depict handcart pioneers, Brigham Young, statue at Winter Quarters in Omaha, and pioneers and the map of the Mormon Trail and a skull found that describes the trail as per Brigham Young.

 

Chimney Rock, Landmark Along the California, Mormon and Oregon Trails

 Followed the Mormon Trail in western Nebraska when we went t Salk Lake this last weekend.  

Springfield, Illlinois: Old Capital Building and Lincoln Law Office

 The current State Capital in Illinois is not the original.  The old State capital served from 1840-1876.

The law office where Abraham Lincoln worked was across the street.

Route 66 Rest Area Stop Bloomington, Illinois

  Rest area including a couple Route 66 displays and history marker

Bloomington-Normal Illinois
The first settlement in this area in 1822 was called Keg.  By the time a post office was established in 1828 the settlement was known as Blooming Grove.  McLean county was organized the following year and Bloomington, which was laid out in 1831 just north of Bloomington Grove on 22 acres of land donated by James Allin, was selected as county seat.  It was incorporated as a town in 1843, and a city in 1850.  In 1853 Illinois Wesleyan University was chartered here and in 1857 Normal University , first state-supported school of higher education in Illinois, was established in North Bloomington which soon changed is name to Normal.  The state Republican party was formally organized in Bloomington in 1856 at a convention called to protest the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which made possible the westward extension of slaver.  It was at this convention that Abraham Lincoln delivered his "lost speech" so called because no record of it was kept.  Several of Lincoln's close associates were local residents, including Jesse Fell, credited with the founding of Normal, Leonard Swett, lawyer and campaigner for Lincoln, and David Davis, appointed to the United States Supreme Court by Lincoln (1862-1877), and later United States senator.  Other distinguished residents include governors John M. Hamilton and Joseph Fifer; Adlai Stevenson I, vice president under Cleveland and Adlai Stevenson II, governor, twice presidential candidate, and United Nations Ambassador.

Finding Lincoln in Atlanta, Illinois

 There is a finding Lincoln plaque in Atlanta, Illinois

Who Is In the Statues Outside of the Illinois State Capital

 

President Abraham Lincoln

John M Palmer !5th governor of Illinois, Civil War general and presidential candidate. 1817-1900

Richard Yates Sr. 13th governor of Illinois, congressman and senator.  Governor during Civil War, 1815-1873

Everett Dirksen U.S. representive 12 years and senator 18 years. Senate minority leader 1859-1869.  Instrumental in pssage of Civil Rights Acts 1964 and 1968.  1898-1969.

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King

Native American Biography: Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel

 Jordan Marie is a runner, fourth generation Native American runner.  She is Lakota Sioux and was born in Brule, South Dakota.  AS a child her family moved to Maine.  She took up running in honor too her ancestors, and was introduced by her grandfather.  

She uses her running as a platform for advocacy.  In the Boston Marathon of 2019 she brought attention to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW).  aShe did this by painting a hand over her mouth which is the symbol of this organization.

I have taken information from Notable Native People by Adrienne Keene and Wikipedia and her own website.

Native American Biography: Sergie Sovoroff: Maker of Iqyax Models

 Sergie Sovoroff was Aleaut from Umnak Island, Nikolski Village.  His people used Iqyax (Aleut kayak) to hunt sea otters.  However when he was nine, sea otter hunting was made illegal by the U.S. government.  He turned to making models of the Iqqyax to keep knowledge of them alive.  He would often make three person kayaks with a Russian Orthodox Priest in the middle seat.

As an adult, during WWII, the Aleuts were evacuated to southern Alaska.  This was for fear the Japanese would attack.  They lived in unsanitary conditions and many died from the forced removal, lack of medical care and unsanitary conditions.  They all were removed without opportunity to bring more than a suitcase of items.  The lived in these squalid conditions for three years.  All were scared physically and emotionally.  When they returned home items had been looted and vandalized.  Some communities were abandoned forever.  Sovoroff ws able to return home, but his coal stove was missing.

Sovoroff taught youth about the Aleut ways, how to gather food and be able to livee without starving.  How to build a traditional sod house to keep from the elements.  Eventually the making of Iqyax was revitalized and the Sovoroff models were invaluable.  Sovoroff preserveed the blue prints and plans to build the kayaks.  His models are in museums around the world including the Smithsonian.

Information gleaned from Wikipedia, Notable Native People by Adrienne Keene and The Wartime Interment of Native Alaskans.

Native American Biography: Rowen White: Seed Keeper

Rowen White is a Native American woman, Mohawk from Akwesasne.  She is now the educational director  of Sierra Seeds out of Nevada City, California.  She works at discovering ancestral seeds and how they relate to culture and ancestry.  She has taken a journey of rediscovering seeds, and keeping seeds for the next crop.  This includes singing the seed songs and doing the work to care for plant relatives.  She has worked with the Mohawk people but ogther cultures as well.  She says seeds offer healing, and mutual benefit between cultures.   Seeds play a part in revitalizing culture.  In 2023 she received a leadership award.

Omaha Native American Housing as per Durham Museum

 The Omaha mostly lived in earth lodges, but they also used teepees when they were on the hunt--usually buffalo hunt.  These were precarious as they were closer to the Sioux and the Sioux and Omaha often fought.