I am Lakota (Sioux) and Cheyenne Indian. I am registered with the Oglala tribe on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, in South Dakota. I was raised in Rapid City, South Dakota, near the reservation. This reservation is one of the poorest counties in the United States. At different times, I lived on the reservations, and I visited it often.

I learned to do beadwork from my aunt, Eve Stover, while on spring break in 1974. My aunt would have all the different colors of beads in one tub and could pick out just the color she wanted. She taught me how to make rosettes that were flat and even.

Aunt Eve helped raise me in the mid-60's while my mother went to nursing school. At that time, my aunt lived in a house with running water and a septic system. There was a pump out front in the yard. Other families would bring their old milk containers (that farmers would use) to pump water because they had no running water in their homes. Although by the standards of Rapid City, my Aunt Eve and Uncle Benny were very poor, by the standards of the reservation they were rich.

Often we went to visit people. Those with new homes had trailers. Others had log homes of one or two rooms, or they had shacks with roofing paper on the sides. No matter how poor they were, they always welcomed you and offered you something to eat.

My aunt had 8 kids. At my aunt's home there were few toys, but there was always someone to play with, and we always found things to do. We went and picked currants. We pulled tall weeds with a short, thick root out of the ground and used them as spears. And we always could play basketball. Sometimes Uncle Benny took us older kids down to the bombing range near the Badlands National Park to look for agates. We would marvel at the huge shells that were left behind from World War I. We also would watch out for rattle snakes, because they likes the rocky area. Uncle Benny always carried a pistol and shot them if we found any. He would sell the rattles.

My mother and step-father live on the reservation on their ranch near Wounded Knee, where they raise cattle. My mother is a school nurse at an elementary school on the reservation.

I am a social worker, and I work with abused and neglected children. I love to see the designs unfold.

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