Continued:

Jumping a number of years, in 1990 I took a whole group of people from NJ to MN for an educational week, so they could experience the peacefulness and learn the history. Gordon Bird along with his daughters, Jackie and Sherrie and wife JoAnne entertained the group, Chuck Derby (who I later married) let us use his Center, where my daughter did the cooking for us, and someone put up tipi's on the Hiawatha Grounds for us all to sleep in. It was an eventful few days. We ended it at the powwow in Morton where Chuck kept us informed of what was happening during each dance.

Prior to that though I, with Chuck, my now ex, my best friend and my son went to the area where the fighting had started, and I went to where Myrick's store had been. The others said I walked through a swarm of mosquitos, and just stood there talking to someone they could not see. I on the otherhand walked to Myrick and gave him a good telling off. I was in another world, telling this man what a nasty piece of work he was, and how did he ever think he would be forgiven for acting like he did. (He was the 'Let them eat grass or their own dung' man) I found out at that point that before he died they did more than stuff his mouth with grass because he had pooped himself through fear, so guess what they also did? It got a lot of my anger towards this man out. My friends who were waiting for me had been bitten to death by mozzies, I on the other hand after walking through them, did not have one bite on me. Chuck always said at that time I had gone elsewhere so was not of body. I have had a number of meetings like that through the years, especially with Little Crow who gets very insistant at times.

One year I visited the white side of the story, I went to New Ulm and Mankato, no one I spoke to (I spoke to a lot of people) in New Ulm had even heard of the Uprising, or the hangings. I couldn't believe it, this was one of the towns that had been attacked and the citizens of the town had come out to attack the Dakota when they were being marched to Fort Snelling, but no one knew about it. Unbelievable. Did I believe them? Not entirely!

In Mankato I was directed to the Minnesota Historical Society, because 'they will know about it' this was in the early 1990's, before the memorial area was done. Before the Ride came through. I went to where I thought the hangings had taken place along the waterfront, by the railway lines, along the street, and could feel pain, and anger all mixed in together. I tried to clear the place of these emotions, but they were very strong. Maybe with the Ride going there each year doing ceremony it has now helped. When I last went there and laid tobacco at the white buffalo in 2008/9 it did feel easier to breath. I am so pleased that so many people from Mankato support the Ride now, I know we have a lot of people in the group from there, I don't remember if there are any with us from New Ulm though!

2008, by this time I was married to Chuck and we both worked in the Little Feather Center in Pipestone where we spoke of the history of the Dakota in 1862, among other Native subjects. We had photos of the people of 1858 - 1862 on the wall, we had a special photo of Little Crow loaned to us by the man who does the walk/dance every year on the Anniversary of Little Crow's murder (Michael). We used to go out to schools and tell them the story of 1862, we had been and still were on various committees for things to do with the 1862 history and knew a lot of people who felt the same way as us, so when we were told about a Ride coming through Pipestone that winter to do with the hangings we were interested.

To cut a long story short we had a visit from a lovely young man called Silas who, with others, would be doing a video of this Ride and what could we do to help? Well we could feed them and let them stay at the Center, he seemed very pleased about that. We kept in touch and to get things sorted I started a Face book group so that the people who were making food and helping could keep up with what was happening. This group is what became of that small group of 25 people who were making food. At one point a few years ago we had reached 7000 members, it was too big and uncontrollable as I administered it alone. So I closed that one down, told members to come to this one and started this supporters group instead. I added some Admins and now it is easier for me. That video that Silas spoke about was the 'Dakota 38', the one that most of you have seen and cried over, the one that has my Chuck as the first person on the Memorial at the end, the one that probably brought you to the Ride.