Indian Summers: A Memoir Of Fort Duchesne 1925-1935

Thought-provoking, sensitive, factual history by this retired professional librarian. She includes Native American Folklore stories and many of their photos. While her father supervised an experimental farm, the author lived at Fort Duchesne during 1925-1935. She gives a detailed physical, geographical, day-to-day, and emotional account of life there, and includes her observation of the plight of her friends, the Uintahs and Ourays, who were forced to live in the old Fort converted to an Indian Reservation. It changed her forever and in ways that were in conflict with the opinions of the adults around her. In 1883, Fort Duchesne was converted from a military stockade to an Indian Reservation for the Uintah and Ouray Indians. Old Fort Duchesne, now gone, was located a mile south of U.S. Highway 40, hidden behind a large grove of Cottonwood trees. When the Indian lands in the Uintah Basin were opened to white settlement in 1905, it was Utah's last frontier. A growing network of roads and canals connected the small settlements of Ashley (now Vernal, Utah) in Uintah County and Roosevelt, in Duchesne County. This book recounts memories of a little girl's early childhood spent at Fort Duchesne between 1925 and 1935. Thought-provoking, sensitive, factual history by this retired professional librarian. She includes Native American Folklore stories and many of their photos. While her father supervised an experimental farm, the author lived at Fort Duchesne during 1925-1935. She gives a detailed physical, geographical, day-to-day, and emotional account of life there, and includes her observation of the plight of her friends, the Uintahs and Ourays, who were forced to live in the old Fortconverted to an Indian Reservation. During our "long talks," Johnny Victor told me most of what I learned about Native Americans. He had been sent to a special school for Native Americans and had learned about many tribes. He told me they called themselves "The People." He told me the Creation Myth of the Utes, which explained how they got their name. He talked about their dances, explaining that the Sun Dance didn't belong to the Utes. Their totem was the bear, whose characteristics they tried to emulate. The dance of the Utes was the Bear Dance. Johnny told me various myths about animals. In general, I listened to his stories much as I did the stories my Swedish grandfather told, as pastimes. I have rewritten them as I remember them, and as they pertain to my experience. Virginia Carlson Parker, of Logan, Utah, obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University. She has Masters' Degrees in Library Science from the University of California at Berkeley and American Studies from Utah State University.