Virginia Indian Women In The 20th Century: Three Generations Of A Chickahominy Family

Each of the three womens life stories was recorded as they told them to me, telling how each coped with the great changes in society and in technology in the twentieth century. The races in Virginia were forbidden by law to mix. This isolation enabled the Virginia Indians to maintain their culture and traditions. The grandmothers life, similar to that of her parents in the nineteenth century, was lived in a simple frame house lighted by oil lamps and with no indoor plumbing. She walked many miles to the Indian school of six grades. Because of strict segregation in Virginia, the mother went to an Indian college in Oklahoma for her high school education. Only after desegregation was she able to attend college in Virginia. The granddaughter attended the University of Virginia and mixes freely in white society. Virginia Indian women today live dual lives supported by the strength they have in their culture.