Author Archive
With No Vaccines and Antibiotics Thousands Died of Diphtheria
Vaccines and antibiotics have saved countless lives Tales fromPioneers and SoldiersMemorial Cemetery 216th in a Series By SUE HUNTER WEIR More than 800 people buried in the Cemetery, almost 670 of them children, died from diphtheria, a disease that has for the most part disappeared. It was a particularly cruel disease, one that often claimed two or more children of a family’s children within days of each other. Parents stood by watching their children struggling to breathe. So-called doctors and healers claimed to have liniments, ointments, and blood purifiers that guaranteed a 100% chance of a cure but it wasn’t true. There were no antibiotics, no vaccinations, nothing in the way of a cure. Fredricka Renlie, the beautiful little girl second from left, died from diphtheria on July 21, 1914. She was ten years old. She was one of more than 670 children buried in Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery who died from diphtheria. PHOTO: Renlie [...]
Even though you can’t see us, we never left
By MARCIE RENDON From Bdote rise Wic’ahpi OyateFrom the sky to the waters, the Star people riseFrom the birthplace of the people38 plus 2, their spirits ride September 22, 1862 Emancipation Proclamation ‘on this day…all people held as slaves Shall be free…’ December 26, 1862 ‘Anxious to not act with so much clemency… nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty… I ordered…’ 38 plus 2 Dakota hungFrom Mississippi Bluffs to Bde Maka SkaTheir warrior spirit’s rideAt Cloud Man’s Village, restTheir people exiledto the prairies of the west38 plus 2, their spirits rideEast to west, now back again In plain sight, in exileGreat-great-grandsons, soul weary, sit in Denny’sbrush black strands of hairOff foreheads lined with prison worryThey don’t let on they can hear38 plus 2, horse hooves clackJourneying east to westGreat-great-granddaughters from Little EarthPush [...]
An Author’s Author
Something I Said By DWIGHT HOBBES Dwight Hobbes Marcie Rendon is an author’s author. Among her accomplishments: Murder on the Red River, Girl Gone Missing, Sinister Graves (crime novels), SongCatcher (Minnesota History Theater), Pow Wow Summer, Farmer’s Market: Families Working Together (non-fiction) and Dreaming Into Being (poetry). She’s won a slew of awards, including McKnight Foundation’s Distinguished Artist Award, Pinckley Prize for Debut Crime Fiction and WLA Children’s Book Award. Marcie Rendon gave the following interview to the alley. Q: You’re producer/director/creator of ‘Free FryBread’ (Raving Native Productions) a mock telethon mercilessly satirizing America’s prison system and its treatment of Indigenous people. How’d that happen?A: came about as a result of me receiving the LIN (Leadership in Neighborhoods Award) back in the early 90s. The goal for me, for the award, was to create a viable Native American presence in the Twin Cities [...]
