“It is the glory of The Most High to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.”
Proverbs 25:2
…Grandma's Confession?
When I was eighteen, I overheard a phone conversation between my mother and my grandmother. Everything changed about our family story.
“Mother, Mother! It’s okay...No, it’s alright...Please calm down...”
Mom tried for the next ten minutes to soothe my distraught grandmother.
When she hung up the phone, I asked what was wrong.
During the conversation, my grandmother broke down and revealed our Native American lineage.
What? Native American? Where did that come from?
Supposedly, this secret had been handed down and hushed for generations.
Grandma’s upset reaction largely had to do with the fact she believed this Native American blood was some kind of blight on the family.
She was ashamed of it.
As Mom told me everything, I felt the rejection and the judgment which flowed generationally.
As the revelation goes, my great-great grandmother was a Native American orphan, discovered and claimed by a white family during one of the Dakota Wars of the late 1800’s.
There was no written documentation; this orphan had no birth certificate.
According to family lore, this two- or three-year-old girl was discovered alone in a field. She was then “rescued” by white people who raised her as their own.
However, this orphan was old enough to love and miss her real parents and tribal family.
But her “white” family were neither supportive nor encouraging on that matter.
Because of the stigma attached to being an “Indian” back then, my great-great grandmother was forbidden to talk about any memories she had concerning her Native American background.
Her new white “parents” named her “Helen.”
(Not her real name).
They stressed assimilation.
Great, here we go again, with assimilation. What could go wrong?
She was supposed to blend in and be “white.”
But, no matter what she did or said, she could never be “white enough.”
And, unable to forget the memories of her real family and tribe, Helen sobbed herself to sleep.
Her white family, trying to pacify her, gave her penny candy to cheer her up.
(I personally wonder if this was the start of disordered eating patterns that have played out within the generations of my female family members, landing, eventually, on me).
But, of course, no one ever discussed the root cause of her sadness.
So many questions arose in me about this situation.
What exactly happened?
Was everyone in her tribe, indeed, killed?
Was my great-great grandmother rescued?
Or was she stolen by this white couple?
Did they play a role in the killing of her biological family members?
It is impossible to know what happened.
But the pain resulted, nonetheless.
So, I already had the experience of witnessing my grandmother’s shame about our family’s Native American bloodline.
But was that the root, the actual “secret,” or was there more to it?...
Copyright © 2026 by Sheryle Cruse
