Vignettes of Dine Students in Ignacio 1972-78
The connection with many Navajo (Dine) students residing at the Southern Ute Residential dorms to finish high school led to deeper friendships, including enrollments. Nancy Yengel was among the Bahá’i teachers helping with the regular meetings at the Southern Ute Recreation Center. With her guitar she taught us songs about the Faith, which the students enjoyed. Several of these wonderful young souls sometimes made their way to our home at 507 5th Avenue as we could arrange to check them out for a weekend.
Several of whom I remember included: Roberta Johnson (Shiprock), Maxine Burton (Fruitland), Kathleen Walters, later Shavanaux (Aneth, UT), Lynda Begaye (Shiprock), Juanita Begay (Shiprock) and Gloria Tapaha (Cove). These friendships continued when we moved to Ignacio in 1975.
Roberta Johnson: Roberta (known as Bert to friends) had been raised in Nucla, Colorado for part of her childhood, but her family was from Shiprock. She was comfortable in both worlds; Dine culture and the American contemporary lifestyle and completely bilingual in both languages. Her desire for a career was to be a heavy equipment operator. Around us she was cheerful, helpful and had the ability to bring her friends at the dorms to Bahá’í gatherings. If she was with just Linda and I, she could open up and share deeper experiences and feelings.
One time when Roberta was visiting us at our Ignacio home, she stared at the Greatest Name that we had on our living room wall and share a memory she had years before. She told me that when she was attending a residential school on the Navajo Reservations, teachers would arrange for students to stay with them at their home during breaks. Usually, she said, the teachers, who arranged for students to come to their homes during breaks, had them do chores for the teacher in the home where they were staying. However, the teacher where Roberta stayed was different from the other teachers and didn’t require Roberta to do chores and treated her like a family member. Roberta enjoyed being with the teacher and volunteered to help around the house. Then, pointing to the Greatest Name on our wall, Roberta said that the teacher, Mrs. Service, had the same symbol on her wall. And Roberta added that Mrs. Service always treated her special with her kindness and love. This was before Roberta knew about the Bahá’í Faith.
While in school in Ignacio, Roberta would consistently bring friends to Bahá’i meetings at the So. Ute Recreation Center, and later, once we had moved to Ignacio, to our home in Candelaria Heights.
After high school, Roberta went home to Shiprock, and we visited her at her home a couple of times. Her mother, as I recall, was cordial, but distant. One time was to see if Roberta could go with us to a meeting that Auxiliary Board member Nancy Phillips was organizing with Linda’s help in Isleta Pueblo in 1975. We had the mother’s consent and Roberta wanted to attend. On the weekend of the event, Linda headed to Isleta to meet Nancy and to arrange the venue. I went to Shiprock to pick up Roberta and head to the meeting. It was a much longer drive then on Highway 44. I remember seeing a bumper sticker at the time that said: “Pray for me, I drive on Highway 44.” Much of the trip was quiet, I let Roberta choose the radio station she wanted, and we share the usual small talk. About halfway to Albuquerque Roberta suddenly asked me if I believe in medicine men. I answered ambiguously that I thought medicine men could be helpful to families. A long pause followed, and then Roberta said in an angry tone, “I hate medicine men!” Another long pause and I asked her why she felt that way. Roberta answered, “When I told my family that I was a Bahá’í, they put me in a hogan for three days and had a medicine man come to get the Bahá’i devils out of me.” “I hate medicine men,” she repeated. I praised her courage and commented that oftentimes people are afraid of new things, especially new Messengers from God. The conversation continued along those lines for a while, and I felt she was relieved to have unburdened herself.
After that, it became difficult for Linda and me to make frequent trips to Roberta.
We gradually lost contact with our friend, Roberta. She was special then, and I sure she still is. Then our own journey took us to Las Cruces.
Kathleen Walters: Around 1972-3 we met Kathleen, who resided at the Southern Ute Residential dorms. She came from Aneth, Utah and became attracted to the Faith through the Bahá’í meetings held at the Southern Ute Recreation Center. She may already have known something about the Faith from Frank and Wilda Cox, who lived in Aneth at the time. I remember after Kathleen had decided to be a Bahá’i, we made a trip to Aneth to meet her parents, who I remembered had the same calm countenance as their daughter. They already knew Frank and Wilda, which reinforced their trust in the Bahá’ís. Kathleen had an independent, yet reserved, spirit and we included her in gatherings early on, in Durango and in Ignacio. Having permission from her parents, Kathleen went to a Bahá’í conference with us in Denver, and in August 1974 with Frank and Carole Hitti attended the First National Bahá'í Conference for America held in St. Louis, Missouri, and up to that time had been the largest conference of Bahá'ís drawing twelve thousand participants. Sometime after, Kathleen started attending Fort Lewis College and met a student from Northern Ute, named Darrell Shavanaux. She brought him to our home in Ignacio. They were interested in marriage, and we shared Bahá’i Teachings about marriage, parent consent and the simplicity of the wedding ceremony. We offered to help them if and when they decided to marry. When they moved to Utah, we put them in touch with Baha’i’s there.
Juanita Begay: Juanita quietly had shared the Faith with her family, including with her uncle, Peter Begay. Peter provided patient transportation for the Shiprock hospital, and we would interact with him in 1973, when we needed to transfer our daughter from Mercy Hospital to the hospital in Shiprock to continue that Indian Health coverage. On the way to Shiprock, Linda was able to share some of the Bahá’í teachings with Peter and the nun. Peter said he knew about Bahá’i from his niece. Linda asked him who was his niece. Peter answered, “Juanita Begay. She goes to Baha’is meetings at the Boarding school in Ignacio.” Wow! We knew Juanita from the Bahá’i meetings at the Southern Ute Recreation Center that we helped to arrange with permission from the staff at the Residential School. Juanita was one of a number of students who requested to come to the Bahá’í meetings. Linda would sign the interested ones out and bring them to the Rec Center and return them after the meeting. Over time a number of students, mostly from the Navajo Reservation including Juanita, joined the Faith while they attended school in Ignacio and were staying at the dorms.
Gloria Tapaha: Gloria regularly came to the meetings at the Southern Ute Recreation Hall. Quietly shy, seldom talking, she could have been overlooked in group meetings. She was/is from the Cove Chapter. (The Cove Community is located in a remote and isolated area, surrounded by the Lukachukai and Carrizo Mountains. The Chapter is located in one of the most scenic areas of the Navajo Nation. The Chapter House is about 42 Miles from U.S. Highway 491 and 10 miles West of Red Valley, Arizona on Navajo Route 33.
https://cove.navajochapters.org/)
We lost contact with Gloria after she graduated from high school. Then, several months later, we received a phone call from her. She said she was attending school at Provo, Utah, then she said, “I miss Bahá’í.” She did not have her own phone (in the days before mobile phones) and couldn’t give us a good contact address. That was our last direct contact with Gloria, an especially quiet, and quietly special soul.
Maybe two or three years later, Ken Morphet Brown was giving a period of time focusses on teaching/consolidation on the Navajo Reservation. We asked if he might be able to locate Gloria. He tried without success to locate her or any person with the last name of Tapaha. However, while he was visiting a remote area near Cove, when he made mention of Bahá’í, often he was told that someone had been sharing Bahá’i with people, but no one could say who the person might be. I have often wondered if that quiet teacher might have been Gloria.
Lynda Begaye: When we lived in Ignacio, we connected with another special student from Shiprock, Lynda Begaye, regularly visited our home with friends and family. During a school break we decided to go to San Diego with Lynda, her best friend, Irene Armstrong, and our children (four of them at the time). The plan included visiting Indian reservations along the way. We arranged night stops with friends and Bahá’ís. Our first stop was on the Hopi Reservation where we enjoyed Hopi blue corn pancakes on Second Mesa. From the Hopi Reservation we continued through the Navajo Reservation spending one night in the Phoenix area. We knew a couple from Durango who were living in Tucson so the father could study at the University of Arizona. Since it was winter break, we were able to have permission to spend the night in a school on the Tohono Oʼodham Nation (more commonly known at the Papago Reservation in those days) at Pisinemo. Only a few staff members were on duty while we were there, and they helped make our stay there relaxing.
Some Bahá’ís in San Diego had told us of a gathering being held in a mountainous area along Interstate Highway 8 that had been arranged with friends of one of the bands of the Kumeyaay. Stories, food, and fellowship was accented by cultural music. Several Persian believers from San Diego were invited to share Persian social dancing with swaying hips. I do not remember much of San Diego, except spending the day at the San Diego Zoo.
Reflecting on that long trip in a small hatchback with Lynda, Irene and our four children (Bienshirni was the infant), I do not know how the passengers endured their cramped quarters in the car, but they did without complaint.
The remembered friends above were teenagers at that time in the 1970’s and would be in their 60’s now as of this writing (July 2022).
Memoirs of Chris Cholas, July 2022
