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Elder Stories
Eleanor Two Bulls, Foster Mother
Eleanor Two Bulls Eleanor sits in her home a few months before she died. She filled her cabin with love and compassion. |
Eleanor Two Bulls smoothed down her faded apron. "Sometimes we change our diet by cooking rice," she said shyly. The Cheyenne grandmother stirred beans in an enamel pan on the wood cook stove, hardly enough nourishment for the twelve people who lived with her in the rundown log cabin.
Eleanor had opened her home to her adult children and grandchildren when no other housing was available. Together, they somehow eked out a living with the help of small rations of beans and cheese given out at the government issue station, where the children watched mice jump in and out of food bins and scamper across the counter. If they were lucky, they occasionally got to eat a rabbit or a prairie dog.
In addition to her own family, Eleanor took in orphans and foster kids she found who were hungry. At times there were so many children, I teased her about being the old woman in the shoe; only in her cae, it was the old woman in a moccasin! Despite the poverty, Eleanor's home was full of love. Toddlers jumped all over her, vied for her lap and arranged the scarf on her head as we talked. She hugged them and told them stories of long ago when her parents had lived in a tipi and the river water was clear and cold.
Eleanor Two Bulls' home Eleanor Two Bulls' home as it looked in 1966. She shared the two rooms with twelve relatives. |
This was life on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in 1966.
The small log cabin, which once stood in the middle of a bustling Indian camp, now stands alone in a grassy field -- a battered relic of the past and a constant reminder of the extreme poverty and inhumane conditions that have been forced upon the Cheyenne people. For those of us who lived and worked with them through many difficult times, it was like living in a third world country.
In October of 1966, Eleanor became ill and was confined to her bed. She was taken to the government clinic and sent home four times without relief. Suffering with fever and dehydration, she passed away at her home. Her grieving children lifted her body from the bed and wrapped it in a buffalo robe for her journey to the next camp.
Eleanor Two Bulls' home Occasionally, I visit the empty log cabin. I feel her presence and I can still see her standing in the doorway. - Father Emmett |
More than thirty years have passed since Eleanor died but somehow, her spirit lives on. I feel her presence with me each time I pass her old, log cabin. Occasionally, I stop to walk around; and I can't help remembering her standing at the door in her apron with three or four children playing around her skirts. Eleanor's life, especially her last days, would have been much easier with proper care and nourishment.
