Julisa

On October 8th at 2:10 in the afternoon, my grandson Nyeh Was Keh and his mate, Hattie Fyre had a 7 lb, 6 oz girl. They named her Julisa Marie. For the record, this is my first great-granddaughter. She is a joy to behold. Her great-grandmother shares the same sentiment. I promise to spoil her in the coming years. My grandson Pat ko shuk gave me permission to hold her, but not anybody else. He was the long-time baby in our family, but not now.


It is a beautiful Fall season that she was born in – the leaves are falling and turning colors and it’s turned a lot cooler then the hot season we just came through. We recently completed our Fall Ceremonies here and it was a grand occasion. We have four days or prayer and believe me we need every prayer we can get.

In the coming years Julisa will get her Indian name there and hopefully become a regular member of our religion. She is almost a full-blooded Indian girl but maybe not enough Potawatomi blood to meet our ¼ degree requirement, we will have to wait for the judgement call on that.  A few years back, somebody decided to cut my Indian blood in half.  I grew up 7/8 and worked in border towns and had to fight because they cussed me for being Indian and all of a sudden one day I woke up a half-breed.  Why?  I don't know.  I protested this action because our law says we go by the 1940 roll and my parents were both 7/8 and they restored my original blood degree.  My brother Larry died a half-breed because somebody didn't like our family and wanted to cut our blood.  Oh, well that's on them, not us. One can only hope that conduct doesn't carry on to my grandchildren.

If for some reason, she doesn't get our percap, we will share with her as the years go by! She is born into a large family, a bunch from Oklahoma and a bunch from Kansas, so she won’t be hurting for a baby-sitter. I swore up and down that my days of baby-sitting were over but I probably will end up doing some time doing that. It will give us a chance to take her into the city and get her some city clothes and it will give us a chance to dress her up like a little doll that she is. The other day, I bought her a new dress, probably the first of many.

I hold her and can’t believe the years have flown by like this. How does time slip away like that? It wasn’t that long ago that we were holding her daddy and it wasn’t that long ago we were holding her grandmother and auntie. Geez, if I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. Oh, well, I thank the Creator for giving Voncile and I this miracle!  Oh, did I fail to mention, we love her a bunch!