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In 1950, my husband Kendall and I joined the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs and were sent to live with the Navajos at Chinle, at the mouth of the famous Canyon de Chelly. He was from an old ranching family in Arizona and had a master's degree in Range Ecology from the University of Arizona. I grew up in the Middle West and had a degree in Anthropology from the same University. We lived in Chinle for two years while Kendall was in charge of range management for the central part of the reservation.. I worked as a substitute teacher in both the boarding school and the public school in Chinle and started the first Girl Scout troop on the reservation. Our adventures at Chinle are the subject of my first book, "Before The Roads Were Paved", published by Trafford Press, 2001.
I loved the Navajos and Canyon de Chelly but after two years the Bureau assigned us to Keams Canyon, headquarters of the Hopi reservation. After the beauty of the Canyon, the Hopi country seemed so desolate. The agency was situated at the bottom of a deep narrow canyon of white sandstone rocks. It was 70 miles to Holbrook, Arizona, our nearest town, over a dirt road that wound through colorless country. We lived in a small three-bedroom apartment that was part of an old wooden house. On the other side of the hall occupants came and went: once a lady doctor, once a dentist from Brooklyn, then a young doctor and his wife from Georgia, and then two old maid missionaries. Kendall was gone most of the time out working on the reservation, and so for me, it was very lonely. We attended Hopi religious ceremonies in the village plazas and were invited down into their underground kivas, another site of their religious ceremonies.
And there were the monthly government employees' potlucks on the various mesas, and the Hopi people, themselves. And once in a while we heard of a Navajo ceremony nearby, a Yeibichai at Steamboat, and an Enemy Way at Bingham's Lake, so we went to those, too.
After two and a half years with the Hopis, the Bureau sent us back to live with the Navajos at Window Rock and Fort Defiance and then, in 1962, Kendall was appointed Superintendent of the Jicarilla Apaches in northern New Mexico and so it was off to the most isolated reservation in the Southwest for another three years. It was the wildest adventure of them all.
It was on Columbus Day, 1950, that Dorothy Cumming and her husband, Kendall,
joined the United States Indian Service and went to live with the Navajos at Canyon de
Chelly. Dorothy, raised in Illinois, had a degree in Anthropology from the University of
Arizona. Kendall, a member of a pioneer ranching family in Arizona, was a Range
Ecologist. Thus began a career of 30 years living with the Indians in the southwest..
After two years at Canyon de Chelly, the Cummings were transferred over to the Hopi reservation. Then back to the Navajo reservation at Window Rock and Fort Defiance from 1955 to 1962.
Then it was over to northern New Mexico with the Jicarilla Apaches where Kendall was now the reservation superintendent for the Jicarilla. It was the most isolated reservation of them all.
Upon retirement, the Cummings moved to Prescott, Arizona where Dorothy taught classes at Yavapai College. She is a past member of the National League of American Pen Women and The Western Writers of America.
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Living with the Navajo, Hopi and Jicarilla Apache: 1952-1965, is $14.50 U.S., plus $2.00 for shipping.
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