The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-06-07
STORY Of NARY
IR|EG|VER Told
New York Paper Goes Into
Details About Her
UNCLE SAM INTERESTED
What Is to Become of the
Beautiful Maiden
The New York World prints the fol-
,o,-i,or -, g.. ,,..,. n

pie. Where did they mysteriOusly diSap-
pear so many years ago? What is her
real name? Why should the Indians want
to l<idnap her?
! Uncle Sam is the one who would like
to have these questions answered. Pend
| ing their solution he has constituted him
| self the guardian Of this beautiful white
! girl. seventeen years old. She will not
| have to become the squaw of Pretty
Hair, Chief Of the Usage Indians. She
won't have to live out her life with the
Indians.
is there any one" ask Uncle Sans
agents out in Oklahoma. who could trace
/ the parentage of this girl, adopted by the
Indians sixteen years ago? II SO, let him
speak.
| 1t was close to seventeen years ago
when two white people, man and wife.
came to the Usage reservation to live.
I They built modest cabin and started
| in to farm. The father toiled daily in
his fields; the mother kept the hut scrupu-
| lousy neat and spent her spare time play
ing with the dearest little eight-months
old baby girl that ever man saw.
How it happened. no one knows. Sud
denly father and mother were gone.
Whether they purposely abandoned the
| child whether they were massacred by
Indians whether they met with acct
dental death away from home. no one
will ever know. Nearby dwelt old Aunt
ie' Phoebe Truegiver, a historic squaw
of the Osages
House quiet" she unused. white man
| II al
Woman's curiosity was too much for
even the stolid Indian woman. She look
ed. There. haIf-conscious on the floor
she found the baby girl, almost dead from
hunger and neglect. Pressing the little
thing to her motherly Indian breast she
hurried home.
! Hot milk a bath, some grooming Indian
songs and the little thing was soon her
self again "Auntie' adopted the little
white mite and gave her the best home
she could.
'Squaw for big chief some day." she
| used to say proudly as she watched the
| white girl grow into a beautiful young
woman She had the most beautiful
blankets. the softest of moccasins, the
rarest of feathers for her hair. had Mary
! Truegiver Her foster mother loved Mary
more than she ever had loved any Indian
child.
And Mary loved the only mother she
knew-brown and uncouth as she was
more than she had ever loved any other
person When white folks came there
occasionally. she refused Indignantly to
go with them and live among her own
| kind.
Aunt Phoebe has loved and tended
me-" she always said. Il shall always
live with her and try to be to her in her
old age what she was to me when 1 was
a helpless little thing.
With other Indian children, Mary True
giver went to the government schools
on the Usage reservation, for which I'm
Gle Sam foots the bills. She learned Eng
fish perfectly though she lived an Indian
life All the same her brain was stor-
ing itself with traditions of the Osages as
| we'll as any man in the tribe.
In duetime "Auntie" Phoebe became a
widow and married old Chief Pretty Hair.
now a seventy year-old venerable, full
blood. keen for the life of the past and
Ioath to surrender one jot or title to the
white man. When Mary was seventeen
years old Aunt Phoebe, the Chiefs wife.
died.
There is no one left for me here now,
said the white girl. with dear old Aunt
Phoebe dead I am going to live among
my own people"
She had learned to know Mrs. Julia de
TOrier. who lives near Pawhuska, and
there she went to live. Mrs. Julia shared
the simple duties of her husband. Soon she
found that life among white folks for a
white girl was far better than living in a
tepee with a lot of Indians who make the
sQuaws do all the work.
1T is the first real home I have ever
known" said the girl after she had slept
in a bed and eaten at a table covered with
a snow-white cloth The old instincts OF
the white race were showing themselves.
She studied books. too. and learned the
ways Of the American housewife.
Meanwhile old Pretty Hair was getting
lonely in his wigwam. He decided that
it was time to marry again. He looked
around the teepees, but none of the red
girls pleased him at all. Suddenly he
|, thought Of his stepdaughter. Mary True
giver
White squaw be NY wife he said TO
his bucks while they were smoking that
night
IN the morning he started for his bride
lie never dreamed that the white cir
would not feel hono-ed 10 be chiefs
, wife. II did not occur 20 him that she
, might not want to come home at once
with hinl. ready 10 do the cooking. mind
the tepee. build the fires. mend his buck
skins and draw the wood and water while
, he smoked solsmnly in the sunshine.
Bright and early in the morning he
deeked himself out in all the bravery o.
: his war paraphernaIIa. Fathers waved
threateningly in his hair and al his wa
: paint was on. lie camped near the home
; OF Mary Truegiver. Immediately he be
: gan his suit.
1T Is death cor 700 and yours unless
you come with ne and be ny ssUaw.
he announced. in accents not az all like
those os white lovers who come a-woo-
ina.
: The girl knew he vas n earnest When
b. storued the house she went along with
: him. But once in the indian village she
: refused 10 80 through the Indian oers-
, r,aonv o. rnstriuouy Day after day she
stuck 60 her refusal. while The Chief pro
tested and had the seuaws mock her fo7
refusing
The De TOrisrs notiSed United States
District Attorney Horace Sped Of Guth-
; ! ne hy telephone Re seat DcpUty United
J States MarShais A. 2 Hutchinson and
John Saeg. OF POnca City. 70 rescue Tie