Indian Town: Where My Story Begins

By Sylvester Duane Foote Sr.

The book is about a young Indian Boy that grows up in a small town in South Dakota. There is a section of the town that was for all the Natives to live that was called “Indian Town”. The boy grows up in poverty and endures all the hardship that goes with being poor. He eventually drops out of high school in the tenth grade to go into the service. This was his only option to get out of poverty and learn a trade. He finishes his military training and is sent to Vietnam where he ends up doing two one-year tours. He completes his enlistment with the service and moves to North Dakota and works until his retirement in 2009.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665569705

Sylvester Duane Foote Sr.

Sylvester D. Foote Sr. is happily retired and lives in North Dakota with his wife Faye of forty-three years, 3 children one birth daughter, one birth son and one adopted daughter and two poodles by the names of Pebbles and Blossom. Sylvester is currently doing his part as a Tribal Elder or Grand Parent by opening up his home to children that need a safe place to stay until they can reunite with their parents. Sylvester and his wife are not foster parents, they do this out of kindness of their heart. Sylvester knows the feeling of being unwanted and homeless until he was taken in by a wonderful woman that took him in and gave him a home at a young age. He pays back by helping as many kids as he can and there’s one that has a big piece of his heart that calls him “Bossman”.

Book preview

Indian

Town

Where My Story Begins

Sylvester Duane Foote Sr.

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© 2022 Sylvester Duane Foote Sr. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 08/29/2022

ISBN: 978-1-6655-6971-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-6970-5 (e)

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T his Autobiography is for my children, Sylvester (Sly) Jr, Brittnee, Lillieonna and Synnove. My wife has been after me to write about myself because my children don’t have a clue about where I grew up, how I grew up and some of the things

that I done in my lifetime. I will tell stories for you my children, some of the things that I did while growing up in a small farming town of Winner, South Dakota. I will talk about my experience while serving in the Army and how I ended up here in North Dakota. Some of the people I will mention are no longer with us, even though they play a major part in my life. Some of the events are not in order, I may be a little off on my dates of events or names I cannot remember. You must remember these events happened fifty or sixty years ago and my memory is not as good as it used to be.

I have six sisters on my mother’s side, they go by the name of Peneaux. They are Myra, Shirley, Brenda, Darlene, Bernada and Jackie. They are all grown up and have their own Families. Brenda lives and works in Mission, SD. Shirley lives in Ideal, SD. Darlene and Bernada live in Sioux Falls, SD and Jackie lives in Brookings, SD.

I have some brothers and sisters on my father’s side, but I only know a few of them. I didn’t grow up around my father and only met a couple of my sisters after my father passed away. The one’s that I remember are Quinna L, Rena W, Bonnie W and I think there’s a Kenneth W. I really don’t know this side of the family. I talk to Quinna, I think she’s the only one I talk to the most. From what I been told, I have a lot of relatives from the Wright Family.

I am a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe out of South Dakota, we are known as the Burnt Thigh Nation, or Sicangu’s. I migrated up into North Dakota as a young man and never cared to go home. I worked in Fort Yates, ND for many years and at United Tribes. After I retired my wife and I bought a home in Mandan, ND and that’s where we live now.

My parents are Caroline Roberta Foote and Hobart Wright. I don’t know my father because he was not around while I was growing up. I think my mother met my father in Winner, my mother and her friends used to go to Winner for dances and other doings. My father, he was from the Rosebud area and seldom they would come to Winner. My mother raised me with the help of my grandparents. I think I was born in the Ideal, SD area. Back in those days the babies were born at home, there was no money or insurance to go to the hospital. There were many mid-wives that made sure the babies were born so when a woman was going to have a baby the mid-wives will be called to help deliver. I think I was born east of Ideal, my grandparents lived in a house along a little creek. I remember there was a bridge just north of the house. When I was a little older, I used to go toward the creek and my grandma would say There’s an old lady down at the creek and she would take you if you went down there. My mother always stayed with her parents so when my grandparents moved to Winner, everybody moved with them.

My grand-fathers name was Stephan Foote. He was a member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe out of Montana. The story goes that he had two brothers, Frank Foote and a half-brother by the name of Silas Jones. My grandpa left Montana and came to South Dakota and traveled along the Missouri River visiting the Tribes that lived there. He met my grandma somewhere around the Sisseton Area, fell in love and married my grandma sometimes around the early 1920’s. They eventually moved to Ideal, SD, part of the Rosebud Reservation where they lived so when they started enrolling members into the Tribe, they automatically enrolled him into the Rosebud Sioux Tribe even though he was a Northern Cheyenne. Back in the 1980’s we went to Billings for a bowling tourney and I had on this jacket that had Foote Racing Team on the back and this little old lady from Lame Deer, she must have been in the eighty’s came up to me and asked where the ‘Foote name came from so I told her who my grand-parents are and when she heard that Stephan Foote was my grandfather, she said she knew him and I was part of a big family of Foote’s. She also knew of the half-brother Silas Jones, so I told her Silas was living in Dupree S.D. on the Cheyenne River Reservation. The little old lady introduced me to a group of people, I guess they were all Foote’s to this day I still don’t know any of them.

My uncle Harold Foote was the one who told me about my grandpa Stephan Foote and his brothers and how one of them by the name of Frank Foote stayed on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation and the half-brother Silas Jones settled on the Cheyenne River Reservation in Dupree S.D. My uncle Harold was the one that said I should go visit him since I lived close to Eagle Butte, S.D. I was working in cherry Creek at the time so one Friday after work on the way back to Fort Yates I stopped in Dupree and asked where Silas Jones lived, and they gave me directions to his home. When I introduced myself as Duane Foote to him his face light up and asked me who my grandparents are, so I told him Stephan Foote was my grandpa, and he told me that Stephan was his half-brother and that he had another brother that lived on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana. We sat and visited for a long time, and he did tell me that Stephan did go to school in Pennsylvania at the Carlisle Boarding School, and that my grandpa was there the same time Jim Thorpe was there. Stephan (my grandpa) used to tell stories about riding the railroad back and forth from Pa. to Montana. He used to tell stories about how they stayed with the HOBOs along the railroads. The HOBOs had a secret system, that they would put markings on buildings to warn them about bad cops, places that would give handouts, and towns that didn’t like HOBOs and would beat them. The HOBOs had their places to sleep and stay all along the route of the railroad and everyone traveling the railroad was welcomed to stay with them and share their food. As we were visiting his wife kept the coffee coming and suddenly, she asked what my grandma maid name was and I told her it was King My grandma’s name was Martha King, and she said she knew her because she went to boarding school with her, I told her she passed on back in 1964. I stopped in a couple of times after that to visit and one day I stopped in and there was nobody there after that I never seen them again.

My grandmother’s name was Martha Mercy Foote, her maiden name was King. She had three brothers that I know of, I don’t know if she had any sisters. Her brother’s names are John K, William K. and Lloyd W.C. She told me her parents originally came from the Mdewaukanton Tribe out of Minnesota and her parents name was Her Pretty Pipe, Some-where along the line the name was changed to King, probably when they relocated to the Sisseton area. John Ks family was his wife Pauline, the children were John Jr, Burton, Dale, Ruby, Clarice, Lavina and Joyce. Williams Ks family was his wife Vera, the children were Leroy, Richard (Dick Mouse), Leonard and Carmen. Lloyds Family was his wife Thelma, the children were Vivian, Thomas, Linda and Frela. My grandma’s Family was her husband Stephan, the children were William, Caroline (Roberta)my mother, and Harold. I can’t remember if there were any more children that they had that maybe passed away, these children were the only ones that I remember.

I remember as a little boy (maybe about four years old) my grandma and Grandpa lived east of Ideal, on the road towards Hamill, S.D. there was a county road with a bridge and we lived right south of there, along the creek. I used to wonder towards the creek and my grandma used to say there an old lady that lives down there, and she will steal you if you go down there. I remember we used to go to Ideal for Sunday services and other doings like Christmas, the community members would get together in a small community building and have their meals and such. Later, after we moved to Winner I remember going to Ideal for socials, games and square dances.

My grandparents moved to Winner when I was still a little boy. Winner was a small farming town with about three thousand residents, the town had a main street and highway 18 ran east and west through town, there was a high school and a couple of elementary schools. When all the Indians started coming into town there was a camp of Indians from different Reservations. The camp was right north of the railroad tracks and next to a meat packing plant. Today (2018) the camp was located where the Racetrack is now located. There were a couple rows of square tents where people lived. I think we went through the winter the first year there, the tents were nice and cozy and as small children we thought it was fun camping. The families had to live in tents until they could get a house to rent in town. Later the camp moved to the west end of town north of the railroad tracks on the west side of the county road to the slaughterhouse where they butcher cows, sheep, and pigs. They even cleaned Pheasants during the Pheasant hunting season. The camp was there until Dog Ear Dam broke and flooded out the camp, people moved to town after that. Most of us moved to the northwest part of town that we called Indian Town.

Indian Town was two streets where the Indians lived. There was Iowa street and Dakota street. Dakota street was the last street on the north side. When my grandparents first rented a home, this was where we stayed. It was a big one room house with a wood stove for cooking, a big bed on one side of the room and kitchen area. Since there was no electricity, we had to use kerosene lamps, it wasn’t long after the sun went down that everyone went to bed, but first my grandpa had to listen to Amos and Andy. They must have been a comedy show that broadcast from Del Rio, Texas. My grandpa had a little radio that ran off a six-volt battery that had to have an antenna on the roof of the house to get reception. After the radio show it was lights out. Grandpa made sure there was log in the woodstove to keep the place nice and cozy. In the back of the house was a big woodshed where my uncles would sleep when they were around because there was not enough room in the house for everyone. My mother and I used to sleep in there also. Since there were no in-door bathrooms there was an outhouse out back and when it filled up my uncles and who-ever was around got together and dug a new hole for the outhouse, and one day it rained heavy and fill the hole up with water. After it quit raining, I went outside and I had this boat that I was floating in the hole and somehow, I fell into the hole, my clothes were heavy I would sink out of sight, I couldn’t crawl out because it was to slippery. I panicked and the more I fought to get out the more I would go under-water I would scream but nobody was around to hear me. I went down for the last time when someone grabbed me by the hair and pulled me out of the water, it was my mother. She said she just happen to come looking for me when she heard me scream and came running. After that experience I never played around any shitholes. There was a small house next to our house that a guy by the name of Ben Spotted Elk lived, never did know where he was from but him and my grandpa worked together for the railroad. I think they split railroad ties because they both had double headed axes that they would take to work. After work they would sit outside and sharpen their axes with a file. Ben would always have supper with my grandpa and after supper they would sit outside in the shade and visit. Their favorite pass time was to sing songs and they would use a wash tub for a drum. My grandpa passed away when he was about 55 years old from a heart attack so that left my grandma to fend for herself. She moved from the house they rented on Dakota St. to a house on the corner of Iowa St. where she lived by herself. Next door to her lived John F. and his family. He called himself Chief Lame Deer, my grandma never did like him, she would say I don’t know who made him a Chief but he’s not a chief to me and every time she seen him, she would turn and shake her butt at him, it must be some sort of disrespect that the older Indian women used to do. John and his wife Ida raised a little girl by the name of Maxine B., I don’t know if Maxine was their child or was their grandchild. Maxine was one of the kids that grew up with us, they were kind a strict with her, so she had to go in early all the time, not like the rest of us that stayed out half the night. I remember they had a little black dog that used to enjoy chasing us boys when we walked by their house, we knew the dog would never bite us but we would run from him just to make him feel big. I never knew if John F was a Chief or Medicine Man, all I remember is that every summer he would set up a Teepee in his back yard and hang ribbons all around it. We knew he used to go to a lot of Powwows because he would tie some big speakers on top of his tan 64 Ford, he must have been an announcer for the Powwows. My Stepfather, Tom P. knew a lot about him, I guess they grew up with him in the Parmelee area.

Indian Town was made up from people from different Reservations like Yankton, Rosebud, Pine Ridge and Cheyenne River. There were a few white families that lived there too so their little white kids grew up with us Indian kids. Most of the families were the ones that camped on the north end of town, so everyone finally had a home to rent. There was a white woman by the name of Murphy (only knew her as Mrs. Murphy) that lived right in the middle of Indian town, and she had a bunch of little one room shacks that she would rent out. There was row of white shacks that she had on the east side of her lot and at the east end of Dakota St. there was also a row of green shacks. I remember those shacks because we lived in one. The shacks were 12 feet by 12 feet, the floor was all wood and the walls were wood with no insulation, there was a place for a wood stove, no running water and an outhouse in the back. When winter was approaching some of the families would put new tar paper on the outside walls to keep the draft from coming into the house. Since all the shacks burnt wood in their wood stoves the city would bring a load of wood and dump it in an empty lot for everyone to use. If you can afford it, you can have the lumber yard bring you a load of coal to burn. Sometimes when the all the wood is burned up, we would burn car tires to keep warm. When we would find a car tire, we would take it home and they would cut it up in small pieces to burn. Sometimes they would burn so hot you can see fire coming out of the chimney outside. You can tell when someone is burning tires because there will be black smoke coming out of the chimney, look like a locomotive going full speed. There was no running water, so the city put in water faucets in different areas and all the families had to haul their water to their homes with water buckets. I had to haul water and fill up a cream can, so I made many trips with my water bucket to fill up a twenty-five-gallon cream can. The house that we lived in looked like a small trailer house, it must have been about 40 feet long and 12 feet wide with a porch addition. The more I think about that house, I believe it may have been a box car converted over to a house. There was only one long room, so there were beds on each side and a wood stove in the center of the room. There was a place for a table and few chairs and a kerosene stove where my mom did all the cooking. The stove she cooked on was a two burner with a container on one end that you filled up with kerosene and tipped upside down and the fuel would gravity feed the burners. It was quite a good little cooking stove; it even came with an oven that my mom used to bake pies and stuff. Since there was no electricity, we used kerosene lamps, the lamps were not very bright, so it seemed like it was always dark. Many nights I sat at the table and did my homework under the light of a kerosene lamp. We had no indoor bathroom, so we had an outhouse in the back yard that was a two-seater, (like two people are going to use it at the same time, Ha.) We had no bathroom tissue, so we used a Montgomery Ward’s catalog. When it got too cold in the winter my little sisters would use a five-gallon bucket to go in, Ha! As we got older, they would tease each other about having slop pail rings around their butt cheeks, Ha! I think everyone on all the Reservations did the same thing, because when I lived on a different Rez I heard people teasing each other about that. We lived in poverty so when a holiday came it was just another day, during Christmas the only presents we got was from the church Christmas party and play where everyone that attended got present. The Chamber of Commerce would come around on Christmas Eve and give the families presents for all the kids and food enough for a Christmas Dinner. It was a big deal to go to the Christmas party at the Episcopal church, after they had mass, you went to the hall where they had the party, there was a big meal for everyone and after that there was someone that dressed up like Santa Clause and passed out presents, and they would come around and pass out brown paper bags full of candy, peanuts, apples and oranges.

There weren’t any good jobs back then, the men in the community did their best in finding work. Some work for local farmers helping with the harvest for planting, some men will get lucky and find a construction job and work the whole summer building houses. I think the pay was something like $1.00 an hour at the time, so if you work all week you may make about $40.00, but back then that was a lot of money. I remember one summer my mother packed us up because we were going to some place in Nebraska to pick potatoes. My stepfather Thomas must have signed on to pick potatoes for a week or so. My mother packed some clothes, some pots and pans, and sleeping gear. We waited and soon a grain truck stopped in front of the house to pick us up, there was other families already loaded up, so we loaded up and we must have traveled for hours. I fell asleep and when I woke up, we arrived at a work camp with rows of cabins. For the next couple days all the adults went out and picked potatoes and after the days end of work they would take whatever potatoes they needed for supper, you can smell fried potatoes cooking all through camp. Maybe that’s why I still like fried potatoes. After a couple of days or weeks when all the crop was in, they took us back to Indian Town and paid off my parent’s wages. There was a man by the name of Charles S. that owned a recycling business, and he hired a lot of the guys from Indian Town. He sold guns and hunting gear, bought Iron, batteries, wool and hides so the men had to separate everything for shipment. During the winter he would buy jackrabbits for a dollar a piece, so we would sell one jackrabbit and buy a box of 22 long rifle shells for $.50 cent and use the rest of the money for gas to go out and shoot more rabbits at night. He also would get train loads of jackrabbits that would come next to his warehouse, and he would hire men to skin the rabbits. After they would skin enough rabbits to fill a wooden crate, they fill the boxcars to ship to a Mink Farms, the rabbits were what the Minks would eat and in turn they would make Mink coats out of the Minks. He also bought other animals like Raccoons, Weasels, Muskrats and coyotes, so when were out hunting for rabbits and we see one of the animals, we would shoot them because they were worth money. Lot of the families also relied on Commodities, and that was given out at the beginning of the month. We couldn’t wait to get our commodities because that’s when we get a box of cheese and luncheon meat. When the families would go get their commodities, they would get lots, because the families were large, and this was supposed to carry you to the end of the month, but we usually run out of the can meats and good stuff. There was plenty of flour and rice, so is what carried us to the end of the month. Lot of people didn’t have vehicles, so the taxi would haul commodities for $.50 cent or some of the families would just haul their own using wagons and making a couple of trips.

Growing up in Indian Town as a small kid was all play and running around. Back in the day we can run the streets without worrying about getting kidnapped. From the time we got up in the morning we all meet some place and plan on what we were going to do. Pat F. was kind of the leader so whatever he planned was what we would do. A little about Pat. Pat’s family, there was Everett, his father, Evelyn (Dolly was what everyone called her), big brother, Everett Jr. (Butch), Pat was a twin, so he had a twin sister by the name of Patricia, then there was Hellen, Billy Joe and Cheryl. If there was anyone more children in that family, I don’t remember. I spent a lot of time with Pat, so I got to know his family pretty good. Me and Pat were friends since we were little guys and remained friends all the way up to adults. Some of the things we would do is we would walk up town just to be doing something thing or try and score something free. Some of the local farmers would bring their goods to town and set up at the Outlaw Store parking lot. We would go over and have free watermelon that they gave out for samples. Sometimes we would go in the store and steal candy, there was to many of us for them to keep an eye out for us, so somebody always walk out with a pocket full of penny candy. Starting out at a young age we knew everything about the town. We roamed the back alleys and knew every door that was unlocked, we peeked in windows and knew what was stored in every building. The town people knew when we were around something was going to be missing or broken so they kept a pretty good eye on us. In the evenings other kids would come out and we would play games all evening. Some of the guys were Jr. B, Dale K, Freddie P, Poncho W. S., The other boy’s Frank, Kenneth, Darrell and Zab. There was the Fast Horses, and Elmer A. The girls that came and played games were Beatrice, Phyllis, June, Joan, Vonna, and they had a brother by the name of Johnny, we called him, moose, then there was Melda M, and Joyce, Ardith, Sandy and the had a brother Tim. There was also Martha (Legs), Gloria, and Ruth and other kids like the Mexican family’s kids and there was Phillip D. S. would join us sometimes, but his mother kept a good eye on him because he was younger than us besides, he was always scared of doing things. Most of the other boys