My Eternal Family

I come from an amazing family. My grandparents are some of the most incredible people I will ever have the chance to know. I miss them especially when we all get together for family reunions and talk about what amazing parents/grandparents they are.

When I was little we loved to go to grandma and grandpa's house. We loved hanging out with all of our cousins and Aunts and Uncles. It was great to have a big family and we always had such a great time.

I never questioned why one of my Aunts was tall with long black hair and dark skin or why one of my Uncles had a different last name than me. That was just the way families are, right?

As I grew older I realized Uncle Mark and Aunt Virginia weren't biological children of my grandparents, but they are still my family.

This year at our family reunion my Aunt Virginia told us how she came to belong to the Jones family. I had never heard the entire story. I know it was a little difficult for her to tell us the story, but I'm so glad she did. It helped me to know her a little more and learn about her strong spirit. I also learned a little more about my grandparents and the loving people they are.

Thank you Aunt Virginia for your story.

My Conversion Story by Ginny Sparks

I have been very fortunate in my life to have had two families that loved and raised me. It was an interesting and lucky turn of events that changed my life forever. I am a Native American woman and I have lived in two cultures all my life. I was born on the Navajo Reservation in northern AZ in the mid fifties in a small remote region far removed from the modern conveniences of life with no electricity or running water. The closest hospital was 40 miles away and no transportation available to take a poor pregnant Native woman about to give birth to her 11th child.

I don’t know the exact date of my birth. My mother tells me that I was born just before dawn when the morning star was still visible and sunflowers were in full bloom covering the desert terrain. It was just us three females in that early morning that greeted the sun. My mother weary from giving birth and her mother, my grandmother who was the mid-wife. I was born under the open sky and that is my connection to Mother Earth for she was the first to touch my body when I was born and she will be the last when I leave this life.

My biological parents were all that a child could wish for. They were both totally immersed in the Navajo culture and understood their roles in society and raising their children. Neither one had the opportunity for an education and only spoke our native tongue which is Navajo. Theirs was an arranged marriage set by the elders of the tribe and their parents. My father was 19 years old at the time and my mother only 13. They learned to love each other with such a fierce devotion that they had 15 children together and only death was able to divide them in this life.

I grew up happy and carefree surrounded by nature and in a loving environment. I knew my role as a family member and contributed by herding sheep at a young age by following my older siblings. My father worked off the reservation for the Santa Fe Railroad and would often be gone for long periods of time. I didn’t realize until later in my life how difficult that must have been for him. Being in a foreign environment and unable to understand the Anglo culture nor language. And yet he persevered and worked hard and provided for his large family without complaint. My mother stayed home and wove beautiful Navajo rugs which provided income for her family along with tending the sheep the garden and her young children .

My older sibling were spread through out the country attending various boarding schools set up by the Bureau of Indian Affairs or B.I.A. which is a branch of the United States government that over sees all the registered Indian tribes in the U.S. The main goal of these schools were to not only educated the “Natives” but to also strip them of their identity and assimilate them fully into the Anglo culture. These schools were located from Riverside Indian School in Riverside CA. on the west coast to Carlisle Indian School in PA. with many schools in between. I had two brothers in Oklahoma City, a sister in Riverside, CA. and another brother in Phoenix.

Fortunately, (meaning only in the sense that they were not so far away.) some boarding schools were built on the reservation and one was built in a town called Kayenta about 25 miles away from our home. When I was around 7 years old my siblings and I were out herding sheep and a B.I.A. van pulled up and told us three children to get in. When we refused, were forced to get in and they essentially kidnapped us and took us to Kayenta to the nearest boarding school. Our parents had no idea what had happened to us when the sheep wandered home in the evening with only the sheep dog and no children. How frantic they must have been. What had happened to the children?

After a sleepless night and some inquiry they were able to gather enough data that their children had been taken to the boarding school in Kayenta. They followed us there the next day but were unable to see us despite pleading with the officials there that all they wanted was to see if we children were ok. They had no rights concerning the welfare of their own children! Sad and discouraged they returned home and came back a month later to see us. They were only allowed to visit us once a month and sometimes not at all depending on transportation availability.

We children on the other hand were separated as soon as we arrived and stripped of our clothes and had our hair cut short. Our heads were doused in kerosene because we were thought to have lice infestation. Next we were taken to the shower stalls and told to scrub ourselves with lye soap. We were given ugly brown uniforms to wear and told that from now on we were going to speak only the English language and not Navajo. If we at any time if we spoke our native tongue we were beaten. We had no choice but to learn English quickly.

I liken it to being in a concentration camp. Speak only when spoken to and never disobey. Disobedience meant harsh physical punishment. Being raised in a culture where learning was done in a loving environment and never forced by physical means I was in shock. I learned to be fearful and cried only at night when I was alone in my bed and missing my parents and home so bad.

Not only were we forced to learn a new language, we were lined up in a row and given a new religion. The religions available were the Catholics, the Seventh Day Adventist, the Nazarenes, and the Mormons. I was assigned the Catholic religion which meant that the priest or the “Father” came each Sunday and picked us up and took us for Mass. My responsibility was to be dressed and ready for church. To be otherwise meant disobedience and therefore punishment. I made it a habit to always be ready for church each Sunday.

As fate would have it, one Sunday morning I could not find my shoes. I was frantic and looked everywhere. But by the time I found them and got out to the meeting place the Father had already picked up the Catholic children and I was left alone and scared knowing full well what awaited me for being late. I looked around and saw that there was still a group of children waiting for their church representative to pick them up. I didn’t know what to do because once they were pick up I would be left all alone to face the consequences of my actions. I stood there against the wall with tears running down my cheeks. Suddenly a young man in a black suit came running in looking harried followed by another young man. They both greeted the children and started to leave with them. One happened to spot me and came over to inquire why I was crying. I told him my predicament and he suggested that I go to the “Mormon” church with them. I gladly went and felt totally comfortable with these two kind young men.

They were fun and gave us treats and we sang some interesting songs. Songs about popcorn popping on some apricot tree and something about a stream talking about “giving”. I laughed and for once and for just a few moments I felt like a carefree child again. I knew that if I had to belong to a religion, this was the one for me! One that was fun and I felt love and peace. So once my decision was made, I made sure that each Sunday I sneaked over to the “Mormon” group. The “Father” never noticed my absence and I imagine because we all looked alike to him and felt grateful for that.

Once I immersed myself into the Mormon culture I turned 8 years old and that was the magic number to be baptized into the church. I wasn’t sure what that all entailed but I wanted to continue going. It was my respite from the hard boarding school environment and I wanted to be baptized. The Mormon Elders said that they would ask my mother for permission. Why my mother? Because we are a matriarchal society and my mother had the final say on all the important things in our family. They went out to our home and did just that but my mother was adamant that I did join any church no matter how kind their intent towards her child.

I was naturally disappointed and felt sad since a new program had been introduced by the Mormon church where Native children were placed in a family environment as foster children and were able to go to school. I wanted so bad to have that opportunity and unless I was baptized I couldn’t go.

During that same time frame I had a sad experience that made me more determined to get out of the boarding school where I was.

One evening at bedtime just as I was ready to go to sleep, a young girl in the next bunk bed ran across the hallway to talk to her friend. Unfortunately, she was seen running by the matron that was checking to make sure that all the children were in their beds. The shrill of the whistle made her stop in her tracks and run back and jump into her bed. I felt sorry for her but only for a moment, because the matron had mistaken me for her and she yanked me out of bed and started screaming and beating me. I took the beating knowing full well that it wouldn’t do any good to protest my innocence. I laid in my bed crying and prayed to God. I asked him fervently to please find a way that I could still get an education and yet be a better environment. I remember feeling peaceful after my prayer and hearing a voice. A voice only I could hear. A voice reassuring me that “yes” he had heard my plea. [Ginny said the voice said, “I hear you, my child."

A week later the missionaries reported to me that my mother had changed her mind and that I could be baptized. Years later, when I had children of my own, I asked my native mother why she had changed her mind. She replied that she had a dream in which she was instructed to let me join the church and go into the Indian placement program. I was baptized in Blanding, UT. The following year I left on a bus full of children from the Navajo Reservation headed to Phoenix, AZ. We rode all night long and just as the sun was rising we drove into the “Valley of the Sun”.

I was fascinated by the palm trees and the tall buildings. We arrived at the Stake Center in Mesa, AZ. All day long we were examined by volunteers from the medical community to make sure that we were given the medical treatments needed before we met our new Mormon families.

I had no idea what to expect and started to feel anxious as I waited. When my name was finally called I was so relieved since I was one of the last ones left. My Jones family had arrived to welcome me! From the first moment I knew that I belonged with that noisy happy family. They were actually fighting who was going to sit by me on the way home. I had one older sister name Anne, two older brothers Maury and Greer, a brother named Doug ( we were the same age) a younger sister Ellen and Ron my baby brother. Later I was joined by another brother, Mark, who decided to adopt the Jones family. My father Edwin was a school teacher and my mother Ethna a homemaker. Despite the size of our family we never felt poor or like we went without. This was a result of the love that existed within our family along with two very creative parents.

It still amazes me that a family that size still found room for a small shy Navajo girl and special teen age young man searching for a stable and loving home. From the beginning we were both accepted and became permanent members of that great family. I never felt different or was treated differently. I became a sister and a daughter and was given all the privileges that my Jones siblings had. My father taught me to play the piano and I was given violin lessons and I thrived in my new home and school. For nine years I stayed in Mesa, AZ with my Jones family and went home for the summer. I graduated from Mesa High School and went on to BYU. My life was forever changed because a family decided to love someone different from them and treat that person like Christ would. I regained my confidence again in who I was as a person and as a child of God. All the things that they tried to erase from my being during the years I lived at the B.I.A. boarding school seemed to fade away. I no longer felt ashamed of my heritage or culture and to this day credit them along with my biological parents and the Church Of Jesus Christ for saving me and setting me on a path to a successful life.

We still stay in touch and through out the years our families have grown and still we plan and attend family reunions every two years. I am still a part of the family, a sister, an aunt, a great aunt and certainly an interesting enigma that some of the younger Jones generation doesn’t understand what part I play in the family dynamics. Hopefully this will clear up how they acquired a full blooded Navajo woman to be their aunt and great aunt!

Both sets of parents are now gone and I think of them often with love and appreciation. There was never any jealousy between them. Only love for a child that they shared and I am forever blessed because of it.