Geronimo's Kids: A Teacher's Lessons on the Apache Reservation

When Ove (now a missionary in Nepal) taught at the Chiricahua Apache settlement of Whitetail, New Mexico in the late 1940s, some of the folks still alive there were participants of the infamous Apache wars. This delightful memoir takes readers to a time when Apaches could remember freedom, before they were incarcerated as prisoners of war. Ove's personal reminiscences combine with Stockel's (Survival of the Spirit: Chiricahua Apaches in Captivity) expansive knowledge of the historical context to create a cohesive whole. Here, readers meet the sons, daughters and grandchildren of the great Apache leaders who surrendered to the U.S. Army in 1886. Ove's recollections of two years as an unprepared young teacher in an alien environment detail the Chiricahua's attempts to keep the old ways alive, in a place that no longer exist. Yet, it is not just Ove's time at Whitetail that is chronicled here, the authors went back to the Apache settlement a few years ago and conducted interviews and learned how the Chiricahua have both adapted to and adopted white ways, for better or worse. Twenty-four b&w photos. (Nov.)