When Geneva was sixteen, her beloved grandmother became ill with tuberculosis and died. He was terribly angry about how the Indians were being written about in the texts she was using. Her grandfather told her, “Those are lies! You rip those pages out of that book!” She told him that she could not tear her school book up. One time she was reading about Indian people to them. Her grandmother told her, “Don’t you bring that pencil home!” She would read to her grandparents out of her history books. She told her grandmother that the teacher had a special pencil and wrote all over the wall and even would sometimes allow the children to write on the wall, as well. One of her favorite stories is about the use of the chalk board. She recalls how her grandmother would ask her many questions about her day when she would return home. Reluctantly, my mother was sent to the local public school for a general education. “Ketha thivo tekwap! Numu tekwap!” (Don’t talk like the white man! Speak Comanche!) she would say. Her grandmother would become agitated and hit the table with a spoon because she couldn’t understand her children. Though all the children were fluent, they also began to speak English when they would return home. Her aunts and uncles would relate the harsh punishment and strict regimen of the boarding schools to their family. She has said many times that her grandparents would have been happy to have her stay at home with them and not attend school at all. Geneva’s grandmother did not want her sent away. Many of her aunts and uncles went to boarding school at St. She lived with her large extended family all under one roof for several years. Geneva grew up with Numunu (Comanche) as her first language. Though the Comanche were not farming people they were expected to leave their nomadic ways and become sedentary and settle into that lifestyle, which many did. government during the Native American holocaust in this country. In the case of my relatives this happened after they were released from their captivity and imprisonment by the U.S. My great-grandfather was “granted” several acres of land due to the Dawes Act of l887 (Allotment Act) in which Native people were “given” land. Geneva grew up to be their English interpreter as neither one spoke English for as long as they lived. She was raised by her maternal grandparents, Frank and Mookemah Nevaquaya. She was born to Esther Tooahimpah Tate and Max Woomavoyah, and is a full blood Comanche. My mother, Geneva Woomavoyah Navarro, was born in the small town of Apache, Oklahoma in 1926. Terry and her Mom, Geneva Woomavoyah Navarro
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