Santa Fe Living Treasures – Elder Stories

Born the tenth child "to a full-blood Cherokee mother and a Scott/Irish father" in 1916, he lived on a farm in northeastern Oklahoma. "By the time I was born, my mother had been injured while working in the hog pen, and she couldn't lift me."

One of the first things that fascinated him was clay. "I assume that I made the typical things that a five year old would make, little farm animals," he said. "I remember doing some dishes and things of that kind. My mother would bake little things I made in the wood oven as she was preparing meals."

An older sister became Lloyd's "nursemaid." "I was about eight when she got married. My mother asked her to take me and raise me. I think she knew that I wasn't going to make it on the farm, particularly with my father not being sympathetic to things other than doing his job, which was to make a living for the family."

Please see Volume 1 for complete text.
Photo ©1997 by Joanne Rijmes