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What is a Mendota Members Responsibility’s 2020.
What is a Mendota Members Responsibility’s 2020.
Who wants to learn the language, culture, go to sweats, support Sundance, etc.
Who cares that the Mendota Community is successful and will be forever!
Who contribution or their dues to help maintain our office in Mendota.
Who can donate their time at the office from time to time.
Who comes to our voting membership meeting once a month, or at least 4 times a year, with the exceptions of members out of town.
Who helps at different events like holiday party and toy drive, honoring our ancestors, etc.
Who helps at our Wacipi- Pow Wow for one or two days.
These are small responsibility as a member, the tribal council is not asking too much.
Remember the BIA will be looking at the sign in sheets.
That is what a Mendota Members is, spending time with other members, respecting each other being a community.
Pidamaya
Your Tribal Council, Sharon Lennartson, John LeClaire and Greg Strandmark, Jason Delmont, Joseph Lennartson.
Inductee into the Honoring 90 SSP Women Leaders is Therese Cosgrove
Comments
We are not having our Christmas & Toy Drive this year because of Covid.
Hello all members we are not having our Christmas Party. We will have a Toy Drive. The DuPuis House is still closed and will be until some time in 2021?
Even if we don’t get together, we are still a community and always will be no matter what happens. Stay strong be Dakota.
I have asked members if they would come, to any events, the majority said they would not come because of Covid.
Looks like Covid is spreading again scary times.
Stay safe, hope to see you next year.
We will continue to sent out monthly agendas and our finance’s to keep everyone in the loop.
We must maintain an office in Mendota.
We have had an office in Mendota for 26 years.
Been a community in Mendota for 130 plus years.
Thank you all for being a members.
Your Tribal Council
Sharon Lennartson Tribal – Chairwoman
John LeClaire – Vice Chair
Acting Greg Standmark – Historian
Acting Joe Lennartson – Treasurer
Acting Jason Delmont – Secretary
Students may be calling you with a few questions.
This is an Example story. If your story is to long for you to write, like this one LOL, then just talk to the students when they call you with a few questions. We are only interviewing about 30 people. We only have until Dec for the student to complete for their grade.
Albert & Lilly LaClaire (LeClaire) had a farm at Prior Lake Indian Community in the early 1920 until 1942 when Albert died. Albert LeClaire birthday is May 12, 1885.
Lillian Felix LeClaire birthday is Sept 6, 1881 both born in Mendota MN.
We have the records of Albert & Lilly animals, the contract they signed, and what lots they had.
Clearly the oldest place on the Shakopee Reservation is Albert & Lilly’s LaClaire’s land and it is over 100 years old.
Albert used the name LaClaire, and LeClaire.
He was in a car accident on the Prior Lake Reservation. A cousin of Alberts was driving the car, they were all hurt but grandfather was hurt the most, they were all related. Looking for that article in a newspaper in the Prior Lake area in 1942.
No hospital would take him because he was Indian. He went to Pipestone Indian Hospital where he died a month later of a broken back. He suffered because Pipestone hospital did not have the right equipment or doctors for his injuries, all because of the color of his skin.
Lilly, grandmother was at least admitted in a Hospital in St Paul. The hospital would not take care of her, Lilly children had to take care of her, I get so mad when I heard what grandmother and grandfather went through.
I would like to find old hospital records for Albert in Pipestone and Lilly at a St Paul Hospital.
The Brewers were on that land for years after Albert died about 40 years.
I guess there were a few other families on that land, before the Brewer farmed it.
Everyone said grandfather died of a broken heart after Lilly died in 1940.
The LeClaire Felix family has never been credited or acknowledged for that house or shack, I feel it is time.
Shakopee used to have a video of the house in the Shakopee hotel’s rooms, I see they do not play that anymore.
I have tried for many years to get this resolved in a good and respectful way with no replies from the Shakopee tribe ever.
It should be easy to find your old property lots from the 1900’s.
I was sent a page in a land book on Prior Lake land.
I have seen documents of the land that grandfather farmed in a book that Susan Totenhagen showed us back in 1994 when she was doing enrollment.
When Susan realized that was her family farm now, she called her father and we all went to see my grandfather and grandmother’s old family house.
Beverly Scott my sister and I had felt grandmother and grandfather, we both stared to cry with sorrow as to what they went thru on the re
Shakopee put an ad in the paper looking for descendants back in 1994?
We went out there to apply for membership. Norman Crook, my mother Selisha Felix LeClaire’s first cousin told us we would get in, but that never happened. We are related to the Campbells and many others at Shakopee. We got a letter saying that we did not qualify to become a member.
I still have that letter, if you would like to see it, it was signed by Anita Campbell.
My mother Selisha LeClaire wanted to find the farmhouse where she lived and went to school, we could never find the house.
Grandfather lived in poverty with no water, electricity, they all lived in shacks back then.
Abraham Robinette, grandfather’s cousin, also lived there next to grandfather’s farm.
Also do you have documents of who attended the old red school house in 1900 – 1920?
Looking for records of the Little Red School House in Prior Lake in the late 1900.
My mother Selisha and her 4 siblings, Albert Jr, Ray, Selisha, Margaret, and Russell LeClaire. went to school at the old little red school.
Until Lilly got land in Mendota, grandmother was tired of how her family was treated by the whites.
We are related to Chief Cetanwakanmani, Taoyatwduta from the 1862 uprising, Agathe Winona Red Woman Angelique DuPuis Renville, Mazasnawin Iron Woman Rosalie Freniere. I have documentation on everything I have talked about.
The Descendants of our families have been in Mendota for 130 years, all Dakotas for thousands of years.
Thank You for your time, I hope you can give me a few answers that I and my family have been seeking or point me the right person.
Felix, LeClaire, Renville, DuPuis, Fernier,Turpin, Bellecourt, Robinette, Campbell, LaCroix, LaBatte
Newcomb, Perron, Lemay,
Leith, Sherry, Auge,
Faribault, Cermak, Crooks, DuFour.
Many of these families, not all are descendants of Chief Cetanwakanmani, or Chief Wabasha.
Many of these names are spell different ways.
Like LeClaire, LaClaire, Le Cleur, etc.
Sharon Lennartson Tribal Chairwoman for the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Tribal Community.
Mitakuye Owasin (We Are All Related)
Wakiya Waste Win ( Good Thunder Woman )
Sharon Lennartson 651-452-4141 Tribal Office.
Website: Mendotadakota.com
Email: mendotadakota@gmail.com
Sharon Lennartson and the Faribault Dakota Project
Sharon Lennartson, tribal headwoman of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community, exploded with joy when she learned of the Faribault Dakota Project in the works.
“I yelled and screamed to my boys, “Somebody’s finally going to listen,’” Lennartson recalls. I wanted every bit to be a part of it.”
In partnership with the Faribault Heritage Preservation Commission, Rice County Historical Society, Faribault Mural Society and Santee Sioux Nation, the Mendota Dakota Community will offer historical insight to a project that will honor the Dakotas’ impact on Faribault’s early years.
Jeff Jarvis, a Faribault artist, designer and historian, connected with Lennartson after taking the lead on the project.
The idea for the memorial began several months ago when the commission became aware of a hand-drawn map that illustrated where Native Americans had lived on city namesake Alexander Faribault’s property after the Dakota Uprising. Faribault and Bishop Henry Whipple both wanted to protect the Dakota, who had helped Minnesota settlers during the U.S.-Dakota War, from being banished from the state.
Although the HPC initially envisioned land near the River Bend Nature Center as the location for the Faribault Dakota memorial, the new options include Peace Park, the Buckham Memorial Library Plaza and Heritage Park. The project is expected to begin in 2021.
Jarvis plans to combine written word, artwork and photography to depict the story of the Faribault Dakota on a three-panel interpretive sign. The panels will provide backstory of the Faribault Dakota community, including a history of the Wahpekute, partnerships that supported Native Americans in Faribault, maps, timelines, photos of tribe leader and Dakota verbiage with English translations.
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Sharon Lennartson, tribal headwoman of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community, exploded with joy when she learned of the Faribault Dakota Project in the works.
“I yelled and screamed to my boys, “Somebody’s finally going to listen,’” Lennartson recalls. I wanted every bit to be a part of it.”
In partnership with the Faribault Heritage Preservation Commission, Rice County Historical Society, Faribault Mural Society and Santee Sioux Nation, the Mendota Dakota Community will offer historical insight to a project that will honor the Dakotas’ impact on Faribault’s early years.
Jeff Jarvis, a Faribault artist, designer and historian, connected with Lennartson after taking the lead on the project.
The idea for the memorial began several months ago when the commission became aware of a hand-drawn map that illustrated where Native Americans had lived on city namesake Alexander Faribault’s property after the Dakota Uprising. Faribault and Bishop Henry Whipple both wanted to protect the Dakota, who had helped Minnesota settlers during the U.S.-Dakota War, from being banished from the state.
Although the HPC initially envisioned land near the River Bend Nature Center as the location for the Faribault Dakota memorial, the new options include Peace Park, the Buckham Memorial Library Plaza and Heritage Park. The project is expected to begin in 2021.
Jarvis plans to combine written word, artwork and photography to depict the story of the Faribault Dakota on a three-panel interpretive sign. The panels will provide backstory of the Faribault Dakota community, including a history of the Wahpekute, partnerships that supported Native Americans in Faribault, maps, timelines, photos of tribe leader and Dakota verbiage with English translations.
“That was the first time any of us at the office had seen [the map],” Lennartson said.
One of the houses on the map is labeled “LeClair,” which could refer to Lennartson’s great-grandfather, Wakon LeClair, who was Alexander Faribault’s helper. Lennartson explained “Wakon” means “holy,” and her great-grandfather was a medicine man or spiritual advisor. Her family tree also contains Faribaults and a common ancestor with Chief Little Crow, acclaimed leader of the Mdewakanton from 1846 to 1863.
Thinking about the project and what it means to have her people recognized, Lennartson recalls the tragic stories of her late grandparents, Lily and Albert LeClair. Her grandmother died at her Mendota home after the medical staff at a hospital failed to take proper care of her, and her grandfather, who broke his back in a car accident on the reservation, was turned away by another hospital because he was a Native American. He suffered for months because the hospital that did take him in didn’t have the proper medical equipment to treat his broken back, and Lennartson said he “died of a broken heart.”
Lennartson herself was not raised Native, but she and other Mdewakanton descendants started the Mendota Dakota Community nearly 25 years ago to return to their roots. Other members of the tribal council will have opportunities to share their input for the Faribault Dakota Project, and so will members of the Santee Sioux Nation and Lower Sioux Agency.
The Mendota Dakota people have been in Minnesota for thousands of years, Lennartson said, and Dakota ancestors and descendants have been in Mendota for over 130 years. She and the others in the Mendota Dakota community are related to Chief Cetanwakanmani, Chief Taoyatwduta from the 1862 war, and Chief Wabasha as well as Agathe Winona Red Woman Angelique DuPuis Renville and Mazasnawin Iron Woman Rosalie Freniere. Some of their ancestors are from Little Crow’s village, Kaposia.
“This is about as happy as I’ve ever been,” Lennartson said of the announcement of the Faribault Dakota Project. “It’s time … Just to know that different families are recognized and not forgotten — they’ll never be forgotten.”
This story written by MISTY SCHWAB misty.schwab@apgsomn.com
