I knew my grandmother, Edna Mae Schurch, as Nonnie. Long before I knew her, when my mother was a small child, before my grandfather was killed, she and my grandfather were heavily involved with the Native American community in Oklahoma, especially through their churches. My mother, Lil, remembers visiting their local church after attending their church on Sunday. They would drive out, taking food along, and share Sunday dinner with the Native community gathered there.
Bacone College is a small Indian college in Muskogee, OK. At that time it was church related. On holidays, women from the college who could not afford a ticket home would need places to stay while the dorms were closed, so they were placed with families in the church. These visits accounted for the baskets, pottery and Navajo dolls that I lived with as a child. One particular visit, recorded in the photograph above, is remembered well by Lil, that of Juanita from the Hopi lands.
Lil's story of that visit is also available.