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Pipestone
Pipestone: My Life in an Indian Boarding School | Adam Fortunate Eagle
5 posts | 1 read | 9 to read
A renowned activist recalls his childhood years in an Indian boarding school Best known as a leader of the Indian takeover of Alcatraz Island in 1969, Adam Fortunate Eagle now offers an unforgettable memoir of his years as a young student at Pipestone Indian Boarding School in Minnesota. In this rare firsthand account, Fortunate Eagle lives up to his reputation as a contrary warrior by disproving the popular view of Indian boarding schools as bleak and prisonlike. Fortunate Eagle attended Pipestone between 1935 and 1945, just as Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Colliers pluralist vision was reshaping the federal boarding school system to promote greater respect for Native cultures and traditions. But this book is hardly a dry history of the late boarding school era. Telling this story in the voice of his younger self, the author takes us on a delightful journey into his childhood and the inner world of the boarding school. Along the way, he shares anecdotes of dormitory culture, student pranks, and warrior games. Although Fortunate Eagle recognizes Pipestones shortcomings, he describes his time there as nothing less than a little bit of heaven. Were all Indian boarding schools the dispiriting places that history has suggested? This book allows readers to decide for themselves.
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Eggs
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This is an Autumn photo of the court house square in my home town of Pipestone MN. The building in the upper left was our Catholic Church, St. Leo‘s. It is a beautiful town🍁🧡🍂

#YrTownInAutumn

#AutumnPlease!

@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

emz711 Love Minnesota and I love fall! 🍁🍂🍂 14mo
JamieArc Beautiful! 14mo
Eggs @emz711 a real midwestern autumn is what I miss🥲 14mo
Eggs @JamieArc 🧡🍁🧡 14mo
64 likes4 comments
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Eggs
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Tagged: I grew up there (Pipestone MN)

1* John McEnroe, Ron Paul, authors: Dr Mac Lee, Peggy O‘Neill, JoAnn Sturzl. I‘ve seen Matthew McConaughey around Austin, Rolling Stones in Mpls, Waylon Jennings & Jessie Coulter in Mpls, and sat at a bar stool across from Hank Williams Jr. There are more but I‘m really old and can‘t remember...
3* continued good health and 20 more years of life
#thankfulthursday @Cosmos_Moon

Chab256 Omg! Did you just say you met Waylon Jennings??? I am so jealous. I grew up listening to my Grandma's Waylon and Willie records. He once stopped to eat in a diner in the very small town I grew up in back in the early 90s. My Grandma was so upset she wasn't there that day. 4y
Amiable Pipestone —is that out towards Sioux Falls? My brother-in-law lives in Thief River Falls, MN (way up past Fargo). We went out there to visit him a few years ago and drove up from Minneapolis by way of Walnut Grove (so I could stop and see the Laura Ingalls Wilder exhibits). 4y
Eggs @Chab256 ❤️❤️ 4y
Eggs @Amiable yes, Sioux Falls is less than an hour away. I lived my first 29 years in MN but never went to walnut grove...but I did spend a day at Laura and almanzo‘s home in Missouri 4y
50 likes5 comments
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Eggs
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77 likes3 stack adds
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Eggs
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Adam (Nordwall) approached his childhood and adolescence with a sense of humor. The Indian boarding school in pipestone (my hometown in MN) closed down the year I was born. Faculty, admin and staff were all American Indians themselves. I'm in agreement with the author-Pipestone was a great place to grow up. Adam became an author and activist and played a major role in the Indian invasion of Alcatraz 1969-1971

83 likes4 stack adds
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Eggs
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Life in an Indian Boarding School. #TBR #31bookpics @howjessreads

Leigh_Medeiros I've heard terrible things happened in those schools. I imagine it's a tough (but necessary) read. 6y
Eggs @Leigh_Medeiros Actually he wrote it to dispel the common myths about Indian schools: that they're bleak and prisonlike. He called his experience "a little bit of Heaven" and he adored his teachers. ? 6y
Leigh_Medeiros @Eggs Wow. I don't think it's a myth that many Indian schools were abusive and horrible (based on other first person accounts), but I'm glad some are as he describes! 6y
78 likes3 stack adds3 comments