Picture Gallery of DRUMS ALONG THE OHIO :

Chief Spotted Crow (March 6, 1929)
Chief Spotted Crow, of the Sioux Tribe from South
Dakota is shown standing outside the White House
holding the papoose, Lena Lou White House, who was
so named by the newly innaugurated Vice President,
Charles Curtis. .

They had visited the Executive office on March 6,
1929, two days after Curtis and President Herbert
Hoover were innaugurated. Curtis’ mother’s lineage
was one-fourth Kaw, one-fourth Osage, and one-fourth
Pottawatomie (along with one-fourth French), and
Curtis himself spent part of his childhood on a Kaw
reservation. (Photograph from Wide World Photos
Washington Bureau, provided to Drums Along the Ohio
courtesy of Cleveland Public Library.)

Left to right: Front Row: Wichita Blaine (To-too-ra-we-chat); High Eagle (Se-ts-tis-tee); Robert Taylor
(La-re-roo-la-chicks-se-Wa-ra); and Billy Osborne.Back Row: Walking Sun (Se-te-roo-tiks-ta-we-ah);
Leading Fox (La-he-rus-ka-wa-do); Rush Roberts (Le-ta-kuts-ka-ra-ha-roo); and Dog Chief (Simon
Adams—Cu-roox-la-le-sa-roo).

Tall Oak
(reprinted from Fall 2000 Issue)
When this photo appeared, Tall Oak reported that “my life’s
commitment to our survival as Indian people is a full-time job and
takes me in so many directions it is fequently not possible to sleep or
eat properly in my so-called retirement. .e attacks continue and
rearrange my priorities, as history repeats itself.” We are happy to
report that Tall Oak is still fighting the good fight.

Walter Brentson was raised in the Mississippi Delta. As a young man he
worked at trapping beaver along the banks of the Pearl River. He also was
known as a great marksman and hunter. His preference was not killing
animals, but his desire and love for agriculture became one of his principal
ambitions. Such desire led him to become a superb farmer and planter. He
also became a skilled carpenter and cabinet maker, but spent much of his
adult life working at an auto plant in Cleveland, Ohio.

One of his greatest qualities that he was known for by those who knew and
worked with him was how he always kept his word.It was in May of this
year, at the age of 92, that the man who some called the Silver Bear was
laid to rest in the Lakeview Cemetery, in Cleveland, Ohio. Here you have a
Walter Brentson: .e Silver Bearman who stood 6 feet 6 inches and weighed
approximately 240 pounds with dark brown skin and a head full of snow
white hair. He often spoke of a man called “Bear Killer” who was in his
prime when Brentson was a small boy. Bear Killer was known for one thing
the small boy disliked and yet another the boy admired. Bear Killer was
known as a man of superb strength. He was known to have killed a bear
with one mighty blow to the heart. .is was what Brentson disliked. On the
other hand, Bear Killer carried out an old Choctaw tradition: to have a
word which could be depended on. .is quality Brentson embraced for the
rest of his life.
Farewell, Silver Bear. Perhaps you may have met the old Bear Killer once
more in what is often called the “Happy Hunting Grounds.”