My Experience in Bureau of Indian Affairs Boarding Schools

Linda Wilson (Diné) comes from a very distinguished ranching family in Deerspring, Ariz., a mountainous area about 20 miles from Fort Defiance. She started school at age 6, in a Bureau of Indian Affairs school in Fort Defiance, where she remained through fourth grade. She was lucky that her parents lived near enough to check her out on Friday and take her home until Sunday evening on rare occasions. She moved on to St. Michael’s Mission School for grades five through seven, and a junior high and high school in Albuquerque. Linda spent two years at Haskell Junior College (now Haskell Indian Nations University) in Lawrence, Kansas, before moving to Washington, D.C. There, she worked for the departments of the Navy and Interior, the Geological Survey, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which transferred her to Albuquerque, where she worked until her retirement.