"It was held a distinct adventure back in the demure 1880s for a properly brought-up New England girl to open a day school in a primitive Sioux village," Elaine Goodale Eastman recalled in later years. With boundless energy and dedication she had set out to teach the white man's ways to the Sioux. The Indian women called her "little sister" as she entered wholeheartedly into village activities. She watched the emergence of the Ghost Dance religion, visited with Sitting Bull shortly before his death, and was at Pine Ridge during the last month of 1890—"a time of grim suspense." There she met her future husband, Dr. Charles Eastman, the agency physician and a mixed-blood Sioux. A short time later they shared in the heart-wrenching job of caring for the survivors of the Wounded Knee massacre.

Raised in a sheltered, puritanical household in New England, Elaine Goodale Eastman (1863–1953) followed her conscience and calling in 1885 when she traveled west and opened a school on the Great Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. Over the next six years she witnessed many of the monumental events that affected the Lakotas, including the inception of the Ghost Dance religion and the fallout from the Wounded Knee massacre in December 1890. She also fell in love with and married Charles Eastman, a Dakota doctor with whom she had six children, and went on to help edit his many popular books on Sioux life and culture. This biography draws on a newly discovered cache of more than one hundred letters from Elaine that were collected by one of her sisters, Rose Goodale Dayton, as well as newly discovered family correspondence and photographs. Previous books about Elaine—including her own autobiography—emphasize her work on the Sioux reservation and association with her famous husband. Access to her personal papers, however, enabled Theodore D. Sargent to shed new light on the dynamics of her thirty-year marriage to Charles and its ultimate demise, the importance of her own literary contributions during this period, and the challenges and successes of her life following their separation. The result is a long overdue multidimensional portrait of the relationships and aspirations that impelled and troubled this fascinating woman and her extraordinary life.

Chosen by a renowned folklorist who was raised among the Sioux, these 27 entertaining and instructive tales include creation myths, animal fables, and other adventures that will charm young readers.

The importance of Eastman's life story was reiterated for a new generation when the 2007 HBO film entitled Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee used Eastman, played by Adam Beach, as its leading hero. This book presents an account of the American Indian experience as seen through the eyes of the author.

"Sal Di Leo returns after 30 years to the Catholic orphanage outside Chicago that he and his siblings called home in 1963. This is the beginning of a journey of discovery and remembrance as Sal is forced to reconstruct his life as it really happened, including some of his most difficult years at Boys Town in Nebraska. As an adult, Sal tried to rise above his turbulent past in an aggressive quest for power and money. Successes soon led to failures. Eventually, a wise friend convinces Sal to go back to his roots and look for the good experiences and valuable lessons he learned as a nine-year-old orphan"--Page 4 of cover

In 1885øa genteel New England girl traveled to the western frontier to open a school on the Great Sioux Reservation. For six years, Elaine Goodale Eastman taught, hunted with, and lived among the Lakotas, who were experiencing profound changes as buffalo herds dwindled and they were forced to adjust to reservation life. Her informative and sometimes poignant recollections of those years tell much about the daily lives of the Lakotas and how they grappled with challenges to their way of life. Goodale Eastman witnessed the arrival and flowering of the Ghost Dance religion, visited with Sitting Bull shortly before his death, and in December 1890 was at Pine Ridge, where she and her future husband, Dr. Charles Eastman, cared for the survivors of the Wounded Knee massacre. Sister to the Sioux bears witness to a critical and tragic era in Lakota history and reveals the frequently contradictory attitudes of outsiders drawn to them.