Unchie

My Great Grandmother Unchie was five years old during the Massacre of Wounded Knee that occurred on December 29, 1891. She survived that tragedy and because of that i am writing you today. She use to say "it only takes a little bit of blood to make a difference."   What did she actually mean by that? What was the difference she was talking about I wonder? Was it being Indian, or was it being human? She had witnessed the slaughter of her people, survived against all odds, yet she saw humanity in the face of hatred. My grandmother saw the world as a whole, not segregated  broken pieces of white, black, brown and yellow stones, but the sum of the whole, and  because of that she lived...

                                                   My father Louis Larvie Snyder with Unchie

Unchie bore four children, two girls, my grandmother Alice, Aunt Frieda, and my two great uncles Don, otherwise know as Little Rabbit, and my uncle Doug the matriarch of the family. They had fought in WWII, and outlived most of the men on Orange Beach in Normandie, France. How had that come full circle? The 7th Calvary had killed the Oglala's in an attempt to control the land, now my uncles were holding the rifles, fighting a war that wasn't theirs.