Details

This image may be restricted. Contact reference staff for assistance.
Collection Summary
Collection: 00032 - North Dakota Oral History Project Photograph Collection
Folder: IR-05
Item: Intv0001
Title: Mattie Grinnell, Halliday (N.D.)
Date: 9/12/1974
Inscription/Marks: [Mattie Grinnell Obituary Bismarck_Tribune_Tue__Jan_7__1975_p15] Mattie Grinnell, Mandan Indian Woman, at 108. Mattie Grinnell, believed to be the last of the full-blood Mandan Indians, died at Twin Buttes Monday evening [January 6th, 1975] at the age of 108. The aged Indian woman had another claim to fame. In 1971, at the age of 104, she was granted a Civil War widow’s pension by a special act of Congress. Three years earlier, at the age of 101, she had taken part in the Poor People’s March on Washington. A proud woman, whose noble visage was lined with the passing of her many years, Mattie remained physically active and mentally alert well beyond her 100th year, and those who traveled to her clay covered log house south of Fort Berthold Reservation gained from her a priceless record of a way of life long vanished from the Dakota plains. Mattie was never sure of her birth date, but remembered that she was born in Like-A-Fishhook Village “when the chokecherries were ripe.” The village was on the Missouri about 20 miles south of White Earth. Her birth was later determined, from school records to have been in August 1866 and the family, she said, selected Aug. 25 as her birthday. Her father, Bad Bull was a scout for the Army, and her mother was Lead Woman. She was given the name Many roads, she said, from the numerous buffalo trails near her birthplace. She attended school at Fort Berthold four years and a teacher there named her Mattie. Her father died when she was 12 years old. She recalled that the government gave them oxen to plow their gardens. “It was much different then, so much better,” she said in an interview last year. Mattie had seen the Indian people moved from the rich bottomlands of the Missouri to the hard, high country with the advent of Garrison Dam, whose waters now cover much of the reservation land along the Missouri. She recalled making buffalo hunting trips with tribal parties to the Badlands and the Black Hills. Feeding the hunting parties was no problem, for there was buffalo and deer meat, corn and chokecherries and plums. The women made corn balls for the hunters. “We ground the corn, mixed it with berry juice and tallow and formed it into balls. Each man took two, giving him the strength he needed for the day’s hunt,” she recalled. She was the only person left in Twin Buttes who could prepare and sun dry beef as in the “old days” and at the age of 102, she was still preparing corn balls and dried beef for tribal ceremonies. As a young girl she knew all the chiefs of the tribes and learned the religious ceremonies and dances. She recalled Indian legends with remarkable clarity. “I still use Indian medicine. That’s why I am over 100 years old,” she once said. When she was 18, she married a German, John Nagel, who was a Civil War veteran, and they lived in a two-room log cabin on the reservation until he died in 1904. In 1907 she married Charles Grinnell. That marriage ended in 1935 and she was left with four children from her first marriage and three from the second. In 1969 her only income was $45 monthly Social Security payment. Friends urged her to apply for a pension as the widow of a Civil War veteran. Because of her second marriage, she was declared ineligible, but through the efforts of Senator Milton R. Young, Congress changed the law, enabling her to receive the payments. In her later years, Mattie lived with her son, John Nagel Jr. and at the time of her death was living with a daughter, Mrs. Alex Fournier, at Twin Buttes. Aarthun Funeral Home of Beulah is in charge of funeral arrangements.
Summary: Portrait of interviewee on day of interview.
Red ID: PH_I_122114 Image ID: 183713 Image Notes: 00032-IR-05-Intv0001

Collection: 00032 Digitized Images from Collection
Title: North Dakota Oral History Project Photograph Collection
Date: 1880-1977

Summary: Consists of copies of photographs belonging to people interviewed for the North Dakota Oral History Project. The Project was undertaken by Larry Sprunk, with the cooperation of the North Dakota American Revolution Bicentennial Commission, the North Dakota Farmers Union, and the State Historical Society of North Dakota. The primary objective of the North Dakota Oral History Project was to conduct oral tape recorded interviews with North Dakotans who lived through the state's history and who could speak of this history from a first-hand basis. Interviewees were photographed at the time of their interviews. In addition, the project borrowed over 6,000 historical photographs which were copied and added to the State Historical Society's collection. Many interviewees also donated family histories, documents, letters, ledgers, books, and artifacts.

Enter a subject or term in one or both of the “Search” boxes.

  • “Item Detail” searches the Title, Creator and Summary fields of all item-level records.
  • “Collection Number” searches the Collection Number field only and requires an exact match.

The “DETAILS” button provides additional information about an item, as well as the following options:

  • “Collection Summary” details the contents of the entire collection in which the selected item is located.
  • You can print the image and its corresponding details by selecting “Print".
  • “Digitized Images from the Collection” returns a list of all digitized items within that collection (available from the “Collection Summary” screen).

Click on image to expand/zoom the image view.

“Photobook home” takes you back to the main Photobook page where you can start a new search.

“Featured Collections” showcases new and/or popular collections and the digitized images within those collections.

Information on how to order copies is located here.

The collections preserved in the North Dakota State Archives include over a million images. Only a small percentage of these images have been digitized. This photo gallery provides a preview of the images that have been digitized.

For more information on the non-digitized images, please refer to the finding aids found on our website at history.nd.gov, or ask a member of our reference staff for assistance.