The Tree of Life

<p>Reading through my family archives I found the following post “In her youth John Crenshaw gave an army sergeant a five-dollar gold piece to release her to him.” I was intrigued. I wanted to know what had happened to this couple—John Crenshaw and the Cherokee Indian maiden. What did this five-dollar gold piece play in the story as I read about their lives set in those before and after years of the Civil War?</p><p>I became fascinated with the information that I could piece together to tell the story of two Cheyenne Indian women and their chosen lives through diversity the Civil War and their family—my ancestors. While I created some parts in fiction to embellish the story the written actions of each resilient woman were true bonded together with the telling of their lives. I was proud to write their stories of love and dedication and I began to know them as actual women creating my own “tree of life.” These two women were my great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother. I was intrigued to read of their lives and connected them to my own life.</p><p>My father had always told me stories of his Indian grandmother LeAnna Crenshaw Stone and now I had actually found her story. Through the archives I enabled her life to be told again.</p><p>“Go now to your dwellings to enter into the days of your life together” (Elliot Arnold 1947).</p>