 Home | Recent News | Wichita | Volunteer Returning to Reservation 03 Aug 2007 Retired nurse looks forward to returning to her volunteer position on the Reservation in Utah Retired school nurse Mary Dorn thought she was simply on a vacation in 1994 when her bus tour stopped at Monument Valley in southeastern Utah
The valley’s majestic red sandstone buttes that rise hundreds of feet in the air have become an iconic image of the American West, appearing as the backdrop for countless motion pictures, commercials and even game shows. The area also is home to a Navajo Indian Reservation.
Dorn was understandably moved by what she saw. But in a plot twist that could have come straight from a Hollywood script, she instantly knew that Monument Valley was more than just a beautiful tourist stop. It was where she wanted to stay. While dining at the local restaurant, she found out who to contact at the nearby Navajo high school about a job.
“I got the name of the principal and wrote her that night and said if you ever need a volunteer school nurse, let me know,” she said. In fact, she went so far as to volunteer to do “just about anything” to live and work on the reservation.
The reply was equally swift: a letter of invitation from the principal was waiting for Dorn when she got home. Dorn left her home and possessions soon after and spent the next 12 years at Monument Valley High School.
Today, she is back in Kansas for what she hopes will only be a temporary stay while she receives some medical treatment. Reminders of her life among the Navajo adorn her apartment at Presbyterian Manor of Wichita: a cradle board used by a teacher to transport and comfort his infant daughter, hand-woven wall hangings and rugs featuring intricate patterns that exist only in the minds of their skilled weavers, and other artwork. A photo of Dorn on a hike, dwarfed by buttes, hangs on her refrigerator.
Presbyterian Manor has furnished her apartment, with the exception of her Navajo treasures and an antique dining table. That was all she brought with her because a year after she moved to the reservation, she rid herself of a lifetime of things.
“I called a friend back in Kansas City where we had our home and said sell it. So she sold the house and everything that was in it, from dish rags to antiques,” said Dorn.
She adds with a twinkling laugh, “I told everybody I was stuffless, thingless and homeless.”
The memories of the life she made on the reservation for the past 12 years bubble out with spontaneity and obvious joy. Countless photographs help her stay connected, along with letters and telephone calls she receives regularly from teachers and Navajo families.
She said her attraction to the reservation, besides its setting, was a combination of the people and “being needed instantly.”
Her role at the high school was that of “jack of all trades,” doing everything from unlocking the school for events, to herding sheep out to graze, to helping with a vast garden where students grow blue corn, white corn, melons, squash, peaches and other food.
She has had her share of adventures. She was spit on by a llama used to protect sheep as she was trying to free a ram whose horns were tangled in its wool. There also were the more “piddly” things, as she calls them: climbing into a tractor-trailer to sell bales of hay, picking squash and carrying it to the school, driving a truck in a parade.
She handled racial and cultural differences with humor and aplomb, noting that the Navajo people by their nature are humble and “incredibly forgiving.” Cultural beliefs did make for a memorable moment at the school, which is home to 200-250 students.
“The school was supposed to be built someplace else but they couldn’t get water to it. The elders in the community objected because they said there was an ancient cemetery there,” said Dorn. “Anything in Utah, before you build, you have to dig a trench. They didn’t find anything so they went ahead and built the school. The locals still to this day, this minute, think there are spirit winds in the school.”
This belief worked to Dorn’s advantage one day when she saw some students wander into the auditorium when they were supposed to be in class.
“I heard the door (to a storage area) being kicked so I peeked out under the edge of the door and I saw these three kids coming across the stage,” she said. Dorn mustered the oddest groaning, moaning noise she could, knowing she could not be seen.
“You’ve never seen six legs hit that back door so fast. I hurried out to see who the kids were. There was nobody in sight,” she said, adding, “There are spirit winds in the school.”
Another memorable moment came during a five-year period when she was the only medical person for 25 miles, apart from a Navajo health service for emergencies only.
“This woman knocked at the door about 2 o’clock one morning and said her husband was having a heart attack. I went out in my nightgown and bare feet,” she said. “I didn’t have any stethoscope so I just lifted up his shirt and put my ear against his stomach and the heart sounded steady. We sent him on to the Indian health service.
“My story is that he was having a heart attack, but this white woman putting her ear to his belly got it going again.”
She also witnessed the arrival and impact on the reservation of such modern conveniences as electricity, telephones and television to family dwellings.
“When I went there in ’94, there was no television, no electricity in many places, no running water. The kids were quiet and shy, which is a Navajo trait. You’re supposed to be in sync with nature and don’t try to force yourself forward. They wouldn’t exactly look at you when you talked to them. And then in 1997 or ’98, electricity came,” she said. “Television came in and after that, the dress, the talk (changed) – it was sick.”
When she arrived at the reservation, one-third of the students still lived in Hogans, traditional round wooden structures, typically with sand floors. Twelve years later, only one student still lived in a Hogan, according to a survey.
Another survey revealed a significant swing away from Navajo culture among students as they gained access to television. Eighty-one percent of children born in 1987 understood the Navajo language and more than half spoke it. For children born in 1993, those percentages had dropped to 48 and 28 percent, respectively.
“They’re getting assimilated so very fast,” Dorn said.
She’s glad that students still must study the Navajo language in school and hopes the many beautiful skills and traditions of the Navajo people will find new life in another generation. If her health improves, she said she would return to the reservation to be part of its future.
“If I get it under control, I’ll be buzzing right back out,” she said.
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