Western Women: Navajo children 'stole teacher's heart' in 1912

She was on her way to the Fort Defiance Indian School, a boarding school for Navajo children situated on the grounds of old Fort Defiance, one of the first, if not the first, military post in Arizona Territory.

Franc was no stranger to Native cultures. Born in Jacksonville, Wisconsin, on March 30, 1887, she went to school and played with Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) youngsters.

Her father died when she was quite young, and her mother died when she was in her teens.

Franc taught school in Keshena, Wisconsin, on the Menominee Indian Reservation and took classes during the summer months to acquire a degree in education.

Wisconsin winters took a toll on Franc’s health, and the cold spell of 1911 was particularly difficult. She was advised to move to a warmer, drier climate.

An aunt encouraged her to apply for a teaching position with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She was assigned to Fort Defiance.

The Fort Defiance Indian School had been established in 1869, the first day school on the Navajo Reservation. The Treaty of 1868 stipulated there be a schoolhouse and teacher provided by the U.S. government, with Navajos agreeing to send their children to the school.

In the 1880s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs began construction of a boarding school at Fort Defiance that would accommodate 150 to 200 students, but by now, the Navajos had lost confidence in the government’s school system. Fewer than 40 students attended in 1885.

Two years later, compulsory attendance was mandated. Parents repeatedly hid their children rather than send them to school. Eventually, school attendance improved, and by the time Franc arrived in 1912, the school was running with some degree of normalcy and an enrollment of around 400 students. She was one of six teachers hired that year for the Fort Defiance School.

Franc collected her belongings from the train station and settled herself in the open-air touring car that would take her to the school. The scenery that passed before her eyes was like nothing she had ever seen.

“It looked like a high lonely land with little to recommend it as a place where families might earn a living,” she said. Yet by the time the car careened into view of Fort Defiance, Franc had fallen in love with the desert country she had passed through.

Just outside the fort’s entrance were a couple of trading posts with Navajo men, women and children mingling around the entrances buying needed supplies.

“One man wearing a bright purple sateen shirt, calico trousers, red deer-hide moccasins, and a wide-brimmed felt hat was tying his pony to the hitch-rail on our left,” Franc noted. “At our right a plump Navaho matron with two teen-aged daughters, all three dressed in enormously full skirts, bright velvet blouses, and gaily-patterned shawls, were loading their wagon with flour, bacon, coffee, and other supplies they had purchased at the post. A young woman with her baby safely strapped to its cradleboard drew our attention as she swung it across her shoulders preparatory to mounting her horse. It was a gay and colorful pageant and I was thrilled with my first glimpse of Navaho people engaged in their normal pursuits.”

As she entered the old fort grounds, she passed a log cottage that accommodated the school’s kindergarten. Old soldiers’ barracks served as additional classrooms. The building called the Mess Hall would be her home for the next two years. Along with the 12 rooms on the second floor that housed the school’s unmarried female employees, the structure contained a dining room, kitchen, library and sitting room.

Franc was in charge of the first-grade students who ranged in ages from 10 to 14 years. She quickly discovered little discipline had been implemented in the classroom up to this time. The children showed some interest in music and art but they had been brought to the school against their will and were determined not to learn anything unless forced to do so. They knew only a few English words and were constantly whispering in their own language.

Realizing she could not communicate with her students, Franc asked the children if they would teach her to speak Navajo. The students loved the role reversal and were soon reading and writing in English while their teacher did her homework in Navajo. By the end of the school year, she proudly reported that all her classes could add and subtract as well as read, spell and write in English. Franc, however, was a little slower learning the Navajo language.

During her time at Fort Defiance, Franc met trading post manager Arthur John (A.J.) Newcomb. A.J. was looking for a trading post he could purchase as his own. Like Franc, A.J. had a deep appreciation and love of the Navajo people and their culture.

In 1913 A.J., bought half-interest in the Blue Mesa Trading Post in New Mexico, and in June 1914, he and Franc married.

Franc had grown very fond of her students at the Fort Defiance School as they had influenced her beyond her deepest expectations. She and A.J. were about to embark on a journey that would keep her involved with the Navajo people for many years, even if she could not teach them in the classroom. The couple set off for Blue Mesa Trading Post right after their wedding.

Franc and A.J. had two children. Lynette Eloise was born in 1918 and Priscila Ann in 1924. The girls enjoyed untold freedom living on the isolated trading post but as they grew older, Franc moved to Albuquerque so her children could attend school.

Franc and A.J. divorced in 1946. A.J. died in 1948 at the age of 58.

Franc was 83 years old when she died in 1970. During her lifetime, she wrote prolifically about the Navajo culture, publishing numerous articles and books. Her journey had started at a small Indian boarding school whose children stole her heart and made her appreciate the people who befriended her in a high, lonely land.