In 1896, 22-year-old teacher Minnie Braithwaite petitioned William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia, to attend chemistry classes in preparation to becoming a medical missionary in China. The school denied Minnie’s request and did not allow women to enroll until 1918.
Frustrated with the lack of opportunities for females still prevalent as the country headed into the 20th century, Minnie packed her satchel and signed on with the U.S. Indian Service (now known as the Bureau of Indian Education) to teach Native American children in the West. Her mother strongly objected and enlisted the aid of her congressman to prevent her daughter’s acceptance. The congressman located a school so remote that no teacher had been willing to go and he assumed Minnie would turn down the assignment also. In 1900, however, Minnie set off to teach Navajo and Hopi children at the Blue Canyon School in the heart of Navajo country.
Minnie wrote of her adventures teaching Native American children in her book, “Girl from Williamsburg,” published in 1951.
Situated about 25 miles from Tuba City, the buildings that made up Blue Canyon School consisted of a stone trading post along with an assortment of dilapidated structures that were used for schoolrooms, dormitories, the kitchen and housing for school employees. About 60 Navajo and Hopi children attended the institute and boarded there during the school term. Minnie was the only teacher.
The students were divided into four classes with Minnie teaching each group for two hours a day. In addition, she was expected to hold an entertainment hour in the evening for the children. Her duties also included cooking for the employees every third week.
She had her hands full and was often frustrated with the amount of work she was expected to accomplish, but Minnie’s students thrived under her tutelage. She quickly discarded the teaching methods she was expected to follow and introduced her own forms of instruction.
The children knew very little English when Minnie arrived. She had them write their names and pronounce them in English. She would point to her head or hand and have them repeat the words. “I was careful to take the most essential words from the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms and teach a few each day,” she said, “words that were the most valuable to them in their desert life.”
She cut out pictures from magazines to describe objects and actions. When the pictures became dog-eared and worn from use, she pasted them onto muslin for preservation and when she ran out of muslin, she ripped up her petticoats for backing.
For math, she showed the students how to count their fingers or a collection of rocks.
The children loved to sing. Minnie’s evening classes consisted of songs she taught them in English. She took some of the magazine pictures and cut them up to use as puzzles.
Smallpox permeated the reservation that winter and Minnie added to her chores by caring for those who were sick, knowing that if one child died at the school, parents would consider the place unsafe and take their children home for good. The school had no fatalities.
Although she was strict in her teaching methods, Minnie gained the respect of her students. They called her “Hozonie,” meaning good and beautiful, and she was often invited to participate in their games and activities.
“Early one Saturday afternoon,” Minnie wrote, “the boys were having great fun sliding down sand dunes. They reached down their bows to help us up. At the top we held our skirts tightly under our knees, then they gave us a great push, and we went whizzing down, carrying along tons of sand.”
Minnie’s days were physically as well as mentally challenging. As her reputation spread over the reservation, more parents sent their children to the school, and eventually, she was educating over 100 students.
Minnie stayed at Blue Canyon until she was offered a position at a Wisconsin school but she turned it down because she “wished to be on or near the desert.” In 1902, she accepted a position at the Fort Mohave Indian School situated on the grounds of old Fort Mohave that sprawled along the banks of the Colorado River.
Established in 1859, Fort Mohave became an Indian boarding school in 1890. Old barracks were used as classrooms and dormitories, while employees lived in what used to be officers’ quarters.
Minnie was not the only teacher at the Fort Mohave School, much to her relief, but she was still responsible for over half the children. A typhoid epidemic almost sent her packing.
“I was still teaching the three grades,” she said, “over half the pupils in the school, when the order came for me to sit up with the typhoid patients. I taught the three grades during the day and sat up with the sick at night. One day I was writing some copy on the blackboard, in the middle of a word the crayon paused, my forehead touched the blackboard, and I was asleep on my feet. There was noise at the door, and the supervisor entered. With a sigh I awoke and went on writing.”
Told the Mohave youngsters could not learn fractions, Minnie ordered the cook to bake several pies and deliver them to her classroom. She drew a circle on the blackboard with a line through it demonstrating one-half a pie. As she continued to dissect the circle, the children eyed the sweet juicy pastries and took to the lesson eagerly. By the end of the day, everyone knew their fractions and received a portion of the delicious pies.
Minnie did not lack for suitors while teaching at Fort Mohave. In 1906, she married teacher Clarence Jenkins and the couple settled on a farm in California. They had one daughter.
Minnie Braithwaite Jenkins died in 1954. She once remarked that the Native American children she came to teach “must have felt that they were on the verge of some strange and startling experience,” while she readily admitted, “I was as much afraid as they were.”
