Stella Pretty Sounding Flute,. a member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, remembers the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Pretty Sounding Flute, 84, grew up a tent on the reservation. She said elders warned her about the economic troubles that hit the entire nation.

“I grew up the hard way,” Pretty Sounding Flute told The Mitchell Daily Republic. “There is no easy life for me but here I am. Everything I learned was the hard way.”

Pretty Sounding Flute said her life was made more difficult because she was forced to attend a boarding school. She said she was beaten for speaking the Dakota language.

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Indian elders warned of a ‘hard time’ before Depression hit (The Mitchell Daily Republic 12/11)