“Four of our children were born here in the city, and yet, I think, they’re orientated as American Indians. I made it a point to take them on my vacation trips in the summer, always to different reservations to get acquainted with the people of the tribe. We take photographs, we record the songs that are sung, we participate in dancing and compete for prizes ...

“I have five now. My wife is a full-blooded Winnebago, I met her on the Nebraska reservation.

“Oh, one time we had a little trouble with housing. In 1960 the work was kind of slack, there wasn’t anything going on about that time. So I got together with three other boiler-makers, and we went up to Pierre, South Dakota, where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had this dam-construction project going on. While I was up there, the rents were raised where I had been living on the West Side. Well, my wife, with the help of the parish priest, found another apartment.

“But I was kind of worried about being eight hundred miles from home, so I jumped on a train and came back to help her make the move. We made the move, and it happened that weekend the American Indian Center was holding a show. So after we got everything moved, we all went down to the theater. And after the show, we all went to the Center and had coffee and a good visit with everyone.

“When we went back to the apartment on the West Side, the first thing we discovered that most of the windows were smashed. Well, I called the Chicago police. The police came out there, and we had a police car in front of the door for about two weeks, I guess.