This article appeared in Pioneer Trails, Vol. 25, No. 3, Fall 2001, and is available in its entirety at Heritage Station museum.

Few success stories equal that of Henry Roe Cloud, a full-blooded Indian who became a national educator and Indian leader.

Roe Cloud was born in 1885 into the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. Until he was nine years old, he spoke only the Winnebago language and was known by his Winnebago name, Wo-Na-Xi-Lay-Hunk-Kah, which means Chief of the Place of Fear (the battleground), or War Chief. When he was sent away to a government school, he was registered under the name of his stepfather, Yellow Cloud, and the name “Henry” was given to him by a teacher.

Within eight years he had not only mastered English, but was studying Latin and Greek.

He was advised by the matron of Santee Normal Training School to go to Mount Hermon Preparatory School. He went to work digging potatoes, shucking corn and threshing grain to earn enough money to attend.

When most boys from Mount Hermon were going on to Yale University, his classmates suggested that he go as well. While at Yale, Henry Cloud added the third part of his name, for there he met Dr. and Mrs. Walter C. Roe, who were missionaries among the Apache, Kiowa, and Commanche Indians. He was about the same age as a son they had lost, and they took Henry as their foster son.

He had been studying to become a medical missionary. The Roes persuaded him to take another road and become a medical man. He was the first Native American to graduate from Yale.

The year after he earned his 1910 master’s degree from Yale, he attended Auburn (N.Y.) Theological Seminary, and upon graduation in 1913 was ordained a Presbyterian minister. The degree of doctor of divinity he earned at Emporia (Kansas) College in 1932.

In 1910, Henry Roe Cloud was young, active and an excellent public speaker. His foster father was disturbed by the treatment of the Apache children and grandchildren of Geronimo, Haiche, Asa and others who had taken part in the Plains wars more than 25 years earlier. Dr. Roe was now an ill and frail man and he suggested that Henry go to Washington where he lobbied in Congress and pleaded the Apaches’ cause. He was successful and in June 1910 they were freed. Each of the younger Indians was granted 160 acres of land.

From that time, he continued to assist his people. He determined to establish a school for Indian boys which would make use of the best of the Indian and Anglo cultures. The American Indian Institute opened its doors in 1915 on a 40-acre farm with “cottages and wide-eyed barns” at the edge of Wichita, Kansas. It offered accredited high school courses.

Much as Henry Roe Cloud loved his school, a time came when he felt he must move forward. During the years he had guided the school, he had raised some $500,000 for its support, the largest amount ever raised by an American Indian.

In 1926-27 and again in 1929-30, he had been a staff member of a survey team of Indian Affairs for the Institute for Government Research. The conditions uncovered were so bad that a change of policy was inevitable. Roe Cloud assisted in formulating such changes.

Faced with this opportunity for wider service to his people, he gave the American Indian Institute with its ample buildings and grounds, together with $50,000 in stocks and bonds, to the Presbyterian Missionary board. In 1931, he accepted an appointment as special representative of the United States Indian Service.

On Aug. 16, 1933, Henry Roe Cloud accepted an appointment from the Secretary of the Interior as Superintendent of Haskell Institute at Lawrence, Kan.

In 1939, he came to the Umatilla Reservation as Indian Agent to the Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla tribes . He is one of few Indians to have held such a position. His position as agent was to carry out federal programs of health, education, law and order, hunting and wildlife treaty rights (such as the Celilo fishing rights), and recreation and social life for the tribes. At the time he was agent, about 159,000 acres of reservation land remained, and he assisted in the land management.

During the years he was Superintendent of the Umatilla Indian Agency, he was a staunch supporter of the Pendleton Round-Up and rode in the parades with his friend, M. D. Fell, then Indian Director.

In 1948, he moved with his family to Portland when he was assigned to the Siletz and Grand Ronde reservations. He died of heart disease Feb. 8, 1950, at Siletz.

Elizabeth Bender Roe Cloud was a sister of Charles (Chief) Bender, the famous pitcher for the Philadelphia Athletics. Elizabeth was born on the White Earth Indian reservation at Fosston, Minn. Her mother was Chippewa and her father, a German homesteader.

She was interested in education as was her husband. Before her marriage, she graduated from Hampton (Va.) Institute, taught Blackfoot Indians at Browning, Mont., and then attended Carlisle University. She also attended the University of Kansas and Wichita University, and had two years of nurses’ training at Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia.

While living in Pendleton she volunteered as a night nurse at the Ordnance Depot Hospital in Ordnance.

Their four daughters were all born at the American Indian Institute. Elizabeth (Mrs. Edward L. Hughes), graduated from Wellesley and Lillian (Mrs. Leo Freed) from University of Kansas, while Anne (Mrs. Robert C. North) and Ramona Clark, finished at Vassar.

Elizabeth Roe Cloud encouraged the development of arts and crafts among Indian women while her husband was agent at Mission. With her assistance they organized the Oregon Trail Women’s Club which established an educational fund for young Indians. It was called the Mary W. Roe fund, in memory of Henry Roe Cloud’s foster mother.

Under Elizabeth’s direction, the women helped with Indian exhibits during the Pendleton Round-Up. In 1940, she was one of two Indian women invited by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the White House to be a delegate to a conference on “Children in a Democracy.”

When Elizabeth heard she had been named 1950 Mother of the Year, she was speaking before a group of church women in Portland. That year she was chair of the Oregon Federation of Women’s Clubs, as well as of the Indian Welfare Committee. She was the first Indian woman to be so honored.

Elizabeth was notified of her election as Mother of the Year by Gov. Douglas McKay’s committee. The American Mother’s Committee in New York cited her religious honesty and character and achievements of her children in selecting her from 52 candidates representing all the states of the Union.