Mary Warren English Tries to Preserve Ojibwe Culture

As a Native, Mary Warren English, informally adopted by the Wheelers, lives on various reservations, mostly at White Earth. When the Smithsonian sends Ruth Densmore there to collect information about Ojibwe rituals, Mary Warren becomes Densmore’s friend and translator for fifteen years, helping her preserve Ojibwe culture just as her brother William Warren did with his History of the Ojibway People. Her correspondence with the Wheelers makes it clear that all her life she considers them family—and like them, she yearns for the home they shared at Bad River.