We found La Casa, an old monastic building with a colorful history and purchased it from the government for what has turned out to be the best land purchase since the purchase of Manhattan Island. Unlike so many of our European progenitors Sarah and I were determined to be good friends to our Navajo neighbors. We honored their traditions and made no effort to impose our own. After an initial reticence, so typical of tribal people, we became very close with Marie Nez and her husband Joseph Calling Bird, the couple living in the hogan nearest to La Casa. Marie is a local Navajo, while Joseph is an east band Cherokee medicine

They became "god parents" -- if such a term can be used here -- when Margaret was born in 1946, and served as our cultural and spiritual advisors. When Margaret turned four, Sarah decided it was time for her to attend school, but there was no school in the area that met our needs. The reservation schools were a poor substitute for an education for any child, and especially bad for the native children. We wanted Margaret to grow up in both worlds, but when Sarah talked about teaching her here we worried if our daughter would be lonely without the company of other children.

It was then that Marie Nez suggested that Sarah teach several of the local children along with Margaret. Sarah was well-qualified to teach, having a degree in English literature, another in French romantic poetry and minors in US history and world geography. That would satisfy the state school system, but the question remained -- what would satisfy local elders? Again, Marie Nez provided the solution. She offered to co-teach with Sarah. Marie would teach the children -- Margaret included -- to speak Navajo. She would teach them the Navajo culture, while Sarah, as comparative sociology, would teach the European ways. Sarah also found locals to share the Apache and Hopi ways. Neither white nor red would be presented as superior, only as parallel paths along the same road.

At first many tribal parents were sceptical, but the government insisted that the children go to school. Past experience was that the state would seize children to be sent away to the infamous schools designed to strip the children of their heritage. Sarah's school here at La Casa was an alternative and it was so well-run that the officials had to accept that those educated here scored much higher on tests than those schooled anywhere else. Marie and Joseph had no children of their own, but were related to many children all about Margaret's age. In less than a year Sarah had over 30 children in her charge.