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Keywords

Navajo Nation, Latter--day Saint Indian Placement Program, Indian Culture

Abstract

The Latter-day Saint Indian Placement Program unofficially started in 1947 when a seventeen-year-old Navajo girl named Helen John was harvesting sugar beets with her family in Richfield, Utah. Helen had been attending school on the Navajo reservation in Arizona for years, but that summer her father told her that once they returned to the reservation she would have to stay home and work, allowing her younger siblings to have a turn at school. Upset and disappointed, Helen ran off in tears and was overheard by Amy Avery, the wife of the farmer Helen's family was working for. Helen revealed her desire to be educated, to learn how to read, and to continue going to school. Amy Avery called Golden Buchanan, who had recently been ca lled as the stake coordinator of Lamanite affairs in Richfield and discussed how they could help Helen stay in Utah and attend school. After a surprise visit from Spencer W. Kimball, who had been assigned to oversee the Church among the Lamanites and was traveling home from a visit to Arizona, Buchanan and his family were asked if they would take Helen John in as one of their own. Thus began the first trial run of the LDS Indian Placement program.

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