A wonderful person named Susan Paddlety-Dunlap who is Kiowa visited last year and wanted to meet me because she loved News of the World — she is Kiowa and was heartened by the way the Kiowa were treated respectfully in the book, in fact she said she was quite moved, and luckily she came back this year so we all got together- Susan and myself and Auriel, at the Main Street Utopia boutique. We had a wonderful time and a great talk. Susan brought two bottles of very good wine. It was a splendid day. Susan is a beadwork artist, a pow-wow dancer and a great hand at interior decoration. She made me these children’s moccasins with the Kiowa oak-leaf symbol. She said these would have been what Cicada’s Kiowa mother would have made for her. They are just beautiful! I was absolutely blown away by this special gift.

Susan has represented her tribe at many levels with large corporations, as a beauty queen, as an interpreter of tribal life to non-natives and in many other capacities. Auriel took our picture together and after four tries I cannot for the life of me get the photo transferred from my phone to my downloads and so I have stopped tearing my hair and cursing digital devices and will get somebody else to do it for me soon. Anyway, we laughed a lot. She’s a very special person and a blessing.

Eva Lou Ware was her aunt I was happy and surprised to learn. When I was writing News of the World I searched everywhere for some example of spoken Kiowa and on the internet came across some small company that sold tapes with example sentences from everywhere in the world. And as luck would have it they did one in Kiowa! By a lady named Eva Lou Ware, as it said on the cassette, who had a rich, deep voice, and Susan said it was her aunt!

Many connections.

I finally managed a photo of the lovely Susan Paddlety-Dunlap!