1966: featured photo is our auntie Grace Oldman in front of her hooghan at Red Mesa AZ, which is a log structure (picture an eight sided one room log cabin) with log roof (picture logs in a bowl shape and turned upside down on the octagon shaped “cabin”) and covered with the clay soil for… Read More Hooghan (Hogan)

1966: This is Evelyn Kitseally. She was my dad’s Navajo grandmother (shimá sání – literally “little mother”) Traditionally the Navajo are matrilineal and the land is passed down through the woman’s family. The daughters live close to the mother, typically in the same camp of hogans (homes). This cultural system is very practical and works… Read More Hashtł’ishnii (Mud clan)

1966: After writing and posting this I found a postcard written by my mom, Peggy Scates, to her mother, Lucille Wyrick on May 9, 1966. Here’s what she says: “… everything is happening at once. We are not moving to Crownpoint [between Coyote Canyon and Borrego Pass]. The Red Mesa area has opened very rapidly,… Read More Teec Trailer And The Water Tank

1966: We were at the Borrego Pass school holding VBS that summer. Our family of 6 plus 3 high school girls – so we would have taken more than one vehicle. To get to Borrego Pass we would have driven at least 60 miles on dirt road. My dad, David Scates, had purchased a very old Cadillac about… Read More The Cadillac And The Airplane

1966: Somehow my parents met Clifford and Marjory Martin who lived in a very remote area called Borrego Pass, NM. Clifford was the principle of a day school, which was a rare exception on the Navajo Reservation, as most Navajo children were shipped away from home to a Boarding School, sometimes on the reservation and… Read More Borrego Pass, NM

1965: Dad needed to raise support to move our family to Red Mesa, AZ. That means travel and that’s a lot easier if you aren’t hauling 4 kids around with you, so he first moved our family to live in an apartment at Intermountain Bible College in Grand Junction, CO. By this time Dad had… Read More Salary $350

1964: Jimmie Clark and his wife Susan met my parents,  David & Peggy Scates, in 1960 when they visited the church in Cortez, CO where dad was the minister. They received Christ and were baptized. This photo of Jimmie and Susan with their four children was probably taken in 1964. It was taken in front… Read More Jimmie Clark

1966: I came across a polaroid picture taken in 1966 when I was 12 years old.  I’m standing in front of a 4 seater private airplane with my dad on one side and my brother Dan on the other. There is also a car tire that we brought on the plane to a desolate place… Read More Why A Blog? A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words