Louisa Wade Wetherill

Louisa Wade Wetherill (2 September 1877– 19 September 1945) was an American explorer and trader as well as an authority on Navajo culture.

Louisa Wade Wetherill
Born2 September 1877
Elko, Elko County, Nevada, USA
Died19 September 1945
Kayenta, Navajo County, Arizona, USA
NationalityAmerican
Other namesAsthon Sosi; Slim Woman; Louisa Wade

Biography

Mary Louise Wade was born in Nevada but grew up in Mancos and married John Wetherill on the 17 March 1896 when she was eighteen. She and her husband moved to Ojo Alamo in Utah near the Pueblo Bonito ruins to run a trading post in 1900. The couple had one son Ben and a daughter Georgia Ida. Wetherill started the Hacienda De La Osa Guest Ranch close to Tucson, Arizona in 1921. When her children grew up, Wetherill fostered three girls from the Tuba City Boarding School. Ester, Fannie and Betty Zane. According to her foster daughter Betty, Wetherill ensured the ending of the abuse happening in the boarding school before taking the girls home with her. Ester had Tuberculosis and died in 1921 of the flu. The other two girls married. Her eldest daughter was killed by a drunk driver on July 4, 1935, in Mesa, Arizona. When her husband and his business partner died within half a year in 1944 and 1945 Wetherill sold the trading post and moved to a ranch in Skull Valley, Arizona. However Wetherill died less than a year after her husband, in 1945.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

The local Navajo people called Wetherill Asthon Sosi (Slim Woman). While in the Navajo reservation and area Wetherill learned the language and collected the legends and folk tales. She wrote the stories up as told to her by Wolfkiller, later written up as a book. Along with the stories Wetherill also collected the art and studied the local herbs and wildlife. She worked with anthropologist Frances Gillmor. Wetherill was inducted into Arizona Women Hall of Fame.[4][7][8][9][10][11][6]

Works
  • Wetherill, Louisa Wade (2007). Wolfkiller : wisdom from a nineteenth-century Navajo Shepherd (First ed.). Salt Lake City. ISBN 9781423600305.
  • Wetherill, Louisa Wade (1939). Dancing East of the Sunset.

Sources
  1. "The Wetherills" (PDF). The Newspaper of the Kayenta Township and Community. Kayenta township.
  2. "Display Obituary for Mrs. John (Louisa) ("Asthon Sosi") (Wade) Wetherill". cf.nau.edu.
  3. "Oral History Interviews". library.nau.edu.
  4. Leake, Harvey (September 2009). Wolfkiller. Gibbs Smith. ISBN 978-1-4236-1168-4.
  5. "Louisa Mary Wade Wetherill (1877-1945) - Find A..." www.findagrave.com.
  6. "Wetherill, Louisa Wade (1877–1945)". www.encyclopedia.com. Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages.
  7. Schweninger, Lee (1 November 2011). The First We Can Remember: Colorado Pioneer Women Tell Their Stories. U of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-3515-1.
  8. Gillmor, Frances. "A Biography of John and Louisa Wetherill" (PDF). University of Arizona.
  9. Gillmor, Frances; Wetherill, Louisa Wade (1934). Traders to the Navajos: the story of the Wetherills of Kayenta. Houghton Mifflin Company. OCLC 383828.
  10. Wyman, Leland Clifton (1952). The Sandpaintings of the Kayenta Navaho: An Analysis of the Louisa Wade Wetherill Collection. University of New Mexico Press.
  11. Museum, Arizona State; Harris, Stuart Kimball; Wyman, Leland Clifton (1951). The Ethnobotany of the Kayenta Navaho: An Analysis of the John and Louisa Wetherill Ethnobotanical Collection. University of New Mexico Press.
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