Details

Storyteller: Kathryn
Tribe: White Earth Band of Ojibwe
Created: 2018
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Transcript: Who am I? This question has bothered me for many years.

My father, Frederick William Peake, son of Charles Hobart Peake and Charlotte Cate Walters was born April 20, 1908. While Charles Peake was in the military Cate stayed with her in-laws. In 1911 Lizzie Sherer, Cates mother was dying and her husband, Harry Sherer, went to Charlotte Cates In-laws and took her to his house to care for her mother. After her mother died, Harry Sherer married his step daughter, making her siblings her step children.

She now became their mother and her children’s grandmother because she married her mother’s husband, Harry Sherer. Harry Sherer was her children’s father and grandfather. Her mother Lizzie Sherer was the grandmother and great-grandmother of her children.

How Confusing!!! What convoluted relationships!

Charlotte Cate and Charles Peake had two children

Louise Lillian born in 1904, married Elmer Antell, then John Aitken

Frederick William Peake, April 20, 1908 married Richartena Anna Johanna Willie Clark Sherer

Charlotte Cate married Harry Sherer and had five children

Kenneth Vincent married Dorothy Clark

Louis Leonard married Alice

Clifford Francis, married Viola Pfaff

Thelma Sybil, married Norman Nelson

Burdette John, married Henrietta Lovelace, and then Edith Victoria Aspen

After Harry's death she remarried Charles and had David Ebenezer Peake who married Dorothy Hart.

Harry Sherer decided that everyone in his household should have Sherer as their surname. Therefore, all my fathers records, school, medical, social, marriage certificate and business records have this identifying name.

My father Fred married my mother Richartena Anna Johanna Willie Clark Sherer and had eight children. After Charles Frederick was born, Tena took him to be baptized at the Lutheran Church in Cass Lake, MN. This was shortly after the government stopped paying bounty for scalps of Indian men, women and children. The Government had put a price on the scalps of all Indians. In small town USA, people still clung to these practices. People could not kill another person, but they could kill a savage who did not have a soul. Ignorance was rampant in small towns. In 1934 the Lutheran pastor told Tena that Indians do not have souls, so he does not baptize Indians. She was devastated. This colored the lives of all the subsequent children. Charles could not be buried in a Christian Cemetery because he was not baptized. Therefore, Charles was buried along the railroad tracks in Bena Minnesota. This was devastating for my mother and clouded the lives of all her children.

Eight children of Fred and Tena;
Richard Dale
Charles William died when he was 18 months old.
Betty Louise
Kathryn Marie
Carol Jean
Thelma June
Russell Sydney
Frederick Louis

My father died in 1991. What happened next is out of a horror story. History repeated!! Fred could not be buried because he did not have a valid birth certificate or adoption records. After conversing with the BIA, finally after much haggling, everything was cleared up and he could be buried. Fred's stepfather never adopted him. He grew up with his step father's surname. Another trauma for my mother.

All Fred's records are under his stepfather's surname. All my records and my siblings’ records are under the stepfather’s surname, my children were born with the wrong surname, with all this confusion, who am I?