The Word Carrier (Santee, Nebraska), 1919-01 - 1919-02

              The Word Carrier.
of Santee Normal Training school.
VOLUME  XLVIII
HELPING- THE RIGHT, EXPOSING THE -WRONG.
NUMBER 1
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 1919
FIFTY CENTS PER YEAR
Our Platform | water well.    The well is 154 feet deep but the
ror   Indians   we   want   American   Education'     We   umt i «,«)..,   ..-„„,.   ,.„       ..i ■       no    n a-   ..-l      * -,
American Homes!   We want American Rights"   Th!ires"  ]     "  u      T            "''tlnn   78    feet   of   the   top  and
of which is American Citizenship!    And the Gospel is the ; 1S   thereU)re I)ofc  W.""."*  hard pumping.
Pjwer of God  for their Salvation ! 	
Biography of John P. Williamson, D. D.
The Indian Presbyterian Brick Church
At Greenwood, So. Dak.
There appears m this number a review of I For a number of years previous to the erec-
a "A Brother To The Sioux." This is the tiou of their new church, the members of the
new book by Mrs. Winifred W. Barton, a! Yankton Agency Indian Presbyterian Church,
story of  her father's life.
The many friends of Dr.
Williamson will be exceedingly interested in it; but
it will not only be those
who knew him who want
it. This book, beautifully
illustrated with drawings
by John Redowl and with
its charming word pictures,
is wonderfully attractive,
but the real worth of the
book is the insight it gives
into a remarkable iife,
a life dominated by tbe
Christ spirit of sympathy
and brotherhood. The book
is published by Fleming
H. Revell, $1.75.
in
New Water Supply at Santee
About thirty five years
ago good friends of our
Santee school became interested in giving us adequate water supply and
put down an experimental
artesian well. It was the
this region and set tbe fashion for all tbe
surrounding country. It flowed for mauy
years but finally ate its casing out aud ceased.
But our good friends came to our rescue again
and Sept. 2, 1899 we struck a giant well that
flowed 1600 gallons a minute. During the nine
teen years that it flowed it earned its cost many
times over in the abundance of water it. gave us
for all possible uses for hard water: for the
drinking of both men and animals, irrigation,
and for power. But the casing of the great
well was gradually eaten out and it could not
be recased for various reasons and the flow
slowly failed till there was barely enough water to get us through last school year.
Now we thank the good friends of the A. M.
A. and of Santee everywhere that the means
for a new artisian well has been provided. We
finished this new well Nov. 30, and the old well,
which was then dwindling along, as though it
were gasping "My work is done," immediately
ceased flowing. Tbe new well is small, on ac
count of war times, but has a very good flow
for its size, and will furnish plenty of water
for every purpose excepting power. Tbe casiug
goes down, tight and perfect all the way, onto
the top of tbe water bearing sand stone, 600
feet. The drilling goes 100 feet further into
the sand stone.
Soft Water Well
Santee also has a soft water well, not perfectly soft but so nearly so that it does very well
for washing and bathing and is delicious for
drinking. It has always been supposed that
all well water iu this region must be hard.
But it has recently been discovered that by
drilling into the first sand stone at about 150
feet and no further, and carefully casing out
all the upper flows we get soft water.
We have always depended on cisterns for
Our soft water, but the dirt that blows, and
the birds make clean cistern water almost impossible; also our increasing tree roots have
often let out a large part of the water we supposed was safe for the winter's supply.
Now when one of our cisterns goes dry we
slean it, mend it up, and fill it from the soft
An $11,000.00 Church, Built by Indians, Without Aid From the Board of Church Erection,
first artesian
at Greenwood, had been thinking that their
church building was becoming old aud shabby,
and entirely inadequate for their needs, and felt
that the time was at hand for the erection of a
new house of worship. And the feeling universally expressed was that the church should
erect the building as an honor and token of
respect to Dr. Williamson while he was still
with them.
It was in the autumn of 1914 that tbe ques
tion was finally brought before the congregation who unanimously approved the proposition aiid a committee was appointed to "devise ways and means to secure the necessary
funds for the erection of the new church. It
was also decided that the money should be
raised at home, as much as possible from the
members of tbe church, the remainder to be
secured from the generosity of all the Indians
of tbe Yankton reservatior. No money was
asked or received from the church "Board
of Erection."
No money was asked or received from any
congregation, Indian or white, outside of the
Yankton reserve. The minimum amount to be
raised was set at five thousand dollars. The
committee went to vork with will. Many substantial subscriptions were secured but many
were small and various expedients were resorted to, to swell the total amount. Each church
on the reservation, Episcopal as well as Presbyterian, was visited by a delegation who brought
and served a bountiful dinner after which the
cause was presented to those assembled and a
substantial offering was received at each place
for tbe funds. Basket socials and many pay
dinners were had. All of this was a drain on
the faithful members of the church but they
stood to,the work nobly, and finally, when
about six thousand dollars had been secured,
it was decided that the time had arrived to begin the actual work of erection. A committee
was appointed to decide upon and secure plans
for a building and then to find a reliable contractor to undertake the work. The church
was fortunate to have among their members
available men of business experience and ability who knew what was wanted and how to get
it. The committee visited nearby towns and
inspected different church buildings, recently
erected, and decided on a modern brick building. The contract was let to Mr. Albert Fri-
burg, a conscientious con tractor of Lake Andes,
who performed his part faithfully without
slighting tbe smallest detail. The plans for
the building were drawn by au architect from
Lincoln, Neb. and the church as completed is
one of the most beautiful small buildings of
worship in the State of South Dakota, and one
which immediately attracts
the attention of every visitor to Greenwood.
The contract called for
the necessary sand and
gravel to be furnished and
hauled by the church people
and on one hot August day
over sixty loads of gravel
were hauled by the men of
the church while the ladies
served th'in with refreshments in the Women's Society building. Later some
sixty or seventy loads of
plastering and finishing
sand was hauled by the
men, much of it a" distance
of over ten miles.
The corner stone was
laid early in the spring of
1918 and the church was
finished in midsummer and"
dedicated the latter part of
August. The high cost of
construction work, incident
to the war, including the
beautiful new pews which have recently been
installed, bring tbe total expenditure to about
ten thousand dollars. Of this there still is a
debt remainiug of two thousand dollars but the
committee are turning their efforts toward liquidating this as soon as possible. The dimensions
of tbe church are 30 by 50 feet, with a seating
capacity of about 150. There is a basement under the whole building with a ten foot ceiling,
large outside windows giving plenty of light
A large room through the centre with a small
room for a kitchen provides an ideal place for the
service of church dinners,social gatherings,Sunday school rooms, etc. It is equipped with modern
furnace, with soot-proof coal room adjoiniug.
The members of the Yankton Agency Indian
Presbyterian church have every reason to be
proud of their efforts.        John William3CN.
Why Does an Educated Indian Ever jo
Back to the Blanket?
At Mission Meeting Rev. John Eastman told
us a story as follows: Two men were arguing
about a pig. The first man said, "I believe
that if a pig is kept clean from tbe beginning,
and knows nothing but cleanliness, that it will
stay clean." The second man insisted that
"Once a pig. always a pig."
So the first, man tried it. He took a tiny pig.
It was always kept perfectly clean. Its house
and yard were immaculate and it was always
fed from a clean plate. One day he took the
pig with him when he went for a walk. They
came to a mud puddle. The man waded through
but the pig ran around sniffing at his companion as much as to say. "How can you be so
dirty!" The man thought he had won his point.
Soon they came to another puddle. It was a
very warm day and a dozen or more pigs were
wallowing in the mud. The little clean pig
made a dash for the spot and got right into tbe
middle—feet, head, all in tbe mud till nothiug
more could be seen of him.
"The trouble was," said Mr. Eastman, "that
at heart the pig was just the same as ever. So
with an Indian, if his heart is not changed, if
it is all superficial, be will go back to his old
ways. He must be changed from the inside out
and not from the outside in." Only Christ's
teaching can make the new man.