LAKOTA MAKOKA WINGE’ WIN (MADONNA MARY SWAN-ABDALLA) BORN—SUBJECT OF BOOK ABOUT A WOMAN’S PERSEVERANCE THROUGH & AFTER TUBERCULOSIS
Born on the Cheyenne River Reserve, her name meant “Goes Around the World Woman.” Contracting Tuberculosis—then a stigma in Indian communities–from 1944-50, Swan was at the Sioux Sanatorium in Rapid City, South Dakota (SD) where conditions were unhealthy. When she left without permission to attend her brother’s funeral, her father refused to return her, met with the governor, and got Madonna into the “white” sanatorium in Custer, SD. Undergoing a radical procedure, she suffered paralysis in an arm & underwent an arduous recovery. Regaining sensation & cured by 1953, Swan received certification in horology. Marrying in 1956, she raised her late sister’s son, became a Head Start program aid, earned a Graduate Equivalency Diploma in 1967, and completed 136 college credit hours before her health intervened. Named North American Indian Woman of the Year at Cheyenne River in 1983, her story was told in Madonna Swan: A Lakota Woman’s Story, by Mark St. Pierre. She died in 1993.
Sources: “Learning Forum: Madonna Swan,” Native Sun News Today, 3/11/2020. Retrieved 9/4/2022, Learning Forum: Madonna Swan - Native Sun News Today Wikipedia Photo: Loadmaster (David R. Tribble), 6/22/2016. Permissive Use.
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