Mary Collins’ commitment to the people of the Standing Rock Reservation and their appreciation of her delivered to the generations a masterpiece of American Indian sculpture.
The Sioux Horse Effigy is a three-foot-long carved horse dance stick that is the crown jewel of the museum of the South Dakota State Historical Society at the Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre.
Collins donated the effigy and other artifacts to the South Dakota State Historical Society in 1920. The effigy was recently part of an international exhibit. Events celebrating the effigy’s return to the Cultural Heritage Center took place Oct. 10-12 in Pierre.
“Miss Collins was a distinctive type of philosopher,” stated an article in “The Tomahawk,” a newspaper of the Minnesota Chippewa, published a few years after Collins’ death. “She was first a teacher in the schools in Keokuk, Iowa. After three years of this work, she decided there were others who could fill her place there and she was more fitted to a life on the frontier. Therefore, in 1875, she left for Dakota territory as a missionary to the Sioux Indians.”
The 29-year-old Collins was assigned to the Oahe Mission, established by Congregationalist minister, the Rev. Thomas L. Riggs, and his first wife, Cornelia “Nina” Riggs, on the east bank of the Missouri River at Peoria Flats, north of what is now Pierre.
As Collins traveled by horse-drawn wagon from the Dakota Territorial capital of Yankton to the Oahe Mission, she noted, “I began to realize the isolation and the loneliness which it was possible for the years to bring. But ‘I had put my hand to the plow.’ The first year for a Missionary is the hardest to endure: Adjusting oneself to such a different environment, not only of people and things, but of the country, climate and even to one’s own room.”
Collins’ comments are contained in her autobiography in Volume 41 of the “South Dakota Historical Collections” compiled by the South Dakota State Historical Society. Her autobiography can also be found in the South Dakota Digital Archives collections.
At the mission, Collins taught children in the morning and visited families in the afternoon.
“We taught in the Dakota language at the same time we were learning it,” Collins wrote in her autobiography.
To carry on his work west of the Missouri River, Riggs built out-stations where workers could hold church services. In 1885, Collins was assigned to an out-station on the Grand River near Running Antelope’s village. The name of this out-station was later changed to Little Eagle.
“It was a hard, long winter,” Collins wrote. “I was living in a room about 14 by 12 feet and all my worldly possessions were in there. A large room was used for the church services and school room and office.”
Collins would often travel with her team of horses over a large region to visit American Indian families. According to an article by her niece, Ethel Collins Jacobsen, published in the monthly bulletin of the South Dakota State Historical Society, Collins gave religious instruction, advice and visited and helped the sick, all the while conducting weekly services at the mission building.
Her ability to speak the Lakota language, her understanding of the Lakota’s needs and her knowledge of simple medical remedies made her popular among American Indians.
“The people had so long been without any one to help them in time of trouble that I was always greeted with the warmest kind of reception and often when passing through a village when on a journey have had people sick brought to me,” Collins wrote in her autobiography.
The American Indian Chief Sitting Bull was one of her neighbors. The two became friends.
In the introduction to Collins’ autobiography, Richmond L. Clow wrote that Collins eventually came to better understand American Indian beliefs and traditions. She became less harsh toward American Indians and more critical of the government’s policies regarding them.
She joined national reform movements and traveled throughout the country and giving lectures and working to better conditions for American Indians. Collins was ordained a minister of the Congregational Church in 1899, one of the few ordained women in American churches at that time.
Collins retired from mission work in 1910 and returned to Keokuk, Iowa, where she died on May 25, 1920.
The items Collins donated to the South Dakota State Historical Society became part of the foundation of the museum’s American Indian collection. Generations can see the artistry of American Indians and gain a better understanding of how they once lived.
This moment in South Dakota history is provided by the South Dakota Historical Society Foundation, the nonprofit fundraising partner of the South Dakota State Historical Society. Find us on the web at www.sdhsf.org. Contact us at info@sdhsf.org to submit a story idea.

By Richard P. Holm, MD
This ancient wisdom rings so true, “You only teach by example.”
We all have mentors in our lives – people who serve as examples, those whose patterns of living teach us how to face challenges. Of course most of us start out with our parents as mentors, and then look to other relatives, teachers, partners and heroes in stories worth imitating.
Even before my medical training, I watched our family physician, Dr. Bob Bell, from DeSmet. I remember how his interests outside of medicine were very broad, including hunting and fishing, water skiing, sailing, playing cards, singing in the choir, enjoying art, and the list goes on.
Dr. Bell and his wife, Phyllis, gave me the sense of how a superb physician family can enjoy and savor every moment of life.
I watched Dr. Karl Wegner a pathologist, lecturer and the first dean of our South Dakota medical school, whose method of teaching was with empathy. I remember how he made every one of his students feel like he was speaking directly to him or her. Dr. Wegner gave me a sense of how a superb physician values the other guy.
I watched Dr. Joe Hardison, an Internist at the VA hospital in Decatur, Ga., whose diagnostic acumen and skills were famous among residents.
I remember how he cleverly examined and listened to subtle clues to make the diagnosis. Dr. Hardison gave me a sense of how a superb physician uses her or his senses and brain to make a diagnosis.
I watched Dr. Keller, a cancer specialist at Emory Hospital in Atlanta, whose caring way remarkably helped cancer patients deal and cope with very ominous conditions. I remember how he confidently listened and spoke with consoling words and eyes to those with widely spread cancer. Dr. Keller gave me a sense of how a superb physician with compassion for suffering patients gives relief, and exemplifies medical ethics in action.
And I am still watching Dr. Bob Talley, a cardiologist and former dean of USD Sanford School of Medicine, whose concern for students and residents elevated our med school into the highest level of training in this country. A specific example is how he helped mold a new method of integrated training in South Dakota about which Harvard has copied, and into which the rest of the country is evolving. Dr. Tally gives me a sense of how a superb physician, who concentrates with all his soul on helping young physicians learn, can result in repercussions of caring, caring provided by his students for countless numbers of people throughout the world.
We only learn from and teach by example.

Editor of Sanborn Weekly Journal:
“Lois Lane’s 2¢” raised some very valid points. I’d like to add a few from a different generation.
Even in my time all families weren’t functional. I was raised until nearly a teenager by my maternal grandparents. From then on it was a lot of different homes, but along the way I was taught the value of an honest day’s work and the value that went with it.
In the world of education, I was fortunate to have Goldie Lee at Jacobus School in Butler Township and Bruce Crockett as our Letcher High School basketball coach to look to for structure. Not all educators are up and coming citizens, nor do they have the judgment that I would have wanted passed on to any children, but they are still in charge. I disagreed with many at the time. That is the point that needs to be made when publicly disagreeing with them, choose your battles and choose them wisely. Don’t pick a battle where the end result is your child learns a bad lesson in life, even though the Educator may have been grossly wrong, and trust me, not all teachers are as underpaid for what they bring to the workplace nationwide as they would like to have you believe.
It’s a much different world today, especially in farming communities. We made our own entertainment. I had my Daisy BB gun, which I used on sparrows; Grandpa paid me a bounty. When I grew up, there were commonly three or four families to the Section; most of those homes have long disappeared from the landscape. My grandparents were still farming with horses until they finally bought an iron-wheeled F-12 Farmall in 1940. As Grandpa said, “There are different kinds of people and they are all different in expectations. City people, town people and country people do not think alike, nor do they have the same ability to cope with life.” We were the only family in Sanborn County during the Great ‘30s Depression and not a public employee and not signed up for relief. Imagine that happening today, when most have their hands out to the government.
Children need structure and someone setting an example, which can be best done by their parents, if they are capable. Beyond that, they need examples in the institutions we support to assist those parents. If those things don’t happen or are overlooked, we end up with the types of behavior that happen in society, and none seem to be able to deal with them, though many so-called experts are generously compensated to have those answers.
It’s a deeper subject than can be fully examined in a letter to the editor or an editorial, though I thought you covered a lot of bases.
P.S.—You need to get your husband back on board on occasion. I enjoyed his columns.
Marvin Sundstrom,
Buckley, Wash.