Courtesy of Marina Weatherly Susan Yellowtail didn't set out to be an activist, but the injustices she saw at Crow Agency were the impetus for a lifetime of lobbying for improved health care for American Indians.

62. Susan Walking Bear Yellowtail

By BETSY COHEN of the Missoulian

Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail was an early-century American Indian who bucked gender and race issues to become a powerful leader for Indian health care.

Born in 1903 at Crow Agency, Yellowtail followed a path that led her from the Montana reservation to a Boston nursing school, to the White House and Buckingham Palace.

The desire to help and heal her people gave her strength to leave Montana, move east and attend the high-brow Boston City Hospital School of Nursing.

After a lonely and difficult time in Boston, Yellowtail graduated in 1923, and became the country's first registered American Indian nurse.

She returned home to work in the Bureau of Indian Affairs Hospital at Crow Agency. It was there, in her own world, she saw an injustice she could not tolerate.

"Susie did not set out to be a political activist, but after working with the white doctors at the Crow hospital, and seeing the non-consent sterilization surgeries and other atrocities they were performing on the Crow women – she got mad," said Marina Weatherly, a Stevensville resident who lived with and interviewed Yellowtail for six months and is writing a book on Yellowtail's life.

Yellowtail turned her anger into action nearly 20 years later, after she married Tom Yellowtail and raised their three children.

In the early 1940s she joined state health advisory boards to improve health standards on her reservation and other reservations around the West. During that time she became well-known among national health-care administrators, and her candor and her wit opened doors that led her into the political arena.

In the early 1950s, Yellowtail and her husband, who was a Crow tribal leader, were among a group sent on a goodwill tour of Europe and the Middle East by the U.S. State Department to promote an understanding of American Indian cultures.

She was appointed to the Montana Advisory Committee on Vocational Education in 1959.

In the 1970s Yellowtail was appointed to President Nixon's Council on Indian Health, Education and Welfare. She also was appointed to the Indian Health Advisory Committee by the U.S. Surgeon General.

In 1987, six years after her death, Yellowtail was honored by having her photo placed in the Outstanding Montanans Gallery at the state Capitol in Helena.

She left her mark by the wide swath she cut as a role model, as a nurse, ambassador, political activist, mother, traditionalist and bridge to different cultures.

Many in her family are following in her footsteps, including her great-nephew Bill Yellowtail, who was a state representative, was an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Congress and currently is the Denver-based regional director of the Environmental Protection Agency.