I'm working with the Keepers to resolve this...There are significant problems with this profile...
1. Her name, Mary Pierre may be an invention. Carla Joinson in her book Vanished in Hiawatha, does not say from where the name came. Mary has an Indian name and her husband has been identified as Pierre Bighawk also with an Indian name. How she ended up with the name Mary Pierre I cannot say at this time. She had two sons and both she and they are identified in documents with the surname Bighawk. Particularly of interest is the death certificate for her son Jerome, a State of Montana document. And she has a maiden name as well and is the daughter of a chief with a known genealogy...
2. FaG, which I can discount since it copied verbatim all information on the Hiawatha deaths from the plaque by South Dakota, including miss-spelling her surname as Peirre, AND Carla Joinson in her book, has a death date on May 16, 1917. Further, Carla says she was then 76, but if she was born in 1851 as documents seem to support, then she was 66! There is a 10-year differential between the book and the census documents, and I find no other Mary born c. 1841 who fits, which leads to issue 3.
3. Both Indian and Federal US census documents show Mary dying on May 2, 1923! The Indian census report for 1923 specifically uses that date of death with the notation in all caps "DIED" and the Federal US census of 1920 shows her living with her eldest son Jerome and his wife Isabel in their home! I have seen NO reference to her being "at Canton" as is sometimes indicated on census reports.
4. She also appears to have had an earlier husband that produced a daughter named Adelaide.
Mary Pierre is NOT in the Canton Asylum census for 1917, nor 1918, or 1920. If, as Carla says, she was admitted in January 1917 and died on May 16, 1917, she would NOT have been in the annual female census normally taken on June 30 of each year. But she is on the 1917 Indian census for the Flathead Agency as living on the reservation, which also shows the trust fund settlement for her allotment that would have required her presence on September 6, 1917, after her supposed death! Her date of death is in question, as is whether she died at Canton, but the Dr. L.L. Culp letter has her buried in Hiawatha on May 16, 1917!
In the censuses, there are many many persons named Mary, all with birthdays in or around 1850. I've tracked her specifically as Mary, wife of Pierre (Bighawk) from 1900 to 1920, with two sons Jerome and Louis. Pierre is a common French name influence on the Flatheads, both as a given name and surname, there is even a Pierre Pierre on the reservation. The census dates align from 1851 to 1923. Carla may be off on this one, but she's had bad dates before!
The bottom line is this: If Mary died on May 2, 1923, per the census, and not on May 16, 1917, at the Canton Asylum per Dr. Culp's letter dated February 17, 1934, then who is buried in her grave at the Canton Hiawatha Cemetery?
As indicated, I'm working with the Keepers of the Canton Native Asylum Story to resolve this...
Dilenschneider, Anne. “Keepers of the Canton Native Asylum Story .” www.facebook.com, 9 July 2017, www.facebook.com/CantonKeepers/. Accessed 30 Mar. 2024.