Captain Raymond Talesfase Bonnin

Source: Vol./ Friday, June 13, 1902

A Former Haskell Boy

Raymond T. Bonnin and Miss Gertude Simmons, both of Yankton Agency, were married at the home of Mr. and Mrs. EH Benedict in this city on Saturday afternoon, May 10, 1902.

The Tribune is pleased to make a few comments upon this marriage from the fact that the bride is full blooded Sioux whose Indian name is "Zitkala-Sa", which means Red-Bird.

After receiving a common school education at Yankton Agency she was sent to Carlisle College, where she remained two years and where she developed great musical and literary talents to such an extent that she was sent to the Boston Conservatory of Music and was selected to accompany a musical troupe to the Paris exposition in 1900.

The rare talent show both on the violin and piano brought forth many flattering comments from the leading magazines and newspapers, both at home and abroad. Upon her return she made a tour of the principle cities of the East, not only as an accomplished musician but as an author of esteemed merit. One of her productions entitled "Indian Legends" has commended itself to the reading public to the extent that the publishers are having a great demand for her works. She is also a contributor to some of the leading magazines at the present time.

The groom is the grandson of the old French trader, Picotte, one of the first traders to come up the Missouri River to Yankton Agency and points above and into who married one of the Yankton Sioux Tribe. His family were all educated at the Standing Rock Reservation, South of St Louis and they and their children are among the foremost of the Yankton tribe in civilized at &inmenta. This is considered a marriage in high life among their people, as both of the contracting parites are proud of their aboriginal blood, and especially of their rapid acquirement of the educational skill of the Caucasian race so rapidly adopted by them. Her Indian friends may well feel proud, without being egotistical, at the marvelous advancement made of a full-blood of their race who left her native home encumbered with that legacy of native habits and who within a few short years mastered the English language to the extent that she rivals in literature some of the leading authors of America, and whose quaint productions are equal to those of Kipling. [Tyndall (S.D.) Tribune)

Soon after their marriage, Captain Bonnin was assigned to the Uintah-Ouray reservation in Utah. The couple lived and worked there with the Ute people for the next fourteen years. During this period, Zitkala-Ša gave birth to the couple's only son, Raymond Ohiya Bonnin.

Captain Bonnin and his wife were buried in Arlington National Cemetery.