David Decora (abt. 1840 - aft. 1911)

Ancestors

David was Ho-Chunk.

Biography

Birth

"One of the well-known DeCorahs was Chief Little DeCorah. He had a boy named David Too Tall DeCorah, who had a daughter called Angel DeCorah, who was the first Winnebago educator and artist."^[1]

Angel DeCora says in her autobiography: "I was born in a wigwam, of Indian parents. My father was the fourth son of the hereditary chief of the Winnebagoes.

"David (Tall) DeCora was Angel's father and the fourth son of Little DeCora."^[2]

Marriage

He married Elizabeth LaMere, the eldest daughter of Oliver LaMere.

"My mother, in her childhood, had had a little training in a convent, but when she married my father she gave up all her foreign training and made a good, industrious Indian wife. During the summers we lived on the Reservation, my mother cultivating her garden and my father playing the chief's son."^[3]

Land

In 1911, David had two adjacent parcels of land, 37 and 40 acres, in Wittenburg Township, Shawano County, Wisconsin, located in the N½ SW¼ of Section 30, Township 37 N, Range 11 E.^[4]

Other Tall Decorras

Of the same generation as David was another Tall Decora, b. 1842. In addition, there is a Tall Decorra who was the son of Old Grey-Headed Decorra, and who was born around 1811.

Death

"He died in July of 1888, never having achieved the leading role in the tribe that was his by birthright."^[5] In fact, as is shown in the 1910 Indian census, he was still alive as of that date, living among the Ojibway in St. Louis County, Minnesota. In 1911, he bought land in Wisconsin.

Sources

Footnotes

1. ↑ Smith, 206.
2. ↑ McAnulty, 144.
3. ↑ Angel DeCora, Autobiography.
4. ↑ Land Ownership Maps,
5. ↑ McAnulty, 144.

Bibliography

• Linda M. Waggoner, Fire Light: The Life of Angel De Cora, Winnebago Artist. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8061-3954-8.
• David Lee Smith in Always a People: Oral Histories of Contemporary Woodland Indians, ed. Rita T. Kohn (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997).
• Sarah McAnulty, "Angel DeCora: American Indian Artist and Educator," Nebraska History, 57 (1976): 142-199.
• "Angel DeCora— An Autobiography," The Red Man, 3, #7 (March 1911): 279-285.
• 1910 Federal Census for Township 62, Saint Louis, Minnesota; Roll: T624_724; Page: 8A; Enumeration District: 0244; FHL microfilm: 1374737. Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910 (NARA microfilm publication T624, 1,178 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C. For details on the contents of the film numbers, visit the following NARA web page: NARA.
• Collection Number: G&M_70; Roll Number: 70. County and Year: Shawano (Wisconsin), 1911. Ancestry.com. U.S., Indexed County Land Ownership Maps, 1860-1918 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Original data: Various publishers of County Land Ownership Atlases. Microfilmed by the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.