“Its interesting. I’ve never seen a picture of him before,” pondered Chental Spencer my student employee, after catching sight of her great grandfather John Willie, Jr. in ASM’s newest exhibition on Navajo Code Talkers. She also saw a picture of another of her great grandfathers, Richard Thomas. Chental recalled when he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously. Her grandmother didn’t want to go to the ceremony to accept it because who would look after her sheep while she was away? Chental was a just a baby when he passed away, but she remembers that he delighted and spoiled the kids.

It’s rare to walk into a museum and see a family member in a photo, but it does happen. It is individuals who make up history. Navajo Code Talkers kept quiet about their important role in the U.S. winning WWII. Chental said, “I never really knew about what he was, what he did. No one told us about how honorable it was what he did.” It was only when the US Government honored their achievements in 2001 did some of them start sharing their experiences with their families, but many were no longer alive by that time. The exhibition Our Fathers, Our Grandfathers, Our Heroes grew out of an oral history project conducted by Navajo teens at Wingate High School in northern New Mexico. It was produced under the direction of Ronnie Gorman and the Circle of Light Navajo Educational Project.

Come visit the exhibition, Our Fathers, Our Grandfathers, Our Heroes, on display at ASM until August 15th. Join us for a talk by Ronnie Gorman about her father Carl Gorman’s experiences as one of the original 29 Navajo Code Talkers. As a child she went along with her father on his errands. Through their daily ramblings, she got to know other Code Talkers and hear their stories about the War. Ms. Gorman will be at the museum on Thursday, July 30th at 6:00 p.m. to present the free lecture. Contact Darlene Lizarraga at 520-626-8381 to RSVP.