More About Theresa

It still seems completely unreal that Theresa is gone.  I realized that I posted my thoughts and memories about her, but did not post Randy's.  So I am going to do that now.  To be honest, when we received the news of her death, we were so swamped at the Mission Office we hardly had time to grieve.  In a way, I suppose that was good.  Randy and Theresa were very close.  She sought his advice often throughout the years. ~~ It seemed a bit uncanny that Randy and I basically wrote the very same things, just in our own styles.

 

Randy:

When Theresa first came to our home she seemed shy and quiet and spent a lot of time by herself in her room - which she liked to keep at about eighty-five degrees and still said she was cold all the time.  I told her she could keep her room as warm as she liked but she had to leave the door shut when she went to school because we would come home and the house would be like an oven from the heat in her basement room coming upstairs.  After several attempts to get her to keep the door shut, I one day turned off the breaker switch to her heater.  She came home and that evening told me her heater didn’t work.  I said, “It’s working just fine.”  She said, “No, it won’t turn on.”  And I said, “I know, I turned it off because you left the door open again and I can’t get you to close it during the day.”  She asked if I was going to turn it back on and I told her I would if she would start keeping the door closed.  She said, “Okay, I will, but you have to give me three more chances.”  I told her she only got one more chance.  She kept begging for three more chances, then with a laugh she said, “Come on!  I’m an Indian!  I need three more chances!”  Actually she got it right from then on and didn’t need all three chances.   

Theresa took a lot of pride in her Native American heritage and would occasionally talk about what it was like growing up on the Reservation.  We visited the area where she was raised and were surprised to learn that the house she grew up in never had running water.  It had to be hauled in from some distance away.  When I asked her about it and said it must have been difficult, she just indicated that it was no big deal, that’s just the way it was.  She grew up without a lot of things we take for granted and that may have been one reason she always took good care of the things she had.  Her clothes were always clean and in good repair, her truck was kept looking nice and she worked hard to fix up and keep up her house and yard.

It didn’t surprise me that she got a degree in biology.  She loved nature and the outdoors.  Very few people know how hard she worked for that degree, starting in high school.  Her reading and writing skills were way below her grade level when she first came to Idaho, but she was determined to improve them.  Some of the things she wrote were well thought out and had a marvelous story line but she struggled with the mechanical part of writing.  She would have us read and correct things she wrote and never took corrections as criticism but always looked at them as a chance to learn.  I know of no one else who made such tremendous strides in such a short time.  While working in Fort Hall she was writing rather sophisticated documents that had to be correct, and she did it well.

For part of the time she was with us, Theresa dealt with migraine headaches and occasional depression.  We finally found someone in Utah who could effectively treat and help her.  Some of my fondest memories of Theresa are the trips we made to Utah, which gave us time to just talk and be together.  She responded well to the treatments and while she still dealt with migraines, they were infrequent and much less severe.  

We have in our home some of the crafts Theresa made.  She had a lot of artistic talent and loved working with her hands and working with wood.  She gave us a type of mosaic of an Navajo woman made from various types of wood, and also a stylized fish which we cherish and she even remodeled the inside of our motor home and did an amazing job.

Theresa often came to help with yard work or other labors outside or to fix dinner at our house.  I can still visualize her playing with our grandchildren who adored her.  I don’t recall any of them ever asking who she was or why she sometimes hung around our family.  She was just a natural part of our family.  She was just Theresa.  She will always be our Theresa.

 

I also wanted to post a letter Theresa wrote as she was applying for schooling in law enforcement.  She asked for our help with it, and we changed a word here and there and some punctuation, but this is a good sample of her writing about herself.  We miss you, Theresa!

My name is Theresa Tsosie. I am originally from Arizona and I am a current resident of Idaho. I am a half-Navajo and half-African American female, with a unique background representing two cultures from opposite worlds. I was raised on the Navajo reservation by my grandparents, whom I consider my parents and role models; unfortunately, they passed away shortly after I moved to Idaho in 1995 as a teenager. My grandparents taught me the basic values and ethics of life, instilling in me the wisdom and knowledge of our culture, which motivated me to leave the reservation at a young age to explore boundaries beyond our reservation, to diversify and to educate myself. I hope to one day return to the People to provide education, cultural knowledge, opportunity and expansion to continue operating as a sovereign entity. My mother maintains residence on the Navajo reservation and is an exceptional artist, a skill uniquely handed down to her from her grandmother.  Unlike my mother, who did not complete high school, I was fortunate to depart the reservation by utilizing the Indian Placement Program (est. 1947 and terminated in 1996), a program designed for Native American students through a religious organization to assist in providing a home and public education off the reservation in participating states. Throughout my high school years, I was fostered by Caucasian parents, who provided a stable home and helped me reach my educational goals; but most valuable I gained their outside perspective of work, education and life in general.  As of today, I continue my ties with this family and I’m proud to know such parents, who retired from a respectable agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

After high school, I attended Utah State University in Logan, Utah, for a semester then returned to Pocatello, Idaho, where I completed my education at Idaho State University and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology in 2005. During my college career, I secured an internship as an Associate Engineer at Idaho National Laboratory.  My responsibilities included collecting time-sensitive samples and learning the principle value of our natural resources, which eventually propelled me to obtain a degree in biology. Upon completing college, I worked for a licensed contractor as a carpenter, where I gained valuable experience working with the public and providing quality services. Today, I am a Fisheries Manager for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes.  Duties include providing management for federally listed fish species, budgeting, coordinating, planning and implementing projects. In addition, I maintain my public involvement through the Gateway Habitat for Humanity by volunteering my services as a carpenter to those who are in need, building homes and fund-raising.

Through the different stages of my life, my association with various people, shared experiences, and self expectation, I am driven to provide my services to fellow citizens and the community and to be part of a respectable organization such as law enforcement. I have family members who serve in the armed forces, military, law enforcement and a cherished legacy of an uncle who was a Navajo Code Talker during World War II. I like the physical challenges that are associated with and required as part of the tactic force. I played sports in college, primarily rugby, and I continue to maintain an active lifestyle. I hope to work in various avenues within law enforcement, such as a parole officer or a detective, with the goal of working for a federal agency in the long term.

Throughout my life and work history, I have been enthusiastic and motivated. I look forward to achieving a new career in law enforcement. I hope one day I can make an impressionable difference and be a role model for the younger generation within my family and community. In essence I have become the person I am today due to my own role models, my grandparents, mother, foster parents, uncle and sister.