2/11/2012:
Louis Marion, born on this date in 1870 in Pembina, would become one of the great leaders of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. Marion’s family moved to the Turtle Mountains in the mid-1880s. In 1893, he was sent to school in Indiana for four years, and in 1891 he attended St. Joseph’s College. Marion continued his education in Lawrence, Kansas at the Haskell Institute before returning to North Dakota.
During World War I, he served as a mail-carrier, and became a valuable source of information about the Turtle Mountain band. In 1940, he was elected Chairman of the Tribal Council, serving as a tribal leader until 1944. He continued as a Tribal Councilman until 1953, and is remembered today for his early entrepreneurship and for “carrying on the tribe’s history.”
[Correction: a relative called and told us that his actual birthday is February 22nd.]
Dakota Datebook written by Jayme L. Job
Sources:
http://www.ndstudies.org/resources/IndianStudies/turtlemountain/leaders_contemporary1.html