Searching for Sacred Ground

This book grows out of a white Mennonite woman's driving curiosity to know the story of nationally known Cheyenne Peace Chief Lawrence Hart, whose grandfather was born three years after the massacre on the Washita to survivors Afraid of Beavers and Walking Woman. This grandfather would raise his grandson to know Cheyenne ways and select him as his successor to become a principal peace chief to the Cheyennes. Meanwhile the author's people, Mennonites and her blood relatives, intertwine with Hart's people by arriving in Oklahoma to begin schools on the Cheyenne and Arapaho reservation and to settle the Oklahoma plains. "Hart is a treasure. Hinz-Penner presents him shiningly," observes Robert Warrior (Osage), Edith Kinney Gaylord Presidential Professor, University of Oklahoma.