Summary
In 1998, very few people had heard of Red Lake, and fewer still were aware of the legal situation there: unceded Indigenous land - and jurisdiction - overlain by federal Indian law and a Tribal Council and Court of Indian Offenses controlled by the Department of the Interior.
The circumstances under which re-amendment of the Death Certificate was considered by the Health Department were not conducive to equitable and fair hearing. Senator Linda Berglin - who oversaw their budget - was pressing the Health Department Commissioner to "move rapidly to resolve this case" and [falsely] alleging wrongdoing by Clara NiiSka.
Wub-e-ke-niew and Clara's marriage was, in fact, valid when and where it was contracted, and should have been recognized by the State of Minnesota as such (Minn. Stat. § 517.03). The other amendments to the Death Certificate that she requested were legitimate and legally sustainable. But, she was never heard.
Instead, the Death Certificate was rapidly re-amended, based on her failure to provide a marriage certificate - as she explained in response to the Registrar's request, not a legally necessary document for a valid Midé marriage within the external boundaries of Red Lake reservation in 1984 - and land records that are - categorically - not maintained by the County Recorder (because the land in question is not subject to County or State jurisdiction).
By the time Clara received the Registrar's tardily mailed and mis-addressed notification that the Death Certificate would be re-amended, the re-amendment had already been made.
Almost as soon as it was re-amended, the State's 'racial' categorization of Wub-e-ke-niew as "American Indian" on the Death Certificate - contested by Clara - was used to enter Wub-e-ke-niew - who had renounced his Indian enrollment in 1990 - into the politically-defined "Indian" probate jurisdiction of the Red Lake Indian court.
Clara made a special appearance at the Red Lake Indian court to object, but with the re-amended Death Certificate apparently 'invalidating' her marriage in State jurisdiction, she had little leverage. She filed notice of her objections, and was then removed - by exile - from the courtroom. In her absence, she was 'legally' stripped of everything she owned - her personal property as well as her interests in Wub-e-ke-niew's estate.
Her house stands in ruins; she is still exiled. The only bit of personal property that was ever returned to her 'came back' through a third party that it had been given to: one single volume of a three-volume paperback reference set.
State Senator Berglin and Commissioner of Health Anne Barry make reference to the "cooperation" of the Attorney General, and an opinion from the Attorney General's Office. What were the State's legal grounds for its decisions?
Brief Background
Amendment - December 8
Val Blake's Complaint - January 29
Investigation - February 9
State Senator Linda Berglin faxes Health Commissioner Anne Barry - February 8
Commissioner Anne Barry reports to Sen. Berglin - February 27
State Registrar Barbara Bednarczyk to Clara NiiSka - March 9
Commissioner Anne Barry to Sen. Linda Berglin and Val Blake - March 12
Clara NiiSka's response to State Registrar Barbara Bednarczyk - March 23
Clara NiiSka's additional information to the Registrar - April 9
Senator Linda Berglin to Val Blake - April 10
Registrar Barbara Bednarczyk to Clara NiiSka: "death certificate will be amended back to its original form" - April 10 (letter mailed April 14)
Death Certificate re-amended - April 17
Death Certificate used as sole documentation that the deceased is "Indian" and thus subject to Red Lake Indian Court probate jurisdiction - on or about April 17-20
Red Lake: Clara NiiSka files 'Notice of Special Appearance' objecting to assertion of Indian probate jurisdiction, is escorted out of courtroom with an Order of lifetime exile - May 26
Senator Linda Berglin to Commissioner Barry - June 9
Clara NiiSka to Senator Linda Berglin - November 28, 1999
Senator Linda Berglin -
Dr. Heap-Chester, after consultation with the Beltrami County Coroner, made arrangements to file a death certificate for Wub-e-ke-niew through Cease Funeral Home in Bemidji. Cease was familiar with Midé and other 'traditional' funerals, in which the family prepares the body for burial: Wub-e-ke-niew's body did not leave the home where he had died until he was carried to his grave.
Ahnishinahbæótjibway understanding of death - and the spirits of 'the ancestors' - makes the way in which a person is buried important. Wub-e-ke-niew was specific about precisely how and where he wanted to be buried.
Thus, when Val Blake used threats that she would have Wub-e-ke-niew exhumed in her efforts to coerce control over the death certificate, Clara NiiSka yielded. In the first few weeks after Wub-e-ke-niew's death, Clara thought that Val's rage toward her - and what Val did with the death certificate - came from the anger that sometimes comes with grief, and would abate with time.
After unsuccessful efforts to resolve the conflict, Dr. Heap-Chester filled out the bottom part of the death certificate (detailing the causes of death), signed it, and left it at Cease Funeral Home with the top part still blank. Val Blake provided information to Funeral Director Kevin Cease for the top part (personal information about the deceased).
The Death Certificate was filed by Cease Funeral Home on October 31, 1997, and Val Blake apparently used it as she claimed off-reservation assets belonging to Wub-e-ke-niew and Clara NiiSka (she already had possession of everything on-reservation, including Clara's personal property).
Clara waited until the ground had frozen (making it less likely that her deceased husband Wub-e-ke-niew would be exhumed without legitimate reason), and then sought to amend the death certificate.
She was directed to the Minnesota Department of Health in Minneapolis, where she was told that the death certificate should be amended by an affidavit from the mortician. After a telephone conversation with Ms. Torgerson, she faxed the requested amendments to Ms. Torgerson.
Cease Funeral Home's Affidavit for Correction of Death Certificate requested just three of the amendments Clara NiiSka had provided. It was received by the Minnesota Health Department on December 8, 1997, and the Death Certificate was amended the same day.
Clara - invited by publisher Hollis Melton and the Naraya - left for New York on the morning of December 5, and returned on December 19th. She first saw the re-amended death certificate on December 22nd. She did not do anything about the errors remaining on the amended death certificate at that time because she was due to leave for California the next day, to visit her elderly and ailing father. She was rear-ended in San Diego (her car was totaled), and so did not return to Minnesota until early February, 1998.
On January 29, 1998, Val Blake filed a complaint with the Mortuary Science Section of the Minnesota Department of Health, against Cease Funeral Home. In that complaint she makes a number of unfounded allegations, claims that Minnesota Statutes provide that "to alter a death certificate the applicant must be the informant or nearest lineal relative," and writes that, "Clara NiiSka was not placed on the Certificate of Death originally and has no recourse." Val Blake demands that Clara provide "marriage certificate/documentation/license," and that the Department "pursue criminal charges" against both Clara NiiSka and the mortician who signed the Affidavit for Correction of Death Certificate, Angela Torgerson.
Valerie Blake's complaint to the Mortuary Science Section of the Minnesota Department of Health 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
On February 11, State Senator Linda Berglin, Chair of the Committee that oversees the Health Department budget, faxed her February 8th letter to Commissioner of Health Anne Barry. Sen. Berglin urges Commissioner Barry to "move rapidly" in re-amending the Death Certificate, and comments that re-amendment "required the cooperation of actors such as your department and the Attorney General.
Sen. Berglin was cc'd on subsequent correspondence from the Health Department to Clara NiiSka.
Tim Koch, investigating the complaint for the Mortuary Science Department, interviewed Clara NiiSka in his offices on Friday, February 6, 1998, and interviewed Angela Torgerson by phone. He did not detail the specifics of the complaint, and Clara focused on defending Cease Funeral Home. As she put it in her follow-up letter to Mr. Koch, "It would be profoundly unjust... for these people to be reprimanded or subjected to additional troubles for unforseen consequences of services which they provided out of the generosity of their hearts and respect for the deceased. " She was, she continued, "particularly concerned about any negative fallout from this case limiting the possibilities for others' family funerals and home burials in the future."
Clara NiiSka's February 9, 1998 letter to Mortuary Science Investigator Tim Koch 1 | 2
Tim Koch asked Clara NiiSka if she had a marriage license. Clara explained that State jurisdiction does not generally extend within the external boundaries of the diminished Red Lake reservation, and that in 1984 a marriage license was not necessary for a legally valid marriage there. She gave Mr. Koch a copy of Wub-e-ke-niew's book, We Have The Right To Exist, which includes published acknowledgement of Wub-e-ke-niew and Clara's marriage, and details the historical and legal background of the jurisdictional situation at Red Lake. When Mr. Koch asked about additional documentation, Clara showed him a photocopy of the letter of recommendation that Wub-e-ke-niew had written for her application to graduate school, and commented that she had been forcibly removed from her home on October 22nd, and so did not have access to most of her personal papers or other documentation.
Mr. Koch, in his report to State Registrar Ms. Barbara Bednarczyk, writes that "Clara Niiski" acknowledged that she did not have a 'marriage certificate,' but he does not mention that Clara and Wub-e-ke-niew's Midé marriage was in 1984 at Red Lake, and that at that time and place, marriage certificate / license was not necessary for a valid marriage.
Envelope in which Tim Koch returned the book We Have The Right To Exist to Clara NiiSka on February 11.
The address on this envelope is accurate; subsequent letters from the Health Department - for which response time was critical - were incorrectly addressed.
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Commissioner Anne Barry
Commissioner Anne Barry reports to Sen. Berglin - February 27
State Registrar Barbara Bednarczyk to Clara NiiSka - March 9
March 9 letter from State Registrar Barbara Bednarczyk to Clara NiiSka: page 1 | 2 | envelope
Commissioner Anne Barry to Sen. Linda Berglin and Val Blake - March 12
March 12 letter from Commissioner Anne Barry to Sen. Linda Berglin: page 1 | 2
March 12 letter from Commissioner Anne Barry to Val Blake: page 1 | 2
Clara NiiSka's response to State Registrar Barbara Bednarczyk - March 23
March 23 response from Clara NiiSka to Registrar Barbara Bednarczyk: page 1 | 2 affidavit - page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
State Farm Insurance Company letter to Francis Blake
Clara NiiSka's additional information to the Registrar - April 9
Senator Linda Berglin to Val Blake - April 10
Registrar Barbara Bednarczyk to Clara NiiSka: "death certificate will be amended back to its original form" - April 10 (letter mailed April 14)
Death Certificate re-amended - April 17
April 17: Death Certificate re-amended: front | back
Death Certificate used as sole documentation that the deceased is "Indian" and thus subject to Red Lake Indian Court probate jurisdiction - on or about April 17-20
April 17-20: Val Blake's Petition for Probate at Red Lake: page 1 | 2
April 20: Red Lake notice of probate
Red Lake: Clara NiiSka files 'Notice of Special Appearance' objecting to assertion of Indian probate jurisdiction, is escorted out of courtroom with an Order of lifetime exile - May 26
Senator Linda Berglin to Commissioner Barry - June 9
June 9 letter from Senator Linda Berglin to Commissioner Barry: page 1 | 2
Commissioner Anne Barry to Clara NiiSka - June 26, 1998
June 9, 1998 letter from Anne Barry to Clara NiiSka 1 | 2
Clara NiiSka to Senator Linda Berglin - November 28, 1999
November 28, 1999 letter from Clara NiiSka to Linda Berglin
Sen. Berglin's aide Lou Tofte -
letter from Lou Tofte
Commissioner Anne Barry to Clara NiiSka - June 9, 1998
June 9, 1998 letter from Anne Barry to Clara NiiSka 1 | 2
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