When "Bright Eyes" (Susette LaFlesche Tibbles) died in 1903, she and her husband had been living on their farm about 4 miles north of Bancroft. Tibbles and I were well acquainted. He was not very well liked in the community largely because of his Populist activities. The family of "Bright Eyes" was not friendly to him. When Susette died Tibbles sent word to me asking if I would spend the night with him and his dead wife. I suspect he did this because he had no intimate friends in the community.
I was glad to go because I respected the man's political and social views. He was a pioneer both in the physical and the intellectual sense and he was far superior to some of those who disliked him. The night I spent with Tibbles was a strange and beautiful one. Her body was lying in the bedroom off the front room where we sat and talked. Ever now and then we would go out to change the wet cloth on her face. I think the body was not embalmed else we would not have done this. He would stand there with his shoulders shaking saying, "Isn't she beautiful: Isn't she beautiful:" And she was beautiful, even more beautiful in death than in life. All night long Tibbles talked about his life with her. And what a book it would make if we had a copy of what he said that night: Sometimes he would forget that she was dead and some amusing incident would cause him to laugh heartily. Then he would remember and we would go in together to look at her dead face.
I did not go to the funeral. Somone came after me before breadfast and that was the last I saw of "Bright Eyes".
Mrs. Green's book on the children of Iron Eye has a paragraph on page 149 telling of my relationship with Susette's famous sister, Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte. Nothing is told of the night I spent with Tibbles and his dead wife. I made reference to it in a speech I gave at Bancroft several years ago when the highway marker was being dedicated. The reference in that speech and this letter are the only written accounts of the matter so far as I can remember at present.
