Task 2. Autobiography, Seminole Girl, part 2.
Well, I graduated and went down to the bank.
The president of the bank had called the agency and said he would like to employ a qualified Indian girl.
So I went down there and they gave me a test, and I was interviewed.
And then they told me to come in the following Monday. That's how I went to work.
I finished college May 29, and I went to work June 1st. I worked there for three years.
In the fall of 1966, my father and the president of the Tribal Board asked me to come back to Big Cypress to manage a new economic enterprise there.
It seemed like a dream come true, because I could not go back to live at Big Cypress without a job there.
But it was not an easy decision. I liked my bank work. You might say I had fallen in love with banking.
But all my life I had wanted to do something to help my people, and I could do that only by leaving my bank job in Miami.
Being the person I am, I had to go back. I would have felt guilty if I had a chance to help and I didn't.
But I told my daddy that I couldn't give him an answer right away,
and I knew he was upset because he had expected me to jump at the chance to come back.
He did understand, though, that I had to think about it.
He knew when I went to live off the reservation that I had had a pretty hard time, getting used to a job, getting used to people.
He knew I had accomplished a lot, and it wasn't easy for me to give it up.
But that's how I felt. I had to think. At one time, it seemed to me that I could never go back to reservation life.
But then really, through it all, I always wished there was something, even the smallest thing, that I could do for my people.
Maybe I'm helping now. But I can see that I may get tired of it in a year, or even less.
But right now, I'm glad to help build up the store.
If it didn't work out, if the store failed, and I thought I hadn't even tried, I world really feel bad.
The basic thing about my feeling is that my brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews can build later on the future only through the foundation their parents and I build.