The TIME LINE Part 1 of Beverley Jean Santamaria a.k.a. Buffy Sainte-Marie (1909-1964)
TIME LINE OF BEVERLEY JEAN SANTAMARIA
November 07, 1909
Albert Cicero Santamaria was born in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts to Michael Santamaria and Emilia (Amelia) (nee: De Cristoforo), who were 100% Italian ancestry.
Albert’s siblings were:
1. Adelina Santamaria (1905-1905)
2. Elena (Eleanor) Catherine (nee: Santamaria) Hartey (1906-1990) married William Hartey
3. Adeline Margaret (nee: Santamaria) Ruotolo (1911-1987) married Gerardo Ruotolo
4. Arthur Angelo Santamaria (1911-1987)
5. Beatrice Loretta (nee: Santamaria) Anderson (1920-2013) married George Anderson
6. Evelyn Elizabeth (nee: Santamaria) (ca. 1925 - )
7. Edmund (Eddie) Paul Santamaria (1930-2013) married Barbara (nee: Rotcavich)
Winifred Irene Kenrick (1918- 2010) was born in Malden, Middlesex County, Massachusetts to Frederick (Frank) Webster Kenrick and Elizabeth Marie (nee: Atwood).
Winifred’s siblings were:
1. Frank Atwood Kenrick (1899-1999) married Olive Harriett (nee: Willis)
2. Emeline Elizabeth (nee: Kenrick) Pettengill (1901-1984)
3. Viola Gertrude (nee: Kenrick) Scribner (1903-1983)
4. Mabel Pearl (nee: Kenrick) 1m. Moody 2m. Skelton (1906-1993)
5. Edwin Melvin Kenrick (1909-2007) married Hazel Anne (nee: Fraser)
6. Albert Norton Kenrick (1911-1985) married Irene Gertrude (nee: Fitzgerald)
7. Lucille Winifred Hazel (nee: Kenrick) married Harold Repetta (1914-1989)
September 12, 1932
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 04
Legal Notices Section
Commonwealth of Massachusetts – Probate Court – Middlesex County
To William A. Kenrick, Edwin M, Kenrick, Laura P. Dimick, Elizabeth M. Kenrick, Frank A. Kenrick, Emeline E. Pettingil, Viola G. Scribner, Mabel P. Kenrick, Edwin Melvin Kenrick, Albert Norwood Kenrick, Lucille Winifred Kenrick, and Winifred Irene Kenrick of Malden, Blanch R. Barber, and Grace Buckley of Medford, David S. Kenrick of Wakefield, Alfred W. Kenrick of Melrose and Clara W. Lane of Cambridge in the County of Middlesex, Ethel G. Sanborn of Danvers and Alice E. Hennan of Saugus in the County of Essex, Warren E. Kenrick of Boston in the County of Suffolk, Irma F. Lord of Quincy in the County of Norfolk, all of the Commonwealth aforesaid; to Henry B. Kenrick of Warren in the State of Maine, and to all other persons interested.
WHEREAS Charles S. Kenrick of Winthrop in the County of Suffolk has presented that he holds as tenant in common one undivided ninth part or share of certain land lying in Wakefield, in said County of Middlesex, and briefly described as follows:
A certain parcel of land with all the buildings thereon situated at the northerly end of Lake Quannapowitt containing about one acre more or less and bounded: Southerly by said Lake, westerly by land of T. H. Carter, Northerly and Easterly by Lowell Street.
This parcel is subject to a taking by the State of Massachusetts for parking purposes and to a lease held by Wesley S. Parker.
Another certain parcel of land situated in Northerly part of said Wakefield, containing 3 ¼ acres, more or less and bounded Beginning at the Northwesterly corner of thereof at the corner of Main Street and the road leading from Reading to Lynnfield. Centre, thence the line runs Easterly of South, by said Gorham’s land 288 feet, more or less, to a ditch by land of Hiram Flagg, then in a direction south of west in a straight line by said ditch 519 ft., more or less to the point of beginning.
Also, another parcel of land situated in the Northerly part of said Wakefield containing 2 acres more or less and bounded” – Northerly by land of George W. Stimpson, Jr., Easterly by Main Street, Southerly by land of Charles Carter and Westerly by Pratt Street setting fourth that he desires that all of said land may be sold at private sale for not less than $11,500.00 and praying that partition may be made of all the land aforesaid according to law, and be that end that a commissioner be appointed to make such partition and be ordered to make sale and conveyance of all or any part of said land which the Court finds cannot be advantageously divided, either at private sale or public auction, and be ordered to distribute the net proceeds thereof.
You are hereby cited to appear at a Probate Court to be held at Cambridge in said County of Middlesex, on September 19, 1932, at 10:00 o’clock in the forenoon, to show cause, if any you have, why the same should not be granted.
And said petitioner is ordered to serve this citation by serving a copy thereof on each person interested whose address is known, either personally or by registered mail, 14 days at least before said Court, and if anyone is not so served, by publishing the same once each week, for 3 successive weeks, in the Wakefield Daily Item, a newspaper published in Wakefield the last publication to be one day at least before said Court, and by mailing a copy thereof to the last known address of such person 14 days at least before said Court.
Witness, John C. Leggat, Esquire, First Judge of the said Court, August 02, 1932.
LORING P. JORDAN, Register
June 26, 1933
The Boston Evening Globe Newspaper
Edmund "Eddie" Santamaria
June 26, 1933
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
Lost Child Located Deep In the Woods
Three-Year-Old Boys Wandered Off On Sunday and One Who Was Found Was Too Young to Tell Story, Child Hungry, but Safe
Edmund Santamaria, age 3, of East Boston, lost in the woods between Wilmington and North Reading and for whom an intensive search had been conducted since yesterday morning, was found by state troopers of the North Reading barracks shortly after noon today. The child was frightened, hungry and thirsty, but otherwise none the worse for spending the night in the woods.
The child’s little companion, Philip Falamore, was found shortly before noon yesterday walking in the same locality. He is not quite three and was unable to tell what become of the Santamaria boy.
Last evening, the North Reading and Wilmington fire departments pump out a water hole in a sand pit in that section, without result. Bloodhounds were also used, ineffectively.
State and North Reading police co-operated, and Chief Croswell of the North Reading Police and Chief Harold Conron of the fire department obtained the pump used on the stand pit.
About 150 volunteer searchers beat the woods in bands walking 20 abreast yesterday afternoon.
June 25, 1933
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
Found By Volunteers: North Reading Men Played Their Own Hunch Successfully In Search for Boy
Three-year-old Edmund Santamaria of East Boston is safe in the care of his parents today following a night of terror spent in the woods of North Reading and Wilmington where he had been wondering from late Sunday morning until Monday afternoon.
The East Boston boy’s body was badly bitten by mosquitoes and flies, and he was badly frightened when picked up, but he was none the worse for his experience today.
The lad, who is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Santamaria, was found by William Hanley and John Hogan of Park Street, of the North Reading volunteer searchers, who had set out early yesterday morning to follow a “hunch” of their own as to the boy’s whereabouts. The boy was found in what is known as the Furber Pond section, in Wilmington, about one mile into the woods west of Park Street.
A collie dog, said to trained in following the scent of a human being in sparsely-settled districts, was pressed into service yesterday morning and quickly picked up scent and headed for the woods, but soon lost the trail and refused to take up the hunt a second time.
The lost boy wanted a glass of milk and his “mudder” when picked up by Hanley and Hogan.
August 02, 1934
The Boston Globe Newspaper
A band concert by the Legion Band of Reading, MA Post drew a large gathering last evening. A bandstand was erected on the Center School lot. Scores of cares were parked about the Common and the square and adjoining streets. Wahpatuck Tribe of the Red Men from Wakefield cooperated with the post in staging the affair, and a large delegation of Red men was present in costume. During the intermission a Sioux war dance was executed by Leonard Bayrd and Lyle Cheatham, with C. Orne Bayrd and Vito Moccio furnishing the rhythm on the tom-toms. A cornstalk dance also was presented.
August 04, 1933
Edgar C. Linn, Trustee, deeded to Michael Santamaria and Amelia his wife, as tenants, Land Lots 42, 42A, 42B, 42C, and 42D on Maple Road. Recorded in Registry Deeds, Book 5738, Page 102.
[SEE December 19, 1951, Deed to their son Arthur Santamaria]
October 12, 1934
William G. Etsell deeded to Michael Santamaria and Amelia Santamaria, husband and wife, deeded Lots 44, 44A, 44B and 44C of a plan entitled “Parkside Little Farms,” recorded in said deeds, Book 5870, Page 104.
1935 & 1936 –
Boston, Massachusetts – City Directory
Santamaria, Albert. C. Musician, 668 Bennington EB
[Albert C. Santamaria retrospectively had played a trumpet]
Santamaria, Arthur A. Stenographer, 222 Summer Room 513, 668 Bennington
Santamaria, Michael (Emilia) Barber, 668 Bennington EB
January 28, 1936
Albert Cicero Santamaria and Winifred Irene (nee: Kenrick) were married in Manhattan, New York.
Apparently, the two had ‘eloped’ and gained marriage status, while she already a month pregnant with their son, Alan K. Santamaria / St. Marie.
Name: Albert Santamaria
Sex: Male
Age: 26
Birth Year (Estimated) : 1910
Birthplace: East Boston, Mass.
Marital Status: Single
Race: White
Father's Name: Michael
Father's Sex: Male
Mother's Name: Emilea De Christoforo
Mother's Sex: Female
Spouse's Name: Winifred Irene Kenrick
Spouse's Sex: Female
Spouse's Age: 18
Spouse's Birth Year (Estimated): 1918
Spouse's Birthplace: U. S. A.
Spouse's Marital Status: Single
Spouse's Race: White
Spouse's Father's Name: Frank
Spouse's Father's Sex: Male
Spouse's Mother's Name: Elizabeth Atwood
Marriage Date: 28 Jan 1936
Marriage Place: Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States
Albert C. & Winifred I. (Kenrick) Santamaria of Wakefield resided on Maple Road, and his brother, Arthur Santamaria also resided in Wakefield on Maple Road, in Massachusetts.
August 28, 1936
Alan Kenrick St. Marie was born in Lying-In Hospital, in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, son of Albert C. and Winifred (nee: Kenrick) Santamaria.
August 05, 1939
Dr. Herbert Land, who had been practicing in North Reading, MA for 6 years, had opened an office in Stoneham, MA, on August 04, 1939 at 7 Hersam Street. Dr. Land had been the school and health physician in North Reading, MA for several years. He was a graduate of Middlesex College, and was married and had one daughter.
February 27, 1940
Wayne Roger Santa Maria was born at the New England Sanitarium and Hospital, in Stoneham, Massachusetts, at 11:04 a.m. (after mother’s 4-hour-stay at the hospital) to Alfred C. Santamaria and Winifred I. (nee: Kenrick). Their residence was on Chestnut Street in North Reading, Massachusetts. The obstetrician was Herbert Land, M.D., of North Reading, Massachusetts.
Town Report of Stoneham, Massachusetts:
April 24, 1940
1940 Federal Census for North Reading, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Albert Santamaria’s rented residence was at 425 Chestnut Street, in North Reading, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. He was 30 years of age, married, white, and had been resident of the same address in 1935 retrospectively. His wife, Winifred Irene (nee: Kenrick) was the 1940 Census informant, age 22 years, white. Their sons Alan Keith, age 3, and Wayne Roger, age 1 month, along with Albert’s sister-in-law, Lucille (nee: Kenrick) Repetta, age 26 years, formerly of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and her young daughter Joan E., age 4 years.
May 16, 1940
Wayne Roger Santamaria died in North Reading, Massachusetts, at the age of 2 months and 18 days, the infant son of Alfred C. Santamaria and Winifred I. (nee: Kenrick). Cause of death was accidental suffocation due to being wrapped up in blankets (SIDS). Their residence was in North Reading, Massachusetts at the time, on Chestnut Street.
The informant on the Death Record was Wayne’s father, Albert, of Chestnut Street, in North Reading, Massachusetts.
Elaine "Lainey" Lucille St. Marie stated on Ancestry.com that it was her mother's older sister, Lucille Winifred Hazel (Kenrick) Repetta (1914-1989) whose children had whooping cough, while visiting her family in North Reading, MA, thus had accidentally infecting the infant Wayne, with the same condition, causing his death.
October 16, 1940
Albert C. Santamaria's WW2 Draft Registration Card (front and back)
February 20, 1941
Beverley Jean Santamaria Birth Certificate Document
Beverley Jean Santamaria was born at the New England Sanitarium and Hospital, in Stoneham, Massachusetts, at 3:15 a.m. (after mother’s 3-hour-stay at the hospital) to Alfred C. Santamaria and Winifred I. (nee: Kenrick). Their residence was in North Reading, Massachusetts at the time, on Maple Road.
The attending obstetrician was Herbert Land, M.D., of 9 Bow Street, in Wakefield, Massachusetts.
The initial birth record did not have her first or middle names indicated, yet within 48 hours, Winifred had notified the Town Clerk of Stoneham, the name of the child as being Beverley Jean Santamaria, as required by state law.
Perhaps Albert & Winifred wanted the infant to be baptized first, before officially naming the infant girl on the birth certificate.
Were they thinking that since Wayne had died the year before, that they were hoping for another boy?
Was the girl having been born totally unexpected (as to gender) by her parents?
Remember there was no Ultrasound technology to determine the gender of an as-yet born infant in 1940 into 1941.
Was it that the mother didn’t have a decision for a name if the female baby was successfully born?
Supplemental Report of Birth
PLEASE REPLY AT ONCE!
PARENTS WITHIN 40 DAYS MUST REPORT BIRTH
What is the name of your daughter born on February 20, 1941.
Print or Type Name of Child Here: Beverley Jean Santamaria (Father & wife known as St. Marie and St. Maria)
NAME OF FATHER: Albert C. Santamaria NAME OF MOTHER: Winifred Irene Kenrick
REMEMBER YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR RECORDING THIS INFORMATION
SEE LAW ON OTHER SIDE
Signed by Albert Cicero Santamaria & Winifred Irene Kenrick
Address: Maple Road, North Reading, Mass.
1941 Stoneham, Middlesex County, Massachusetts Town Report:
Page 152 -
Beverley Jean Santamaria Born February 20, 1941 in Stoneham, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, (whose parents, Albert C. & Winifred I. (Kenrick) Santamaria were of North Reading, Massachusetts), indeed was recorded in the Stoneham, Massachusetts Town Report's Vital Records of Birth section of that Town Report.
Massachusetts Birth Index 1941-1945
According to Blair Stonechild’s biography of Buffy Sainte Marie: It’s My Way!
Pages 10-11, "Buffy had been born on the Piapot Reserve, had no birth certificate, that a fire in the 1940’s had destroyed any local government records that then existed for the community, and that it had been impossible to locate definitive information on Buffy’s earliest days, however, several stories were created and told about her alleged origins.
One story suggests that when Buffy’s mother had died unexpectedly after giving birth, her father was left alone to care for his newborn daughter.
Another story said that "Buffy’s mother had to travel to Edmonton, Alberta, and died there, leaving the baby back home with relatives on the Piapot reserve." In any case, a local missionary recommended to Buffy’s father that he adopt out his infant daughter in the belief that she would have a better chance of survival with a white family. Buffy was sent east to New England, with the help of church charities set up precisely for facilitating such adoptions.
Albert C. and Winifred (Kenrick) St. Marie, of North Reading, Massachusetts, had recently lost their son Wayne Roger Santamaria in May 1940 and hoped adoption would fill the void. Moreover, Winifred has allegedly some aboriginal background, tracing their Mi’kmaq roots back to Acadia. The infant girl was giving the name Beverly Jean.
SOURCE: Native North American Biography by Malinowsy & Glickman
Buffy grew up in Naples, Maine, and North Reading and Wakefield, Massachusetts. Page 13
Some of Winifred Kenrick St. Marie’s maternal ancestors came to Massachusetts via a circuitous route. Page 13
The Kenrick’s were probably one of many families that immigrated to Barrington, Nova Scotia – the traditional territory of the Mi’kmaq Indians. Buffy’s paternal great-grandfather, William, was born in Nova Scotia in 1800, although he elected to move to Boston as a young man. This may be how the Mi’kmaq Indian bloodline was introduced into the Kenrick family. Grandmother Elizabeth Kenrick, was good at spinning tales, always maintained that there was an Indian connection. Page 14
Winifred Kenrick married in 1936 at the age of 16 (she was actual 18 years of age) and had her first child Alan Kennrick/ Keith Santamaria that same year. Their second child, Wayne Roger, was born, (and died of SIDS at 4 months) (actually he died 2 months and 18 days) in 1940. Beverley Jean (“Buffy”) was brought into the family. Winifred’s 3rd and youngest child, Elaine Lucille, was born in 1948. Page 15
SOURCE: Elaine “Lainey” Lucille St. Marie – Mixter, personal communication w. Blair Stonechild, December 07, 2007. Following this disclosure by Elaine, she ("Lainey") did an AncestryDNA (autosomal DNA) test in ca. 2010
1. Alan Kenrick Santamaria
2. Wayne Roger Santa Maria
2. Beverley Jean Santamaria (in the above narrative, “Lainey” implied that Winifred did not give birth to Beverley Jean)
4. Elaine Lucille St. Marie
January 04, 1941
The Berkshire Eagle Newspaper, Page 04
Spouses of new U.S. citizens do not become citizens as a result of the naturalization of their husbands, and that even their minor children, although residing in the United States are still aliens, unless they are born in the U.S. or came the U.S. before they were 16 years of age and have resided in the U.S. continuously for 5 years. This does not include children by adoption.
February 20, 1942 (1 year old)
April 28, 1942
A Property Deed was recorded from The Merchants Co-operative Bank of Boston, with Middlesex South District Deeds, Book 6595, Page 310, regarding Albert C. Santamaria and Winifred I. (Kenrick) Santamaria, regarding Lot Two on “Plan of Land in Wakefield, belonging to the Estate of O. A. Magee,” dated May 21, 1927, Book of Plans 397, Plan 37.
Being the same premises conveyed to us by deed of The Merchants Co-operative Bank of Boston, recorded with Middlesex South District Deeds, Book 6595, Page 310.
42A Prospect Street in Wakefield, Middlesex County, Massachusetts.
February 20, 1943 (2 years old)
February 20, 1944 (3 years old)
Arthur C., his wife Winifred I. (Kenrick) with their son Alan Keith, and daughter Beverley Jean were residents of 24A Prospect in Wakefield, Massachusetts.
At 3 years of age, Buffy’s parents brought into the home, a piano, of which, blonde-haired and blue-eyed Alan took piano lessons. His young sister was curious about music from it, since she “heard” music in her mind, and played on the piano, her favorite toy, music and arts being her playmates.
Albert C. Santamaria retrospectively had played a trumpet in a band, and Buffy’ aunt and uncle had enjoyed playing music privately, yet the music at 24A Prospect Street was usually played from the family phonograph and record player.
SOURCE: Blair Stonechild’s biography ©2012 Page 20
February 20, 1945 (4 years old)
(Shared by Bruce Santamaria)
Beverley Jean Santamaria
April 08, 1946
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 05
Beverly and Alan St. Marie (children of Winifred St. Marie)
This is the 15th in a series of photographs of local youngsters taken for this newspaper last Fall. (Name of father or mother in parentheses).
July 15, 1946
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
Costume Parades Are Features at Common Nasella Playgrounds
The costume parade was held at the Common playground, Friday afternoon. There was an excellent attendance. Contestants in the costume parade included Beverly St. Marie, as a “Witch.”
February 20, 1947 (6 years old)
July 14, 1947
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 04
Playground Jottings
COMMON – Bean Bag and Checkers: Alan St. Marie and Beverly St. Marie.
December 18, 1947
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 08
Santa Makes Visit to West Ward Pupils
The West Ward School Christmas party, Wednesday afternoon was sponsored by parents of pupils. Prettily decorated trees were in each room.
Recitation of “Christmas Rainbow Candles,” by pupils Beverly St. Marie, Roberta Marsh, Tamsen Evans, Bonnie Estey, Barbara Schrieter, and Janice Murphy.
1948 –
Arthur C., his wife Winifred I. (Kenrick), and Albert’s brother Arthur, were residents of 24A Prospect in Wakefield, Massachusetts. (As were Albert & Winifred's three children Alan, Beverley, and Elaine)
According to Buffy Sainte-Marie’s notes to Blair Stonechild, Winifred’s siblings occasionally talked about being part-Mi’kmaq Indian. Although Winifred seldom herself talked about being part-Mi’kmaq, while her daughter Beverley Jean was under the table, Winifred would discuss such with Beverley’s aunts and uncles such beliefs.
SOURCE: Buffy Sainte-Marie’s notes to Blair Stonechild’s ©2012 biography book Pages 21-22
February 20, 1948 (7 years old)
Winifred Irene (nee: Kenrick) Santamaria was employed as a proofreader at the Daily Item, Wakefield’s local newspaper, from 1948 until about 1954. Later in her life, Winifred worked as a proofreader and copy-editor for Boston’s leading educational publishing houses, Houghton Mifflin and Addison-Wesley.
May 10, 1948
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 03
Brenda Johnson Eight Years Old
A birthday party was held for Brenda Johnson of 2 Nichols Street, on a Friday afternoon, in honor of her 8th birthday anniversary.
Quests were Virginia Greene, Ann Sullivan, Sue LeBrun, Constance Wing, Beverly St. Marie, Tamsen Evans, Anstiss Morrill, Andrea Hallstrom, Martha Hallstrom, Linda Jenkins, Carol Peach and Bonney Estey.
Games were played and prizes were won by Anstiss Morrill and Andrea Hallstrom.
Beverly St. Marie entertained with a dance.
The refreshment table was decorated in pink.
Beverley was the Italian version of 'Shirley Temple'
Was she being 'trained' by her mother Winifred?
Was Beverley a narcissistic child?
She seemed a happy girl.
Beverley Jean Santamaria
July 15, 1948
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 04
Playground Jottings – Common Playground
In the afternoon, Alan and his sister Beverly St. Marie played Checkers.
August 31, 1948
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 04
Swimmers Get Awards as Season Ends at Bath House
A very successful swimming, lifesaving, and water-safety program was completed Monday with the closing of the Municipal Bath House off Spaulding Street.
This course was made possible through the cooperation of the Park and Cemetery Commission and Wakefield Chapter of the American Red Cross. The classes have been conducted under the direction of Philip L. McAuliffe, Jr., a certified Red Cross water safety instructor. It was originally planned to have Mr. McAuliffe teach life-saving only; however, because of a general lack of aquatic knowledge on the part of his students. Mr. McAuliffe found it necessary to hold swimming classes, also. The following received insignia for successfully completing their courses:
Intermediate Swimmer: Allen St. Marie, 24A Prospect Street.
September 05, 1948
Elaine Lucille St. Marie was born at the New England Sanitarium and Hospital, in Stoneham, Massachusetts, at 11:00 p.m. to Alfred C. St. Marie and Winifred I. (nee: Kenrick) residing at 24-A Prospect Street in Wakefield, Massachusetts. The attending obstetrician was Herbert Land, M.D., of 90 Woburn Street in North Reading, Massachusetts.
Elaine Lucille St. Marie was born on September 05, 1945, 1941 in Stoneham, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, (whose parents, Albert C. & Winifred I. (Kenrick) Santamaria were of North Reading, Massachusetts), indeed was recorded in the Stoneham, Massachusetts Town Report's Vital Records of Birth section of that Town Report.
September 05, 1948
The Boston Globe Newspaper
February 20, 1949 (8 years old)
Beverley Jean Santamaria began 3rd Grade with Miss Marché. It was during this school year, that Beverley’s class began to study American Indians. During such studies, the class went to see Indian Artifacts at the Museum of Natural History in Boston, Massachusetts. Alongside dinosaurs, the class also saw dead Indians. “Buffy” began self-identifying as an Indian, though she didn’t talk about it much, except when she made visits to the Bayrd’s Indian Trading Post, where she spent many hours, talking with self-identifying “Narragansett” Leonard “Wamblesakee” Bayrd, looking at his Indian handicrafts, learning beadwork, and listening to his stories. He had been a letter carrier for 27 years, before building the Bayrd’s Indian Trading Post.
Leonard Bayrd's Indian Trading Post
Wakefield, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
February 20, 1950 (9 years old)
February 20, 1951 (10 years old)
Winifred I. (Kenrick) Santamaria
May 24, 1951
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 08
Warren P.T.A. Closes Season
The final meeting of the Warren School P.T.A. for the 1950-1951 season was held last evening in the school auditorium.
Principal Jules I. Philie announced the entertainment as follows:
Piano solo: Kenneth Burns
Ukulele and song: Kay Juel
Marimba selection: Richard Monson
Piano solo: Mary Pietrafitta
Song: Arlene Sullivan
Clarinet solo: Paula Simonsen
Violin solo: Bette Bair
Piano solo: Beverly Jacobsen
Tap Dance: Beverly St. Marie
Piano duets: Paula Simonsen and Beverly St. Marie
Mrs. Dorothy M. Linder was accompanist. She was responsible for organizing and rehearsing the program.
September 20, 1951
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 06
Auxiliary Policemen: Albert C. Santamaria, 24A Prospect Street
Albert Cicero Santamaria
Winifred Irene (nee: Kenrick)
Alan Keith Santamaria with his sister Elaine Lucille St. Marie
Beverley Jean Santamaria (sister to Alan & Elaine)
December 19, 1951
Middlesex County South District Deeds
Book 8024 – Page 78
Michael Santamaria and Amelia (nee: Cristoforo) Santamaria deeded to their son, Arthur Santamaria Land Lots 42, 42-A, 42-B, 42-C, and 42-D being on a plan entitled “Parkside Little Farms,” so called, drawn by R. F. Smith, C. E. and filed with Middlesex County, South District, Registry of Deeds, Book of Plans 381, Plan 33, said lots being described as follows: viz: -
Lots 42, 42-A, 42-B, 42-C, and 42-D front together 150.4 feet on Maple Road and contain together 79,890 square feet (1.83 acres), and being the same dimensions, more or less, as laid down on said plan, and to which Plan reference is made for more complete description.
[SEE September 29, 1961]
February 20, 1952 (11 years old)
June 05, 1952
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
MORE THAN 50 STRONG, although all not pictured above, is Wakefield Police Auxiliary, all of whom have been issued badges, clubs and hats. They still are undergoing training in all phases of police work, and many times have proved very valuable to the regular department, assisting at scenes of tragedy, directing traffic, etc., with no compensation. On Memorial Day and Independence Day, they will be called upon to assist regular police in their work, thus saving the town of Wakefield a lot of money which it annually spends for protection and supervision on those two days.
Left to right, of the front row: Chief John G. Gates, Albert C. Santamaria …
February 20, 1953 (12 years old)
July 06, 1953
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
First Aid Workers Treat 71 Celebrators
71 persons were given emergency treatment at the first-aid station during the 4th of July celebration from Friday evening at 7:00 until 11:00 o’clock Saturday night. The first-aid station had been sent up and operated by the Wakefield Chapter, ARC, in cooperation with the West Side Social Club.
Three members of the Wakefield Auxiliary Police unit, trained as Red Cross first-aid instructors, were on duty administering first-aid. Albert Santamaria assisted the group at the first-aid station.
(Shared by Bruce Santamaria)
July 1953
Winifred Irene (Kenrick) Santamaria / St. Marie
1953 – 1954
Beverley (“Bevvie”) invited her childhood friend Janice Murphy (when they were in 7th Grade) to go horseback riding. Janice felt that her friend Beverley was a very good rider.
Winifred Irene (Kenrick) Santamaria
December 17, 1953
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper
Arthur Repetta Heads Auxiliary Police Association
A meeting of the Wakefield Auxiliary Police Association was held on a Wednesday evening at the police station. Election of the following officers were elected of the Executive committee were Marshall Bibber, Albert Santamaria, and John J. Benson.
1954 –
Graduating Class of Wakefield High School
Alan St. Marie of 24A Prospect Street
Alan St. Marie of 24A Prospect Street in Wakefield, Massachusetts
“Al” is one of our most personable seniors. One of his pet peeves is girls with peroxide streaks in their hair. Government is his favorite subject. One the Senior Play Publicity Committee he was an efficient worker. This handsome young fellow likes girls and also wrecking his car.
Some of Buffy’s favorite times were those spent at Uncle Ed and Aunt Hazel’s (her mother’s brother and sister-in-law) two-acre farm in North Reading, Massachusetts, of which she would often gaze at a neighbor’s horses and interact with goats.
February 20, 1954 (13 years old)
March 10, 1954
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
MEDAL WINNERS for capturing top berth in their class in the New England Police Auxiliary Revolver League are these five members of the Wakefield Police Auxiliary. Pinning the medal on Albert C. Santamaria is Police Chief John G. Gates (in uniform).
1955 -
Wakefield High School Year Book
February 20, 1955 (14 years old)
July 06, 1955
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 08
Many Given First Aid During Celebration
Co-operating with the West Side Social Club, Wakefield’s Red Cross Chapter, set up a first-aid station on the Common as it has done for the last five years. The value of such a service proved its worth again by the number of persons treated, totaling 68 children and adults, a greater number than in previous years. Albert C. St. Marie was involved as a member of the Wakefield Police Auxiliary and a Red Cross first aid worker, served a total of twenty-eight and a half hours.
On July 4th Albert again served with J. James Benson, with Mrs. Ann Winship assisting. Mr. Benson is also a member of the Police Auxiliary and Mrs. Winship is a volunteer Red Cross nurse.
During the parade, two cars were equipped for first-aid treatment and assistance for any marchers affected by the heat. Albert C. St. Marie drove his own ranch-wagon with Mrs. Winship and Mr. Benson drove the Wakefield Chapter car.
All workers in the first aid station were serving as volunteers and deep appreciation was expressed by members of the West Side Social Club, as well as persons given treatment.
February 20, 1956 (15 years old)
1955-1956
Beverley Santamaria / St. Marie always entered Wakefield High School through the back door near the parking lot in order to avoid attention. She and Janice Murphy were considered “outsiders” and not accepted into cliques and friendships, and they too began to go their separate ways in High School.
February 07, 1956
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
African Tells Missions Group About Native Land
Ndabaningi Sithole, a first-generation Xian, to an audience of about 60, took for his topic, “The Church in Multi-Racial Africa” Monday evening at the missions supper of the First Congregational Church.
The guest speaker at the next Mary Farnham Bliss meeting will be Mrs. Fred Parks and her subject will be “Our Indian Dilemma.”
February 07, 1956
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
Crown Royalty
KING AND QUEEN of the West Side Social Club’s Winter Carnival, Sunday, were seated, Beverley St. Marie of 24A Prospect Street and Paul Quinlan of 84 Cedar Street. Last year’s queen, Phyllis Cook, and Bob Hugo, brother of the 1954 king, perform the crowning ceremonies.
1956 –
Wakefield High School Yearbook, Page 51
Miss Nichols’ Archery Team
Beverly Sainte-Marie (checked skirt with black shoes)
February 06, 1956
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
Youth Enjoys Winter Sports at WSSC’s Annual Carnival
Paul Quinan of 84 Cedar Street and Beverley St. Marie of 24A Prospect Street reigned as King and Queen of the West Side Social Club’s Winter Carnival, yesterday on Doyle’s Pond. The royal couple was chosen as a climax to an afternoon of Winter sports.
Postponed from last Sunday because of rain, the carnival started at 2:00 p.m. despite the mild weather that caused the cancellation of many speed events. Snowman-building was substituted for girls’ races between the ages of 5 to 9, while snowball-rolling was a substitute for the boys’ races between the same ages.
June 15, 1956
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 08
Alan K. St. Marie, son of Mr. and Mrs. Albert C. St. Marie of 24A Prospect Street, enlisted recently in the U. S. Air Force Pilot program, it was announced today by T/Sgt. Edgar Therrien, local Air Force recruiter 525 Main Street, in Malden, Massachusetts. A graduate of Wakefield High School and East Coast Aero Tech, Cadet St. Marie was employed by Capital Airlines as a Master Aero Technician.
October 15, 1956
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 03
Middle East Talk For Congregational Fellowship
The Pilgrim Fellowship of the First Congregational Church met, last night, at the church. A worship service was held in Covell Chapel, led by Miss Nancy Tuttle and Miss Beverly St. Marie.
After the service the group adjourned to the Fellowship Room, where Mr. and Mrs. Edward Smith gave an interesting account of their trip through the Middle East. Colored slides were shown of places of worship of the different peoples, some of the Biblical places and their people, and of educational opportunities for the native and for the American in that land.
Next week there will be a trip to Chinatown, Boston, where the group will be the guests of the Chinese Church of New England.
January 30, 1957
The Daily Item Newspaper, Page 10
(Photo by Don Young)
Flashing Big Smiles at Sunday’s annual WSSC Winter Carnival on Doyle’s Pond are the king and queen of the event and their attendants.
Seated left to right: Andrea Simonsen, Joanne Powers, Queen Marilee O’Donnell, King Fred Hugo, George Thompson, Steven McGrail and Dick Pollard. Standing are Betsy O’Donnell and Beverly St. Marie, who is crowning the King and Queen.
February 18, 1957
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Front Page (1)
By Regina A. Miller
Sgt. Bilko Discovers Many Novel Acts For Annual Talent Show
The Sports Council presented its annual talent show in the Wakefield High School auditorium. As president of the Council, Marcia Dutton welcomed the large audience.
No show is complete without high steppers and the army’s version consisted of 8 girls dressed appropriately in Chino-Bermudas and red belts.
“Miss Barracks of 1957” was Beverly St. Marie, who accompanied herself on the guitar, as she sang two western selections.
February 20, 1957 (16 years old)
May 07, 1957
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 05
Personal Mention Section
Alan St. Marie of 24a Prospect Street, son of Mr. and Mrs. Albert C. St. Marie, is enjoying a furlough from Bryan Air Force Base in Texas where he is in training as a jet pilot. He will be at home through Saturday of this week, after which he will return to Texas to train in T-33 jet planes.
May 08, 1957
The Daily Item Newspaper, Page 08
Aussie, Vets Are Reunited After 12 Years
Climaxing a 20,000-mile journey that started in this native Australia 15 months ago and will eventually take him completely around the world. E. Keith Maltby, Sydney accountant and teacher was reunited here recently with his two “cobbers,” former Sgt. Arthur St. Marie of 24a Prospect Street, and Boston, Massachusetts, spent a few days together to talk about the good times together in Australia. Two of the trio had become acquainted with Mr. Maltby when they attached to Arthur MacArthur’s headquarters in Brisbane.
December 06, 1957
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 02
Fathers Guests of Inter Nos Club at Supper
The annual father-daughter Christmas supper of the Inter Nos Club was held Monday evening, in the Wakefield High School cafeteria. A group of nearly 200 fathers and daughters were welcomed by Judy Nelson, president, after which supper was enjoyed.
Following the supper, Phyllis Bryant, chairman of the supper committee, was introduced. She introduced Linda Schnurbush, who acted as mistress of ceremonies for the evening’s entertainment. To begin the program, Lee Hadsall led the group in several Christmas songs. She was accompanied by Beverly St. Marie, who sang “Lasting Love’ and accompanied herself on the guitar.
February 20, 1958 (17 years old)
Today's Teen Ager
Entertaining and flying are the two major enthusiasms in the life of Beverly St. Marie, 24A Prospect Street, in Wakefield, Massachusetts.
"I play the piano and guitar," said dark-eyed Beverly, "and I sing. I'd love to make a career of it. On the other hand, my enthusiasm for flying is so great I'd like to work for the airlines."
Brother Is Pilot
Beverly's brother Alan, a pilot, has flown her to many of the United States. The one that impressed her most was Texas. "It's so clean and big," she said. "I'd like to live there. The places I'd most like to visit are Japan and India."
Beverly is a senior at Wakefield High, where she takes the college course. She belongs to the glee club and is on the school newspaper.
"Writing is another interest," she said. "I like to do stories and poems. Edgar Allen Poe is an idol of mine."
Has Ridden In Horse Shows
Beverly numbers ice skating, water skiing and dancing among her favorite pastimes. She has ridden in horse shows.
"I've modeled for photographers and appeared in several fashion shows," she said.
"I like to cook, my favorite dish being apricot chiffon pie. I paint in oils, water colors and charcoals."
"In fact," said Beverly, "I guess my middle name should be enthusiasm."
March 12, 1958
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
March 12, 1958
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
(Staff Photo by Paul Rich)
WHS DRAMA GROUP – Wakefield High was represented in the recent Regional Drama Festival, Marblehead, by a cast which performed the play “The Winslow Boy.” Two actors, Neil MacKenzie and Priscilla Towers, received awards for their roles in the play.
Kneeling: left to right, Jim Boynton, Dan Donegan, Bill Best,
Middle: Jane Barrows, Carol Bacon, Beverly St. Marie, Priscilla Towers, Betsy Knowlton.
Back: Steve Rosen, John Simpson, Randy Scheri, Neil MacKenzie and Director Frederick R. Boyle, a member of the high school faculty.
WHS Actors Cited In Regional Drama Display
Special awards for acting excellence were received by two Wakefield High School students at the recent Regional Drama Festival held on Saturday at Marblehead High School. Neil MacKenzie and Priscilla Towers, both of the Class of 1959, were chosen honorary members of the Regional Cast for their performance in “The Winslow Boy,” Wakefield’s selection for the competition.
The Regional Drama Festival is under the auspices of the Massachusetts Drama Guild. It is a preliminary competition to select Massachusetts schools for the State Drama Festival to be held at John Hancock Hall, Boston on March 28 and 29, 1958. Wakefield was one of eleven schools which entered the Regional Festival. Wakefield High School entered the Massachusetts State Festival, having been judged as “good,” by the judges, in the High School’s first time entering the Festival preliminaries.
The play chosen as Wakefield’s offering was the “The Winslow Boy,” a British play by Terrence Rattigan. Financial support for the production was given by the Student Council. In the cast was Beverly St. Marie.
The whole production was under the direction of Mr. Frederick R. Boyle, a member of the high school faculty. There was a field of 78 competing students for the 13-member Regional Cast.
April 18, 1958
Arthur Santa Maria of Wakefield, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, being unmarried, was deeded by Herman Carlson and Hannah Carlson, husband and wife, and recorded in Middlesex, South District Registry of Deeds, Book 9132, Page 429, a certain parcel of land with the buildings, thereon now known as and numbered 483 Water Street, situated in Wakefield, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, being Lot C3b on a plan by Towers Engineering Company, dated June 1955, recorded with Middlesex South District Deeds, Book 8603, Page 295.
April 22, 1958
Arthur Santa Maria, being unmarried to said Home Savings Bank dated recorded with the Middlesex County District Registry of Deeds, Book 9132, Page 430, acknowledged and took out a Mortgage with the Home Savings Bank.
May 08, 1958
The Times Record News (Wichita Falls, Texas), Page 04A
Something new in the way of a very fine disc (and excellent reading on the jacket) is Jimmy Driftwood sings newly discovered Early American Folk Songs.
To 40-year-old Jimmy, a high school principal at Snowball, Arkansas, folk songs are more than just something to sing. Ever since he started talking, he has been singing them – and for most of his life collecting them.
Besides being a fine vocalist, he is the last of the “picking mouth bow” musicians. Early settlers migrating over the mountains from Tennessee to the Ozark's often lacked guitars and fiddles so the “picking bow” was a substitute. Jimmie Driftwood says he learned the art of the picking bow from very old men of the Ozark's.
Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography
Andrea Warner ©2018
Beverly Jean (nee: St. Marie) didn’t know who she was or where she came from, and there were few people who looked like her in predominately white Wakefield, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. Her existence provoked questions that no one knew how to ask, and it only made her more isolated and vulnerable.
At various stages of her life, she refused to believe that her mother Winifred Irene (nee: Kenrick) St. Marie was not her true biological genetic-contributing mother. Her older brother Alan had told her she that was adopted. She was told that she was just born on the “wrong side of the blanket.” In other words, one of her parents was her parent and other one wasn’t [NPE ... Non Paternity Event]. She was told that she was part-Indian, but nobody knew anything about it, and when she grew up, that she could find out about it, if she was interested, which worked out well. Buffy had this identity question, but it wasn’t something that haunted her or got at her until far later in her life.
The “fact” that she was adopted wasn’t openly acknowledged in Buffy St. Marie’s earliest years, but her older brother [Alan Keith St. Marie] used that information to bully her when she was very little. Gradually by listening to what was said and what wasn’t said between family members, Buffy understood that she was both “adopted” and Indigenous. Winifred didn’t talk much about the former, but she wholly embraced the latter and encouraged her daughter Beverly “Buffy” St. Marie to find out everything she could about the world, including Indigenous culture and the real history of Indigenous people, not just the sanitized North American version that persisted in schoolbooks. Living in Wakefield was alienating to Buffy. With her dark hair and tan complexion, she was already visibly identifiable as an “outsider”. She was small for her age, and often a target of neighborhood bullies, beaten up by boys and older girls. She was told in school that “Indians didn’t exist,” yet relatives in her mother’s family expressed pride that they were allegedly “part-Indian.”
Buffy knew she was Indigenous, even if she didn’t have a lot of information about what that meant. Encouraged by her mother to ask questions and do her own research about what it meant to be Indigenous.
Buffy would ride her bike four miles around the Lake to visit to the only other visibly Native American person near her town, a self-identifying "Narragansett" man named Leonard Bayrd, who was really nice, and ran an Indian Trading Post in the town stocked with his own handicrafts and was also the mailman. She spent hours visiting him and his wife, feeling safe in their company, listening to his stories and asking questions. She had no “Indian agenda.” Bayrd was welcoming and helped provide some shape to St. Marie’s earliest education about their shared Indigeneity in a world that worked hard to make them invisible. She beaded alongside him. He couldn’t give her answers about her identity, but he did give er a sense of reality beyond the narrow parameters society in Wakefield provided.
When she was a child, her looking different wasn’t talked about, but her brother Alan told her, and let her know in no uncertain terms that Winifred Irene (nee: Kenrick) St. Marie was not Buffy’s mother and that Buffy didn’t belong in that family. Buffy heard it over and over again. Winifred would tell her youngest daughter Buffy, some variation of “Alan’s mistaken.” Buffy took refuge inside her mother’s hasty reassurances.
When Buffy would confide in things her older brother Alan would say to her, to her mother Winifred, her mom would brush it off as teasing. Winifred didn’t know that what she thought was teasing was actually the groundwork for something much darker and more predatory.
Buffy St. Marie was sexually abused for years by her older brother and an older male relative who did not live in the house. The mistreatment from Alan expanded from verbal and psychological bullying to physical and sexual abuse.
Unfortunately, Buffy also claims that it wasn’t just her brother that preyed on her, but someone else much older, a grown-up in the family, who wasn’t a bully, but just a horny old man.
Janice (nee: Murphy) Palumbo, a childhood friend of Buffy’s claims that Alan was a total creep, and that he was bad. The last time she and Buffy hung out was at 13 or 14 years of age. Palumbo thought in retrospect that Buffy was being abused, though didn’t know for certain.
During the abuse, Buffy would “shut down” and sometimes she would pass out. She had the overwhelming need to “disappear” (dissociation).
Buffy credited her mother with helping to protect her vulnerability despite the trauma. Winifred didn’t know the details of what Alan was doing to Buffy, which had made Buffy cry, and didn’t know that there was a problem. Winifred, not knowing about the sexual abuse, was dismissive in attitude towards Buffy. To escape, Buffy took refuge in music and nature. She had a real need for isolation and privacy. She was also this “other person” who “had an inner world” that was really, really good, where she could be by herself and happy. She had a cat and dog and some rabbits, but Alan abused them too.
In Maine, her family’s trailer was in the middle of the woods next to Sebago Lake State Park. Her uncle Eddie (of Kenrick maternal family) had a farm in the next town.
Beverly “Buffy” St. Marie
Wakefield High School Graduate
The exciting football games and class dances appeal to “Bev”
She enjoyed English IV and French III classes. She was a member of Glee Club, Pep Club, a part of the Oracle Editorial Staff, Future Teachers Association, and Lookout are her chief activities. She plans to be an airline stewardess.
In 1958, she went to the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
September 13, 1958
Edmund Santamaria's Marriage Record
January 10, 1959
The Spokane Chronicle Newspaper
Officially 'Hot' Pilots
Seven Geiger Air Force base pilots who recently received their certificates of qualifications in F-102A jet fighter operation are shown with among other men, Lieutenant Alan K. St. Marie.
February 20, 1959 (18 years old)
April 23, 1959
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 03
Elks Map Plans For New Year
The Wakefield Lodge of Elks held its 1,020th regular session at the Elk’s home in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, last evening.
The House Committee announced a bridge tournament, starting in the near future. William Halloran and Arthur Santamaria are co-chairmen of the event.
April 23, 1959
Candice Ann Santamaria was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts, to her parents, Edmund Paul "Eddie" Santamaria and Barbara Lorraine (nee: Rotcavich)
April 25, 1959
Alan K. St. Marie, 22 years and White, (first son of Albert Santamaria and Winifred Kenrick) married to Sandra (nee: Borgen), 19 years and White, in Kalispell, Montana. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and she was born in Kalispell, Montana. Sandra was the daughter of Henry O. Borgen and Florence (nee: Varholdt).
NEWPORT, RI - JULY 1959:
Folk musician and songwriter Jimmy Driftwood (center, cowboy hat) in the audience at the Newport Folk Festival in July of 1959 in Newport, Rhode Island. Jimmy Driftwood is the author of the popular folk song 'The Battle of New Orleans,' a hit record on both popular and country radio in 1959. Mr. Driftwood wrote over 6,000 songs in his long folk career.
May 06, 1959
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 05
A wedding of local interest took place in Kalispell, Montana, in the Calvary Lutheran Church, when Miss Sandra Florine (nee: Borgen), daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry A. Borgen, of Route 7, in Kalispell, became the bride of First Lieutenant Alan K. St. Marie of the Geiger Air Force Base, in Spokane, Washington, son of Mr. and Mrs. Albert St. Marie of 24a Prospect Street, in Wakefield, MA.
The bridegroom is a graduate of Wakefield High School in the class of 1954 and of the East Coast Aero Tech School. He is a first lieutenant with the U.S. Air Force, presently flying with the 498th Fighter Interceptor Squadron out of Geiger Field, in Spokane, Washington. He was with the Capital Airlines in Washington, D.C., before entering the service.
The bridal couple left after the wedding for the West Coast, and on their return, they will make their home in Spokane, Washington.
July 28, 1959
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
December 03, 1959
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 07
Will Play in UMass. Musical
Miss Beverly St. Marie of 24a Prospect Street in Wakefield, Massachusetts has been rehearsing a leading role in “Flowers Grow Wild,” a musical spoof of the beatnik being produced at the University of Massachusetts.
A Greenwich Village setting will be featured in this year’s Campus Varieties, all-student musical production at the university. The show will be presented at 8:00 p.m. on December 10-11 and 12th in the Bowker Auditorium.
An annual event, the musical this year is a satire on Beatnik life. With Greenwich Village as the background, the show runs the gamut of song, dance and high comedy.
Written and produced entirely by students, the presentation is sponsored by Adelphia, senior men’s honor society, and the Revelers, an organization of upper class men promoting freshman participation in campus activities. Proceeds from the sale of tickets will be used for scholarships for University students.
February 20, 1960 (19 years old)
March 13, 1960
The Greenfield Recorder Gazette
July 05, 1960
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 02
Red Cross Aid Station Treats Several Injured
Thirty-two persons were given treatment at the Red Cross First Aid Station for cuts, abrasions, headaches and splinters. Most serious injuries during the day proved to be burns resulting from the explosion of large firecrackers, salutes and so-called log bombs, set off around the common. Four persons were treated for this kind of injury. Inquiries among youngsters revealed that someone was surreptitiously selling the outlawed fireworks as the day’s program progressed.
Following the system in effect during the past several years, members of the Wakefield Auxiliary Police cooperated with Wakefield Chapter Red Cross tent. Comments from Red Cross workers from out-of-town were again laudatory concerning the efficient set-up of the first aid station.
Also working at the First Aid station, doing the necessary police work were Albert St. Marie and Charles Cucurullo.
Auxiliary Police Officers covering the Red Cross First Aid Station also came in for commendation. Throughout the 4th, they functioned as an unofficial information bureau, answering questions of outsiders and winning praise for their unfailing courtesy and helpfulness.
September 19, 1960
The Transcript – Telegram [Holyoke, MA]
UMass-Amherst Operetta Guild First Show October 18, 1960
“Thunder in the Hills,” by Robert Boland and Russell Faldey, alumni of the University of Massachusetts, is scheduled to be the U Mass. Operetta Guild’s first musical production of the school year.
The leads have been chosen and one of whom was Buffy St. Marie (’63), Wakefield.
“Thunder in the Hills will be presented in Bowker Auditorium Oct. 18-22, at the University.
She was born Feb. 20, 1941, on the Piapot Plains Cree Nation Reserve near Craven, Saskatchewan. Her parents abandoned her as an infant. Known only as Beverly, she was adopted by a Wakefield, Massachusetts, couple, Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie, both of Mi’kmaq descent.
Born Beverly Sainte-Marie on the Piapot reserve in Saskatchewan to the Plains Cree First Nation, she was orphaned as an infant when her mother died in a car accident.
Buffy Sainte-Marie was orphaned as a baby in Canada after her mother died in a car accident. She was adopted by a couple of Mi'kmaq descent from America and nurtured in the city of Massachusetts and the beautiful town of Maine.
She was born Beverly Sainte-Marie on Feb. 20, 1941, on the Piapot Cree First Nation reserve in the Qu'Appelle Valley, Sask.
According to the book A to Z of American Indian Women, after the sudden deaths of both of her parents, Beverly was adopted by family relatives Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie, nicknamed Buffy, and raised in Massachusetts.
October 21, 1960
The Greenfield Recorder Gazette Newspaper
February 20, 1961 (20 years old)
February 22, 1961
The Holyoke Daily Transcript Newspaper
March 1961
The Springfield Sunday Republican Newspaper
Grandison Singers Appear Here in Folk Song Festival
On Friday and Saturday evenings, the Old Candy Factory Society will present the distinctive folk singing of the Grandison Singers, a blues-Gospel, folk-singing quartet who have been receiving rave notices from critics while singing at Gerde’s Folk City in New York.
Featured in the concerts with the Grandison Singers will be Bruce Langhorne, a celebrated guitarist who will also accompany the Grandison Singers, and Miss Buffy Sainte-Marie, an American Indian girl attending the University of Massachusetts. She is well known in this area through her concert work and television appearances as well as being a favorite on the North Shore during the summer.
Around 1961, Buffy went to Washington, D.C., where she’d met members of a new group called the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) which had been founded in 1961 after splitting from the more conservative tribal leaders.
She had met up with the National Indian Youth Council when she was still in College such people as Sergeant Shriver had this thing called Upward Bound and I was involved in that. Through that she had met the National Indian Youth Council that involved Clyde Warrior and Mel Tom Walter Funmaker.
July 08, 1961
Le Droit Newspaper, No. 158
Honor of the Indians returned to a priest and a doctor
BLIND RIVER (DNC) - Two Manitoulin Island men, a doctor and a Catholic priest, were honored by the Ojibway Tribe of Wikwémikong (Manitoulin Island, Ontario) last Tuesday for their contribution to Indian welfare.
Father S. J. Lynch, pastor, and Dr. J. F. Bailey. of Little Current received the highest honor an Indian tribe can bestow upon the Pale Faces; admit them into the tribe as blood brothers. The chief of the Wakegejig tribe took an active part in this ceremony.
Father Lynch will now be known to the Indians as the name “Morning Star” and Dr Bailey. as “He Who Flies". The two men were greatly surprised and honored by this choice which admitted them as brothers of the Indians of the island.
Framing this “Indian pow-wow” which lasted two days, about 3,000 people came to Wikwémikong from all over the country, as well as from the States. United to witness these great events.
Indian dancers from Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, Sudbury and Wikwémikong performed Indian dances of all genres. Those recognized were coming from the Piapot Reserve in Saskatchewan.
The master of ceremonies for the occasion was Mr. Cec King and he expressed the wish that this “pow-wow” become an annual event.
September 29, 1961
Middlesex South District Registry of Deeds
Book 9900 – Page 381
Todd Ferrazzani VS. Arthur J. Santa Maria
Arthur Santamaria of Wakefield, Massachusetts (being unmarried), for consideration paid, grant to Joseph Anthony Cabral Jr. and Ethel (nee: Little) Cabral, husband, and wife as tenants by the entirety, both of North Reading, Massachusetts, with quitclaim covenants the land situated in the Town of North Reading, County of Middlesex, Commonwealth of Massachusetts aforesaid, and being Land Lots 42, 42-A, 42-B, 42-C, and 42-D, inclusive, on plan entitled “Parkside Little Farms.”
[SEE December 19, 1951, Land Deed of Michael and Amelia (nee: Cristoforo) Santamaria to their son Albert.]
[SEE ALSO May 29, 2003]
Buffy St. Marie at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, playing the character “Margit” … “Joe Kane” … his daughter.
Buffy sings “What A Day” in Thunder In The Hills
February 20, 1962 (21 years old)
March 01, 1962
The Greenfield Recorder Newspaper
March 05, 1962
The Courier News Newspaper
Volpe Joins Order of Red Men
Massachusetts Governor John A. Volpe has ceremonial headdress adjusted as he became the third governor in the United States to join the Order of the Red Men. Volpe was inducted in ceremonies yesterday by the Wakefield, Massachusetts, Wahpatuck tribe, Great Incohonee Fred Brown of Freehold, civilian dress, doing the honors, as Adrien Chaput, Albert Mills and Leonard Bayrd, in Indian dress, looks on.
March 22, 1963
The Greenfield Recorder-Gazette Newspaper
April 16, 1962
The Daily Inter-Lake Newspaper
Alan K. St. Marie (1st Lt.) and his wife, had a son, Alan Jr. on April 06, 1962.
May 31, 1962
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
Beverly St. Marie One of University of Massachusetts Top Ten
Miss Beverly St. Marie of 24a Prospect Street has had the distinct honor of being voted one of the top ten most outstanding students of the Class of 1962 at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
Beverly’s picture appears with the other nine leading students of the graduating class in the current issue of the student newspaper, the Collegian.
The caption with the picture, citing Beverly’s achievements which led to her being named as one of the top ten reads as follows:
“Buffy St. Marie – Those of us who have heard Buffy St. Marie sing will agree that she is one of the outstanding members of the senior class. She has been a prominent entertainer in folk festivals held here as well as singing in various coffee houses in the Springfield, Massachusetts area. Buffy, a philosophy major, is also secretary of the Pioneer Valley Folklore Society.”
Beverly has been a Dean’s List student during her four years at the University. She is a graduate of Wakefield High School, Class of 1958.
Beverley J. Sainte-Marie
UMass-Amherst Yearbook, Page 364
24-A Prospect Street
Wakefield, Massachusetts
Philosophy
Collegian 1; Operetta Guild 3; Campus Varieties 2; Education Club 4; International Club 4; Student Christian Association 1; Deans List 2; Carnival Ball Committee 3; Spring Day Committee 1 & 2; Modern Dance Club 1 & 2; Equestrian Club 4; Pioneer Valley Folklore Society 2-3-4; Secretary 3 & 4; International Weekend Committee 4.
June 09, 1962
Bruce Edmund Santamaria was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts, to his parents, Edmund Paul "Eddie" Santamaria and Barbara Lorraine (nee: Rotcavich)
July 19, 1962
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
102nd Wing Airman Home, to See Baby For the First Time
Staff Sgt. Edmund Santamaria, 32, once of three local residents who returned home with the Massachusetts Air Guard from France yesterday, is anxious to return to his civilian job.
But that will have to wait a while. For he and his fellow 102nd Tactical Fighter Wing airmen will be on active duty at Logan Airport until August 20, 1962.
After then he will resume his civilian job at Robbins and Burke in Cambridge, a firm which manufactures refrigerator trucks. His brother Albert C. Santamaria, also of Wakefield, works for the same company.
Sgt. Santamaria spent the past nine months with the 102nd at Phalsbourg Air Base. Other local men in the same position were A/2C Charles C. Ehl of Wakefield and A/1C Robert L. Pote of Lynnfield.
“The training in France was quite realistic and serious,” said Santamaria. “We experienced from one to three alert drills every week. Our primary job was to support the Third Army in the event of any emergency in Germany.”
Sgt. Santamaria was attached to the 102nd’s supply squadron. He operated its commissary, which supplied all the food for the base’s mess halls and clubs. One thing which he particularly enjoyed about the long stint was opportunity to travel through all of Europe and northern Africa.
While away, his wife gave birth to a second child, a son, Bruce Santamaria. He is now 6 weeks old, and Edmund Santamaria has yet to see his son.
Mrs. Santamaria spent the 9 months with her family in California – the government paid to transport her and the other child, 3-year-old daughter, Candice there when Edmund Santamaria had left for France. Now the sergeant and his family cannot be reunited until he receives his separation papers next week. “But it is nice to be home,” he said.
August 26, 1962
The New Mexican Newspaper, Page 02
Peter La Farge Record Released by Columbia Records
Peter La Farge, son of writer Oliver La Farge, released a disk called “Ira Hayes and Other Ballads” in included a searing composition of his own, ‘Ira Hayes’… written to memorialize the Pima Indian who helped raise the flag of victory on Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi, who died a hopeless alcoholic – in a ditch on his reservation.
October 15, 1962
The Holyoke Daily Transcript and Telegram Newspaper
Miss Ste. Marie to be Featured at White Cap Ball
Miss Buffy Ste. Marie, well known to Western Massachusetts audiences, will be a feature of the White Cap Ball, given under the auspices of the Women’s Auxiliary to the Hampden District Medical Society.
Miss Ste. Marie first appeared in Springfield while still a student at the University of Massachusetts. She has performed at local festivals in Denver, CO, Cleveland, OH, Philadelphia, PA, and Washington, D.C., and has made many appearances in New York.
Her American Indian heritage backs up her captivating rendition of authentic folk music, delivered by a powerful voice and accomplished guitar accompaniment.
The ball will be held at the Crestview Country Club in Agawam, Massachusetts on November 03, 1962.
November 08, 1962
The Philadelphia Inquirer Newspaper
November 15, 1962
Nine Win Honors For Studies As the University of Massachusetts
Nine local young men and women have won honors at the University of Massachusetts for they spring semester ending last June.
Two of the students were listed as receiving first honors; meaning they attained a 3.8 or better average, out of a possible top score of 4.0.
The first honors winners are W. L. MacDonald of 24 Summit Avenue and Beverly J. St. Marie of 24a Prospect Street.
February 18, 1963
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 08
Elks Regale Audience With Peppy Minstrel Show
Elks’ Hall once again echoed with laughter, applause and whistles that greet the successful minstrel show production, Sunday.
Over the weeks, the show was prepared for production on the occasion of past exalted rulers and old timers’ day. The young, as well as the old, showed their enjoyment as each number was presented. The show opened with an opening chorus that called back the nostalgic days of old-time minstrelsy. The opening number was written by Arthur Santamaria, a member of the chorus.
February 20, 1963 (22 years old)
February 20, 1963
The Star Phoenix Newspaper
March 08, 1963
Fort Lauderdale (Florida) News, Page 35E
Café Catacomb presents Buffy Sainte-Marie coming March 19, 1963. Shows 8:30, 10:00, and 11:30 … Weekends 10:00 o’clock a.m.
235 S. Atlantic Blvd. – Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
Grammy & Grandpa
Merry Christmas from Beverley Santamaria
March 15, 1963
Fort Lauderdale News
March 17, 1963
Fort Lauderdale (Florida) News, Page 2F
March 19, 1963
Fort Lauderdale (Florida) News, Page 16A
March 22, 1963
Fort Lauderdale (Florida) News, Page 25E
March 25, 1963
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
Elks Repeat Successful Minstrel Show
The repeat performance of the Elks’ minstrels was given last Saturday night, especially for the ladies. It was evident that word got around about the fine entertainment first presented on the occasion of old timers’ day, because every available seat was taken. More than 350 members and their ladies were in attendance. Judging by the applause that greeted every number, the entire program was enjoyed from beginning to end.
The opening chorus was arranged by Arthur Santamaria, and he wrote the opening number.
The audience was standing at the end of the show and applauded long and loud. It is hard to believe that these minstrel men will now fold up their tents and drift away without giving one more performance as their valedictory. That’s how good it was.
April 05, 1963
Fort Lauderdale (Florida) News
Café Catacomb presents the Vikings 3 Sensational Trio PLUS Buffy Sainte-Marie
Don’t Miss Our Hootenanny – Every Monday Night
Open 7:30 p.m. Shows: 8:30-10-11:30-1 a.m.
235 S. Atlantic Blvd. – Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
April 12, 1963
Fort Lauderdale News, Page 29D
Café Catacomb presents Patrick Linch (a.k.a. Patrick Sky) at a Hootenanny, held every Monday night.
235 S. Atlantic Blvd. – Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
May 14, 1963 (20 years old)
The Miami Herald Newspaper, Page 4B
By Sharlene Schop – Miami Herald Writer
Buffy Sainte Marie wears a fringed Indian jacket over a Dior suit – and gets away with it. Buffy (real name’s Beverley) also writes her own songs. Originally from the tiny tourist town Sebago Lake, Maine, Buffy didn’t get a guitar until she was in college.
“My mother wouldn’t come to see me perform at first. She didn’t like the idea of coming to a coffee house. When she finally consented, she met a lot of people she knew and felt right at home,” Buffy said. “She gets tears in her eyes when she hears me sing.”
Inspiration for writing may come from anywhere. On a recent tour in Canada, debates on nuclear testing inspired, “Universal Soldier.”
July 05, 1963
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
THIRD FLOAT prize winner yesterday was the Red Men’s tribe with an Indian village and a sand painter depicted with complete authenticity. The float followed the tribe’s famed band in the line of march.
July 22, 1963
The North Bay Nugget Newspaper
Indian drums, dances, songs featured at Manitoulin Powwow
Wikwémikong – Once again this year people from across North America are getting ready to attend the annual Indian Powwow presented by the Wikwémikong Indians Club on August 03, and 04, 1963.
Among the tribes represented will be the Odawa, Chippewa, Hopi, Creek, Cherokee, Sioux, Saultaux, Cree, Pawnee, Taos Pueblo, and the Sac and Fox.
A unique feature this year will be the appearance of Buffy Ste. Marie and Peter La Farge, who will present a program of Indian folk songs. Mr. La Farge is the son of Oliver La Farge, the honored American writer. Another highlight will be the appearance of Alex Nahnepowisk, Western Dance Champion for the past two years, and four Cree drummers and singers.
The Wikwémikong Reserve, home of the Powwow is located 30 miles from Little Current and about 120 miles from Sudbury, Ontario on Hwy. 17 and 68.
July 30, 1963
The Sault Daily Star Newspaper, Page 04
Odawa Tribe Invites Visitors to Big Powwow
Wikwemikong, Ontario – The Indian tribe that gave its name to Canada’s capital has issued a blanket invitation to white people to visit and participate in its annual powwow and dance festival at the Manitoulin Island’s Wikwémikong Village Reserve, August 03-04, 1963.
As guests of the Odawa (Ottawa) tribe’s Wikwémikong Indian Club, representatives from more than 20 tribes ranging from Southwestern U.S., the Western plains, and Atlantic provinces will draw from a rich lore of dances, legends, and crafts. Each participant will be dressed in the historical festival costume regalia of his or her tribe. White people are specifically invited to any of four separate but identical powwow sessions, to be held both afternoon and evening on each day of the powwow day.
In addition to the formal presentations there will be an outdoors dance contest to select the powwow champion.
A unique feature of the celebration this year will be the appearance of Indian folk singers Buffy Ste. Marie (a Micmac from the Maritimes) and Peter LaFarge (a Hopi from the Southern U.S.) who will present a program of both modern and traditional Indian songs.
About 80 dancers will participate in the powwow and an estimated 5,000 spectators will attend.
Program originator Rosemary Fisher (Anongose Wa-Wash-Kesh) of Wikwemikong, conceived the festival idea four years ago and designed it primarily to help maintain Indian culture and tribal pride among young members of the Tribe.
Detailed planning is supervised by Wilfred Pelletier (Be-Bam-She Wa-Wash-Kesh), a native of Wikwémikong and currently president of the ‘Toronto Indian Club’.
Emile Piapot and Buffy Sainte-Marie
at Wikwémikong First Nation Powwow
August 17, 1963
The New York Times Newspaper, Page 11
By Robert Shelton
Old Music Taking On New Colo: An Indian Girl Sings Her Compositions and Folk Songs
The folk-music revival is continuing to splash color on the canvas of show business.
Brightening the local entertainment scene are a young Algonquin Indian girl who has written more than 200 songs.
The Indian is Buffy Sainte-Marie, from Sebago Lake, Maine. She is making her New York debut at the Gaslight Café on MacDougal Street, where she shares the hall with a glossy, folk glee club called the Highwaymen.
One of the nation’s most popular folk singing groups, the Highwaymen singing group included Steven Butts, Chan Daniels, Robert Burnett, David Fisher, and Steve Trott (later to include Gilbert Robbins). The group was a 1960s “collegiate folk” group formed when all four of the young men were students at Wesleyan University in Middleton, Connecticut, and had a Billboard #1 in 1961 with “Michael Row The Boat Ashore" … an African-American spiritual. The quintet cut a record in October 1963, “One More Time”, which included the first cover of "Universal Soldier" by Buffy St. Marie, whom they'd met at the Gaslight Café.
August 18, 1963
The Boston Globe Newspaper
Leonard Bayrd, local Wakefield businessman, who self-declared he was one-half Indian.
Wakefield Red Men's Band, Sponsored by the local Improved Order of Red Man
August 28, 1963
Buffy Sainte-Marie (with guitar) stands with American singer and songwriter Peter LaFarge (1931 - 1965) during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Washington DC, August 28, 1963
They both attended the Newport Folk Festival, as did Joan Baez, et al.
NOTICE the bead worked-leather tunic on Peter LaFarge and on Buffy St. Marie.
Buffy implied Peter was Narragansett, much in the same 'identity narrative' as her friend, Leonard Bayrd, of Wakefield, MA.
SEE April 11, 2016: “Heartbeat, Warble, and the Electric Powwow: American Indian Music” By Craig Harris, © 2016 Beverly “Buffy” Sainte-Marie (1941 – ) per the book’s Page 73, she had met Peter La Farge in 1963.
The View from Swamptown: Peter La Farge left behind a legacy of Native American advocacy
By G.T. Cranston - Special to the Independent [Narragansett-North and South Kingston, RI]
The only possible connection to the Narragansetts for our folksinger would come through his great great-grandfather Christopher Grant Perry, the son of famed naval hero Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and the more I looked at the “Hero of the War of 1812” the more sure I was that Peter La Farge’s claim of a Narragansett blood line was spurious.
Peter LaFarge was born Oliver A. LaFarge in April of 1931. His father was famed writer and anthropologist Oliver Hazard Perry La Farge, who actually won a Pulitzer Prize for his novel “Laughing Boy” a sympathetic and accurate treatment of the Navaho Indians. Indeed, he spent much of his adult life championing Indian rights and was the president of the Association on American Indian Affairs for many years. Peter’s grandfather was famed NYC architect, writer, and artist C. Grant La Farge who also cared deeply about the treatment of Native Americans. In between designing many of the Big Apple’s major cathedrals and Beaux-Arts subway stations, Grant La Farge a number of illustrated important anthropological treatises and books on Native American tribes and also wrote passionately about them. A wonderful short story written by Grant LaFarge is included in the DAR book “Facts & Fancies concerning North Kingstown” that focuses on the Narragansett people. So, it’s easy to see where Peter LaFarge’s overarching interest in Native American subjects found its beginnings.
Right about now you are probably asking yourself, “Where does South County fit in to all this?” Well, each and every summer, beginning in the late 1800’s, the La Farge family, joined their Lockwood and Wharton relations at their adjacent summer houses in the little seaside village of Saunderstown. Certainly, Peter and his father came from their home out in Colorado and visited with the relatives here in Saunderstown each summer and indeed his education into the ways of the Narragansett people may have happened here on the lap of his father and grandfather. Sadly, the LaFarge home burned down in 1946. But Peter’s dad Oliver was a principle in the Saunderstown Hotel Association the group that took over ownership of the Saunders House properties after Stillman Saunders family sold it off; so, they may have come here a few more times after the fire. A few years after the fire, Peter LaFarge assumed his new first name, to differentiate himself from his well-known dad, and set off on his own. He began his adult life working as a cowboy, a rodeo rider and a now and again singer.
His friendships with folk music roots artists Josh White, Big Bill Broonzy and particularly his friend and mentor Cisco Houston led him from the Wild West to the wild life of New York City’s Greenwich Village in the late 1950’s.
While there, the young singer-songwriter hung out with a youthful Bob Dylan, Rambling Jack Elliot, Moe Asch and Dave Van Ronk, he took the stage with Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, and influenced the likes of, yes, Johnny Cash and the aforementioned Mr. Dylan. With his five Folkway Records albums, all dedicated to Native American and cowboy themes and featuring songs like “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” the true story of a Pima Indian who was one of the marines that raised the flag at Iwo Jima, and “As Long as the Grass shall Grow” the story of government treaty violations with the Seneca nation, Pete carved out a reputation as the first folk singer to integrate Native American issues into folk and protest songs.
Following in his father’s footsteps, Pete LaFarge was an initial organizer of FAIR (Federation for American Indian Rights) a move that put him on the radar screen of the FBI. When Johnny Cash heard Pete LaFarge’s work, he was so inspired to action that he not only recorded the album “Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian”, which featured Ira Hayes and a number of other LaFarge tunes, but also created his own Indian heritage, an act which he later recanted.
Sadly, Peter LaFarge, died in October of 1965, under mysterious circumstances. Various sources have called the death a suicide, an accidental drug overdose, and a death by natural causes. But whatever the case, Peter LaFarge left behind a legacy of Native American advocacy that lives on today and perhaps, like the proverbial stones of native lore, forever.
The ironic thing to me is that, with a legacy of concern for Native American rights that is truly generational, Peter LaFarge already possessed all the requisite “Street cred” that he would ever need to be remembered as someone worthy of the honor at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Peter La Farge didn’t need to make up a questionable connection to the Narragansett people – he was already bound to them by the incredible worth of the life that he had led.
Possibly orphaned, Buffy Sainte-Marie was adopted when she was a few months old and raised in Maine and Massachusetts by Albert Sainte-Marie and his wife, Winifred, who was part Mi’kmaq. Sainte-Marie graduated with honors in Oriental philosophy and education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1963.
During this period of the early 1960s, she “returned” in 1964 to the Piapot Reserve in Saskatchewan’s Qu’Appelle River Valley, where she was “born”. She was adopted according to tribal custom by Emile Piapot and his wife, Clara Starblanket Piapot. They were part of a Cree family believed to be related to Sainte-Marie’s biological parents, whom she never knew.
She was born in 1941 on the Piapot 75 reserve in the Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan, Canada. She was abandoned as an infant and was then adopted by Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie, a Wakefield, Massachusetts couple of Mi'kmaq descent. She attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and in 1963 Beverley Sainte-Marie earning degrees in teaching and an Honors Degree in Oriental philosophy, had won a scholarship to study in India.
She planned to go to India (she says) but decided first, to spend the summer in New York, and play her songs there, and the Gaslight Café, and Gerde’s Folk City. She put off the trip to India to travel instead to folk clubs and University campuses throughout the country.
The following year in 1964, she sang at the Newport Folk Festival and was a surprise hit at the Mariposa Folk Festival in Toronto that summer, (where she met Joni Anderson Mitchell ?). Buffy played a mouth bow at the 1964 Mariposa in Maple Leaf Stadium and told the audience that Patrick Sky had made it (the Mouth Bow) for her. She used her looks, sexuality, attire, and appeal to her advantage, with every audience.
Eric Andersen noted in his Facebook post, that in the 1960s Greenwich Village, that he, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and Peter LaFarge were close friends in more ways than one. They all shared allegedly “Native American decent”. Patrick Sky had once fashioned a beautiful “Indian” mouth bow for Buffy, which she still played.
Joni (Anderson) Mitchell herself had recently become pregnant with a daughter (of which she adopted out, in lieu of her career), having bought a 1-way train ticket from Calgary to Toronto, setting out to attend Mariposa in July 1964. She had retrospectively quit art college.
August 27, 1963
The Morning News (Wilmington, Delaware) Newspaper, Page 09
By Tom Malone – This Bears Mention Section
Folk Stuff
Patrick Sky (Patrick Leon LINCH Jr. born October 02, 1940, in College Park, Georgia, outside Atlanta) is a young Indian with a Georgia accent, of 25 years, so he admits, but looks younger. Patrick Sky says he is part Cherokee and part Creek, yet is interested in oriental religions, and frown’s on the “commercial” in folk singing while admitting that he thinks the commercialism is helping spread the art form.
Of all the forms of folk he prefers the protest song. Sitting at a bar, with his milk in front of him, he sang a song about the way the Seneca Indians were dispossessed to make way for a dam in New York state.
Patrick had incorporated the traditional Native American African mouth bow into his music, and he founded a penny whistle company.
The first reference to Patrick Sky was as a Mouth Bow instrument maker. In 1963 Buffy Sainte Marie would credit him in her introductions to "Cripple Creek," as the maker of her first mouth-bow with which she accompanied her performances Pat Sky says that he first became aware of the instrument from its use by Jimmie Driftwood.
“Jimmy Driftwood” was born James Corbitt Morris on June 20, 1907, in a log cabin in Richwoods, Arkansas. James/”Jimmy”, after 1948, upon gaining his teaching degree from the Arkansas State Teachers College (now the University of Central Arkansas) in Conway, had relocated to Louisiana, teaching students. James Corbitt Morris died July 12, 1998)
August 31, 1963
The Morning News (Wilmington, Delaware) Newspaper, Page 25
Patrick Sky, part Cherokee Indian and rising star in the folk music field, will appear at the Network Shopping Center during its folk music festival from 1:00-to-5:00 p.m. today.
October 01, 1963
Detroit Free Press Newspaper, Page 4D
By Ken Banard
This Indian Maid’s on the Song-Path
Buffy (formerly an attractive 5’2” black-haired Indian maid of 21 years, who’s singing folk songs at the Retort. On crutches due to a horse stepping on her foot, but the next day, she was riding a motorcycle with a friend, that hit a bump, sticking her right foot out to keep the bike from tipping over.
Buffy was born a Micmac Indian in Maine and grew up with a part white, part-Micmac family, who adopted her as a baby. Her Micmac Indian name is ‘Tsankapasa’, or “Dark Fawn.”
Her father Albert Santamaria is a refrigeration mechanic and her mother Winifred (nee: Kenrick) is a proofreader for a Boston publisher. They maintain homes in Wakefield, Massachusetts, and on Sebago Lake in Maine. There is a younger sister Elaine Lucille St. Marie, and Buffy’s older brother Alan Keith St. Marie who is an Air Force Jet pilot.
She uses a Mouth Bow, or string bow (originating in Africa to the USA through Slave trafficking routes) when she sings, along with a guitar. She likes to put on Indian costumes and do children’s concerts. She also shows them her bead craft and leather work (that she learned from Leonard Bayrd in Wakefield while visiting his Indian Trading Post while a young teenager).
October 25, 1963
The Oklahoma Daily Newspaper, Page 07
November 05, 1963
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 02
Rare Appearance
Buffy Sainte-Marie To Be On TV Here Wednesday
Lovers of folk music, hootenannies and a local girl who has smashed the big-time entertainment world will want to tune their TV sets to Channel 2, Wednesday evening at eight o’clock, to watch the program, “Folk Music U.S.A.”
They will see the young lady from Wakefield who is playing in coffee houses, clubs and theaters all over the country and who has won the plaudits of critics whatever she has appeared – Buffy Sainte-Marie.
Hailing from 24a Prospect Street, the Wakefield High School and University of Massachusetts graduate has taken her place among the leading folk singers in the nation.
She was a smash hit here when she appeared on the Common during the West Side Social Club’s July 4 celebration this year, in one of the very infrequent appearances she has made in this area.
The Wednesday night show on TV will afford a rare glimpse of her performing. She now is appearing in Oklahoma City.
Buffy’s story is a dramatic one. Recently it became more so when she was made a member of an Indian nation in the Mid-West and it then was revealed that she has true Indian blood in their veins.
Buffy’s talents are well known to fanciers of folk music. She has written several smash hits, one of them “Universal Soldier” recorded by The Highwaymen. She originated both the music and lyrics.
If publicity in her home-town environs has been slim while she has been a great success in other places, there is a reason for it.
She has frowned on publicity here until recently because her Prospect Street home has become the only place she has had privacy and uninterrupted time to write her music and lyrics.
But now she has given the OK to let people know more about what she is doing.
Her scrapbook already is bulging with reviews and critiques which never fail to praise her talents, her sensitivity as a performer and her authority as a composer.
No less than the New York Times calls her “one of the most promising new talents on the folks scene,” and finds in her voice echoes of the late great Edith Piaff and Anne Sylvestré.
Buffy already – she is only 21 – has written more than 200 folk songs.
The story of her rise to fame in the world of folk singing was told Wednesday in the Boston Herald newspaper, in the Roving Eye column written by Robert Taylor.
That account follows:
She masters the mouth bow, one of the most exotic of all instruments, and is one of the few women ever adopted by the Cree Indians. Two years ago, neither a Cree nor a mouth bow virtuoso, she’d fetch her guitar to undergraduate haunts at the University of Massachusetts but considered herself too shy to make a career out of it.
Among the cognoscenti of contemporary folk music, Buffy Sainte-Marie, a dark-haired, comely, 21-year-old Wakefield thrush, is considered a phenomenal talent. She has a rough-hewn, driving vocal style that combines intense lyricism with a pure and affecting musicianship; and the suddenness of her success is perhaps indicative of the volatile mercurial shape of her profession.
We chanced to encounter Buffy recently when she was in town to make an educational film for WGBH, to demonstrate her prowess on varied instruments of musical Americana, and to try out her Cree on non-Cree-speaking populace here. She comes by it honestly, moreover, since she’s been working on the language ever since she joined the tribe.
“I suppose it sounds confusing, actually I’m half-Micmac by birth”; she told us she was born in Naples, Maine and grew up in Wakefield, Massachusetts. I didn’t sing in high school, but when I got to the University of Massachusetts, I bought a guitar and taught myself how to play. The whole thing was really weird, because I learned it with the wrong tuning I’ve never had any formal musical training.
“Then I started writing my own songs by ear and bringing the guitar to off-campus functions. At that time, I was majoring in oriental philosophy and needed a few credits to graduation so the summer before last I went to Lesley.”
“One day I decided to weekend in New York, and I grabbed the guitar, threw a pair of high heels into my suitcase and bought a ticket on the shuttle. Some friends took me to a hootenanny in a coffee house where I got up and played. The response was incredible: the management invited me back; and the next might I began to receive professional offers I returned to Boston with an unsigned film contract booking opportunities, and a little out of breath.”
Since that summer, Buffy, has crisscrossed the country, appearing at café pleasure domes and other resorts of the folk faithful, and her first album will appear on the Vanguard label next January “The mouth bow is an old hunk of hickory about a yard long with a hole in one end, a guitar string and a metal tuning peg. You play it by wielding a flat pick and holding it against the mouth. I’m not the only one who uses a mouth bow. There’s Jimmy Driftwood – you’ve heard of Jimmy? I also play the Dobro, a steel guitar with a slide bar, the mandolin, the banjo, and right now I’m learning the fiddle.”
Some folk fans, she said, found her own songs off-beat even by the standards prevailing in that flexible realm. Among the titles are “Here I Sit With My Badge in Mr. Arms,” and “The Universal Soldier,” which has been recorded by another colleague. “Although I’m Indian, I seldom sing American Indian songs, but I will if I’m feeling good. The old ways mean a lot to me. Attending powwows has been a part of my life and since I want to follow the old ways my home is now officially the reservation in Saskatchewan.
“I was adopted by the Cree’s at a four-day powwow on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron. Three tribes were in attendance. I gave two exhibitions of Indian dancing and singing. On the last day of powwow, it was announced there would be a name-giving and then an adoption. There was great excitement because the Cree’s hardly ever adopt; and you can imagine how honored I felt they had accepted me, dancing behind my tribal father during the sacred ceremonial in which two thousand Indians participated.
“My Cree name is Piyasees Kanikamut, which means “Singing Bird.” I’m a recognized member of the reservation now. So many things have happened since that summer in Boston 18 months ago. I’ll perform in the future, but I want to be true to my heritage.” She paused thoughtfully.
“The old ways are best,” said Buffy Sainte-Marie.
According the Piapot Family member Ntwanis Piapot, that (quote), "Buffy's adoption process took several years and was done in Cree custom".
Question: If that were the reality, then WHY was Buffy saying she was adopted by the Cree (literally) as quick as she did, to the media, in interviews a mere 3 months later, if indeed it took "several years to adopt her into the Cree family of Emile Piapot & Clara Starblanket under Cree customs, traditions, or laws?
Mrs. Driftwood - Walter Chandler and Jimmy Driftwood w. his Mouth Bow
November 06, 1963
The Wakefield Dailey Item Newspaper, Page 01
November 07, 1963
Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
November 22, 1963
The Commercial Appeal Newspaper
Holiday for Strings
Jimmy Driftwood of Mountain View, Arkansas, balladeer, and expert on primitive musical instruments, demonstrated a crude mouth picking bow played like a mouth harp last night at Paul Flowers’ annual Greenhouse party. Watching with interest were Mrs. Driftwood and Walter Chandler, who served as the party’s master of ceremonies.
December 01, 1963
The Chicago Tribune Newspaper
"Buffy Sainte-Marie, a Cree Indian"
December 04, 1963
The Vancouver Sun Newspaper, Page 33
By Judy Frain
Folk Singer “Two People”
“I’m an entirely different girl in the daytime from the one I am at night.”
So, Buffy Sainte-Marie, University graduate, folk singer, Cree Indian, and student of her people’s problems, describes her life, her life centers on two widely separate aims.
LIKES TRAVELLING
“I love this life so much – the singing and traveling. And I like traveling to Indian reserves all over the U.S. and Canada.
Her home is in Maine. “Fansville” she calls it because of the pride and enthusiasm her parents (Albert and Winifred) and brother Alan and sister Elaine have in her work.
Naturally, her teen-age brother Alan and sister Elaine think sister Buffy is the greatest thing on the face of the earth and would like nothing better than to follow her footsteps.
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Buffy’s home was in Wakefield, Massachusetts and they only spent some summers in Maine. Alan St. Marie was 27 years old and married by 1959! Buffy’s younger sister Elaine was still a teenager at the age 15. If he abused and humiliated her, why would he idolize Buffy, when he was in the Air Force and already married in the Spokane, WA? Alan wasn't a teenager either in 1963.
December 06, 1963
The Vancouver Sun Newspaper
December 06, 1963
The Province Newspaper
December 06, 1963
The Vancouver Sun Newspaper, Page 03
By Jack Wasserman
During the 7:00 o’clock show interview Bob Quintrell asked unique Cree Indian folk singer Buffy Ste. Marie to demonstrate an instrument called the mouth bow, a specially-made device derived from the days Cree hunters played a tune on the string of their hunting bows. It was all very impromptu. Buffy claims to be the only mouth bow player in the whole world and even in Toronto, Ontario, Canada!
December 20, 1963
The Vancouver Sun Newspaper
By Les Wedman
TV: The Glass Eye
Just because Howie Bateman had to close The Inquisition is no reason for CBUT shutting down the folk-singing section of its Showcase series.
But that’s what it’s done, the final Showcase folkniks doing their stuff tomorrow night at 10:00 p.m. on Channel 2. Bateman hosts the half-hour featuring Cree singer Buffy Ste. Marie and the lively, talented trio, The Knob Lick Upper 10,000.
January 06, 1964
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
Buffy Sainte-Marie bought a farm on 63 acres in the state of Maine when she was about 23 years of age.
January 25, 1964
The Valley Times (North Hollywood, CA) Newspaper
By John Hoggatt – Valley Times Preview Section Editor
Previews in Music
Tuesday night Buffy Sainte-Marie, Algonquin Indian girl, moves into the Ash Grove, Los Angeles, for a three-week stay. Obviously, she draws on her Indian heritage for material.
January 28, 1964
The Star-Phoenix Newspaper, Page 26
By James Nelson
Ambitious Program by Indian Council
Ottawa (CP) – The National Indian Council outlined an ambitious program to the centennial commission for emphasizing native Indian culture and lore in Canada’s 100th birthday celebrations.
Wilfred Pelletier of Toronto, leader of the group, said the council plans a program of exchange visits of Indian students, chiefs and councilors between various parts of Canada, starting this autumn and working to a climax in 1967.
The council also wants to emphasize the contribution of the North American Indian to Canada through pageantry, preservation and display of Indian lore, and promotion of the Indian culture. Mr. Lester Pearson suggested a North American Indian powwow be held there to mark the centennial. Wikwémikong might become a focal point for Indian culture in Canada, Mr. Pelletier said. It already has an annual festival, but on a smaller scale than the annual Indian days at Banff, or a festival in the Qu’Appelle valley of Saskatchewan.
January 28, 1964
Nanaimo Daily News Newspaper
January 29, 1964
The Gazette Newspaper
[Also in the Kingston Whig Standard Newspaper "Cree Indian Singer Is Unique"]
January 29, 1964
The Calgary Herald Newspaper
Indian Folk Singer Admits Songs Weird
Vancouver, British Columbia (CP) - Buffy Sainte-Marie has roots in Canada, a home in the United States, and a way of entertaining that may be unique.
She is a Cree Indian folk singer equally at home with a coffee house audience or with her own people.
"I'm an entirely different girl in the daytime from the one I am at night," she says. "I love this life so much - the singing and the travelling. And I like travelling to Indian reserves all over the U.S. and Canada.
"I'm interested in Indian problems, one of which is that that Indian hasn't got the opportunity to travel himself. He has to stay where he is, and yet there is such a need for coordination and co-operation between the tribes of the two countries."
Miss Sainte-Marie's family originally came from Craven, Saskatchewan, but she now lives in Maine.
GLAMOROUS LIFE:
"I started singing in college. I majored in Oriental philosophy and minored in elementary education. There is a very good system whereby you can take advantage of the best that's offered at several colleges, so I went with Smith, Mt. Holyoke, University of Massachusetts and Amherst."
She put herself through university by singing in local coffee houses and occasionally on television.
A trip to New York and a spot on a hootenanny opened the way to many offers and she decided on a life of travel and song - "it's as glamorous as anyone could imagine."
Miss Sainte-Marie composes her own songs. She has about 200 in her repertoire, few of them about the Indians or Indian life. She performs with a strange traditional instrument - a mouth bow that makes a light sound and is played by using the mouth as a resonating chamber.
"My songs are strange. Some people say they're row. They're powerful if not pretty, they're weird and driving."
SHOWS FOR CHILDREN:
She also gives children's educational concerts, illustrating them with costumes, books and stories to show the diversity of culture and ways among various tribes.
"I want children to know that Indians aren't what Hollywood makes them."
Miss Sainte-Marie, who was here for an engagement, said she is particularly concerned with plans for assimilation of Indians into white man's society and cities. From her experience, she said, most of her people don't want integration.
"There is a group of Senecas, for example, who have been flooded off their reserve by a new dam. They're given no compensation, the tribe is broken up and the people move to cities and slums.
"In order to survive in the cities, the Indian is faced with giving up what he considers to be important. The people are poor, poorly educated and not ready for city life. More important, they don't want it. They don't want to annihilate themselves in a melting pot."
February 01, 1964
The Valley Times (California) Times Newspaper
February 03, 1964
The Sherbrooke Daily Record Newspaper, Page 06
Indian miss tours as folk singer has degree in Eastern philosophy
VANCOUVER (CP) –
Buffy Sainte-Marie has roots in Canada, a home in the United States, and a way of entertaining that may be unique …
She is a Cree Indian folk singer equally at home with a coffee house audience or with her own people …
Buffy Sainte-Marie’s family originally came from Craven, Sask., but she now lives in Maine …
February 19, 1964
The Broadside of Boston
Volume II, No. 25 Cambridge, Massachusetts
February 20, 1964 (23 years old)
February 22, 1964
The Arizona Daily Star Newspaper, Page 15
February 24, 1964
The Arizona Daily Star Sun Newspaper
February 26, 1964
The Arizona Daily Star Newspaper, Section B – Page 08
March 07, 1964
The Tucson Daily Citizen Magazine, Page 17
According to Blair Stonechild’s book ©2012 “Buffy Sainte-Marie: It’s My Way (Biography), Page 68, Buffy’s friend, Patrick Sky, had introduced her to the mouth bow.
March 22, 1964
The Santa Fe New Mexican Newspaper
For this Easter: Indian Folksinger at Coffeehouse
Patrick Sky, a young man of Indian heritage whose principle possessions are a VW, a guitar, two duodenal ulcers, and very decided opinions about folk music, opens at the Three Cities of Spain Coffeehouse on Canyon Road for the Easter holidays starting Friday, March 27, 1964. He will appear through Thursday, April 02, 1964. Special rates available for students and faculty of the Indian Art School.
Patrick Leon Lynch/Linch a.k.a. Patrick Sky was born in Liveoak Gardens, Georgia and spent most of his childhood in the LaFouche Swamp region of Louisiana, the home of his ancestral Creek Indians. He was always influenced by his Creek Indian and Irish ancestry, and when he began playing professionally in the 1950s and first attracted attention, he was singing the traditional folk songs that he had learned from a grandmother.
He went to NYC with guitar in hand. He writes much of his own material, in his own words. Currently he is on tour from California to New York City.
In the early ’60s, Sky settled into New York’s Greenwich Village and became an important member of the then-thriving folk music community. Sky’s self-titled debut, released in 1965, included several original tunes such as “Many a Mile,” which was adopted as the title track of an album recorded by his then-girlfriend and musical collaborator, Buffy Sainte-Marie.
April 04, 1964
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 05
61st Anniversary Surprise Event
Mr. and Mrs. Michael Santamaria of 483 Water Street in Wakefield, Massachusetts were pleasantly surprised on Sunday with a family celebration in honor of their 61st wedding anniversary.
The couple was married April 11, 1904, in Boston, Massachusetts, and has lived in Wakefield for 6 years, coming from East Boston.
Their children are Mrs. William Hartey (Eleanor) of East Boston; Albert St. Marie of Prospect Street; Mrs. Gerard Ruotolo (Adeline) of East Boston; Mrs. George Anderson (Beatrice) of Bedford; Arthur St. Marie of 483 Water Street; Miss Evelyn Santamaria of East Boston, and Edward Santamaria of Winthrop, MA.
Mr. and Mrs. Santamaria received flowers, cards and gifts and a decorated anniversary cake.
April 15, 1964
The Broadside of Boston
Volume II, No. 25 Cambridge, Massachusetts, Page 13
Page 1
April 16, 1964
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
Buffy St. Marie Singing in Hub Night Spot
Wakefield’s big-time folk singer, Buffy Sainte-Marie, is making what is almost her first professional appearance in these parts.
The talented young lady whose singing has attracted the acclaim of the top music critics, is performing in the “Somewhere Else” in Boston, one of the fashionable night spots for the hootenanny and expresso set.
The club, which serves no alcoholic beverages, is at 172 Cambridge Street.
Buffy is singing alone in this engagement, many of the tunes her original creations in both the lyrics and the music.
She recently has been in the western part of the country, singing professionally, and has had uncommon success wherever she has appeared.
One of the young folk singer’s few local appearances since she graduated from the University of Massachusetts and embarked on her singing career was at the WSSC July 4th Celebration on the Common last year.
Buffy St. Marie is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Albert St. Marie of 24a Prospect Street.
May 26, 1964
The Daily Item Newspaper, Pages 01-08
Buffy Ste. Marie to Sing Benefit Concert June 13, 1964
BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE shown with the mouth bow, an instrument of Indian origin which she plays on her Vanguard album "It's May Way." She will accompany herself on the guitar as well during her forthcoming benefit concert in the Wakefield High School auditorium on June 13, 1964 at 8:00 p.m. All proceed will go to help support Wakefield's Fourth of July celebration sponsored by the WSSC.
Buffy Sainte Marie, a local girl who has had a meteoric rise to the very top of her profession as a folk singer, will give a benefit performance on behalf of the Wakefield Fourth of July celebration sponsored by the West Side Social Club on June 13, 1964 at 8:00 p.m. at the Wakefield High School Auditorium.
One of the biggest “hits” of the Hootenanny – the feature of last year’s evening Fourth of July program which attracted more than 100,000 people to Wakefield Common – this young and vibrant female troubadour with a Cree Indian background has commitments to appear on the Steven Allen and the Tonight Show this summer.
A graduate of the University of Massachusetts, she has given concerts at many colleges including Harvard, Brandeis, University of Miami, Wayne State University in Detroit, and Oklahoma State, and has received rave notices for her appearances at coffee houses from coast to coast.
In addition to the Ash Grove at Los Angeles and the Inquisition at Vancouver, British Columbia, and the Gaslight in New York City, she has been heard at such local Boston and Cambridge coffee houses as Some Place Else, Café Yana, and The Club 47, as well as being featured on Folk Music over WGBH, Channel 2.
“It’s My Way” is the title of her recent record album of last march under the Vanguard label which immediately upon release, was selected as “pick of the week” by Cashbox, Billboard and Variety.
Although an American citizen, she has long been more than just a vocal spokesperson, through her songs, for her Indian forebears. She has also been an effective and articulate champion of American Indians.
Recently she returned from Washington, D.C. where she was one of the more than 600 American Indians who attended one of President Johnson’s conferences on poverty. At the request of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, she had her picture taken with the Massachusetts legislator.
A writeup in Variety, bible of the show business, following her appearance last fall at the “Inquisition” coffeehouse in Vancouver, British Columbia stated in part: “What makes Miss Sainte-Marie particularly individualistic lies in her unique status as a female troubadour who performs her own original compositions. Some of her songs are raw and powerful, some are loud and driving, others are just as effectively quiet. But each and every one is her own and all are stamped with her intensely personal involvement with the world in which she and her auditors live, and she sings them with deep and passionate conviction … Her voice is strong or soft as the song occasions. Her warmly flashing personality to match her vocal mood makes it infectious with her audience.”
The raven-haired vocalist who has written words and music to nearly 200 songs, was born in Sebago Lake, Maine, graduating from Wakefield High School in 1958, followed by graduating from the University of Massachusetts in 1962. While at the University of Massachusetts, she participated in the four college programs which includes Mt. Holyoke, Amherst and Smith, with majors in Elementary Education and Oriental Philosophy. It was at the University that she became interested in folk music. After being given a guitar, she taught herself to play, and three weeks later had her first singing job at the Saladin Coffee House on campus.
She rapidly became dissatisfied with the limitations of singing “other people’s songs” – songs that didn’t fully express all that she wanted to say – so she began writing her own songs. Not content with two majors, singing at the Saladin Coffee House on weekends, and writing her own songs, Buffy also found time to appear in a number of major roles in campus plays and musicals.
It was while studying Elementary Education that Buffy developed her now famous Children’s Concert: a lecture on the American Indians in song and story.
After graduation, Buffy headed for New York to try her luck. And what luck! After her first guest set at the Bitter End, she received offers of work form several club owners, agent, managers, music publishers, and recording companies – all on the strength of her guest appearance.
Since opening at the Second Fret in Philadelphia during September of 1962, Buffy has been working constantly, creating a sensation wherever she appears, and literally setting new attendance records at almost every club she has played. Her songs, such as “Universal Soldier,” “He Lived Alone in Town,” “The Café Molineau,” “Now that the Buffalo’s Gone,” and others are rapidly becoming classics in folk music.
From Toronto’s Purple Onion to Fort Lauderdale’s Catacombs, from New York’s Gaslight Café to Los Angeles’ Ash Grove, from Chicago’s It’s Here to Oklahoma City’s Buddhi, the local girl is known and admired. An exciting figure, distinctive features, a powerful voice, unusual rhythms and tunings, and a dramatic approach and flair make the local girl a singer few will forget.
Tickets for the benefit concert by Buffy Sainte-Marie may be obtained in the next few days from members of the Fourth of July committee of the WSSC and at Melody Ranch Minahan’s Drug Store and Mac’s Grocery.
May 27, 1964
The Broadside
Volume III, No. 7, Cambridge, Massachusetts
SEE July 21, 1965 (below)
The Broadside Volume IV, No. 11 Cambridge, Massachusetts
Festival Field Newport: Folk Music and Coffee House News (.25cents)
June 02, 1964
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Pages 01-03
June 04, 1964
The Calgary Herald Newspaper
June 09, 1964
The Calgary Herald Newspaper
June 09, 1964
The Daily Item Newspaper
June 11, 1964
The Wakefield Daily Item Newspaper, Page 01
Concert Saturday To Be Money Raiser for July 4
Buffy Sainte-Marie will show her versatility by accompanying herself on the mouth bow, a musical device of the sort used by her Cree Indian forefathers, when she makes her concert debut before the “home folks” tomorrow night in Wakefield High School Auditorium at 8:00 p.m.
All proceeds of the benefit concert will go to help support Wakefield’s Fourth of July Celebration sponsored by the West Side Social Club. This year the celebration gives promise of being one of the best ever put on by the widely known civic and social organization.
Although the house-to-house solicitation was successful many more contributions are needed from individuals as well as from business and industry if the holiday is to become another “glorious Fourth” in keeping with the tradition of these events sponsored for so many years by the West Side Club, the celebration committee reports.
Buffy Sainte-Marie is a raven-haired young lady who has captivated audiences from coast to coast with her highly original songs, her flashing personality and her most unusual presentations. Variety, the bible of show business, has referred to this unusual combination, especially in so young a performer – only 6 years out of Wakefield High School – as “innate musical genius.”
Tickets are available at Melody Ranch, Minahan’s Drugs Store and Mac’s Grocery. Tickets will also be available at the door.
June 12, 1964
July 07, 1964
The Kingston Whig Standard Newspaper
July 07, 1964
The Expositor Newspaper, Page 15
Indian Tribe Takes Control of Powwow
WIKWEMIKONG, Ontario (CP) – Chief John Wakegijig of the Wikwémikong Indian reserve, on the eastern shores of Manitoulin Island, said Monday the tribe’s council has taken control of the Indian Powwow, ousting a private club controlled by the executive director of the National Indian Council of Canada.
Chief Wakegijig said Wilfred Pelletier, executive director of the NICC, and his sister, Mrs. Rosemary Fisher, have failed to pay $300.00 in rent for the arena and $265.00 for hydro and other expenses from last year’s show.
He said the tribe’s council had been forced to pay the accounts.
A special reserve council was appointed last week to make plans for the fourth annual Powwow in August. Indians from all over North America are expected to take part in four performances.
July 09, 1964
The Sault Daily Star Newspaper
July 11, 1964
The Hartford Courant Newspaper
July 21, 1964
The North Bay Nugget Newspaper
July 24, 1964
The Battle Creek Enquirer Newspaper
July 30, 1964
The Sault Daily Star Newspaper, Page 04
Islanders Hosts to 150 Dancers
Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson will attend the powwow to be held this weekend at Wikwémikong on Manitoulin Island.
22 tribes from Canada and the United States will be represented at the annual event. A cast of 150 fully attired dancers will take part in the performances.
Mrs. Donald J. Fisher, originator of the powwow on the island has been re-elected to organize the event again this year.
Mrs. Fisher was involved in a controversy over last year’s powwow and resigned as producer of the show.
After she submitted her resignation, statements were made in various newspapers that there had been a misuse of funds at the 1963 powwow gathering.
The statements said there was $300.00 still owing to the council.
The statements also involved Mrs. Fisher’s brother, Wilfred Pelletier.
In a recent letter obtained by The Sault Daily Star newspaper, Mrs. Fisher said that the 1963 powwow went into the red by $300.00. She also said this sum was made up out of her husband’s pocket. She also said that Mr. Wilfred Pelletier had absolutely nothing to do with the finances of the powwow.
The statements, made by Chief John J. Wakegijig, were retracted later by the chief and termed a misunderstanding. Mrs. Fisher was then asked to resume her duties as producer of the show.
August 01, 1964
The Sault Daily Star Newspaper, Page 01
By Kay MacIntyre – Sault Star Staff Writer
Western Beauty Chosen Princess
Alanis Obomsawin, lovely Abénaki from ODANAK Québec charmed her audience with songs. She will be a featured performer at the Folk Festival in Bellevue Park this weekend.
Jean Cuthand (Cree) holding hands and dancing with Prime Minister Lester Pearson. Behind them, is Buffy Sainte-Marie with Emile Piapot at the fourth annual Powwow at the at the Wikwémikong Indian Reserve on Manitoulin Island.
August 04, 1964
The North Bay Nugget Newspaper, Page 01
Pearson first white man to receive Indian award
Miss Jean Cuthand, a Cree Indian and Executive Director of the Indian-Métis Friendship Centre at Winnipeg performs in a peace dance with Prime Minister Lester Pearson. The dance was held in his honor at the fourth annual Indian Powwow at the Wikwémikong Indian Reserve on Manitoulin Island on Monday. Mr. Lester Pearson, Chief “Ogamibenesse”, meaning “King of the Birds”, was made an honorary chief in 1950.
The powwow – three days of Indian dancing and singing – was in full swing when the Pearson’s and their granddaughter Barbara Hanna, of Toronto, Ontario, arrived at Wikwémikong from Gore Bay Airport via RCAF helicopter at noon. They attended a luncheon with chiefs of the 18 participating tribes.
A cheering crowd of about 400 Indians and tourists greeted the Prime Minister at the Indian powwow.
August 04, 1964
The Province Newspaper
August 04, 1964
The Montreal Star Newspaper
August 04, 1964
The Kingston Whig Standard Newspaper
August 04, 1964
The North Bay Nugget Newspaper
By Brenda Large
Pearson first white man to receive Indian award
August 04, 1964
The Star Phoenix Newspaper, Page 15
The Province Newspaper, Page 09
Pearson Attends Powwow with Six Nations Chiefs
Rare honor at powwow for Chief Ogimabinesse (Canadian Press)
Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson (Chief Ogimabinesse of the Odawa) became the first white man in the history of the Odawa tribe to be presented with the ceremonial eagle feather, presented to Lester Pearson by Chief John Wakegijig of the Odawa, and is the highest honor the tribe can bestow.
Mr. and Mrs. Pearson took part in a ceremonial dance on the stage of the Wikwémikong powwow hall. The prime minister danced with Indian maiden Jean Cuthand of Winnipeg, Ontario, while Mrs. Pearson paired up with the chief of the National Indian Council, William Wuttunee of Calgary.
In 1964, on an alleged “return” trip to the Piapot Cree reserve in Canada for a powwow, "Buffy" was welcomed and (in a Cree Nation context) adopted by the youngest son of Chief Piapot, Emile Piapot and his wife, Clara (Starblanket) Piapot, who added to Buffy Sainte-Marie's cultural value and place in Native culture.
NOTICE that it is not 1963 that she was adopted into the Cree Family, the Piapot's, but 1964.
August 08, 1964
The Windsor Star Newspaper
August 10, 1964
The Kingston Whig Standard Newspaper
August 11, 1964
The Windsor Star Newspaper
August 12, 1964
The Sault Daily Star Newspaper
August 19, 1964
The Broadside of Boston
Volume III, No. 13 Cambridge, Massachusetts
September 21, 1964
Buffy on the NYC Subway
October 08, 1964
The Star Phoenix Newspaper
Buffy ... a full-blood Cree Indian girl ... (it used to be Beverley) Sainte-Marie was born in Craven, Saskatchewan, Canada, near Regina, and while still a baby was adopted by a part-white, part-Micmac Indian family and raised in Massachusetts.
October 13, 1964
The Leader- Post (Regina, Saskatchewan) Newspaper, Page 07
October 13, 1964
The Leader-Post, Regina, Sask.
By Jerry Gladman
Indian girl lectures and sings: Folksinger tells of her people
[Same article as October 14, 1964, Sherbrooke Daily Record newspaper article]
October 14, 1964
The Sherbrooke Daily Record Newspaper, Page 17
Buffy Sainte-Marie, Indian singer sings the song of her people abroad
TORONTO (CP) – Buffy Sainte-Marie had just completed her sixth song of the night and was preparing to leave the stage. The responsive audience, clapping and yelling, changed her mind and the 22-year-old raven-haired Indian girl returned to the microphone.
Resting her highly polished guitar against the bank of the stage, she picked up a strange, feathered instrument strung with catgut and fitted with a sound box.
And suddenly the Mariposa Folk Festival became as indigenously North American as it could have wished.
She writes her own songs, one of 200, the full-blooded Cree Indian girl has written and sung in many parts of the continent.
Buffy (it used to be Beverley) Sainte Marie was born in Craven, Saskatchewan, near Regina, and while still a baby was adopted by a part-white, part-Micmac Indian family and raised in Massachusetts.
She travels throughout North America giving lectures on the subject. She also writes for several Indian newspapers on anything pertaining to her people. To this battle, she says, she is dedicated.
“There are a lot of things I want to do. But I take one step at a time. My main aim is some day to be the world’s best Indian girl singer.”
In the eyes of many ‘folkniks’ – folk song devotees – she has already established that point.
A highlight of her life came two years ago when she was adopted by the Plains Cree – a tribe of her own people in the Qu’Appelle Valley where “some of the finest Indian singers are produced.” The adoption was a rarity among the Indians. It took place at a powwow at Manitoulin Island with 23 tribes from across Canada represented.
“My adoption means everything in the world to me,” Buffy said. “I love these people. Although I grew up in a non-Indian community and lived there most of my life, I felt right away that I had always belonged with the Cree.”
“My father, Emile Piapot, who is the son of Chief Piapot of the Piapot Reserve, is giving me all the songs that are sacred to him, hoping that I will carry them on.”
NOTICE that the article indicated that Buffy was adopted in Cree Tradition in 1962, that she'd been born in Craven, Sask., and that she'd been an infant that was adopted by Albert C. Santamaria and his wife, Winifred Irene (Kenrick) who it is implied by "Buffy" that her "adoptive mother" was part Mi'Kmaq Indian.
So how did Albert & Winifred KNOW about this wee Cree baby in 1941? Why were they up in Cree Territory in the first place, allegedly, being as they were, in 1941, having traveled 2,171 miles due northwest to Craven, Saskatchewan, Canada, crossing that International Border from the United States and back again?
I guess if the Irish Catholic nuns could sell off Irish babies of unwed mothers, and ship them across the Atlantic ocean to rich White American families ... was Beverley Jean Santamaria "adopted" to this Italian/White couple in Stoneham, Middlesex County, Massachusetts?
How does one explain that this birth was documented in the Stoneham Town Report in 1941, and the Massachusetts Birth Index, but perhaps even more importantly, explain the existence of the Supplement Record of Birth's for both Wayne Roger Santa Maria (1940) and that of his subsequent sister, Beverley Jean Santamaria (1941).
If "Buffy" was born in Craven, Saskatchewan in 1941, Winifred was heavily pregnant with a daughter that was born Beverley Jean and gave birth to that daughter at the New England Sanitarium & Hospital, February 20th. What happened to that infant?
Where are the immigration and naturalization records for "Buffy" the Cree infant that was transported across an International Border in 1941, or the border crossing record(s) for either "adoptive" parent, going into Canada or coming back into the United States?
BUYING A MOUTH BOW
One can order a mouth bow through the mail. Purchaser can choose an unpainted mouth bow with a chrome Grover peg; or a painted mouth bow with a gold Grover peg. Send inquiries to the following address:
Creative Native
c/o Wolfchild
P.O. Box 189
Kapaa, HI 96746
or email: chuck@cradleboard.org [Chuck Wilson, Buffy’s partner since ’93?]
October 24, 1964
The Province Newspaper
November 03, 1964
L’Action (Québec) Newspaper, Page 06
Buffy Ste-Marie is the Author of 200 Folksongs
TORONTO – Buffy Sainte-Marie is an Indian from the tribe of Cree who has written more than 200 folk songs to then sing them in several regions of the North American continent. She brings to her interpretation an emotion sometimes translated by sounds.
Buffy, short for Beverly, was born in Craven, Saskatchewan, an area not far from Regina. When she was just a baby, she was adopted by an Indian family. Her parents, one white and the other Mi'kmaq, cared for the child, who was raised in Massachusetts. In college, she earned a degree in Oriented Philosophy. It was during this period that she began to sing, (I first sang in small establishments and then on television). Finally, Buffy Sainte-Marie decided to orient her life in the musical field and to travel rather than to teach according to the training that she had received. She also spends a lot of her time advocating for the Indians, saying her people were poor, not getting the proper education, and not ready for life in the cities.
She travels throughout North America to lecture on the subject and writes articles for several Indian newspapers. Buffy Sainte-Marie has the ambition to one day become the best Indian singer in the world.
December 04, 1964
The Wakefield Daily Times Newspaper
Not Really Like That: Buffy’s Story Called Build-Up
The current issue of Look Magazine has a story about Wakefield’s folk-singing Buffy Ste. Marie, but most of it is press agency, according to Buffy’s uncle, Arthur St. Marie.
“After reading the story,” he told the Wakefield Daily Item newspaper, “I thought I should come down and tell you the truth about Buffy. She doesn’t sound in this magazine story like the girl who grew up here and went through the schools here, and if people believe what they get from the press agents, they’ll get a wrong impression.”
First, said Buffy’s uncle, she was not born in Sebago, Maine, as written. She was born here in Stoneham at 3:15 a.m. at the New England Sanitarium and Hospital, when her parents lived on Maple Road in North Reading, and later raised in Wakefield, Massachusetts, at 24-A Prospect Street.
Second, he said, she has no Indian blood in her. The story of Buffy told in professional circles is that she has some Cree Indian heritage. “Not a bit,” says her Uncle Arthur Santamaria.
Then there is in the Look Magazine story, a comment that a song Buffy wrote and sings about the effects of Codeine on a user come from personal experience. Buffy never used Codeine or even smokes cigarettes, her uncle testifies.
“This business that she had to be high on codeine before she could write her song is poppycock,” he snorted.
“And she doesn’t use peyote, either” as the story relates, he exclaimed.
“If people read this story and believe it, they’ll wonder what kind of a person Buffy has become since she left town,” he worried.
At one point the magazine story relates that Buffy sometimes joins her Indian “brethren” and chews peyote, a form of narcotic of the Southwest.
“This is all part of the professional build-up,” Arthur told the Daily Item. “They’re really pushing her and they’re talking about her really hitting it big. I don’t know. Maybe she’ll do it, but the competition for the top stops, is terrific.”
Buffy is doing very well though. Her albums are among the most popular of all the folk singers’. She is working in New York and is to make a trip to Europe to sing and play soon.
Also, she should be on the former Steve Allen TV show soon, the show now being run by someone else.
Buffy is a graduate of Wakefield High School and the University of Massachusetts where she took a degree in philosophy.
Her musical career started as an amateur venture, then one night she sang a song or two in a New York club. A manager heard her, she sang some more, and her career was launched.
December 15, 1964
LOOK Magazine, Pages 60-62
By Barbara Hogan
Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Cree with a Kink in her voice
Page 60:
“Her hair is waist-length, and her voice radiates in waves of black: hot or husky, always trembling with a primitive vibrato. 21-year-old Cree Indian Buffy Sainte-Marie strokes sound to a sheen for the coffee-house fans, who say that this girl with the tom-tom tones and original lyrics is “the greatest” and the only” female folk musician around, and she’s been around.
Page 61:
Beverly Sainte-Marie –“Buffy” … a childhood nickname, recalls buffalos and her Indian origin – was born in Sebago Lake, Maine, of Cree Indian parents.
Then, for reasons obscures event to her, she was adopted by a Micmac Indian family and raised in Maine and Massachusetts, where her foster father was a skilled mechanic and his wife a sometime waitress.
The Cree’s of Saskatchewan, Canada, only recently took her back into the tribe. She has joined the Native American Church, whose members chew Peyote as part of their religious ritual, and she has dreamed Indian songs under the influence of the cactus button.
So, what narrative storytelling did Buffy in (1963) provide to Rosemary Fisher (Anongose Wa-Wash-Kesh) of Wikwemikong First Nation, Wilfred Pelletier (Be-Bam-She Wa-Wash-Kesh) and subsequently Cree Elder and drummer Emile Piapot, in addition to seeking for herself, an Indian Name?
That she had been adopted out, and then adopted into the Santamaria-Kenrick family as an infant, based on subjective "talk" from her mother Winifred Irene (Kenrick) Santamaria, claiming she was descended from the Mi'Kmaq nation, or that "Buffy" was an American Indian Girl of the Algonquin?
Did Beverley clarify to the Rosemary Fisher, Wilfred Pelletier, or especially to Emile Piapot that indeed, she was issued a LEGAL Birth Certificate in Stoneham, MA in February 1941?
Well, perhaps details didn't matter then or now, she LOOKS like an Indian!
December 20, 1964
The Times Herald Sun Newspaper
To be continued ... into 1965 etc.
