From the party, Ada went straight to Agrace Hospice. She was in pain because her cancer had come back. We had talked on the phone — which we did from time to time — about 10 days before the party and we had talked about going to Quivey’s Grove, her favorite restaurant or eating outside of her house. When I called a week later, my message went unanswered.

I went to see her twice at Agrace. The first time, a Friday, we visited for about 30 minutes or so. The morphine was keeping the pain at bay and we had a wonderful conversation filled with occasional laughter. Ada had a wonderful sense of humor. She wanted a cake donut and I promised I would bring it by the next day.

That Saturday, the humor was gone and Ada was a little distant. Betty Zeps, a long-time friend from the UW-Madison School of Social Work was there. There were a number of photos of Ada posted on the wall near her bed and like the day before, she told the story behind the photo. And Ada proceeded to tell us one last story before she passed three days later.

Ada made important choices in her life. She was a beautiful young woman. And her mother got her a screen test in Hollywood. The photo below was taken for that screen test. The caption reads, “Ada Deer of the Menominee Indian Reservation in Keshena, Wisconsin. Ada was one of six Native American women selected by Columbia Pictures for a Hollywood screen test. She later became a scholar and activist for Native American causes and served as Assistant Secretary of the Interior and Head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.”

Ada could have gone that “beauty is skin deep” route. But she decided to pursue the leadership pathway in her life starting with being a delegate to Badger Girls State and then enrolling at UW-Madison and was the first American Indian woman to obtain a degree from UW-Madison. I always use American Indian because Ada said, “That’s who we are.”