KAIBETO MEMORIES

Kaibeto Memories ELIZABETH ANNE JONES DEWVEALL A trader's daughter remembers growing up on the Navajo Reservation at Kaibeto Trading Post in remote northern Arizona 1936 - 1960 TRADERS TO THE NAVAJO RALPH AND JULIA JONES, parents of author Elizabeth Anne Jones Dewveall, operated the Kaibeto Trading Post on the Navajo Reservation for 28 years, from 1934 to 1962, in remote northern Arizona. Theirs was a time when roads in the area were more like paths in the sand, over rocky ridges- -snow-covered in winter, and across washes that could and did become flash floods without warning. The Native population was transitioning from horseback and wagon travel to pickups. The post's role was to provide goods that were needed by the local population to supplement the meager resources this harsh land could provide. Canned fruits and meats were important articles, as were tobacco, knives, and ammunition. The Natives traded sheep hides, wool, woven blankets, and turquoise-laden silver jewelry for goods from the post. Their jewelry often was provided as collateral, "pawn", to pay for purchases. Ralph and Julia and daughter Elizabeth Anne were often the only people of their "white-person" race in the entire region. It was in this environment that this book's author Elizabeth Anne lived her childhood years. Her playmates were often from the local population. In her later childhood years her school times were spent in distant Leupp or Winslow, Arizona, but coming back to what she calls, affectionately it is believed, the "Rez" for holidays and summer vacations. Told as an adult in the year 2020 while living at Mesa, Arizona, Elizabeth Anne points out her purpose in recording her story is more for it to be her parents' story, for there is scant recorded material about their lives at Kaibeto Trading Post and how they operated this out-of-the-way and nowhistoric post for many years as a life-hub for a receptive Native population.