Clair Green
Age - 76
November 22, 2023
Clair Stuart Green passed away in the early hours of Thursday, November 16th, 2023, with her three children and two of her best friends at her side. Born in Providence, Rhode Island on December 15th, 1946, to Virginia Rodman Rathbun and Col. Gilbert E. J. Stuart, she was the oldest of 4 children. ***A note about her early life from her sister Ann:Being Clair's younger sister, I looked up to her as being independent minded and always ahead of me. She is forever one of the cool people. Always beautiful, popular, smart and rebellious. At the age of 16 she worked with the Peace Corps nurse in Danli, Honduras. She seemed so confident and had picked up the workings of the clinic with ease. This must have been where she formed her love of working with indigenous peoples. She learned to understand their ways with compassion and kindness, never dominating them. She picked up Spanish with ease, never having had a lesson as far as I know. I saw that she had accepted the ways of living in that remote distant culture as though it was absolutely natural. I think she became a bit of a legend as a brave horsewoman when riding with our father and some people of the remote region of Azerbachi. The horse fell and Clair was pinned down under it. I got the impression from our father that it took time for the men to figure out how to get the horse to stand up without stepping on her. Clair never let out a whimper!In Washington, Clair worked in Senator Pell's office where she was highly trusted, learning much about politics and government. She spent a summer in Hyannisport taking care of the Kennedy children. Back in DC she was part of the beautiful set of young government professionals, helping to manage Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign, among other things. Pretty wild sometimes! One day I saw how worried our mother was. Turned out that Clair along with a couple of others delivered the Pentagon Papers to the Washington Post. Clair was always daring and often controversial. As I lived outside the US most of my life I missed so much of Clair's life however, any time she knew I'd be arriving for a visit she offered to pick me up from the airport no matter the distance or time. She had such a strong sense of family and such a strong sense of generosity. She would offer and give whatever she had. - Ann Dexter Stuart Birnbaum***In her 20's and 30's, Clair worked in politics in Washington D. C. , where as a single mother she raised her three children, who were her pride and joy. She later moved to Connecticut, then was transferred to Colorado while her youngest two children finished high school. Once her children had graduated, she found a home in White Sulphur Springs, MT where she discovered her passion and life's work with the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. Her work with Lower Brule is detailed below, so eloquently written by her friend Brian Molyeneaux. Clair loved the adventure of life; she was an accomplished cook, always making amazing food for friends and family; she would wade through deep snow or climb through brambles to save an animal that needed help, grabbing sticks or weeds along the way to make a wreath or centerpiece; she loved holidays, an excuse to cook more food; she loved having her family all together, making cookies, doing puzzles, drinking wine, arguing politics, and telling stories; she loved the South Dakota skies and the Montana hills; she loved riding her horse and gathering cattle; she loved turning someone's broken discarded trash into an amazing piece of furniture; she loved her grandkids and thought the world of them; when things were really hard she would offer some sage piece of wisdom "at least we aren't having an earthquake"; she could be ornery as hell and was fiercely loyal. Her passing has left a huge hole in our hearts that we must learn to fill in ways that honor her wild and loving spirit. She will be missed greatly in life by so many, including but not limited to: her children - Elizabeth Dexter Charles McDonald "Lisa", Nathaniel 'Stuart Green', Josephine Nevin Greenhill "Bay"; her grandchildren - Stella Jo Greenhill, Mosely Ray Greenhill, Hazel Maven Greenhill, James Louis McDonald, Lilly Belle McDonald, and Twila Hope Green; her siblings - Ann Stuart Birnbaum, Mary Gilbert Stuart, Gilbert Rodman Stuart; her nieces and nephews - Alexandra Stuart, Emmy Nevin Horowitz, Carlos Bernal, Ana Bernal, Sam Birnbaum, and Emma Birnbaum Weeks; her sons/daughter-in-law - Neal McDonald, Aiyana Green, and Jesse Greenhill; her many friends in South Dakota - Boyd Gourneau, the Elderly Committee, the Grey Eagle Society, and many others in Lower Brule; her dear friends and loved ones in White Sulphur Springs, on the East Coast, and in Arkansas (you know who you are); and lastly her friends Meg Gleeson and Trish Lundell, who stood beside her with her children as she breathed her last. She was preceded in death by her beloved grandmother, Lillian Rathbun, her mother Virginia Stuart Rathbun, her dear aunt Edith Rathbun, her aunt Ruth Rathbun Pitman, her very close friends Scott Jones, Doug Moseley, and Lance Roberts, and the many ancestors who guided her in this life and the next. A service will be held at Grace Episcopal Church in Siloam Springs, AR on December 19th at 4:00 p. m. A celebration of her life will also be held in Montana and South Dakota in the spring, followed by an interment of her ashes with her family in Rhode Island. ***Clair's life and work in South Dakota:Clair brought the fearlessness, energy and determination she inherited, and her experience working in the political turmoil of Washington and headed west to work in Indian country. It was around the year 2000, when she was a consultant for a railway company in South Dakota, that she met Scott Jones, the Director of Cultural Resources for the Lower Brule Tribe. She knew how to mediate between tribes and outside interests. She believed in direct, personal contact rather than exchanging formal communications. She understood that tribal people were people first, not the stereotypes within which they have always been cast, and that they live today, not in the past. In Scott and the Chairman and Tribal Council of Lower Brule, she discovered something new that fit with her own aspirations - a vision of tribal sovereignty and a clear path to sustaining the Lakota way of life, by working with non-Indian communities, rather than confronting them. Lower Brule was a place she could settle down. Over several years beginning in 2001, she assembled a menagerie of dogs and cats, horses and other animals she picked up along the way to pursue her lifelong passion for justice. Lower Brule people are the Kul Wicasa Oyate, the people who dwell along the river. As Clair learned, the tribe had not only suffered the depredations and forced removal that other tribes experienced in the 19th century; in 1944 the federal government ordered the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers to dam the Missouri River valley at Lower Brule, and by 1964, the tribe had lost almost everything as two huge reservoirs destroyed their way of life. From her first day at Lower Brule, she worked with Scott to bring life back to the river. They knew that this was crucial to Lower Brule cultural identity, health and wellness, and a positive future - and that it was a task of great urgency. For all the beauty of these lakes, surrounded by the draws and uplands of the valley, the water was insidious. It kept eroding land, destroying ancient villages of the Arikara Tribe, who once farmed here, and its muddy cliffs prevented the return of the plants and animals crucial to the Tribe - and year after year, it advanced slowly towards the town. The challenge facing Lower Brule was getting federal politicians and agencies to respond. Clair and Scott were formidable partners. In 2004, with the support and guidance of Chairman Michael B. Jandreau and the Lower Brule Tribal Council, they took the Corps and other federal agencies head on. Their goal was to get a Missouri River Shoreline Protection project going and save the town. It was a long journey of endless consultation, disputation and inspiration, but Clair was up to it. Once she got involved in an issue, it was as if she was back in Washington. She wasted little time worrying. To get things moving, she would pick up the phone and talk directly to senators and other members of congress, army generals and colonels, and other tribal leaders - anyone with the power to actually help solve the problem. After many years of struggle, the Corps and Tribe eventually formed a partnership in 2018, and the great vision of shoreline protection and the renewal of the traditional river ecosystem was in reach. Clair's work was finished as the project turned from development to implementation, and she gladly handed it off to Lower Brule's Department of Wildlife, Fish and Recreation to manage for the Tribe. During her life at Lower Brule, and long distance from Montana, she had strong emotional ties with the Lower Brule people and community, and she did her best to support traditional cultural ways. To help heal the social disruptions of the great floods in the 1960s, one of her first great projects was the renovation of derelict prairie churches - Episcopal and Catholic churches that served tribal families who lived in small communities across the Reservation. Clair realized their importance. After the floods, these people had to resettle in the town of Lower Brule, but they still buried their loved ones in the church cemeteries and longed for the life they once had there - just as the whole Tribe remembered their life along the old Missouri River. Clair managed to get a grant to repair walls and roofs, erect broken steeples, and house them with pews and other church furniture. Within a few years the churches were reconsecrated, and their broken ties healed. She was a strong advocate for schooling children in Lakota ways, and she loved and respected the elders. Her happiest times, when she was not awash with animals in her various homes on the Reservation, were during tribal ceremonies and celebrations, powwows and other events. She shared the Lakota values of modesty and strength, and she embraced the community with all her heart. Several events took her from the way of life she cherished. Over a handful of years, Scott Jones had an extended absence, and Clair took on the difficult task of directing the Cultural Resources Office. Within the space of a year, both Chairman Jandreau and Scott Jones passed away. And then, after more than thirty years, her long-time friends in Council were replaced with new members who took a different path. Clair was fiercely loyal, and while she kept regular contact with her friends at Lower Brule, and maintained her interest in tribal matters, she decided to move permanently to her home in White Sulphur Springs, Montana. In 2023, the partnership between the Tribe and the Corps that Clair fought so long for celebrated the completion of the first phase of goal - protection of the shoreline and restoration of the river's native plants and animals. After 60 years, Lower Brule people again have access to the waters of the Missouri that give them life, and this promises a bright future for the generations to come. In an opening ceremony that brought together a US Senator, leadership of the Corps of Engineers, and the members of the Lower Brule community, Chairman Clyde Estes recognized Scott and Clair for their vision and dedication. Unfortunately, Clair could not attend, and she would never see Lower Brule again. Clair never lost her affection for Kul Wicasa families and friends, and the beautiful lands across the Reservation. In recent times, she talked about moving back to South Dakota, and we at Lower Brule were sure we would see her again in the Tribal building, the casino, and walking the new shoreline. Several days before she died, the Corps announced that the next phases of the great idea she and Scott pursued for so many years was going to go ahead, and another stretch of Lower Brule would be saved. As long as the Missouri River runs, her legacy will be here at Lower Brule, her friends will miss her, and the many Lower Brulees she knew will always remember her. - Brian MolyeneauxShow more
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