Alice Marriott Remembered

In her large body of work that spanned more than half a century, Alice Marriott gave a wide audience fresh and lively accounts of the complex cultures of the Southwestern American Indian. Trained as an anthropologist/ethnologist, the first woman to graduate with a degree in that field from the University of Oklahoma, she coupled her scientific and creative writing skills to produce books that have become classics. “Maria: The Potter of San Ildefonso,” a definitive study of Pueblo Indian pottery making, has remained in print for sixty years. The memoirs that comprise this volume were written by Alice Marriott four years before her death in 1992, at the age of 82. They were her response to a request from Still Point Press for a full autobiography. Her frail health at the time-she was ill with Bell’s Palsy, blind in one eye, recovering from multiple fractures from falls-prevented her from writing more. Nevertheless, the pieces she did complete are delightful personal stories, told in that unique Marriott style, still engaging and humorous today. Charlotte Whaley is the author of “Nina Otero-Warren of Santa Fe,” also published by Sunstone Press; editor emeritus of “Southwest Review,” and founder and publisher, with her late husband, of Still Point Press.