Sixty-seven years ago this month, noted sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski, having served in World War II, decided to accept a proposal made eight years previously by Lakota chief Henry Standing Bear and carve a mountain in South Dakota's Black Hills as a memorial to Tashunka Witko (Crazy Horse).
Ziolkowski, who had worked with Gutzon Borglum on Mount Rushmore, agreed with Standing Bear that the Lakota war chief was a fitting subject to memorialize the fight of the plains people to retain their sacred mountains, taken in violation of the Treaty of Laramie. Ziolkowski set up housekeeping in a small cabin and studio and began planning the world's largest sculpture in the round.
As carving began the following year, many young Americans came to the site to volunteer. Among them was Ruth Carolyn Ross, a 22-year-old woman from West Hartford, Connecticut who admired Ziolkowski's work and the audacious goal of the Crazy Horse Memorial. Korczak and Ruth fell in love and, on Thanksgiving Day 1950, were married at the mountain.
For over three decades, Ruth assisted Korczak in planning the carving, raising their ten children, and building the visitors complex, museum and university that grew around the site. In the decade before Korczak's death in 1982, when he realized the dream would never be completed in his lifetime, she helped him draw up volumes of detailed blasting schedules so that his children could carry on the work.
After Korczak's death, "Mrs. Z" continued to supervise carving and grow the campus. She was instrumental in the decision to alter Korczak's original blasting schedule to complete Crazy Horse's head, a compromise that boosted visitors and donations to the project, essential to Ziolkowski's vision of a monument free of government control. (He believed that, if the government got involved, the memorial would never be finished).
For the next 32 years, Mrs. Z was a quiet and gracious but tenacious steward of Ziolkowski and Standing Bear's vision. Nearly every day, she made herself available to visitors who came to see the work, particularly on the annual Volksmarch, when visitors were allowed to climb the mountain and view the work close up.
In March of this year, Mrs. Z was diagnosed with cancer. In April, she moved from the mountain to a hospice center in Rapid City. It is reported that she passed away last night.
Never did her love of life, people and the Memorial falter. Last week, she sent a message to the many who have written their love and support. It reads, in part
The trials we each go through are part of life’s journey and it is the support of others that helps lighten the burden. Please know that I can feel your love and concern and how much it means to me. I am so grateful for all the friendships created over many many years and the kindnesses shown me. The friends we make are one of life’s true treasures and I am richly blessed beyond my greatest dream.
Mrs. Z's remains will be interred in the tomb at the mountain's base where Korczak Ziolkowski is buried.
The notice from the Rapid City Journal can be found here. More on the life of Korczak Ziolkowski here.