Nellie Two Bears Gates

[4] At the age of seven, Nellie was taken from her family and placed in a Catholic boarding school at St. Joseph, Missouri where she stayed for eleven years.

[1] Her father Chief Two Bears was one of the signers of the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) and settled at Standing Rock Reservation.

[2] At 18 Nellie returned to live with her family at Standing Rock after which she exclusively spoke the Dakota language.

[4] In 1946, her daughter, Josephine Gates Kelly, became the first woman in the United States to be elected chair of a tribal council.

Suitcase depicts a wedding scene and was a gift for Gates' relative, Ida Claymore, in honor of her marriage.

[11] It was created as a gift for her daughter Josephine at the time of her graduation from the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, and depicts Chief Two Bears' actions in the Battle of Whitestone Hill in 1863.

[2] Gates was featured in a group exhibit, Hearts of our People: Native Women Artists, at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 2019.