Biography
A tribal member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, also known as the Winnebago Indian Tribe, Rice was born in Winnebago, Nebraska, and had previously served in the United States Marine Corps during World War II.
During his funeral on August 28, 1951—at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Sioux City, Iowa—a cemetery employee noticed there were a lot of Native Americans among the mourners. After the military burial service, including the ceremonial three-volley salute, cemetery officials discovered that Rice himself was Native American. They stopped the actual burial, and made his non-Indian wife Evelyn take his body away.
According to cemetery officials, "Private cemeteries have always had a right to be operated for a particular group such as Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran, Negro, Chinese, etc., not because of any prejudice against any race, but because people, like animals, prefer to be with their own kind."
The following day, then-President Harry Truman publicly reprimanded the cemetery and the Sioux City town leaders. Rice’s wife was given a plot in Arlington National Cemetery. The press, and local groups in Sioux City also lambasted the Sioux City cemetery.
Sergeant Rice was buried with full military honors on September 5, 1951, nearly a year to the day after he died, in Arlington National Cemetery between two generals.
Read more about this topic: John Raymond Rice
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