Personal Life
In 1979, she was involved in a near fatal car accident which required multiple surgeries. She had multiple other health problems including myasthenia gravis, a kidney transplant, breast cancer, and lymphoma. After many years working together on Cherokee community development projects, Mankiller married her longtime friend, Charlie Lee Soap, a full-blood Cherokee traditionalist and fluent Cherokee speaker, in 1986. They lived on Mankiller's ancestral land at Mankiller Flats. In March 2010 she was reported to be seriously ill with pancreatic cancer. She died of the disease at her home in rural Adair County, Oklahoma, on April 6, 2010. She is survived by her husband and both her daughters. About 1,200 people attended her memorial service at the Cherokee National Cultural Grounds in Tahlequah on April 10.
Read more about this topic: Wilma Mankiller
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:
“I am in no boastful mood. I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“To you, God the Singer, our voices we raise,
to you Song Incarnate, we give all our praise,
to you, Holy Spirit, our life and our breath,
be glory for ever, through life and through death.”
—Peter Davison (20th century)