Tiopa came to Canada with the Lakota in 1877 after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. She was a distant cousin to Sitting Bull.
Constable Fred Brown of the NWMP and Tiopa became acquainted when he was posted to Wood Mountain in 1880. Brown left the Mounted Police in 1881 and worked at various jobs around Moose Jaw and Regina. By 1885 he and Tiopa had two children - Billy and Nellie. Brown was cooking for an army camp at Moose Jaw that year. The story is told how Tiopa carried Nellie on her back through the soldier camp and how the soldiers fussed over the little Indian baby. Many of them had never seen a Lakota baby before and they gave Tiopa coins for the baby.
In 1885 Brown helped construct the telegraph line (known later as the Pole Trail) from Moose Jaw to Wood Mountain and he took the job as lineman, checking the line at intervals to make sure it was not broken or damaged in any way. Beginning in 1894 he also delivered the mail to Wood Mountain Post. These two positions meant that Brown had a small but steady income which gave Tiopa the advantages of a warm home, ample food and clothing.
In 1888 Brown and Tiopa moved to Wood Mountain to a place just east of the NWMP post. He raised and broke horses for sale to the homesteaders near Moose Jaw and Regina. By this time the Browns had three children - Billy, Nellie and Alfred. They had three more children Lawrence (Toto) and Albert (Soak) and Nora at Wood Mountain.
Tiopa was a very capable woman and was often called to serve as midwife to the Lakota women at Wood Mountain. She was present when each of the children of Tasunke Hin Hotewin (Mary Ogle) were born.
When Fred Brown died in 1925, Tiopa did not have any close relatives in Canada, so she went back to the United States, eventually marrying a man named Frank Derby at Poplar, Montana. |
