Gordon Marsh

Koontz John E John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Mon Nov 26 17:56:17 UTC 2001


On Mon, 26 Nov 2001, ROOD DAVID S wrote:
> 	I actually had some correspondence with Marsh after he retired,
> but it's all lost now.  I am pretty sure that he did indeed retire to a
> Russian Orthodox institution somewhere in the southwest.  His Orthodox
> name was Rev. Priestmonk Innocent.

I'll add to the public record (I've already mentioned it to Lance) that I
corresponded with him about the Hahn Ponca ms. in his APS files.  He
didn't actually say it was Hahn's but said that though his memory wasn't
what it had been, he didn't recall ever working with Ponca and definitely
remembered Ms. Hahn.  They and some others went to a PowWow together on
one occasion he recalled.  I think he even gave the date, so his memory
seemed fine to a stranger to it!  I can never remember dates!  For
example, I won't remember what year I corresponded with him until I locate
the letter.

Anyway, I wrote back to ask more specifically if he - Marhs/Innocent -
though that the ms. might be Hahn's, perhaps borrowed to make a typed copy
of it (there was a partial typed copy including an interpolated note by GM
with the original), but he never answered.

I believe he was in an Orthodox facility for retired priest-monks in
Phoenix, AZ, at the time.  I suppose this would be a sort of monastery!
I'm not sure where I got the address.  Perhaps from David?

I believe it was Dale Nichols, a fellow student at CU who worked briefly
with Ioway-Otoe, who told me that some of the people she talked to
remembered Marsh kindly, and described him as living, with a younger
brother I think, in a tent in a creek bottom.  Incidentally, I believe she
also said that they remembered him as having red hair, though I guess hair
colors are defined in culturally-relative terms.  (That's a a couple of
dubitatives within a quotative!)  That and the presence of the brother
might help determine if they were remembering Marsh/Innocent or someone
else.  It would have been at least 50 years afterwards that she received
these memories, now passed on at least third hand.



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