Don’t Let the Sun (Chapters 10 & 11)

Chapter 10
Eva’s family didn’t have a lot of money most of the time so her stepfather and brothers started working part time for a man named Ndaa Bigan Nagode in exchange for groceries. They worked on pounding rocks and getting asbestos out of it and putting it into cans. Trading was also a common practice for Eva’s family because they had a great supply of corn so they usually traded corn for meat. In this chapter I think it showed that Charley, Eva’s stepfather was a good man. He left a couple days to go visit a couple of his old friends and when he returned he found an envelope of money in it from his old friends. It had a note on it saying this money was for him and his family. Eva’s family moved to Oak Creek so her brothers could start making a consistent income. It wasn’t much money but it was enough. They started out building fences for $40 a month.

Chapter 11
Eva’s mom and stepfather needed money so Eva decided to start working for the first time. There no jobs in Cibecue so she had to leave home for the first time and it was really hard for her emotionally to say goodbye to a place where that is all she knows of the world. In this chapter Eva reviles she has a four year old son named Reuben. When Eva leaves home she leaves Reuben with her mother because she really wanted him to stay. When Eva left home she didn’t return for twenty years. She had so many jobs throughout the years. She sent the majority of the money, she made back to her son and mother. She worked in a hospital cleaning the rooms and beds, and then she worked at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Eva also worked in a boarding school at Fort Apache doing laundry and cooking, she also worked at Hogan Hill chopping wood and stacking them. After that Eva worked at the Horse Shoe Café where she ended up working there for two years and she liked it. Eva started work for a family as a babysitter and one of the daughters wanted Eva to move to Spokane with her and care for her child. Eva decided to go, the baby loved Eva. In Spokane is where Eva met her husband William Watt. He worked as a petroleum man for the air force. They got married in 1952 in Florence and lived in Chandler for eight years. Eva and Bill had two children together and later found out Eva’s husband had cancer. In this chapter it really expressed Eva as a woman and not as child; you can see the transition from one to the other. She ventured out into the world starting with nothing hoping to find a job. She had many jobs but I think she enjoyed it because she experienced so many different things through those jobs and I think most of her jobs opened up opportunities for her future.