In the writing of Henrietta Schmerler and the Murder That Put Anthropology on Trial, a great deal of care was taken to make sure that every fact, every quote, every testimony represents the truth to the absolute extent possible. Where dialogue has had to be imagined, I have taken pains to indicate this, as in the brief exchange, in Chapter Four, between Henrietta and Golney as they began their fatal ride together.
In any 270-page book based on thousands of pages of documents, however, mistakes will occur. I want to be sure to acknowledge them when I can, and have thus created this Errata section.
Here are the initial discoveries:
1. The Court of Appeals which ruled on my FOIA lawsuit, Schmerler v. FBI, on April 6, 1990, was the District of Columbia Circuit, and not the Second Circuit, as I reported on p. 128.
2. Several lawyers have suggested to me that Golney could not have been present in the grand jury room, while the grand jury was hearing his case. It is possible - but by no means certain - that the Tucson Daily Citizen account of November 20, 1931, misled me into believing that he was, as I noted on page 166. The Citizen article said prominently that Seymour “entered the U.S. court room and stolidly began his battle to keep the government from sending him to the scaffold” and then explained: “The law requires that when a capital offense is to be considered by a grand jury that the defendant may be present to challenge any juror...” This was followed, without further qualification, by a description of “The Young Apache appeared anything but the swaggering young cowboy of the fertile Whiteriver valley as he sat in the courtroom,” and then emphasized his “beadlike focus on the table before him as his lawyer spoke to him.”
I interpreted this article to mean that Golney was, in fact, present in the grand jury room as his indictment was being considered. Two of my readers with long legal backgrounds, my brother Willie and my great friend Irv Nathan, could not accept that any prospective defendant — in any state and at any time — would ever be allowed to appear in person in the grand jury room. On a careful re-reading of the Citizen article, I see where I might conceivably have juxtaposed “grand jury room” and “courtroom” to arrive at a false conclusion. If so, I guess this would not be the first time a newspaper account of this case was misleading.
3. On p.95, I comment that Elias Schmerler was intimating to Columbia that he might sue them for negligence. I’ve since come to the belief that he never actually threatened, but that Columbia — particularly because it was Belle’s lawyer husband Irv Meller who was handling the tougher communications with the university — only worried about such a suit. Also their guilty consciences no doubt contributed to their concern.
4. Golney's age is described in the book — based on numerous mentions in the newspaper accounts, court documents, and FBI files — as 21, both when he murdered Henrietta and when his trial took place over six months later. In fact, according to his death certificate, he was born February 14, 1909, which would have made him 22 at the time of the murder and 23 during the trial (as Henrietta would have been).
5. It did not appear in the book, but I have an incorrect age for Henrietta's younger sister Ruth in my unpublished "Ruth" chapter on this website. Ruth's granddaughter, Gabrielle Bate, pointed out to me that Ruth was born May 13, 1914, which would have made her 17 when Henrietta was murdered (not 14, as I had written).
6. In an extensive email sent prior to the 2019 publication of her own work, Uncommon Anthropologist: Gladys Reichard and Western Native American Culture, Nancy Mattina made the case that the facts in my book about Reichard were "for the most part incorrect." She pointed out that Reichard did not live at the Hubbell Trading Post when she was in Ganado, as I had said; and she noted that Navaho Religion was Reichard's masterwork, not Spider Woman, as I had said. I stand corrected.
Mattina also maintained that I was too credulous in accepting the descriptions of Reichard given by Benedict and Mead, and particularly mistaken in accepting the account of the "thoroughly corrupt" H.R. Hagerman of Reichard's visit to the reservation following Henrietta's death. She says in a footnote to her book that "My independent research into the case corroborates some of Schmerler's findings, except his understanding of Reichard's role in the affair, which he gleaned largely from unreliable secondary accounts."
In any 270-page book based on thousands of pages of documents, however, mistakes will occur. I want to be sure to acknowledge them when I can, and have thus created this Errata section.
Here are the initial discoveries:
1. The Court of Appeals which ruled on my FOIA lawsuit, Schmerler v. FBI, on April 6, 1990, was the District of Columbia Circuit, and not the Second Circuit, as I reported on p. 128.
2. Several lawyers have suggested to me that Golney could not have been present in the grand jury room, while the grand jury was hearing his case. It is possible - but by no means certain - that the Tucson Daily Citizen account of November 20, 1931, misled me into believing that he was, as I noted on page 166. The Citizen article said prominently that Seymour “entered the U.S. court room and stolidly began his battle to keep the government from sending him to the scaffold” and then explained: “The law requires that when a capital offense is to be considered by a grand jury that the defendant may be present to challenge any juror...” This was followed, without further qualification, by a description of “The Young Apache appeared anything but the swaggering young cowboy of the fertile Whiteriver valley as he sat in the courtroom,” and then emphasized his “beadlike focus on the table before him as his lawyer spoke to him.”
I interpreted this article to mean that Golney was, in fact, present in the grand jury room as his indictment was being considered. Two of my readers with long legal backgrounds, my brother Willie and my great friend Irv Nathan, could not accept that any prospective defendant — in any state and at any time — would ever be allowed to appear in person in the grand jury room. On a careful re-reading of the Citizen article, I see where I might conceivably have juxtaposed “grand jury room” and “courtroom” to arrive at a false conclusion. If so, I guess this would not be the first time a newspaper account of this case was misleading.
3. On p.95, I comment that Elias Schmerler was intimating to Columbia that he might sue them for negligence. I’ve since come to the belief that he never actually threatened, but that Columbia — particularly because it was Belle’s lawyer husband Irv Meller who was handling the tougher communications with the university — only worried about such a suit. Also their guilty consciences no doubt contributed to their concern.
4. Golney's age is described in the book — based on numerous mentions in the newspaper accounts, court documents, and FBI files — as 21, both when he murdered Henrietta and when his trial took place over six months later. In fact, according to his death certificate, he was born February 14, 1909, which would have made him 22 at the time of the murder and 23 during the trial (as Henrietta would have been).
5. It did not appear in the book, but I have an incorrect age for Henrietta's younger sister Ruth in my unpublished "Ruth" chapter on this website. Ruth's granddaughter, Gabrielle Bate, pointed out to me that Ruth was born May 13, 1914, which would have made her 17 when Henrietta was murdered (not 14, as I had written).
6. In an extensive email sent prior to the 2019 publication of her own work, Uncommon Anthropologist: Gladys Reichard and Western Native American Culture, Nancy Mattina made the case that the facts in my book about Reichard were "for the most part incorrect." She pointed out that Reichard did not live at the Hubbell Trading Post when she was in Ganado, as I had said; and she noted that Navaho Religion was Reichard's masterwork, not Spider Woman, as I had said. I stand corrected.
Mattina also maintained that I was too credulous in accepting the descriptions of Reichard given by Benedict and Mead, and particularly mistaken in accepting the account of the "thoroughly corrupt" H.R. Hagerman of Reichard's visit to the reservation following Henrietta's death. She says in a footnote to her book that "My independent research into the case corroborates some of Schmerler's findings, except his understanding of Reichard's role in the affair, which he gleaned largely from unreliable secondary accounts."