Lucille Victoria Romsa McKay 1923 - 2005

Lucille Victoria Romsa McKay, 82, has died. She was only ten years younger than George Kicking Woman, who managed with Molly to keep alive the old-time way of life as a full-blood, but Lucille epitomized what the mixed bloods hoped for as modern Americans without forsaking Blackft roots. I don’t have the links that would connect her to Joe Brown, the charismatic leader of the early Tribal Council whose geneology I posted earlier, but if you look at the names you’ll see the echoes. Her mother was a Brown.

I taught Lucille’s children in the early Sixties. More promising young people would be hard to find: smart, good-looking, funny, energetic, and enterprising. Lucille was small, pretty, and indefatigable. This is the way the best Blackfeet women have always been.

The following is from Lucille’s obituary in the Great Falls Tribune on May 8, 2005.

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Lucille is survived by her children: Diane Magee, Mary Johnson, Tom McKay, Mike McKay and Joe McKay, all of Browning; her sister, Marie A. Croff of Browning; 21 grandchildren and 30 great-grandchildren; many nieces and nephews, and several great- and great-great nieces and nephews.

Lucille was born in the old hospital in Blackfoot, Montana, on January 6, 1923, to Jesse Romsa and Sara Adell Brown Romsa. She was the oldest of three children -- Benny and Marie were the younger siblings. The family spent their early years ranching on the Milk River. Later, Lucille moved with her family to their ranch on Badger Creek, just below Old Agency.

Lucille attended school in Browning, where she graduated in the top of her class and then went on to attend the University of Montana. The war interrupted her formal education after one year and she returned to Browning.

She married her high school sweetheart, Iliff McKay, on Nov. 24, 1943. Except for time spent in Spokane while Iliff attended the Kinman Business School and a short time while he worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the couple spent their lives on the Blackfeet Reservation.

Iliff died in 1979. Lucille never remarried.

Lucille not only made one of the first efforts by an Indian woman to obtain a college education, she was also an Indian career woman long before it was a popular life choice. In her early working life, Lucille worked as an assistant clerk for the Glacier County Clerk and Recorder in Cut Bank. While raising her family of five children, she worked as a checker at the Buttrey store in Browning and at the old Blackfeet Tribal Store. Once all of her children were in school, she went to work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs Credit Program at the Blackfeet Agency and later went on to become the first Tribal Credit Officer for the BIA and for the Blackfeet Tribal Credit Program.

While raising her family and working at her own job, Lucille and husband Iliff also started one of the first Indian-owned businesses on the Blackfeet Reservation: the Junction Drive-Inn. Started in the early 1950’s from the family’s Tribal claim monies, the business went on to provide summer employment and a place to grow and learn for many young people on the Reservation.

In 2002, Lucille received a Presidential Achievement Award from President George W. Bush for Illiff’s and her achievements through the Junction Drive-Inn. That award was presented at the National Indian Business Leaders Summit in Phoenix, Ax. When asked what she wanted the business leaders at the conference to know about the Drive-Inn, she responded, “Tell them that we used to do it all by hand, including peeling potatoes.”

Still the longest-operating Indian owned business on the Blackfeet Reservation, young people who worked there went on to become doctors, lawyers, tribal judges, tribal council members, professional administrators for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service, as well as many, many professional educators. Lucille and Iliff always thought of the many young people who worked for them at the Drive-Inn as their second family.

Throughout the time that her children were attending schools in Browning, Lucille was a strong supporter of school activities and events. In the early 1960’s, Lucille’s station wagon was often the unofficial “pep bus,” as the school did not send an official bus. She traveled across the state, often through blizzards, to make sure that someone was there to support the kids. Lucille also helped out as a Girl Scout leader in earlier times.

Lucille saw formal education as an important step toward a better life and helping Indian people. She was proud of her own children in that regard and her family was featured in the University of Montana Alumni magazine for the generations who had attended and earned degrees from the University. Today, Lucille’s five children who survive her continue to live and work on the Reservation. Dianne Magee is an elementary school principal; Mary Johnson is the Superintendent of Browning Public Schools; Tom McKay is the Administrative Officer for the Blackfeet Housing Program; Mike McKay is the Assistant Administrator for the Blackfeet Care Center (nursing home); and Joe McKay is a practicing attorney.

Lucille also has numerous nieces, nephews, grandchildren and children of her “Drive-Inn family” who also went on to earn college degrees.

Lucille was also very active in the Catholic Church in Browning. She was a member of the Altar Society and the Kateri Tekawitha Society. She traveled to Rome when Kateri Tekawitha was beatified by the church.

Lucille epitomized the values of Indian women living in a modern world. She gave her life to the care of family, her community and her spirituality. To Lucille, these important things were not separate, they were woven together as one.

Lucille enjoyed playing cards and dancing. In her youth, she loved the old time barn dances and could be counted on to dance to the last song. Later in life she took up the women’s traditional dance and followed the pow-wow circuit with her sister, Marie, throughout the United States and Canada.

Lucille also loved to travel. She had traveled to China, Eastern Europe, Finland, Metagorie, Rome, Ireland and Taiwan. She also made junkets with other elderly friends to Las Vegas and around the western United States.