A South Dakota woman, a member of the Sioux Tribe, who served as a missionary in New York state and established a shelter for abused women in her home state has been honoured posthumously by the Episcopal Church.
The late Margaret Hawk, who joined a society of lay missionaries in the Anglican Communion in 1963 at the age of 50, was a recipient of the House of Deputies Award of Distinguished Service by the National Episcopal Council.
Hawk, who died Feb. 18, 1993, was known as Sister Margaret by the people she served.
“The Church Army used to refer to women as sisters,” said Bishop John Tarrant, head of the South Dakota Episcopal Diocese.
He said the Episcopal Church’s House of Deputies president, Bonnie Anderson, chose Hawk for the church honor because “she led an extraordinary life in a part of the country that is little noticed.
“When she died, her nephew out here, Robert Two Bulls, a priest, said she served the Pine Ridge Episcopal Mission doing an evangelism of hope, reaching out to people in despair and feeding the hungry.”
According to information shared by Hawk’s granddaughter, Alice Testerman, the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council has set the first Sunday in June as Sister Margaret Hawk Day.
Before Anderson nominated Hawk for the honor, she met with her surviving family members and learned that Hawk was one of Fred and Alice (One Horn) Two Bulls’ 13 children born at the family homestead at Wounded Knee Creek on Dec. 2, 1913.
Nine days later, she was baptized at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Manderson. Her high school classes were spent at Rapid City Indian School and St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal School in Wakpala.
Hawk and her husband, Enoch Hawk, raised four children. After the marriage ended, Hawk joined the Church Army. Her work took her to New York, where she marched for civil rights at a Martin Luther King rally.
Social problems, Hawk told her family, existed no matter where people live or what race they are.
After her missionary work in New York, she returned to the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations, where she served for 18 years. Her ecumenical efforts with Catholics and Presbyterians resulted in the Wowakiye Center for Lakota people who needed counseling, child care and necessities such as food and clothing.
Hawk set up the shelter for abused women and was an advocate for day workers. She invested in local trade art and artists with a revolving fund from the sales of Lakota artwork at the annual convocation and convention.
In 1970, when the Episcopal Church’s General Convention allowed women to serve as deputies, Hawk was one of the first women seated.
Three years later, the American Indian Movement occupied Wounded Knee. She would travel from Pine Ridge to Wounded Knee to deliver food, medicine and blankets and to bring any children out of the occupation, despite criticism. She would hang blankets at night over her windows, fearing drive-by shootings.
She retired in 1980, although, as she said, “You never retire from the Lord’s work; it is a daily commitment to spread his word and love.”
She returned to Red Shirt Table, her childhood home, where she took on the upkeep, maintenance and lay ministering of Sunday services at Christ Church.
“In our church we try to hold up what one might call ordinary people who really live their lives in extraordinary ways,” Tarrant said. “Margaret would certainly be one of those people.”