SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Ruth Ziolkowski, who carried on her late husband’s dream of honoring Native Americans by carving the massive likeness of warrior Crazy Horse into the Black Hills in South Dakota, has died. She was 87.
Ziolkowski, a soft-spoken visionary, oversaw the ongoing project until she entered hospice care in April, a month after her cancer diagnosis. She died Wednesday night in Rapid City, memorial spokesman Mike Morgan said.
Then Ruth Carolyn Ross, she came to South Dakota’s Black Hills from Connecticut in 1948, with other young people who volunteered to help sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski begin the carving that year. The two were married Thanksgiving Day in 1950 at the site. He was 42 and she was 24.
The sculptor took on the project at the invitation of Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear who, referring to nearby Mount Rushmore National Memorial, wrote a letter to him saying, “We would like the white man to know the red men have great heroes also.”
Korczak Ziolkowski, who helped Gutzon Borglum at Mount Rushmore in 1939, contemplated the offer before accepting.
The memorial draws more than a million visitors to the southern Black Hills annually and brings in millions of dollars every year, mainly through admission fees.
Ziolkowski, who grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut, will be buried in a stone coffin at the base of the mountain next to her husband.
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