Millie Durgan, Candy Taylor’s great-great-grandmother, was born Irish. Kiowa warriors raided her family’s ranch in Texas when she was a toddler.
“They knew that the raids were happening along the creek, and they had received word that the natives were coming,” Taylor said.
The men had left on horseback and covered wagons to get supplies.
“So, it was the women and children [who] were left on the ranch when this happened.”
Millie’s mom tried to hide her in a box under the bed. But the flames from the fire brought Millie out.
“By the time she got to the porch, my great-great–great grandfather saw her, and there was something about her eyes that he connected with. So, he picked her up to protect her and decided to take her back to what was reservation land in southwest Oklahoma, the Lawton Fort Sill area, and raised her as his own.”
This story influenced the making of a 1956 western classic, starring John Wayne.
“My great-great-grandmother's story was one of the stories that the producers of “The Searchers” researched for background information when making the movie,” Taylor said. “In fact, there is a character in the movie named Brett Johnson, and that was actually somebody who worked on the Durgan family ranch back at the time when the raid took place. However, he was off getting provisions and was not there at the time. Some of his children were also taken captive, and so he tried to go find these children. Millie Durgan also had an older sister, and she was returned, but Millie was not. She was living the life of a Kiowa child.”
Durgan lived her life as a Kiowa child with light skin.
“Whenever her family would go into town, they would put dirt on her face to make her look a little bit darker to protect her.”
Millie did not know English and learned all the customs from her new parents, who did not have children.
“Now there are other native stories out there of children that were captured, and they weren’t treated very well, but that was not the case for her,” Taylor said. “Her adopted father was somebody with some prestige within the tribe. He was one of the bravest warriors in the tribe, he came from the most prestigious warrior’s society. And so, she had the best of everything, the best of clothing, they brought her up to be a Kiowa Warrior's wife, which is what all young girls were trained to do.”
Some believed that Millie Durgan had been killed, but Taylor said that wasn’t the case.
“She went on to have a long life, bore several children, and, you know, she converted to Christianity, and she said a lot of prayers for our family.”
Millie also took care of her father when his health was failing.
“As the Kiowa custom, you don't abandon your elders and so she took great, great care of him, preparing him special foods, soft foods that he could eat, to help him as he transitioned on,” Taylor said. “So, they were very, very loving towards her. And you know, she was very proud of them. And so even though you think, ‘This child was captured,’ she went on and adapted and assimilated into the Kiowa way.”
Immersed in the culture. Millie was treated like a Kiowa Indian.
“And it wasn't until she was in her late 60s that the full story got out of who she really was,” Taylor said.
Millie Durgan died in 1934. There’s a historic marker about her life on the highway near Mountain View, Oklahoma, where she’s buried, in the southwest part of the state.
“It's just a sense of pride,” Taylor said. “That's our family history. We're very proud of Millie and her story. I think she would be proud to see several of her descendants have gone on to accept the faith and to preach and to share the faith that meant so much to her at the end of her life. History [is] not always pretty, but it is what it is, and we never lose sight of where we came from, we never lose sight of her story and we’re grateful that she played a large role in shaping us as a family and who we are today.”
