Julia Wiona Haythorn:
Artist, Muskogee Creek Elder, Entomologist, Mother

Wiona was born Julia Wiona Brooke in Osteen, Florida. Her name is of Sioux origin and means “First Born Daughter.” Wiona and her sister were raised by their father’s parents after their mother died at the age of seventeen from complications during childbirth with Wiona’s younger sister, Betty. Their father worked various jobs under the New Deal Works Progress Administration, which required frequent travel. As a result, their grandparents—self-sufficient homesteaders with two large gardens and a small sugarcane business—gladly took on the responsibility of raising the girls.

 

When Wiona was fourteen, she went to live with her minister’s family, who lived closer to both her school and the photography studio where she worked. During high school, when World War II began, she manned a watchtower on Merritt Island, scanning the sea with binoculars for German submarines. She also organized dances and gatherings for military personnel, advertising them by chalking notices on sidewalks.

 

After high school, Wiona attended Stetson University, where she studied radio operations. It was there that she met Marty’s father. They married in San Diego, California, shortly before he shipped out with the Navy. He served as a navigator on a Navy airplane and flew numerous missions in the Pacific. After his discharge, he used the GI Bill to attend college.

 

While her husband pursued his doctorate in social psychology, Wiona began raising their children. They had four sons before he graduated, Marty being the second. Upon completing his degree, he accepted a position with the U.S. Air Force in Texas. The family later moved to Topanga Canyon and then to the San Fernando Valley, where they had two more sons. Eventually, Marty’s father received a congressional appointment as director of a research team at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

 

During this period, Wiona worked in the Entomology Department of the Smithsonian Institution, where she raised tarantulas and Madagascar cockroaches and gave educational presentations to schoolchildren. After her time at the Smithsonian, the family lived abroad in Germany and Korea. Wiona learned to speak both Korean and German, and while in Korea, she became a Buddhist. She was the first Westerner to graduate from the traditional Korean Tea Institute.

 

Upon returning to the United States, Wiona and her husband became involved with several Native American tribes. They helped a tribe in Whigham, Georgia, apply for official recognition by the federal government. Later, in southern Florida, Wiona was honored as a Muskogee Creek Elder and given the name “Yamasee Hokte,” meaning “Walks Gently Woman.” She remained an Elder for the next twenty-five years of her life. Wiona passed away on April 6, 2020, due to complications from COVID-19.