Hudson Woman’s Life Spent in 1890s Sioux Country Topic of February HHA Meeting

Hudson historian and professor emeritus David Adams will be the featured speaker at the February 11, 2016 meeting of Hudson Heritage Association, when he will share the story of Adelaide Rideout, a Hudson resident and graduate of Western Reserve Academy who spent her adult life helping Sioux Indians prepare for the monumental change facing their people at the end of the 19th century.

Adelaide left Hudson in 1889 at the age of 22 and headed for Indian country in the American West. For the next six years, she would assist, and eventually marry, Congregational missionary Frederick Riggs, who devoted his life to educating Sioux youth and preparing them for an uncertain future in a region undergoing rapid white settlement. Drawing on photos of the period, as well as Sioux artifacts given to Adelaide by her Indian students (and later given to the Hudson Library and Historical Society by the Rideout family), Adams will tell the story of Adelaide’s eventful and tragic life in the context of the momentous developments sweeping across Sioux country in the early 1890s, including the Ghost Dance religion, the death of Sitting Bull and the Wounded Knee massacre.

A long-time resident of Hudson, Adams is professor emeritus at Cleveland State University, where he continues to teach courses in Native American history and the history of the American West.

The Hudson Heritage Association meeting, which will be held at Barlow Community Center, begins at 7:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served following the presentation.

Founded in 1962, Hudson Heritage Association works to protect historic buildings, the village streetscape, and the city’s Western Reserve architectural aesthetic. It encourages the preservation of historic buildings by providing research, resources and education to homeowners who wish to maintain their historic homes and co-sponsors the city’s work with the Cleveland Restoration Society. HHA also works with building owners to help them meet historic marker requirements and identifies those buildings with the HHA historic marker. The association shares and celebrates the history of Northeastern Ohio by publishing books and newsletters, conducting workshops and field trips, and hosting monthly meetings that feature local preservationists, historians and craftsmen.