FORMER CAPE RESIDENT WRITES OF CHIEFTAINESS

When Charlotte (Blattner) Ellington was a Girl Scout growing up in Cape Girardeau, she learned about the tragedy that begat Trail of Tears State Park.

Back then, Otahki, the Cherokee woman who died along the trail and was believed buried where the state park is now, was immortalized as a princess -- a legend that turned out to be mistaken.

Thirty years later, Ellington has written a book about another Cherokee woman, a chieftainess exalted as a warrior and leader.

The book, her first published work, wasn't written because of her experiences as a Girl Scout in Cape Girardeau, Ellington said from her home in an Indianapolis suburb.

"But after you do it, you realize the seed was planted before and came full-circle."

"Beloved Mother" is a fictionalized account of the life of Nancy Ward, who lived in Tennessee from 1738 to 1822.

"She did some remarkable things in her life," the author said. "She lost her husband in battle and picked up his battle axe and rallied the troops. She was a teenager when she went to battle in the first place."

Ward was the head of the women's council and also sat at the head of the regular council meetings, Ellington said.

"Her voice was supposed to be unquestioned," Ward said. "She held the power of life or death over those who were captured."

The book, published at the end of the summer by Overmountain Press in Johnson City, Tenn., has been reviewed by Publishers' Weekly, the bible of the publishing industry. It was written for the young adult market.

As a teacher of English at both the junior and senior high school level at various times in her life, Ellington always hoped to find books like her own that portray women who are good role models for teenage girls.

"I thought she was a really good example of a strong woman character who lived in a time of changing values and still was able to serve the needs of her society and try to catapult them onto another level," Ellington said.

Ward might have been a controversial figure as well, Ellington said. "The things she did were sympathetic to the pioneers in the area," she said. "The more militant Cherokees probably didn't like that at all."

The novel is fictionalized -- told through the voice of an adopted daughter who never existed -- because much about Nancy Ward's life is still unknown. Ellington was inspired to write about her after reading Pat Alderman's book, "Nancy Ward/Dragging Canoe."

Ellington, her husband Ed and their two sons now live in Zionsville, Ind. After graduating from Southeast Missouri State University in 1972 with a degree in education, Ellington and her husband moved to St. Louis.

They since have lived in Birmingham, Ala., Jacksonville and Tampa, Fla., and Atlanta. While in Atlanta, she took a writing class and began researching "Beloved Mother."

Ellington also is trying to sell her two unpublished books. One, a girl's coming-of-age story titled "Missouri," is set in Cape Girardeau.

The book isn't autobiographical, Ellington said. "The main character is a tomboy. I always thought of myself as more prissy," she said, chuckling.

A sequel to "Beloved Mother" is another possible project.

For now, Ellington is working at her town's public library and doing book-signings.

"I feel pretty uncomfortable about the whole thing," she confessed. "It was real exciting to get a book published. Then you realize that everybody you know can read it. You feel vulnerable."

This week, Ellington's parents, Paul and Marion Blattner of Gordonville, donated a copy of "Beloved Mother" to the Trinity Lutheran School library. Ellington attended the school in her youth.

Another copy is being donated to Trail of Tears State Park.

On a visit to Cape Girardeau after completing the book, Ellington took one of her sons to the park to see Otahki's memorial. In the handbook there, she discovered that Otahki had married a great-grandson of Nancy Ward's.

Excerpt from `Beloved Mother: The Story of Nancy Ward'

"Is Granny gonna die?"

Dancing Leaf stomped her foot when Jonathan Young asked that question. She didn't like it when the white settlers called her mother "Granny." But the question echoed in her mind, and she realized that it was something she had feared for some time.

Dancing Leaf had been living with Beloved Mother these past ten years, since the time when Five Killer found her sitting on the banks of a flowing stream, her hands pushed tightly against her ears to keep out the terrible noises coming from the direction of her village. Five Killer had taken her to his own village where she was adopted by his mother, Nanyehi, the famous Beloved Woman of the Cherokee tribe.

But Beloved Mother was now old. She moved slowly, she coughed in the night, and she did not take charge of things as she used to. Dancing Leaf decided that she would not return to the mission school after the planting season. She would remain close to Beloved Mother, instead, that she might better care for her.

She vowed then that she would write the stories of Beloved Mother's life, the stories she had heard so often in the evenings as they sat before the fire -- of how Nanyehi lost her first husband in the war with the Creeks, of how she rallied the warriors and led them to victory in the Battle of Taliwa, of her marriage to the white trader, of her rescue of the white woman tied to the stake by the Cherokee warriors, of her speeches to the white chiefs at the peace treaty meetings.

These stories she would write on the pages of the "talking leaves," and this would be something she could keep forever.