That memory would follow her for years.

It is tempting to treat the scene as the entire explanation for what Susan became.

Real lives are rarely that simple.

She grew up in a politically influential Omaha family, received an unusually extensive education for a Native girl of her generation, and lived through a period when federal policy was transforming almost every part of Native life in Nebraska.

But the death gave those larger forces a human shape.

A doctor had knowledge that could save lives.

A doctor also had the power to decide whose call deserved an answer.

Susan wanted that power placed in different hands.

She would eventually become the first Native American woman in the United States to earn a medical degree.

That achievement alone would have guaranteed her a place in history.