She had worked on the mathematics of missions to Mars.

She had lived through the entire arc of the American century, from the Model T to the Space Shuttle, and she had been, for much of that arc, working inside the most technically ambitious part of it.

The Smithsonian photograph did not represent the beginning of her recognition.

It represented the accumulation of recognition that her advocacy work in retirement had been building — the increased awareness of her story, the growing appreciation for what she had achieved, the widening understanding of what Native American contributions to American technological history had looked like and how long they had been invisible.

She died on April 29, 2008, at the age of ninety-nine.