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History
of the Indian Guide Programs
The Parent-Child Program was developed in a deliberated way to support
the father’s vital family role as teacher, counselor, and friend to his
son. Harold S. Keltner, St. Louis YMCA Director, as an integral part of
Association work, initiated the program. In 1926 he organized the first
tribe in Richmond Heights, Missouri, with the help of his good friend, Joe
Friday, an Ojibway Indian, and William H. Hefelfinger, Chief of the first
Y-Indian Guide tribe. Inspired by his experiences with Joe Friday, who was
his guide on fishing and hunting trips into Canada, Harold Keltner
initiated a program of parent-child experiences that now involves a half
million children and adults annually in the YMCA.
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While Keltner
was on a hunting trip in Canada, one evening, Joe Friday, the Indian, said
to his white colleague as they sat around a blazing campfire: “The
Indian father raises his son. He teaches his son to hunt, to track, to
fish, to walk softly and silently in the forest, to know the meaning and
purpose of life and all he must know, while the white man allows the
mother to raise his son.” These comments struck home, and Harold Keltner
arranged for Joe Friday to work with him at the St. Louis YMCA.
The Ojibway Indian spoke before groups of YMCA boys and dads in St. Louis,
and Mr. Keltner discovered that fathers, as well as boys, had a keen
interest in the traditions and ways of American Indian. At the same time,
being greatly influenced by the work of Ernest Thompson Seton, a great
lover of the out-of-doors, Harold Keltner conceived the idea of a father
and son program based upon the strong qualities of American Indian culture
and life-dignity, patience, endurance, spirituality, felling for the
earth, and concern for the family. Thus, the Parent-Child Program was
born a half century ago.
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