Story of the First Little White Girl in Sioux City

Her name was Marianne Lapora; she came with her widowed mother, of the same name, and her little brother to make her home with her uncle, Joseph Leonais, in Sioux City in 1854. She was only three years old.

Her mother had a long and tedious journey from Canada. She had never seen an Indian till she crossed the Floyd River and was dismayed to find only a few white men, half breeds and full blooded Indians; not one white woman there till three days later, when a family named Gandreau arrived. Things were wild and life rough, with liquor in free evidence; so the young widow told her brother that she could not raise her children there. He offered her the free use of his house in St. Louis, but soon she was busy helping her sister-in-law, a half breed woman named Rosalie, for Mr. Leonais kept a hotel. There was no other place to receive travelers, and there were many coming and going in the new country, besides some steady boarders. Among them were such names as Letellier, Lamoureaux [LaMoure], Pecaut and Dr. Cook.

The Indians camped around used to come in at mealtimes and stand along the walls, the later comers crowding the others on till the wall was lined. Marianne's Aunt Rosalie understood the ways of her kin and when the meals were over took up the unwashed plates, put on them the food remaining, a biscuit or so on each, and handed them to the uninvited guests together with a cup of coffee. Each took his plate and sat on the floor where he stood and ate. This was a great annoyance to Mrs. Lapora, for it necessitated the cooking of a complete fresh supply for each meal. There was no dry yeast to be bought then, so biscuit was made for bread.

The following spring Mr. Leonais sold his claim for a townsite, and took another claim near the Floyd. Later Mrs. Lapora married a Mr. Sangster, who had started a store. On the 16th of February, 1857, a boy was born to them, the first white boy born around there; a girl, Lizzie Cassidy, had been born three days earlier.

Marianne Lapora married Antoine Flurie in 1867. He had a claim at Sioux Point and there they have made their home since. She is an active, intelligent woman in good health and they have a large and fine family, most of them living near them. (Told by Mrs. A. Flurie, August, 1916.)

Source: South Dakota Historical Collections, compiled by the State Department of History, Volume X, 1920.