Ada Deer appears in this brief because the work she or he did is part of the
ground Patty walks on. As stories surface that touch this person, they collect here so the
brief never loses the thread.
Coverage in The Weekly Brief
Issue 018 · September 6, 2026
The Madison Metropolitan School District voted at its August 24 board meeting to rename Conrad A. Elvehjem Elementary as Ada Deer Elementary, honoring the Menominee leader who became the first Native woman to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Ada Deer, who walked on in 2023, is named throughout your Menominee chapter as a transformative figure in federal Indian policy and tribal self-determination. A Madison school bearing her name is the kind of civic recognition that belongs in the next edition, and it is the sort of ordinary, durable honor that outlasts any administration.
Background
· 2023
· tribal-college-journal
On December 22, 2023, the Menominee Indian Tribe marked 50 years since President Richard Nixon signed the Menominee Restoration Act, reversing the 1961 termination that had stripped federal recognition, dissolved the reservation into Menominee County, and pushed the people into poverty. The restoration was won by DRUMS, the Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee Stockholders, founded by Jim White and Ada Deer. The College of Menominee Nation marked the date with a year of programming.
Background
· 2023
· Wisconsin Examiner
Ada Elizabeth Deer of the Menominee Indian Tribe died August 15, 2023, in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, at age 88. The first Menominee to graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1957), the first Native American to earn a Master's in social work from Columbia, the first woman to chair the Menominee tribe after restoration, and the first woman to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs (1993-1997), Deer was the throughline of every Menominee chapter the third edition would build on.