By Carol Sletten

Odette Fuller, who was born in Whiteriver and spent part of her childhood in Cibecue before traveling the world and then returning to the White Mountains, is as fearless, friendly, enterprising and creative as her great-grandfather Corydon Cooley.

Cooley is best known for naming Show Low – a tall tale about a card game which the fun-loving fellow probably told for entertainment purposes. But his significance is much greater than that. As a young man, he set out from Virginia to find fame and fortune in the West. Brave and highly capable, he became a lieutenant and helped defeat a Confederate advance toward California, then risked his life to find gold in Apache country. 

He entered the White Mountains during a time when the army was trying to exterminate Apaches. After having sincere talks with local chiefs, he was able to convince the government that the Apaches desired peace. Based on this understanding, a fort was built at the confluence of the east and north Forks of the White River and a reservation was established to protect the Apaches.

He married two of Chief Pedro’s daughters, created a vast ranch in the area now known as Show Low, and rode with his partner to Prescott, the territorial capital, to claim the water of the local creek. Because Americans were bad at pronouncing Apache words with their variety of tones, nasalizations, stops and unvoiced consonants, no one can guess what the Apache’s word was for the area that is now called Show Low. But it had nothing to do with a card game. In a world with long nights and no radio, TV or Internet, Cooley was an absolute master of providing entertainment for the people who stayed in his hotel. One of the ways that he did that was to tell a tall tale about how Show Low was named. 

Molly and Cora, Cooley’s wives, worked hard to help him succeed in a world where Apache and non-Native ways were mingling. And their many descendants have become prominent both on and off the reservation. 

After her earliest childhood, Odette spent her winters at a Catholic school in California and her summers in the remote but beautiful Apache village of Cibecue. She has a memory of being a very small child walking with her grandfather through a field of tall plants on the way to a dance. The Apaches were hiding from the whites, who in the 1940’s disapproved of Natives practicing their own religion. She could hear the pounding of drums. When they got closer, she saw Apaches sitting around campfires. They had covered wagons like ones she had seen in Westerns – only this time they belonged to the Indians. 

Talking about the carefree summers when she ran around unrestricted all day with her little brother Mike and a bunch of other Apache kids makes her smile. She said, “We swam in the river, jumped out of trees and did things that you’d probably say, ‘stop don’t do that.’ It was an adventure every day. The reservation at that time was probably the safest place to be because every member of the tribe watched the children as they played. They were there if we needed them, but it was up to us to get ourselves out of the river if we were drowning. It was the freest thing.”

Though she loved Cibecue, Odette, like her great-grandfather, wanted to see more of the world. The way she did that was to join the Navy. She served in the Hospital Corps from 1957 to 1960. She said, “I had to learn how to jump out of this tower, take off my pants, whirl them around, tie them in a knot and throw myself on them to keep from drowning. That made me feel like I could do anything.” Her first assignment was in the psychiatric ward, where she took care of patients after they had received shock treatments. “It was awful,” she said. “But they were in the process of developing conversational therapy, so I got to see that transition.” It was a transition that she was grateful to see. 

Odette went on to drive ambulances and work in other health care areas, but it was in that psychiatric ward where she met Ray Fuller, a charming Irishman and fellow medical worker who became her husband. Though the couple moved around a lot, their longest stay was in the Philippines — a staging area for those who were being sent to Vietnam. After Ray did three tours, his whole group was sent home and a new shift was sent in, because Odette said, “By then, way too many people were killing themselves. Not only were the military doing it, they brought home that madness and were infecting the families. Wives were killing themselves too. They sent us all home, and Ray became a deep-sea diver. Before that he was a ground trouper.” The other happy change was that the couple gained three daughters. Stephanie and Elizabeth were born in California. Victoria was born in Connecticut. 

In 1975, after they had both retired from the Navy, Odette brought her family with her back to the White Mountains. She became, like her great-grandfather, a successful entrepreneur in places that were far removed from the modern world. She ran a trading post in Cibecue, a clothing store in Whiteriver, a restaurant called Odette’s in Whiteriver, and for 12 years, the Canyon Inn at the bottom of the Salt River Canyon. There, the family ran a gas station, sold snacks and lunches, fixed tires and sold permits to hike along the river. “We invited everyone we had ever met during our long military careers and any family member we had ever heard of to come and spend the summer,” Odette said. “Everybody came because it was totally unique. We put them to work, and we fed them and had the best time.”

In the 1990’s she began teaching at one of the reservation’s schools and became the Coordinator of the Fort Apache Historic Park, which included a museum with a trove of old papers. Though most of that work gave her joy, learning what had happened to the Apaches in the past was painful. She wrote, “They were just words, black ink on white paper. The emotional energy came from me as I looked at the words. It took a long time to process this information. Intellectually, I knew this was the past. 1869 to be exact. They read, ‘Brevet Colonel (Major) John Green is charged with the task to kill or capture every Indian man, woman and child he could find. The bodies were to be boiled, and the bones sent to the Smithsonian Institute, and they would determine if the savages were HUMAN.’ These PEOPLE were my relatives, three and four generation removed from me. Brought forward it would be as if the United States Government was planning on killing my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A team from the Fort Apache Historical Museum was deeply involved with the recovery and reburial of the bones taken to the Smithsonian Institute. Talking with the elderly, talking with everyone was eye opening. Visits to prisons and other forts, while not exactly a pilgrimage in the white sense, had profound meaning to me. I considered them sacred places where people were hung, shot and received all the atrocities of war. These places had stories to tell. The blood and pain are no longer visible. There is the dust of time everywhere. The young walk uncaring and unknowing through these places like I once did. My ancestors chose not to burden a child with their history. What will I do?”

It must’ve been hard for a big-hearted person like Odette to move on. But she did. She said that her Apache ancestors had basic survival skills tied to the earth and being connected to each other, and they put those things in their stories, because she said, “If something is told in a story it will stick.”

Though now a widow in her 80’s, Odette is as vibrant as ever. She welcomes visitors to her Show Low home by saying, “Come early and stay late.” She is fascinated with things like the latest discoveries about fungus and tells intriguing tales. She creates incredible works of art, sometimes with her pre-school-aged great-grandchildren. 

Corydon Cooley would approve.