Crazy Dave (Native Voices)

David, the last of Rosa's five sons, was born with Down syndrome. Unable to care for himself, he and the indomitable Rosa were to be forever bound together, joined by love and necessity in a life already defined by harsh, sometimes tragic circumstances.

And yet, David was remarkable. Strong, stubborn, and utterly determined, he aspired to learn, to be a part of a world in which he would never entirely belong. In that regard, he was and remains a poignant and unsettling reflection of his people, who had fled Wisconsin in the 1830s to seek sanctuary with the Ojibway farther north in what became Canada. With great resourcefulness and integrity, they struggled to sustain and preserve families, a language, and a way of life, while accommodating the increasingly intrusive demands of white society.

Woven of story and recollection—the author's own, his family's, and those of others who were there—Crazy Dave remembers and pays loving tribute to a family, a community, and a culture.

When he was a teenager, writer Basil Johnston (The Manitous) listened to his grandmother tell stories of how her people, the Ojibway (or Chippewa), were driven from their Wisconsin land to the Cape Croker Reserve in Ontario, where she and Johnston himself grew up. Johnston records this in Crazy Dave, a family and tribal history told mostly through the stories of Johnston's grandmother and her youngest son, David. The willful, inquisitive, mischievous David was born with Down's syndrome, but refused to accept his isolation from the rest of the world. He becomes a metaphor for the Ojibways' refusal to quietly placate white society.
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