Tom K. Yazzie Sr.

submitted by: Lana Hilleger

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My great grandpa Tom K. Yazzie Sr. was an army man and served in the great World War II, and that makes him very special because World War II was very devastating. He was also known as Beshbichaii, which is what the old army men called him in Navajo. He was born on March 25, 1925, and died in October 1982. He was born at Red Rock, NM under a tree. I think that is pretty unique. He was the second to last child in his family. There were three kids in his family, 2 brothers and 1 sister.

He was so overworked, he had to raise 11 kids! Now that is crazy to me. After the war he started to work for the Union Pacific Railway and was a mechanic. It was so hard for him, but he pushed through it. I can tell that it was hard for him because he did not talk much about the war. Me and him have a few things in common though. We both like mechanics and working with our hands.

Me and my great grandpa are both Navajo and love the outdoors. We are both very artistic. He was a very hard worker. He worked Monday-Saturday all his life, and Sundays were for wood hauling. He is sadly not alive anymore, but I would still love to see him. Unfortunately, he passed away in 1982, before my mom was born. Luckily, I have been learning a lot about him from my grandpa. I have learned so much about him and I would love to see him. He lived a very hard life but he still decided to go through it. There is still so much more I want to learn about him. I really hope that he was respected in his past life because he really should have deserved it.

I hope that you had fun learning about him as much as I did. This warmed up my heart to learn this much about him and when you read this I bet it will warm up your heart too just like mine. That is why I chose to do my great grandpa. That is what I learned about him and now what you learned about him.