Jim La Rock: caretaker, catalyst, and Menominee Historian

A childhood scarred and scorched

Born in 1950 on the Menominee Reservation, Jim’s childhood was anchored by the rhythms of tribal life, but it was shattered by a cruel series of events that began when he was only in grade school.

That year, his two-and-a-half-year-old brother, Michael, died of cancer. Jim recalls his mother’s tireless devotion during the radiation treatments at St. Joseph’s Hospital, where she would comfort the crying toddler. Unbeknownst to her, she had been taking thalidomide vitamins, a drug she quickly threw away upon learning its horrifying effects. But the damage had been done. In May 1959, Michael passed away.

Just five months later, in October, his mother gave birth to another boy, who she named Mikel. His prenatal development was affected by thalidomide, and he was born without arms.

Only 2-1/2 years later, the family suffered a tremendous loss. While Jim’s mother was driving north on the highway, she was in a head-on collision with two cars recklessly drag racing south. The tragic accident left seven children without a mother. Friends and family rushed to support Jim’s father through this moment of crisis.

Jim was only 11 years old.

“We were scattered to several different homes,” Jim recalls, acknowledging the trauma that still affects him over six decades later. “We were separated as a means of survival.”

Jim eventually landed with an aunt and uncle in Keshena. His youngest sibling was just nine months old. The loss of his mother, compounded by the loss of his home and his siblings, fractured all sense of safety and security. Through this experience, Jim learned how cruel life without parents could be.

As Jim entered adolescence, he faced another kind of persecution. In the 1960s, being a "sissy queer" was a sentence to relentless harassment. He remembers a particular group of guys who would drive around, hollering names and threats, and making his life miserable. The anxiety was almost too much.

“When I recognized their car, I would step off the sidewalk and hide in the woods until they’d go by,” he says. “They’d never physically hurt me, but they were big guys, so I couldn’t challenge them. I didn’t know what might happen if they ever caught me.”

At 16, Jim dropped out of school, ready to work and support himself, finding jobs through youth programs as a teacher’s aide and in office work. The relentless harassment made the reservation feel like a cage. His chance for freedom came at age 17, through a Mandatory Training Act program that offered him a cooking apprenticeship in Milwaukee.

Stepping off the Greyhound bus in the big city was a cultural tidal wave.

Jim was used to the split world of Native Americans and white folks in Shawano. In Milwaukee, the streets were filled with people of every nationality. Checking into the YMCA on 9th and Wisconsin, he took a walk down Wisconsin Avenue. His initial shock quickly gave way to a powerful, intoxicating sense of relief.

“I felt a sense of relief and freedom and just being on my own,” he remembers. “Not having to worry about that car of guys coming by and harassing me. Not being bothered by anyone. Everyone was in their own world. Nobody paid attention to me. I was now part of a much, much bigger world.”

For the first time since he lost his mother, Jim felt he could breathe. His physical escape had become his emotional salvation.

An unexpected detour

Despite his taste of the city, Jim returned to the reservation, eventually earning his credentials at Antigo Vocational School as a clerk typist. Graduating, he landed a stable job at the Menominee Co-op Supermarket, rising to assistant manager.

He was back home, but the need for more income and a bit of excitement led to an unexpected chapter.

“Pot was here, and everyone wanted some!” he said.

Through friends, Jim got set up selling marijuana on the reservation. At first, he would buy a quarter-pound, roll joints, and sell them. What started as a side hustle quickly escalated. He purchased high-quality product from Stevens Point and began moving three to four pounds a week.

After a lifetime of identifying as a gay man, he stumbled upon the term Two Spirit on the Internet. It was not something he’d considered before, nor something that anyone in his family had discussed with him. It was a revelation, a validation of his entire life experience. 

Jim realized he had been living this identity all along.

“I look at Two Spirit life as living both male and female lives in harmony,” he explains. “You are a caretaker, a healer, an advice-giver, a source of heritage and culture, a keeper of traditions, but also someone who creates and maintains spaces where others feel truly, deeply, cared for.”

He recalled remembering his mother’s meticulous rituals, cooking 14 loaves of bread and two pans of biscuits, and realizing he had naturally picked up those rituals in his own homes, becoming the innate caretaker for his birth and chosen families.

He began speaking publicly about his lived experiences. After sharing his story at the Indian Center in Milwaukee, he received an emotionally powerful response from the audience: tears, laughter, heartfelt applause. An Oneida woman presented him with a gift: a handmade coin purse with Two Spirit symbols in the shape of a heart.

Now in his 70s, Jim has found a powerful, ancestral identity to articulate who he has always been.

A lasting legacy

Around 2013, Jim moved back to the reservation and, with the purchase of his first laptop in 2014, his final and most significant purpose took flight: chronicling Menominee history.

He started telling stories on Facebook, not of national timelines, but of daily life on the Menominee reservation. He spoke of the ways things used to be, at a time that increasingly few could even remember. 

His followers were quickly hooked – and he earned the title of The Menominee Historian.

His most popular contribution was sharing old yearbooks and 23 scrapbooks he had collected since he was 14. He scanned candid photos, class pictures, and newspaper clippings that documented the community experience, allowing families to understand their heritage and meet relatives they’d never seen before. It was a tangible way to preserve a history that might have easily been lost.

“People got to the point where they expected me to share,” he says. “I felt a calling.”

Through this role, Jim feels appreciated and celebrated. While recently broadcasting live on Facebook, Jim watched the Homecoming Parade pass by. As the sophomore float went by, the students began yelling his name. The same community that once called him names and sent him into hiding now calls him out and celebrates exactly who he is. 

He is respected not despite who he is, but because of the purpose he forged through decades of service to his people.