Early life Michael Dorris was born in
Louisville, Kentucky, to Mary Besy (née Burkhardt) and Jim Dorris. The senior Dorris was later reported as
mixed race, with a Native American father. His father died before Dorris was born, reportedly by suicide during
WWII. In an article published in
New York Magazine two months after Dorris's death, a reporter quoted the
Modoc tribal historian as saying, "Dorris was probably the descendant of a white man named Dorris whom records show befriended the Modocs on the West Coast just before and after the
Modoc War of 1873. Even so, there is no record of a Dorris having been enrolled as an Indian citizen on the
Klamath rolls." The
Washington Post reported: "Dorris' father's mother, who was white, became pregnant by her Indian boyfriend, but, the times being what they were, she could not marry him. She later married a white man named Dorris." Dorris was raised as an only child by his mother, who became a secretary for the
Democratic Party. He did his field work in Alaska, studying the effects of offshore drilling on the
Native Alaskan communities. At a time of rising Native American activism, in 1972, Dorris helped form
Dartmouth College's
Native American studies department, and served as its first chair. He was named a
Guggenheim Fellow in 1977 for his work in Anthropology & Cultural Studies. In 1980, he took his three adopted children with him from
Cornish, New Hampshire to New Zealand, where he had arranged a year's sabbatical. Erdrich dedicated her novels
The Beet Queen (1986), (1988), and
The Bingo Palace to Dorris. The family lived in
Cornish, New Hampshire. While teaching at Dartmouth, Dorris frequently mentored other students. He was part of the successful effort to eliminate the college's Indian mascot. In 1985, after the couple had received major grants, the family moved for a year to
Northfield, Minnesota. After the success of
The Broken Cord in 1989, and an advance of $1.5 million for the outline of
Crown of Columbus, Dorris quit teaching at Dartmouth to become a full-time writer. == Personal life ==