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Beverly Maxwell stays the course
Beverly Maxwell (Environmental Biology, ’08)
Rooted on land she’s known her whole life in Shiprock, New Mexico, Beverly Maxwell (Environmental Biology, ’08) is a farmer, a scientist, a mother, a veteran, and a first-generation college graduate. She lives and works on her farm, Tó’aheedlíinii, the name of her maternal clan, The Water Flows Together people. The farm has served as Maxwell’s true north, guiding light, greatest burden, and source of treasures that can only be understood by those who are deeply connected to their place on earth.
“One day, I heard my husband tell our sons, ‘you don’t realize how rich a life you’re living out here,’” Maxwell says. “It’s a rich heritage that the dollar can’t match, being able to grow your own chemical-free food, to hop on your horse and ride out your backyard, to help out and learn from other farmers and ranchers. It’s a difficult way of life but it’s also beautiful.”
In the spirit of maternal-based cultural stewardship, Maxwell’s mother and grandmother taught her that her ancestors fought to reclaim this land and it is therefore their responsibility and privilege to take care of it above anything else. After her father passed away when Maxwell was a teenager, Maxwell recalls tough times for her mother, who was not only raising eight children but also running the farm and raising livestock. Brimming with traditional knowledge, Maxwell’s mother sacrificed her educational journey to help on the farm and ranch and never received formal learning beyond elementary school.
Maxwell also grappled with the tension between pursuing an education or running the farm and ranching. She dropped out of high school in the tenth grade to help her mom with the sheep, goats, and cattle before deciding that she must graduate. Focusing on school while navigating the challenges of life on the reservation proved formidable for Maxwell, so she applied to Riverside Indian School in Anadarko, Oklahoma. While she had experienced the brutality of boarding school in elementary school, Maxwell says Riverside offered a supportive environment and she graduated in 1983, the first in her family to receive a high school diploma.
She returned to the farm to herd sheep for a year before enrolling at Navajo Community College (now Diné College). In 1986, she once again paused her educational journey to join the Marine Corps, where she served in Logistics and Transportation as a traffic management specialist for seven years. She was stationed in Southwest Asia during the Gulf War and was honorably discharged in 1995. After a brief stint in California, she returned to Shiprock with her newborn son.
Maxwell once again found herself helping her aging mother shear sheep, plant tomatoes, mend fences–everything to keep the farm and ranch afloat. As soon as her husband retired from the Marine Corps in 2000 and joined her at Tó’aheedlíinii Farms, Maxwell decided it was time to return to Diné College. With little direction to her studies, she applied for an internship conducted by chemistry professor Marnie Carroll. With a master’s in chemistry from the University of Colorado at Boulder, Carroll also taught at FLC as an adjunct professor from 1999 through 2003. During this time, she earned a degree in Computer Science Information Systems, graduating from FLC in 2002.
“She personally took me and my family to tour the FLC campus,” recalls Maxwell. “If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have successfully transferred.”
Maxwell spent the next two years driving to Durango from Shiprock for classes. She sometimes slept in her car or stayed on friends’ couches until she found a room to rent from Yvonne Bilinski, director of FLC’s Native American Center at that time. With two semesters left, she took another break from school to have her third son. During this time, Maxwell says Carroll visited and encouraged her to return to FLC when she was ready.
More than two decades after starting her journey toward a college degree, Maxwell finally graduated in 2008 with a major in Environmental Biology. Carroll then introduced Maxwell to Harvard University researchers, who were documenting ant species in the Four Corners. Maxwell joined the project and enrolled in Northern Arizona University’s master’s program in biology, which she continues to chip away at when she isn’t busy running the farm or ranching. Maxwell says she owes much of her success to the Tó’aheedlíinii maternal lineage, the paternal clan Tlaaschii lineage, and the women who showed up along the way.
“Marnie definitely established the foundational platform for me to keep moving forward,” Maxwell says, adding that Carroll died of ovarian cancer in 2014. “She really saw potential and tried to be there for me and provide opportunities for all students. She showed me that all it takes is the right person to come in at the right time and be understanding of the challenges. It wasn’t easy to graduate with all these things, the family, the farm, the livestock, the pressure of not dropping the ball from generation to generation. To think what my mother, my grandmother, were able to do, and honoring that matriarchal lineage… I don’t want to drop the ball. I want to honor not just my grandparents but our ancestors, too.”