James Cooke, a member of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, reached out to Northwest Justice Project on the recommendation of his sister, who had attended an NJP Indian Wills Clinic. His wife had recently been diagnosed with cancer. “We were in the mind frame of getting our ducks in a row and being responsible in that away,” he recalls.
Most important was protecting his interests in eight allotments of Indian trust land — and ensuring they would pass to his wife and three children as protected Indian land.
One of those allotments was the family homestead, where James had grown up with his seven brothers and sisters since he was eleven years old. “It’s Indian trust land that my mom inherited from my great uncle,” he explains.
When his mother died, James inherited his share of the homestead along with fractional interests in other allotments. One of those — a roughly 100-acre tract — now has nearly 60 co-owners, the result of elders dying without wills, their interests dividing and subdividing with each passing generation until agreement on anything becomes an epic undertaking.
James’s homestead was more clearly his own — but even that was not straightforward. His children are not enrolled tribal members, and his wife is non-Indian. Under federal law, Indian trust land doesn’t automatically pass to non-Indian or non-enrolled heirs in the straightforward way he was accustomed to.
But he needed to know his wife could stay in their house if he died first. “It’s weird to think about it,” he says. He knew he had to.
He wanted his son to have a secure piece of land to build a life on. “My son’s 27. I don’t know how young people can even get started now. I wanted to give him that land so he could get his own place. I would help him build it.”
James’s corner of the homestead had never been logged — the tall firs and cedars still standing just as they were when he was a boy. “Cut a tree down,” he tells his son, “and it’s going to take more than your lifetime for it to be as big as it is right now.” He wanted that land secured before the first board went up.
Attorneys with NJP’s Native American Unit researched the applicable federal and tribal laws to determine how trust status could be preserved across generations for non-enrolled relatives. After hours of research over several months, NJP drafted and executed a complete estate plan: a Last Will and Testament, Powers of Attorney, and a Healthcare Directive ensuring that his end-of-life wishes will be honored. The documents ensure his trust property will pass to his chosen heirs, his wife could remain in their home, and the trust status of his family’s Indian land would be preserved for the next generation.
“Those documents gave me confidence that the land is not going to be taken away from them,” James says. “I’m so grateful to have that advice from my attorney and NJP. Without it, I would have been in the dark and may or may not have had a will by the time my kids and wife needed it.”