Jerry Wolfe didn’t set out to be the voice and the face of his people
He fell into the job 10 years ago by accident when a man came to see him after visiting the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. The man said a cashier had been rude, almost throwing his change at him after he paid for admission. Wolfe, a retired carpenter and mason, went to the museum’s managers with his concern.
“We need someone here to talk to the people,” Wolfe recalled the museum’s director saying to a co-worker after hearing the complaint. “We don’t have anyone to greet them or to tell them welcome or tell them anything when they come in. Where in the world can we get a person like that?”
The woman the museum’s director had been talking to quickly replied.
“He is standing right by you,” she said.
Since then, Wolfe, 83, has worked Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the museum. He is an elder of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and a true expert on the tribe’s history, stories, culture and its current role as one of Western North Carolina’s economic leaders.
If you are planning a trip to the museum, try to stop by when he is working. You’ll come away with a better understanding of the Principal People.
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