Summary of findings:
- Erika Wurth claims her grandmother Marguerite Riggs had Apache, Chickasaw, and
Cherokee ancestry, but our research proves she doesn’t have ancestry from any of those
tribes. - Marguerite was 15, not 14, and Otis Warren Austin was 17 when they married. He was
not a “much older beau,” as Wurth claims. - Marguerite was not pregnant when she married Otis Austin, as Wurth claims.
- Wurth tends to add more and more to her family stories as she becomes more well-known.
- There is no evidence that Marguerite Riggs Temple was murdered by her second husband
Cecil Temple. The death certificate for Marguerite clearly states that her death was caused
by suicide. - The death certificate for Marguerite Riggs was not “doctored,” as Wurth claims.
- Cecil Temple was white, not “white passing,” as Wurth claims.
- Edith Youts’s (Erika’s aunt) comments on Marguerite’s death directly contradict Wurth’s.
- Wurth tries to capitalize on the heightened awareness of MMIW in this country by adding
her white grandmother to the MMIW database. - Wurth tries to prove her Native background by sharing a photo of her grandmother but
the photo proves nothing. - Wurth claims her great-grandfather Earl Riggs was “Apache and Chickasaw,” but he was
listed as white on censuses, a Social Security application, and WWI and WWII draft cards. - Earl Riggs was born in Maryland, and his father was John Riggs, who was also from
Maryland. He wasn’t born anywhere near Apache or Chickasaw lands.
Erika Temple Wurth (b. 1975) is a Colorado native who claims undocumented, “urban” Apache/
Chickasaw/Cherokee ancestry. (More recently, she’s also been claiming Black ancestry from the
South.) She is a full professor of Creative Writing at Western Illinois University (WSU) and an
author of three novels, two books of poetry, and a collection of stories, all of which focus on Native
characters and issues. She received a hefty advance (between $100,000 to $250,000) for her latest
book, White Horse, about an urban Native who lives in Denver, CO. In January of 2023, she will
be publishing a children’s picture book about a mixed-race girl of Apache and Chickasaw descent.
Her claims of Native ancestry are built upon a foundation of exaggerations, half-truths, and outright
lies, however. This article will show that Erika Wurth is a classic example of a Pretendian, someone
who co-opts Native identity in order to represent and monetize cultures that don’t claim her and
don’t belong to her.
Wurth has been building her brand since she first became a published writer. Part of this brand is
that of an edgy, hip, colloquial-language-loving, mixed-race writer who focuses almost exclusively
on her alleged Native American background. Her interviews tend to highlight the violent, troubled,
and hypersexualized nature of this Native family, often mentioning the “Indian whorehouse” she
says two female members of her family worked at, the bout of syphilis her grandmother’s first
mixed-race husband gave her grandmother while she was heavily pregnant, her grandmother’s
suicide (which she now says was a murder), and mixed-race male relatives who liked to drink
themselves into a rage and kick pregnant women in the belly.
Wurth has been highly defensive and dismissive of calls to provide proof of this Native ancestry,
common with Pretendians. It was time to take a long look at her claims and family background.
A group of Native genealogists, scholars, and writers, with deep expertise in tribal and white
settler genealogies, built a tree of over 4400 of Erika Wurth’s family members in order to examine
her background. Building this tree and gathering documents, newspaper articles, and photos of
these people took over two years due to the complicated and occasionally slippery nature of
Wurth’s family. We also gathered information from open source internet research, including
comments made by Wurth’s own family members. Finally, we examined Wurth’s own words from
the interviews she’s done. In this piece, we will dissect her own words and see how they stack up
to the genealogical record and other types of evidence.
Note: We will be using the original family names of all the women noted in this article, for the
sake of consistency, and we will use the spelling of Marguerite Riggs’s first name as noted on her
Erika Wurth’s maternal grandmother Marguerite Ruby Riggs
Wurth doesn’t claim any Native ancestry on her father’s side, which made our job a little easier.
(We built out the tree for her father’s side, anyway, and they were all white, as we suspected.)
Wurth does claim Apache, Chickasaw, and Cherokee ancestry through her maternal grandmother
Marguerite Riggs Temple:
My grandmother, Margarite Temple, came from a long line of urban Indians (of Apache,
Chickasaw, and Cherokee descent) and suffered much.
Her mother’s side is complicated, with a large extended family who moved often, had multiple
marriages and divorces, and large, blended families. To add an additional layer of confusion, her
extended family tended to reuse first and middle names for subsequent generations. They also
tended to use nicknames or middle names instead of first names at times, depending on the city
listing, census, marriage, or death certificate. While we could say the same of many Native
families, Wurth makes use of this complicated family to plant her “Indian” ancestors.
Wurth’s grandmother Marguerite Riggs is important to her story of being a Native, so we need to
unpack her background. She was born in Houston, Texas, on January 9, 1913, to Earl Westley Riggs
and Oda Edith Martin. She was the only child of this union; by the time of the 1920 census, her
mother Oda had abandoned her. The 1920 census notes that Marguerite was living with her single
father and grandmother Annie James Coffin in Ranger, Texas. This family is listed as white on the
1920 census.
In a 2017 interview with The Next Best Book Blog, Wurth writes:
My grandmother had what was essentially an arranged marriage at 14. Though Native
Americans did do this traditionally, traditionally it was done by someone just trying to
make sure you weren’t marrying a cousin. But as things became bad for Indians, and
Natives feared for survival, those arranged marriages became more compulsory, and my
great-grandmother, who was raising her, made sure she was alone enough with her much
older beau to guarantee a pregnancy. He was a drinker, and when she was almost due he
walked up the porch steps and kicked her in her pregnant stomach. She left him, and the
baby survived, though the Catholic Church excommunicated her.
There are several problems with Wurth’s story. Wurth typically has a strange loss of fluency when
she speaks about her family or the milieu in which they lived, possibly signaling discomfort, as if
aware she’s fabricating. She says: “But as things became bad for Indians, and Natives feared for
survival, those arranged marriages became more compulsory, and my great-grandmother, who
was raising her, made sure she was alone enough with her much older beau to guarantee a preg-
nancy.” What does this even mean? Were things not bad for Indians prior to the 1930s? Natives
didn’t fear for survival before 1930? To suggest that things weren’t bad for Indians before the
1930s is bizarre and shows a distinct lack of knowledge of Native American history. Yet Wurth,
who has a Ph.D., has set herself up as a writer who covers exclusively Native topics and who
speaks with authority on Native subjects.
In addition, while we can’t verify if this was indeed an arranged marriage, the 1930 census states
that Marguerite was 15—not 14–and Otis Warren Austin was 17 when they married. He was not
a “much older beau,” as dramatic and edgy as that sounds: he was only two years older. Their
baby, Otis, Jr., was 3 months old, and according to the census, Otis Austin, Sr., was still living in
the household. And Otis Jr. wasn’t born until the young couple had been married for at least two
years, so the reference to young Marguerite’s mother setting the couple up so that Marguerite
would get pregnant is clearly a fabrication. This is one of the many times we’ve seen where Erika
Wurth slants the story toward a highly dramatic rendition of events.
And once again, this entire family is listed as white on the 1930 census.
Wurth states that her great-grandmother Oda Edith Martin was raising Marguerite and allowed
young Marguerite to get pregnant, essentially endorsing a rape. While we have no way of knowing
when Oda Edith left Texas, she married Chester Cullin in Terre Haute, Indiana, on Dec. 1, 1923,
when Marguerite was only 10 years old. Wurth may’ve meant to reference her great-great-
grandmother Annie James, who reared Marguerite, as the one who set up the supposed rape of
young Marguerite, but we can’t tell. At any rate, this is another example of Wurth’s sloppy manner
of addressing her family issues.
Wurth discusses this marriage again in her October 31, 2022 interview with Crime Reads:
My grandmother, Margarite Temple, came from a long line of urban Indians (of Apache,
Chickasaw, and Cherokee descent) and suffered much. Without the finances to realize her
dream of becoming a blues singer in New York, Annie James, the Chickasaw whorehouse
owner grandmother who raised her, arranged a marriage with a much older man. Margarite
was 14. He beat her, gave her syphilis, walked up the steps of their house drunk, and kicked
her while she was pregnant.
In keeping with her penchant for drama, Wurth insinuates that Marguerite was 14 when she was
kicked in her pregnant belly, but her first child, Otis Austin, Jr., was born December 27, 1929,
when Marguerite was 16. (Note that the birth certificate says she was 17. Her 17th birthday was
just around the corner: January 9, 1930.)
And we must point out that Otis Austin Jr.’s birth certificate states that the father and mother are
both white.
That syphilis story is new, as well. Wurth tends to pad her family stories as she becomes more and
more well-known.
Here is more evidence that Wurth can’t keep her stories straight. From Crime Reads (Oct. 2022):
I’ll never forget the scream coming from the basement the day my mother learned her mother
had been murdered by her own husband—or had committed suicide.
First of all, there is absolutely no evidence that Marguerite Temple was murdered by her second
husband Cecil Temple. The death certificate for Marguerite clearly states that her death was caused
by suicide (a gunshot wound to the head). But calling it a murder sounds even more dramatic and
spooky, part of Wurth’s self-branding as an edgy horror writer. The idea of a 69-year-old woman
committing suicide is tragic enough in itself without Erika’s spin.
But back in 2017, Wurth noted that Marguerite’s husband tried to stop her:
When I was 6, she raised a gun to her temple, and when her husband tried to stop her, one
way or another, that gun went off and killed her.
Here we are again: as time goes on, Wurth adds more drama to her stories.
“White or white-passing” Cecil Temple
A quote from Wurth’s November 2022 Shondaland interview is relevant here.
All my life, I’d heard that my grandmother suffered from melancholy and that she suicided
by gun. Later on, it kind of struck me that that was odd because she was raised around guns.
And also, women don’t usually suicide by gun. Sure enough, when my mother had a cop
look at the death certificate, the cop was like, “This does look doctored. I’d say it’s possible
your father murdered your mother.” And since he was white or white passing, the people in
his community let it go.
Cecil Temple was white, according to censuses and his WWII draft card, not “white-passing.” The
idea that Cecil Temple may be “white-passing” is a more recent one, part of Erika’s agenda of
stretching her family’s story to plant more possible Native ancestors.
Wurth states that, “And since he was white or white passing, the people in his community let it
go.” This is a typical generalized Wurth comment—when she’s confabulating, she’s vague. She
says “the people in his community let it go,” but there didn’t appear to be any outcry against Cecil
Temple in his rural community of Carancahua, Jackson County, Texas. We ran a check on
newspaper articles associated with this suicide, and saw no mention of it, much less with Cecil
Temple as a possible wife murderer.
This is a community so small that it wasn’t even reporting a population after 1931. The population
was too small to “let it go,” especially since there were valid beliefs that Marguerite Riggs had
committed suicide. Readers can see for themselves the copy of Marguerite Riggs’s death certificate.
It doesn’t look doctored.
Wurth’s argument against Marguerite Riggs killing herself because she’d been around guns for most
of her life seems trite, but it fits her agenda of overdramatizing her family background. Research
into suicides and gun ownership shows that people who have guns in their homes are more likely
to use them on the spur of the moment, especially when factors such as rage, alcohol, drugs, or
depression are involved, so Marguerite’s tragic suicide was possibly unavoidable. (See also here
and here.) Just because she was raised around guns doesn’t mean she didn’t shoot herself with one.
There seems to have been a struggle between husband and wife over the gun, according to Erika’s
aunt Edith Youts (discussed below), with the husband trying to disarm his wife, but the death
certificate notes that the death was caused by suicide and Marguerite’s depressive temperament
suggests she may have seen suicide as the only way out of her pain. For all we know, the
combination of being depressed and living in such an isolated area may have been what drove
her to kill herself.
We were able to access public-facing comments made on ancestry.com by Edith Youts, Erika’s
aunt (her mother Merle Wurth’s younger sister). Youts presents a clear-eyed and less dramatic
rendition of events. (See here for a screenshot of these comments.)
edithyouts 9 years ago
Margueritte’s death: When Dad [Cecil Temple] called he said that Mom had shot herself.
Later he said she accidentally shot herself. The detective and coroner could not agree as
to whether it was sucide or accidental. Still a tragic mystery.
Here Youts doesn’t raise the possibility of murder. She has nothing to gain by spinning the story
in an even more tragic direction, but Wurth does. Wurth spins in order to build her brand as a writer
who has a violent and troubled Native family with a lot of sensational, attention-grabbing stories
to tell, in order to “prove” she’s Indian.
Marguerite Riggs again, the MMIW database, and that dress
From the 2022 Westword article:
The story was that my grandmother had suicided. But then later, a cop looked at her police
report and decided that, no, it looks to me like her husband murdered her.” But because of
the government’s lack of record-keeping for the Native population, “she wouldn’t be listed
as a missing and murdered Indigenous woman, but yes, she is. Of course she is.”
Of course she’s not. Marguerite Riggs has never been listed as Native on any census, marriage, or
death certificate. Marguerite Riggs did not enroll in any tribe, either, and neither did any other
member of her family.
In addition, Erika’s assertion that her grandmother was murdered by her husband is a newer one,
not an attitude Erika shared in interviews until the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s
database became well-known in recent years. We’ve heard that Wurth added her grandmother’s
name to the MMIW database. If this is the case, she’s clearly trying to capitalize on the heightened
awareness of MMIW in this country–part of her agenda of seeming more Indian without actually
being Indian. While this isn’t surprising, it seems disrespectful and careless to add her white
grandmother to the MMIW database.
Wurth often uses a photo of her grandmother Marguerite Riggs to “prove” her Native ancestry.
The photo shows a late middle-aged woman wearing what seems to be a smock-type dress with
tribal embroidery on it. Wurth has posted this photo at least four times (as of December, 2022) on
her Facebook page, indicating the photo has great sentimental value; but this photo, which Wurth
may have sent to her publisher as proof that she’s Native, doesn’t actually prove much of anything.
The writer of this article showed this photo to an enrolled member of the Shawnee tribe who grew
up in the 1970s. Her response: “That’s not a tribal dress; it’s a cotton smock dress made in the 70s.
My mom had a similar one, she bought it at JC Penney’s or Kmart.” For a look at traditional
Chickasaw tribal clothing—the Chickasaw tribe being the primary focus of Erika Wurth’s claims
to Native ancestry–see this link. The only thing this photo proves is that Marguerite Riggs wore
a mass-produced dress. A photo—and a dress–cannot prove descent.
Erika Wurth’s great-grandfather Earl Riggs
From Wurth’s 2017 interview in Next Best Book Blog:
She [Annie James] had also owned an Indian whorehouse (which is where her son – who
was Apache and Chickasaw, met his wife, a well-off Cherokee runaway who had ended up
working there).
(We will address the “well-off Cherokee runaway” and the “Indian whorehouse” claims later.)
The son referred to here is Earl Riggs (1883-1948), father of Marguerite Riggs and son of Annie
James and John W. Riggs. Earl married Oda Edith Martin (1895-1944) in 1912, according to their
marriage certificate. He is listed as white on every document that we saw. You can see our repository
of censuses, a Social Security application, death certificate, and WWI and WWII draft cards on this
man here.
We also took a long look at Earl Riggs’s family background. We will unpack Annie James’s
background in Part 2 of this article, so for now we’ll focus on John W. Riggs, Earl Rigg’s father.
John W. Riggs (1852-?) married Tommy James (1863-1938) in 1881 in Kinney, Texas. (Annie
James went by the name of Tommy [after her father John Thomas James] when she was younger.)
Before marrying, John Riggs was a private in the Army, as this census shows.
While John Riggs is one of the more mysterious people in this cast of characters, as there isn’t
much known about him, the census also shows that Riggs was born in Maryland, and that both
of his parents were born in Maryland. He is listed as being white on the 1880 census. His two
daughters, Ruby Riggs Burke and Pearl Riggs Stude, are listed as white on their death certificates.
In other words, he wasn’t Apache and Chickasaw. His line ends in Maryland, way beyond the
borders of the Apache and Chickasaw tribes.
Next: Performing Identity: Erika Wurth’s Tall Tales, Part 2
Because we had a great deal of content to cover, we decided to break this article into Parts 1, 2,
and 3. We hope any readers of Part 1 of this article will come back Monday, January 23, when
we will publish Part 2 on this blog.
Part 2 will cover Wurth’s great-grandmother Oda Edith Martin, the supposed “well-off Cherokee
runaway” that Wurth claims worked in Annie James’s “Indian whorehouse” in Houston, Texas,
circa 1912. We will cover how we found that Oda Edith Martin was not well-off, was probably not
a runaway, and was definitely not a Cherokee. We will also discuss the famous “Kaloma” photo,
since Wurth and her mother Merle ardently believe this photo is that of Oda Edith Martin.
Then we’ll move on to a discussion of Annie James, Wurth’s great-great-grandmother. While Annie
James was an impressive, indefatigable woman who had several husbands, moved often, worked hard,
and generally kept her whole family together, we’ll prove she wasn’t Apache or Chickasaw, and that
she never owned an “Indian whorehouse.”
Link to Part 2.
Comments? Questions? Contact us at worphies@gmail.com. Note that we won’t respond to hate
mail.
Link to Part 2
