Mamie Perdash Wongan was an influential Northwestern Shoshone leader in the Washakie community who served in the ward Relief Society presidency for twenty years.¹ Mamie was born in Washakie, Utah Territory, on 3 January 1895 to Charley Perdash and Eunice Moemberg, both of whom came from prominent Northwestern Shoshone Latter-day Saint families.² As a child, she presumably attended the Washakie day school, where she learned to speak and read English. When she was ten years old, she was baptized and confirmed by George M. Ward, the third Euro-American bishop of the Washakie Ward, on 6 August 1905.³

Four months after her baptism, she began attending Sunday School meetings, where she gave scripture readings and performed musical numbers with other girls in the ward.⁴ In January 1908, at the age of thirteen, she began attending Relief Society meetings with her mother, Eunice, and grandmother Mogaguitch Perdash. Mamie was accepted as a member of the society on 2 January 1909. She would often sing in musical numbers and share testimony in meetings.⁵ As a teenager, she was also part of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association, in which she offered prayers, taught lessons, and shared her musical talents.⁶ It may have been during these years that she learned to play the organ, despite not knowing how to read music. Northwestern Shoshone tribal historian Mae Timbimboo Parry recalled that Mamie “played the organ. And she played the latest tunes, just by ear.”⁷

Through these community and church activities Mamie met her future spouse, Warren Wongan, who came from a prominent Northwestern Shoshone family. On 28 July 1915, a few months after turning twenty, Mamie married Warren in a traditional Shoshone marriage ceremony.⁸ Together they had eight children, two of whom lived to adulthood: Ivy Violet (1919–1984) and Eliza Jane (1924–2018).⁹

In early 1919, Mamie was called into the Washakie Ward Relief Society presidency under Mary Ann Ward, the organization’s third Euro-American president. Longtime Shoshone presidency members Cohn Shoshonitch Zundel and Towange Timbimboo were released, and in their place, Ward selected Minnie James Zundel—Cohn’s daughter-in-law—as first counselor and Mamie as second counselor.¹⁰ As a member of the Relief Society presidency, Mamie regularly taught lessons on scriptural subjects as well as the church’s literature curriculum. She also interpreted for Shoshone sisters who did not understand English.¹¹

Just over a decade after their customary Shoshone marriage ceremony, Mamie and Warren decided to be civilly married and sealed in the Logan Temple. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that “marriage licenses were issued today [15 January 1926] to Warren Wongan and Mamie Perdash, two young Indians from the Washakie reservation who came here today to go through the Logan Temple.”¹² In the temple, they received their endowments and were sealed together for time and all eternity.¹³

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Mamie and Warren were among the most well-known couples in the Washakie Ward. Warren served as Washakie Ward clerk from 1927 through 1929 and was charged with maintaining congregational records. When Joseph Parry became the fourth Euro-American bishop of the Washakie Ward on 9 April 1929, he selected Moroni Timbimboo as first counselor and Warren as second counselor in the bishopric.¹⁴ Parry’s wife, Margaret Morgan Parry, was called as the fourth Euro-American president of the Washakie Ward Relief Society on 2 June 1929; she selected Amy Hootchew Timbimboo as first counselor and Mamie as second counselor.¹⁵ On 1 March 1930, a photograph of Mamie and Warren appeared with a Deseret News story about Mamie giving Utah Governor George Dern “a pair of handsomely beaded buckskin gloves.”¹⁶ Three years later, a picture of the couple in traditional regalia was published in The Salt Lake Tribune to highlight their musical performance at a Utah Genealogical Society conference in the Salt Lake City tabernacle.¹⁷ Tragically, Warren died on 9 August 1934 at the age of thirty-six due to complications from a ruptured appendix.¹⁸

After nearly two decades of service, Mamie was released from the Washakie Ward Relief Society presidency along with Parry on 17 February 1939.¹⁹ She subsequently served as Sunday School teacher in the ward. In 1944, Mamie moved to Ogden, Utah, where she resided with her daughters, Eliza and Ivy, as well as her niece Lillian, who—like many Washakie residents—had presumably relocated due to employment in the defense industry.²⁰ Mamie died of heart disease at the age of sixty on 26 February 1956 in Ogden’s Dee Hospital. She was buried in the Washakie cemetery.²¹