Willow Anne Powers

Willow Powers
Willow Anne Powers (nee Roberts) died in Santa Fe on December 21, 2018.
Willow was born in London, England, in 1943. As a baby her mother placed her cradle under the kitchen table during bombing raids. The daughter of a Royal Air Force officer, she spent her childhood years in England, Malta, and Canada. After graduating from the Sorbonne in Paris, France, she worked for the Conservative Party in London. In 1964, she moved to New York City where she worked for Oxford University Press, the Circle in the Square Theater School, as a free-lance cartographer, and for Tandler Textiles. Fifteen years later, she moved to Albuquerque to attend the University of New Mexico, where she earned her PhD degree in anthropology. While working on a field project in Chaco Canyon, Willow met archaeologist Robert P. Powers, which led to a long happy marriage.
Willow worked as an archivist for the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian for 22 years and while there created the Museum’s first archival outreach program. She also set up and ran the archives at the Museum of New Mexico’s Museum of Indian Art and Culture. She was an archival consultant at the School for Advanced Research, the National Park Service, the New York State Museum, and several Native American pueblos and tribes. She taught anthropology at the University of New Mexico and the University of Iowa. In 2016, through a donation to the Wheelwright, she established the Robert and Willow Powers Archival Outreach Program. Through it, the Museum has already entered into collaborative projects with Taos and Santa Clara pueblos.
Willow was the author of Stokes Carson: Twentieth-Century Trading on the Navajo Reservation, Navajo Trading: The End of an Era, and Transcription Techniques for the Spoken Word. She was an astute and sensitive scholar with energetic intellectual curiosity and strong opinions. She was an avid reader and an expert at charades. Most of all, she was a fun generous person who loved a good laugh and enjoyed cooking and entertaining her friends.
During her six-month illness, Willow was supported by a close circle of friends in Santa Fe. She was sadly predeceased by her loving husband Bob and her brother Jonathan. She will be deeply mourned by her many friends; her sister and brother-in-law, Hilary Phillips and Peter Ryan; her sister-in-law and brother-in-law Candace and Frank Ercoli; her cousin Wendy Rowland; and many nephews, nieces, grand nephews, and grand nieces.
Gifts in memory of Willow Powers can be made to:
The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian
704 Camino Lejo, Santa Fe, NM 87505
or online at https://wheelwright.org/
Please note "In memory of Willow Powers"