On October 14, 2004 at 7:00 PM Lillian Little Soldier Klaudt, matriarch of The Klaudt Indian Family, was inducted into the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame in Dollywood, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

Ms. Klaudt was born near Beaver Creek, North Dakota on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation June 29, 1906. Known as White Corn Little Soldier on the Reservation, she was legally Lillian Little Soldier in the archives of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Records.

Lillian accepted Christ as her personal Savior in her pre-teen years and began taking music and singing lessons from the Missionary's Daughter, Dora Hall. During her teen years, Lillian began doing missionary work and spreading the message of Jesus to her Indian and German neighbors near her family ranch on the Reservation. Many of these were saved.

Her formal education was garnered in Government Schools set up by the United States Department of Interior. Upon graduation from Government High School, The Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee, assisted her in attending their Bible Training School in Sevierville, Tennessee in 1925. Until her death in 2001, she was one of the oldest surviving alumnae of the Lee University Education System now located in Cleveland, Tennessee.

While in Sevierville, Tennessee, Southern Gospel Music and Singing became a passion with her. She took this style of music back to the Dakota Badlands of North Dakota and upon her marriage to Reverend R, H. Klaudt in 1929, the young Klaudt husband and wife team returned to BTS in Sevierville, Tennessee to further their education.

Lillian is now a part of a wonderful full circle story and honor. In 1925 as a 19 year old Indian lass, she went to Sevierville, Tennessee birthplace of Dolly Parton, and now 79 years later she is being honored in Dolly Parton's Dollywood Facility by the SGMA.

klaudtmemorial@bellsouth.net