Laate, Jennie

Jennie Laate was born into Acoma Pueblo in September 1933. Her mother was Frances Abeita, her grandmother Dolores Stein. Jennie learned how to make pottery by watching and working with them as she was growing up. Then she married Neil Laate and moved to his home at Zuni Pueblo.

At Zuni, Jennie met Hopi potter Daisy Hooee, the granddaughter of Nampeyo of Hano. Daisy was teaching the ceramics classes at Zuni High School and working with older women from around the pueblo in her own home. Jennie learned how to make pottery the Zuni way by working with Daisy. In 1974 Daisy retired from teaching at the High School and Jennie took over the classes.

Jennie taught pottery making at Zuni High until a medical diagnosis forced her to step back in 1990. Noreen Simplicio took over the classes on a temporary basis but after Jennie died in 1992, Noreen handed the classes over to Gabriel Paloma.

Jennie participated in events like the Santa Fe Indian Market and the Heard Museum Guild Indian Arts Fair & Market. She was featured in Gifts of Mother Earth: Ceramics in the Zuni Tradition, a traveling exhibit put together by the Heard Museum for 1983-1984. She was featured again in the Rain traveling exhibit, also put together by the Heard Museum but in 1993, after she’d passed on.