Winona was born to a Lakota man named Wapasha (red leaf)

He met Caroline, his wife and her mother, a white woman who lived with her two sisters in the Dakota territory as teachers

She fell in love with him and everything about him, but the sisters resented him for simply his race, however they really couldn't stop their sister from marrying him and they had their child.

She was called Winona because it meant "firstborn daughter" and was to be her placeholder name until she got old enough to get an adult name- caroline thought using a lakota naming system was beautiful.

Wapasha could not stand living with her sisters so without complaining, went out to find a place to make a home, and began to build one. While he was gone, Caroline fell ill. They sent a letter to him, but by the time he got it, she was already dead. And as he was rushing home, they abandoned his daughter somewhere.

He came home to what he thought was a sick wife and arrived to no wife and no child.

She was adopted by cowboys Denver and Daniel and they raised her. She was particularly close with Denver, but she loved both of her dads very much.

She was reunited with her biological father when she was 16 and he moved in with them. In the next few years she married her husband Henry and shortly had her son Wolfgang.