The doctor who came from the valley into our log cabin in the hills looked at me, threw up his hands, and whispered to my father, 'You send him away. He doesn't belong in the valley community. He'll never learn like other children. He'll never speak like other children. You send him away.'"

Those were some of the first words spoken over a newborn Chippewa infant in 1939. Don Bartlette was born into the world in rural North Dakota with fetal alcohol syndrome, resulting in a life-threatening heart condition, emerging with only half of a nose, and suffering a debilitating cleft palate that rob...