Stella Leach (June 12, 1918 – January 29, 2010) was a Colville-Oglala Lakota nurse and activist who was known for her work in establishing the first American Indian children's wellness center in the San Francisco Bay Area, setting up the health clinic during the Occupation of Alcatraz, and her activism for native American self-determination. Early life and education Stella Nellie Runnels was born on June 12, 1918, in Ferry County, Washington to Maud/Maude Stella (née Sears) and Hiram Bagley Runnels. Her mother was enrolled as a Pine Ridge Sioux, along with her half-sister Pearl Stirk and oldest brother Raymond Runnels. Maude had previously been married to James Stirk, but he and their son James, Jr. died before 1907. Runnels and her siblings — Mary E (1908), John A. (1909), George W. (1912), Louis (1914), Juanita Elsie (1915), William Riley (1920), Josephine Myrtle (1921), Clara (1923), Hiram Jr. (1924), and Thaddeus (1927) — were enrolled with their father in the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. The children began their schooling in Keller, Washington, but when Runnels was 10, they taken from their father's farm and sent by Indian Agency officials to American Indian boarding schools. On July 9, 1936, at Davenport, Washington, Runnels married Johnnie Bray. The couple had two sons, Kenneth Patrick and Garry Thomas Bray, before they separated in 1940. She later had four other children and married Harry Leland Leach, Sr. During the 1950s, Leach was critical of the Colville tribes' involvement with the National Congress of American Indians and the NCAI's backing of investigations on Un-American activities and McCarthyism. By 1959, the couple had divorced and Leach moved to Oakland, California as part of the Indian Relocation Program. Career and activism When Leach arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area with her 6 children, she intended to go to school, but the Relocation Act required her to get a job. She joined the staff of the Peralta Hospital as a nurse's aide. She eventually was able to transfer to the night shift and enrolled at Laney College, earning her certificate as a licensed practical nurse (LPN). She began working as a nurse for Dr. David Tepper and actively worked to improve medical care for the urban Indian population in the Bay Area. Because health care for Native Americans had been removed from federal programs in 1955 and given to states to administer, lack of funding resulted