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She plunges into research for tribal customs and crafts. She helps him unearth authentic dances and chants. She can even whip up a chief's basic buckskin.

The results of the Waldorf's extensive and enthusiastic interest in the American Indian will be an animated part of the Norfolk Arts Festival. Doug Waldorf's Skicoak Indian Dancers will perform in City Park July 8 at 6p.m. While her husband chants and explains such dances as the Cherokee Eagle, Mrs. Waldorf will be in the wings arrired in a smart little squaw number of her own making.

Doug Waldorf became involved with "the genuine, original Americans" through his work with the Boy Scouts. In keeping with his Scouts special ambition for Indian lore badges, he organized a dance group whose purpose is "recreating the old Indian ceremonies and legends as authentically as possible". The group grew into Explorer Post No. 305 and the Skicoak (pronounced Ski-Coke) Dancers.

Mrs. Waldorf's inside version of the group's growth is as colorful as a war bonnet. She maintains an open house for the prospective braves who practice their whooping in her backyard. She often puts her six children to sleep to the tune of Indian Chants. "And they're anything but soothing," she said.

Being seamstress for pale-faces is demanding enough, but Mrs. Waldorf's job as costume mistress is complicated by her unusual clientele. Once she was called on to fashion a tepee. "Canvas material was stretched from the living room to the bedroom, through the whole house," Mrs. Waldorf recalled.

Her sewing kit ovewrflows with evotic materials: leather thongs, bright beads, strips of rabbit fur, shells and claws. And don't forget the feathers. They are the most sought-after items, according to Mrs. Waldorf. "Doug and the scouts haunted poultry markets for them," she said. "We're all forever picking up feathers." Summing up the list of strange materials, Mrs. Waldorf added skunk and monkey fur. "Someone donated coats of those fabrics to the dancers. We made wigs from them," she said.

There have been times when Mrs. Waldorf felt her own home was a converted tepee. "One winter our bedroom walls were covered with bonnets, bows and arrows, and feather bustles," she said. "Doug didn't have a place to store them and he didn't want the feathers to get crushed or dusty," she explained with a grin.

Mrs. Waldorf's unflagging support of her husband's hobby is echoed by their three boys and three girls. Rod, 14, is a member of the dancing group. Jean, 10, Debra, eight, and "Winkie," six, who long ago discarded the name Mary Kathryn would all like to be a part of the team. (The Skicoak Dancers have several female members because so many of the Indian dances call for squaws.) Richard, four, and Peter, two, are a little young for the troupe but rehearsals are their favorite sport.

Mrs. Waldorf is a transplanted North Carolinian. Born Olive Jean Owens in Elizabeth City, she met her husband in high school. "Doug played the drums in the band and I played the piccolo," she said. After his stint in the Coast Guard, the couple was married in 1945. Doug Waldorf's radio work brought them to Tidewater where they have lived for eleven years and where they intend to stay.

Home for the Waldorf's is a buff-colored ranch house in the city of Virginia Beach. Its ample grounds make the location ideal for their children, their horse "Chief" and their pony "Princess".

The location is a happy choice for Mrs. Waldorf, too, and for the pursuit of her own special hobby - genealogy. She is particularly concerned with the Adam Thoroughgood family which she feels is related to her own. "As a child I was interested in my relatives," she explained. "Since then I've been tracking them down in courthouses, libraries, cemeteries, and through correspondence."

Mrs. Waldorf's research has uncovered several leads on a Francis Thoroughgood, originally from Norfolk, who moved to the Eastern Shore and then to North Carolina. Her current project is to link this Francis with the ancestors of her grandfather, Edward Amos Thorowgood Owens. "The name is spelled differently, but I think there is a connection," she said. "I am only missing two or three generations now." Mrs. Waldorf realizes her Thoroughgood theory may not be correct but she finds the testing exciting. "It's like tracking down a missing person," she said.

How Mrs. Waldorf find time and energy to track down missing relatives, while keeping up with her own children and her husband's hectic hobby is something of a mystery itself. Serenity is her answer. "With six children about, there are bound to be accidents every day. I just don't get excited." As for her husband's busy schedule, she accepts it smilingly. "I call him my star border. He loves studying Indian lore and working with Scouts. And I approve."