August 1977 St. Paul’s Mission and Education

8-2-77 trailer

Father told us that all the arrangements had been finalized. Clemence will be hired to cook dinner for him and all the volunteers five days during the week, and we will be eating in the rectory. His motive is community spirit.

8-5-77 reservation

Today was the first Friday communion. On the first Friday of every month, Father goes around the reservation, and he takes communion to the older people on the reservation who, because of sickness or immobility cannot attend mass. This has been a long-standing practice at the mission. Father Simoneau did it for years also. It usually takes a day or two with Father driving all around the reservation to where the old people live.

8-8-77 mission

Father, Jim and I went up to the mission sheep shed to clean the chicken coops. We had between 40-50 chickens, but a dog got into the shed and killed about 25 chickens. It was a bloody mess with feathers and chickens everywhere. About seven chickens were badly wounded and the other chickens were eating them alive. Jim took these wounded chickens home to eat.

Feeding what was left.

8-8-77 rectory

At 1:00 there was a meeting at the rectory. Father, Bill and Peggy Feugelvan were organizing the different food programs for the year. Susie and I had the school breakfast program, Beatrice and Mary had the school lunch program, Clemence Gardipee was cooking dinner for the rectory and all of the volunteers during the week, Sister Kathleen and Laura in Lodge Pole and Sister Giswalda at the convent. Bill asked everyone to order food a month at a time so all the programs will have to plan meus a month at a time. The food will be ordered from a warehouse at wholesale prices and Bill will bring it down from Havre. Brian said that the government doesn’t start sending the checks until October and we only have $600 in the school lunch account. They will also send commodity food including frozen juices and some ground meat, chicken, stew meat and they send two turkeys a year. The program will also help with the buying of utensils and cookware for the kitchen.

8-10-77 mission

For the past few days, Allen has been out of gas at the store. There’s a sign on the door that he’s out of gas. People have been coming up to the mission to buy gas. They go to the rectory and ask Father. He tells most people that he is not allowed to sell the gas. The problem is that when people are low on gas, they need enough gas to get to a gas station which means either going up to Harlem or down to the DY.

I went out to the potato field and turned on the water. Nothing happened so I followed along the hose and there was a five-foot piece of hose missing. One of the kids had come during the night and cut the hose. It is a common practice in Hays. They use the hose to siphon gas. And with Allen out of gas at the store, it was bound to happen.

Most people in Hays put their gardens in next to their homes so they can keep an eye on their plants and equipment. Ours is behind the school and we can’t see the field at night. Consequently, we have suffered a lot of vandalism, cut hoses, onions, radishes and carrots pulled up, the stakes pulled up and the cabbage torn up.

8-10-77 trailer  

Father said that Davey Hawley cut the hay in the two fields behind the trailer and in the west field across the road. “Then I started thinking about it and thought that I’d ask JJ if he wanted to cut one of these fields. Both Davey and JJ have their own equipment. JJ has had such a tough year so I thought he could use the hay. He lost 18 cows this early spring. I talked to Davey about it and he said it was ok with him. So, JJ cut the east field and took that hay.”

8-16-77 mission  

Father Simoneau came to the mission this week for a visit and to take Father Retzel’s place at the mission while he was at the Jesuit Volunteer Corp orientation in Spokane. Father went to meet with our new volunteers, Mary Francis and Celso. Father had been in Spokane recovering from his illness and now he moved to Havre and was living at St. Judes. I spent the afternoon visiting with him and we had a long talk. I asked him if he would consider coming back to the mission to retire. He said that he wouldn’t come back. “I don’t like the system down here now and I don’t like the changes that have happened here. This is a conservative Catholic community, and I don’t think most of the people like the changes either.” I told him that I’ve heard that a lot of people would like the Latin mass back again. He said that he doubted that would ever happen. “But I don’t like this charismatic renewal, and I wouldn’t come back here unless things changed back again.”

He started talking about the community and the mission in the old days, about 10-20 years ago. Father has been here back and forth since the 1940s. He was also at St. Xavier on the Crow Reservation and in Washington state. Father said that once they tried to get the mission on chlorinated water. There were four doctors who came here from the health department in Billings. I told them, no, but they insisted. Finally, I got mad and told them that the headlines in the newspaper would look just dandy, ‘health department officials require mission to chlorinate water while Indians have to drink out of irrigation ditches.’ “Those doctors went back to Billings, and I never heard from them again. They left us alone.”

There wasn’t electricity in the community for a long time. It was finally here in the 1950s. They ran in poles and lines. The mission had generators before that, so we had electricity before the rest of the community. We also had a windmill that operated a generator with direct current. The people in the community used kerosene lamps in their homes for light before they had electricity. They finally put in electricity in Hays from the south and the poles and lines were run in from the south. So, they ran electricity into the mission before anyplace else in Hays. They wanted to put the poles next to the church and next to the road. I told them no, not to put the poles next to the church and next to the road. I didn’t want the pole next to the road because one of the young people would be going around that road one day and would hit the pole and take it down and all our electricity with it. They said it would be next to the road or they wouldn’t put it in. So, I told them that if we didn’t have the poles on the other side of the rectory we would do without electricity all together. They did put it in behind the rectory.

There have been a lot of changes here since the 1950s and the 1960s. The Hays road, up to the mission was paved in the 1950s. It was the 1950s or 1960s that plumbing was put in here too. The mission had water run in through a wood pipe that came down from the canyon. That was our source of water. It was a wooden pipe with wire around it. The people in the community had to haul their water. The mission well and pump house was put in while Father Coleman was the priest here.

All these homes here are new, too. They were built in the last ten years. Before that the people lived in log homes that they built themselves. We had a log house on the mission land. It was in front, between the creek and the mission road. Tuffy used to live there. It had three rooms. It isn’t there anymore. People who did mission farm work used to live in that log house. Clemence Gardipee, Tuffy’s mother, lived in that house that’s torn down behind the school. About ten years ago, the ten of the first homes were put in, five in Hays and five in Lodge Pole. It was part of the self-help program, and the people built the homes themselves. They didn’t have any basements in these homes. I remember that JJ’s was one of the first homes built. I came back here to the mission in 1965. There was just one telephone at that time in Hays. Mr. King was the fire warden, and he had the only phone. All phone messages went through him. I don’t know the dates for sure when the phones were put in.

It was good to spend time with Father Simoneau. When Susie and I were told by Father Retzel that we were accepted to work at the mission, we never received an invitation to attend an orientation with the Jesuit Volunteer Corp. We were never given the opportunity to meet anyone at the mission prior to our arrival at St. Paul’s Mission. And our conversations on the phone with Father Retzel prior to our arrival were short and not filled with any useful information. Should we pack a toothbrush? I was happy for Mary and Cel that they wouldn’t be coming to the mission totally blind as to what the experience was going to be for them. Susie and I had no idea at all what was going on. Nothing. It was a totally wild experience for us in every direction. But it turned into a wonderful life lesson about being flexible and adapting to the unknown. In so many ways in those days, the mission was quite the shitshow. Mike and I laughed about it all the time, because laughter always felt better than the alternative.

8-23-77 Hays

There was a sign on the store bulletin board in the trading post announcing the death of Ginn (Ignatius) Stiffarm, Jim, John and Paul’s brother. The wake will begin on Thursday afternoon and the rosary will be at 7:30 in the evening. The funeral will be at the mission on Friday morning. The burial will be at the old Stiffarm place (this is at John’s old log house near the Lodge Pole road). John moved into a new house away from the road, north of his old house, about a quarter of a mile away. I asked Alice about the old Stiffarm place. She thought that John’s wife and some of the kids were also buried near the house where Ginn was going to be buried.

8-23-77 mission

Father told me that Jim’s brother died last night. He was older than Jim. His name was Ginn (Ignatius) Stiffarm. He lived in Butte. They called the mission this morning. “I told him he could take the day off work, but he said he wanted to work. He thought the funeral might be on Saturday.”

I saw Jim this morning and I told him I was sorry about his brother. Jim said that he died last night at home. He was sick and was getting some kind of treatment. “I just cleaned the gym floor. We’ll have the wake in the gym.”

8-23-77 trailer

I told Frank that I was going to get our potatoes out of the ground sometime in the middle of September. He said that he knew when potatoes should be taken out. “You wait until the leaves turn brown and fall off and you let all the stems wither. You leave the potatoes in the ground to cure. If you take them too soon, then they’re green. When you leave them in the ground they grow too. They’ll get bigger even when there’s no stems or leaves. They’ll take a couple of frosts, too. You can leave them in the ground until sometime in October.”

8-24-77 Hays

Today was the first day of school in the Hays Lodge Pole school district, school district 50. The mission and public school system have worked out the same arrangement with the bus route and we started today. The mission doesn’t start classes until Monday. I’m driving the bus this week and the mission bus is picking up the kids from the south side of Hays, from Whitecow Canyon, south and the public school will pick up all of the other kids. The Hays Lodge Pole bus drivers are Clyde and Wallace. They have a regular sized school bus and also a van. They pick up the kids from the north and west side of Hays from the Whitecow Canyon turn off down and all the way down to the People’s Creek school district, 50 boundary. North of that line, the kids are in the Harlem School District. They also pick up the kids from Lodge Pole for the high school. Lodge Pole has its own grade school. The mission picks up the kids on the south side of Hays. In the morning, we pick up the kids along the dirt road from Judy Gray’s house down to Lou Shambo and Joe Kirkaldie’s. Then down to the homes near Gootch’s house, then up and around to where Jim and Beatrice live. Then the kids are dropped off at school and then up to Whitecow Canyon, around and back to the school and then back to the mission.

When I ran the bus in the afternoon and when I was heading home, I passed Jessie Ironman’s and Dorothy Ironman flagged me down. She’s Roseann’s sister. She was living on Rocky Boy but came back to Hays. She wanted to go to Roseann’s house. I told her to get onto the bus. I went back to the mission and parked the bus and then got into my truck and drove her to Roseann’s.

8-24-77 mission observation Bob Hogan

Bob said that Ray Williams used to lease the land at the mission. He had it for years because he was so dependable. He got it either from Father Simoneau or from the priest before Father. Ray gave that red tractor to the mission. Now Father Retzel won’t lease to anyone off the reservation. The mission land has to be leased to an Indian.

8-26-77 mission

The funeral for Ginn Stiffarm was held at the mission church at 11:00 and Father said the requiem mass. After the service, most of the people went out to the Stiffarm coulee (near John’s old log house) for the burial. Then the people returned to the gym for the feed. The feed lasted until about 3:00.

8-28-77 trailer

Bob Hogan came over to visit at 11pm and he was talking to Mary Porsche before her first day of school. He warned her that she should start to discipline the kids right away or she would lose control of the class. He said that he taught the 7^th and 8^th grades when he was here in 1973-74. I lost control in there. The kids were disruptive and they swore in class all the time like they were out in the street. I finally had to throw them out of class and told them they couldn’t come back until after I spoke to their parents.

8-29-77 mission grade school

There was a teacher’s meeting in Sister’s Giswalda’s room for all of the mission school teachers. Sisters Giswalda, Bart, Benno, Mary, Mike and I. Sister Giswalda passed out a folder with all of the rules and she went over each one. Sister Bart asked if we could have assigned seats on the bus. Mike laughed. Mike asked if he could cut his boy’s PE to three days a week, which sister approved.

Today was the first day of school. The kids came by bus except for the kids who live close enough to walk, which they will do on nice days. They arrive between 8:15 and 8:45 and they are served breakfast in the all-purpose room. They begin classes at 9:00. If there is time before 9:00, they play outside and around the all-purpose room. The sisters sell pencils, pens, crayons and notebooks before school, and sister Germaine also sells candy from the office before school and after lunch.

There were only 54 kids there the first day but this figure will change over the next couple of weeks. Some of the parents are late enrolling their kids and some of the kids from the public school will transfer to the mission school.

Sister Giswalda is the principal and teaches 7 and 8 grade. Sister Bart teaches 5 and 6 grade and she teaches religion to grades 5-8. Mary teaches 3 and 4 grade and Sister Benno teaches 1 and 2 grade. Mike teaches boy’s PE for grades 3-8 and shop for the 7 and 8 grade boys. Mikey Joe Doney teaches girl’s PE for grades 3-8 and she takes the whole 1 and 2 grade class together. Susie teaches music to grades 1-4 and runs the breakfast program. Mary and Beatrice run the school lunch program. Mike and I are the bus drivers and Jim and I are the custodians. Sister Claire is the librarian, and she teaches science to grades 3-8. 

8-30-77 rectory

This afternoon Bill Fueglevan had a meeting with all the mission volunteers. Mike, Celso, Mary, Susie, me, Kathleen, Laura and Father attended. He was organizing all of the work positions and he organized the bingo. The new phone policy was arranged. The people in the community will take over phone duty from 6:30 – 8:30 pm and they will collect the phone charges and man the phone.

8-30-77 trailer

Father said that there was a vacancy on the mission school board. When Ray resigned, he didn’t fill the position. Caroline Smith and Davey Hawley are on the mission school board. He said they would elect one of the parents who have kids in school after labor day. He wanted to wait until after enrollment was completed.

The enrollment this year is about the same as last year, about 50-60 students. The largest class is 3 and 4^th grade, about 18 kids.

8-31-77 mission school  

Sister Giswalda was talking to Mary Porsche after school in the faculty room. She said I saw you’re room. It looks clean. “It is the cleanest I’ve seen that room in a long time. You’re doing well with the kids.”

I asked Sister Giswalda why the mission school didn’t get any tutors this year. She said that we didn’t have Title I tutors for the same reason we weren’t supposed to have them last year; they said that there wasn’t enough money. But then they showed up later in the year. If they come this year we’ll take them. But I don’t really care if they don’t come.

Education

8-4-77 trailer

Edith said that Lou Kirkaldie came over today to get me to sign a paper about changes in the school.

She brought around some resolutions from the PTO that are going to be presented to the school board. I signed it. There were four resolutions, but I only remember two of them. One was about suspension. Once some kids were suspended for three days just for throwing snow balls. We want this changed. They can find some other punishment. They can keep them after school every day and have them do school work, but when the kids are suspended, they only get further behind in school. The other resolution was about drop outs. We have a big problem with drop outs here. The resolution had something to do with parents and teachers getting together and trying to do something about it.

8-4-77 Urban Rural

I was at Urban Rural tonight. Ken Noer and Jim Grasmow were there and were spending the night. Both of them are teaching this month because the program was extended for just this month, and then the funds will be discontinued. They applied for a grant through Title IV, the Indian Education Act. The proposal is under consideration, and they expect to hear by August 15^th. “This summer we’re offering two courses. Jim is teaching a grammar course and I’m running the video tape and George Horse Capture is teaching a class on the history and culture of Montana Indians which is taped. There will be one course taught at the end of the month by our reading specialist. If we get funded the name will be changed to the Intertribal Education Center, Inc or ITEC.”

8-6-77 Hays

The Hays Lodge Pole schools will begin on August 22. The Flandreau school will begin at the end of August, and some of the kids from Hays who will be going there are already talking about leaving. The mission school will begin on Monday, August 29. The mission and public schools will divide the area for bussing the kids again this year.

8-31-77 mission

Mr. Claubaugh came to the mission this morning. He’s the counselor at the high school and he’s the coach of the boy’s basketball, football and track teams. He came up to talk to Father about using the gym for basketball practices and scheduling games for the boys’ and girls’ teams. He told us that they have a new principal at the school, Mr. Anderson. He has a son that goes to the school, and he is also on the football team. He’s our halfback and he’s the fastest kid on the team. Mr. Hasenkamp is the assistant principal for school district 50.

Mr. Clabaugh said that the football team had nine games this year and the home games will be played at Dodson. “The kids have only been playing football for three years and they’re just catching on to the game. I saw a lot of improvement last year. They are just learning to be aggressive and a lot of them are learning the hard way. I tell them that they’re either going to get aggressive or they’re going to get hurt.”