June 1977 Employment, Education, Community
- Sandy Siegel
- 11 minutes ago
- 28 min read
Community
6-2-77
Charles and Matt had a meeting with Gerald and organized a slow pitch softball league for the summer. Gerald put up money for balls, bats and bases. Matt and Charles have put a lot of time into fixing up the mission fields and with supplies from the tribal recreation department, they built a field and backstop in Whitecow Canyon. The games will be played on Tuesdays and Thursdays on these two fields. It is a mixed league and three of the members of the teams have to be girls. The rosters have to be finalized by July. Matt and Matt umpired the games last night. Matt, Charles and Evie each have a team. Lodge Pole also has a team. I’m on Charles’ team – the St. Paul’s Mission Saints and we played the Indian Action team from the Agency.
6-5-77
Father said that he was worried about the group that has been established in some of the towns along the highline. It’s pretty strong in Chinook. They call themselves MOD, Montanans and others Against Discrimination. They say that whites are being discriminated against in a lot of ways because of the special status of the Indians. For example, in hiring workers on the reservation, contractors and others have to employ qualified Indians who apply for jobs before they can consider hiring any whites who apply. MOD is trying to fight these practices and other areas where they say discrimination exists against whites.
(This is the same crappola that is going on today with the administration’s assault on DEI. It is incredibly dangerous and predictable. None of you want to read my forty-page blogs so I’m going to stop there. But the ways white people feel discriminated against is a running theme, and if you aren’t white, you definitely need to find effective ways to fight against this crap. Over and out).
Father said that he heard that there was no water up in Whitecow Canyon. Diana Mount told me that some kids broke into the pumphouse up there and smashed up all the gauges and meters with rocks. We were talking to Percy who is on the Housing Authority. “They haven’t had water up there for a few days. I don’t know why anyone would want to do something like that. It just doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know about some of these kids sometimes. They’ll have water up there again in a couple of days.”
I was speaking with one of the volunteers. He said that there was more of a community in Lodge Pole than in Hays. If you’re a stranger, then Lodge Pole is not a safe place. A stranger walking down the streets of Lodge Pole would run into a lot of problems. But for the people living there, there’s more of a spirit of community. If there’s a problem or some kind of trouble in Lodge Pole, the people get together and try to do something about it. It’s easier for the people in Lodge Pole to get together and act on different things. The people get together there more for social things too. In Hays, people don’t get together and there’s not much of a community. When there’s a problem here or some kind of trouble, people in Hays don’t get together to do something about it. It either gets handled by individuals or families or it doesn’t get dealt with at all. Hays is much more fragmented. There aren’t any social activities in Hays that everyone goes to. There are a lot of factions and they don’t have much or anything to do with each other.
6-8-77
Susie and I went up to the Food Farm this afternoon. John Stiffarm was inside the store. Brother drove him up to the Agency. I told him that it was good to see him back home again. John had a heart attack a couple of months ago and was in the Havre hospital for a long time. He said that he felt a lot better. “The doctors told me to take it easy for about a year. Just so long as I’m able to ride a horse. I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t ride.”
Frank came over for a visit this evening. He said that he was in a team roping contest here in Hays at 6:30 tonight. He and Bazoo were going to enter the competition together. “It’s mostly for practice, but there’s going to be a practice jackpot for the winners.”
Frank said that the people in Harlem just don’t get along with the reservation. “The towns around the reservations don’t get along with any of the reservations or Indians. It’s like that all over the place.”
6-9-77
The tv transmitter went out again about a month ago. We had a lot of rain and the moisture got into the building. The tubes burned out, and the wiring went out. There’s a sign up in Allen’s store asking for contributions to help get it fixed. It will be out for a long time, because most of the people on the southern half of the reservation get their tv transmission from Antoine Butte. Only a few homes get the transmission above the canyon. Also, most people are spending time outdoors now that the weather is good, and no one is in a hurry to get it fixed.
6-10-77
Inez Brockie and Mike went over to visit Sonny. Inez is a community health representative. They finally talked him into going to the hospital in Great Falls. Mike is going to take him on Monday. I was so happy to hear about this. MS has progressed significantly, and Sonny’s symptoms had become much worse. These were the days before treatments for the disease were available. Sonny was living alone in a home with only electricity. He needed so much more help, and this was the beginning of a process for him to get what he so desperately needed.
6-13-77
On Saturday night, Jim had a slight stroke. They took him to the PHS hospital and Mary, Bill, Beatrice and Brian stayed up at the hospital with him all night. He was doing well, and the stroke hadn’t impacted his mobility or speech.
6-15-77
Susie and I took my brother and sister to the bar in Zortman. I was talking to the bartender who owned the bar and restaurant and café in the same building. Susie and I go there about once every couple of months. It’s usually empty and a few locals come in occasionally for a drink. Their big season is during the hunting season and the Zortman ‘Buckman Cabins’ are usually filled. This is in October and November. Some of the Hays Lodge Pole teachers come to the bar. We have gone with Tom, but he’s the only Indian we’ve seen in the bar. We were talking about gold in the Little Rockies, and he said that a Canadian company was planning to begin mining for gold in the mountains this summer. He said that most of the people in Zortman didn’t want the mining to go on. “We want to keep the beauty of the mountains, and we don’t want the Little Rockies torn up any more than they already are from previous mining.”
6-16-77
Mike said that he, Kathleen and Laura went to visit Jenny Gray this evening in Lodge Pole.
She has some great stories about the early days when the changes first started on the reservation. Those must have been really amazing times. The government made treaties with these people, and when they got all the Indians settled on reservations, they started to give them commodities and supplies in exchange. But they never explained to the old timers what everything was or what it was supposed to be used for. Jenny was telling us about some of the things that the government gave them and how the people didn’t understand what everything was or it’s use. She refers to these old days as the ‘war days.’ I guess it wasn’t too long before the Indians settled on the reservation that the tribes were actively at war with one another.
The government gave a wagon and team of horses to one old Indian man and then they gave him a bucket of grease, and they told him to grease his wagon with this. So, he went home and he told his wife that he would be outside greasing the wagon. About an hour later she went outside, and he told her that he ran out of grease and would have to go back for more in the morning. He had painted the whole wagon with grease. No one had explained to him that the grease was for the axles and how the axles worked. The government used to distribute flour in burlap sacks to the people. They didn’t know what flour was and they had no use for it. But they liked the material that the sacks were made of. So, they would dump out the flour and would make hats out of the sacks. The government used to give them a whole side of bacon. They didn’t know what this was either. They had never seen a pig. They thought it was whale meat. To these people the whale was some kind of sea monster and so they wouldn’t eat the meat. They used to cut it up and used it to make soles for their moccasins. Bill said he heard a story about the first time these people saw bacon, the people thought that the meat was pink and had hair on it. They thought it was dead soldiers. So, they wouldn’t eat it.
Brian said that the first log homes that were built were pretty funny to see.
They never got the corners to right angles. The logs were never cut at the right lengths so the logs would stick out of the sides every which way. There was another guy who was driving a team of horses across the reservation. He came to what must have been the first cattle guard on the reservation. Jenny said that by this time the people had seen so many new things that they didn’t understand that they just started to take for granted all these new strange things and tried to make their own conclusions about them. Well, this man decided that it was a new kind of white man’s bridge. What he didn’t understand was how his horses would get across without getting their legs caught down between the slots of the cattle guard. He tried for over an hour to get his horses to cross it, but they kept turning back. He finally had to give up and find a new way around. In some ways these stories are funny about how the first things the government gave these people were so misunderstood. But mostly it’s sad. They just gave these things and never tried to explain their use.
6-17-77
During the Catholic Indian Congress, during one of the spiritual conferences, Hazel came up to me with her nephew. They had just come in from Seattle. She owns the trailer that we stayed in until January and she comes to Hays because she has asthma and avoids the humidity on the coast during the summer months. She was going to spend a week and then all her sisters would be here for a reunion for a couple of weeks. She and her husband own a small grocery store in Seattle. She came to get me because I had the keys and wanted some help getting into the trailer.
Hazel was upset because kids shot a high-powered rifle through her front window. They shot from the backyard, and it went through both the bedroom window and the front living room window. The kids also tore up the outdoor carpeting on her steps. She was really mad and storming around complaining about the community, the kids, the parents and the people in general. She said that the people here will never make anything of themselves. Only her brother is left on the reservation. The rest of her siblings have left. “Those kids have no respect for people or for property at all.” The kids congregate on her property and driveway at night, and they drink and fool around there. The trailer is isolated. The closest neighbor is her father and he’s an old man and can’t hear or see well enough to watch out for kids all the time. The trailer is also next to the canyon and kids can get away with a lot and not be seen.
I’m sick and tired of these kids and their abuse of property. You can’t give these people anything or do anything for them because it gets destroyed and they abuse it. And the police are a big joke. They can’t do anything about these kids. They’re afraid of the kids, and they can be as irresponsible as the kids. I can’t go to the police about it because there’s nothing they would or could do. I’m going to hold the tribe responsible for this. I’m going to make them pay for all these damages. Someone has to take responsibility for the kids and all these damages. The parents aren’t going to take responsibility. The parents have no control over the kids. I don’t understand how they could let their kids behave like this, damaging property. But they do. These kids run wild with no control or discipline. I thought you two wouldn’t make it up here, that you wouldn’t make it a year. I didn’t think you would make it on the reservation. I was surprised. I thought for sure you would have left. They don’t bother me because I have a gun and they know I’d use it. I have used it before. And the word gets around, so the kids don’t bother this place so long as they know I’m here.
6-20-77
Father told us that Charles’ mother died today. A rosary is going to be said this Wednesday at 7:30 in the church. There isn’t going to be a wake. Thursday at 11:00 in the church will be the funeral. She was from Dodson. Her husband is buried in Zortman.
6-21-77
Quentin came up to the rectory tonight at 9:30. He seemed upset, and he asked me if I could take a walk with him. I told him I was expecting an important phone call, but I asked him to come into the living room to talk. He said he wanted to make a call first. He said his car caught on fire and burned up and he wanted to call Olsen’s in Harlem (Olsen Ford) and find out what to do about it. He asked me to find the number for him and to call the operator and put the call through. I did. He talked to Clarence Olsen for a couple minutes and then hung up. He told me he would talk to me in the hallway because Father blocked off the living room and so he must want privacy there.
My car caught on fire late this afternoon and I was pulled out on the prairie. I had the carburetor up to Harlem to get it fixed, but I guess they didn’t fix it right. I can’t blame them, though. They’re only human. Well, the car backfired, and the engine started to burn. I was about 50 feet from water, but I had no container, and I had to just watch the whole car burn up. I have to tell myself and I do tell myself that it was only a material thing. Just thank God that no one was hurt. That’s the important thing. Someone could have been hurt or killed. I took real good care of the car. I used to work on it all the time. Only one of my kids would work on it. I wouldn’t let the kids use it because they wouldn’t take care of it like I did. I don’t know what to do.
6-28-77
Roseann and Susie played Charles and I in pinochle for a couple of hours. When we sat down at the table, Roseann asked me to close the shades of the kitchen window because she didn’t want to see or look at the cemetery. I did.
I told Charles that I was sorry about his mother and was sorry that we weren’t able to make it to her funeral. Charles said that he would have liked me to see all of his brothers and sisters. All eleven of the kids were there. Roseann said that she didn’t die until all her kids were there.
We got to Great Falls on Saturday night and the doctors didn’t even think she was going to make it through the night. But we notified all the kids, and all but two of them came on Sunday. Everyone stayed with her all day Sunday. We were finally able to get in touch with the last two and they left for Great Falls on Sunday. One of them got there on Monday morning and one of them was there at noon. She was the last one. She died a half hour later. She waited for all the kids to get there before she died. She was very sick. She had kidney failure.
I asked Roseann why there wasn’t a wake for her. Roseann said that she hated wakes. “She never said why. Her husband didn’t like them either. We didn’t have one for him and she said that we shouldn’t have one for her.”
6-29-77
Mike said that this morning three girls drove up in a station wagon. One of the girls was driving and the two other girls were in the front seat with her. None of them were old enough to be driving legally. They drove up to Mike and asked if the mission had any gas to sell. Mike told them that the mission buys gas at a special price and doesn’t pay taxes on it, because it’s a church institution and because of that, the mission isn’t allowed to sell any gas.
6-30-77
I was talking to Jim while the new pump was being installed in the mission pumphouse. I asked him what he and Beatrice would be doing for July 4th weekend. He said that on Friday afternoon they would be driving to Ft. Berthold, North Dakota for a pow wow. “We’ll stay all weekend at the pow wow and come back on Monday.”
Roseann said that there was going to be an all-Indian rodeo on July 3 and 4. The rodeo is going to be at the D&D Bar which is close to Dodson. She said that they might go to it. At about 10:30 Charles said that they better get going. We’re on foot again. We’ve been having trouble with the mustang. We either walk everywhere, or someone will usually pick us up walking along the road.
Employment and Education
6-3-77
Tom, Matt and Charles said that they would be working for the road crews this summer. It’s the BIA road crew and they will be making over $8 an hour. They expect to work six days a week, 10 hour days. Charles said they would be going to work soon, maybe next week. They’re waiting for the trucks to get to the reservation. I asked Tom what roads would be constructed first. He said that the Lodge Pole to Dodson Road and the Three Buttes roads would be done first. Beverly said that the Whitecow road should be done first because it’s in such bad shape, and it’s on the school route. The road is hard on the buses. The road near Three Buttes to Cleveland has already been started. They are grading it.
Clarence came up to the trailer this morning and brought two paintings. He wanted to see if Susie’s dad wanted to buy them. Susie called him and he said he would see about it when he came out in August. Clarence said that he had a hard time when he first started painting, because he gets very attached to his work, and if someone criticizes it, he takes it hard.
I won’t ever work through galleries because sometimes they’re too cold, like businessmen, and they don’t understand art. Many of my paintings tell a story, and I get very involved in it. I took a painting up to a woman who ordered a painting from me and when I took it to her, she said she didn’t like it. It had a nest in it that Sissy told me to paint, and a frog that Catcher asked me to paint, it meant a lot to me. The picture of ducks was a painting that my kids started. It had a lot of red and yellow in it and I just made the sky. I don’t like to paint for orders because people already have in their minds what they want. I have 20 orders, and I just can’t do them. I would make a lot of money if I would do them. I talk to Margaret all the time about my art, because she understands. I can’t talk to people around here about my art and what it means to me. They think I’m being too conceited. They just don’t understand. I thought about setting up a gallery along the high line, but I don’t think I will. I have to stay there, and I don’t like to be a businessman. I sell my paintings mostly to be in people’s homes, and that’s what I like.
This is one of Clarence's paintings. Clarence gave this painting to Camie after her son was killed. Mike made the frame for Camie "in exchange" for some juneberry soup. I included a photograph of the painting with Mike's frame, and a close-up of the painting without the frame so that you can see Clarence's work more closely. Clarence told stories of his people. He was an exceptional artist, as was his brother, Frank.
Granville came over this morning with one of the college teachers. He said that he wanted me to teach a course on Native Indian culture. I told them that I would like it to be a two-semester course. Pre-contact and post contact with relations with the government and BIA. Granville agreed and said that he would write it into the new proposal. He said that at the community council meeting there was some debate about my teaching the course.
Some people didn't want you to teach it if it had been just about the reservation people here. They wouldn't have let you do it, but since it's about all the cultures, they said you could do it. I think it's good to have whites teach about Native Americans. Sometimes they know more about Indians, and they can be very objective about it.
I told Granville that I didn't want to start any battles in the community about it and if there was going to be any trouble, I'd rather not teach the course. I'm not doing it for the money. Granville said, “I know, and I want you to teach the course.”
The council will let you teach it. They wanted to get an Indian teacher to do it. There's a man from the Rocky Boy reservation who has a PhD in education. He would ask for $18,000 to teach it. We can't afford him, especially since the Urban Rural program has been discontinued and we're only on Title IV funds. Besides, since you live here. All the others get travel expenses. You're the only teacher who does not. All the others get travel per diem so you can teach it.
We are working on the proposal, and we'll be working with about half the money we have been using. We will try to go with about 25 students and will cut their stipends back to about $30 a week. They have been getting $75 a week. We will also have five instructors. I think the stipend has been one of the biggest problems. It worked out well at the beginning, but now a lot of people have been going just for the money. Many of them had this as their only source of income. Another problem was BEOG. The student gets this money directly and we weren't seeing a lot of this money. It was supposed to be used for tuition and books, and some people are spending it on other personal things. One girl dropped out of the program and never returned her BEOG money. She spent it. She also had a problem with grades. We want to keep the good students in school and flunk out the ones who can't make it. But the College of Great Falls had a grading program for a few semesters where a failing grade was not shown in their accum. So, we have some people with good grade averages who have not done well at all. We have had problems with the College Great Falls. They have been running the program in areas that should be controlled here at the College in Hays. They have too much control over the hiring of teachers. We are going to take greater control over that, the school community council will be screening applications. We have to be sure that the teachers will fit in well with the situation here and will get along well with the Indian people. If they don't, it could cause trouble. We are going to have to be careful when you teach the course on contemporary Indians. When you talk about the government policies directed toward Indians, many people here are going to be very sensitive about these things. A lot of these programs were just like Hitler, maybe not as bad, but in some ways they were, (relocation, IRA Indian Reorganization Act) were all to assimilate the Indian people with white. Some of these programs worked for the government, many of the Indian people have assimilated, they've moved into the cities, but they will always be Indian. Their mind will always be Indian.
Granville said that if the proposal goes through, then he'll pay me more money this year to teach the course. “You're not being fair to yourself or your wife. You have to have enough money to live on. You'll be getting more.”
I thought they wanted me to teach because I was a good instructor with a charming personality. It turns out they loved me because they could get me cheap.
6-4-77
Susie was in Lodge Pole working with Sister Kathleen firing ceramics and I was home alone working on my research. Frosty came over at about 2:00. He said he walked up from his house to make a phone call and thought he would come over for a visit. I showed him the slides I took at his and Tiny’s wedding and told him that I had taken slides in to have prints made for them. I told him that he married into a nice family and that I thought his kids were nice. I know two of the boys from the mission grade school. They enrolled in the middle of the year. Frosty said that it was sure a big responsibility he had now.
I have a big family now, but I’m ready for the responsibility. I’m big on discipline with those kids. They are real spoiled. I have responsibility that I didn’t used to have. I was in school for two years in Havre at Northern Montana College, but I was irresponsible, and I didn’t take it seriously. I was too young, and I didn’t do well in college and so I left it. I was just out of Flandreau when I started college. At the boarding school, they did all the thinking for you. They didn’t teach you to think for yourself. And so I wasn’t ready for college at all. Now I’m going to the college in Bozeman and I’m responsible and ready for it. Tiny is going back to school at Bozeman with me. She’s going to get an advanced degree in nursing and she’s going to be a registered nurse as soon as she takes her boards. She’s already completed her degree, but she wanted to graduate with the rest of her class, so we’re going to the ceremonies next week in Bozeman. She’s been out of school for a while already, and she has a job at the PHS hospital at the Agency. She’s been working up there this year.
Frosty said that he was working for Williams Construction Company out of Havre.
He’s the contractor who is building all these new homes on the reservation. He hasn’t built all the homes, like New Town, but he’s put up all the new ones. The earliest ones were part of the self-help program, and the people living in them built their own homes. I haul lumber out to all the different construction sites and help unload it for the carpenters. About 50 more new homes are going to go up on the reservation and Williams is putting up all of these. There are about two or three other contractors who bid on these homes and Williams had the lowest bid, so he got the contract with HUD. His bid was so low that HUD is actually making money on these homes. The reason that Williams was able to make such a low bid is that he’s also in another business in Havre selling the materials they’re using to put up these new homes. He handles the contracting, and his partner handles the cement and lumber business in Havre. I know this because I used to work for him as a cement finisher out of Havre. These 50 new homes are a good thing for the people here. It’s going to mean a lot of jobs for the people for at least two more years. Williams has to hire Indian cement finishers and carpenters first, before he can hire whites, and he pays his workers real well. I started work as a cement finisher, and that was sure hard work. I had to haul the forms and 2x4s in and out of the truck all day long. After a while, they sure got heavy. It was this work that made me want to go back to school. I don’t want to be doing this work all my life. And an education is the only way out. I was too young to realize this before when I first started in Havre to college, but I know it now and I’m much more responsible.
Richard works for the BLM and Park Service in the spring and summer. I asked him how work was going so far this year. He said that it was ok. “People can be so bad though. We have been getting the parks ready for the year and some of the areas are in rough shape.” Richard works out of Malta every day. “I don’t know why people would do it, or what they would use them for, but some people steal the trash barrels. They also pollute the streams and throw trash all over the place. It gets pretty bad sometimes.”
6-6-77
I was visiting at Ray and Irma’s. I told Ray that Mike and I had to cut about 80 poles and dry them out to use for tipi poles at the Catholic Indian Congress. Ray suggested that we try to get help from the kids who work for SPEDY during the summer. Ray said that they are always looking for something for the kids to do.
There’s never enough work for the kids to do. It’s the same thing every year. They never plan anything for the kids to do. The SPEDY and TCC programs could be a good thing if they took the time to plan it out, but they don’t. They could give these kids some kind of training or practical experience. But the kids don’t get any kind of practical training and experience. The kids end up painting the BIA homes and weeding gardens. They do the same things every year.
Frank came over to visit Susie and I. He said that he was looking forward to the July 4th weekend.
From July 1-5th we’ll be going to the Grand Tetons for an Indian exhibition. Indian singers and dancers and beaders go and give an exhibition to the tourists. I went with them last year, too. Last year I wasn’t very prepared but this year I am going prepared. I’m going to bring some of my art, and I’m also going to do some drawing while we’re there. I’m also going to bring a bunch of books there to sell. We stay in a real nice lodge there. President Nixon stayed there when he came to the Grand Tetons. We all chip in for food and take turns doing our own cooking.
Frank said that he was going to North Dakota this week and would be staying with an old friend of his for the week.
I’m selling 500 of my books to a man who ordered them a while ago. I had 5,000 copies of the book printed all together. I plan on coming back from North Dakota rich. Maybe then I’ll be able to buy that new truck I want. I’ll be driving to North Dakota with my nephew. We’re going in my car. I’d rather travel in that car than someone else’s. It’s like an old horse for me. I know exactly what to expect from it and what it is going to do.
Frank said that he asked Father if he could sell books at the Catholic Indian Congress. “I want to set up a stand for three days of the Congress and sell the books. I’d like to sell about 100 books there.” (Father and Mike decided that nothing should be sold during the Congress. They were afraid that it would become too commercial if they let any selling to go on. Christian Mothers wanted to sell pop and a group from off the reservation – whites – wanted to sell religious books. All requests were turned down).
6-8-77
The firefighting crew was picked today. This year the firefighting situation is different from previous years. Ft. Belknap used to have at least two large crews and some years had three. This year only one crew is being picked of twenty people, ten men and ten women. It is being run out of Rocky Boy. The classes for fighting fire are being held on Rocky Boy on June 14 and 15. Virgil requires that everyone on the crew attend these classes. Mike was picked, but he can’t attend these classes because the Catholic Indian Congress begins on June 16.
6-9-77
Gordon got a job for the summer as a foreman for the YCC, Youth Conservation Corp. He starts on June 13. He’ll have two crew leaders and two crews under him. One of the crew leaders is Jenny Doney. He’ll be working out of the Agency. They’ve given him a small bus to pick up the kids for work. He will be making a little over $6 an hour. The first few days of the job, he will be taking classes at the Agency.
The road crews have been grading the dirt roads on the reservation. This week they’ve been grading the canyon road next to the mission. Davey Hawley, George Chandler and Jeb Stiffarm are working on the road crew.
6-14-77
Davey Hawley and Jeb Stiffarm were sitting in the rectory. Davey said that the road crew was moving today to do Snake Butte Road. “We’re not done completely down here (they’ve been grading the mission canyon road) but they’ve told us to move. That’s where the expression half assed comes from. I don’t like to do things like that. I figure if you do things at all, you should do them right. They are moving us up to work on Snake Butte Road.” Jeb said that they were developing a picnic area and a playground at Snake Butte. “They have fishing down there, too, at a beautiful creek. They moved the buffalo to Snake Butte. You should go down there to see it.”
6-20-77
Edith said that Glen went to a special school on the Flathead Reservation for a week. He’s majoring in forestry in Bozeman and this summer he will be working for the BLM. He is getting special training to work on an aerial survey crew over this area and the Little Rockies this summer. He will be home to start work in July. He bought a used car when he was in Bozeman and Gordon is using the car now also.
6-28-77
I ran into one of my former students from Urban Rural. She and her family had moved to the city to find work, and they had just moved back to Hays. She said that he had a job as a security guard for a while, but it didn’t work out. He was without work for a long time and couldn’t find work. She also looked for a job and could find one. They ended up with a lot of financial problems, so they came back to Hays. I asked her if she was going to go back to school. She said that it wouldn’t be fair to the other students since “I quit to leave here. There are other students who want to go and there will be room for them if I don’t go back. Maybe I’ll go back some day. But I’m going to wait for a while.”
She did eventually go back to school and became a teacher!
The teachers who worked at the Hays Lodge Pole Public School were provided with housing that was located next to the school.
Charles said that he hoped they would start work soon with the BIA road crews. The trailers should get here soon. We’ll be making $8.14 an hour, and I heard we’ll be working ten hour days and six days a week. We should make good overtime, too.
6-29-77
Two young boys came up to the mission as SPEDY workers for the day. They helped rebuild a wood fence around the school and they cut the grass around all the buildings.
Gootch came up to the trailer this evening. She asked me if I could help her out with one of her courses and she asked me if I ever had any classes in educational research. I told her that she should go to see Sisters Laura, Giswalda or Claire, they could help her out. She is taking courses this summer in Havre (Northern Montana College) and she has to write a paper in her educational research course.
6-30-77
Susie went to Camie’s to give Darian a piano lesson at 10:00. Letty was at the house, and they visited after Darian’s lesson. Letty said that she was going to school this summer at Northern Montana College in Havre. “My classes are on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and I commute to Havre on each of these days. I’m supposed to be getting money for going to school, but I haven’t gotten it yet. The first course I took was Indian history and I think I flunked the course.” Camie said that she was tired of school all year and “that’s why I didn’t want to go this summer.” Letty said that she was tired of it too, “but I went this summer because I wanted to make sure that I graduated from school this spring. I wanted to make sure I had all my hours and requirements.”
Edith said that Dory would be going to Flandreau Indian High School this fall. “He finally consented to going to school there. They have a better education there and they have more social and athletic activities. I told Dory that if he has any problems there, he should go talk to one of the counselors. They have a staff of counselors. They also have a psychologist he could talk to. Ryan doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t even want to try it. We don’t know why he doesn’t want to go because he doesn’t talk to us. So, Ryan is going to the Hays school next year. I wish he would talk to us and tell us what’s on his mind.
At 7:15 this morning, we heard knocking at the door. I went to get it in my pajamas. When I got to the door, Dory was walking back to the bus and Gordon was sitting at the steering wheel of the bus with his hard hat on, ready to head up to the Agency as the YCC foreman. He shouted out if I could get Edith up to the Agency at noon, because they might have to record tonight for Canyon Records with Bobby and Caroline. I told him I would go down and see Edith this morning. He said ok and drove off. At 8:45 I went down to their house. Edith still had a robe on, and the kids were just getting up and out of the house to play. She got me a cup of coffee. I told her that I could take her to the Agency, but we would have to leave by 9:15. She said that wasn’t enough time for her and that someone has to watch Dion. Susie needed the truck to go to Camie’s house to give Darian her piano lesson. And I had a lunch today with Father Pete Guthnic and Paul Schaaf. She said she was sorry that Gordon woke me up so early. She said that she could find another ride to the Agency in the afternoon.
Ryan came into the house and sat at the table and had a cup of coffee. Edith said that she asked for Ryan as a SPEDY worker to fix their fence around the house today. We need it fixed because the horses get out all the time. Ryan works for SPEDY and Gordon and Dory work for YCC.
Tuffy was one of the people in Hays who made a living from trapping. His home in Hays was always a really interesting place. He always had deer hides hanging on his shed. He used the traditional Indian tanning methods and would hang the hides up to dry. Women in the community often purchased his beautiful white deer hides to make their dancing outfits. The hides were also used to make moccasins.
Bruce was an entrepreneur in Hays. He had a business selling propane to people in the community. He and his family also opened the only liquor store in Hays. He received permission from the tribe to open the store. It was felt that by selling alcohol locally, fewer people would be injured or killed driving home from bars either at the DY or coming down from Harlem.
Herbie Bradley operated a garage in Hays where he repaired cars and trucks.
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