May 1977: Community, Education, Employment
- Sandy Siegel
- Sep 13
- 53 min read
When Susie returned to Montana after being with her mother, she took a bus from Billings to the DY Junction.
5-2-77
Socksy got a red truck from Olson Ford. It’s a 2x2, 100 with the ranger cab and it has running lights. About two weeks later, Mary and BJ went to Olson Ford and bought the same truck. I was complimenting Mary on the truck, but she said that she wished she had a different color. She didn’t like to have the same truck, and she felt bad about it. But Olson gave BJ a good deal. I said, since when are the Jone’s keeping up with the Doney’s. Mary laughed.
We were visting with Ray and Irma. Irma said that her father and stepfather were brothers. She laughed.
I don't expect you to understand these relations around here. They do get confusing. It does take a long time to understand relations. My parents didn't get divorced. In those days people didn't get divorced so much. So, my parents just separated. There were only two of us kids from my father. Eva is my half-sister. Her father was my stepfather.
My father was in the Air Force. My father drank a lot and it was a big problem. He got an allotment, and he had a homestead of 147 acres (the land that Irma and Ray live on now). He had some cattle, but the place really got run down and it was from his drinking. It got so bad that we just weren't making any money and it was getting very tough for the family. So finally, my mother liquidated the place and she left my father. Then we moved into a cabin. It was near the cabin where the pipe is now.
My mother had a stroke when I was nine years old. When I was nine, I got very sick and almost died. I got pneumonia and I had a bad infection from my tonsils. I can remember the priest from the mission coming out to the house and his praying over me. It was Father McNab. When I was a kid, I worked very hard. My mother couldn't do a lot around the house because of her stroke, and so I had to do a lot of things she couldn't do. I can remember kneading bread. It was hard work. My family is all over now. After my mother liquidated our place, my father got jobs working on ranches all around here.
Irma said that there was a special program in the schools on the reservation that was conducted by Community Health Representatives.
We went into the schools and we taught the kids how to brush their teeth the right way. It was a whole program on dental hygiene. We also had a fluoride treatment program. First, we tried putting pills into the kid’s milk. This didn’t work because they wouldn’t drink the milk. They couldn’t taste the pills. It didn’t change the taste, but once they knew the pill was in the milk, they just wouldn’t drink it. So, we started another fluoride program. Now the kids use a fluoride mouth wash in all the schools.
5-4-77
It started raining at 7:00 in the morning and it rained until noon. We haven’t had any precipitation for a long time and people were concerned about not having enough water for the grass for grazing. People talked all day about the rain and were very happy. Everyone was saying that they hoped it would rain all day. While it was raining in Hays, it was snowing in the mountains. By the afternoon, Mission Ridge and Eagle Child were covered with snow.
Every evening and on Sundays and some Saturday afternoons, there are slow pitch softball games behind the gym on the Mission baseball diamond. Matt and Charles bring the equipment, bats, balls, gloves and bases. Most of the kids in Hays come to play every night. The grade schoolers who come usually watch and both high school and young adults play. Both boys and girls play, and everyone has a good time. The caliber of ball players is fair, and the girls are pretty good. And the games are fun. Everyone plays hard and takes the game seriously enough to make it enjoyable, but not so seriously to start arguments. The winners are forgotten as soon as the game is over.
Most of the people come in pickups. They line up along the third baseline. During the game, the beds are filled with kids coming and going from the mission. Matt and Charles have organized the baseball league for the summer. Our first game is Sunday afternoon. They are working on the field next week, bringing down the sand from the mines. They are also planning to put up a home run fence in the outfield. There are snow fences along the highway to Harlem and the Agency, and they are going to ‘borrow’ some of these fences. They are going to line the field with the commodity evaporated milk. They put Mike and I in charge of writing down the rules for softball. Our team will be made up of men, high school kids from Hays, plus some of the volunteers from the mission, Bill, Brian, Mike and myself. Our game on Sunday is against the Law and Order office. Matt and Charles are trying to get better equipment from Gerald. He is the recreation director of the reservation. But Matt said that he can't go alone to get it. We asked him why and he said because I don't belong here. Gerald won't give the equipment to him. He said he needs an enrolled member with him. He'll try to get the new stuff Sunday for the opening game.
During our two years in Hays, I took thousands of photographs. These three images are among my favorites. We really loved these kids. Such characters.
Mike came back from Harlem with a very short haircut and while we were building the arbor, the 7/8th graders were giving him a hard time. Bud asked Mike if the barber who gave him the hair cut was an Indian hater. Mike said that he didn’t know but that he was a real talker.
5-5-77
Gordon said that he had 16 brothers and sisters and that most of them lived in Spokane. “I do have a brother in Great Falls. There’s only two of us in Hays. The oldest is my sister and she lives in Hays. She’s 44 years old.”
I asked Gordon if the AA and detox did anything for these people to help them get away from alcohol. He said that both were nothing but a rip off. “They aren't any good and they don't do anything, so nothing happens to help these people.”
5-6-77
Susie and I had dinner at Gordon and Edith’s. Before we ate dinner, we were watching tv and Hee Haw came on. Edith walked up to the tv and asked me if I like this show. I told her I could take it or leave it. She said she didn’t like it at all, and she turned it off. Then she said there were three shows she had no use for at all. Hee Haw, Phyllis and Archie Bunker. I think Archie Bunker is stupid and nothing but crude. It’s a dumb show. I like to watch ‘Little House on the Prairie,’ the Waltons, Walt Disney and Grizzley Adams.
I asked Gordon if they got a new kitchen table and he said that they got it from one of their relatives. “It’s bigger than the old table, and it has a nice formica top. While it’s used, it is in good shape.” He said that it would stay that way if he could keep Edith off it. He said that she makes fry bread and has a bad habit of rolling the dough on the table and then cutting the dough right on the table. “She cuts the table top.” Edith said that she has a cutting board but it’s not big enough. She needs a much bigger one.
Gordon showed me the old table and the beading table he made out of it. He put a coffee table on top of the old table as a shelf, and then put a light on top for beading. Edith took out a belt buckle she was working on. She said that it’s the first belt buckle she ever made. It’s for Glen. He made a belt in school. It was beautiful and the beading was excellent. I asked her if she gave the medallions to Sister Germaine. She said she did. Sister asked her to make her a tau cross (a symbol of Saint Francis). Edith said she charged her $15 for it. She said that it was a fair price. “I used to charge $8 for a medallion but the price of beads has gone up and so the price of beadwork has also increased.”
Edith’s beadwork was exceptional. She was a perfectionist, and it showed in her work!
I was looking at Edith’s beads. She had a whole container full of cut beads. These are hard to get. I asked her where she got all of them. She said that she gets them around. She keeps an eye out for them. “My mother also has me bead because it has gotten too hard for her. Her eyesight got too bad. I pay about $3.60 now for a hank (a string of beads tied together – about 10 strings). I used to pay 65 cents to 70 cents for a hank of regular beads. Now they have gone up to 80-90 cents for a hank. That’s why beadwork costs more money.”
I asked Gordon if his car was running. He hadn’t driven it since around December. He said that it was running but he had no rear tires for it so he couldn’t drive it. “Frank gave me back the tires I loaned him, but they’re really torn up. I let him put the tires on his car so that he could go to the basketball tournaments in Havre. That game cost me about $80. I lost those two rear tires, and those tires cost me $34 each. Then I took Frank out to dinner, and I bought the basketball tickets. At least Hays/Lodge Pole won the game.”
During the baseball game tonight, two police cars came up to the mission. They stopped along the left field line to watch the game. I was the first batter after their arrival. I pulled the first pitch just foul in left field and the ball hit one of the police cars on the hood on a fly. All the kids on the field started to cheer. At the beginning of the next inning three of the four policemen walked up to the game. I told them that their car was in a dangerous place and one of them answered they didn’t care. All three of them got into the baseball game. They were supposed to be on duty in Hays tonight. They played for about two hours and didn’t leave until the game was over. During the game, the fourth policeman sat in his car and every once in a while he would turn on his light, siren and flashers. No one seemed to think it was too odd that the policemen were playing baseball instead of driving around on duty in Hays.
5-7-77
Some of the older teens who were watching the baseball game tonight were rolling joints and smoking out in the open. No one paid any attention to them.
5-8-77
Today is Mother’s Day which is recognized here. Most people had nice dinners for the occasion. Mae Stiffarm had a Mother’s Day dinner and invited Nade. Margaret June said that her husband tried to make dinner for Mother’s Day. She said that he did a great job except for the gravy. When Matt and Charles were planning the baseball game against the law and order office for Sunday, Mother’s Day, Mike said, well, isn’t that Mother’s Day. They responded that it wouldn’t matter, that everyone would come.
Matt and Charles organized a softball game with the tribal law and order office from the Agency. The game was supposed to start at 2:00 and the Hays team was composed of teenagers, mission volunteers and Matt and Charles. The Agency team didn’t show up until 3:00 and only two policemen showed up. So, Matt and Charles organized some games between the boys and the girls. We played from 3:00 until 7:30 and everyone had a good time.
Susie and I were visiting at Ray and Irma’s Lyle said that Irma left for the weekend to go to Bozeman to be with Marilyn and her grandchildren. She wanted to go down there for Mother’s Day, but her car broke down and she had to take a bus. “She’s going to come back on Tuesday on the bus. It leaves at 4:00 and she gets into Havre at 10:00am. Someone will have to pick her up in Havre.” Lyle said that the rear end of the car went out and she was going to get rid of it. She needs $1,000 first because she has to pay off this car before she can buy a new car. Ray corrected Lyle and said that it was only the gas tank on Irma’s car that went. “There’s a leak in it and she took it to Harlem to get fixed. It’ll probably be done before she gets home.” Lyle said that Ruth and he sold their car. We sold it to the guy across the street who owns the garage. “We sold it for $100. I put $300 into it to get it fixed up. It had a lot of miles on it, and Ruth’s mother bought it new 12 years ago.”
Before we went into the house for lunch I stood outside and talked to Ray. He was working on the yard. He was pulling weeds (pig weed) and stacking them in piles to take them away in his truck. He also said that he raked up all the dog stuff in the yard. He said that he and Irma fixed up the yard fence yesterday and got it all straightened out. He said that he wanted to get new posts, but Irma wanted to get it done and once she gets something on her mind, it has to be done. He said that this morning they tried to burn up the brown grass so they could replace it. “We used lighter fluid, but it didn’t burn like I wanted to, but we did get rid of some of it. It’s real green where we had the snow drifts this winter, but it’s brown in most other places. So, I think we’ll water the places real good that are brown.” He had the sprinkler going. “When we first put in this grass four inches of top soil were spread over the gumbo.” He showed me in the hole he dug, the topsoil over the gumbo. “We planted too much grass and it’s too thick. That’s why I think it’s not growing well now, it’s root bound.” He dug a hole by the walk leading into the door. Ray said that he was going to plant a weeping willow there. “We bought it from Don Addy already. We just haven’t picked it up yet.” Then Ray walked me around the house to the side facing the road and showed me a ditch about ten yards long and a foot wide that Irma dug yesterday. He said that they were going to plant rows of lilies there. Ray said that he enjoyed working hard like this, but last night he was so tired that he couldn’t sleep. He said that he was going to quit for the day because he was getting pains in his chest. Ray said that he hoped that the exercise helped to build him up again.
Just as we were finishing lunch, Dubb and Kim came walking into the house. Dubb didn’t have a shirt on and Cyndee asked him if he was showing off his flab.
Cyndee had the most wonderful and sarcastic sense of humor. Her timing and deadpan delivery were exceptional. Her targets were anyone within hearing distance. Cyndee and I were very close … she was my sister. We had a lifelong friendship. May her memory be a blessing.
Kim sat down at the table and had some juneberry soup. Ruth told her that she was in her mother’s store and saw a pants suit for $75 and thought it was too much. The store is Mary’s in the Milk River Shopping Center and it is a woman’s clothing store. Kim said that the suit was worth $75 but it’s too high for here. “People around here don’t have that kind of money for spending on clothes. It would be ok in the city like Billings or Great Falls, but not here. She should carry K-mart clothes. That’s what people want here. They don’t last long, but they don’t cost much, and that’s what people want.”
5-9-77
I was talking to Bruce in the rectory. He said that the government and BIA sometimes amazes him.
They have so many programs on the reservation, the government and BIA, and they don’t do any follow-up. They don’t check on the money spent. The BIA should start budgeting courses for the people on the reservation. No one around here has a savings or checking account. They should. The BIA could teach budgeting courses and teach people about saving. People get money here and they spend it until they don’t have any money left. No one saves money around here. They just don’t have any money. I know that I could use a course in budgeting. It would help me a lot with our store.
5-10-77
Jeb is having a house built for his family. It is being built just southeast of the mission at the base of the Little Rockies. They have put down the foundation and have started putting up the walls.
The location of the house is in what Susie and I considered our front yard when we were living in Hazel’s trailer. It was located on the other side of the road and below Mission Ridge. Jeb’s house was the first built in this area. When I returned to the reservation, there was a new community built around this house. I was actually sad to see this pristine area filled with this community. There were only so many places to build homes on the southern end of the reservation.
Lyle came up to the mission to play baseball tonight. He asked me if I saw the planes this afternoon. I told him I didn’t. He said that a B52 bomber came in real low over Hays and it started spurting out black smoke. “Then when it got real low, it sped off into the sky real fast. As it was going up, two jets flew in behind it and they followed the bomber.”
There is an air force base in Great Falls – Malstrom AFB. This area, which includes the reservation, is designated as an unpopulated area, and the air force flies over and does maneuvers. There are at least a few sonic booms every week. There is also a base in Lewistown where there are rockets. There is another military base in Glascow.
Bill said that the contractors who put up the homes in Whitecow Canyon planted grass around the homes. All the people had to do was water their yards to get the grass to grow. “I drive the bus up there almost every day and the only person I’ve ever seen watering their yard was Bob Werk. Their grass is coming up in their yard. Charles was out only once watering his yard. No one else has grass up there. All they had to do was water, the contractor did all the work.”
Williams is the contractor for all the new homes being built on the reservation. He’s from Havre and he was living at the Agency. There were a few homes built in Hays and the Agency, but most of the homes are being built in Whitecow Canyon and along route 376. Before this building project began, there were very few homes along Route 376. Now there are homes all along the highway. Williams pays his workers very well. Almost all the workers are from the reservation. His carpenters and cement finishers are paid well.
5-11-77
For the past week we have been getting rain in the evenings. The temperature has been between 70-85 during the day and it’s been humid. In the evening it has rained for about an hour. We have also had a couple of thunderstorms. Hays and the southern part of the reservation has had more rain than the Agency and the northern part of the reservation. This difference in precipitation is noticeable when driving between Hays and the Agency. The southern part of the reservation is fairly green from the rain, but the northern half is brown.
5-13-77
Carletta and Irma were visiting Susie and I in the trailer. She said that they were moving out of Chinook because they were tired of making the trip down to Hays all the time. We’re going to move into Matt’s and Pana’s old house this summer, but I think Mom is going to try to sell the house and she may already have a buyer. She wants to get rid of her house.
Irma said that everyone here was related to each other in Hays. Just for a joke, Susie asked her if she was related to Carletta. She answered, yes. We all laughed. She said that they were related by marriage. She said that Matt was her nephew. “My sister, Eva, is his grandmother. So, really he’s my great nephew. I’m his grandmother, too, Indian way.”
Irma said that she had lunch today with the superintendent, and when they were done, she told him, “Thanks for the BIA runaround. He knew that I was serious. He’s told me that he’s Indian, so he understands where we don’t get things our way, but he has to follow orders. I’m tired of that stuff. It makes me mad. We were having a meeting this afternoon with the CHRs.” She called him an ‘apple.’ Indian on the outside and white on the inside (he’s Blackfoot).
Irma said that the people in Lodge Pole have their own expressions. The funniest one is ‘Oh, God, init.’ Carletta said that the kids from Lodge Pole and Hays never used to get along. “It’s been since they go to high school together. The Lodge Pole kids used to go to high school in Lodge Pole. It was bad then. The Hays kids never got along with the Lodge Pole kids.”
5-14-77
We were sitting with Margaret at the wedding reception at the Hays Community Hall. She said that some people don’t know that Frank and Clarence are two different people. They think that the artists are the same person. They don’t like to be confused at all. Their individuality is very important to them, especially as artists.
Margaret said that they had a difficult time getting REA to run electricity to their house.
It’s about five miles off the highway and it’s far away from any other homes. REA gave us a cost estimate of $33,000 to run electricity in. We finally got a deal with REA through HUD. Everyone getting homes are sharing the cost of running in the lines, and we were able to get in on the sharing program through HUD. Now we’ll only have to pay $3,100. Also, they take off $29 a month from our electric bill for two years ($480). This is part of the deposit that is returned to us over a two-year period. The deposits are to ensure that we’ll be living in the house for a while and won’t move after REA goes to all the time and cost to run in electricity.
5-15-77
Susie went to Coffee’s baby shower. Kathleen, Laura, Beverly, Willie, Target, Roseann, Betty Jean, Louraine, and Coffee attended. We sat in chairs that were arranged in a straight line across the basement wall. In front of us were all the presents stacked up in a pile on the floor. Flossy and Target were upstairs. The rest of us were downstairs. We talked for about 15 minutes and then Flossy’s daughter brought each of us a plate of food. Fried chicken, potato chips, jello, pickle, cake, potato salad and a cup of coffee. We ate and talked. Flossy and Target stayed upstairs.
Flossy came downstairs and Target brought her gifts over to where she was sitting. And she unwrapped each. We ooed and awed but otherwise it was quiet. Flossy didn’t read the cards.
She received sleepers, a blanket, rubber pants and bibs, dresses, pampers, and outfits.
Flossy said she can’t tell the twins apart. She left the hospital tags on so she can tell the difference. She had no idea she was going to have twins. The thought never entered her mind. She said she was probably going to have them baptized next Sunday. Her grandmother delivered the babies.
5-16-77
We were talking to Ona at the mission graduation. She said that the HeadStart had a mini pow wow for the kids last Friday night. “They had one in Hays, too. The kids danced, and we fed them. We had about 200 people. The HeadStart also has a graduation. The kids get diplomas, and they even wear caps and gowns.”
5-17-77
Mike said that he was talking to Russell Plainfeather. He was in the movie “Little Big Man” with Dustin Hoffman. A lot of Indians were hired from the Crow Reservation to be in the movie. Russell is Crow. He was in several scenes, and he had a two-minute talking part. The movie was shot on the Crow Reservation. He said he was going to be in another movie this year called ‘Grey Eagle’ and it will be shot near Helena but the same people who produced the movie ‘Winter Hawk.’ Little Big Man took three months to shoot and Grey Eagle will be shot during this coming summer. They have to come with their own costumes. His wife is making him a costume – leather shirt and breech cloth.
I asked Frank if the grandchildren pay a lot of attention to Matilda. He said, “oh, they sure do. They always argue who’s going to sleep with her. I think because she buys the kids everything. She’s always giving those kids all kinds of stuff.”
5-18-77
We were visiting at Gordon and Edith’s. Gordon and I were talking about the weather. I said that it was sure great to be getting all this rain, but maybe it was too much. Gordon said that Allan has a precipitation measurer at the store, and it wasn’t too much yet. For two weeks we have been getting a lot of rain and a few thunderstorms. It has rained almost every day this week and the temperatures have dropped into the 30s and 40s. The moisture has gone deep into the ground, and is locked about one foot under the surface. Plants have been blooming all over and the alfalfa field behind the trailer is already eight inches tall. The water is rushing through the creek bed, and it has been dry since last August until this week. Plants have started to bloom just this week in the creek bed. The creek water is from the rain. There is no snow in the mountains so it wouldn’t be runoff. Many parts of central and northern Montana received snow last night. We had snow flurries during the day, and it stayed on the ground for about an hour before it started to melt. Great Falls and Havre received 7 inches of snow, and the Bear Paw mountains were covered with snow this morning and all day. We had no measurable snow in Hays.
5-19-77
I asked Frank where mission creek went to and where it emptied. He said that it runs all over the place. It goes all the way through Joe McConnel’s place and finally runs into People’s Creek.
Frank said that he would be glad when he wasn’t a councilman anymore. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but this is one of my biggest. I’m going to get out in November. I have so much running around to do for council that I can’t get anything done for myself. I’m going to give up my position and they can elect a new councilman to replace me when they replace others. The guys who have two-year terms are running again now. I had a four-year term, but I’ll give it up now, two years early.
Camie came up to the trailer. She wanted to see the slides from their feed and give away. I told her that I would have prints made for her as soon as I could. She said that she had forgotten about it, but her mother (Elizabeth Chandler Doney) reminded her about the pictures. My mother thought that you were a photographer that I had hired to take pictures of the feed and give away. Camie laughed.
Camie was looking at the slide I took of her and her mother. She said that they didn’t have any pictures of her mother, because she doesn’t like to have her picture taken. She said, “this is the first time I ever realized that we look that much alike. I really do look like my mother.”
5-22-77
Nucky came up to the mission to make a call. I was talking to Bazoo, and he said that three of his kids were going to be in the Lewistown rodeo next Saturday and Sunday. “Butch is going to ride in the barrel race and if I can get a goat, in the goat tie. This rodeo is for kids starting at eight years and up to eighteen. Jimmy and Bud are also going to compete.”
5-24-77
Mike was talking to Margaret. He told her that he would go talk to Sonny and wanted to see if she thought it was a good idea before he did it. She did think it was a good idea. Sonny has never been to a hospital or doctor to have tests run. They think they might be able to do something to help him, but he’s afraid to go. About three or four years ago, he had an appointment at the Great Falls hospital to have tests run. Just before he was supposed to go, he chickened out and cancelled. They want to run tests and it would take about two weeks in the hospital. Mike is going to try to talk him into it. “I’ll take him to the hospital and I’ll go to visit him a few times. They might be able to help him. He’s never been to the doctor before for help.” They think he might have a tumor in his back near his spine. They have to check. If they can get it out, it might help him. That might be part of his problem with walking. They also have a wheelchair for him if he wants it. It won’t cost anything. They also want to take a body cast of this waist and hip and fit him with a bag and catheter. He has no control over his bowels or bladder.
Sonny had multiple sclerosis and lived alone in one of the cabins behind the store. Mike took a very active role in looking out for him. Mike was a mensch. After we left the reservation, I spoke to Mike about Sonny. He told me that Sonny had moved into a nursing home in one of the towns on the highline. His quality of life was greatly improved.
I was sitting with Frank at the wake for Al. Frank said he was going to North Dakota next Tuesday.
I want to see my nephew and nieces ride in the rodeo in Lewistown. I’m going to North Dakota to sell some of my books. I have a good friend down there that I’ll stay with. I’ll be there for a week. A guy is going to buy 500 books from me but I’m going to take 600 just in case. I’m going to sell the original 27 drawings from the book for $100 apiece. I have them copyrighted. I can always draw more of different stuff. That should give me a good start. I had 5,000 copies of the book printed.
Frank said that he really wanted to buy a pickup as soon as he could get the money together. He said he was really sore from riding. I’ve been riding for a couple of days. I’m going to have to do a lot of riding to get in shape.
Frank asked Mike to help him around the house when he had some free time.
I’ll pay you $10 a day to help me clean up around the house. I want to put in a lawn, but I don’t know where to start. I can’t grow anything. I don’t have a green thumb. I have some ponderosa pine I’d like to plant too but I can’t get anything to grow for me. You know, you can look out and see pines growing out of rocks and the roots are sticking out all over the place and the tree grows. If I plant a tree and water it every day and take care of it, it will die. I still want to put in a lawn and these ponderosa pines, but I need help from a green thumb.
He looked into his pack of cigarettes and noticed that he only had a few left. He joked that he wouldn’t be leaving too long from now. “I’ll be leaving in six cigarettes. That’s how I tell time.” We all laughed. Then someone came around passing out cigarettes from a bowl. Frank took a few and said “now I’ll stay a little longer.”
Frank got up to leave. He said that Mom needs to get home so I can give her her pills. Matilda was sitting in the front row.
5-25-77
After the mission graduation I offered to drive Edith home. She had come up to the mission alone. When we pulled into their drive, I asked her where their car was. She said that the Chevy dealer in Harlem sent a tow truck down and they towed it to Harlem. “They hauled it up because the repairs were getting to be too much money and it just wasn’t worth it to get it fixed all the time. There was always something wrong with it.” It was a 1974 Impala, and they bought it used. “It’s sure going to be tough to be “on foot” again.” They hadn’t driven it at all since January. The tires were off the rear and it was up on blocks.
Camie saw Richard pick up a little baby to carry it. She said that he wants to be a grandfather, but her boys aren’t ready to. Susie said that her kids had plenty of time. “I’m 21 and Sandy is 24 and we don’t have kids.” Camie said, “well, you better get busy and start producing.” We all laughed.
5-26-77
Matt and Carletta are fixing up Matt’s old house and they’ll be moving down here next weekend. They’ll stay the whole summer down in Hays.
5-27-77
The Hays grade school had a picnic up in the canyon for the kids this afternoon. The Hays cooks made lunch for them and the community was also invited to the picnic at King Springs. It was announced in a bulletin in Allen’s store. He has a large bulletin board behind the mailboxes where different organizations post information, including the BIA, the tribe, the PHS and many local groups. Pow wows from all over the state and surrounding areas.
Very early on in my research, I asked Allen if he could keep all of the materials he posted on the bulletin board and give them to me. I spoke to him about my research. Allen did so, and I collected everything that was posted over most of those two years. If I had found an academic position, I have no doubt that I would have produced multiple articles from that bulletin board.
There was a square dance and basket social at the senior citizens center tonight. Charles called for the dance, and he also auctioned off the baskets. Roseann said that her basket took the highest price. She said that the dance was a big success and there were a lot of people there. Everyone danced, too. No one was shy. It was a good time. Father said that the dance was to raise money for attorneys for the Little Shell Band. They’re very poor and they have treaty claims coming up and they needed the money to pay attorney fees.
Mary was visiting us at our trailer. It was blowing hard outside and the trailer was moving and creaking. Mary asked me if we were scared about the trailer blowing apart. She said that they lived in a trailer before the one they live in now, and it was small. It used to do this in the wind.
5-30-77
Mike and I were at Davey’s house visiting. He was talking about the redistricting of the school system in Hays, because it would bring more money into the school system. He said that the tribe had no punch with the state, because when Jack Plumage took office, he worked out a new tax relationship with the state. We don’t pay that license tax anymore to the state. Since we don’t pay state tax, we don’t have any pull with the state. Jack sure took the punch out for us. We have no bargaining power.
Jan came down to visit and she brought her husband. We drove out to the old mission sheep ranch and we were talking about the reservation. Jan’s husband has lived on the highline all his life, and he said he has his own ideas about the reservations, very different from Jan’s. “She’s too idealistic. I told her to be careful about collecting money for the Catholic Indian Congress in these towns. People might give to the mission, but they don’t want to give it to the Indians. They have so many programs for these people, through the government, but nothing happens. These people don’t work, and I don’t know how they can live this way. This is how most people feel about the Indian.”
He shared the prevailing attitude with whites in the towns along the highline off of the reservation. As I noted previously, I didn’t ‘get into it’ with these people. Today, I was ask them to read all of the blogs I’ve written about the history of the reservation. There was so much misinformation, prejudice and ignorance. And no one ever recognized that they were living on the land that was stolen from the people they had all these negative attitudes towards.
Some men from Culligan company left a trailer at the mission this evening. They are going to install water softeners in the new homes going up on the reservation. They will work out of the mission, two trailers will be for the workers and one for supplies. They are going to give a donation to the mission in exchange.
5-31-77
Gordon was at the trailer visiting with us. I asked Gordon how July 4th was celebrated around here. He said that people had picnics. He asked me what the relationship was between Independence Day and watermelons, “because on July 4th people sure eat a lot of watermelons. Boy these Crows, they’ll buy three or four to eat on July 4th.” I told Gordon that there was no special significance to the watermelon on Independence Day. It’s just a picnic food and since everyone goes on a picnic, they eat watermelon.
Gordon heard what I said to him, but he didn’t believe a word of it. I have no doubt that Gordon remained curious about what our founding fathers were up to with the watermelons.
Gordon said that they had a picnic at their home yesterday for Memorial Day. “We had a horseshoe tournament, and the women had a basketball game. Bobby, Caroline, Lou Shambo, Joyce and our kids and Gootch and her husband were there.
Mary and Beatrice came over in the afternoon to visit and to bring us more food from the kitchen they thought we could use. Mary said that they and their kids went fishing down at the Missouri River for a Memorial Day picnic yesterday. Everyone but Bill caught one. She said it was a good time.
I asked Mary if she thought she was going to the movie Sunday night at the mission. I told her it was a John Wayne moving. Mary said she used to like him a lot, but now she can’t stand him. “I read an article about him in Newsweek, and he made some nasty comments about Indians. He said that they should all be put back on reservations. I don’t like him at all, and I won’t go to his movies.” Beatrice agreed. Mary said that the kids liked the movie Friday night – Mary, Susie, Jay and Jubie went to Harlem to see King Kong.
I believe that the sacred Flat Pipe bundle was in one of these abandoned log homes.
Education
5-2-77
I dropped in for a visit and Edith was getting ready to go to a PTO meeting this evening. She said that she was waiting for Gootch to come pick her up. The meeting is in Lodge Pole. It was in the Hays school before. “Gootch and Lou Kirkaldie are acting officers of the PTO until we elect officers – a president, vice president and secretary treasurer.”
5-3-77
Tom came up to the trailer at 10:00 and Mike was over. We had coffee and we were talking. We were talking about the lack of discipline in the Hays Lodge Pole School. Tom said he wished they would hit these kids and get physical with them.
If they were getting wise or goofed off, the Supreme Court said that teachers can hit students. And I think it is a good idea. I think there's a law on the books in Montana that if a student hits the teacher, the teacher can hit the student back. If the teacher gets hit with a closed fist, the teacher could also use a closed fist. If a parent comes into the teacher and hits the teacher, the teacher can sue the parent. One of the problems in and out of school is that if the kids do something wrong, if a teacher or adult tries to punish the kids, the parents will stick up for the kids even if they know they're wrong.
We had a shop teacher when I was a senior in high school. That was 1975. I really like this guy and I wish he stayed more than one year. He was really big, and he didn't take anything from the kids. If anyone started to make trouble, he'd back them into the wall a few times and would rough them up. The seniors knew not to mess around with him, and they didn't make any trouble. But the juniors figured that we were chicken and they would make trouble. One day a guy lit up a cigarette during class and he was just acting like he didn't do anything wrong. This teacher walked up to him and pushed him against the wall so hard that the cigarette burned his lips. He kicked him in the ass so hard that he left the ground. The teacher told him not to come back to class anymore. All these kids want to do is drink and goof off and make trouble.
5-5-77
I was talking to Edith in the rectory. She said that Glen got the financial aid that he had applied for. I filled out the forms for them a few months ago. He’ll be getting $3,000 to go to college next year (sophomore year). Gordon said that he couldn’t understand how Glen was able to live at college on so little money. Other people that go to college spend a lot of money. They’re always saying that they need so much money to go to college and that they have so many expenses. Glen has been going to college for the past year and yet, he has been able to save money. He’s been able to save enough to buy a truck. He’s going to buy a used truck some time either before or just after he gets out of school. And there are a lot of people who get more money than Glen to go to college.
I told Edith that Inez Brock – the nurse at the Hays, Agency and Lodge Pole Clinics, brought me a GED book for her. I told her that I would take GED with her if she wanted it. Edith said that she’d like to do it because she was only three months from graduation from the mission school before she dropped out. She also said that she’d like to get her high school diploma because it would make her eligible for some new job opportunities. We decided to meet two days a week – Tuesday and Thursday from 3:00 to 5:00.
I went to Urban Rural and asked for my paycheck. I worked for 16 weeks, and the semester was over April 22, and I hadn’t yet been paid for any of it. Granville told me that I should come back next week, because I was going to get paid through Great Falls, and he had to go there on Wednesday. Then he asked me what I wanted taken out of the check. I told him not to take out federal income tax, because I wasn’t making enough. He said that he would take out social security and workman’s compensation. I told him that was alright with me.
When I walked into Urban Rural this afternoon, Joe Kirkaldie stopped to talk to me. He is the chairman of the Hays School Community Council. He said that there was going to be a picnic Sunday afternoon, May 15, at the James Kipp Park in the Missouri Breaks. All the teachers from Urban Rural and the Hays Lodge Pole schools will be there. We want the teachers from the mission school to come also. Please tell everyone there about it. It’s potluck so bring something. We’re going to play ball all afternoon. Granville said that some people are going to camp down there on Saturday night. “I wouldn’t camp though because there are too many rattle snakes.”
I was talking to Granville about the college program and the plans for next year. He said that he wanted me to teach again next year. “We won’t have the urban rural program anymore but we should get Title IV money. We were getting this money in equal amounts, so we’ll have to run the program next year on half the money. We’re going to try to operate with five instructors and 25 students.”
I asked Granville if the school district 50 supported the college program. He told me that the school board and superintendent didn’t have anything to do with the program. JJ Mount helped us to get the program started. We needed the school board to help us when we first got started because they were the grantees of the Urban Rural and Title IV money. JJ helped us on the school board by supporting this project. But once the program was started, the school board had little to do with us. The program runs independently of the school board and superintendent.
5-6-77
I went over to Gordon and Edith’s for a visit. I asked Edith how the PTO (parent teacher organization) meeting went last Monday night. It was at Lodge Pole. She said it was ok. They didn’t talk too much about anything in the school. They mostly talked about organizing the PTO in Hays and Lodge Pole. Jeanne Shambo and Gootch are the temporary officers until we can get permanent officers. I guess we’ll vote for them. It’ll cost $70 per year to join the PTO for each person. That’s pretty reasonable. I think I’ll stay in it. I told her that for all the kids she has in school, it’s a good idea for her to belong.. So many people complain about the schools and superintendent and school board, and this would be one way to do something about it. A woman from Great Falls came to talk to the PTO and she’s helping the people here to get organized.
Edith said that she wanted to send Ryan and Dory to Flandreau next year. “They would get extra help at Flandreau and there’s more activities at Flandreau. I told them that I wanted them to go there, but they don’t want to leave here. I told them why I wanted them to go, and they said they’d think about it. I don’t want to force them to go. Gordon said that she better hurry up and get them enrolled because they had to do it before the school year was over.”
5-9-77
I was talking to Bruce at the rectory. He said that he was upset about the Urban Rural program.
They just don’t have enough discipline there, and they don’t require enough discipline. And then they come out as teachers, and they don’t use enough discipline. The School Community Council (SCC) stopped all the discipline in the school and now the school isn’t worth anything. Without discipline in the schools you can’t teach, and the students can’t learn. You need discipline. The kids are running that school. They just can’t learn. There were a lot of complaints about it, so they started the PTO in the community. I don’t know why they started the PTO. As far as I see it, it’s the same as the SCC. There’s no difference between them.
Tall Chief is not a good superintendent, so things aren’t going to change so long as he’s around. He’s from Oklahoma. He’s not a good superintendent because he’s away so much. He should be spending more time in the school and in the classrooms. He doesn’t know what’s going on in the school.
Bill told Bruce that he heard that Tall Chief had a lot of connections in Washington and that he’s good at getting money for the school system. Bruce answered that he doesn’t need to go to Washington as often as he does.
He should spend more time in school. It doesn’t take much effort to get money for the school system, because its really there for the taking. There’s a lot of Title IV money and it doesn’t take much effort to get this money. He could get enough money for the school system without traveling to Washington all the time. He doesn’t need to be away that much.
Before he got the job as superintendent, he had a lot of good ideas. He sure sounded good. But once they get in, they become politicians and then there go all the good ideas. He likes the job and he wants to keep it. It’s good pay, and he gets his room free (teacher’s housing) and two free meals a day (breakfast and lunch).
“Tall Chief was the CAP director here on Ft. Belknap for a while some time after Ray.” Bruce said that Hays/Lodge Pole could have gotten the new high school a lot sooner than they did.
Instead of going to the government and applying for the money to build the school, they could have done it sooner by taking out a bank loan to get the money. The bank would have done it because they knew the money was coming from the government. They’re going to have to get money from the government. A little over one million dollars was appropriated for the building of the new Hays Lodge Pole school. They weren’t given enough money. It’s only about a third of the cost. They’ll get more money from the government. They have more money coming and they’re going to need it. They also could have gotten the money sooner if they went through the BIA. The high school has been discontinued a few times. They’ve gotten into trouble a few times. One of the things they did was have some primary teachers teaching in the secondary school. They had to fill these positions, so they just used primary school teachers. They got into trouble for it and they were reprimanded. The high school never lost accreditation, but they’ve been in trouble a few times for doing things like this.
Bruce said that he helped to get the Urban Rural program started.
I helped to write the first proposal that got the program started. Ray was the coordinator of the program, and I worked with Ray. When we wrote the proposal, we emphasized one of the major goals of the program, and it is still one of the most important reasons for having the Urban Rural program – we wanted the kids in Hays and on the reservation to see the adults, their parents, as teachers. We wanted for them to see adults as something other than a janitor. We need good models for the kids.
The SCC has stopped discipline in the school. The mission school is a better school than the public school and I’ve been to both, and I’ve had kids in both schools. The mission high school was a much better school than the public school. There was a lot of discipline at the mission school. You can’t teach without discipline, and the kids don’t learn. I know a family that sent their kids to the mission school, and Harlem was easy for them after they transferred. The mission is even better than the Harlem school.
5-11-77
Mike said that he heard that the Title I tutors get paid about $500/month and it will go up to $600 next year. The tutors work with the kids that need help in reading and math in the mission, Hays and Lodge Pole.
I went up to Urban Rural to pick up my paycheck. Granville said I couldn’t get paid until after he went to Great Falls, because he wanted to pay me out of the Urban Rural funds. He said that the intertribal education program (college teacher training) had to use up all the money this year. They had to use up all the Title IV money every year, because it’s a one year grant and it was hard to get the money carried over every year. Granville said that before this year the program didn’t have this problem with the Urban Rural money.
The Urban Rural grant is a multi-year grant, and we were able to carry over money into the next year. But we won’t be getting any more Urban Rural money, so all of it has to be used up. We have $43,000 that has to be spent before June 22, the end of the summer term. Do you know anyone who can spend a few thousand dollars a week. The $43,000 isn’t going to be easy to spend. A lot of it has to be spent on non-personnel or salary and also not for equipment. We’ve been running the program on $235,000 a year. It was Title IV money from the federal government and matching Urban Rural grants. Because the Urban Rural grants are going to be discontinued, we’ll have to run the program on half of the money. Next year, we’ll have to do it all on $103,000. We’re going to try to keep 25 students and 5 instructors. I think we’ll be able to do it. We’ve had the program for about six years. I think this coming year will be the 7th.
5-12-77
Edith decided to take GED and so I received a book from Inez Brock (reservation field nurse) and I began working with Edith. I talked to Edith about teaching for the GED exam and we discussed how we would work. We decided to meet from 3-5 on Thursday and we’ll cover five areas on the GED test. Three of the sections are reading comprehension in Natural Science, Social Studies and Literature. The fourth section is grammatical and expressional ability, and the fifth section is mathematical ability. It is a 10-hour exam which takes two days and is given in five sections. Edith will have to take the test in Havre, and it costs $4 to take the exam.
I talked to Kathleen about teaching GED because she has been teaching it for a few years and has a lot of experience with it. She said she had Edith before, and she was about to take the exam, and she chickened out. She said that some of the people she works with don’t show up on time, and don’t even come on the days they are supposed to. She said it happens a lot. She told me not to worry about it when people don’t show up. It’s their responsibility.
Wilma came up to look for Susie. She wanted to pick up an ash tray that she made for her sister.
My mother is going down to see her, and she can take it to her. My sister, Phyllis, is graduating from school. That’s why my mom is going. She’s 32 years old. She was an LPN and went to school in Albuquerque, NM. It’s an Indian school. She’s graduating tomorrow and will be an RN. She’s going back to school for two more years to get her master’s degree. She wants to be a supervisor. I guess she wants to boss people around (Wilma laughed). She’s married to a Navajo. Her husband is living on the Window Rock Reservation in Arizona. It’s a Navajo reservation. He’s an architect and he’s living there. He makes maps for the reservation and tribe.
Wilma said that she was a substitute the last couple of days for the Hays Lodge Pole school. I’ve been taking business courses and all the high school grades. I don’t mind it at all. You don’t need any kind of certificate to substitute because I’m only a first-year student at Urban Rural. We get paid from the school district, $25 a day. But they take out $2 for something. It’s good money.
5-13-77
Carletta said that Waterson was being replaced as the superintendent of the Harlem schools. “That’s good but the new guy is just as bad. He’s an Indian hater, too.”
5-19-77
I was talking to Margaret June in the mission kitchen. She said that as soon as she gets this course done, she’s done. “I’m going to collect unemployment this summer.” Socksy agreed. “I’m going to collect unemployment this summer too. When this course is done, I’m taking off the summer.” Margaret June said, it’s getting terrible. “My kids don’t know they have a mother anymore. They used to look forward to Saturdays when I could cook a good meal for them, but now on Saturdays, I’m in Lewistown. We wanted them to hold the course in Hays, but they said that all the materials are in Lewistown, so we had to go down there. We get a stipend from the College of Great Falls. It’s the same as the Urban Rural program in Hays. It's a ten-week course. The last week it is every day from 4-9 so we’re going to move to Lewistown for the week. The course is remedial and precision reading.” Socksy said she was feeling guilty that’s she’s been away from home so much. So, she’s taking the summer off also.
5-22-77
The Baccalaureate was held for the graduating seniors at the Hays Lodge Pole High School tonight. It is a special prayer for the graduating seniors and Father went down to the school to officiate.
5-24-77
Edith had just come back from the Hays grade school graduation.
There were a lot of people there. Jack Plumage spoke and Tony Costello (the minister from Lodge Pole) said a prayer. A woman came back who taught at the school for 11 years. I sure liked her. She retired right after she left Hays. Venetia had her for a few years. She gave the best speech. She got a lot of applause. She talked about what the kids should do now after graduating from eighth grade.
I told Edith that 11 years down there must have been a record. Edith said that it was. Edith said that she would love to be in the eighth grade again, that those were the best years of her life. “I liked school. Things are different. Some kids don’t like school.” I said, yeah, they drop out of school and then they hang around school all day. Edith agreed. She said that the kids didn’t wear caps and gowns.
5-26-77
The Hays Lodge Pole Commencement Exercises. There were nine graduates:
Geraldine Faye Allen – valedictorian
Rosalie Ann Boushie
Clifford Dale Doney
Michael Den Doney
Vickie Lynn Jones
Hally Marie Kirkaldie – Salutatorian
Cory Lee Shambo
Lyle Gilbert Snow
Warren Arden Werk
Susie drove Gordon and Edith to the graduation. Gordon was asked to sing an honor song. Susie sat with Edith because Gordon was on the stage.
Mrs. Fitch played a few songs before the graduation started. Then she played Pomp and Circumstance, and the graduates came in and marched around the room and into the front row of seats. They were wearing purple robes. Reverend Tony Costillo was supposed to speak but Father was there in his place. The room was full.
Tall Chief, the superintendent, introduced the speaker, Mrs. Dorothy Tannenbaum, Senator Metcalf’s assistant. She spoke about self-sufficiency, inspiring the graduates to be leaders, not just doctors or lawyers, but to be happy in their work. She also talked about how the reservations were heading for self-sufficiency.
Gootch sang a solo – ‘Days of Wine and Roses’ and Mrs. Fitch played an accompaniment.
Mrs. Hasenkamp called out the names of the graduates and JJ passed out the diplomas. Many relatives got up and took pictures of them. Father said the benediction and Mrs. Fitch played the recessional.
There were refreshments served after the graduation ceremonies.
The kids had their high school graduation tonight. At about 10:30 there were cars and trucks with loads of kids driving all around Hays and up toward the canyon. They honked their horns and drove around all night.
5-28-77
I was visiting with Bertha at Gordon and Edith’s. She said that after 40 years she decided to try to get her high school diploma.
I only went to the 10th grade. I never graduated from high school. I really didn’t need a high school diploma, but I thought it would be nice to have so I enrolled in GED. But I started asking questions and Laura couldn’t answer. I thought, what am I doing here. Laura said that I should try to work on my own and take the test. She signed me up to take it and I thought I might as well. I’d find out where my weak areas are and then I could study those for the next test. I passed it the first time. What do you think about that. After 40 years out of school.
5-31-77
At 10:00 Seanna and Venetia came up to the trailer to visit. Seanna said that she was leaving on Saturday.
I’m moving to Rapid City for the summer. I’m going to a business college there. I’m going to have to leave my boy here. He’s going to stay with my mother. They couldn’t get me housing for both me and my baby. I’m going to be in a dormitory. I want to go early because I want to learn my way around campus. I have sisters in Rapid City. I like it there.
Employment
5-5-77
Doug and Mike told me that one of the guys was fired from the police force. Gordon told me that about a month ago, he got drunk while he was supposed to be working and he smashed up one of the police cars.
Mike asked Gordon if he was going to be working for the forest crew this summer. Gordon said that he hoped to be rehired at about June 1.
Virgil came up to the house and told me that he wanted to hire me back on the crew, so I guess I’ll have a job. He also told me that he wanted Glen to work on the forest crew. He really wants to get him. His major in college is forestry.
Gordon said that he wanted to take the step test with a physical to fight fire this summer.
It’s an 18-inch step and you have to step with a beat (metronome) for five minutes and then they take your blood pressure. You can also run a mile in under seven minutes to pass the test, but if they tell you to take the step test, you have to do that. Matt is going to be a fire crew leader. Matthew and Bobby will also have crews.
5-8-77
Dubb and Kim came in while I was visiting Ray and Irma. Dubb was in the navy for three months. He had planned to go to school in the navy to learn a trade but they told him that there wasn’t any room in the school he wanted to go to, so he left the navy. He was able to get out because they promised him, they would send him to this school and when they couldn’t hold up their end of the bargain, it was like a contract, and they broke it. Since his main purpose was to learn a trade, he got out of the navy. I don’t know what he’s doing now but I don’t think he has a job. Kim works at a cash register at the Food Farm in the Milk River Shopping Center.
5-9-77
Bill and I were sitting on the rectory steps and talking to Bruce. It was about 7:00 in the evening. Bill asked Bruce how the business was going. Bruce said everything was ok right now.
We get our beer (IB Liquor) from Havre and from the bar at the Agency – ‘Lil Bar and Café.’ It would cost 30 cents more a case under a federal liquor license, so we got our beer through the tribe. We got our license to sell beer, wine and liquor from the tribe. I haven’t gotten a state liquor license because to get it, I’d also have to sell food and have a drug store with it. That’s the only way you can get a Montana State Liquor License. I don’t know why they have it that way, but that’s what the rules are. So, we’ve never applied for the state license.
We’re going to start selling food at the store this summer. Mostly things like chips and food like that. And we don’t give any credit either. Now we’re making about $100 a day at the store but by the summer we hope to be making between $500 and $1,000 a day. I’d like to get rid of the gas truck. I’m tired of it. I wouldn’t have to say no to people anymore when they ask for gas. I have to turn some people down. In the winter they pay their bills, when it’s cold. But when it gets warm in the spring and summer, they forget to pay their bills. There are still some people who haven’t paid their bills. Some guy still owes me $3,000. But when we start a food store, we won’t give credit. None at all. There are two people who owe Allen $3,000. He never has any money because he gives credit and so many people owe him money. He can’t stock much food and he’s always out of things. There are some people here who think he is making money. He’s not making any money.
5-10-77
Bill said that Janice Shambo applied for the job of stock inspector. She didn’t get it. Mike said that Tom and Matt’s horses are all over the place and they don’t care. Bill said that he saw some of their horses in Whitecow Canyon and people were complaining about it. “Bazoo also applied for the job. They took four people. A lot of people applied for the job.” Mike said that JJ also applied. Bill said that the stock inspectors can also grade meat. “They take a special course for this work. If someone wants to sell meat to someone else, the stock inspectors can grade the meat for the sale.
5-11-77
Tom invited Mike and I over to say goodbye to him. He’s leaving for Thompson Falls at 7:00 tomorrow morning. He’s working for the forest service in the Department of Interior in the Lolo Forest there. Tom has been working there for three years. This will be his fourth. He said his mother helped him get the job. She applied for him when he was 18 and still in Billings. He said he really likes the job and is known to be a good worker.
I’m not supposed to report to work until Monday but I have to find a place to live before Monday. I’ve stayed in an old apartment for the past few years there. It’s been condemned for about twenty years. It used to be a hospital, and they converted it to an apartment building. Thompson Falls is about four hours from here in the southwest part of Montana. It’s up in the mountains and has a population of about 1,700.
Tom said that the crew is Indian and white.
They keep me on as long as they can because I’m a good worker. I volunteer for jobs and I work hard. I’m a cutter. I cut down trees and help to maintain the forest. I also work on a fire crew, and the fire season is going to be tough, because it’s so dry and hot early this year. I think fighting fire in the big mountains is the hardest job there is. We get the fire bombers from Missoula.
Tom described the methods they use for fighting fires.
The bombers drop chemicals, and they have to watch out for the falling trees, and they go through the mop up by burying red hot ash. He said that cutting was a very dangerous job, but the fun and the money make it worthwhile.
He said that he always wants to run a chain saw. Tom said that he would be back to Hays for Vickie’s graduation, for memorial day, July 4th and Labor Day. He said he would stay in Thompson Falls as long as he could make money. Even after it snows he’s going to stay up there. It is 100 miles from Missoula. He’s going to measure lake temperatures and depths.
Vickie is going to stay here while Tom is gone so they keep their house in Whitecow Canyon. They don’t want to lose it. They just received it this year. It’s a big split-level house just for the two of them. They are married. Vickie will graduate from high school this month and Tom is a few years older. Vickie is a Gardipee – her father it Tuffy.
While he’s gone, Rosalie Boushie is moving in their house to stay with Vickie. Tom said that he, his brothers and sisters and mother used to live in a trailer park in Wyoming.
My mother is the secretary at the trailer park, and she stays without paying rent. I also lived in Billings for five years and went to school there. I like school there. When I came back to Hays, I was elected to everything. People are so quiet at meetings. I was president of the senior class, president of the rodeo club and was also on the School Community Council.
5-13-77
Mike said that he went over to see Clarence.
He offered me a job for the summer, and I think I’m going to take him up on it. He has a bunk house out there, and I’d stay there. He’ll pay me $10 a day. I’ll be fixing fence and painting and we’re going to finish the outside of his house. The nice part about it is that he’s going to let me take as many days off as I want. So, I can fight fire whenever I want to and leave when I want for as long as I want.
5-17-77
Ryan came home from school with an application for a job with SPEDY this summer. He wants to work this summer, and Gordon and Edith have to fill out the form for him to turn in. He has to say that he will continue with school to get onto this program. Gordon asked him if he was sure he would be going to school, and Ryan said yes. Gordon said he would help him fill out the form.
John came up to the mission to use the phone to call his girlfriend in Harlem. He said he was going to be working in the Youth Conservation Corp this summer. They will be thinning and working up in the mountains. He said that next year he would be able to fight fire – you have to be 18 (he’s 17).
5-19-77
Frank asked me where Susie was. I told him that she went up to Urban Rural to pick up my paycheck. I told him that I was getting paid for teaching in one lump sum. He said, “you know, Sandy, I want to tell you something. Don’t try to plan your money. Don’t say you’re going to have this much to that much, because something always comes up and you have to spend it. It happens to me all the time. I get a couple hundred dollars and I say that I’m going to put most of it into a bank. Then something comes up and I start spending that money. You just can’t plan it.”
Frank’s very heartfelt financial advice to me reflected a reservation-wide reality about their economy. I could write a dissertation about the fragility of the reservation and the resultant insecurity that was felt by almost every household. I’m not going to do that.
For the sake of your attention, I’m going to summarize the issues from about 30,000 feet. Women tended to have more stable, secure and yearlong jobs than men. Jobs in teaching and nursing are yearlong jobs. Most of the work done by men was seasonal, for instance with the forest department, road crews and construction. The yearlong jobs for men were most often jobs made available through the tribes or the BIA. There were very few entrepreneurs, people who started their own businesses on the reservation. People like Bruce were rare. And there were farmers and ranchers. More people would go into farming and ranching, but with the heirship land problem, previously described, it was difficult to find enough land to do so.
Unemployment was rampant and particularly in the winter months when most men are laid off work. Complicating matters was that there were men who did not qualify for jobs because they weren’t members of the tribe. There was a great deal of intermarriage between Gros Ventre and Metis. These men often had to find jobs off the reservation.
The long and the short of it was that most people lived a precarious economic existence. The consequence was the situation that Frank was describing to me. There were many households where no one was even earning a living wage. I’ve been on social security since I turned seventy years old. Periodically, the government announces that social security isn’t meant as a retirement program. The government admonishes people that they need to have a retirement plan independent of social security. When people barely earn enough to pay for the most basic necessities of life, there is no savings program. I wasn’t familiar with everyone’s financial status on the reservation, but I knew enough to conclude that few people had any kind of discretionary income that might end up in a savings account. Poverty was endemic and all the attendant social problems were also pervasive.
We were visiting with Camie in our trailer. I asked her if Richard was working on the road crew. She said that he couldn’t get a job here, because he wasn’t enrolled in the tribe.
He works for the BLM in Malta. They hire out of Malta. That used to be their central office. Now it is in Lewistown. He doesn’t work up there or live up there. He’s living at home. He works around this area. Now he’s working in Zortman. They work in the forests, maintaining the forests and thinning and they work on the parks, rivers and stuff like that. He’s been working for the BLM for 10 years. He was rehired at the end of April.
5-24-77
At the wake, I went over to say hello to Irma. She said that Ray was driving Lyle and Ruth and Shannon to their new job this morning. They answered an ad in Great Falls paper for a ranch hand and a cook. Ruth is going to be a cook and Lyle a ranch hand. They’ll get $800 plus all their meals and room free.
5-27-77
Mary and Beatrice came to the trailer to visit. They brought some food from the lunch program that was left over and gave it to us. They are cleaning the kitchen, and they will be laid off for the whole summer. Mary said that she felt guilty that they were taking so much time off. “Yesterday, I cleaned only the hood over the stove and today all I’ve done is the oven.” I told Mary not to feel bad about it. That she shouldn’t feel guilty, they worked so hard all year, and the pay wasn’t that good. It’s okay to relax for a couple of days.
Mary said that she has a new job for the summer but doesn’t want Father to know about it yet, because if it doesn’t work out after two months, I’m going to come back to work in the kitchen.
I’ve been cooking for so long, I don’t know if I’d like anything else. I really enjoy it, too. I can come into work at 9:00 and I get home early. I can be with the kids, and I can even bring them into work. BJ wants me to try it, and he has a lot of good reasons for me to try it. I’m going to go to work for my uncle, Francis, as a legal secretary. He’s a lawyer. I’m going to Browning for a week for training and then I’ll start. I told him that I don’t type well but he said we should give it a try. He said there would be a lot of pressure on me and my hours would be long. It’s on a trial basis. If I don’t like it or if it doesn’t work for him, then I’ll leave without any hard feelings. I’d be making $1 more an hour. I make $2.25 here and he would pay me $3.36 an hour. I’ll be working in the housing office.
Beatrice said that she’s only worked with one other woman besides Mary who she got along with. Mary said, “well, we’ve been doing it for a long time together. And I enjoy cooking. I like the job.”
5-28-77
I was visiting with Bertha at Gordon and Edith’s.
We could make it off the reservation, but we don’t like to live in the city. Me and my family lived in San Jose, California for five years. We didn’t like it. We went on the relocation program, another government program. You should have seen the place they tried to put my family in. A dirty, rat-infested place. And they put all the Indians together. I wouldn’t live there. After I would drive Jim to the factory, I would go up and down the streets looking for a place until I finally found one.
We weren’t happy there. I made $10 a day washing and cleaning white people’s homes. That was in the 1950s. We stayed for five years and then we came back. A lot of people from here tried it and a lot have come back to the reservation they love. I’ll tell you what I mean about how white people think the Indian gets all this money. I woke up one morning and we had a paper delivered to our house. On the front page was a story about two billion dollars being allocated in Congress for some Indian social programs. I didn’t pay much attention to it because I knew what it was all about. The Indian people wouldn’t see much of this money by the time the BIA salaries were paid. I went to work that morning and the woman I worked for came running up to me waving the paper. She said, did you see the article in the paper. She seemed happy. I thought I really missed something important, and I asked her what it was about. She told me about the two billion dollars and was happy for me. She thought I was going to get some of this money. I told her, the only money I get is the $10 from you for washing your toilet. These white people don’t know what their taxes are going for. They think that we get this money. It’s about time they understood how this money is being spent. It’s your money. The BIA money doesn’t go to the people. It goes to support and pay for this government institution that is so top heavy. By the time the money gets down to the Indian people, it’s nothing like what was allocated. And then people wonder why the programs don’t work.
5-30-77
Davey said that he sure enjoyed his land and being out here. “We lived in California for a while. And none of us like it. We lived in Oakland. I used to drive to work and it was only a few blocks or miles away and it took me 45 minutes to get there every day. I hated all that traffic and noise.”
5-31-77
Mike said that there weren’t going to be any good fire crews around here this summer. Most of the good former crew chiefs got other jobs for the summer. A lot of the guys are on the road crew. I asked Mike if it was the tribe or the state (the enrollment problem). He said he didn’t know for sure, but he thought it might be with the state. They make $8 an hour, and they work 6 days a week, 10 hour days and they get all that overtime pay.
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