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About Siletz news / (Siletz, OR) 199?-current | View Entire Issue (May 1, 2003)
TRIBAL MEMBER NEWS PV2 Abraham Lawney Staggs Dalton Staggs Plays in State Hockey Tourney Military Police, U.S. Army 4,h Infantry by your Aunties Cheryl, Sue, Julie, and Connie We would like to express how proud we are of your willingness to fight for our country and freedom. Thank you so very much for going and fighting for our country and the freedom we all enjoy as Americans. Your name has been placed on several prayer lists. We pray daily for your safety, strength, and courage. Abe is the son of Kenneth Staggs and grandson of Charles (Chuck) and Gladys (Tom) Staggs. Our prayers for you daily - Psalms 91: God’s protecting power over you; and Psalms 91:10-11: There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling, for he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. We know the only way home is through Baghdad and we can’t wait until you’re home safe. See you soon. Our love and prayers are with you. PV2 Abraham Lawney Staggs by your Aunties Cheryl, Sue, Julie, and Connie We would like to let Dalton Staggs know how proud we are of him and what a great athlete he is. Dalton is a Siletz Tribal member and lives in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. He’s the son of Kenneth Staggs and grandson of Charles (Chuck) and Gladys (Tom) Staggs. Dalton is a member of the Mountain Youth Hockey Association (MYHA) in Spokane, Wash. He went to Boise, Idaho, in February to compete with “rep” teams at their state tournament and did well for his first year. Dalton plays defense in the Bantam Division (13-14 years old). Heather “Shy” Staggs-Rice Receives RN Degree We love you, your Aunties Cheryl, Sue, Julie, and Connie We would like to say congratula tions on receiving your RN degree from North Idaho College. On May 15, Shy will graduate as a licensed registered nurse. We realize all the hard work and dedication it takes to accomplish this with babies at home to care for. Shy assisted our tribal members when they had a car accident in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Congratulations, we are very proud of you! Duke Staggs Receives Degree in Education the Aunties Cheryl, Sue, Julie, and Connie We are so proud of you on receiving your education degree from Boise State College, Boise, Idaho. We know that you have worked long and hard for this. Congratulations! Our love to you and your family. Stay safe! Walt’s Words of Wit and Wisdom I’ve seen that some of the lunches have been disappearing. Now, this is truly the victim’s fault. Anyone who is as good-looking as the makers of them lunches must have good lunches. Just like I said before about them box socials, there’s no answer to the remedy. Long time ago, well to some anyway, when at home, my grandma used to bake bread two or three times a week. It was really terrible having to eat homemade bread all the time. Had to eat those big fluffy biscuits every morning. It was truly child abuse (sure wish some would elder abuse me). Now and then, my uncle would bring home store-bought bread. Boy, that was like cake, it was good. Of course, we also had that home-churned butter. It was a chore to sit there and twirl that thing until the cream became hard, then it was called butter. Then some people would like to drink that leftover from the butter, called buttermilk, but when my uncle brought bread he also bought butter. What a treat - store-bought bread and store-bought butter. Grandma always had a pail of milk on the stove over on the cooler side, where cottage cheese was always in the making. Some of the family liked the “whey.” Actually, I don’t think that we knew how to appreciate what we had. We didn’t have refrigeration. All the meat was canned, well most of it. Some would be salted down. It had to be soaked overnight to get some of the salt out. I think that it was mostly pork. Beef was stored in grease. A layer of beef hamburger, I think, was cooked then covered with grease lard, then a layer of meat and a layer of lard. This was our winter supply of meat. It was quite limited, however, because for the most part the beef and hogs were for selling and the deer were for eating. Vegetables were all canned. The smokehouse always had some bacon and fish in it. The salmon were quite plentiful in the little creek that ran through the 12 0 Siletz News ' 4 May 2003 □ »■!»** * place and my uncle and neighbors would catch the good ones and smoke them. The others would be used for fertilizer for the com patch. Respect for Elders We had to respect our elders. We could not call them by their first names. Like our neighbor, I can’t remember his first name today, but us kids had to call him Mr. Bemrose. Whoever we talked to had to be addressed as Mr. or Mrs. Our relatives had to be addressed as aunt or uncle. In fact, I think everyone was an aunt or uncle. Anyway, that way we couldn’t go wrong. If by chance we did call someone by their first name, it was good for a backhand. Later on in life, some of these people became the old man. The women always were Miss or Mrs. Old man Bemrose was the father of the to be Bertha Lane. They lived next door to where I was raised. Respect was required of all young people that 1 was aware of, anyway. My uncle didn’t particularly like Indians. I don’t know why, I was Indian. When I had to have shoes, pants, or had to go to the doctor in Siletz at the government infirmary on Government Hill, there used to be several Indian people from Siletz who would come visit my uncle. I couldn’t figure out why. They would stand out there by the garage and laugh, having a good time. Today, I’ve figured out why. My uncle made moonshine and beer. I don’t know to this day where the still was. I know he used to have three or four 10-gallon crocks with something brewing that I wasn’t to know about. I did get into it one time, though, and the results were not so good. Well, I could ramble on for four or five pages, but it probably wouldn’t be appreciated. Take care.
