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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 2000)
J NOVEMBER 1,2000 13 fMIbal Eldleir & MsM of Fame AUhlette ILeomiaFdl ViveMe Retiffliraii to Gipaimdl ffioraidle By Chris Mercier ft ere is a look. It is not a mean look, nor a sad look, a confused look nor a mad look. But there is a look that we all experience sometime in our lives the look somebody gives you when posed a question that jjthey really don't know how to an f swer. And it is probably because they I rlrm'f lrinnw wrVioro tr Viocrin Leonard Vivette gave this writer that look when recently asked if Grand Ronde had changed in the 67 years since last he saw it. "Geez, man! Are you kidding?" he said while we sat in his front room. Leonard was born in Grand Ronde February 16, 1913, the son of Louis Vivette and Lena Goodell. He left as a young man to attend Chemawa In dian School in Salem, last gazing upon Spirit Mountain in 1934. But he remembers fondly growing up around here, and when he returned to take up residence in the new El der Housing, was pleasantly sur prised to find some familiar faces. "Well, I had to ask some people their names," he chuckles. "But they sure remembered me, and I remem bered them." Leonard grew up in a small house near the base of Spirit Mountain. He and his two sisters, Marie and Lurie, like every other kid in the neighbor hood, attended Cloverleaf School, a rather large one-room building lo cated off of what is now Hebo Road. The school served everyone, grades 1-12, he says. Everybody knew everyone else. As a boy, he used to go out into the woods and collect basket materials for "the Hudson Girls" (Ila Dowd and Eula Petite). "We never had much to do out here," he recalls. "Just go to school and fool around." Nonetheless, that is not to say that Grand Ronde was an uneventful place during the early part of the century. As a young boy in the 1920s, Leonard remembers vividly a flu epidemic that swept through the - town, killing dozens of people and nearly taking him in its wake. "Yeah that epidemic nearly took me as well," he says. "I can remember we had to go all the way out to Sheri dan to see the doctor." "They had this Chinese doctor there," he continues. "And he took a bunch of herbs and leaves and ground them up and gave them to me." "I don't know what they were, but luckily I was saved." The same doctor, however, wasn't quite as lucky. Not long after the epidemic, while driving over the tracks near Willamina, he collided with a train. He died immediately. Not much in the way of roads ex isted back then. Just wide dirt path ways that became knee-deep mud pits during the rainy seasons. And of course, seeing as his family had only one car, walking was often the only mode of transportation. Leonard went to Chemawa Indian Boarding School in Keizer to study carpentry, and although a useful skill, it was not the most notable prod uct of his time there. Chemawa rather helped hone his athletic skills and he played just about every sport allowed. He became a member of Chemawa's Athletic Hall of Fame for his skill at playing basketball. Natu rally, he is extremely modest about his athletic accomplishments. "Oh yeah, I played some sports," he downplays. In the late 1930s he drifted through Salem and over to Warm Springs to play semi-pro baseball. After two years there he headed to Chiloquin on the Klamath Indian Reservation, near Kla math Falls. He remem bers those times with nostalgic clarity. "Yeah, I really loved playing baseball," he says. "And we played teams from all over the Salem Senators, Bend, Burns, even Falls City." One team in particular stands out. "We once played a Japanese team from Portland," he says. "Man, those guys, they could hit and run." The two teams waged an epic con test once, with the Warm Springs team falling in 12 innings. "I wish I could remember their names," he says. "God, they were good!" Leonard married Margaret Hoptowit, his sweetheart at Che mawa, in 1941 while in the Klamath Falls area. Employment was steady, as he found work making ammuni tion boxes and playing basketball. But then came the big day. "My draft number came up, and I was offered the choice of becoming a farmer or becoming a soldier," he says. Married, the choice was an obvi ous one, and they moved to Yakama to find prosperity in farming sugar beets and later alfalfa seeds. Leonard dabbled in farming, trying his luck at raising peaches, apples and cher ries. When it was time for a change, he even tried working on a cattle ranch. Leonard and his wife had seven children five daughters and two sons Florine, Emily, Yvonne, Leonette, Connie, Leon and Chuck. Eventually, he and his wife retired rut -.," a Grand Ronde Tribal Elder Leonard Vivette pictured here in his new home at the Tribe's new Elders' Housing de velopment in Grand Ronde. Vivette recently returned to Grand Ronde af ter years of living on the Yakama Res ervation in Washington. from agriculture and bought a house in White Swan, in the northernmost part of the Yakama Reservation. A widower for the last four years, Leonard was living by himself when earlier this year his daughter Leonette Galligher called and sug gested trying out the new Elder Housing. "Why not?" he said. He moved in this summer, and does not regret the decision at all. Leonard likes to find time for all sorts of ac tivities, from hanging out with his children and grandchildren (num bering 18 now) to rekindling old friendships, to watching movies. He has even made one enemy: a young buck that stops by every morning to sharpen its antlers on one of his sap lings. His favorite actor, by the way, is Clint Eastwood. 3 f if 1 H "' i S i I I I i P ! I : to.5 Vivette (back row, far right) was a Hall of Fame athlete at Chemawa Indian Boarding School in Keizer, Oregon in the 1920s. A picture of Vivette playing basketball for Chemawa is in the school's trophy case to this day. Mi n . n w 1 X'i ( & "kit mm V'S i ji Q m 7 fJi Ni - sr if -; Ik- w - "'j f 4 15 Vivette (front row, far right) is pictured here in a local newspaper article about the athletic success of sports teams at Chemawa Indian Boarding School. To day, Vivette is modest about his athletic success at Chemawa.
