J NOVEMBER 1,2000
13
fMIbal Eldleir & MsM of Fame AUhlette
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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
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"' 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.
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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.