6 APRIL 15, 2003
Smoke Signals
0' Mairenairelt Mckb
Never lonely, never bored, McAbee worked hard and at 75, she still keeps
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By Ron Karten
Today, Tribal Elder Margaret
McAbee lives with her daughter,
Tribal member Marline Groshong, in
Groshong's carefully kept house deco
rated western and Indian inside and
out on old Hebo Highway in Grand
Ronde. In the living room, a photo of
bronc rider Dan Mortensen is signed
by another of her favorite bronc rid
ers, Billy Etbauer.
People call her Marge, sometimes
Margo. Her occasional sharp response
has earned her the nickname, Smokie,
and when the family gets together and
plays dice, she also has been called,
Slick Willie. "Her cousin, Tribal El
der Marvin Davis, embroidered it on
an apron for her," said Groshong. And
when she was younger, her dad and
uncle used to call her, Boots, for the
cowgirl boots she wore.
"She loves puzzles and crafts," said
Groshong. "She always loved her
crafts." Sometimes, she finishes a
puzzle, glues it down and frames it.
Sometimes, she puts the pieces back
in the box and gives the puzzles away.
"She always knitted us sweaters and
crocheted."
Today, McAbee is working on tiny
booties, but also includes among her
crafts, beadwork, flower pot hangers,
Christmas wreathes, sunbursts, cro
cheting outfits for Indian dolls, knit
ting ("I'm going to finish this scarf I'm
working on and that's it!) and (I'm still
making) afghans, (but I'm going to
quit that, too)."
You can see Spirit Mountain over the
fields from their back door, less than
a mile from where McAbee was born
75 years ago, and where she grew up
among a large and sprawling family
that may not have had a lot of extras,
but came, as far as McAbee was con
cerned, with all the things that were
important.
The family, as McAbee remembers,
"raised our own pork, chickens, beef
and berries. We had lots of gardens,
did lots of canning."
And though there was not much
money, there was always plenty to eat.
She remembers that they kept the sour
dough starter warm behind the stove,
and they'd bake sourdough biscuits
three times a day. "It was something
you kept going all the time," she said.
"In those days," she said, "people
were very desperate for resources." She
remembers because she has been out
working for them just about since she
could walk.
Her first job, when she was only
three, had her helping her grand
mother, the late Tribal Elder Tilmer
Leno. "Grandmother was very crippled
in a horse and carriage accident, and
all she did was quilt, so she needed a
little kid around to help pick up scis
sors if she dropped them, and so on."
"From the age of 14 on," she said,
"it was school and work, school and
work. But you know, for me, I really
have no complaints. My family was
very efficient."
Raised by grandmother Leno, who
lived to be more than 100 despite her
infirmities, and her uncle, the late
Tribal Elder George Leno, McAbee
built a life for herself and her family
here in Grand Ronde that stuck.
Though she traveled and worked else
where for more than half of her life
and though her daughters lived far and
wide, they're all back now living within
a few miles of each other and family
still is the center of their lives. "It
was always home," said McAbee.
Her daughters, Groshong and
Sharon Herron, remember an upbring
ing also filled with work but no regrets.
"She was strict, but she was good to
us," said Herron.
Herron and Groshong had their own
lessons. 'When we were three," Herron
said, "she took us out (picking berries)
with a coffee can with a wire handle to
keep us busy, I guess, to feel like we
were contributing.
"Marline was the outdoorsy type and
things worked out pretty good that
way. We each just had things lined
out and you knew what you had to do.
It wasn't a choice. You were given
chores and you did them. That's the
way it was."
When the sisters were 11 and 12,
they learned exactly what that meant.
In those days, it took them an hour
and a half to travel to Dayton to pick
berries. "We'd get up at four in the
morning to catch the bus to pick ber
ries," said Herron. "One day we were
fired for having a berry fight in the
field. Mom was waiting for us at home
with a switch. That was the only time
we got whipped. We never got in
trouble again.
"And I think we both turned out to
be pretty productive people," said
Herron. She now works as a referral
clerk in the Wellness Clinic for the
Tribe, and Groshong is a nursing su
pervisor at Salem Hospital.
Still off in the world are Herron's
boys, Mick, who is 26, a bail bonds
man and bounty hunter living in Kan
sas with a daughter, 4-year-old Sierra,
and Monte, 30, who works for Voice
Stream, the telephone company, and
lives closer to home in Salem.
Groshong said that she and Mick en-
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Margaret McAbee stands in her
back yard with one of her home
made bird houses.
joy Harley (-Davidson motorcycle) road
trips together, which is a typical ex
ample of family closeness
that crosses the genera
tions. McAbee's parents were
the Paul and Elizabeth
(Leno) Lafferty. The rest of
her direct siblings included
her youngest brother, Ken
neth Lafferty, who works in
the Security Department of
the Tribe, her youngest sis
ter Tribal Elder Juanita
Lee, who lives in Elder
Housing, a younger brother,
Gerald Lafferty, an older sis
ter, Norma Lee, who lives
in Grand Meadows, another
older sister, Dorothy Lane,
who died last November, a
twin sister of Dorothy's who
died of tuberculosis at age
16 along with "a couple of
half brothers and sisters."
Everybody remembers the
big meals for friends and
families on weekends. "In
high school," said Groshong,
"Uncle Kenny (Lafferty)
(and his family) came down
every weekend. She'd
(McAbee) work her eight
hours at Bonanza and then
she'd come home and make
pots of stew. There's still
an awful lot of company
here. It's the central place."
McAbee remembers long
before there were daughters, the river
that ran by the Leno family's property
with 15 acres on one side of the Hebo
Highway and 11 acres on the river
side. "I'd take my little horse (Babe)
down there," where they caught
crawdaddies, and sometimes they'd
"cross the river together," or "swing
under the oak tree. Uncle George put
it up. And he renewed the (swing's)
rope every three years so nobody got
hurt."
She remembers the log bridge that
Murphy's Lumber built across the
bridge, with a double set of logs span
ning the 12-foot divide and planks ham
mered to the logs for the wheels of log
trucks to ride on, but for McAbee, the
beauty of the set up was "you could
jump off it and go swimming."
She remembers that her mom
learned to drive in a similar way.
McAbee was 47 at the time. "She kept
saying she wanted to learn to drive.
Dad told her to get in the car, that
they'd drive down the road to Ruth and
Tribal Elder Darrel Mercier's. They
went 300 yards. He told her to stop,
jumped out and told her to go the rest
of the way herself. She was scared to
death but she got up to Ruth's, and
knocked on the door. At first, Ruth
invited her in, but then stepped out on
the porch to see who drove her over.
Mom told her the story, stayed about
an hour and then drove back. When
she took the (driving) test, I think she
got 100 percent on it. After that she
went everywhere in the car."
From the age of 10-13, McAbee at
tended the Chemawa Indian School in
Salem. "I loved it," she said. "I learned
a lot."
When she was 14-15, McAbee did her
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Margaret McAbee at age 18.
part for the family by helping collect
chittum bark. "You see it now in the
drug store. It's called cascara. It's
medicinal.
She remembered it could also be the
source of some amusement at home.
"They'd con us into drinking it," she
said. "Mom or dad or aunt or uncle or
anybody. If you just took a teaspoon
ful, it was all right, but if you took
more. . ."
To get the bark, she took horses 14
miles up the mountain and set up
camp. Sometimes she would bring a
younger sibling or two brother
Gerald Lafferty, who "was not very
old," would "gather wood and bring
water" and sister, Genevieve, would
help, too, "she'd tag along and pick
bark up off the ground and put it in
the sack.
"It was a lot of work. You had to
peel the trees, roll it up, put it in a big
sack (they got $4 a sack, she remem
bered), put it on a horse and bring it
out of the mountain. It didn't pay to
bring one or two sacks. You had to
bring a lot. Three pack horses with
four sacks on each one."
Her dad, Paul "Buffalo" Lafferty, who
made his living as a hunting guide and
cowboy, would take the pack horses
down the mountain allowing McAbee
to keep peeling bark off the trees, and
it could take a few days to get the job
done.
Meanwhile, McAbee would set up a
tent to get her and brother Gerald, now
living with his wife who is a member
of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz
Indians, and sister Genevieve Ray, who
died in April 2001 last year, through
the night, and because they shared the
woods with cougar, they went with