Smoke Signals Special Edition
Harriet Luudsflw:
NOVEMBER 15, 2004
lost, as Darrell Mercier said, because,
"they might have talked about her
among themselves (but he wouldn't
have understood because) they
spoke jargon."
Following the death of Harriet's
daughter in Portland in 1929, ac
cording to McNutt, Emanuel "Mose"
Hudson contacted her in Portland
and brought her back to Grand
Ronde "...and she came back here
to live with (Mose and) Hattie
Hudson."
In those final years, McNutt was
about 13 years old. "Harriet would
have me thread needles for her,"
she said. "She'd give me 50 cents
for threading her needles and I
thought I was rich."
Though people in town remember
visiting Harriet and'sitting down to
speak with her, most had the impres
sion that not many others did. "I
don't think anyone visited her," said
McNutt. "Probably, she didn't want
to associate with us."
"I don't think she ever left the
house, ever," said McNutt. The
house was a farmhouse, now gone,
that used to stand behind the house
on Route 18 near Grand Ronde
Road where Darrell Mercier cur
rently lives. "Maybe a priest came
to see her," said McNutt.
McNutt mentioned her white cro
cheted collars, her lace collars, and
added, "She was a very sophisti
cated lady."
Hubert Mercier remembered vis
iting with Harriet when he was
about 20, and otherwise coming to
the house because he was "going
with Martha," one of the Hudson
girls.
"She never said anything about
her life," said Hubert.
He even met Harriet's daughter,
Marian, who would have been
about 50 at the time. "I really liked
her," said Hubert. "She was so
ciable." When Marian took sick in Port
land, Harriet "stayed with her un
til she died," according to Darrell
Mercier.
"Ila (Hudson) and Joseph Dowd
were with Harriet when she passed
away," according to Nadine
McNutt.
The Romeo-Juliet story is skewed
by the power that Sheridan held
over not only the young girl but
the family of Tribes to which she
was then attached. At the same
time, there is no question, from a
variety of interviews and available
documents, that Harriet's regard
for Sheridan was not only sincere,
but long lived.
While Jordan said that Sheridan
always denied making the remark
that "the only good Indian is dead,"
the Army General did say that the
way to eliminate the Indian was to
eliminate the buffalo. Sheridan
applied the same logic to the Civil
War, said Jordan, razing the
Shenandoah Valley, a breadbasket
for the South, to starve the Con
federacy. "And it worked," said Jor
dan. Perhaps the man separated his
work life from his home life.
David Leno went on to marry
again before meeting and in 1877,
marrying the Tribal member
Tilmer LaChance at St. Michael
Catholic Church in Grand Ronde.
Together, they had 12 children,
and many of the succeeding gen
erations have become leaders of the
Grand Ronde Tribe.
Marian Fedder had no known
children, so Harriet's lineage stops
with Marian's death in 1929. Her
story, however, lives on.
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Above: Harriet, a Rogue River Indian of Chief George's Band, in a photo in her
youth.
Left: Harriet Lindsay and daughter Marian Fedder pose together in a photo
from the turn of the century.