Smoke Signals 5
FEBRUARY 1, 2005
Tribal Elder A Leader And A Legendary Rebel
DEAN continued
from page 4
I'd seen or talked to," said Dean. "I
said, 'Which kids made him cry?'"
"I had three or four of them be
fore they could stop me. The su
perintendent was going to expel me
from school until I told him the
story."
As Dean remembers, though he
said he wasn't privy to the
institution's discussions, they
stopped tours of the facility after
that.
Beverly Ann died at the age of
26.
He told the story of a school shop
ping trip in Salem. "Hubert gave
us $100 for school." At the store,
the owner "called the cops on us and
said that we stole the $100. They
thought we were from the
Chemawa Indian School.
"The first good fight I had was
with some of those Siletz people,"
said Dean. He referred to one, Tho
mas Charlie, who "kept running his
mouth. He thought he was a bad
ass. Well, I knocked him on his ass."
Dean Mercier has always been a
fighter. He even had a Golden
Gloves fight, though that career
was short-lived. Too many rules,
he said.
Still, his patchwork of occupations
led him into the white world often
enough. "I never felt intimidated
by white people," he said. "I was
called a half-breed and an onion
head."
When Dean was 15, a log truck
smacked into the car he was driv
ing and his arm was caught in the
misunderstanding. It "near tore it
off," he said.
The hospital wanted to amputate,
but uncle Hubert was on hand to
tell them to save the arm, and Dean
emerged from the hospital with his
arm, but in a body cast.
"Hubert is why Dean has an arm
today," said Christina.
The arm got gangrene, said
Dean, and they used maggots to
treat him. He was supposed to stay
at home, but he wasn't having any
of it. Marion Mercier, a Tribal mem
ber now deceased, sawed slits in the
bottom of the cast so Dean could
climb out the window. Which they
both did.
It was summer. Marion and
Dean took what was left of his cast
to the Phil Sheridan Days celebra
tion where a local physician's nurse
took a look at his arm and gave him
the go-ahead to run around, so
Marion drove Dean off in the
family's '41 Ford heading for the
Yamhill River and a little fun.
"They did the same thing they
complain about the kids doing to
day," said Christina. "Drinking and
driving."
Somehow, the bumper of the car
caught on the railroad tracks at the
bend in the road on the way to
Willamina, and the car "upended,
ass over front," and landed in the
river.
"I heard the splash," said Dean.
"I (accidentally) hit Marion with the
cast and knocked him out. I had a
hell of a time waking him up. He
tried to help me out of the car but
he wound up back inside." And
there went the rest of the cast as
the two made their ways first out
of the '41 and then out of the river.
three times as much as the princi
pal himself was making at the time.
He nevertheless ultimately earned
his G.E.D. "without looking at a
book."
Dean told stories about work at a
plywood factory, a cannery, buying
found nails in the desks used by
kids, he held them after class to re
pair what they had damaged. They
did and the program grew from 68
students when Dean started to 800
when he left two-and-a-half years
later.
ii" t ,
Dean's 1931 Chevrolet Here's the infamous '3 1 Chevy that Dean Mercier was driving when an accident with a log
truck caused him to almost lose his arm.
Dean went through his junior
year in high school before taking
on the working life full time. The
principal came out to see him to
encourage him to go back to school.
"All through grade school, I heard
about you," Dean quoted Dan
and selling everything from pota
toes to junk, cutting and selling fire
wood, picking hops and fishing.
Dean also worked as a counselor
for Indian kids through Oregon
State University (OSU) for a time.
It was an energy and nutrition
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Tribal Leaders Out For Bear Tribal members Fremond Bean Geft) and
Dean Mercier shown here with the skin of a bear they killed. Dean and Fremond
spent most of their young lives together working and playing in Grand Ronde.
Hyatt, his principal, as saying.
"When you left, everybody followed
you. You're a natural leader. I
wanted you to show others the right
thing."
"I didn't pay any attention to
that," said Dean, who was making
project that he got through the rec
ommendation of his old high school
principal, Dan Hyatt. And this was
not the only time that his personal
ity difficult as he could be
opened doors for him.
On the OSU project, when Dean
Dean worked for many of the log
ging concerns here as well as some
up in Washington and down in the
southern part of the state. He said
he put in "all the roads" when he
worked for the local Zimbrick log
ging company.
"I was born in the environment
in which everybody works," said
Dean. "I did everything. You had
to survive."
"One time, we didn't have grocery
money, so I went into the junk busi
ness." Back in the late 1960s and 70s,
when some 300 commercial dories
trolled the shores of the mid dle Or
egon coast for fishermen in need of
a boat, Dean had a charter fishing
boat, Running Bear, a dory, for a
time. (He wanted to call it, Run
ning Bare, with a bear chasing a
naked woman as a logo, but Jerry,
his wife at the time, quashed that
idea. Tribal Elder Allen George did
the final drawing of only the bear.)
Dean told a story of a Hell's An
gel or a member of some motorcycle
group, who rested a foot on Run
ning Bear. "I told him to get his
damn sandy foot off my boat," and
later his daughter, Jackie Whisler,
came riding up on the back of the
guy's motorcycle. The guy had
brought some beer as a peace of
fering. "Clean off them shoes and come
on up here for a beer," said Dean.
For many years, he also partici
pated in the Pacific City Dory Days
races.
"I took care of that son of a bitch,"
said Dean, referring to his dory. "I
waxed it every week."
He became "overall champion," at
See DEAN
on page 6