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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (March 1, 2006)
2 MARCH 1, 2006 Kathryn Harrison SPECIAL INSERT MARCH 1,2006 Kathryn Harrison SPECIAL INSERT 3 WSfif -W W-f 1 1 ' 7 lA I 'I I Ny 1 J fir - s ( ClT IMF Summit Kathryn, center, with Tribal Elder Beryl Contreras and Wilma Mankiller, formerly Principal Chief of the Cherokees. All were inspired by AJ.M.'s takeover of Alcatraz Island between 1969 and 1971. Building Friendships Kristine Olson and Kathryn Harrison talk at a recent book signing at the Molalla Area Historical Museum. The books quickly sold out, but the conversations and memories lasted all afternoon. Harrison travels on behalf of the Grand Ronde Tribe. She cuts rib bons to open buildings and speaks her mind about what it means to be an Indian. She sits on the dais of every conceivable organization with dignitaries of every stripe. She offers prayers for reconcilia tion and peace. She has suffered the indigni ties that mark the lives of many Indians and has done the jobs reserved for the poorest of the poor, the backbreaking work of migrant farm workers, of travel ing to find relatives who would find room for her and as many of her 10 children as were with her at the time, until her fortunes en abled her to carry the children on her own back again, and it wasn't long before the children returned the favor and began contributing to her welfare. Her child rearing days - some 25 years' worth - are just a blur to her now, according to Olson's new biography, a deeply felt and richly researched book that also reveals much about the contemporary history of the Grand Ronde and Siletz peoples. In fact, Kathryn has been a parent non-stop since her first child. Even today, she has a grandchild living with her. On her mother's side, Harrison comes from Alaskan Eyaks and ScottishItalian immigrants. Her maternal grandfather, George A. Flemming Sr., was a New Yorker born to ScottishItalian immi grants, and had come to Alaska soon after its acquisition from Russia in 1864. He ran a success ful fur trade on Prince William Sound for awhile. He enjoyed a number of successful enterprises, had an island and a "spit" named for him, and married Harrison's grandmother, Elena, an Eyak. Of two children, one was Henry and one was Ella, Harrison's mother, who were sent down to the Chemawa Indian Boarding School - first Henry, then Ella as young children. The Russians occupied Alaska in the 1860s and the fur traders there nearly wiped out the remain ing Eyaks. Her father, Harry W. Jones, descended from Molalla Chief Yel kus, who was among those forced from their lands and marched along School where he graduated at the top of his class. While he bristled at the way Indians were treated there, he also recognized that not all of the intentions of others was suspect. In his valedictory speech, he said, "As the Indian was brought 4 1 ' (1 v. biiiwnJ lit .. : Ant P iffy HI U if. 'At a , ffivfti m . & h 1 I A 4! 4 i 4. 1 if Ew-Vv 6 ' -- A J . . I Heritage Kathryn was named in honor of "Molalla Kate," above, her great great aunt, and a strong, colorful and well-remembered figure who took care of Kathryn's family when she was young. Oregon's Trail of Tears,.to Grand Ronde. Chief Yel-kus's neice was the famous Molalla Kate. Jones was born on the reserva tion in Grand Ronde in 1892, later attended the Chemawa Indian to bay, he looked around and saw the white man everywhere. He has submitted to the inevitable, and is now beginning to know ... that white man's God ... intends that all men should be brothers. Instead of looking on the White man as an enemy, we turn to you for help. Will you be our brother?" One of few Indians asked to consider attending college, Jones spent almost two years at Wash ington State University, but run ning out of money, he tried to raise funds for his education. At the time, he was entitled to inherit three allotments in Grand Ronde. There, he got his personal answer to the brotherhood question. In 1915, he was declared incompe tent to handle this land by the BIA. This effort to take Indian lands for white people took place again and again across the country, and locally at both Grand Ronde and Siletz. Ultimately, Jones took off for Alaska where his classmate Ella had returned to help her family. They married and moved back to Corvallis where Jones worked painting houses for white people who had bought Indian lands, like his own. The couple and their first child returned to Alaska, hoping to work for a steamer line or in a cannery, but the next year, they returned to Oregon, one of many trips between Oregon and Alaska. Years later, one of the return visits to Oregon landed the Jones family among the Siletz people where their aunt, Molalla Kate, now on her fourth husband, helped look after the family. Harry Jones was close to Mo lalla Kate, and named his next child, Kathryn, in her honor. That child grew up to become a leader of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde. Kathryn's early years were . filled with jobs like stripping hops and hating it, acting in school plays and loving that; remembering her mother's ability to make clothes and her father's ability to build the cabin in Siletz for a time. But it all ended so quickly. When she was 10, a flu took both parents within a week of each other, a sickness that she was first in the family to suffer with, a sickness that she spent much of her life believing she had brought into the family. Olson quotes Kathryn as say ing, "I wanted to sleep all the time because maybe Mama would come to me in my dreams." The BIA split the children up to families and aid agencies, some who tried to beat or berate the Indian out of the children. Her younger brother, Bob, however, was a favorite in the Watson fam ily where his sisters were targets of the old man, Carl Watson. For Kathryn, the escape final ly came after ninth grade when she ran away to the Chemawa School where she stayed through graduation. In Kathryn's years there, and due in part to her positive attitude and excellent leadership skills, the school improved. "Instead of fulfilling its mission of assimila tion," wrote Olson, "the school un intentionally reinforced a sense of Indian identity. Many of Oregon's Tribal leaders are alumni from that period." Kathryn started going out with the man who would become her husband, Frank Harrison, in her junior year at Chemawa. A Rocky Boy Chippewa from Mon tana, Frank also was a strong personality on campus and a talented clarinetist. But because of his drinking, he never made it through school. They married in 1944, when Frank was on a hardship leave from the army and Kathryn's daughter, Patsy, was still an in fant. And thus began a road that was to last more than 25 years through the births of nine more children and countless no-count jobs, difficult or impossible living situations, a family frequently on the move, almost always without ... 7 ? ' ' Mi ' ' ' ' ;v " -4 I If Political Leader Kathryn in Washington, D.C. She testified before Congress there in 1 983 in support of Restoration and has since been back many times in support of Grand Ronde issues. Kathryn travels on behalf of the Tribal Council making appearances across the country with a message of reconciliation and hope. it- "Imp --izZi. -v . " . f j i . i I the help of a husbandfather lost in alcoholism, a road that ultimately brought Kathryn back to the Siletz families and friends she first got to know when she and her siblings were orphaned in 1934. "This period of her life," wrote Olson, "paralleled the horrific fed eral policy that terminated many tribes and again forced Indians off their traditional lands, split ting families and destroying cul tural ties. Throughout this period, Kathryn was learning firsthand about life steeped in alcoholism. "When Frank returned from the war, he was not welcomed to any community as patriot or hero. Cultural Leader Kathryn represented Grand Ronde when the Maoris of New Zealand visited Salem in the summer of 2005. Here, she participated in a special welcoming ritual at Willamette University. "How often our ancestors met with other Tribes in this area," she said. "If you listen, maybe we can hear them."
