6 JANUARY 1,2007
Smoke Signals January 1,2007
Smoke Signals 7
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Louie and Louise Medeiros on the couch with Buddy, their Lhasa Apso in 1 992.
MEDEIROS continued
from front page
"She always took care of people,"
said daughter Tammy.
"The loosing of the hounds," Me
deiros said. "Open the doors and
they go escort the guest in."
Inside is a potpourri of hobbies,
including crafts and artists, adven
tures and whatnot that have stopped
along their ways to the walls, the
closets, wherever they were going.
As a girl at home, recalled her
cousin and childhood friend, Tribal
Elder Sharon Hanson, Medeiros
had "probably 6-8 garbage barrels
full of craft things to do when she
retired."
Today, she's got a remodel of the
kitchen in mind.
She comes from talented parents,
Medeiros is proud to say, that gave
her the example and the confidence
to take on all sorts of projects. Her
dad, Tom Forster, who passed on in
October at 99 years of age, and For
ster's cousin, Frank Forster, married
Mercier sisters, Dorothy and Marion,
in 1936 and 1937, and worked their
magic together for years. Frank
Forster and Marion Mercier were
Sharon Hanson's parents.
In 1916, both families moved
to Central Oregon and lived in
a motel for a week or two, as
Medeiros remembers, while the
cousins built garages. The family
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Uncle Frank Forster and Louise near Boone Cabin in the Ochocos in 1967.
moved from the motel rooms to the
garage rooms while the cousins
went to work on the houses. "I
can still find the house my dad
built," she said.
"They could do anything. Electri
cian, farmer, builder, car mechanic,
plumber; back in those days, you
had to survive so you learned how
to do all that stuff."
These talents were the road out
of poverty. Of course, they had the
use of everything the cousins could
make, or sales from it, but Medeiros
also said, "We never felt poor."
But she also remembers a time
the family was invited to a 4th of
July picnic and her family "took
cream to town. They sold it for 35
cents and got a watermelon for the
picnic. That was a big thing," she
said. "I guess we were poor."
"I remember during the Depres
sion, Daddy walking to town for any
kind of work. He found a $10 bill
and bought pigs feet and me an ice
cream cone. "Never ever ever did
I feel poor."
"We raised food animals. Dad
dy hunted for food. We always
had food."
Her dad, she said, was the kind
of guy who "never locked anything.
He left the keys in the car and the
pickup. Daddy was very easy going
he would give you anything you
needed but if you stole from him or
messed with him, watch out."
"And Mom and Marion were
seamstresses. They could sew and
every year my mom bought a pat
tern and we kids went to school
with new clothes."
She remembers that her mom,
Dorothy, who passed on 15 years
ago, "was an excellent cook" and
hopes some of the skills have passed
down to her.
"Daddy and Uncle Frank were mas
ter gardeners," said Medeiros, "and
Mom and Marion canned anything
they could get their hands on."
"Mom was always busy."
And today, said Sharon Hanson,
Medeiros is that same kind of hard
worker.
"She worked most of the time
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(when she was young)," said Han
son. "She had her own car and
worked on the farm."
Later on, "she sewed most of her
girls' clothes."
Medeiros remembers a nearly
idyllic childhood. On a road trip to
Idaho, she said, "Daddy had a truck
and he took the back window out
and made a canopy for it.
"Daddy was teaching us to shoot,
and Mom made us the candy bars
and cookies and she cooked for us
over the campfire."
"That was the most wonderful
trip," she said. "I remember driv
ing down the road eating a candy
bar and sitting and looking out the
back window into the cab."
"She always called our grandpa,
Daddy," remembered daughter
Tammy. To me that's always been
really special. When we were little
kids," she called him, grandpa, to
us, but as we got older, she went
back to calling him, Daddy."
Another trip had another sort
of excitement. "Daddy was tak
ing the 4-H Horse Club into the
Ochocos," said Medeiros, I remem
ber him loading up the big truck
with horses.
When they got there, the kids
tried to get Tom to ride with them
using the ruse that they'd get lost
without him, but her dad said, "You
can't get lost."
They could and they did, Medeiros
said. "We were trudging around
and we didn't know where we were
and it got pretty dramatic. We were
putting up SOS's to planes going by.
Why was nobody looking for us?
"Finally, we got back to camp.
"Dad got lost regularly, but he
always knew where he was." She
said that she is like her dad in that
way. "I'm always getting lost, but I
always know where I am."
When she was 16, Medeiros was
named princess in the Deschutes
County Fair. Her mom and Aunt
Marion got a Pendleton blanket at
Louise in Bend in 1950.
Weddle's Department Store and
they made me a western fringedi
jacket to wear... and I still have it,"
she said.
Around 1965-66, the family home '
burned down and they lost every
thing, photos and all. "That was a
big deal," she said.
"There was shame at being an
Indian (at that time)," Medeiros
remembers. "Marion rarely went
out and covered up if she did. She
didn't want to get any darker is all
I could think.
"But not us kids. We were not in
a situation where we had to think
about it. We lived our lives and
were busy. We left at seven in the
morning and came back at five at
night. We got home and packed in
our car and went to the little school
where mom was a janitor and cook,
and we cleaned the school. So, we'd
get home six, six-thirty and have
dinner and then went to bed."
Medeiros has always been an ear-ly-to-bed
type. When she moved to
Grand Meadows in 1997, folks would
see her lights go off around 6:30, and
"everybody was teasing me. I didn't
know people watched so closely."
She drove a school bus in Bend
for 23 years, she said, requiring
her to be up and ready for work at
four or four-thirty every morning.
When the family moved to Powell
Butte, she got up even earlier to
keep working in Bend, she said,
because "I was not going to lose
my seniority."
Son Tony had another take on her
occupation.
"When I was in high school,"
he said, "I played basketball, and
when we went on road trips, it was
real fun to go on the road trips and
everything, but all kids got to get
away from their parents except me.
If I started screwing off, all I had to
do was look to the front of the bus
and my mom was watching me."
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The Hudson-Mercier clan in 1950. Louise is seated at the bottom right. Next over is her mom, Dorothy, holding Marie on
her lap. A little further to the left is Aunt Marion is holding Sharon. Among others in the photo are great grandmother
and grandfather Hudson seated in the center. In the top row from the left is lla Petite, Vernon Mercier, Gertrude Mercier,
Blanch (whose last name now eludes Louise), Martha Mercier and Barbara Mercier, and so many others.
LIFE ON AND OFF THE REZ
"I can remember when we were
restored," said Medeiros. "I had
just come home from work and we
were a Tribe again, but I had no
idea what it meant. I'd never had
to worry about it before."
That was when her mom col
lected all of the records document
ing people in the Hudson-Mercier
family. Martha Jane Sands, for
example, is Medeiros's great great
grandmother. A copper statue of
Martha Jane sits holding a basket
she is working on in front of Legends
at the casino. Next to the statue of
Martha Jane is one of Martha Jane's
granddaughter, Gertrude. Gertrude
was Medeiros's mother's mother.
Medeiros has taken part in Tribal
activities since coming to Grand
Ronde to live. For years, she has been
chair or member of the Elders Com
mittee and also is a member of the
Enrollment Committee. She always
takes part in the Elders Honor days.
She championed Elder partici
pation in the annual Muckleshoot
event, last year bringing her grand
daughter, Dorothy, and other El
ders for the canoe gathering of
many Tribes that brought back the
memory of times past.
"The canoes came around this
outcropping one at a time," she re
called. They were singing songs and
paddling, and they came past us and
waved and then landed at the ceremo
nial platform. I really, really, really,
really enjoyed that," she said.
The family had always come back
to Grand Ronde where her mom
was born and raised. "As we got
older, we thought it was fun coming
out here," she said. "There were all
these colorful people who lived here
(and still do). Dean (Mercier), Crys
tal (Thomas), lla (Doud), Martha
(Mercier), Velma (Mercier)."
"We were not part of it but were,"
she said.
FAMILY LIFE
With first husband, Duane An
derson, a millworker in Bend,
Medeiros had three children, Tony,
now 47, a contractor living near
Medford with two children of his
own, Tammy, 45, also with two
children, living in Palmer, Idaho,
and Trixie, 44, Medeiros's youngest
who lives in Fruitland, Idaho.
Married almost 20 years, she
called Duane "a hard worker," and
added, "Our big thing was water
skiing. We would drag the babies
to mom and dad's and go."
In 1965, Duane and Daddy and
Uncle Frank and Merlyn Walker,
my brother-in-law, they built our
house on Dean Swift Road in Bend
in three months. They would work
nights at their jobs and then come
home and work on the house, and
then go back to work. Me and the
kids would go out when they were
done for the day and clean up."
When son, Tony, was 10, he and
Duane went to Madras and came
back with three rabbits and cages.
"They were on sale," Medeiros re
membered. "And that was the begin
ning. We were living on an acre and
a half, and before it was all over three
or four years down the road, we had
100 rabbits and we were butchering
and selling them. Tony went to the
fair with the rabbits and took all the
blue ribbons. Everyone wanted to
beat Tony with the rabbits."
And there were horses for the kids.
Tony got the black and white Welsh
pony named Rocky, who was already
about 25 when they got her.
"Tony jumped right on the horse
and it decided, 'I'm going home.'
And off it went down the middle of
the road. Then it threw Tony into
a telephone pole. I was watching.
Tony cracked a few ribs. That was a
very eventful few years," she said.
Then, from friends in Alfalfa, the
family picked up a horse for $50. They
called it, Domino. The friends bred Ap
paloosas and Domino did not mark.
"That was Tammy's horse," said
Medeiros. "She trained that horse.
They would walk across the field and
he would walk with his head on her
shoulder. They did very well in 4-H."
The kids also did a lot of trail riding.
"Horses are wonderful for kids."
Daughter Tammy remembers the
animals. "We always had a lot of ani
mals. We always had too many cats
and too many dogs and mom and dad
weren't into spaying and neutering
back them, so we were always trying
to find homes for the babies. And we
had the horses. They took us to a lot
of play days. We raised rabbits and
showed them at 4-Hs. One time we
even had a duck. It was injured when
we got it, so we kept it around as a pet
for awhile, and it flew off one day."
When Medeiros was much younger,
recalled Sharon Hanson, "we did a lot
of fun things, running around, going
to dances," but she also remembers a
childhood filled with horses. "We had
a horse and kept it at their farm," said
Hanson. "We were there every week
on Sundays. The adults would play
cards and us girls would put horses in
the water ditches and then we'd jump
on them and they ran and we jumped
the irrigation ditches bareback. We
really thought we were something."
"And you know that was a long
time ago," said Hanson.
Medeiros married Louie Medeiros
in 1982. "He was a very interesting
person," she said. She described
an incident in which Louie may or
may not have been part of a plan
that used a boat to spring a guy
from Alcatraz prison "and nobody
escapes Alcatraz," she said.
"Don't tell anybody," Louie told
her, "but I worked on that boat."
"He had some wild stories," Lou
ise said.
A truck driver and jack-of-all-trades,
he also was the kind of guy who Ux)k
special careofljuise. She came home
from work sick one day and Louie
came in. 'Someday, could you build me
a shelf," she asked him absently.
"The same day, he came back and
had it made."
So many stories in the family are
legend.
"One of my cousins on Daddy's side,"
Medeiros continued, "did a history and
found out that back in Texas, a relative
who was a horse thief got hanged.
"Dad said, 'Where did you hear that?
"And we said, 'It's true. Mom told
us.'
"And he couldn't argue with
that." B