8 MAY 15, 2007
Smoke Signals
Happiness Is Having The One You Love
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Norma Lee talks with Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski at the Tribal
Community Center during his visit to the Tribal campus on May 1 1 .
NORMA continued
from front page
over my check and my dad (Tribal
Elder Paul Lafferty, who passed on
in 1919) went to town and bought
me some stationery. He was proud
of me because I was not stingy. I
was so happy."
Even today, that generosity con
tinues in the quilts and other crafts
that she makes almost every day to
give away maybe at an Elders
Honor celebration, or maybe to
friends and relations.
"All the stuff that I'm making,
I'm doing it on my own," she said.
"I have almost $ 100 tied up in it. I
want to make sure they get some
thing nice."
She learned to quilt by watch
ing her grandmother Tilmer Leno,
her mom Elizabeth "Liz or Lizzie"
Leno Lafferty, and her aunt Agnes
Mercier. They used to sit together
and quilt.
"Now, I've made a lot of quilts in
my life. I gave one to Margaret with
the blocks painted with horses."
For most of her adult life, Lee
and Dale traveled up and down the
Pacific coastline "picking brush,"
she said. They found plant life
they could sell. "And it was a pretty
good living."
They sold salal, pine cones from
Ponderosa pines ("we got four cents
each for them; we picked up so
many that the pick-up was piled
high over the top with them"), horse
tails ("they remind me of snakes"),
ferns, and huck brush.
"I love to go through the woods
and look at stuff," she said. "I used
to peel bark with my dad. I worked
hard with my dad. And my brother
couldn't beat me."
All kinds of things interrupted
Norma and Dale's work and sent
them packing from one place on
the coast to another. Florence,
Bandon, Coos Bay, and Reedsport,
she said.
One time, the state stopped the
picking of salal trees because those
who did not know how to pick them
took too much and killed the trees.
"We just took the tips," said Lee.
"If you do it right, they'll come
back."
When the state stopped the prac
tice, the Lees moved up to Washing
ton state. While they were there,
the explosion of Mt. St. Helens sent
them on the road again.
"Mt. St. Helens blew and run us
out of there and back to Bandon
picking brush. They liked the way
Dale and I worked (in Bandon).
They loved our stuff."
Listen to this travel style. It set
up the kind of adventures they
shared.
"What we used to do on the high
way," she said, "Dale' would just
say, 'Which way?' and we'd end up
all over Oregon. That's how I went
to Pendleton for the first time. Then
the car turned toward California
and that's the way we'd go.
"We'd make money and instead of
running to the bars, we'd travel. It
was just the two of us." They never
had children.
But for all the traveling Lee en
joyed over her lifetime, it was only
three years ago, to the Gathering
of the Nations in Albuquerque,
that she flew in an airplane for the
first time.
"Guess what I got;" she said af
ter a recent lunch at the Commu
nity Center, "a certificate. They all
clapped on the airplane. Everybody
just clapped. It's hanging on my
wall by the kitchen."
Her own childhood memories in
clude one when she was very little
and crawling around the barn at
Tilmer lino's place. "A cow kicked
me in the head. You get behind
them and they'll do that," she
said. "He kicked me clear out of
the barn."
Her childhood memories also in
clude work and crafts. "I took care of
seven kids when I was in my teens,"
for a neighbor who lived in Otis, she
said. The father was an alcoholic;
"my dad was scared to leave me down
there. He checked on me a lot."
Lee's twin sister, Geraldine, was
16 when she died of tuberculosis
at Cushman. "I was 18 when they
let me go to Cushman to work. I
wanted to do something," said Lee.
She worked there until a car wreck
shattered her leg.
"When it's cold and rainy, it still
gives me fits," she said.
Through it all, she remembers in
her dad, a man who could do any
thing. "He was crafty," she said. He
used to take deer heads and carve and
mount them. He used to take the feet
and make hat racks out of them.
In school, she said, "they wanted
to jump me two grades but my Dad
said, 'Don't jump her. Give her a
little of both (levels). I want her to
get all that comes in between.'
"My father was smart. He was a
genius.
"Dad used to go hunting. We were
poor and he'd stay out there until he
got one for us. He was a good dad.
He and Mom would go hungry to
o
a.
make sure we were fed.
"My mother made him a batch of
biscuits (for the hunts) and he'd eat
wild berries and drink water out of
the crick. Then, it was pure. Now,
you can't trust it."
"Me and my sister, (Tribal Elder)
Dorothy (Lafferty Lane), used to try
to cook, and if she burned it, she'd
hide it under the stove. And then
when our parents came home, we'd
blame each other.
"We used to get together at Grand
ma Tilmer's. She'd hold church in
her home. After church, the Elders
ate first, and then we came in.
"The crick across the road (Agen
cy Creek), that's where us kids were
baptized. (Tilmer Leno lived up
on a hill above the creek at Hebo
Road).
"We enjoyed it at her place," said
Lee. "There was a great big oak
swing, and that was the first thing
we'd run for (to get there) before the
other families.
"We played in the hayloft."
Cousin and fellow Tribal Elder
Val Grout remembers about grow
ing up with Lee, "We used to play at
the mill (Murphy's Mill) all the time
or on the pond. I learned to skate
on the pond across from Grandma
Leno's. There was a watchman.who
used to get us if we got too crazy.
"There was also a cook shack by
the mill and we'd get goodies there.
We'd do chores (for the cook) and
she'd give us something."
When we were young," said Tribal
Elder Bob Leno, "she used to give
Ken (Norma's brother Kenneth Laf
ferty) and me hell all the time."
The Lees have had dogs for many
years. They got their first dog, Pug,
when they were living in a small
apartment in Coos Bay around
1965. Pug lived to be 18, and for
the last three years of its life, it
demanded (you heard that right) a
Baby Ruth candy bar every day.
The family dog today, Rowdy, has
followed in Pug's footsteps, expect
ing chocolate milk every day. "I
keep cutting it down (the amount
of chocolate milk) every day," said
Lee, "but Dale doesn't know."
"We give them stuff we shouldn't,
but Dale says they like it."
And Rowdy starts running back
and forth to the bedroom in the
early evenings trying to encourage
Dale to go to bed early.
Earlier, for many years, they had
a cocker spaniel called Buttons. A
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Norma (right) with O'Dell Bushnell, who owned the company that bought
brush from Norma and Dale for many years.