Smoke signals., August 15, 2007, Page 6 And 7, Image 11

Smoke Signals 7
6 AUGUST 15, 2007
AUGUST 1 5, 2007
Smoke Signals
PeachiQ Foiradlly Recalls Fafthert Lowe
PEACHIE continued
from front page
Some were not loggers, and they
had a rough time of it."
Her father, Tribal Elder Ernie
Petite (Chinook and Klickitat)
was not only a logger, but when
he came home, he was a toymaker,
too. He also took the children along
on his adventures.
"I always enjoyed going up in the
woods with my dad," Peachie says.
"He'd cut logs for everybody in town
and sell it to them. I'd play around
and throw wood in the truck. I'd help
him load it. I was quite a tomboy.
"We'd go fishing. I played mostly.
He'd holler at me for throwing things
in the water and scaring the fish.
"We'd get crawdads. Dad had a
kind of a net that he made. I love
crawdads. They're little but, oh,
they're good.
"He had a horse. He used to take
that horse with (Tribal Elder) Gus
Leno, and they'd take only dried
deer meat and biscuits and go hunt
ing on horseback. He always had
a flask of whiskey and he always
came home with deer. He made
a thing to go behind the horses to
carry the deer. And he'd take vin
egar to keep the flies off the deer.
"We always had enough to eat."
Even today, Peachie says, the only
foods she really likes are the ones
her father used to bring home for
the family.
"We had our own cows, chickens
and garden, and mother always
canned fruit from a couple of apple
trees we had on the place.
"My dad was well-known by other
Tribes," she adds, "and they used to
invite him to clambakes, to salmon
bakes. I had blond hair and light
eyes, and was always fascinated by
those in other Tribes.
"I'd go with him to their long
houses and they'd give him gifts.
"When he died, they came from
all over and filled the church to
overflow.
"Life was simple, not like now.
The family wasn't materialistic.
We didn't have candy. Dad would
bring home a big bag of fruit."
Peachie's father made things
rather than bought them. "He was
a whittler, and at Christmas, he
made us toy trucks and Indian dolls
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Deceased Tribal Elder Ethel Countryman Petite and Peachie
of wood," she recalls.
"I got into high school
before I noticed how other
people lived. And that
was not always good."
She also remembers prej
udice. "White people said
we were heathens, devil
worshippers, but it was not
true. The Great Spirit is the
same as God," she says.
"I can remember going
through Salem (in the
1950s) when the city still
had a statue with a sign
on it warning minorities
to be in our homes by sun
set. The police stopped
me and sent me home. A
few years later, they got
rid of that statue."
The Petite family avoid
ed prejudice by keeping
their culture to them
selves. "We didn't tell
about the cultural things, the
sweat lodge on the river. ... You
never told about praying and
drumming, the boys playing guitar
and burning cedar. The eagle was
a very special bird to us, espe
cially the feathers. Our belief in
the Great Spirit brought us closer
together as a family."
Her memories of childhood,
though, center on the toys and at
tention that her father showered on
her and the other siblings.
"I had a very happy childhood,"
Peachie says. "Dad taught us all to
shoot a gun. He was very respectful
of guns. I used to shoot at bottles. I'd
line them up and I got pretty good.
"I had a dollhouse. It was an old
shed as big as this room.
"We had a deer that was a pet.
The neighbors shot the mother so we
brought the fawn over. Dad made a
sled for me and the deer pulled me
around the yard.
"When I was real young, we used
to go up to Spirit Mountain. I re
member a big circle of round rocks,
and there used to be beading stuff
in the center. There used to be
seven graves up there.
"One time, I got a whipping for
going up by myself. It was danger
ous with wild animals around, but
something almost drew me to the
mountain."
She remembers that "it was always
a surprise when my brother, Ray
mond, came home on leave."
Her brother was in the Battle
of the Bulge, received two Purple
Hearts for his service and also was
highly decorated by the French.
"When he came home, it was like
a big celebration," Peachie recalls.
"We'd really have a good time. Mom
would fix a big dinner."
In the summers, the family picked
hops together. Peachie was young
then. "I just played around," she
said. But after she married and
had children, when the family later
moved to Falls City, they'd still pick
crops "to make a little money for
school clothes."
Peachie went to school at St.
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Peachie and great-granddaughter
Hannah McCallister during the 2005
Contest Pow-wow.
Michael's through the eighth grade,
started junior high in Willamina
and finished high school in Salem.
For a time, until the children came,
she sang in a band at bars on week
ends. "You couldn't do it once you
had kids," she says.
Friends and relatives remember
the good things, the commonplace
things of growing up.
She learned to drive in the fields
where she took the family car to
practice, says Tribal Elder Gene
LaBonte.
"We lived next to her and she
used to baby-sit for us," says cousin
and Tribal Elder Cherie Butler.
"She'd tell us stories and play hide
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and seek."
Peachie married Maurice Gene
Schultz when she was 17 and had
her first son, Guy, a year later.
"I was so young that I grew up
with my kids," she says. "I had a
beautiful life and I would do it all
again."
Schultz, the father of all her chil
dren, worked at the mill at Valsetz,
but the mill town was too isolated
for Peachie.
"Then he hurt his back at the
mill and things got rough for a few
years," she recalls. "In 1979, a blood
clot by his heart killed him, though
he lived with it for eight years."
In 1982, she married her second
husband, Richard Hamm.
Peachie filled in as a bartender,
working for 10 years in Falls City.
"At that time, it was a nice place to
raise kids," she says.
Over the years, her children Guy,
Melvin, Julie, Khani, Kevin and
Shelly have been her pleasure.
Today, add to them eight grandchil
dren and three great-grandchildren
as sources of pride.
"My life had an empty spot," Peachie
says, "until Shelly came home from
New York after 22 years."
"I get so mad now," she adds. "I
want to do things with my kids but
my body won't let me."
While in Falls City, her boys all
played football. "Guy and Melvin
got honors," she says. "They were
all-stars. All my boys and grand
sons played football. Khani was in
basketball and got her nose broke.
Julie went to the University of Or
egon for gymnastics."
"I'm real proud of my grand
sons," she says. "Melvin's son,
Tribal member Tyler Schultz, just
graduated from the University of
Oregon. Kevin's son just gradu
ated from South Salem and got a
two-year scholarship in music." He
plays jazz guitar and trumpet.
"Julie's boy, Ryan, came back
Irom Iraq a year
ago. He was in
Special Forces,
the Army Cavalry
Unit in commu
nications. Tribal
member Ryan has
worked at Spirit
Mountain Casino
and now works for
Evergreen Aviation
in McMinnville.
"Khani's boy
Kyle works for the
Tribe in the sum
mer," Peachie says,
"and will graduate
from Willamina
High School in a
few years."
The family
members, the ac
complishments, the pride all seem
endless.
"I always taught
Peachie and
brothers Gene
(middle) and
Melvin Petite in
Grand Ronde.
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Peachie and family, Christmas 2006
my kids that your word is the person
you are," she says. "If you tell some
body you'll be there at a certain time,
be there and don't make excuses.
"Don't lie," she adds. "Every
thing (bad) comes after that.
"My boys are big, but I told them,
'Don't be a bully but don't be afraid
to stand up for yourself.'
"You don't have to prove yourself
to people. The Creator knows who
you are.
"Life isn't a bowl of roses. There's
a lot of heartache in life, but you go
on. Life is what you make it. I truly
believe that.
"That was what my dad always
taught us."
The family returned to Salem
where Peachie enrolled in nursing
school and for five years after, end
ing in 1982, she worked as an or
thopedic nurse for Salem Memorial
Hospital. Then, for 10 years, she
worked as a counselor at Chemawa
Indian School.
Through it all, culture has always
played a big part in the Schultz
and Hamm family lives. Peachie
has danced in every pow-wow the
Tribe has held.
But, until recently, it was tough
to be Indian.
"People would say that Grand
Ronde has no culture," she says.
"Well, maybe it wasn't in their
homes. (For many), if they could
pass for white, they would. My
aunt did that. My father got mad,"
Peachie remembers. "He told (my
aunt), 'We've got the same blood,
but you choose not to live like it. I'll
never put foot in this house again,'
and he never did.
"Many Elders have lived among
whites so long that they've started
to think like them," she says. "The
key is to live among them and still
keep your culture.
"The ones really interested in
our culture kept pursuing it. You
couldn't deny it to them."
For Peachie, the things of culture
ran in the family.
"We come from the line of Tule
lah, a real powerful medicine man,"
she says.
Peachie's grandmother, Tribal
Elder Susie LaBonte, was a seer,
she says. "She used to go to peoples'
homes when they weren't feeling
good and work with herbs.
"When I was little, there was a
medicine woman, a relative of my
father, who lived in the mountains,
and in winter, she came down in
the evenings. Dad built her a bed
in the shed because she wouldn't
come in the house. And she always
left early before anyone got up. She
was a Chinook medicine woman."
Tribal member and Peachie's
great-granddaughter, 6-year-old
Hannah McCallister, has been call
ing Peachie "Gramma Angel" since
she could talk. One time, Peachie
asked her why. She said, "Gramma,
when you drive up in the car, I see
angels in the car with you."
"I think she's psychic," Peachie
says.
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Sister Lavonne, Peachie and granddaughter Angella McCallister