NOVEMBER 1, 2007
Smoke Signals 7
Murphy's sawmill as a planer for
many years, "until he wasn't able
to work anymore. What everybody
got then was asthma," Ruth says.
(Lynn calls it emphysema.)
Made your own fun
in those days
Along Grand Ronde Road in those
days lived friends and now fellow
Tribal Elders Diane Linton, who is
now Diane Giffen, married to Bill, and
Joyce Dowd, who is now Joyce Mam,
married to Tribal member Dan Ham,
who passed on many years ago.
"You made your own fun in those
days," Diane says. She lives in
Sheridan today.
"Fun" meant a lot of swimming
in the South Yamhill River where
it ran behind the Smith farm and
where it also ran behind what is to
day Darrell Mercier's house out on
Route 18, just east of the beginning
of Grand Ronde Road. The Dowds
used to live there and the children
used to swim behind both homes.
"We did that a lot in the sum
mertime," Diane says. "We'd set in
the sun and then go back in. Maybe
we'd see who could stay underwater
the longest."
"We were swimming down there,
me and Joyce and Diane," says
Ruth, "and catching wild crawdads
and eels, and we'd cook them in a
coffee can. Eat 'em all day."
Joyce remembers playing dress
up and with paper dolls. "In sum
mer, we had two weeks of the
sisters that would come out (to St.
Michael's) for religion talk. It was
a Catholic school. We'd go in the
morning and in the afternoon we'd
all play together."
"And we'd walk up and down the
block a lot. They had a steel wheel
that they used to roll down the street,
guiding it with a stick," Diane says.
The girls and other Tribal mem
bers in Grand Ronde used to go
to the Government Hall for their
medicine. Diane Giffen remembers
getting cod liver oil there. Lynn re
members "sulfa drugs, the miracle
drug of the time."
Both remember pie socials and
basket socials where folks brought
a basket lunch for two, and they'd
use it as a fundraiser with the pur
chaser sharing the lunch with the
person who made it.
Every few months there'd be a
dance drawing 30 to 40 people from
the community. And the whole
community came out for the school
Christmas plays.
"We all went and enjoyed the
parties," Diane says. They included
bridal and baby showers, too.
They grew up in a time when elec
tricity and indoor plumbing were
just coming to Grand Ronde.
High school
separates friends
The girls separated for the first
year of high school when Ruth went
to St. Mary of the Valley Catholic
girls' school in Beaverton.
"I learned a lot," Ruth says. "And
we had fun there. They'd lock the
door at night and me and a girl
friend sneaked outside at night
and ate some of their garden food,
because that was all there was to do
outside. We got in trouble getting
back in. You didn't get away with
anything there."
"She was cute as a bug," Joyce
says. "She was a cheerleader."
Ruth also was a very good dancer,
Joyce remembers.
"In high school, we all wore these
ugly slickers," Diane says. "And
we had a movie theater in Grand
Ronde, just passed the Bonanza.
We went quite a bit. I remember
seeing Jane Russell in that movie
they said was too racy. We all were
waiting to see that show because it
was going to be banned."
The girls later lived together in a
succession of Salem apartments.
"When we got out of school," says
Joyce, "we all went to Salem and
got jobs and lived together in apart
ments. I lived with Ruth, Diane
and Shelley's mom, Bonnie Myers
(Houck), and Arlene Houck (Beck),
and others came and went. (Ruth
and Diane) worked in a restaurant.
Nolgren's Cafe. I started at busi
ness school, and went back to the
restaurant business."
They peeled off one by one to get
married and headed their differ
ent ways for many years, but have
shared much of their lives since in
travel and visits back and forth.
"We traveled a lot together," says
Joyce. "I have this van. She and I
would go down to Yuma to stay with
friends. Like snowbirds. We'd go
stay like a week together.
"Until she had that stroke we did
everything together."
Ruth goes north to
work in Alaska
Ruth had a range of jobs in social
service settings and also restau
rants. When her children were in
high school, Ruth worked in Salem
at a city homeless and domestic
violence shelter.
Her children married early - just
out of high school - and Ruth took
advantage of her newfound freedom
to go with a co-worker to Alaska,
where the state was starting a
council for domestic violence.
"Mark and Patti lived in my
house," she says. "Melia went into
the National Guard. I packed my
clothes and went.
"I liked it very well when I en-
V or
s
Tf
O .A n - '
Ruth is the little girl standing in the center of this photo. Sister Lillian is the
baby, held by grandmother Isabelle Sorenson. Celia Smith, mother to Ruth
and Lillian, is in the center and at right is Isabelle's sister, the girls' Aunt
Maude. The location is the family's old farmhouse in Grand Ronde.
tered," Ruth says of the work. "I
talked to them, visited, helped
them find a place to stay."
"She had a lot of bad cases," Melia
says.
And a year later, Laurie says, "I
missed my mom so much, I went up
there with my daughter, Shannon.
(She's 34 now, but she was in the
third or fourth grade, then.)" They all
lived together in a condominium.
"We always had a lot of fun," Lau
rie says. "She knew all the places to
go when I went up there. She knew
all the best restaurants in Alaska."
There is a five-photograph series
framed in Laurie's house. Each of
the small prints shows mother and
daughter, dressed for the evening.
They remind you of Shelley Winters
in two stages of her life. Snow is
everywhere and Ruth is carrying
the wine. Mother and daughter are
laughing contagiously. In one pic
ture, Ruth goes down. In another,
Laurie goes to help. In another, Lau
rie goes down. Yellow evening lights
spill onto the scene. It is a Rickard
original: Alaska in winter.
"In Anchorage, Alaska," Mark
says, "she worked for a Native
hospital; she did administrative
work in Anchorage and then they
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Ruth Rickard, plopped in the snow, laughing with her daughter, Laurie
Cathcart an evening out in Alaska.
shipped her up to the Barrow,
Alaska, hospital where the polar
bears look in your window."
"I remember lots of fun," Ruth
says. "It was really entertaining for
me because I got to see the people
and how they lived. Barrow is
mostly snow the year-round except
for the springtime. Polar bears and
that kind of stuff was just fascinat
ing to me. They're curious."
"And one stuck his head in your
window one night?" Mark says.
"We had heavy thick glass on
our windows. But most were heav
ily covered at night with this like
screen. But (bears) would break in if
they smelled any food," Ruth says.
"I loved seeing all those things.
It's a different way of living. It was
nine years before I realized time
had slipped by," says Ruth. "Before
you know it, the time was gone. I
decided to come home. The kids, the
grandkids were growing up."
An eventful life
The times included Hawaii, Mex
ico and Crater Lake.
They included sunsets. "If it was
a beautiful sunset, we were always
' driving up someplace to watch it,"
Laurie says.
, One summer, the family worked on
the Warm Springs reservation. Ruth
brought the children up to Kah-nee-ta
when the resort was being construct
ed, and she and the children worked
on the project for the summer.
"We had a free room and all the
swimming we could do," Ruth says.
"At the time, it was just the big
swimming pool and a few teepees."
In recent years, Ruth has par
ticipated with the Elders when, for
example, they went on their annual
New YorkTomanowos pilgrimage.
Though Ruth's life has slowed
down since the stroke last year,
her sense of humor has not faded.
When she had the last stroke,
Laurie says, funeral homes started
sending her literature.
"You better hang on to that,"
Laurie remembers her mother
saying.
"She rolls with the punches,"
says sister Lynn. B