10 OCTOBER 1,2008
Smoke Signals
Essay contest seeks entries
In honor of National American Indian Heritage Month, the Bonn
eville Power Administration, Bureau of Indian Affairs and Portland
General Electric are sponsoring an annual essay contest for high
school and college students.
The topic is "Lighter Footprint on Mother Earth." Entries should be
between 450 to 500 words and double-spaced, typed using 12-point Times
New Roman font with one-inch margins. In addition, they should be well
organized and use correct spelling and grammar.
Submissions should include a title page with the entrant's first and
last name, contact information (phone numberaddress) and school
level (high schoolcollege).
Entries must be received no later than Nov. 1. They should be
mailed to Bonneville Power Administration, Attn: Corrina Sutter,
DKT-DITT-2, P.O. Box 491, Vancouver, WA 98666. Essays also can
be faxed to Sutter at 360-418-8433 or submitted via e-mail to casut
terbpa.gov. Essays, which will not be returned, will be judged by the Sponsor
Committee and winners will be contacted in mid-November.
Six winners will be announced. At the high school level, winners
will receive $300, $200 and $100 for first through third place, respec
tively, and at the college level, winners will receive $500, $300 and
$100. n
Transportation to Grand Ronde
Transportation to Grand Ronde will be on Oct. 23 for medical and
dental appointments or enrollment cards. Please call Lisa Archuleta
at 503-235-4230.
They will leave the Portland office at 8 a.m.
Please call in advance to reserve your seat.
FSmairacnal Wellness
support group starts
The Grand Ronde Tribal Housing Authority is sponsoring a Financial Well
ness support group that is meeting weekly at 5:30 p.m. Thursdays in the
Housing Authority conference room.
The support group will discuss, share and learn ways to stretch dollars and
protect the money participant's make.
The group will be informal and will decide on the topic to be discussed and
researched each week. The Housing Authority has computers and worksheets
to help people develop and track spending plans.
For more information, call Deborah Kroeker at 503-879-4522 or send her
an e-mail at deborah.kroekergrandronde.org.
Gov. Ted Kulongoski, Hubert Mercier and Chris Mercier.
Hubert Harry Mercier
Sept. 22, 1910 - July 17, 2008
By Chris Mercier
Special to Smoke Signals
Earlier this year, Grand Ronde hosted
a college-level class over spring break.
I am not entirely sure what the class
was called, but a large portion of the
students were from Oregon State Uni
versity, including their team's quar
terback, at least one starting offensive
lineman and some other notables. The
leading scorer of the OSU mens' basket
ball team also was present.
I was asked to come greet them one
day at the Elders' meal site, noting that
as a University of Oregon graduate
most of my interactions with OSU stu
dents had been yelling at them during
basketball games. They thought that was funny.
All of these students seemed very interested in knowing about the Grand
Ronde community, especially our Tribe. I shared a story or two with them,
and eventually brought up a topic that got all their attention. It was the
story of a 97-year-old man who had lived for nearly a century in this
community, and more than a decade ago had spent three days in jail for
punching a neighbor in the face, as well as ramming a pickup truck into
that same man's car. The students laughed in amazement, and assumed
that this feisty old Indian must be a local legend, long since gone.
No, I told them, he is quite alive. In fact, the man only lives about 1,000
foot away. At that time, Hubert H. Mercier was staying in the Adult Foster
Care lodge, recovering from an accident in which he had nearly severed three
of his fingers off with a table saw. Marcel Jones, the basketball player, asked
if it would be possible to meet Hubert. I knew that my great-grandfather
always loved to have an audience to regale.
While about six students haggled with their professor to miss half a
lecture to moot a local legend, I called the lodge to let them know I would
be coming by with visitors to visit Hubert.
The room Hubert lived in was not really made to accommodate a large
group of people, especially not college-level athletes, like an offensive line
man. But somehow we made do, the eight or nine of us huddled around
Hubert as he sat in his bed. I remember how suddenly small he looked
while these students and studentathletes towered over him. But they
greeted him with respect, though he looked frail and worn out. He looked
up in surprise at OSU's starting offensive tackle, and that same player,
Jeremy Perry I believe, looked down on him with silent admiration, as if
greeting some old war hero. Hubert assumed Perry, who was of Polyne
sian descent and thus dark with big tattooed forearms, must have been
descended from some local, and even asked him so. I had to explain that
Perry was not Tribal, but Hawaiian. Hubert just nodded, and proceeded
to tell a number of stories, some I had heard before, but one that was new.
He would do that occasionally. Often one might hear the same stories
told over and over, but he would throw in a new one that must have been
hidden somewhere in the recesses of his memory.
After a little less than nn hour, the students departed, but not without
expressing some thanks to me for allowing them to meet such a memorable
person. Of course, Hubert told multiple stories that involved fighting, from
"Murphy" to "Boomer." The common denominator in all these fights is
that at one point or another somebody either challenged or insulted him.
His response was usually to deck them. Like a couple of the Oregon State
athletes noted, Hubert didn't take crap from anybody. No exceptions.
When Hubert passed away on July
1 7 of this year, it was almost as if the
impossible happened. The man who
was so feisty that I and many others
didn't think reaching the age of 105
or 110 was even out of the question
yielded to Father Time. Most impor
tantly, he actually went quietly and
without incident in the comfort of
his own home, one of a few dozen in
the Grand Ronde area he had built
with his own hands. Spirit Mountain,
the symbol of an Indian Reservation
where Hubert had spent nearly a
century of life beginning in 1910,
was fittingly visible just through the
window of his front room.
Years ago, in 2002, while working
for Smoke Signals, I wrote an Elders
feature on Hubert. The May 1, 2002,
headline read "Fierce, Proud Man is a Local Legend." That story ended
up consuming a full page and a half of space in the newspaper, but was
still really just a snapshot of his life. He was born on Sept. 22 to Arthur
and Agnes Mercier and had three brothers and one sister. Much like what
he told that contingent of OSU students, the story was laced with tales of
fighting from "Boomer" to "Murphy." But in that piece Hubert spoke of life
on the Reservation, like when as a schoolboy he and some classmates tied
up their teacher and beat him. Evidently one had peeked into the man's
journal where he labeled the local Indian students "savages."
Hubert told me while writing that story about work. If there was any
thing the man was besides a fighter, he was a worker, having left home at
14 and taken part in all sorts of different forms of labor, from Highway 101
builder to logger to boat maker to gatherer of moss and chittum bark on
the Reservation. For three years even, near Siletz, he was a fisherman.
Like many, Hubert had children. And grandchildren. And that group I
belong to, great-grandchildren. All of us undoubtedly would have different
stories to tell about him, and our own personal relationships would just as
surely vary. My own with him was overall pretty pleasant. Over the last
five years 1 would try and take him to lunch on a regular basis, usually
Yvette's. and when that great place closed, Fort Hill. He liked soup, black
coffee and, over the last year, could not seem to get enough shrimp.
Hubert's hearing was darn near shot over the last decade, maybe even
longer. You had to practically yell to converse with him. He liked watch
ing television, with a taste for the sillier stuff, like Jerry Springer and
wrestling, and shows with fighting like boxing on ESPN Classic or the
emerging mixed martial arts shows.
I learned not to discount his understanding of what was going on in the
outside world, as he would ask me about the Tribe. I never met anybody
in Grand Ronde who didn't know who he was. Twice Gov. Ted Kulongoski
visited Hubert in his old house across from the clinic; something Hubert
considered a great honor. Both times it was the governor who asked to
visit Hubert, not the other way around.
You had to meet him, and listen to him, to appreciate the perspectives
of a man who had seen many things in his life, a man who knew Grand
Ronde long ago, when an automobile was rare and a trip to Lincoln City
was a two-day adventure.
A man who know what it was like to be mistreated simply because he
was Indian, who lived through World War I. World War II, the Great
Depression, Korea, Termination, Vietnam. Restoration, the birth of Spirit
Mountain Casino and the table saw incident, which will undoubtedly go
on to become a part of the Hubert Mercier legacy.