8 NOVEMBER 15, 2008
Smoke Signals
sera
By Ron Karten
Smoke Signals staff writer
Early in the 1970s, the
Road to Restoration be
gan in Grand Ronde.
Tribal Elder Margaret
Provost, 78 today, was in her early
40s and working at Teledyne Wan
Chang, the Albany rare metals
company, in 1972.
Her foreman, Bob Cannon, an
Osage Indian from Oklahoma, and
Thurman Banks, an Oglala Sioux
from South Dakota, were involved
in an association of urban Indians,
which met in the LebanonAlbany
area. They caught her attention
with talk of Tribal Restoration.
"Siletz was being restored," Mar
garet recalls, "and in conversa
tion, (Bob Cannon) asked why
Grand Ronde wasn't doing any
thing. I thought, 'Why not in Grand
Ronde?"
She joined the group with her
daughter, Jackie Provost (now
Many Hides), who is now also a
Tribal Elder, but was in her 20s
then.
Margaret called Tribal Elder
Leon "Chip" Tom, her brother
Marvin Kimsey and Merle Holmes.
Chip called his daughter, Patti Tom
Martin. Marvin Kimsey called Dean
Mercier. Dean called his daughter,
Jackie Mercier Colton, who walked
on in 2007.
And so the foundation of Tribal
Restoration began one phone call
and one Tribal member at a time.
"My Dad got a call from Marga
ret," says Tribal Elder Patti Tom
Martin, 59, "and he said, 'She's got
' an idea that we could get restored.
I don't get home from work in time.
I want you to go down there.' I said,
'I don't remember her,' but he said,
'Don't worry, they're your family.
You're OK.' So I went down there.
"Margaret Provost and Mar
vin Kimsey were there and they
started talking about Restoration.
I thought, 'Oh, my God, can that
really happen? Can that really be?'
1 So I leave there absolutely on fire
that that could happen. That's what
started it for us."
"We talked to different groups,"
Margaret says. "Then, we talked
to Joe Lane (Siletz). He encouraged
us to go ahead and do this, and in
troduced us to different programs
they were conducting - Manpower
and the CETA (Federal Compre
hensive Employment and Training
Act) program. lie got us started in
some of those programs, and also
got us offices in Salem and Albany
to work from.
"We got some Tribal members
work and into school, and it got
us around to other Tribes to make
contacts."
Patti Tom Martin recalls one
piece of Lane's advice, i le told them
to meet monthly and establish the
record of an ongoing nonprofit.
Mark Mercier
"People wanted to believe," Patti
says, "but I think it was hard to
believe that something like that,
something that momentous, could
possibly happen for us."
But when monthly meetings be
gan in Grand Ronde in 1975, more
and more people got involved, Patti
says.
"We knew we were on the road
to doing something," Margaret
remembers.
After Termination in 1954, the
Tribal land base that was origi
nally 69,100 acres was whittled
down again, eventually reduced to
the 2.5-acre cemetery and a 24-by-24-foot
shack.
That little green shack served
many purposes for the Tribe when
nothing else was available, and still
today, though it has long since been
replaced, it holds the memories of
a lnbe.
Some
Tribes,
says Tribal
Elder Mark
Mercier,
56, pre
ferred Ter
mination. He served
on Tribal
Council for
15 years starting in 1984, just after
Restoration, and for 12 years of that
time as chairman.
Some Tribes were happy to have
the government out of their busi
ness, he says. But in Grand Ronde,
Mark and others just saw Termina
tion as a way for the government to
shirk its treaty obligations.
"When we got terminated," says
Tribal Elder Chip Tom, "deep down,
I never, to me, I wasn't going to
be terminated. How can they take
your identity away from you?"
Chip Tom's family started in
Grand Ronde but joined the federal
relocation program for a few years
starting in 1955.
"It took our family away from our
community of Grand Ronde," says
Patti Tom Martin. "Not all
families participated in the
relocation program. Some
of the families around here
had land, so they stayed.
We went to Colorado with
the relocation program and
it was a devastating time
for our family. I think it
actually broke our family
apart.
"There was nothing for
us there," Patti says. "If it
wasn't for our grandpar
ents, we probably would
not have got back home.
But Indians always get
home."
The government's idea
with the relocation pro
gram, according to Tribal
h '
I V o i
Y
i
Kathleen Tom, Leon 'Chip' Tom, Patti Tom Martin
Elder and Tribal Council mem
ber Kathleen Tom, 55, was, "If
we assimilate them out into the
other cultures, pretty soon they'll
intermarry and intermarry and
intermarry and pretty soon there
won't be an Indian culture, and we
won't have any trust responsibility
to them."
"Termination for me meant that
we were no longer the visible ones,"
says Tribal Chairwoman Cheryle
A. Kennedy, 60. "We were invisible
as far as the United States (was
concerned), but because of that
invisibility, we then had to work
harder, to do more, to develop the
talents, the skills, the abilities that
we had.
"And we needed to represent our
family and our people; that we were
the ones who would remember. We
are the ones who would carry out all
of the possibilities that were there
for us as a people, as well as a fam
ily, as well as an individual.
"Those beliefs and strengths and
acts of courage, I believe, were the
momentum for Restoration."
In 1973, Congress restored federal
recognition of the Menominee
Tribe of Wisconsin. That was the
first crack in the dam of Termina
tion. In 1977, the Confederated Tribes
of Siletz in western Oregon suc
ceeded in its Restoration effort.
In 1982, the Cow Creeks in south
ern Oregon succeeded. The news
of Restoration rumbled through
Indian Country in the 1970s and
early 1980s, and the Grand Ronde
members were determined to make
it happen.
"It had to come from within our
selves," says Kennedy, who was
involved in the 1970s. She credits
her grandmother, Pauline Cora
Johnson, who was grandparent and
parent to her.
"I was raised in a strong cultural
family," Kennedy says. "My grand
mother made sure that we accepted
who we were, that we were valued
individuals, and that we had a lot
to offer not only our family but the
world.
"By the time Termination came,
I was a small child, and all those
underlying beliefs and all of the
nurturing was there to sustain us
through Termination.
"Looking at the United States
as the most powerful nation in the
world who made us invisible, our
job was to overcome that adversity
and to once again be the strong
nation of people that we knew was
See REMEMBRANCES
continued on page 9
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