Smoke Signals
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APRIL 15, 2011
APRIL 15,2011
11
Smoke Signals
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CHEMAWA continued
from front page
will require considerable tact and
perseverance ... A non-compliance
with this order may be made a
reason for discharge or for with
holding rations and supplies ... and
if they become obstreperous about
the matter, a short confinement
in the guard-house at hard labor
with shorn locks should furnish a
cure ....
"Indian dances and so-called
Indian feasts should be prohibited.
In many cases these dances and
feasts are simply subterfuges to
cover degrading acts and to disguise
immoral purposes. You are directed
to use your best efforts in the sup
pression of these evils. "
Even at 18, Jones saw clearly
into the future. In his valedictory
speech, also reported in Harrison's
biography, he said:
"As the Indian was brought to
bay, he looked around and saw the
white man everywhere. He has
submitted to the inevitable, and is
now beginning to know that ... the
white man's God ... intends that
all men should be brothers. Instead
of looking on the white man as an
enemy, we turn to you for help. Will
you be our brother?"
From then until the present day,
the Grand Ronde Tribe and Tribal
members have played many roles
in shaping the Chemawa Indian
School community.
Jones's daughter, current Tribal
Elder and longtime Tribal Chair
woman Kathryn Harrison, said
that her father did not like the
school much and did not want any
of his children to go there.
It was an Indian military school
then, said Harrison, and her father
felt that the authorities were "so
mean and rigid." The military pe
riod lasted into the 1930s.
By the late 1930s, however, when
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three of Jones's six chil
dren had attended, the
military orientation was
ending, and, in the years
following, would begin
to value Indian customs.
Like many who went to
school there in the years
after, Harrison found
Chemawa much to her
liking.
"For me," she said, "it
was a lifesaver taking
me from foster homes
to a place I belonged.
And that seemed to be
the feeling of many oth
ers who went there."
She attended Chemawa
beginning in 1939 and
graduated in 1942.
The 1942 Chemawa yearbook,
"The Chief," had the following
entry: "Kathryn Jones 'Jonsey;'
Alaskan-Rogue river, Siletz, Or
egon, (inaccurate BIA description,
said Harrison; should be Molalla for
Tribal affiliation and not Siletz as a
home designation); Vocation: Home
economics. Activities: House coun
cil 41-42, YWCA 41-42, Reporter
42, School cheerleader 41-42, Ju
nior play, Senior play, Annual staff,
Girls quintette 40-41, Glee club
40-41-42, Home room president 42.
Motto: 'A quitter never wins and a
winner never quits.' "
Tribal Elder Dorothy Greene had
a similarly positive experience.
She attended starting in 1936 and
graduated in 1940.
The 1942 yearbook had a "tele
gram" from Greene (nee LaBonte)
in the "Class Prophecy" section:
"Taking my all-girl orchestra to
Hawaii Stop I am really getting
'Brown' " Dorothy LaBonte.
"It was very good because I
learned to cook there," said Greene,
"and how to sew, and home econom
ics where we built things."
For some, like Greene, the Indian
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Map created by George Valdez
school looked better than neighbor
hood life in Grand Ronde at the
time.
Greene attended at the recom
mendation of her grandmother,
former Tribal Elder Caroline La
Bonte Jeffries.
"Things were too wild (at home),
I guess," said Greene.
For others, like Tribal Elder Leon
"Chip" Tom, hometown life was
more appealing. He also attended
Chemawa in the late '30s and early
'40s. "I don't believe I made it a
year," he says. "I didn't want to be
away from home."
And it was no wonder. Tom at
tended Willamina High School
where he lettered in three sports
and played on the town baseball
team with Tribal members much
older. However, he noted that his
sister, Marcial, who passed on at
age 21, succeeded at Chemawa.
She used to say, "You had a roof
over your head and three meals and
a pretty good education. She went
the four years and graduated."
"I thought it was probably the nic
est program that the government
provided for the Tribal people in the
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Pacific Northwest,1
says Tom. "When I
was there, we had Indians from all
over the state. Educational, voca
tional, you could weld or plumb or
paint, be a carpenter, work in the
barber shop."
He did not like how hard they
made him work. "When I did work,"
he says, "they had me shoveling
coal. I emptied the cars that come
in. Or manure," but adds, "You got
exercise. You built your muscles
up. It was a little bit dirty, but I
thought it was a good program to
make people understand that they
had to work."
For many Elders, it was a benefit
to attend Chemawa with family
members and friends.
Greene recalls Grand Ronde
Tribal members Dorothy McKnight
Lawe, Minnie Menard, Leonard
Vivette ("a wonderful athlete"),
Pauline LaBonte and Loree Vivette
as classmates.
Harrison jotted down a list of
more than 20 Tribal members she
remembers attending Chemawa,
including Clifford Day, Verna
Riggs Larsen, Clyde Sorenson, Biff
Langley, Marge Lafferty McAbee,
Norma Lafferty Lee, Lewis Riggs,
Jo LaBonte, Chip Tom and his
sister Marcial, Margie Menard,
This f cn greets pcopl as they enter the main building where classes are
held at Chemawa Indian School in Salem.
John McKinney, Ivey McKinney,
Dorothy Jones Track, Harold Jones,
Georgia Renfro, Russell Jeffers and
Ira Jeffers.
In 1939, she remembers, former
Tribal member Clifford Day was
among Chemawa students recruit
ed to act in the 1940 Spencer Tracy
classic, "Northwest Passage."
"When they came back," says
Harrison, 'They were well-dressed
and had Mohawks, like they had in
the movie."
At the same time, the legacy of
corporal punishment and sexual
and emotional abuse at boarding
schools generally were carried
forward into new Indian families
for generations. The practice of
sending Indian children to work
as domestics and yard workers in
the homes of local families during
summer months kept children from
their families too often abusive
families in alcohol-, and later drug
and gang-fueled communities all
through their youths.
This lack of family connections is
frequently named in academic lit-
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erature as a contributor to trauma
in Indian communities that has
stretched over generations. It left
many without parenting examples
for their own children, and only in
recent years are groups like White
Bison and The Boarding School
Healing Project starting to address
these issues.
Harrison, however, recalled liv
ing with "a wonderful family" dur
ing summers that wanted to adopt
her, though she told them she did
not want to leave her friends and
the family she had created at Che
mawa. Former Tribal Elder Orville Leno,
on the other hand, ran away from
Chemawa three times, according to
his son, Tribal Council Vice Chair
Reyn Leno.
"Positive and negative can hap
pen at the same time at the same
location, and that's the way it
was at the boarding schools," says
Tribal Elder Bob Tom, who lived on
the campus in the 1950s when his
parents worked there.
The story was somewhat differ
ent for Bob Tom and others,
like Herman Hudson Jr., both
Tribal Elders today, who lived
on campus with parents em
ployed by the school. The chil
dren attended public school
nearby in Salem, and yet joined in
with the boarding school students
in many social ways.
Children of Chemawa staff were
not permitted to attend school at
Chemawa to avoid favoritism.
Herman Hudson Jr., who lived on
the campus from 1930-42, when he
joined the Armed Forces, says, "I'd
never had a flush toilet or electric
lights until I moved to Chemawa."
He remembers the Chemawa bas
ketball team with a laugh. "Every
time they scored a basket, they had
another jump ball," he says.
His father, Herman Hudson, a
former Tribal Elder, worked at the
school as a bus and truck driver.
And the senior Hudson was not
alone among Tribal members in
helping shape the school as faculty
and staff.
Former Tribal Elder Emanuel
Hudson, Herman's cousin, served
the school as Guidance Department
head for a time, and of the school's
dormitories for another period dur
ing the 1950s and '60s.
A 1956 "Chemawa American"
newsletter reported, "Mr. E.B.
Hudson made the presentation
of certificates to boys who were
selected as outstanding citizens
in the boys' dormitories." Later in
the same newsletter, the report
Superintendent's Home Open to
Employees on Sunday Afternoon,
April 8, notes: "During the after
noon Miss Betty Langley, Miss
Mayme Tedlock, Mrs. Emanuel
Hudson (italics added), and Mrs.
James MacDonald poured."
A benefit of schooling at Che
mawa, Bob Tom says, "was that
Indians from different Tribes went
to school with each other."
"At one time, you could look at
Tribes in the Northwest and you
would see Chemawa graduates on
Tribal Councils, in top administra
tive positions. The leadership of
Northwest Tribes were all coming
out of Chemawa.
"Northwest Tribes got along
much better than Tribes of other
areas because of Chemawa. It was
a positive benefit for the Tribes."
Long Tribal connection
to Chemawa
The Grand Ronde Tribe's long
and deeply held connections with
Chemawa were more personal in
the early years, though they have
turned political as the Northwest
Tribes have grown and prospered.
Bob Tom, like many others, re
members a lot of the personal
joys.
"I was born at the hospital there.
Both of my parents worked at the
school." His father, former Tribal
Elder Abraham Tom, worked on
the farm and in construction. His
mother, Aurilla Tom, was a baker
for Chemawa, and baked for each
meal, with a break in between.
There was a real intermingling,
kids and families," he says. "Really,
the employees and their kids would
go to school plays and sports func
tions. It was kind of a close-knit
community."
Between dairy and pig farms
(the pig farm was called "Pigville"),
orchards and row crops, the school
was almost self-sufficient, say
Tribal members who lived there.
In the evenings, says Kathryn
Harrison, they would let the stu
dents pick fruit from the orchards.
As growing adolescents, she says,
"We were always hungry. It wasn't
like home where you could go into
the kitchen and get something to
eat."
But things changed as the years
went by. Many Northwest Tribes,
including Grand Ronde, found bet
ter schooling opportunities for their
children in their own communities,
and Chemawa began recruiting Na
vajos in Arizona and New Mexico,
says Bob Tom.
The yearbook for 1959-60 showed
a graduating class made up of stu
dents almost entirely from Arizona
and New Mexico with one from
Utah.
The school that had at one time
served mostly Northwest Tribes
changed to serve about 50 percent
Northwest and 50 percent Navajo.
Later, it served almost 100 percent
Navajo, and later still, it changed
again to a 5050 mix of Navajo and
Alaskan Natives, Tom says.
By the time Louis King (Okla
homa Seminole), now Spirit Moun
tain Community Fund's Program
Coordinator, joined the staff at
Chemawa in 1989, some 60 differ
ent Tribes were again represented
See CHEMAWA
continued on pages 12
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Photo courtesy of Kathryn Harrison
Harry Jones, second row left, a late Tribal member and father to Tribal Elder Kathryn Harrison, was valedictorian of his
class in 1 91 0 at Chemawa Indian Training School.
In her dorm room, Tribal member Nakoosa Moreland prepares to pack her regalia to show in her
Performing Arts class at Chemawa Indian School in Salem recently. Moreland is Senior Miss Grand
Ronde and has been dancing at powwows for years, so her teacher asked her to share her regalia
with the class.
Photo courtesy of Kathryn Harrison
Tribal Elder Kathryn Harrison, known then as Kathryn Jones, middle, was a member of a sepette group at
Chemawa Indian School in 1940. The group entertained at various receptions and activities on campus
and entertained at clubs and organizations in the surrounding area. Their programs consisted of modern
music. Tribal songs and Indian dances.
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