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Kimsey recalls the road to Restoration
By Chris Mercier
There I Bat at the local Food
Bank.
Elder Marvin Kimsey sat
before me, leaning back in
the chair, calmly flicking cigarette
ashes into a coffee can.
He spoke of Restoration. No, not
the act of Restoration, Hill 3885, and
speaking before Congress. Not the
recent celebration at Spirit Moun
tain Casino. No, none of that.
He spoke of those first Tribal
Council meetings that were like pot
lucks and the occasional shouting
match that unfurled in a tiny office
at the cemetery. To him, Restora
tion signified a unique struggle that
he and a handful of others worked
toward long ago.
He talked about Lebanon, nearly
30 years ago. Margaret Provost
convinced him and Merle Holmes
to come to a meeting held by some
Association of Urban Indians.
"God those meetings were awful.
They fought, they bickered," he said.
"Some of the people, they were Ka
lapuyan, some of them were Sioux.
Some not even Indian at all."
But despite the arguing, those
people had one thing in common;
an idea in hindsight that meant
everything, an idea that would put
Grand Ronde on the map.
The year was 1972, and the Ter
mination Act had occurred not even
20 years ago. The idea was Res
toration. Nobody knew what that
meant, how long such a task would
take or even if the goal was at all
possible. But the idea stuck and 30
years later, Confederated Tribes of
Grand Ronde.
If it could have only been that
simple.
"You know, we figured it would
take two or three years, tops," said
Kimsey.
Well, we all know how the road
toward Restoration extended a little
beyond that projection, as the Tribe
never really became The Tribe in the
eyes of the federal government until
1983, 1 1 years after Kimsey, Provost
and Holmes first attended that fate
ful little meeting in Lebanon.
What we don't really know is
just what had to be done to achieve
Restoration. Paperwork; loads and
loads of paperwork. And phone
calls, and letters to be written, and
surveys, and enrollment numbers,
and fact-finding, and people finding,
coalition building, you name it - this
was grassroots politics.
Names abound - Les AuCoin,
Elizabeth Furse, Mark Hatfield,
Don Wharton and Dean Mercier.
And, yes, most people have a general
idea of what happened, what with
the visits to Washington, D.C., and
all. But only a select few know the
whole story, one which really goes
beyond the scope of a simple article
in a bimonthly publication, and
might be better suited for a detailed
5
'
Marvin Kimsey
account as a book. At least so said
Kimsey.
"It is ... impossible, I mean im
possible to tell you everything that
went on in Restoration, and what
entailed," Kimsey said, shaking his
head. "It really is. You just had to
be there.
"There were a lot of sacrifices
made," he continued. "We weren't
always a Tribe with a casino, or a
Tribe with timber even."
To be exact, they were a small
group of people, with lives, with
jobs not really related to a potential
Tribe. There was no steady source of
funding, no grants and their pooled
extra cash amounted to no more
than $37. Not surprisingly for the
first few years, the Confederated
Tribes of Grand Ronde was an after
hours project; work away from work,
unpaid for even Kimsey himself,
often questionable.
"I can't say what drives a person
to do it," he said. "I don't know who
else would have done it, because
there wasn't a whole lot of interest.
Work 10- to 12-hour days for noth
ing. Who wants to do that?"
Well enough people wanted to do
"that" to make the venture worth
while. The first few acres of Tribal
property were purchased, the cem
etery no less, but coming at least
with an office building. Things were
cooking. Membership was estimated
at more than 600 people, and there
was a steady flow of volunteers to
keep the ball rolling.
"A lot of people came and went,"
Kimsey said. "Some were really
helpful for one or two months and
then they left. And who can blame
them? They had their livelihood,
their jobs."
Kimsey called the period of 1975
to 1979 a time of "no gains what
soever." But that time produced
the core group of himself, Jackie
Whisler, Merle Holmes and Mar
garet Provost, the four who were to
be instrumental in getting the Tribe
restored. And that time yielded
some of the long-lasting alliances,
such as with Elizabeth Furse and
Don Wharton of Oregon Legal Ser
vices, and with a strong political
friend in the form of Congressman
Les AuCoin.
Two other key players of note
would arrive on the scene, Dean
Mercier and Kathryn Harrison.
Kimsey and Whisler both can re
member the long days and nights
spent crowded in the cemetery of
fice, with neither heat nor plumb
ing, one phone line and a donated
typewriter between them. Their
first computer was a Commodore
64, which only one person knew how
to use. Paper towels substituted for
coffee filters.
"Yeah, I can remember during the
long winter days, watching Jackie
and Kathryn sit at their desks,
wearing their coats," chuckled
Kimsey.
"Gosh, I can remember those days,
too," Whisler said on another occa
sion. "I left a Coke sitting by my desk
one night and when I came back the
next morning, it had frozen.
"We lived Restoration," she said.
Whisler entered the fray in 1977
while living in Amity. Her father,
Dean Mercier, had become involved
and phoned her one night, asking
when she was going to come over
and "start helping her people."
Mercier himself had become in
volved, somewhat inadvertently,
after learning at a Christmas party
one night that he had been elected
to Tribal Council.
"I figured if they thought enough
of me to vote me in, I'd better start
paying attention," Mercier said.
He, like others, had been recruited
into the effort by Kimsey, of course.
"Mister Restoration," Mercier called
him.
Holmes, Kimsey and Mercier were
in fact three of the first original
Tribal chairmen. A Tribal Council
did exist back then, with elections
determined not by ballots, but
merely by a show of hands at the
General Council meetings.
"Back then nobody wanted to be
on council," Whisler said. "I think if
somebody was angry at somebody
else, they would nominate them for
council."
Perhaps nobody wanted to be on
council because the positions were,
like virtually every other one in
those days, voluntary (read: un
paid). Council members had to be
leaders, not politicians, an aspect
not forgotten by the pre-Restoration
group, especially Mercier.
"I never turned into a politician,"
Mercier said. "Though sometimes
they tried to force me to. It was
tough on the way to Restoration."
Indeed, Mercier's fiery personality
didn't always serve his purpose too
well. Whisler and her father both
remember one of their early meet
ings with Les AuCoin, when the
congressman was unusually tardy.
"He asked us if he was late," Mer
cier remembered. "I said, 'Oh, about
two years late.' "
Whisler growled "Dad!" and gave
him a sharp kick in the shin for the
lack of diplomacy.
"I can remember AuCoin just
looked at my dad and said, 'You're
starting out wrong,' " Whisler said,
laughing.
Nonetheless, a sense of levity
pervaded many of those early meet
ings. Some even look back on the
occasional fistfights that erupted
within the confines of Tribal func
tions with nostalgia, because even
an overheated argument that came
to blows was a sure sign of clear and
effective communication. Nobody
doubted another's stance after a
bloody nose and row on the floor.
"The meetings were fun back
then," Whisler said. "They were
informative."
Just what were they doing all
those years? What did all those
meetings, all those long office hours
need? Kimsey presented a paper
from his records, a questionnaire
and on it written, among others
things, "Congressional Criteria for
Federal Recognition."
It read:
1. The Tribe has exercised
ongoing governmental functions.
2. Tribal group consists of a
community of Indians belonging to
a formerly recognized Tribe.