S moke S ignals
SEPTEMBER 15, 2018
13
Greene turns 100 on Sept. 26
ELDER FEATURE
continued from page 12
baby had gone for a few harrowing
moments to the wrong mother.
“I spent 10 full days in the hospi-
tal,” says Dottie.
She remembers Ilene at 4 years
old: “She had the most beautiful
black curls on her. And those brown
eyes. She could have been in the
movies.”
The year the marriage ended,
Reid took Dottie for dinner with
actor Anthony Quinn.
The marriage lasted only seven
years, but the two were always in
touch, always friendly, and when
doctors said Ilene needed a warmer
climate, Reid gladly raised Ilene
for five years in the warmer city of
Santa Monica, Calif.
Dottie married Ray Lloyd Greene
in 1950, but Ray “hated Oregon
weather.” After a short stay in The
Dalles, the couple moved to Bakers-
field, Calif.
They arrived in Bakersfield, she
says, with a minimal stake. She
had seven quarts of fruit that she
sold for $1 each, and he had $3 in
his pocket. It lasted them through
41 years of marriage.
She remembers riding after work
in their 1948 yellow-and-white Mer-
cury convertible with the top down.
“It was nice and warm,” she says.
And she remembers that “he
made the best leg of lamb you ever
had in your life,” and that “every-
body in his family was a natural
musician.” There wasn’t anything
Ray couldn’t play on a guitar or
a piano. “He played by ear,” says
Dottie. “He mostly played church
hymns because that’s the way he
was brought up.”
Ray supplemented their stake
as a mechanic and Dottie did her
part as a housekeeper and nurses’
aide for some 30 years in two local
hospitals: Moss Gardens and Mercy
Hospital’s convalescent section.
Together, they had a daughter,
Shelley Greene Bertolucci, now of
Bakersfield.
They lost boy/girl twins before
birth.
Shelley gave Dottie two grand-
children, Heather, of Salt Lake
City, and Joe, who lives in Indepen-
dence. Heather’s daughter, Holly
Ann Rasmussen, also lives in Salt
Lake City.
Dottie’s daughter, Ilene, gave
Dottie a grandson in Korey Busby
of McMinnville and a granddaugh-
ter in Regina Wilson of Pensacola,
Fla. Their brother, Carl Anderson,
died in a truck accident in 2000.
The thing about Carl’s death,
says Dottie, is she saw it happen
before it happened. She was sedat-
ed for cancer surgery at the time.
And this was not the only instance
of clairvoyance. As a child, she spot-
ted a house fire and a chimney fire
before they got out of hand.
At 9 years old, she was out with a
group collecting chittam bark. She
had a good memory for sounds and
it helped her identify a huge cougar
in the hills without the cougar ever
showing its face. Her father and
Arthur Mercier tracked it down the
next day and shot it, earning each
of them $75 for the hide.
On the other hand, she lived
through earthquake after earthquake
in Bakersfield without ever seeing
one coming. After one early morning
temblor, however, she said she looked
out the window and “I never saw so
many bare bottoms in my life.”
Dottie retired from Mercy Hospi-
tal in 1984 after stories of a living
patient being brought, mistakenly,
to the morgue, and of getting locked
in there herself.
“It’s lucky there was a phone to
the outside in there,” she says, “be-
cause inside, there sure was nobody
to talk to.”
Her mother always knew that
Dottie would take care of people.
“Mom said when I was a little
girl, I was out there patching up
my dolls, so she always knew what
‘my Dot was going to do.’ ”
In 1985, she returned to the
Tribe, where she served on the
Health Committee for 10 years,
applying all that she had learned
working in hospitals. She served on
the Powwow Committee for eight
years and on Tribal Council in the
late 1980s.
Ilene suffered with cirrhosis of
the liver. Sitting with her first
daughter “day and night” during
that time before she died in 1994
made up one of the saddest chap-
ters of her life, Dottie says.
“How she suffered. I didn’t know
anybody could suffer that much.”
Dottie has always been involved
in crafts, including crocheting and
making jewelry. She is crazy about
jewelry, she says, and is herself an
ongoing work of art. She regularly
has her fingernails and toenails
brightened up and her hair styled.
She still dresses, she says, the way
her mother taught her.
Perhaps her best skills remain in
the story-telling department. Dot-
tie remembers so many important
moments of her life as if they were
scenes in a movie.
Picture Dot, as she was called at
2 years of age, sitting in a chair on
the front porch of their home by
Salt Creek, near Salem.
“My mom’s standing in the door-
way watching me when this bull
knocked down the fence and came
charging the porch. Mom had her
heart in her mouth,” says Dottie,
from the vantage of nearly 90 years,
safely sitting in her living room in
Tribal Elder housing on Beaver
Court. “It came that close,” she
said, meaning about eight feet, “and
then turned around and went back
over the fence.”
Or this: Picture Dot and a boy
named Riley Porter (4 and 5 years
old) sitting on stumps, their faces
covered with chocolate and dough-
nuts. That was when the family
lived at the Holtz (logging) camp
and Dot ran around with Riley.
They used to take off together for
the loggers’ bunkhouse that was
maybe a third of a mile away. Imag-
ine how her mother felt about them
having to crawl under a railroad
box car to get to the camp, when
she found out.
“Those box cars,” said Dottie.
“They often broke free.”
“The men would sit us up on
stumps and give us doughnuts and
chocolate and things.”
The time they were discovered,
Dottie’s mother and her friend,
Celia Sorenson, “looked around
and wondered where us kids were.”
They tracked them to the camp.
“They were so angry they wanted
to spank us, but our faces were all
chocolate and doughnut crumbs and
the loggers said, ‘No don’t spank
them. They’re just having fun,’
and Dottie’s mom was saying, ‘but
they’re not supposed to sneak off.’ ”
The lesson was not lost on Dot:
“Riley and I, we were no dummies.”
FLYER
Wanting to share your spirituality with others?
Be a Mentor and guide those to a better way?
Volunteer with the Dept. of Corrections Religious Services
Needed are SWEAT LODGE AND SPIRITUAL LEADERS .
THE NEED IS GREAT AT ALL FACILITES. ESPECIALLY FOR ALL TRIBAL MEMBERS.
OUR ELDERS FOUGHT TO HAVE NATIVE RELIGION HONORED AT PRISONS.
CURRENTLY, WE ARE LACKING VOLUNTEERS TO PROVIDE THAT.
BE THAT PERSON - CHANGE LIVES- MAKE A DIFFERENCE
VOLUNTEER TODAY!
LINK TO APPLICATION PAGE
https://www.oregon.gov/doc/OMR/docs/pdf/Volunteer_Intern.pdf
QUESTIONS or ASSISTANCE
CONTACT VOLUNTEERS SERVICES OR ANITA ESPINO @ 503-983-5783 CALL OR TEXT
Anita.L.Espino@doc.state.or.us (CTSI Tribal Member-Niece to Aggie Pilgrim)