August 1976: Beginnings

We arrived at the mission in Hays on August 9, 1976, in the early afternoon. I was astonished to discover that my first fieldnotes from my research were initiated on August 9, 1976.

While the focus of the topics in these first notes was the mission – the lowest of the low hanging fruit – the observations were significant. It is important to bear in mind that we came into this fieldwork endeavor with an only superficial understanding of Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. I was raised in an orthodox Jewish home. Unless you have your ears closed and eyes shut from birth, you are going to understand a lot about Christianity as an American. Everyone is immersed in all of it whether they want to be or not. But my real understanding was superficial given my background.

My original research proposal was focused on the influence of St. Paul’s Mission on the acculturation of the Gros Ventre Tribe. It was a good and important topic. As I became increasingly immersed in the work I was doing at the mission, it because apparent that there was something of a conflict in my pursuing this study. I can characterize a positive influence from the mission on Gros Ventre society. I can also enumerate an incredibly negative influence, particularly when considering that the impact I was focused on was acculturation and assimilation. The historical methods for achieving those ends were often a significant challenge for the people of the community. I heard these difficult stories repeatedly during our two years in Hays.

I eventually discussed this issue with my advisor who happened to be a former Jesuit priest (who was married to a former nun). He had a unique insight into the issues I was dealing with and the internal conflicts I was encountering. We finally decided that as I was being “employed” by the mission, this topic could cause me some ethical issues.

The title of the dissertation I published was:  The Emerging Influence of Pan-Indian Elements on the Tribal Identity of the Gros Ventre of Northcentral Montana. Snappy title. This was an important topic because the cornerstone of federal government policy was to destroy that identity and to make these people into cultural copies of white, Christian American society. Remarkably, in the face of many decades of this strategic onslaught, the Gros Vente (and ultimately A’aniii) identity remained alive and well.

The mission’s role in this strategy was significant, so understanding as much as possible about St. Paul’s Mission would remain central to my work. I set out to understand more about Christianity and Catholicism and also to understand the history of St. Paul’s Mission and its relationship to the community of Hays and the Gros Ventre Tribe.

In hindsight, the most meaningful research would have entailed how to bring a vital economy to the reservation in the face of so many challenges: dealing with historical mayhem from decades of failed government policies and programs. I have discussed the allotment act, the land inheritance problems, and the fact that there was not enough land for every member of the community to become a farmer and rancher. Building an economy would require a federal government and private business investment unlike any the reservation had ever experienced. And it would also require some monumental creativity.

Poverty on the reservation was serious and endemic. All the social problems we have in our society fundamentally are nurtured and grow from the hopelessness that attends deep, persistent, multi-generational poverty. Given the pervasiveness and depth of the mission’s and federal government’s acculturation strategies, and all the significant trauma experienced by the people, it was going to take generations to heal the traditional values, culture, and language of the A’aniii. That healing would no doubt be assisted and accelerated by a thriving economy on the reservation, and the concomitant end to poverty and the attendant social problems.

It became clear to me during my work that I wasn’t doing a study on the most vital issues these people were facing. I also realized that I didn’t have any great answers. I could readily identify all the problems and could explain what caused these problems. What I lacked was the power, the resources, and the creativity to repair the reservation economy. That fact caused me the greatest sense of disappointment. As I had developed such strong feelings for the people in this community, I was demoralized by my inability to make that difference in their lives.

The best I can do at this stage of the game is advocacy. I was an advocate for Pauline who was diagnosed with transverse myelitis and became an advocate for the past 30 years for the rare neuroimmune disorder community. I might not be the best at advocacy, but I do understand the work. Perhaps this From Gros Ventre to A’aniii story that I am presenting with this blog will help in that direction. Significant change will require other than our indigenous peoples to care. Change will happen when our greater society takes responsibility for how these tribes came to be where and how they are and are willing to do something about it. The Tribes are too easily ignored by those that can help them and, by the way, have the legal responsibility for doing so.  The tribes do not have the power or the resources to force the issue. It’s an uncomfortable analogy, but in so many ways, when I think about the tribes in the US, I often also think about the prison community – neither has a constituency in our society. No one cares enough to think about them, let alone do anything for them. Out of sight, out of mind.

My memory is failing. I’ve never been great with names, but that is getting worse. I have become entirely dependent on notes to remind me of everything. Thank goodness for my phone and for Alexa. I have many tools to help me remember.

How good is my memory about people and events that I experienced going on fifty years ago? The answer is not so great. My memory is helped by about 3,000 photographs. But the greatest aides to my memory are my fieldnotes and the correspondence tapes Susie and I produced for my parents and siblings while we were away. The notes and these tapes remind me of so much … the formal activities we were involved in and the more everyday stories that reflect the most important relationships we had with people in the community and at the mission. I am going through all of these in chronological order.

I am also displaying the images in a specific order, as well. I am presenting the stories and the images monthly because both the fieldnotes and the photographs used dates as the basis for their organization. Also, I am going to present the images per the roll of film. As I noted in the first blog, I was shooting slide film with either 36 or 20 shots per roll. There was an order to this madness as I was usually taking a roll of film for each unique event. Often, to finish a roll so I could send it away for processing (to the Kodak center in Palo Alto) and to get another full roll into my camera, I took various random shots, many of which included Gahanab or our front yard (Mission Ridge of the Little Rockies).

One last thing before I get into the stories. As I explained in my first blog of this series, if I were to offer the most accurate account of the Gros Ventre Tribe and the community of Hays, I would be doing so in the A’aniii language. That is not possible for two reasons. First, I don’t know if there are any fluent speakers of the language remaining. In the mid-1970s, there were only about 25 or so fluent speakers of the language and they were all older than about 55 years. Second, I know almost nothing of this language myself.

Language offers the structure for how our world is perceived and experienced. The structure of a culture and the language are pretty much the same thing. How a person practices their way of life involves everything about their behavior, values, beliefs and world view. They are going to describe their way of life as a member of their society and from this ‘insider’ perspective. As a cultural anthropologist showing up in this community in the mid-1970s, I am very much an outsider. I am by definition going to be translating what I observe and experience from the perspective of my language, which is both the formal language of cultural anthropology and the informal language that is defined by who I am and how I came to be this way. The translation is a step away from the Gros Ventre reality. How big a step is an interesting proposition, which I’ll explain in a moment.

The anthropological language is important and very useful. If we only understood a way of life from an insider’s perspective, we would never be able to compare and contrast societies. Using an example from the previous blog, when anthropologists discuss avunculocal residence patterns, they are describing where people live using a concept that is not used by the people who actually practice this way of life. We can arrive at a better understanding of the characteristics and purpose of this residence pattern by studying its manifestation in different societies. What are the similarities between all societies who practice avunculocal residence, and what are the differences. At the end of the day, it helps us to understand what is ‘the human experience’ and how and why each society has developed a truly unique way of life. How are we the same? How are we different? What could possibly be more important or interesting?

The translations become even more complicated and a further step from reality when considering the informal perspective. What is it about me that influences the way this translation is done? This perspective has everything to do with my life experiences, my ethnic and religious background, my personality, and values. As I am not a robot, I am unable to function as an anthropologist void of the influence of these informal characteristics or perspectives. As a Jew raised in an orthodox household, I brought a perspective in observing the Catholic Church and the Gros Ventre community that was very different from how a Christian would have translated this experience. How I established and developed my perspectives as a twenty-something in the 1970s was very different from how a person in their sixties might have perceived these experiences.

What I present in this blog needs to be understood from that perspective. It is a step from reality in the ways I have described. What is also important to bear in mind is that the length of that step in the mid-1970s was a bit shorter than what it would have been if I had appeared in Hays in the 1930s or 1940s. The acculturative distance that was traveled by these people in two or three generations was profound and, in many ways, cataclysmic. The way of life of the Gros Ventre in those previous generations was very different from the people who lived in the white communities that surround the reservation. In the 1970s, those differences were significantly diminished. They were absolutely different from the whites who lived in those communities … only less so. And what significantly complicates those differences is trying to distinguish between the differences that exist because of the vestiges of the traditional way of life; the differences that are accounted for by the traumatic experiences of decades of abusive acculturative policies and practices; and the differences accounted for by the consequences of endemic poverty.

Returning to where I started … it is remarkable (and yet not unexpected) that this neurotically driven, and compulsively organized person created a substantial recording of our observations and conversations represented on the very first day of our arrival. We showed up on August 9th.  Our first set of fieldnotes are dated August 9th, 1976.

I’m not going to individually share the almost 700 days of our lives in Hays, but as these were the very first observations, I thought you might find interesting what we learned and recorded on our first day.

The mission had about nineteen personnel. There were two Jesuit priests. Father Retzel was the director. He was responsible for running the entire mission and had all the formal religious responsibilities (mass, baptisms, funerals, weddings). He also offered lots of guidance and outreach in the community. Father Simoneau shared all these responsibilities. He had been at St. Paul’s Mission for the past 16 years. He had come from the Crow Reservation where he had been the director. Father Retzel has been at St. Paul’s Mission for seven years. When he arrived, he replaced Father Simoneau as director. Father Simoneau is 68 years old and is more traditional. Father Retzel is 49.

The Fathers split the responsibility for saying mass. Mass is held on Saturday and Sunday, in both Hays and Lodge Pole. The priests live in the rectory.

There was a Jesuit brother who lived in a small metal shack that he built for himself in a field adjacent to the rectory and behind our temporary home in the green trailer. He does a lot of repairs to mission vehicles and helps to maintain some of the equipment in the buildings. He keeps entirely to himself and is rarely seen outside by anyone. We quickly realized that the entire situation with the brother was beyond not ok … it was entirely bizarre and unhealthy on so many different levels. You might see him running across a field going from his shack to the church, likely to receive communion. He was always dressed in black. A couple of the volunteers would visit him. He and Bill took on a project to totally tear down and rebuild an engine. Besides the priests, this might have been his closest and only relationship. For two years, I had no idea what he looked like. And for some of those two years, we lived just about 30 yards from his shack. We never spoke until the day before I was going to return to Ohio. I was in the trailer and heard a knock on the door. When I opened it, I was shocked to see brother standing on our stoop in front of me. His face was covered in black smudge from oil or soot. He shook my hand and in a very sweet voice said goodbye and told me that he would see me in a better place. That was it. Clearly, no one ever told him that I was Jewish. Brother will just have to exist in The Better Place without me.

There were five Franciscan Sisters, and they lived in the convent. One of them was responsible for maintaining the convent and preparing the meals. One of the sisters was the principal of the school and the four of them were teachers. Three of the sisters had been at the mission for over 30 years and were teachers in the mission high school before it burned down. After the fire, the mission became an elementary and middle school covering grades 1 through 8. The children of high school age went to the public Hays/Lodge Pole High School. The Hays/Lodge Pole Public School was for elementary/middle and high school. One of the very few choices people had on the southern part of the reservation was to decide where their children would go to elementary/middle school.

The families do not pay tuition for their children to attend the mission school. I haven’t the slightest idea where the mission gets the money to run this place. It is clearly run on a shoestring.

There were two Dominican Sisters. They were away from the reservation when we arrived, and Susie and I were staying in their trailer until our home by the canyon was ready for us to move in. One of the sisters was going to be teaching third and fourth grades at the mission school and the other ran an arts and crafts program at the mission for the community and did outreach in the community of Lodge Pole.

Jim is a Gros Ventre who is 68 years old and has been working at the mission for the past 16 years. He does maintenance work for the mission and any other odd jobs that need to be done, i.e., cleans the school, kills and plucks chickens, works on the school bus, builds furniture, paints and maintains the buildings. His wife, Beatrice and daughter, Mary, were the cooks at the school primarily responsible for preparing the hot lunch program for the kids and for all the teachers and mission people. We loved and love the Stiffarm family. Jim and Beatrice were among the small number of fluent speakers of Gros Ventre and were as knowledgeable as anyone about the traditional A’aniii culture. Getting to spend almost every day with them at the mission was one of the more exceptional experiences we had in Hays. Jim was quiet and dignified. Beatrice and Mary were outgoing, sweet, caring and had just a wonderful sense of humor. I could ask them any stupid question ... and I did. And they always offered me a great answer; after laughing at me. Getting laughed at by Beatrice and Mary was a joy.

There were four people from the Jesuit Volunteer Corp (besides Susie and me) and three of them lived in the rectory. Bill was responsible for caring for the garden and for the chickens. He also took care of lots of maintenance problems. Bill was an architect and an incredibly creative person. He built a greenhouse onto the back of the rectory for the purpose of growing vegetables that don’t ordinarily do well in the short Montana growing season. Mike, who had just arrived with us, was going to coach basketball, teach physical education and shop, and was also responsible for about everything at the mission. He was a carpenter by trade and had just come from serving in the army in Vietnam. He was a jack of all trades and one of the best friends I had in life for going on fifty years.

 https://www.sanfordjsiegel.com/post/michael-ley-1950-2023

Nade was another new volunteer. She was going to be teaching catechism, participating in religious retreats, and performing other spiritual duties. I don’t remember where she lived when she arrived, but we ended up living with Nade before the end of the school year. Brian was doing maintenance and teaching. He had been working at the mission for four years and was planning to leave during the year.

Susie was going to be teaching music, girls’ physical education, coaching the girls’ basketball team and cooking the hot breakfast program. I was going to be teaching history, social studies and geography, work with Jim to clean the school at the end of the day and take a turn driving the bus.

The reality was that there was an enormous amount of work that needed to be done at the mission and all of us were responsible for everything ...from phone duty, to selling bingo cards on Thursday nights, to supervising the older teen and young adult recreation program, to participating in all manner of religious activities.

St. Paul’s Mission is located in the Little Rocky Mountains in the southern part of the reservation, and it owns over 300 acres of land.  The mission leases out a field for growing wheat and a pasture for grazing cattle every year.  Only an Indian from the reservation is permitted to bid on this land.  The mission is surrounded by pasture, fields, and the mountains.

The mission has a garden behind the school. Bill grows corn, green and wax beans, peas, carrots, onions, acorn squash and yellow squash.  These vegetables are grown for use by the sisters. Sister Germain cooks for the sisters, the fathers and the volunteers, and they all eat in the convent. Bill also grows tomatoes, but he has to keep them in a greenhouse because of the cold nights.  There is a short growing season, and the vegetables do not do very well in this climate. It is also very dry.  Bill raises chickens.  He collects the eggs for use by the mission and he kills about 60-70 roosters a year. Bill went through a phase of raising a few pigs and we were collecting slop from the lunch program at the school to feed the pigs. Bill always had the most and the most interesting hobbies.

The only vegetables grown for use by other than the mission people are the potatoes which are grown for the school lunch program. The lunch program is supported by the government, and they use government commodity food which they pick up from the Agency (on the northern part of the reservation near Harlem) once a month.  The meat is bought from a store in Havre and the fathers also try to get people to donate cattle for the lunch program.

There is only one store in Hays which is owned by a white man. His wife is an Inuit. He and his family live above the store.  It is a combination grocery store, post office, clothing and dry goods store. The selection is small, but it has a little of everything.  There are other non-residential buildings in Hays but no other stores.

There are few phones on the reservation. The mission had one of the few phones in Hays. It was the only telephone in Hays that was available to people in the community. No one was making local calls because there weren’t any telephones for someone to answer! Most people had close relatives who lived off the reservation, so calls to and from family occurred frequently. The mission has designated hours for people to use the telephone during the evening.  Only individuals 18 and over can use the phone.  People leave messages, and we have to go out into the community to deliver them.  The only calls are toll calls and people leave their money in a small box in the phone room.  People also sit outside the rectory in their trucks waiting for calls to come in. All the volunteers take turns doing phone duty. This duty involves sitting next to the phone during the designated hours and running all over kingdom come delivering messages for any phone calls that come in. Phone duty turned into a wonderful way for Susie and I to meet and get to talk to many people from the community just by sitting in the living room in the rectory next to the telephone.

We also learned that there are three groups on the reservation.  The Gros Ventre who compose most of the population in Hays, the Assiniboine, who live in Lodge Pole and the Chippewa Cree/Metis.  The Chippewa Cree are referred to as landless Indians. When the federal government established the Fort Belknap Reservation, it was formally designated for the Gros Ventre and the Assiniboine. There are three communities on the reservation: Hays and Lodge Pole in the south and the Agency in the northern part of the reservation. The Agency community is both Gros Ventre and Assiniboine.

And that, for the most part, is what I learned on day one; and how this research turned into 10,000 pages of fieldnotes.

On our second day in Hays, we drove up to the canyon to meet Hazel and to see the trailer we were going to be moving into. Her father is John and he owns the property across from the mission, which includes the land Hazel’s trailer is located on.  His family came to homestead the land before this area became the reservation. He began with 600 acres and now has 800.  He raises horses and cattle. She told us that her father has the only land on the reservation which is not reservation land.  He was tired of the tribal council telling him what to do and with the help of his congressman from Harlem he changed his land to Patent and Fee land.  He owns this land himself and pays taxes on it.  The tribal council resents this move and does not get along very well with John as a result. He’s 82 years old. 

And we got to know John and he was an ornery character. John was the one who told me that he'd never heard of Catholic Jews.

I took these photos of our place during this first week while we were exploring the area. The three structures you see in the images are a two-story abandoned log home, a much smaller one-story log home and the trailer. This is the only two-story log home we saw during those two years. I thought of it as a log mansion. John was raised in this place. There was also a corral on the property. The trailer was nestled at the base of the mountains and the canyon was just below us and to the south. In front of the property was what we called Mission Creek that ran out of the mountains. I believe that it was also known as People's Creek.

This view gives a better idea of just how isolated we were. The peak behind us was known as Eagle Child. It is a sacred place that I will discuss. You can also make out the dirt road that ran down from the canyon and up to the mission. If you look closely, in this image and the next, you can see cattle that are grazing in the field on the other side of the road and in front of the trailer.

It was the most spectacularly beautiful place I've ever lived. We were surrounded by all this beauty every waking hour of every day. Regardless of the season or the weather, it was beautiful. I consider our time in that place to be a pure blessing. I return to it whenever I've made it back to Hays. Today, it is an open field.

The only structure that remains is the smaller log home at the front of the property. Remarkably, it has stood the test of time (and unbelievably harsh weather). You can still see the chinking between the logs!

Father Simoneau was very sweet with us. He spent a lot of time talking to us about the mission and the community. He was a character. He introduced us to the sisters in the convent. We learned that school was going to start on August 30.  We knew nothing about our teaching responsibilities. I had been teaching introductory physical and cultural anthropology for two years at Ohio State. I’d never taken any courses in education and had only taught at the college level. Susie had no teaching experience whatsoever. We were given no information by the sisters to prepare for the school year. We quickly learned and were resolved to this is just the way things operated at the mission. We were going to have to figure it out when it was right in front of our faces.

We didn’t have much to do during our first week in Hays. We were living in our temporary trailer and couldn’t yet unpack. We had the opportunity to explore around the mission and to drive and hike into the canyon and mountains.

Susie and I hiked on the ridges behind the mission and up north toward Hays. This image is behind the mission. The school and the new gymnasium are in the foreground. To the right is the convent and what was called 'The House of Loretto." Then in front of the school is the church and toward the entrance to the mission is a small chapel. The larger dark red building is a gym and in front of that is the rectory. Behind the rectory is the green trailer where we were temporarily staying. And behind that trailer is the original mission/bus garage.

Across the road from the mission are people's homes. The light blue building is a senior citizen's center.

This image is looking down on the public-school section. The Hays Trading Post and post office were located on this site along with the Hays/Lodge Pole School. There were also homes, primarily of the French-Chippewa-Cree/Metis. Those are the Bear Paw Mountains in the background, and the Rocky Boy Reservation. Just north of these mountains is the town of Havre. For those of you who haven't spent time in this part of the country, the prairie looks brown most of the time when it isn't covered by snow. When you see green, it means there is a creek or stream running through it (or irrigation). These run hard in the spring from the mountain run-off. As the climate here is semi-arid (you would sometimes see small cactus), these creeks and streams can run dry or to a trickle by July and August.

This is another view of the mission with Brother Ryan's shack in the field.

The low metal building just south of Brother Ryan's place is the chicken coop.

This is the cemetery on the southernmost part of the mission property.

I love this photograph of the Bear Paw Mountains. The prairie might look flat from 20,000 feet, but it sure isn't flat when you are standing in the middle of it.

This old stone structure at the mission might have been a place that Beatrice and Jim lived in for a time.

We ran across this skull on our hike. I'm sure I took the picture because it looked so stereotypically western (to a Jewish kid from Cleveland Heights).

 Susie standing in front of the mountains in the middle of one of the mission's fields. 

This is me with the mission dog, Socks. If Susie really loved me, she would have told me to take off that hat. Of all the hats ... fertilizer? Until my hair was long enough to pull back into a ponytail, I used the hat. I'm also looking at this photograph and being reminded that I used to be able to squat. My knees no longer do this. I had the right one replaced last December and the left one is supposed to be done at the end of this October. I still own that shirt.

We drove up into the Little Rockies through Mission Canyon with Mike.

You can see the result of the fires in the mountains. Since trees were never replanted, erosion has worn the soil down to the bedrock. In the many images I took of the Little Rockies, these bare ridges are a common sight, including right in front of our trailer.

If you look closely, in the middle of this image, you can see a beaver dam.

The peak in the middle of this image with the flat top is called Monument Peak. It is the tallest peak in the Little Rockies, at just over a mile and above the tree line.

These next few images are from the gold mines.

This and the next image show washouts from the mines.

This image is above the mission and all of Hays, looking west and north. It is clear from these next images that Hays sits down in a bowl with the mountains to the south and east, and the ridges to the west and north. The land flattens out as the Hays Road connects with the highway that heads north to the Agency, Harlem and the Highline (Route 2).

This is art.

I love this photograph of Susie, but it would have received a failing grade in my portraiture class. One of the most important lessons I learned was don't shoot from below a person's face (don't shoot up their nose). My instructor would have shamed me for this image. I know this because he did shame me for other images that he critiqued in class. He also would have told me to remove her glasses. Today, I definitely would have taken an abstract of the tree bark behind her.

Mike in the mountains. Another lesson - if you take a photograph and it turns out like crap (too dark or pixelated), convert it to black and white and it will be a bit less crap.

We managed to make four trips to Harlem before the start of school. Harlem is a white community about 30 miles north and just off the reservation, along the Milk River. Harlem was a small town (about 2,000 people) with a hardware store, a couple of pharmacies, banks, a grocery store and seven bars. We discovered a Ford dealership that would be able to service our truck.

We went to mass a couple of times and enjoyed the services, particularly as we were getting to know the fathers.

We learned during the first week in Hays just how completely isolated we were going to be during our two years. There was one television transmitter just above where we were going to live near the canyon. When we arrived in Hays, the kids had vandalized the transmitter, and the community was in the process of raising the money to repair it. So, we had a television set with no television. Radio reception was inconsistent, and we were only able to get one channel. The only newspaper in the community was the Camp Crier. It was an Indian style Cleveland Jewish News. I paid for an annual prescription which was $6.75. The paper is published every Thursday at the extension office at the agency.  If you get the paper by mail it comes on Friday.  The paper publishes news about the reservation, politics, tribal council decisions, tribal court matters, and gossipy material about the people. It publishes job opportunities and available educational and vocational programs. It also provides a list of people who are in the hospital, along with births and deaths.  Most of the advertising is from stores in Harlem and the Milk River shopping Center. 

We didn’t know what was going on in the world and we were spared two years of disco.

I heard a knocking on our door at about 8:30 in the morning. Mike came to the trailer to ask me if I wanted to help with plucking chickens. Looking at this event after decades of friendship with Mike, this ask was the offer of an opportunity as opposed to a request for help. For a Jewish kid from Cleveland Heights, who could possibly pass on the offer. I went out into the field behind our temporary trailer with Mike, Bill, and Brian. They had a large pot of boiling water on the back of a truck and had a table set up next to the truck. They only kill roosters because they rely on the hens for eggs. One of the volunteers was cutting off their heads with a knife. Then we dipped the chickens into the boiling water, let them settle in there for a bit, and then pulled them out to pluck away at the feathers and down. Someone besides me was also cutting off their feet. Chicken was a staple at the mission. I’ve never been a great fan of chicken. After this activity, I was even less so. Welcome to Montana, Sandy.

We also learned early on that there were lots of horses in Hays that roamed and grazed like they owned the place. I looked out of our trailer one afternoon and there were six horses grazing in our front yard between the trailer and the rectory. Most people had horses for their children (as opposed to bicycles). Unfortunately, they didn’t have enough land for the horses to graze. Thus, horses were everywhere all at once. The mission was a prime location for this kind of activity. First, there was a lot of pasture available, and the mission was adjacent to where a lot of the people lived. Second, the mission was nowhere near as aggressive as the people in the community would have been about moving these horses off their land. Eventually, I would take on the responsibility for the mission’s potato plot. Keeping the horses out of that field became a losing battle. I have no idea whether potatoes are a delicacy for horses or just something green to stay alive. In either case, under my watchful eye, our potato crop was doomed.

These are two horses either looking for the Ursuline sisters or staring at the mission school bus and appalled that we were using such a dilapidated vehicle to shlep school children around Hays. And of course, this is after grazing in the mission fields where they don't belong.

Horses at the Old Mission Building

During our first week, we learned something about our special relationship with the rodents of Hays. We met our first mouse that took up residence in the bedroom. It was the first of what would become many, many, many mice and more than a few pack rats.

The elevation of Hays is almost 4,000 feet. We quickly got used to the altitude.

Father Retzel asked Susie to babysit for about 15 children one evening so that the parents could attend a prayer meeting. While Susie was watching these kids, I was asked to take on telephone duty. No one appeared to use the phone, and we didn’t get any calls. I sat with Father Simoneau on the front steps of the rectory smoking cigarettes. The Hays Trading Post very fortunately sold cigarettes. I was probably drinking about 20 cups of coffee a day (everywhere we went, people offered us coffee) and smoking packs of cigarettes. And I'll describe cowboy coffee sometime. I don’t know why I’m alive.

Father and I were on the steps for a long time. We watched a storm coming towards us from the Bear Paw Mountains about 30 miles away. We could see heavy rain. Looking at a different part of the sky, there were no clouds at all. Big sky country. The summer days could be very hot, or they could be cool. The nights were most often cool. When the wind blew, there was nothing around to stop it and it blew hard. The way our trailer shook and rattled in the wind often made us wonder if it might blow apart. 

The sunsets were often spectacular. Our sunsets were over the Bear Paw Mountains. If there were clouds out, the sun would etch the clouds in beautiful colors and light. The Little Rocky Mountains surround the mission and a good part of Hays. There was a spectacular show almost every night.

Sunset Looking East at Mission Ridge (behind the school)

Sunset over the Bear Paw Mountains (from the steps of the church)

After the sun went down, the number of stars you could see was breathtaking. You could see the Milky Way!

Mike came to the mission a few days after Susie and I arrived. He drove out with a young man from Fort Wayne whose mother was Assiniboine and from Fort Belknap. She married a person who was in the military, and they moved all over the country. Gary spent a couple of weeks at the mission to set up a radio station. His plan was for the mission to have its own FM station that would broadcast only to the local community. During those two weeks, we spent a lot of time with Gary. The radio station never happened.

On one afternoon we went with Gary on a walk into the Mission Canyon. 

Susie and Gary

Susie and Gary Climbing up the Natural Bridge

Only Gary Made It

There is some interesting folklore about the Red Rocks which I'll share in a different blog.

Mission Canyon - The Red Rocks

Gary also took a trip with us on one of our excursions into Harlem. His grandmother and grandfather were buried in a cemetery next to Sacred Heart Church, an abandoned Catholic Church just south and east of the Agency. We took him to the church so he could visit his grandparents’ graves. You can see the cemetery on the east side of the church.

The nice bright colors of Kodachrome film are amazing.

Sacred Heart Church Near the Agency

My impression of Christianity (from the perspective of an orthodox Jewish background) was that there was something of a continuum of formality that existed in this religious universe. At one end of that spectrum were very formal and prescriptive denominations. On the other end were informal and less rigid or authoritative denominations.

Catholicism employs some very well defined and important costumes; symbolism and meaning abound. The use of all manner of paraphernalia is without comparison. And the complexity and purpose of hocus pocus is unrivalled. All religions employ some form of hocus pocus, as practitioners are engaged in finding the answers to all the unanswerable questions. The hocus pocus aids in ensuring (convincing) believers that they are receiving all the correct answers to the unanswerable questions. From priests, to ministers, to rabbis, to shamen to medicine men ... hocus pocus, in all variety of forms, is a staple of the practice of ritual.

On the other end of the Christianity spectrum are denominations like the holy rollers and snake handlers. The costumes involve the same clothing one wears to go grocery shopping, and the only paraphernalia necessary are snakes. This neatly defined conception got turned on its head while living and working at the mission. I was introduced to this entirely new perspective by the Charismatic Renewal taking place in The Church and witnessed during our very first week in Hays.

A gentleman showed up at the mission one evening. Susie and I were visiting with the priests and volunteers at the rectory. He told everyone that his mother was sick and wanted everyone to pray with him for her healing. We all went into the church; we held hands in a circle, and we prayed for her health. When the prayers for the gentleman’s mother were completed, Mike asked if anyone else was in need of prayer. One woman described some health issues she was experiencing. She came to the center of our circle, we all laid our hands on her, and prayers were said for her healing.

There’s nothing particularly unusual about praying for healing … that could be a cultural universal found in all religions in some manner. What took me totally by surprise was the way this prayer was conducted. I’m not going to get into specifics here. There will be many opportunities for me to delve into this arena, and particularly when I start to talk about the Catholic Indian Congress that was held at the mission during the following summer. Suffice it to say here that the informality of the prayer presented me with a totally different notion about the Church. What I didn’t understand that night and that I came to understand quickly was that there was a charismatic movement developing in the Church that was reaching a crescendo about the time we were at St. Paul’s Mission; and Father Retzel was all over it. Interestingly, Father Simoneau was not. As noted, he was far more traditional. Also, in all these more charismatically inclined activities, the Franciscan Sisters did not participate. They too were very traditional, including still wearing their habits, which the Dominican Sisters did not. I also don’t remember the Dominican Sisters being all that involved.

These were most interesting times at the mission. There were those jumping enthusiastically onto the charismatic bandwagon, while others were openly yearning for the Latin Mass. Susie and I were just observing all this activity and taking copious fieldnotes, on yellow legal pads with Bic pens.

Prayer meetings are held on Wednesday evenings, led by Mike or Father Retzel. This meeting was held in the school. Mike led the prayers and a discussion about a bible verse. Then everyone joined hands and there was open prayer. People had an opportunity to share their troubles with Jesus and ask for help. We laid our hands on a baby and asked for healing. People prayed for themselves or family or friends who were sick or drinking or in trouble (jail). There was some singing and there were lots of tears.

While Bill was on vacation visiting his family back home in Washington, I was asked to care for his garden. I was watering his tomatoes in the greenhouse and was picking vegetables from the garden. As it was August, most everything was becoming ripe. Susie and I were using vegetables to prepare our meals, and I was giving vegetables to Sister Germain in the convent for her to prepare meals for the priests, the volunteers, and the nuns.

When Bill returned from his vacation, he had Mike and I come with him to learn how to do the school bus route for the mission. The three of us were going to take turns managing the bus duty. Each of the three of us would take a week at a time. The original Ursuline mission dormitory had been transformed into the bus garage. It was a regular sized yellow school bus, and it was old. In the real world, there is no way this bus would have been permitted to haul school children anywhere. The bus was too tall for the building, so the original wood floor had been removed, and the mission dug out the dirt floor to accommodate the height of the bus. What this meant was that the bus got backed into the ‘garage’ and there was about a two foot or greater dirt ramp at the entrance. To get the bus out, you had to rev the engine and do a modified bus wheely to zoom up the ramp from a standstill. School bus driver was a far more challenging job at the mission than don’t run over the children.

Most of the roads on our route were not paved and it snows a ton in northern Montana. We shared the bus route with the Hays/Lodge Pole public school. We picked up the kids on the mission side of the route, and the public-school bus drivers picked up the kids from the other side of the route. They have two buses, so they cover a larger part of the route. The mission bus stays pretty much in Hays and Whitecow Canyon. We would meet in the middle and the kids would switch buses. We then would head back to the mission with all the kids from our school on the bus. School started at 9:00 but kids had to get there by 8:30 for the hot breakfast program. Looking back on the arrangement, this was an amazing coordination of schedules as the reservation was operating on Indian Time. We were anticipating about 90 students, but really had no idea how many would actually be signed up for the mission school.

Before the end of our first week, we met Ray Gone. Their name had been shortened from Gone to War. Ray was the school board president of the mission school. Ray was Gros Ventre and had a strong interest in the traditional culture. He was a member of the Hays Singers. Ray and his wife, Irma, would take us into their family, and we would become close with their children and with the entire Gone extended family. Ray and Irma were our parents in Hays.   

After Father Simoneau said mass on our first Saturday night at the mission, Susie and I waited at the church. Father told us that people were supposed to come to the mission for the baptism of their child.  They never came because they were arguing about who the godparents were going to be. 

The sisters keep candy and soda for the kids to buy and so they don’t have to go to the Hays store. The pop companies deliver the food directly to the convent.

Gary, Mike, Susie and I drove up to the pow wow grounds just south of the Agency. The Fort Belknap Reservation Pow Wow was held the 13th – 15th but we were only able to attend the last day. People were camped out around the dance arbor in tipis and canvas tents.  Food was supplied through government rations and people camped out with their families all weekend.  These pow wows go on all summer long and many people from the reservation travel all over the west going to the pow wows on other reservations.  There was also a children's rodeo that cost $2.50 for admission. The pow wow was free.  The dance arbor was covered with branches and there were grandstands on either side. The dancing took place in the middle of the arbor. There were four singing groups in each corner of the arbor and an announcer with a PA system announced each group as they took turns. The singers sat around the drum. One of the groups was the Hays Singers. Only men sat at the drums, but other women sang while they stood in a line behind the men.  All the women dancing wore fancy beaded moccasins and either wore or carried shawls. 

There was an honor song for a boy who was killed in a car accident the year before.  The song was dedicated in his name. In a solemn show of respect, people removed their hats during the song. 

We also stopped at the rodeo arena, also south of the Agency. It was held by the tribal council in conjunction with the pow wow.  It was called the Lil Buckskins and Pistols Rodeo.  It went on Saturday and Sunday. There were various competitions for children, including bareback riding, bull riding, barrel racing, calf roping and barrel racing.  

During our second week Father Retzel told us that we were going to be able to move into our trailer before the weekend. We had originally been told that the move was going to happen on the first weekend, but Hazel hadn’t yet left. We quickly figured out that Indian time and Jewish time operated on the same clock.  

Through conversations with Hazel and Father Retzel, it became obvious that our stay in Hays was going to involve some serious nomadic activities. Hazel planned to return to the reservation the following summer, as she does every year. That meant that we would have to move out before she arrived, find a place to live at the mission and then return to Hazel’s trailer before the school year in the fall. As with everything involved in our planning at the mission, that was news to us. Nomadic peoples don’t accumulate lots of material culture for good reason. Everything a traditional Gros Ventre owned and had to move to follow the migratory buffalo could be fit onto a horse and a travois.

Susie and I realized that we had too much stuff to fit onto our travois. Thus, as soon as we were able to move into the trailer, we gathered up all the clothes we knew we wouldn’t need and sent everything back to Columbus via UPS (that made deliveries to the mission in Hays!). I had packed a suit and sport coat because one never knows. Now we knew.

We had enough conversations with the people at the mission to realize that what we had packed for the winters in Hays was not going to work. As I described, the winds in Hays and across the prairie could be fierce. There was going to be a lot of snow, and the temperatures could get down to the 40s and 50s below zero. When stranding on even the lowest ridges of the Little Rockies, you can see up into Saskatchewan and perhaps a bit into Alberta. The reservation is directly south of Saskatchewan and just a hair east of Alberta. Susie, Mike and I made a trip to Havre for the first time to buy better winter clothes, including gloves, hats, and long underwear. We also each got cowboy boots as it quickly became clear that we were the only ones in Hays who didn’t own a pair. When in Rome. All the owners of these stores were friends of Father Retzel, and they discounted the items for us. I also picked up some cinder blocks to make bookcases for us. Havre was about a 90-mile trip from Hays.

On the return trip from Havre, we stopped to see a doctor in Chinook. A couple of days earlier, Mike had a spider bite that became infected. It was on his leg and was really deep and ugly. The doctor cleaned it out, packed it with gauze, got Mike on an antibiotic and sent us on our way. I distinctly remember that whole scene without the help of any memory aides. Lesson – don’t get bitten by any Montana spiders.

Not too long after we moved into our trailer, the tv transformer was repaired. The transformer was located on a ridge just above our trailer. The programming was a combination of both CBS and NBC and was coming from Great Falls. It was one channel, and we hadn’t the slightest idea how this programming was determined. But we weren’t complaining because we were getting some news and some sports and miraculously, we were getting Saturday Night Live. There was also an ABC transmitter further up into the mountains, but we were too close to the Little Rockies, so the signal went over the top of us. Ray and Irma lived much further away from the mountains and were able to get the ABC transmission. I distinctly remember watching a Monday football game (with Howard Cossell) with Lyle and Ray in their living room. That was a treat. The kids would regularly vandalize the transmitter above our trailer, so our access to this entertainment and connection to the world was very intermittent and didn’t last for extended periods of time.

I loved our Canyon Trailer. It had everything, starting with heat, electricity, and indoor plumbing. It was the 1970s, so no one was addicted to a telephone. We had the kiddush cup, the Hanukkiah, the Shabbos candles, the radio, and all manner of kitchen appliances. And the views out of our windows were nothing short of spectacular.

We must have been anticipating an enormous number of dirty dishes.

These were our bookshelves in the living room.

This was our bedroom and study. All our fieldwork gear was on the table. The gray book was Murdock's material culture classification.

I'm standing on the hill above our trailer looking down from behind the first row of pines. 

These photos are two views of the abandoned log mansion. Susie and I would joke that the mice and packrats would breed in this place, and then when they were mature enough to cause mayhem, they would move in next door with us.

Both of these next photographs are looking north from the ridge at the canyon road, the corral and John's home.

This is our front yard. The horses made a visit looking for food. The dogs and horses moved all over Hays in packs. The people in Hays knew precisely who all these animals belonged to ... Sue and I had no idea. We just stayed out of their way.

These next photographs captured something that was entirely new to me ... rain. I never got over the novelty of seeing rain like this and so much of the sky!

This image represents a photographic reality that I didn't grasp at the time, because I hadn't the slightest idea of what I was doing. Unless you are shooting HDR images (high dynamic range) or are taking advantage of all the magic available in Photoshop, you had a choice to make in an image like this ... you expose for the sky, or you expose for the ground. You either get a blown-out sky or you get a dark foreground. My choice in this image is obvious.

I love the sky in this image. This is looking north from the ridge above our trailer.

The Dominican Sisters ate on their own. Everyone else ate together at the convent with meals prepared by Sister Germaine. As Susie and I lived up at the canyon, we also ate on our own. Father was kind and sensitive to the notion that we were a newly married couple. He would give us a blank check to use at a grocery store up in Harlem. While there was an IGA in Harlem, Susie and I chose to shop at a grocery store in a small shopping center at the Agency. We wanted to support tribal businesses. The food was expensive because it had to be shipped such long distances. That Father did this for us was really a gift, and looking back on it, I feel some guilt about it, because they sure didn’t have the money to be doing this for us. After we returned to Columbus, I made donations to the mission, mostly to support the school. I sent the checks directly to Sister Giswalda. I don’t know if I was able to make a dent in their generosity to us.

Beyond what we purchased at the store, we relied on the commodity foods, just like everyone else … canned corn, peas and beans, powdered mashed potatoes, powdered eggs, canned beef and chicken, rice, peanut butter, tuna, soup and the big block of cheese. We got eggs from the mission chickens. A milk man made a delivery to the mission, and we received some of this supply. During the week, we ate breakfast and lunch with the children, teachers, volunteers and the priests at the school. So, it was only dinners and weekends that we had to prepare our meals. And periodically, for special occasions, we joined the crew at the convent.

Just before school was to start, Father Retzel asked us to pick up a 9-pound roast. We were going to have an all-mission dinner to celebrate the beginning of school. Registration was to begin on Monday, August 30th and classes started on Tuesday.

When Hazel departed for home, she left us a Jewish rye, bagels, and a challah in the freezer. She had brought these with her from home. For Susie and me, it was something akin to the Hannukah miracle.  

Pretty early on, Susie and I had open and honest conversations about Judaism with Father Retzel and Mike. They weren’t interested in converting us, at least not aggressively. Priests generally take the gospel seriously, and spreading the word is kinda a big thing. That's why you see fish symbols pasted on cars, and billboards promoting Jesus. I'm thinking there's a connection between converting me and how the rapture plays out.

Father Retzel was a full-fledged, card-carrying Jesuit. Mike was slowly on his way to becoming a priest. During his mission time, that’s part of what he was trying to figure out about his life. He had an older brother who was already in the priesthood. They asked us a lot of questions and we didn’t have a lot of answers, at least not in the detail they were asking. I didn’t develop that level of answers until I was in my 60s when I started to really study and learn about my religion. What I was getting figured out in my 20s, and primarily from my perspective as an anthropologist, was that in every society, when it comes to our belief systems, we’re all making it up. Culture is a complex whole … and all the elements in a healthy society (one that is not being forced to accept another way of life by a society with more and bigger guns) are integrated. Religious beliefs and rituals support all other elements of a society, such as kindship, political and economic systems. While people make it all up, they also believe that their theology has been bestowed on them by a higher power or powers. They also believe that they have been selected as the unique bearers of this theology by that power or powers. Every people believe that they are the chosen people. I was formulating these ideas in my 20s. As a guest among my Catholic brethren, I wasn’t ready to spill these particular beans. During my decades-long friendship with Mike, we continued to have discussions about religion, and I was able to share my perspective with him. Mike also went through his own evolution on these matters. While he remained a devote Catholic his entire life, he also had a great respect for the religions of the people with whom he lived. Mike was formally adopted by the people on the Rocky Boy Reservation. He had devoted his life to supporting the people on this reservation and had a great respect for their traditional religious beliefs. It sort of comes down to, we're either all wrong or we’re all right. Pick an option (it doesn't matter to me). I'm just hoping that what happens to me during the rapture is easier than prepping for a colonoscopy.

While the rectory at the mission had a telephone, Susie and I did not. Father wasn’t entirely comfortable that we were about a mile away from the mission and we weren’t able to reach each other. And there would be occasions where this inability to communicate would pose problems for all of us. Stuff happens. He tried to use an intercom with us, but it didn’t work. If we needed to reach each other, we had to get into a vehicle and drive.

On Wednesday afternoons there is a senior citizen’s lunch at the mission gym.  Some of the women on the reservation volunteer to make the lunch.  There is also a sewing session for the women. They sell star quilts to other people on the reservation. The sewing group and senior citizens lunch will be moving into the Hays Community Center as soon as it is ready. At that time, the lunch program will take place every day.   

I actually joined a group of people out in one of the mission fields to play baseball. It was a mix of adults and teenagers. There were only ten of us so we took turns batting. One of the men brought all the equipment. Basketball is the more popular sport on the reservation. The kids play whenever the gym is open.  Both boys and girls play together.  They chose sides by everyone taking a chance at foul shots and the first five who make their shots are one team, the rest are on the next team, and so on. One team plays until they reach a certain number of points and then the next team comes in to play the winner. 

Roseann held a going away party for Gary at the mission before he returned to Indiana. There were about twenty adults and many children.  She brought fried chicken, and it was a potluck deal with everyone bringing a lot of food. She also gave Gary a beaded watch band and watch. We observed this kind of generosity among the people regularly. Generosity is one of the most important values. The party was supposed to start at noon, but people did not start to come until after 1:00. Indian time is a real thing. People come to everything late, including mass.

Susie and I had lunch with a Gros Ventre woman who was from off the reservation. We became very close friends with her father and with many members of her family. We were up at the Agency and had lunch at the café in the shopping center. She had received her master’s degree in education from Harvard and was soon going to be returning to Boston. If I remember correctly, she eventually got her PhD. She was on the reservation this summer to plan a health program for the reservation and to assess the current program. She has been away from the reservation for 15 years. She told us that she had written a proposal asking for international aid for the reservation. She expressed a very jaundiced view of the help the government has provided the Indians. She was applying for grant money from China and Russia. And that says all you need to know.   

I met Charlie at the rectory this morning.  He came up to the mission to make arrangements with Sister Giswalda, our principal, to present a program to the children on alcohol and drug abuse. Charlie works at the reservation alcohol center. The people are committed to the center for 15 days by the tribal judges if they are found to be given a drunk charge or some other related offense.  They may also commit themselves to the center and if they sign themselves in they have to stay there for 15 days. They have a detox center and AA meetings.  They also get out into the community to see the people at least once a week. 

On the Saturday after we moved into our trailer, we had Mike over for dinner. We made omelets. We always felt like the mission eggs were about two and half minutes from being a chicken fetus. Mike had stopped at the trading post and picked up and brought us our mail. My first box of slides arrived. They included our trip out west and our arrival at the mission (the images from my previous blog).

Mike in our Livingroom (with his pant leg rolled up above the spider wound)

Later that night, after Mike left, Susie and I were in bed. We were woken by four rifle shots just outside of our trailer. It was 1:30. The shots sounded like they were going over the roof. I got up to see what was going on. I didn’t see anything, but I wasn’t looking to be spending lots of time outside to figure it out. Susie and I huddled down in the trailer. I was guessing that it wasn’t the community welcome wagon. Pretty soon after the shots were fired, Father Retzel came flying up to our trailer in his truck. He had heard the shots and immediately called the tribal police from the mission phone. The police arrived at our trailer soon after Father. They went up into mission canyon to see who was shooting and to figure out why.  When the policeman came back he told us a few kids were sitting up above the canyon waiting for morning to go hunting. To pass the time they were trying to shoot out our security light which was above our trailer. The policeman did not arrest the kids, because one of them was his brother. He did take their rifles away from them.

I know that Father Retzel felt very responsible for us. Susie looked like she was 16 years old. I felt sorry for him. We were fine (or as fine as two kids could be after going through an experience like this). So many lessons about life on the reservation in such a short period of time. For all of you who took the time to read my previous blog about federal government policy, you know about the self-determination act of the 1970s. One of the results was that the tribe took over responsibility for the local tribal police. It is a very small community, so the odds are pretty good that the police are going to be dealing with either family or friends when they are managing issues that are not felonies. I don’t know who is capable of arresting mom or a brother. It is an extremely difficult proposition. The police are often ineffective because these are precisely the situations they face regularly.

Father Retzel went back to the rectory. Susie and I went back to bed. I don’t remember if we slept.  

In looking back at our time in Hays, I have to say that I never felt unsafe, even with situations like the one described. I don’t know that we ever locked our door when we left the trailer. We were so involved in the community, and we knew just about everyone. People were kind to us … our relationships were so intimate. During those two years, I can only remember one occasion where I felt unsafe and threatened, and it wasn’t on Fort Belknap. I had traveled to a pow wow with Gordon and Edith on a different reservation. They were going as members of the Hays Singers to be a drum at the pow wow. I was sitting with them behind the drum. I got up to use the bathroom. It was located a bit away from where the dance was being held, and it was down a dark hallway. As I was leaving the bathroom, two rather large gentlemen were walking at me in the hallway, and they were drunk. I heard them say something about a white man, and my heart sank, because it felt like the next moments were not going to be good. I hadn't learned tang soo do until I was in my 30s. Even with my karate, these guys would have likely broken my face before I could show them any of my best moves. As they were approaching me, a person I knew well from Hays came walking down the hall towards the bathroom behind these guys. He took me under my arm and escorted me out of the hallway, and that was that. At no other time did I feel unsafe or threatened. Our experiences with the people in the community were wonderful and they were unbelievably kind and generous with us.

Susie and I made a shopping trip to Harlem, and we took Father Retzel with us. On the way back, we saw a car pulled over to the side of the road. A man was working on the car and a woman was sitting inside. Father asked us to pull over and we asked them if they needed help. They were a young couple from Lodge Pole. The woman asked if we would drive her to the mission.  She was very drunk.  She got into the truck with a 6 pack of beer and started to talk a lot about Catholicism. She told us, if there’s one thing about Catholics, they drink a lot. I wonder if father knew that.

During our third week in Hays, I met Gordon Lodge. If Ray and Irma became our parents, Gordon, and his wife, Edith, became our brother and sister. They were older than us, but siblings would be the better characterization. Ray and Edith were siblings. As I have said previously, we considered and consider the Gones to be family – including all the children and grandchildren. We remain in touch with many of them.

While this has nothing to do with the price of fish. I’m going to tell this story, so it doesn't get lost with my dissipating memory.

After Pauline got transverse myelitis and we started The Transverse Myelitis Association (now the Siegel Rare Neuroimmune Association), we established a quality-of-life family camp for children with these rare neuroimmune disorders. In 2016, we were at a camp in southern Kentucky. There was a family who attended who had a son with neuromyelitis optica. After dinner on the first night of camp, I sat down at a table in the dining hall with the dad. Bill told me that he and his family were from Fort Peck. They are Sioux. I told Bill that I had once gone to a Halloween pow wow on Fort Peck in 1976 with Gordon and Edith Lodge. I explained to him that I had lived and worked in Hays on Fort Belknap, and that I was an anthropologist and had done research there. Bill laughed and told me that his father and Gordon were best friends. My head exploded all over the dining hall. The world is small; but having my TMA world overlap with my reservation world was a different kind of small. And that it involved Gordon, who I was so close to, only magnified my cranial explosion. Gordon and Edith had split up for a time and Gordon moved to Fort Peck where he became close friends with Bill’s dad.

The Jones Family from Fort Peck at the TMA Family Camp in Kentucky

Their son was being cared for in Billings by a physician who had been trained in Dallas by a close friend of mine who started a center of excellence at UT Southwestern. Sara had arranged for the family to come to camp.

When Pauline and I were on a vacation to Montana in 2017, we attended an education program and a TMA fundraiser in Billings the weekend before we left for Yellowstone. Bill and his family came down to Billings for that weekend. We spent some wonderful time with their family and with Sara. Pauline died a couple of weeks later. And Bill has since passed away. Their memories should be a blessing. 

At the TMA Fundraiser in Billings

Worlds do collide.

My first conversation with Gordon took place in the rectory. These are some of the things that Gordon told me that evening.

The GV language was one of the most difficult Indian languages.  Very few people speak it today and it is too hard to teach children.  He believes that children should learn the traditions and regrets that he doesn’t know more himself; but he thinks that learning the language is a lost cause.

We talked about my anthropological research. He explained that if we were going to someone’s house, and especially if we were going to ask questions, that we should bring the people something to give to them like a pack of cigarettes or a blanket.  Then you can ask questions.  That is the Indian custom and it makes the people feel good. 

There were two kinds of hand games.  One kind is for gambling and the other is for when you pray for a favor, and you promise that if your request is granted, you will have a hand game.  Then when the prayer is granted, you have the hand game.   

Gordon is one of the Hays Singers and is also the leader of the committee that organizes the dances.  He said that the pow wow on the Fort Belknap Reservation probably cost about $4,000 to put on, and the Crow Celebration (Fair) was about $30,000. Gordon is in the process of organizing the dance that will be held to dedicate the gym at the mission.  It will be one night and will cost about $1,000.  I asked him how they raise that kind of money, and he said that they ask people on the reservation to contribute.

He said that many of the dances and songs are borrowed from other groups like the Sioux or Blackfeet.  There are also composers that write songs, and someone might like it and purchase the song from the composer.  He said that there were many kinds of dances.  He mentioned the sun dance as a religious dance, held in the early summer.  There are many songs.  He said that a man could sit down and sing 50 songs and never repeat one, and that the Indians sing for everything.       

Gordon said that he and Edith send their kids to the Hays Public School. He complained that the teachers at the public school live on the campus there and do not get into the community.  They held a program for the teachers last year to teach them something about the Indian culture, but they still do not get into the community enough.  He said that there was not the same problem in the mission and that the teachers from the mission do get into the community, but also that many people from the community often come to the mission. 

When I told Gordon that I was from Cleveland, he asked me a lot about the city.  He said that in 1962 he was offered the chance to go to Cleveland for vocational training to become a butcher.  He wanted to go but they wouldn’t support his family there, so he turned it down. Cleveland is one of the cities where the BIA had established the relocation program that I described in the previous blog.       

He expressed a great deal of bitterness about the government’s policy about the Indian languages and customs. First Indians are punished for speaking the language and then suddenly, they want the Indians to bring back the language. It’s too late to bring it back now. 

Gordon has been and is involved in the Indians Plains exhibitions in Browning to demonstrate Indian customs to whites.  He does not have a positive attitude about the exhibitions.  He said that he feels just like an animal. They come onto the reservation and pick out a few Indians and then take us away to perform some tricks. He felt that the exhibitions were degrading.

Gordon said that he remembers the traditions, especially some of the in-law avoidance practices and the dances.  He felt like the traditions really started to diminish in the 1950s.   

A woman came to the rectory to use the phone, and we talked about the telephone situation on the reservation.  She said that many people would like to have phones but that the telephone company is afraid to put them in, because they are afraid the Indians won’t pay their bills.  The company justifies the problem by saying that it would cost $27,000 to put in the lines. She’s upset that they cannot get a phone. 

Ray came up to the mission and I had a conversation with him in the rectory. He told me that he had taught some classes about Indian culture at the College of Great Falls. He once gave a lecture about Indian religion and Catholicism. He said that the Catholic God was Jesus Christ, but the Indians called their God, the Great Spirit or Father. He said that we didn’t know the son of the father. We were doing fine but that the Europeans were so bad that they even burned Sodom and Gomorrah, so God sent them Christ … we didn’t need him over here.

Well, that sort of says it all. Ray was such an amazing and insightful person. We had such a wonderful relationship and he and Irma are so dearly missed by their family and all their friends.

This was the very first month of my relationship with Ray. We had so many conversations like this over the two years we lived in Hays. He was such a sensitive and thoughtful person. As I noted previously, he reminded me a lot of my father; both served in the military during WWII. Both lived through tough times, during the depression, and in families who experienced so much poverty. Ray also carried the burdens and the trauma from culture change. All this trauma happened to Ray in such a challenging way. He was a product of the mission school system, and in so many ways, he reflected the dichotomy and the great irony of this education. Ray was so intelligent, and because of the mission schools, he was exceptionally well educated. Thus, in many ways, the mission school gave him the education he needed to navigate the new world and the forces of change. On the other hand, the mission schools, and the educational approaches employed, played a role in destroying the traditional way of life, values, and beliefs that Ray cherished. Ray felt all the negative impacts from these experiences. He was so thoughtful in trying his best to make sense of it all. None of this was easy for him or for those of his generation. And as noted, they often paid the price with the most challenging effects of trauma.

On the last Monday of August, mission school registration took place. That evening, Susie and I made a visit to Gordon and Edith’s. This was our first visit to their home. We spent many, many, many hours in their home.

Gordon told us about the Hays Fair.  It was one of the largest fairs of its type in the country.  Tipis were set up as far as the eye could see and there was a rodeo that would last for about two weeks.  The rodeos were much better than the professional ones held now because the stock were much better on the reservation. In the professional rodeo, the stock become as famous as the cowboys.  Everyone goes to the rodeos and the cowboys know the bucking behavior of the horses and bulls and there is not as much skill involved – they know if it will turn or stay straight.  At the old Hays Fair, they just took any horse or bull out and no one knew how the animal would act.  Also, there were no fences, the animals were not contained in one area but could buck all over the place.

Gordon told us that the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine on the reservation have a single tribal council. The council seats are elected positions. He said that the current tribal chairman is half Assiniboine and half Gros Ventre. He could only be enrolled in one tribe, and he flipped a coin to determine which one it would be. Gordon said he was a fair chairman. He explained that the BIA superintendent is an appointed position by the office in Billings.  The present superintendent is half Assiniboine and half Blackfoot. Gordon said that he was also a fair person. Gordon thought that if the superintendent is white and he tries to do too much to help the Indians, that the BIA office in Billings will have him transferred away. Gordon’s sentiments about the BIA are common.

Registration began today (Monday, August 30th) from 9 – 11 for the mission grade school.  The number of children signing up for the school was small.  The Hays Public School began last Wednesday. The parents or a guardian had to sign up for their children. The children seem to choose what school they want to attend.  The children decide based on where their friends are going, whether they like the teacher, and who has the best basketball or football team. Sister Giswalda has established a new rule for the school; once a child is registered in another school, they may not transfer to the mission school.  Children would get mad at a teacher and switch schools back and forth. This practice was hard on both the teachers and the students.

Gordon told us that at least 500 enrolled Indians are going to school off of the reservation. One of his boys is going to a school in South Dakota. 

Joe Blackcrow came up to the mission this evening to use the telephone. He goes by the name, Fiddles. Many of the people use nicknames. There are some great nicknames. We were meeting Fiddles for the first time. We became very close with his and Mary Agnes’s (his wife) extended family. Truly kind and sweet people. When I was on the reservation in 2014, I was able to visit with them, and I remain friends with their daughter, Faye, who was a first grader when we were at the mission.

Their kids went to the mission school, and one of their boys made regular visits to see Susie and I in our trailer with his friends (on horseback). He was trying to call Mary Agnes in Seattle; she was with one of their sons who was in the hospital. Father, Mike and a few others of us ‘laid our hands’ on Fiddles and we prayed for his son … and the family.

The mission grade school began today (Tuesday, August 31st).  The children were brought to school by bus or walked there at 8:30. They had breakfast in the all-purpose room of the school and then classes began at 9:00.  There are four classes: Sister Benno teaches 1st and 2nd grade, Sister Laura teaches 3rd and 4th grade, Sister Bartholemew teaches 5th and 6th grade, and Sister Giswalda teaches 7th and 8th grade.  Susie teaches PE for all the girls and music to all the classes; Mike teaches PE for boys and shop to the 7th and 8th grade boys.  I teach history to 5-8th grades.  The enrollment is very low – 48 students.  This is a drop from last year (80 students).  Last year 117 registered and it then dropped to 80. 

I learned a valuable lesson from Pauline about teaching – she was an elementary school teacher for 25 years. With no discipline, there is no learning. The sisters who had been teaching at the mission school for so many years, had discipline in their classrooms. The kids were warned about their behavior by both their parents and grandparents who all had these sisters as teachers. No one messed with these sisters (including me). Mike had discipline in his classes because the kids were doing stuff they enjoyed when they were with him.

For the rest of us … the kids had us for lunch. My teaching experience was in college. I tried to make my lectures interesting, but if students were not engaged, that was on them. I wanted them to learn, but they were paying for this education, and it was their responsibility to get the most out of it. Not so in elementary and middle school. It was a year-long battle for me in the classroom to get the kids engaged and to find ways for them to learn. I was using a social studies book that centered on a history of the One True Religion. The kids hadn’t the slightest interest in the subject matter. I’m sure I will address the mental gymnastics I engaged in to try to get my students interested. In so many ways, I felt badly for them because they deserved a good educational experience, and they didn’t get it from me. I tried.

Father Retzel was in Lodge Pole to visit a family, and when he returned, he brought back a puppy for Susie. The family dog had puppies, and they were giving them away. I repeat, he gave a puppy to Susie. He didn’t give me a puppy; I was already up to my keester in hobbies. Remember – Helter Skelter. My references assume that you’ve memorized all my blogs. He was an adorable puppy. He was a mixed breed. All the dogs are mixed breeds. Dogs are not tied up and they are never walked on a leash. I think we might have owned the only leash on the reservation. The dogs on the reservation run around in packs. When a female goes into heat, she’s followed by large herd of males who take turns having their way with her. I unfortunately watched this behavior on more than one occasion. It is disconcerting and I felt horribly for the female. I might have intervened but was afraid of getting mauled.

This dog was very sweet with us … sometimes. He was really wild. Another lesson - it is never a good thing when you are sometimes afraid of your own dog. We always thought that he had some wolf in him. Again, who knows, because he likely came from a long line of very mixed breeds.

Susie and I had a conversation with Ray after receiving the puppy, and we asked him for any Gros Ventre words that we might use to name him. Ray christened our puppy, Gahanab, which means fuzzy face in Gros Ventre.

Hey, Gahanab, make yourself at home on Hazel's couch.

Gahanab's first bath.

I've tried to figure out what breeds Gahanab might have been. My best guess is German Sheppard, Icelandic Sheepdog, Wolf, and Meshuggah Hunt.

Soon after we moved into the trailer, we quickly learned that we were going to be sharing our accommodations with mice and pack rates. It was common for bats to regularly slam into our trailer. So much for all that radar stuff. Fall comes early to northern Montana, and it doesn’t last long. Winter and snow are close behind. Fall is spectacular, so you need to cram in as much of it as you can while it lasts.

Mice are experts at knowing when winter is coming, and they start gathering their food supply for the brutally cold months. Even in August, every morning, we would find our shoes filled with seeds from mice activities the previous night. We also didn’t have a toilet paper holder, so the roll was set on top of the toilet tank. They would also fill the cardboard roll with seeds. Whenever I would go to a hardware store, I would pick up traps. We would set them with either marshmallows or peanut butter. All night long, we’d hear, whap, whap, whap, whap. It was never ending. Mike and Bill spent a Saturday with me stuffing SOS pads into all the holes we could find in the trailer. While mice can eat through just about everything, they thought these pads might do the trick. Well, not so much. Check the shoes. Pour out the seeds. Put on the shoes.

Mike and Bill spent lots of time with us at our trailer. The view was spectacular, and it was peaceful and quiet. This time on our porch was like a retreat for them. They were on call at the mission, and particularly at the rectory 24/7. It was like living in a dormitory, and their on-call obligations were to both the mission and to the community. There was always something going on from normal activities to the most unbelievable emergencies. Over the years, Mike and I often reminisced about all the craziness. We chose to laugh most of the time, rather than cry - but there were sure occasions for tears.

That was August. For many years, when I thought back to our first arrival in Hays and at St. Paul’s Mission, my memory was that we had no interaction with people in the community; all our interactions were with the people at the mission. My memory was that the only person from the community we spoke with was Darian who was a first grader at the time. The adult Darian is a good friend (and Pauline and I were able to visit with her and her mom when we were there in 2017). Well, my memory from that time couldn’t have been further from reality. By the end of our first month in Hays – and it wasn’t even a full month – we had traveled up and down the highway to shop in the major towns, we had explored so much of the Little Rockies, we had settled into our new home, we had a friggen dog (that we needed like a hole in the head), we met people who would remain our friends for decades, and we were establishing the most meaningful relationships we would have for a lifetime with the Gone family … with Ray, Irma, Gordon and Edith – and their children.