There are a lot of Christmas parties being planned all around the reservation. All the different agencies in the tribal government and in the BIA are having parties with all the employees. The Urban Rural Program is having a party and everyone in the college has picked a name out of a hat and are supposed to buy a present for that person and are not supposed to spend over three dollars.
Beatrice said that she never used to call him Santa Claus; he was always called ‘the old man with the whiskers.’ This is what I always heard him called. When the kids were young, they were scared of him and they didn’t want to go near him.
Sister Giswalda said that for the midnight mass some of the kids used to dress like angels and take the baby Jesus down the aisle to the manger at the beginning of mass. She said that when Father Brown was here, he changed this and he had the kids in traditional Indian costumes, and they carried the baby Jesus down to the manger in these costumes. He was a Blackfoot Indian. It is getting harder and harder to get the Indian costumes for the kids.
There are about 15 people who have been working on ceramic pieces at the mission arts and crafts center to give as Christmas presents. There were so many orders that Susie had to go out and buy green ware. They couldn’t pour the stuff as fast as people wanted it. Most of the people make ash trays, pitchers, bowls, coffee cups, and they really like the Disney characters, Pluto, Mickey Mouse, and Dumbo. You can see these pieces in almost every house on the reservation. The thought would occur to me regularly that hundreds or thousands of years from now, an archeologist might come to work in Hays and would be shocked by all of these Disney characters in people’s homes. Like, where the hell did these come from? (Susie and Sister Kathleen?)
Irma wants to go up and get a tree for Christmas. She wants to find a sweet pine. She said that she's smelled them up in Whitecow, but she never found it. She said that getting a tree used to be a fun time. It was a family affair. They used to use a cutter and a team of horses. She said, Boy, those were the good old days and they'll never be the same. Things have sure changed. Nowadays, people don't have a cutter, or even a team of horses, hardly. She said they would load hay in the back and let the kids pile in.
There was a practice for the school Christmas program. 1st and 2nd grades had memorized a long poem about the birth of Christ, sang two songs, and played the xylophone. The rest of the grades had a combination of songs and a short play.
In 1976, there were 545 Jews living in Montana. On the Fort Belknap Reservation, there were two Jews. Susie and Sandy Siegel. Sister Giswalda decided that she wanted one of those Jews to be Santa at the St. Paul’s Mission Grade School Christmas Program.
All the volunteers had a Christmas vacation celebration at the convent. When dinner was over, Sister Giswalda asked me to play Santa. As noted previously, when Sister Giswalda asked you to do something, the only rational (and safe) response was, yes, of course. She had the Santa outfit in a large box, and she brought it out for me to try on. It fit perfectly.
On the last day of school before the Christmas break, Beatrice and Mary prepared a spectacular meal for the kids and for the priests, sisters and volunteers. We had turkey, rolls, peas, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, apple sauce, beans and milk. Beatrice and Mary prepared the meals with so much care and love. The food was fantastic!
The Hays Lodge Pole school and the mission grade school will end for winter break/Christmas vacation on December 17th. The kids will see a movie in the morning. Sister Giswalda orders films for the kids on special days, such as for days before breaks, Christmas and Thanksgiving. The movies are usually along the Walt Disney line and about animals. The kids love the movies, and it is also an opportunity to get away from the routine of the typical school day. The sisters realize this, and they look forward to showing these movies to the kids. After the movie the kids will get presents from Santa Clause. A woman from Chicago has donated the gifts to the mission for the kids. The mission has received these presents for years. The kids will also get a bag of candy, an apple, an orange and some peanuts. Then on Sunday the 19th, the mission grade school will have a special Christmas program in the afternoon. The kids are putting on the program, with each of the grades putting on a different part, songs, poetry and a play. A lot of the parents are supposed to attend. Susie was asked to play the piano. I was drafted to play Santa for the gift giving and the 7/8th grade play.
I played Santa Claus. The older kids knew it was me and teased me about it, but the younger kids weren’t quite sure and were pretty excited.
After the program, Jubal told me that he knew I was Santa and he said, your ho, ho, ho’s were not very good. Most of the kids know it was you. A critic around every corner.
Karen and Jacob were enthralled with Santa. When I first picked them up, they cried. I told them that I parked my sleigh and the reindeer up in the canyon.
The mission school had its Christmas program this afternoon. Most of the mission students came although some of the kids were missing. About 150 people from the community, mostly family of the students, came to the program. Each of the grades put on a short program, beginning with the 1/2 grade and going on through the 7/8th grade. There were songs and plays and short skits about Christmas. The kids also read poems. The classes practiced and worked on this program for the past three weeks in school. The 7/8th grade play included the arrival of Santa Clause. I was known as "Sandy Clause” for at least two weeks thereafter. Then Sister Giswalda had a slide and tape presentation. It was about the loss of the old school and the building of the new school, and the classes and activities in the school.
When the program was completed, Santa gave each of the children their gifts.
While Jubal knew Sandy Claus, these first and second graders sure didn't look so sure. I love that Mike and Sister Laura are in the background. When I look at these photographs of the children, I always think about how beautiful they were.
These are the third and fourth graders waiting for their turn.
During the program the sisters, by way of Santa, gave presents to Jim, Beatrice, Mary, Sisters Kathleen and Laura, Bill, Brian and Mike.
I love this photograph of Jim and Santa! Jim was such a good man. After the school day, Jim and I would clean the school. He was so soft spoken. He was one of the most highly respected elders and I appreciated being in his presence - whether we were talking or just doing our work together in silence. May his memory be a blessing.
After the program was completed, some of the kids were hanging out at the school.
A rare photograph of Sister Kathleen. It isn't a good image, but she didn't give me too many opportunities.
Irma said that the landless Indians (French-Chippewa-Cree) used to have a special custom here on New Years. Everyone would make special foods and put these out on the kitchen table. Then everyone would go around to visit all the other people, and they would eat at every house they went to. You had to eat, too. You had to take something. Everyone would visit house to house. This is hardly done at all today.
We went over to see Irma and to help her decorate their Christmas tree. She had invited us to help the night before. Cyndee was the only other one at home. Irma said that all the kids used to help decorate the tree, and they used to go out and cut them down, too. It was sure a good time. The forest crew got us this tree and they are cutting trees for everyone who wants one, especially the old people who can't get out and cut their own trees. I put the tree in the platform, and Irma brought out about 4 or 5 boxes of decorations from the basement where they had been stored during the year. She had also bought some new decorations. She had the typical stuff, tinsel, balls, candles, angles, Santas, etc. She also had a lot of decorations for the whole house, and she decorated the ceiling and walls next to the tree.
Irma said that when they were kids, they used to put candles on the tree and then they would light the candles on the tree at night. It was sure pretty. Before Cyndee or any of us could put the decorations on the tree, Irma put a decoration up, "silent night." She said that this was their own way of doing it. Irma always put up the first decoration every year and it was always this one. Then after I put this decoration on, everyone would join in and start to decorate the tree. So, Irma put it on, and we all started to decorate. She also put some lights up outside around the house. The nails were already in from previous years, so she only had to string the lights. They didn't have any homemade decorations (I never saw homemade decorations at anyone's home- everything was bought in a store). While we were decorating, Irma’s niece came over and said that she thought the tree was a little bare- there were not enough branches on it. She said that she was going to go out in the mountains and find and cut herself a tree and that she would get one for them too. Later that day she did bring another tree back and Irma took off all the decorations and started again on a new tree. She was in a hurry to get it done in the morning because she wanted to go to mass at the mission.
When I was putting on the tinsel, I didn’t separate the pieces, and they went onto the tree in clumps. Cyndee really teased me about this, and she continued to tease me about it for the next forty years. I had to remind her about my lack of training on Christmas tree decorating as I was raised in an orthodox Jewish home. Cindy was my sister, and we teased with each other often. I was so blessed to have a lifelong relationship with her. May her memory be a blessing.
Irma said that all her kids were coming home for Christmas with her grandchildren, and she was really excited about that. This is the way it was for almost all the people on the reservation, especially for the older people who had kids with families. There are a lot of people who live in cities off the reservation, or kids who are going to boarding schools or colleges off the reservation. They all come home for Christmas. Their parents talked about them coming home for about a month before Christmas. They were all excited about it. All of Edith’s kids were coming home, and so were Beatrice’s kids. They drove in, flew in and took buses. People here were driving all over (DY, Havre, Billings, Great Falls) to pick them up and bring them to the reservation.
On the last day of my cultural anthropology class, we had a Christmas party. We had a potluck dinner. Everyone brought food: potato chips, baked beans, salad, ham, eggs salad and tuna salad, cake, fruit salad, and Jello. We played cards and there was some drinking. There was a lot of talking and visiting. The students in my class were very friendly with each other. I invited their husbands but none of them came.
Susie and two other Urban Rural teachers came to the party. One of them was a math teacher and the other was an English teacher. They were hired by the College of Great Falls to teach in this program. They traveled to different small, rural communities to teach during the week, and they stayed in the trailers overnight and moved on to the next community in the morning.
Just about every home in Hays was decorated for Christmas. I didn't notice any homes that didn't have some type of Christmas decorations either inside the house, outside the house or both. Most of the decorations started to go up about two weeks before Christmas. The decorations consisted of lights strung outside around the trim of homes, lights, candles and wreaths in windows, Santas, reindeer and other decorations in windows and hung from the ceilings. Everyone had a Christmas tree, and they were decorated with all of the customary decorations (nothing out of the ordinary for "American culture") - tinsel, bulbs, lights, angels, etc. Most all the decorations were bought from stores in Harlem, Chinook and Havre (K-mart). Most people also used decorations that were used in previous years except for things like tinsel. Families that didn’t get trees from the forest crew, went into the mountains and cut down their own trees. Some of them also cut down trees for relatives. Most everyone had presents under their Christmas trees, and the packages were wrapped in Christmas wrapping.
The entire Urban Rural Program had a Christmas party. Susie and I attended. It was the day before Christmas eve. There were a lot of people attending and there was a lot of food and alcohol of every variety. The party went from 1:00 until 5:00. A lot of the people were drunk before the party was over.
There were about eight people from the community who came up to the church on Thursday night at Father Retzel’s request, to help clean and decorate the interior of the church. Camie, her two sons, Richard, Brian, Father Retzel and a few others. They cleaned the church, and they put up a manger next to the altar. They set up a tree next to the manger and they put pine branches all the way around the manger. They put up two trees and some wreaths next to the altar.
Both Fathers Retzel and Simoneau heard confessions on the day before and on Christmas eve. They also heard confessions just before midnight mass. There is a yellow and red light just above the confessional at the front of the church and next to the altar. When there is a priest in the confessional, the yellow light is on, and when the confessional is in the process of being heard, the red light is on. It seemed as though most people went to confession just before midnight mass, and the service was delayed as a result for at least 15 minutes (after midnight).
Susie and I had invited Gordon and Edith over for dinner before midnight mass. They came over to eat at 6:30. Everyone was in a good mood and talkative, discussing having their kids in from school, and the upcoming holiday. Halfway through our meal, an older couple came over. It was about 7:00. They were both very drunk. Gordon and Edith became very quiet. They didn't say anything to them besides hello for the first half hour they were there. It was very uncomfortable, but the older couple seemed too drunk to even be aware of any discomfort. This couple had started drinking at the Urban Rural party, and seemed to have been drinking since.
After we finished eating, I got up to do the dishes and everyone else went into the living room. Edith came over with her hair in curlers and she had a towel wrapped around her head (she wanted to have her hair set for midnight mass). Edith seemed very upset about this couple being over at our trailer and was acting as if she were disgusted about them being drunk. She hardly said a word all night while they were at the trailer. She left the living room and went into the bathroom to take out her curlers and to comb out her hair.
While we were sitting in the living room the man said to Gordon that he was proud of him and respected him for singing at the basketball games. Then he said to me, you know, Gordon is only one of a few people who really know the Indian religion. Most of the young people don't know anything about it. Only the old people, and a very few young people like Gordon, know about it. If any of the young people tell you that they know about the Indian religion, don't listen to the young people, because they don't know. Then be said, we love you, we love all of you (to everyone in the room). Then to Susie and me he said, “We love you, and we haven't loved all the people at the mission. He kept calling Susie, "little shit." He was using it as a term of endearment.
The man came into our trailer with a bottle of wine in one pocket and a bottle of scotch in the other. He said that we had to join with him. Susie got out a couple wine glasses and Gordon, Susie and I took a little wine. Edith said that she didn't want any and seemed really disgusted about the whole scene.
Gordon was trying to hold a conversation with them. There was a lot of stumbling around, trips to the bathroom and vomiting. After about two hours, the woman passed out in the chair she was sitting in. First her head started to lean over on her shoulder and then her eyes closed. Her body started to stoop over to one side. Eventually, the top half of her body was down on the arm of the chair. Her feet were on the floor. This whole movement into sleep took about ten minutes. Once she had passed out, she wasn't awake until we were ready to leave the house.
During the evening the man went to our porch to get his boots. He couldn't find them, and so I went outside to look for them. Gahanab had taken his overshoes and took one of them under our truck and the other down to the road. The one he had taken down to the road, he had chewed up. I brought the pair into the trailer, and I showed them to him and told him that I was sorry. I told him that I wanted to replace them, but he said not to worry about it, and he laughed. Way to go, Gahanab.
They were at our house for three hours. At 10:00 Gordon and Edith went home. We made arrangements to meet them at their house around 11:00 and then we would go to midnight mass together.
I told the man and woman that I was going to drive them home in their truck. I didn't think that it was a good idea for him to try to drive. He said that it wasn't necessary but that if I wanted to that was ok. They lived quite a way from our trailer and the roads were covered with ice and snow. I drove their truck, and Susie followed us in our truck. On the way he asked me what I was again. And I told him an anthropologist, and he said oh yeah. I parked their truck, and they went into their home. Susie drove us home.
Well, that was a lot to negotiate. And sometimes, that’s just how it went. I felt badly for Gordon and Edith because they had so looked forward to spending this evening alone with us before midnight mass. I felt more badly for this couple, because we knew them well. Their kids were in our classes at school, and they were very active in the church. We also knew that they were trying so hard to quit drinking. They were very spiritual people, and the whole evening was just beyond heartbreaking for all involved. It just sucked. Merry Christmas.
Susie and I went over to Gordon and Edith’s at 11:15 to go with them to midnight mass. They had their Christmas tree all lit up with small white bulbs. It was very pretty. All their kids were home and watching television. There was candy and nuts all over the house. The kids had been up to the mission for confession and then they came home. Some of the kids would be going back up to the church with their parents later for midnight mass. Dion was going to stay home and one of the kids was going to stay home with him. At 11:30 Caroline and Bobby came in. They had just come down from the Agency. They brought in bags of candy and peanuts and told Gordon, here’s the stuff that you wanted us to buy for you. Then at 11:45 we left the house and went up to the mission for mass. Junior and Dory stayed home to take care of Dion. Gordon said that they would go to the 11:00 mass in the morning (Saturday morning).
We got to mass/ the mission just before midnight, but the mass started late because so many people were going up for confession. There were between 175 and 200 people in the church. Just about everyone from Hays was there, and there were some people from the Agency there also. The people missing were from the Christian Missionary Alliance and a lot of teenagers and kids. But most of the adults were there. Susie and I sat in the balcony. I was taking pictures. The church was decorated next to the altar with a manger and some wreaths and the Christmas trees.
The mission alumni choir was in the balcony. Sister Giswalda directed the choir and Sister Claire played the organ. All the other sisters were in the balcony also. The alumni choir was Gordon, Edith, Hazel Doney, Joyce, Bobby and Caroline.
Before the mass started Sister Giswalda passed out song sheets and the choir sang some Christmas hymns. All of the sisters sang along with the choir and Susie and I joined in.
After the choir (mission alumni choir) was done singing, three girls from the second, third and fourth grades at the mission grade school, walked down the center aisle of the church. They were wearing Indian costumes, long dresses, one of them was buckskin and their hair was long and braided. They were wearing beadwork. The girl in the center was carrying a pillow and on the pillow was the "baby Jesus". One of the girls had on rabbit fur braid ties. When they got to the end of the aisle, they stood there for a while, three across. Then Father Simoneau walked from behind the altar (Father Retzel was saying midnight mass at the Lodge Pole church). He walked up to the girl who had the pillow, and he took the baby Jesus off the pillow and carried it over to the manger. Then be placed the baby Jesus into the manger. The alumni choir sang during this part of the mass. Father Simoneau said the mass, which was very similar to the regular mass. Most everyone there took communion. Martin Flying was the server. The mass ended a little after 1:00 in the morning.
After the midnight mass, most everyone left the church right away. Most people went home or they went over to a relative’s house. They were talking about going home to open presents. I told Gordon and Edith that I would be down to their house in a little while and that I was going to drive Sonny home. Susie waited for me at the rectory. They had invited us over to open Christmas presents with them. When I picked up Susie it was about 1:45 in the morning. We went right over to Gordon and Edith’s house. When we went inside, most all of their presents and the kids presents were already opened. They got their kids mostly clothes and toys, winter jackets, boots and pants and shirts. They got Dion a new pair of boots and they got him a lot of toys. There were toys all over the floor. He had an Evil Knievel motorcycle, trucks, cowboys and Indians (a small plastic set with horses) and a stuffed monkey.
These are the crewels that Susie had made as presents for people in the community.
We had given Gordon and Edith a present earlier in the day (a framed crewel and a game). Gordon handed me a box. He gave me a blanket and a choker that he had made. Then Edith gave Susie a box. She gave her a dancing shawl and a deer antler necklace. Susie cried when she saw it, and her and Edith hugged each other. Gordon then gave me another small box. It contained a small arrowhead that Gordon found in the area. We thanked each other for all the presents. Then we sat down at the kitchen table and had some coffee. The kids were running around the house trying on all their new clothes and walking into the kitchen to show Gordon and Edith what they looked like. We left the house at 3:00am.
Earlier in the day we received other presents from people in the community. Carletta came over and gave us two stuffed pillows that she made for us from her and her husband, Matt. Ray and Irma gave us a box of dried fruit. Mary and BJ sent their daughter down to the trailer and sent us a box of chocolates.
After midnight mass Father Retzel asked me if I would drive Sonny home, and I said that I would be glad to. He told me to take the mission truck which was parked in front of the church steps. So, I helped Sonny down the steps, and I put his metal walker into the back of the pickup. John David Quincy helped me put Sonny into the cab of the truck. He has multiple sclerosis.
It is a progressive and deteriorating disease of the nervous system. He used to be able to walk, but now his legs and the lower half of his body are just about paralyzed. He was very quiet on the way home, but he was very happy. He was smiling and said that he sure enjoyed mass tonight. He lives in Monica Werk’s old house across from the store up near his parents’ house. When we got to the house, I stopped the truck in front of the door, and I pushed down the emergency brake and went around to help him out. I took his walker out of the back of the truck and put it down in front of him. When he was out of the truck and was about to grab onto his walker, he slipped and fell. At the same time, the truck started to roll back. He was under the path of the wheel. Just about a foot from the front wheel running him over, I was able to drag him out. I broke into a cold sweat. Thank goodness, Sonny is very thin. I apologized to him about five times while I was helping him up. I had run around the other side of the truck while he was still on the ground and jumped into the truck while it was moving and stopped it. I put the truck into gear this time. I should have known that nothing worked on the mission truck. Nothing worked on any of the mission vehicles. Sonny was embarrassed and told me not to worry about it.
I felt horrible about the whole thing. I didn't say any more about it, because he didn't say any more about it and he seemed embarrassed. I helped him to the door of his house because it was icy with snow on the ground. He opened the door and turned on the light. He was all alone in the house. There were two rooms, but it looked as though he only used one of the rooms. He has one of the largest families on the reservation, but he didn't go to anyone's house, and he didn't have anyone at his house. None of his relatives said that they would either take him to mass or take him home.
Sonny is either in his late 30s or early 40s. The house is in very poor condition, by the standards of the reservation housing, both the new and old homes. He had only one light in the room, a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. The walls were painted a dull green and were worn by age. The plaster walls were cracked and torn. His cupboard doors were open and they were empty. He had one table, a bed and a chair that was hard backed and was missing most of the rungs. I’m not sure his house had running water.
I said good night to him. He thanked me for driving him home, and I left.
Mike made it his business to help Sonny and to get him out to as many events in the community as he could. Bingo, mass, prayer meetings. Mike told me that he was once confronted by one of Sonny’s family members and threatened to leave Sonny alone. They might have been embarrassed that someone outside of the family was helping Sonny … but they weren’t. Mike wasn’t afraid of anyone (or just about anything) and he backed the guy down. Mike continued to be there for Sonny. Americans don’t do very well in managing the disability community. Through a combination of discomfort and ignorance, we don’t know how to engage with people who have disabilities. It was worse in the 1970s than it is today and today isn’t great. And it wasn’t any better on the reservation. Maybe it was a bit worse.
Many years later, Mike told me that Sonny had been admitted to a nursing home and that his quality of life had improved tremendously. Sonny has passed away. His memory should be a blessing.
Sonny had MS before any of the immune therapies were discovered. He likely had relapsing, remitting MS. Without any treatment, and with minimal health care on the reservation, he was likely having repeated inflammatory attacks which were destroying the nerves that controlled his mobility, and his bowel and bladder function. The symptoms are horrible.
The irony for me is that twenty years later, my wife Pauline would be diagnosed with transverse myelitis. It is a very similar disorder to multiple sclerosis, the disease Sonny had. Both are autoimmune disorders where the immune system attacks the central nervous system. The symptoms are pretty much the same. Pauline had the same symptoms that Sonny experienced. Pauline and I established an organization that advocates for people who have these disorders. I have been doing this advocacy work for the past thirty years. If I knew then what I know now, I could have been a significant help to Sonny. I think about him and his experiences often and feel badly that I wasn’t able to be of any more help to him. I am sure glad that he had Mike!
There was a mass at the mission this morning at 11:00, but there were not that many people there. Most people had planned dinners and visits with friends and family on Christmas day.
Susie and I slept in at our trailer after a long night of visiting and adventure. At 12:30 Greg Talks Different drove up to the trailer and honked his horn outside. I stuck my head out the door, and he told me that we should come down to the house (Ray and Irma’s) because they would be eating dinner soon. He asked us to be there in about an hour.
We arrived at their house at 1:30 and everyone was sitting around the table getting ready to eat: Ray and Irma, Marilyn was there with her husband and children from Bozeman, Raymond was there with his wife and children from Shelby, and Cyndee. Marilyn, I did meet you at your parent's home!
All the adults were sitting at the table, and the kids were in the living room playing with their new toys that they got for Christmas from their parents and grandparents. The table was full from all the food that was prepared. (Lyle was not in Hays). The table was set with beautiful china and silverware, and the serving trays matched the dinner set. Irma had set a beautiful table. She served turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, tossed salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, bread, cranberry sauce, coffee, and pumpkin pie. Susie and I tried to eat our share, but we held back because we knew that we would be eating again at about 3:30pm. We were invited to Gordon and Edith’s for Christmas dinner, and they told us to be over at 3:30. We were invited to about five other homes for dinner (BJ and Mary, Father Retzel, Camie and Richard and Lindey and Irene) and we felt badly that we couldn’t accept all of the invitations.
After we ate dinner, Irma and the other girls cleaned up the kitchen right away. Ray stayed at the table and smoked cigarettes. Susie and I went into the living room to see what the kids got for Christmas. They showed us all their presents.
Ray said that they didn't go to the midnight mass last night because everyone was too busy opening all their presents. They went to the 11:00 mass this morning instead. One of the toys that the kids got was a miniature pool table and set. After the kitchen was cleaned, Ray and their kids played a game of pool. At 3:00 we told them that we had to leave. We thanked them for dinner, and we left for Gordon and Edith’s. Just before we left, Ray said that their tv was broke and he said that he might come up to the house to watch the football games. We told them that they should come up to the house and we would make them breakfast. Ray said that that was a good idea, and they’d try to come up.
We arrived at Gordon and Edith’s at 3:30. Gordon was just finishing dinner, and the kids were watching tv. Gordon was also watching tv. Susie asked if she could help, and Edith gave her a few small things to do. At about 4:00 we went to the kitchen table. They had all the food set out on the table. Edith served ham, boiled beef, macaroni salad, beets, green beans, stuffing, fried chicken, fry bread, orange juice and tea. The table was much less formal than Irma’s. Susie and I, Ryan, Dory, Gordon, Edith and Glen ate at the table. Venetia ate in the living room in front of the tv and Junior and Dion were asleep. They didn't wake up until the dinner was over and the kids were cleaning the kitchen. They took what was left of the meal. Edith helped Dion fix himself a plate which was mostly macaroni salad. The kids cleaned the kitchen, and we sat at the table with Gordon and Edith and had coffee and cigarettes.
Susie told them that she wanted to go up to the mission for a little while so that she could call home. We left and we told them that we would be back as soon as she was done making her call. Edith said that their son Gabby called them earlier today and they talked to him.
When Susie and I got up to the mission there were about six people in the rectory living room waiting to use the telephone. It took us about an hour and a half before we could make our call. People were in and out of the rectory all night. According to Father Retzel people were up to use the telephone all day and night. Most of them were using the telephone to call their relatives that lived off the reservation. A lot of the kids that live off the reservation were also calling their parents and the mission people were running messages out to their homes.
We saw Mary and she said that she had company at her house all day. Most of her brothers and sisters came to visit. Most of them live off the reservation. She said that they all had dinner over at their place and Beatrice cooked most of the food at her house and brought it over to their trailer to eat there.
We went back to Gordon and Edith’s at about 7:30 and they taught us how to play pinnacle. Gordon said that most of the people around here play, and they have pinnacle parties all the time, so it’s a good thing to know how to play. Gordon said that we were catching on pretty fast. We played for a few hours. While we were playing the kids were running in and out of the house all night, and they spent some time watching tv. At 11:00 pm we told them that we were very tired and that we had to go home to bed. We thanked them for dinner and the nice day. And we said good bye and left.
Gordon’s boys went out hunting the day after Christmas on Eagle Child. They were out hunting with the new 22 they got for Christmas. They missed a buck, but they did shoot a rabbit. Glen, who is home from college, cut up the rabbit and skinned it. He rolled the meat in breading and fried up the meat. He was eating it when we went over to the house.
This was Susie's first beaded medallion.
Well, that was an interesting three days. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
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