Paul Doney died between Friday night and Saturday. He was the brother of Chinky and Bates. Chinky came up to the mission Saturday afternoon and made arrangements with father for the wake. He wanted to have it in the gym. We cleaned up the old gym and had the wake there on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The funeral will be held on Tuesday morning.
The last day of the wake for Paul Doney was Sunday night. I heard a person refer to it as a “half-breed wake” because they played fiddle and guitar music during the wake. Paul had been dying for a while, so he told his relatives just how he wanted his funeral to be. He said that he wanted people to be happy and he also told them to sing Indian music when they lowered him into the ground at the cemetery. The coffin was brought up to the church from the gym in a pickup truck and everyone stood outside until it was carried into the church. Then everyone went into the mass except for the men who were carrying the rifles for the gun salute (he had been a veteran) and the flag bearers – American and Fort Belknap flags. Earlier that morning the forest department dug the grave. Father Retzel decided that the cemetery was getting too crowded and began moving the cemetery north, out toward the rest of the mission. Father Simoneau was not at all pleased with this decision.
I asked Father Retzel how long the wake was supposed to be held, and he said that it varied in different cases. This wake was a little longer because they were waiting for some people to come in from out of town that never showed up. He said that the immediate family decides where the wake will be held.
Gordon told me that he doesn’t go to church anymore. He went to talk to Father about it and told him that he prays in his own way. He knows that Father combines the Catholic way with some of the Indian practices. He sometimes burns sweet grass in the service the way the Indian does when he is praying. Also, there is sometimes Indian singing at funerals while the body is being lowered into the grave. Some people ask that this be done before they die. It used to be done this way and people are doing it like this again – it is a recent thing.
On Wednesday Ira Talks Different had a massive heart attack and was in critical condition all of Wednesday and Thursday. His two daughters, Lilly and Irene, went up to the Agency to be with him. His stepchildren (Mary's children) were going to be up at the Agency to stay with their mother. Edith went up after her bowling league in Harlem to spend the night with her mother. Gordon came up to the mission to call up there to see how she was doing. Bertha, Edith's oldest sister, went up to be with Mary also. Gordon said that he did not think that he was going to make it. He also said that the kids were worried about their mother. They were afraid that she just wouldn’t want to live anymore. She has had a bad back and has been in bed for a while. Irene’s husband, Lindey, was at the prayer meeting at the school and he asked that the group say a prayer for his father-in-law.
Lilly asked me to please let her children know that their grandfather was dying up at the Agency from a heart attack.
On Thursday (11/11/74) his grandson (Lilly’s boy) went to the mission at 1:00am and asked for a ride up to the agency, because he heard that his grandfather was dying. Everyone was asleep and so he couldn’t get a ride. He came back an hour later and woke everyone up again to say that he had found a ride up. Ira died at 11:00 on Thursday night.
It was decided that the wake would be held on Saturday night and Sunday up at the Agency gym. The rosary will be said by father on Saturday night and Sunday at 7:30. Edith came up to the trailer this morning. She said that her mother was taking it ok, and that she would be alright. She and Gordon would be going to the wake. The funeral will be at the Mission at 11:00 Monday and the burial would be in Lodge Pole because Ira was an Assiniboine.
He was married to Mary Gone, who was a Gros Ventre and the mother of Bertha, Ray, Fred, Edith, Caroline and other brothers and sisters. Fred Sr. was her first husband. Many of Ira’s children and grandchildren are Gros Ventre.
Gordon told me that you could see the division between the Gros Ventre and the Assiniboine at the wake. There was a split in the stands in the gym; and if you knew the people better you would have seen it. The Gros Ventres were sitting on the right side of the stands and there was a break in the middle. And on the left side of the stands sat the Assiniboine people.
Susie and I took Gordon up into the mountains in our truck to help him bring down firewood. While we were driving in the Little Rockies, Gordon decided to give us some instructions for how we were supposed to behave at the wake. We did not ask for this information; he gave it to us on his own initiative. I believe as a good friend; he wanted for us to behave appropriately. He said that when we get to the gym, we should go up to the daughters of Ira, and we should shake each of their hands, and say something to them, for instance, like you're sorry. You do that first. Then you can go up to look at him if you want; you don't have to if you don't want. It's up to you. Then you just go and sit quietly, and they will feed you. Then before you leave, go up to the daughters or Bobby and say that you have to go. Then you can leave. He said that it didn't matter what clothes we wore to the wake.
Susie and I picked Gordon up at 7:00 to go up to Ira’s wake at the Agency gym, about 30 miles away. We stopped at Bobby and Caroline’s to see Mary (Ira’s wife) before we went to the wake at the gym. When we got there Freddie and his wife (she is Crow and they live on the Crow reservation), Caroline, and Bertha, were sitting at the kitchen table. Gordon stayed in the kitchen.
Susie and I walked into the bedroom to offer our condolences to Mary. She is in her 80s and is bedridden because of a very bad back. She was unable to attend the wake or funeral. She was lying in bed. We shook her hand and said that we were very sorry. She thanked us very much for coming to see her. She said that she would really miss Ira. He cooked for me and he did everything for me. She said that she really missed him. We tried to assure her that her kids would take care of her now, and we said that she had to take care of herself and be strong. She said that everyone has told her that. She said that she hoped that her kids helped her now. She said that she was really sorry that he left her. She asked us if we were with the mission, and we told her that we were. She told us that she went to the boarding school when she was seven years old. She said that the day school was a new thing at the mission. She said that the old church there was really beautiful. It used to be where the new one is now. When it burned, she looked at it and was so sad. They built the new one right on that spot. We told her again that we were sorry after being in her room for about 15 minutes. She thanked us again for coming in to see her, and then we left the room.
We went back into the kitchen where they had poured us some coffee. We sat at the table with the family and talked. Then we thanked them for the coffee (we were there for about 45 minutes) and said good-bye. Caroline told us to come visit them sometime and we said that we would. Then we left for the gym.
We got to the wake at the gym at about 8:00 pm. The wake started on Saturday afternoon and was going to last until Monday morning. The people in the family stay at the wake all night. They will take short breaks away from the gym for a little while to get some rest, but someone from the family has to be there, Ira’s daughters and grandson. Ira was eighty years old when he died. He was born in Lodge Pole in March 1896.
We walked into the gym and stood by the door for just a minute with Gordon. In the gym, most of the people were sitting in the stands on one side of the gym. As Gordon noted, most of the Gros Ventre were sitting on one side, and most of the Assiniboine were sitting on the other side in the stands. Ira was an Assiniboine, but many of his grandchildren and his wives were Gros Ventre.
The coffin was in the middle of the floor. The metal coffin was purple. There was silver trim on the coffin which was designed to form three handles on either side of the coffin. It was open and the body was covered with a blue cloth. The family in mourning was sitting next to the coffin on the left (their right) and there was a table between them. His two oldest daughters sat in the front row of the three rows of benches and Father Simoneau sat next to them in the front row. In the next row was his next daughter and her husband and two of their children. In the last row were some of his grandchildren. The table was between the first and second row of benches. Quentin sat in the stands until father left, and then he went back to the bench to sit next to his wife. Some of Ira’s sons-in-law sat on the benches with his daughters. Father Simoneau got to the gym at 7:30 and said the rosary. He then sat next to the family on the benches. He stayed there until 8:30 and then he left, taking home Sisters Kathleen and Laura. Father Retzel said the rosary for him on Saturday night.
The coffin was surrounded by flowers. They were arrangements, mostly carnations that had come from a florist. These arrangements were sent to the family and were from friends and other relatives. The coffin was up on a table and the flowers on the sides of the table and on the floor next to the table. We walked into the gym and walked up to the benches where the family was sitting. Some people walked up to the coffin and pulled back the blue cloth to look at the body. They then went up to the family. Freddie pulled back the cloth and kissed Ira. We walked up to each member of the family sitting next to the coffin and shook each of their hands, and told them we were sorry. Each of them thanked us for coming to the wake.
Lilly took Susie's hand and held it for a long time and just looked down to the ground. After shaking each of their hands we walked to the far end of the gym where Bobby was standing. Gordon was talking to him. I shook his hand and said that I was very sorry about his grandfather and then Susie did the same. He thanked us for coming. He looked very tired, and I asked him how long he had been there at the wake. He said that he was there all day Saturday and was there till 3:00 in the morning. He came back and was there again until 10:00 in the morning. Then he was there all day Sunday. He shook our hands again and thanked us for coming and then sat back down on the benches with the family.
Bobby was raised by Quentin and Lilly and almost took their last name. He was also raised by his grandfather and was very close to him. Then we went to sit in the stands. We sat with Mary’s children, their husbands and wives and her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. As we sat in the stands, a book came around that Edith gave us to sign. It was a book from the funeral home that guests who came to the wake were supposed to sign; it also contained information about Ira in it, including his date and place of birth.
While in the stands, food was served about every ten minutes, and coffee was served more often than that. Father Retzel later told us that next to pow wows, a wake was the only other occasion where so many of the people got together. People came from out of town and there was a lot of visiting. He said that more people came in for wakes than for weddings which were not usually as big an affair as the wake. The wake was a great social gathering. People came out of the kitchen with food. Coffee was served separately on trays. The boiled meat was served in coffee cups and the rest of the food was served on paper plates with plastic spoons on the plates. The people in the kitchen were friends of the family and some relatives of the immediate family. Some of the grandchildren helped with the preparing and serving of the food. A lot of people also bring food. They served coffee, sandwiches of lunch meat on white bread, boiled beef, berry soup, cold baked beans, cake, cookies, rolls, danish, fry bread, and potato chips. Cigarettes were brought around in a bowl.
There were blankets on a table behind the coffin. These blankets are brought to the family by friends and relatives.
There were a lot of people at the wake from out of town. They came from Rocky Boy. Two of Edith’s sons came in from Bozeman and Pierre, South Dakota. Ray’s oldest son was here from Shelby with his wife. There were people from Havre. Freddie was there with his wife and children from the Crow Reservation.
It was relatively quiet in the gym during the wake. Kids were not running around screaming and people talked quietly. The family was very quiet. They were very sad and talked among themselves very quietly. The people sitting in the stands talked quietly and conversation was very light. People laughed and joked around. Many people visited with their relatives from out of town. There was not much conversation about Ira.
Most of the immediate family was there during all of Saturday and Sunday and most of those nights. Many friends and relatives also spent their days and nights at the wake.
The mass will be said for Ira on Monday at 11:00am. Then the burial will take place in the Lodge Pole cemetery (mostly Assiniboine). Then people will go with the family up to the Agency for a feed in the memory of Ira (and in his honor). This is also called a feast and everyone is invited.
Gordon said that he and Bobby will have to be mourning because of Ira’s death. He said that he had to mourn because Ira took him as a grandson. He said that he and Bobby would have to decide what to do about the mourning, because they will not be able to sing, nor would Gordon be able to lead the dance committee and the Hays singers. He said that we will have to have a meeting about the mourning. Unless someone feeds us, we will have to mourn for a year. Gordon said that he didn't know what was going to happen because the dance committee was the one doing the feeding, and they could not feed themselves.
Someone else from the dance committee would have to do it, or else another dance committee would have to do it. If we are not fed, we could not sing until a year from now. The feed means that they want us back in the community. They will have to feed us soon if they want us to sing and have the Christmas dance. You (me) better listen to those tapes good and learn how to sing soon; you may have to sing for us. We will have the tree raising for the kids even if they don't feed us by then. They could feed us anytime they wanted to. They will feed us though because we are the only ones who will organize and put on the traditional celebrations.
Gordon said that he was concerned about Mary. She was really dependent on Ira. He cooked all of her meals and he really waited on her. He said that she may die of loneliness. Gordon said that Ira raised Bobby, and he also took Gordon as a grandson. Gordon said that he couldn't accept it when his own grandfather died (Fred Lodge). His grandfather had raised him. I was fifteen at the time he died. I just couldn't accept it until they lowered him into the ground. Bobby is doing alright right now, but I don't think that he realizes yet that his grandfather has died. It is the same way with Mary; she really hasn't realized either that her husband has died.
People began to arrive at the mission at about 10:30am for Ira Talks Different’s funeral. They continued arriving until about 11:00, and some came as late as 11:15. They sat in their cars and trucks until the hearse arrived. They talked with others in their cars and smoked cigarettes. The cars were parked all around the church. The hearse arrived from the Agency at 10:55. It parked in front of the church door and then everyone got out of their cars and trucks and stood around the back of the hearse (from Edward's Funeral Home). Six pall bearers took the coffin out of the hearse and carried it up the steps and into the church. People then stood on the steps and around the front of the church. When the coffin went inside the church, Father Retzel met them in the aisle and said a few prayers over the coffin. The coffin was placed on a cart in the middle aisle of the church. Then people began moving into the church. The people walked into the aisles and knelt before entering the pew. All of the pews were filled with the family in the front.
Sister Giswalda brought the 7/8 graders to the funeral, and they walked up the stairs to sit in the balcony. There were about 200-300 people in the church and some people had to stand in the back. The back pews filled first. The last people to arrive (except for the family in the front) had to sit in the front. Nade sat up in the balcony with her guitar. There were a lot of young kids and a few of them were crying. Only one mother left the church with her crying baby; the others tried to keep them quiet in the seats, but most of them continued to cry. One of the kids walked up and down the middle aisle during the service. At 11:00 the service began. Father was in the front of the church with two altar boys. One of them was David, Ira’s grandson. David is a regular altar boy in church.
Father said a regular mass but there were a few additions to the service. He began the service with a pipe ceremony. He said that the pipe was given to him by a family so he could perform this ceremony for their loved one at their funeral. They gave him the pipe to be used at occasions such as this. He said that to him it represented the death of Christ. He pulled the stem out of the bowl and held the two parts away from each other in each hand. But also the rebirth of Christ (resurrection) the everlasting life that he had and that Ira will have and that everyone can have that accepts Him. Father put the stem back in the bowl of the pipe (with some difficulty). Then he filled the pipe with smoking tobacco (it was regular tobacco). He tried to light the pipe , but after three tries he couldn’t get it lit, So he did the ceremony without a lit pipe. He lifted up the pipe and held the bowl away from him and the stem toward him in the other hand. He faced south and held up the pipe. Then he turned and faced the statue of Jesus in the church (west) and said, here Jesus, here is the offering of the pipe for you share it with me. He held the pipe up to the statue offering it to the statue. Then he faced north and held up the pipe, Finally, he faced east and held up the pipe to the people in the congregation. He asked them to share the pipe with him. Then he put the pipe back on the table.
Later Father told me that he felt very uncomfortable in the pipe ceremony and he wanted help with it. He was going to ask George Shields to help him with it before the service, but the hearse had arrived, and he didn't get a chance to talk with him. Father wore his regular outfit for the service, but there were a few additions. He wore a white robe under his cloth robe. This undergarment had bead work on the sleeves, and he also wore moccasins that were covered with bead work.
Then Nade sang a song and played the guitar. She was up in the balcony. When she started to sing, no one in the congregation turned around to look up in the balcony to see who was singing. Father then read a responsive prayer and there were only a few people who read the responses. Most of the people who come to church are very passive about it. They do not participate much in the service. They like to sit in the back of the church away from the fathers and the altar. Father had the last pews removed in the church so that people would not be able to sit so far in the back. This got some people mad. It was understood that if you got to the service early, you got to sit in the back of the church. This could be a cultural universal.
In the middle of the service, Father said a eulogy. He promised that he would keep it short. He said that giving this talk was both very easy and yet very hard for him to do. It was easy because Ira was such a great man and there were so many good things to say about him, but it was very hard because Ira had done so many things in his life and did so many good things that he couldn't possibly mention everything. He talked about the loss of Ira from the community. How he enjoyed taking the eucharist to his trailer, and of his devotion to God and to the Indian traditions. He regretted that he didn’t spend more time with him and enjoyed him more.
He said that he was sure that others felt the same things as him, but that they felt them deeper. Then he took out some holy water. He sprinkled the coffin with holy water. Next, he took a small glass jar and pulled out some of the contents and put it into an incense burner. He told the congregation that he was burning a mixture of cedar and sweet grass. He swung the incense burner on a chain back and forth over the length of the coffin. He then gave communion. About a quarter of the people in the congregation took communion. Then he made two announcements. He explained that George Shields would sing at the cemetery, and that there was a feed at the Agency after the funeral. The family invited everyone to attend.
Then everyone left and went to their cars and trucks. A police car led the caravan and it was followed by the hearse. Father drove with me in my truck. He said that the wake here was different from the regular Catholic wake. A Catholic wake usually is short, one night, and the funeral is the next day. The wakes here are at least a couple days and the families are there for the duration of the wake. He said it is a way of doing penance and also a way of showing their respect for the deceased individual. It is also a way to honor the person. The line of about 30-40 cars and trucks followed the police car (with the lights flashing) and the hearse through Hays and onto 376. Then they turned at the Lodge Pole turnoff toward the cemetery. The cars and trucks went about 30-40 miles an hour, and most of the people had their lights on in the cars and trucks. At the cemetery, people parked their cars and walked up to the grave site. The grave had been dug by a backhoe, and it was sitting in the background. The hearse backed up to the grave site. The grave was covered by a green material that went down into the ground and there was a metal platform over the opening that had two straps running across it.
The family stood next to the hearse in front of the grave. Everyone else stood around the grave. The six pall bearers picked up the coffin out of the hearse and carrier it over to the grave. They set the coffin down on the straps and then walked back into the group standing around the grave site. Father went to the head of the grave and said a few prayers. Then he sprinkled holy water into the grave. He took the cross off the coffin and walked up to Lilly and handed it to her. Then George Shields walked in front of the family and in front of the grave site. He said that Ira kept the Indian traditions of his people, and that he did good for his people. Now he is going to the promised land. We should pray that he meets good and has a good judgment in the promised land. He was good and did good to keep the Indian traditions. Then he took out a small hand drum and said that he was going to sing a farewell song (a brave heart song) that he said the family asked him to sing. He sang the song in Assiniboine. When he was finished, he thanked everyone and walked back into the group of people.
Then the man from the funeral home took the flower arrangement off of the coffin and began to lower the coffin into the grave by lowering the straps. As the coffin began to lower slowly into the ground a few people started to cry (this is the first time I saw anyone cry). Lilly and Caroline wailed very loudly and Edith went over to comfort her sister. Then people started to leave. Most of the family and some friends stayed at the grave site for a while. The backhoe filled in the grave. Many of the people drove up to the Agency gym for the feed (feast).
Gordon said that the coach of the Hays Lodge Pole basketball team asked to sing the Indian National Anthen (flag song) for all the home games of the season at the new mission gym. Gordon said,
I have a problem this Friday. He really put me on the spot, because I'm in mourning. I don't know what I'm going to do. I will have to get the dance committee together if they are going to have a tree raising this year for Christmas. They will have to do it since I'm in mourning. We were invited to a pow wow at Glendive at the college in eastern Montana. We can go to the pow wow, but we can’t sing. We have to just watch. The reason we have a mourner’s feed is that we’re asking the person to come back into the community. The person does not have much choice but to come out of mourning. If there is no feed, they will be a year in mourning. The dance committee does the feeding, it’s been the job of the dance committee. It’s always been a dance committee. You don't have to wait a year. The feed means that the community is saying come back to the routine of the community. Do not stay home feeling sorry.
Frank had a memorial dinner for his father, Frank Sr., tonight. Father Simoneau said a memorial mass and all of the family attended mass. Then everyone went over to Frank’s house for a big dinner. There were both family and friends at the mass and dinner.
Gordon told me that he and Edith were planning on making a lot of bead work to sell at a booth at the Midwinter Fair. A lot of people go. They have booths with crafts. There is also a pow wow. A lot of activities on the reservation have been cancelled or postponed because of all the deaths in the last few weeks. The thanksgiving pow wow is postponed, and it will be held during one of the nights of the midwinter fair at the Agency gym. Mourners will have a big feed and give away in the honor of the person who died. They either wait for a pow wow or they will put on the feed and give away themselves.
There were certain places or events where I left my camera at home. I was very conservative about these decisions. I never took my camera to a wake or funeral. Consequently, I don't have photographs from November 1976 for the events I've described in this blog.
I am going to take this opportunity to include photographs that I took on my visit to the reservation in the fall 2014. I spent a couple of weeks with Mike and Ligia at their place up in the Bear Paw Mountains, south of Havre and just off the Rocky Boy Reservation. During that time, I made a trip down to Hays to visit Cyndee, her daughter, Veronica, and her grandson, Stephon. I got to see others in Hays (Pat Bear, Fiddles and Mary Agnes, Camie, Lucille Kirkaldie, and of course, Junior and Venetia. I tried to see Robert Fox and Faye Blackcrow, but neither was home. I also made a stop at the rectory and the school at the mission.
During my visit, Cyndee, Stephon and I took a ride up into Mission Canyon, up to the meadow. So many wonderful memories. It had been almost 50 years since Susie and I lived at the mouth of the canyon. The memories of walking Gahanab up into the canyon and our drives up into the Little Rockies came flooding back.
I took these photographs of the canyon, as we were driving up into the mountains. Very little had changed, either culturally or geologically speaking. It was fall and it was spectacular.
If I was focused on abstracts back then the way I am today (and using a digital camera), I would have spent two years looking directly into the canyon walls and taking thousands of photographs of the wonderful colors, patterns, and textures.
Almost fifty years down the pike, I remained totally mesmerized by the red rocks. And what was so often the case, not a cloud in the sky.
If you look closely, Stephen is wearing a blue shirt in the middle of this photograph. Gahanab used to run up the walls of the canyon just the same way as Stephon.
When we left Hays in 1978, this was an open meadow, and someone had the lease to cut the hay for their cattle. Perhaps someone is still cutting hay up here. But the pow wow arbor was new. It was just awesome to see it built up here and to know that the tribes were holding pow wows here in the summer. When Pauline and I returned in 2017, we attended the Hays Pow Wow in August.
We stopped as we left the canyon and visited the spot where Susie's and my first home was located in Hays. The two story McMeel log mansion was gone and so was our trailer. It was a large open field, and the pine trees had grown considerably over those fifty years.
Our front yard had also changed (sadly). There were electric poles running into this area, a road had been built and there were now homes at the base of the mountain. As I had previously written, during our time, Jeb was building a home in this area, and that was the only structure. The trash cans on the lower left were a nice addition (not). I'm so glad that during our time here, we had a much nicer view. There are more trees growing on Mission Ridge, which is great!
This is the road between our trailer home at the canyon going north towards the mission and Hays. This was a gravel road (as in the canyon) fifty years ago.
This has nothing to do with the price of fish, but it was a photograph I took in 2014. When Susie and I lived in Montana, this building was pink. It was a diner up in Harlem. The food there was great. When we wanted to take a break from commodity food and could afford it, we would treat ourselves to a meal in this place. It was more than thirty miles from Hays, and so worth the trip. I was sad to see that it was closed.
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