I only write for school now.....

Nancy Aubertin-Pipkins

Multicultural Communications

Family History

My mom was born and raised in Wilbur, Washington.  She grew up on a wheat farm, but they also had goats, chickens, cows and horses. My dad was born in the nearby reservation town of Keller. He learned to drive a truck when he was 9 years old. Dad’s family also had cattle and horses. With mom growing up on a farm and dad on a ranch, they were not strangers to hard work. Both towns were very small. Keller was so small that they didn’t have a school for students past 5^th grade, so the kids were bused to Wilbur for junior high and high school. The team mascots were the Savages and the Redskins. I’m not sure how my dad felt about boxing for the Redskins; he never mentioned it. My parents were high school sweethearts and married right after they graduated.

I was born on July 5, 1960 at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane, Washington, the fourth of five children. I weighed just a little over 4 pounds and had to stay in the hospital for 2 weeks before I could go home to Wilbur.  I like telling people I spent the first 2 weeks of my life with the nuns. Mom said she had been on the reservation the day before I was born, because it was the 4^th of July and the Aubertin’s had a family get together. They like to blow things up! She was glad I wasn’t born that day or I might not have made it. My umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck. There were no phones, doctors, or even ambulances in Keller; you could only get there by crossing Lake Roosevelt on a ferryboat.

My mother’s grandparents came from Norway and we went to the Danish Lutheran church with all of the other Scandinavian families in town. I remember participating in the Christmas programs - always hoping to play Mary, but instead, having to be a shepherd or a king.  That is what always happens to the shy ones. Every year we were given a little plastic Nativity scene and a paper bag full of chocolates, nuts and orange slices. For Christmas, my mom made spritz cookies, rosettes and Norwegian lefse, which is a flatbread made out of potatoes. We put butter and sugar on them and rolled them up. I grew up hearing “Sven, Lena and Ole” jokes and learned to say “Uff da” when things don’t go quite right. On my mom’s side of the family I have an extensive family history, with plenty of photos and stories.

I feel lucky to have grown up in a small town during simpler times. There are bluffs surrounding Wilbur, and when I was little they were thick with wildflowers every spring.  We spent hours playing on the bluffs, at the school playground, and in the park.  During the summer we could walk to the city pool to cool off and play with our friends. In the fall we played in the leaves in the park and went for walks in the rain.  When winter came we went sledding on the dead-end hill and built forts and snowmen. Those were the days! As long as we were home in time for dinner our parents never worried about us. I don’t think my children ever felt the kind of freedom that I had growing up in that little town in the 60s and 70s.

I realize now that I’m older; that being shy had a big impact on my life and the person I am now. In Kindergarten we were put into groups at different tables. Each group was named after a bird – and I was a robin red breast. I remember feeling even then that it would have been better if I were a blue bird. I found out years later that the teachers split us up according to how smart they thought we were.  I know I was a bluebird, but I was awkward and shy, and mistaken for a robin. Thinking of it now I realize I am being rather unfair to robins. Being so shy was difficult and kept me from doing things I wanted to do, even as an adult. There were times when I would go somewhere by myself, but once there, I was afraid to go in. Many times I turned the car around and drove home, tears running down my face.

When I was 30 years old I got a job at the Tri-City Herald. I have to say that my life was changed dramatically by going to work. I finally grew out of my shyness and learned what it was like to have self-esteem. I was given many opportunities and worked my way into a management position. I was also trained to facilitate diversity awareness programs, a task which I greatly enjoyed.

            I don’t have as much information on my dad’s side of the family. He grew up on the Indian Reservation and was a member of the Colville Confederated Tribes. The home he grew up in is now under water because of the Grand Coulee Dam being built. His great-great-grandfather, Louis Provost, was a canoe man who came from Canada to the Oregon Territories in 1838 with the Hudson Bay Company. There he met and married a full-blooded Indian woman named Julia Kin-A-Wait-Sa. Their daughter Victoria married Joachim Marchand from Quebec. They had a daughter, Sophie who married my great-grandfather, Charles Aubertin.  My dad’s parents divorced when he was only 5 years old. I wish they didn’t fit the stereotype, but both of my dad’s parents were alcoholics. My grandmother actually died by drowning in the bathtub, apparently drunk. My dad had one brother and one sister, and later, 2 half brothers.  He had a very successful logging company and was a good husband and father. My mom told me that my dad was sometimes ashamed of his ethnicity. I have a letter he wrote to the tribal council in 1973, shortly after a drunk driver on the reservation killed my brother and nephew.  I only saw this letter recently, and the opening paragraph says a lot about how dad felt about the reservation.

     “ A week has now passed since seven more persons (four tribal members) have been sacrificed to your brand and interpretation of "law and order". My son and Grandson were among this latest group classified D.O.A.  Just how much longer must this senseless destruction of mind and body continue before the Council will join with existing society in cooperation toward effective law and order so that instances such as last week's head-on auto collision will not be summarily dismissed as  “another drunken Indian bit the dust"?

Dad died of a massive coronary when I was only 25 years old. Now that my own children are older than I was then, I realize I didn’t really get to know my dad.  I would love to talk to him now to see how his ideas and views would have changed with the times.  I hope he knew how much respect I always had for him. Even though my parents came from such totally different upbringings I have always been proud of both, my Norwegian and American Indian backgrounds.  I recently visited the Tribal Museum and bought a book and cd so I can listen to the language of the Lakes Indians.  My step-grandma is 94 years old and still lives on the reservation.  For some reason she thinks of me as her Indian granddaughter – I guess because I have such an interest in that part of my history. I am passionate about the disenfranchisement of an entire nation of people. It is sad that my dad felt so much shame that he couldn’t share the rich heritage of his people with his children. It is not too late for me to pick up the torch laid down so long ago – when the salmon stopped running at Kettle Falls and the easy, respectful ways of the Indians gave way to the squalor that is now so apparent on the reservation. Grandma recently gave me her moccasins and some beaded jewelry.  I will cherish these things and pass them on to my children, along with stories of their grandpa and his family. I have been using Ancestry.com to do research and am collecting more information every day. I’ve always hoped to find the redeeming qualities of my grandparents. Even though they left a legacy of alcoholism and sadness, they worked hard and did what they could to survive in a time when their own country didn’t look out for their rights. I know my mom is proud of me and I think my dad would be. I try hard to leave a positive mark in life. I do a lot of writing about things that have happened and about my own feelings. I do this for my children, so they won’t have the same questions I had.  My family was a happy one, but we were not demonstrative. Being of Norwegian decent, and a Lutheran, the joke was always that we were “the frozen chosen.” Dad was quiet and unassuming, so with the stoic quality coming from both sides of my family I really had to work hard to become outgoing and communicative. I can finally say that I like the person I have become, and I am still not finished!