1915: Martha Alec Places Faith in Highway
Older people still remembered Chinuk Wawa well in 1915…
Beaded moccasins made by Martha Alec, who is pictured above them (image credit: Columbia Gorge News)
And it’s important for us to recall that they continued speaking it.
Unlike younger generations of tribal people, Native elders typically had not picked up much English by that date.
And adult Settlers still spoke the Jargon with them, particularly in business dealings such as the one we’ll read of today:
MARTHA ALEC PLACES FAITH IN HIGHWAY
In her clucking Chinook, Martha Alec, an old Indian woman, is now telling all her white friends of her faith in the Columbia river highway. Martha believes that she is going to be able to make much money from sales of bead work, gloves and moccasins to tourists who pass this way next year, when the completed thoroughfare is opened to spring automobile traffic.
The old woman’s last pony died three weeks ago. After a week of deep and sincere grief for the departed cayuse, Martha came to the city for the purpose of determining ways and means of securing a successor to her combined saddle and pack animal. She found from her guardian, Geo. I. Slocom, that her funds were low. But a small supply of wampum wolud [would] be left after the proposed purchase.
Along with many other commendable attributes Martha has the faculty of providing for a rainy day, and so the buying of a new horse was postponed. A white friend overheard her talking to Mr. Slocom. He proposed the manufacture of beadwork. After his words were interpreted by Mr. Slocom, Martha’s eyes sparkled. And after the scenic highway and its hoped-for hundreds of tourists were carefully explained, the old woman’s enthusiasm knew no bounds. She has already begun the work on her stock of novelties.
Martha is the widow of the late Joe Alce [Alec], who after an eventful career passed away last fall. Joe Alec for many years, until the S.P. & S.R.R. was completed, carried the mail from this city to White Salmon, Wash. When winter freezes made it impossible to cross the river in a boat, the old man was accustomed to carry the mail on his back, making his way by jumping from one ice floe to another.
— from the Hood River (OR) Glacier of September 9, 1915, page 1, column 5
