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SMNTY Classics: Hariette Shelton Dover · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Sanny and Samantha, all of them stuff,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I never told you, a producted by Heart video. And
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: as we're getting to the end of the year, we're
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: bringing back some of our hits, our favorites, and both
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Samantha and I have chosen some favorites to replay for
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the year, including Female First. We both chose a female First,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: and I chose Harriet Shelton because I really love the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: story of preserving language. That's something we've been talking about
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: a lot, and it's just something that as someone who
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: is interested in different languages that I really enjoyed that story.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: You know. The unfortunate kind of thing is sometimes you
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: can't replay an episode that just happens, so you go
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: back a little bit further because there have been some
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: some recent episodes that I also love, but I'm like
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: that just came out.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: So but I do.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Love this one and hopefully you listeners love it too,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: So please enjoy this classic episode.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Hey, this is.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Annie and Samantha and all coome stuff.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I never told you pro Actually I heart rate you,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: and it is time for another edition of Female First,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: which means we are once again joined by the resilience
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: the definitely not.
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: Probably not a zombie thieves, welcome, thank you.
• 1:45
  Speaker 5: I do not wish to be a zombie, so.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: I do not wish.
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: I just want everybody to know that I don't want
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: that for myself.
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: That's a fair caveat.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: We should probably explain you have been a feeling ill.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: Feel a little bit right, Yes, yes, And.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: We were discussing before and there are just some things
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: that my horror movie Braid was like, this sounds a little.
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: Like, yes, And I was trying to reassure Annie that
• 2:19
  Speaker 5: I'm not a zombie. I'm not like infected by any spores,
• 2:24
  Speaker 5: because I know that I got whatever illness that I
• 2:27
  Speaker 5: had from the cleaning I was doing in the dust
• 2:30
  Speaker 5: that was kicked up from that cleaning, and.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: My body was trying to expel it.
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: I was pretty sick, had a fever, all kinds of
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: symptoms for a week, and it really took me out.
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: But like I'm here now, I feel fully alive. I
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: feel like I'm not going to try to like eat anybody.
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: You know, I'm not going to anybody. I don't have
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: any of those feelings right now. I don't feel inherently changed,
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: you know, I feel like I feel like I would
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: say that if I was a songbie. But at the
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: same time, i'm I'm I'm all here, So I think
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: we're okay thus.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Far you're all here. I will say, maybe you're just
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: allergic to cleaning just say it.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, that sounds like such a like you're trying
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: to get somebody to clean and they're like, oh, I'm allergic.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: I can't do that.
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: But you know, there are so many different allergies, many
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: of them surprising and like necessary to like things people
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: are allergic to that seem like they would be necessary
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: to functioning in.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Life, and I like it probably exists.
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: Like I don't want to say that that doesn't exist,
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: because I know for my thing I was, I was
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: quote unquote allergic to exercise. That's like why I would
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: start itching when I would have exercise induced art to carria.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, so I don't know.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: That's true though, right, because some people get the I mean,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: there's asthma. But I'll so like sweat and itch and
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: stuff like that.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I did that one time. My face blew up.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: My roommate got real scared. She's like, I gotta, I
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: gotta get you some bena drill. I was like, yeah,
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: you gotta give you some benadrill.
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: Bennadrill.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: I once had a very very severe h allergic reaction,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and through a comedy of errors that could have gone
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: really terribly, I couldn't get to a doctor. And uh,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I just took some benadrill and I was like, hopefully
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: this doesn't and it did. So now benadril is a
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: thing that I always carry with.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: It does help.
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: It does help, Okay, our good reminders of how fragile we.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Are as humans.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like, hey, can't handle a little pollen, Just
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: a reminder it's everywhere.
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: No, it's like completely necessary to the sustenance of life.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: But can it kill you?
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's right, that's the fun and misery of it all. Well,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: have you been up to anything other than being sick?
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Eve since we last spoke?
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: Oh, since we last spoke, I believe so. I'm really
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: trying to remember it because we're in May now. I
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: think after the last time we spoke, that was after
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: I went to Guatemala, I think I have been I've
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: been kind of chill since then. I have really been
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: about staying in place and I like have been just
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: like with my head down working so I don't really
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: think there are many updates since the last time we spoke.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, I feel like you could have a hole where
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: in the world is ease, Like I never know what
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: you're gonna say when we asked this, So it's great.
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I needed to stay. I need to keep
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: my feet on solid ground for a second, and I
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: still do. And I have some travel coming up, and
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: I'm like, like, this week, next week, a lot of travel.
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: I just I signed myself up for more tras. I
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: just got where today. There is a lottery for seeing
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: synchronized fireflies in the Great Smoking Mouns, and I got
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: got into the lottery, so I finally get to see
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: them after wanting to see them at a different National
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: park for a minute. That I always forget the lottery
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: for every year, and I'm like, dang it, I always
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: miss it, and I missed it again this year after
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: setting a reminder. But then I was like, I could
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: just do it in a smoking mountains. I realized that,
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: So yeah, but like I keep this This month is
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: very like jam packed of like family obligations and graduation
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: things like that. So I've been really feeling like I
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: need to stay here and when I do go away,
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: it's got to be for a little bit of a time,
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: a little bit of time, because I'm about to like
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: be gone for a little bit in June.
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: Well, congratulations, that's awesome.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: I'm jealous.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: I forgot about that because I had a really good
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: friend who was a hiking enthusiast and love to do
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: camping and hikes, and they're like, we have to come back.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: You will love. This is magical.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: Yes, it's gonna I can't wait to hear about it. Yeah,
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: it's gonna be like a Miyazaki movie. Is kind of
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: what I'm imagining. I don't know, but yeah, I'm I'm
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: excited that I finally remembered because I was always I
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: would try to sign up for the one in Congrey
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: in South Carolina. That's the national park in South Carolina,
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: and they have it there as well, but it was
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: just before the one in the Great Smoking Mountains and
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: I was right on time and remembering, Uh so I
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: got to sign up for the lottery.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately got in. So yeah, I'm so cool.
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: And also, if anybody else listening knows about any sort
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: of like specific natural phenomenon that only happens ever, so
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: often in like whatever landscape terrain where you are. Please
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: let me know because I'm trying to find more things
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: like this and it's kind of hard to google. I
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: tried to google it, but the Internet has no idea
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: what my request is.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: So I was gonna say, I guess some like videos
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: from my fyp or TikTok and such, but it's always
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: like a week after it. I was like, well, damn, yeah,
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: that happened.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, Unfortunately, what happens to me, it's like you're not
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: working algorithm.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: Right, like this, this is not the way this works.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Right. You have bought us quite a wide ranging story today.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: So who are we talking about today, Eves?
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: Today we're talking about Harriet Shelton Dover, And I actually
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: this was born from travel because I was looking for
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: people in Washington and the n the Seattle area, and
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: I also wanted to talk about more Indigenous people in
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: these female first episodes, so like it really worked out well,
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: but this actually was born of travel. So yeah, we're
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: talking about Harriet Shelton Dover today. And she was the
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: first woman chair of the Tulalip Tribes Board of Directors
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: and also in Harriet's autobiography, she also says that she
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: thinks that what she wrote was the first history of
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: te Lalap written by a t Lalup Indian, So that
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: is another first that she said that she had.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: And I said.
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: Indian because she preferred to use the terms Indian and
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: American Indian throughout the episode. Whenever that comes up, I'll
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: probably say Native American or Indigenous people or something like that.
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: But Harriet herself did prefer to use those terms.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: And she she did all kinds of stuff. She really
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: really I was reading, like whoa, and so now we're
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: over here. Now we're over here, so let's get into it, Eves.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Can I start with the history?
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So Harriet was born on November nineteenth, nineteen oh
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: four to William Shelton and Rusie Home. They were from
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: different tribes, but Harriet herself was born on the Tulalp
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: Reservation at Mission Beach in Tulaylip Bay, and that's near Marysville, Washington.
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: So the Tulalip Tribes are a confederation that includes Snowhomish, Skycomish,
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: snowqaal Mee, and many other tribes that were successors to
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: the ones that signed the Treaty of Point Elliott. In
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: eighteen fifty five, so her dad was also the last
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: hereditary Snawhomish tribal chief in Tulayalip. He worked at the
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: local mill and as a general mechanic, but he was
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: also just a very important person and did lots of
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: community work. Harriet was the youngest of six children, and
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: she said that her home as a child was a
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: three roomhouse that her father called a cottage, and it
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: was on the old Tulaylop Mission school grounds, So her
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: father had a history going to the mission school, but
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: once once Harriet was in the picture, the school was
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: no longer in existence. Harriet mostly spoke the Snahomish dialect
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: of the Coast Salish language. In her younger years, as
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: a child, she would collect firewood, pick berry. She learned
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: to do things that her family taught her how to
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: do that were traditional, like she learned to smoke salmon,
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: and she.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Was baptized as a Catholic.
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: But Native Americans couldn't go to public schools and her
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: dad didn't want her to go to the mission school,
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: so Harriet ended up going to the reservation's government run
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: to Leilap boarding school when she was seven years old,
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: and there is a lot that's said about her experiences
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: at the boarding school.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: She talks about it in her autobiography.
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: It was standard that like all the students were assigned
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: in ID number Harriet's was thirty three.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: They wore uniforms.
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: They started the day with the roll call and exercise
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: and ended at nine pm sharp. They would have like
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: inspections on Saturdays. They couldn't speak their native languages at
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: the boarding school. And I was watching there is a
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: short documentary about Harriet, and there's a clip in there
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: of her of an interview with Harriet, and she was
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: talking about an experience that she had when she was
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: nine years old and a friend and her were speaking
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: in her native language and they got in trouble for it.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: So they were like whispering to each other.
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: They were overheard and she was beaten from her neck
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: to her ankles, So the back of her neck to
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: her ankles is how they describe it.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: So she was hit pretty hard.
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: It was described that like in her tribal culture, it
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: wasn't the case that the kids were like punished in ways.
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: There wasn't There wasn't really physical punishment. There were no
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: beings as part of punishment. And raising a child and
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: disciplining them. But it was in her school, and she
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: seems to have been very affected by that beating, like
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: she says she remembers it to that day and said
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: that she was really hurt by it to that day.
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: So it definitely affected her. But I would imagine more
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: so because it was because she was speaking her language,
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: and the way she described it was like I loved
• 13:22
  Speaker 5: the language it was, it sounded great. I wanted to
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: speak it with her at that time, and it was
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: for that simple fact that they were beat for it.
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: But in February of nineteen seventeen, Harriet's sister Ruth was
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: sent home because she was sick. Harriet soon also got
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: sick and was sent home. Ruth unfortunately died of tuberculosis
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: in May. Harriet got better, but she ended up kind
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: of lagging on her education. She finished at the boarding
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: school in nineteen twenty two. When she got out of
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: the boarding school, she says in her autobiography, she was
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: like she swore she was never going back to church
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: again because she had been in church all the time
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: and was praying all the time. Her mother was pretty devout,
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: and she was disappointed because you know, her mother was
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: in church every Sunday, and Harriet was like, I'm not
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: doing that again. But Harriet did say that there was
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: a lot of pressure on the Native Americans from the Christians.
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: This is a quote from her autobiography. Harriet said, those poor,
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: misguided people, they were bound and determined to save all
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: of our miserable souls. If people have heard anything about
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: this time period and about how Native Americans were treated
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: by white folks and by Christians, it was a lot
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: of talk and action of trying to civilize people in
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: Native American tribes, trying to get them to assimilate, punishing
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: them for taking part in their traditional culture, in their religions,
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: in their language, in the clothing that they were wearing,
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: in actions that they were taking, like what they did
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: as far as lifestyle, making them farmers, things like that.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of.
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: Doing their best to in harmful ways, separate them from
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: all aspects of their traditional identities. So that was part
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: of that, and Harriet briefly talked about that from a
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: religious perspective in her autobiography. But Harriet did end up
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: graduating from Everett High School in nineteen twenty six, and
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: she said that high school was a better experience than
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: boarding school was. She didn't care for the boarding school
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: experience that much, but it was definitely formative, a formative
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: time for her. So Harriet had dreams of going to college,
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: but she didn't end up going to college at this time. Okay,
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: that's a little bit of foreshadowing. So she was involved
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: in her community though, as we said earlier, her father
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: was also very involved in the community. By nineteen twenty three,
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: her brother Robert was working with the Tulalup Improvement Club
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: and he was preparing claims and complaints against the government
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: about fraudulent sales of native land. There are lots of
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: fishing rights and lack of medical care. And Harriet would
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: type up the testimonies of elderly natives and she recorded
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: meeting minutes. So she was already working as this kind
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: of tu Laylup historian, gathering stories, documenting people's stories. In
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: nineteen twenty six, she met Francis aka Frank Williams at
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: a dance event in Seattle. Now Harriet's mom was a
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: little concerned that Harriet didn't know him well enough, but
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: the two of them, Frank and Harriet's still got married
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: in July of nineteen twenty six. Only Francis's cousin was
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: a witness.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: For their marriage.
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: Harriet's parents were not there, but they still moved into
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: an apartment together, and later in nineteen twenty eight, they
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: had a son together named Wayne Williams. But it didn't
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: seem like she had the best experience in their marriage.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: She was.
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: Described as being lonely, homesick. Sometimes Frank would send money
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: to his mother, but it didn't seem.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Like Harriet was always so supported.
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: He had a temper apparently didn't always trust her while
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: he was away working. But their marriage was strained, is
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: what it came down to. They didn't end up divorcing
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: at this time, but they did divorce many years later.
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: When Harriet's brother died in nineteen thirty, suddenly the Snahomus
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: tribe voted Harriet in to replace him as secretary. Eventually
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: the org became the Northwest Federation of American Indians. Then
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: it was the Tulaela Tribal Council, and that council focused
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: on bettering Native environments and welfare, and at that point
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: it had five members, but then it evolved to become
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: the Board of Directors and it had seven members. But yeah,
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: so Frank before they ended up getting divorce, Frank had
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: gotten a job with the Washington State Ferry System, but
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: then he ended up getting laid off. Technology was changing,
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: the old steamships were being phased out, and Harriet ended
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: up moving back in with her parents. So all the while,
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: Harriet is working different jobs, and eventually she was elected
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: to serve on the Tulalup Tribe's Board of directors. So
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: she served on the board from nineteen thirty eight to
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: nineteen forty two, then nineteen forty four to nineteen forty six,
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: and later nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty one. But yeah,
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: so Harriet's also working. She's working different jobs over the
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: course of this year. So she was at a job
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: at a restaurant in Seattle that was called Twin Tpe's,
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: which had a lot of like cheesy Native American themed decor.
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: In September of nineteen forty two to around nineteen forty five,
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: she was working a job at the Boeing plant in Seattle.
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: But she also served as the chair on the board
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: of directors for a year in about nineteen forty five
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: or nineteen forty six, and This is her first and
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: made her the first Native American woman.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: To be in that position.
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: She was also working at a post office on the reservation.
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: By nineteen forty nine, she was and this is where
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: she met a man named George Dover because he would
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: come by to pick up mail for his family members.
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: And once again Harriet's family members didn't really approve of George,
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: but she still married him in nineteen fifty They had
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: a son named William Dover and they stayed married until
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: George's death in nineteen sixty nine. So she Harriet did
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: a lot. So she also served as a tribal judge.
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: Nineteen fifty one, she served on the Marysville School Board.
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: She was also a teacher's aide and electoral Native American
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: culture so she would go to different classrooms and talk
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: about her culture and bring some of her artifacts along
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: with her. She was the first PTA president at Tulela
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: Elementary School after it opened thanks to her donating some
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: of her own land. She was also a member of
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: the Seattle Historical Society and she gave testimony for United
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: States Versus Washington Phase one in nineteen seventy three, which
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: was a salmon fishing rights case, and so one notable,
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: I mean a lot of stuff is notable about her legacy,
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: but one really big thing that she did was the
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: salmon ceremony that they held in their tribe was outlawed,
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: but Harriet was involved in bringing back the tradition. So
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: in nineteen seventy, Harriet and a group of other people
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: gathered to talk about the salmon ceremony and bringing it back.
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: They met for several weeks, so Harriet herself hadn't been
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: at it and put on a salmon ceremony before, but
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: as the group of people, they were collectively gathering information
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: that they had, so what they remembered growing up, what
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: they knew of and heard of their family doing, they
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: would get together and talk about it. They ended up
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: finalizing the run of ceremony based on what they could
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: remember their families would do. And then Harriet went to
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: a board of directors meeting and the board said that
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: they would appropriate some money for the ceremony. Said it
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: was basically like she was like, Okay, it's official, now
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: this must happen. Harriet and the other planners determined that
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: they would hold the ceremony in June when it was
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: high tide and they did, so she was instrumental in
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: bringing the salmon ceremony back. In her autobiography, it was
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: mentioned that Harriet didn't really want to include her role
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: in bringing the salmon ceremony back, and that was because
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: she didn't want to sound like she was.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Gloating about it.
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: It seemed like she was pretty she was pretty reserved
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: about certain things, or like to be modest about certain things.
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: Because it's also mentioned in her autobiography that like she
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: preferred to speak in the passive voice rather than the
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: active voice. So in general, her speaking her own tribal
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: language was a big part of how she saw the world.
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: She cared about it a lot, and it was instrumental
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: at understanding how she interacted with people and communicate it
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: with people. So like, uh, the the way that she
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: would prefer to speak was in passive voice because active
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: voice felt a little bit too to direct for her,
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: and that was something that was taken into consideration as
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: they were figuring out how to put the autobiography together.
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: But anyway, we'll come back to the autobiography in just
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: a moment. But in nineteen seventy six, Harriett ended up
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: going to Everett Community college, and at first she was like,
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: it's been a long time since I've been in school,
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: It's been like fifty years, Like I can go back
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: to college. Do I want to go back to college?
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: But she did end up going back for a few reasons.
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: At this point, tribal members could enroll at the local
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: community college and be funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: The federal government could no longer keep tribal members from
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: getting an education at these colleges due to change in
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: the relocation determination programs, and Harriet wanted to be a
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: role modeled to young folks in this regard. And she
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: also wanted more education so that she would be able
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: to write a history of the Tlala reservation. So she
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: majored in anthropology and history, and she took classes with
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: Darlene Fitzpatrick. They ended up developing a French and Darlene
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: helped Harriet in the recording, editing, organizing the narratives for
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: her life for the autobiography.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: So Darlene also is.
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: Talks about Harriet in the autobiography if you read it.
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: But yeah, Harriet graduated with her associate's degree in nineteen
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: seventy eight and she was on the council for about
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: fourteen years. Over the years, she also worked as a
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: domestic servant for families. She would also speak with people
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: on other reservations about how their lives were and how
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: they were changed after the treaties were signed. She collected
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: materials about t Laylap history and she did research and
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: she began working on the manuscript for the book around
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: nineteen eighty one, and they were taping her narratives for
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: a a couple of years. And in her later life,
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: Harriet spent time teaching other people her language, Lashutsi, and
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: she dedicated a lot of her time to going out
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: in the community and making sure that her language and
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: cultural history were preserved. She did end up getting breast
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: cancer and she died when she was eighty six years
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: old in February of nineteen ninety one. So many of
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: the Shelton family's artifacts are at the Heba Cultural Center,
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: and Harriet's life is documented in the book To Lay
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: Up from My Heart, an autobiographical account of a reservation community. Yeah,
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: it's work. It's a book that was published after she
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: passed away, but it was also in her own words
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: because she was able to document that and record it
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: before she passed away, so it seems to be like
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: it's a real treasure. As I said at the beginning
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: of the episode, she said that it was, you know,
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: the only one written by like the other accounts of
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: t Laylap were written by white people basically, so she
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: said that it was the first history of t Lalup
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: written by a t lalem Indian. So definitely worth reading
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: and an amazing thing to have because it's like clear
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: how much love and thoughtfulness was put into the autobiography,
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: even down to the way that they like the syntax
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: of it, in the way that they structured sentences, because
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: she liked to speak in longer sentences and really disliked
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: short sentences, and so because of that reason, they wrote
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: the more longer sentences in the book. And also they
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: were really thoughtful about how they were presenting the timeline,
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: so she didn't really want to do it completely chronologically,
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: even though there was a little bit of pushback from
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: the publisher in that way, they really felt it was
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: necessary to be because of the way time is interwoven,
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: in the way that they think about time, necessary to
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: not go one hundred in a linear chronological fashion, but
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: instead documented how Harriet would have documented it, which is saying, well,
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: this is this is a topic, this is something that
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: happened at one moment in time, but this is the
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: history of it, or this is what it links back
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: to in my history and in our history. And that's
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: evident through the way that they like they organized the autobiography. So, yes,
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: Harriet had a history, and it is documented in the
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: autobiography and the documentary that you can find online about her.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: I love that the autobiography exists because having that in
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: her own words. We've talked about that so many times
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: about how valuable that is. But I'm also a huge
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: language nerd, so I love how I love thinking about
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, about how you're the language shapes
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: the way you think.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: And that's not to say you can.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: You can think outside of that, but it is really
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: interesting how it shapes your thoughts. And so I'm really
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: glad that she was a force. And we're gonna make
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: sure this language and this traditions and these cultures and
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: all of that all right, which were erased in like
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: this are attempted to be erased in this horrible way,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Like We're going to make sure that they're preserved. I'm
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: going to do everything I can to make sure that
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: they're preserved. So I'm just grateful that it's one of
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: those things, just like I hate that she had to
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: do it, but I'm grateful that she was there to
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: do it.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: It's interesting because we've talked about the extinct languages, especially
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: when it comes to native native languages and how they
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: have been forcefully erased and being taken out altogether, like
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: just forgotten. And I love that she had the foresight
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: because honestly, it took a lot of other people a
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: lot longer to realize what was happening. Eshe she understood
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: pretty quickly what was going down and what the white
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: people were doing. They're like, yeah, they're trying to erase
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: us initially, and just talking about how important it was
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: to preserve that. Also, she is an obvious writer. She's like, no,
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: this can't be this can't be chronological order. We mean,
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: we need we need to change this up. Has to
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: be different. I'm like, oh, oh, so you're not just
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: the teacher his Dorian, You're a storyteller so much among
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: the like native peoples and understanding this is how it goes.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: And I'm gonna I'm gonna I want to write it
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: this way. Also, I'm a big fan of long sentences, as.
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: You can tell, I have too.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. Yeah.
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: And she also talks about in her autobiography how like
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: she learned things because they were passed down orally, and
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: that's also how she was like transmitting her story. And yeah,
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: I think it's also just really inspirational to see people
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: who are committed to preserving history, because that's not everybody
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: that like thinks about in real time what something's value
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: is in the long term. You have to have like
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: a really long long view on things to think about that.
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: So it's like, Okay, I have this belt, and I
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: saved it because I know that it's going to be
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: important to the preservation of our my tribes, my community's
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: cultural history, and that should be saved for other people
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: in the future to enjoy and also for them to
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: be able to learn about their own history, because that's
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: because it's important. It's so easy to just go on
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: about your life, you know, have it be wrote and
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: not in real time understand the weight of artifacts and
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: the weight of how things are changing. Because I imagine
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: over the course of her life she saw a lot
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: of change. She experienced a lot of change, and she
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: also heard about a lot of change from her elders
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: and from her grandparents. She said in her books she
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: was like, yeah, my parents loved me, but like I
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: had like three grandmothers who lived in the area like
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: close to me, and they just really.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Loved on me, is what she said.
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: So you know, she had a lot of She had
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: a lot of clearly respect and reverence for preserving cultural history.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: And it's so.
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: It's so important to have people who come to that
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: calling because if it weren't for.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Them, then this wouldn't exist in the first place.
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: And I imagine she inspired many other people to do
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: similar kind of preservation and historical work angle and continue
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: the quest for education and knowledge no matter how old
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: you are in life. Was clearly, you know, part of
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: a way that she she inspired people. So yeah, I
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: think it's really that's a nice part of her legacy
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: to reflect.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: On, right, No, that's just such amazing, Like we just
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: celebrated Mother's Day, and that's kind of that tale of
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: like showing love shows it comes out differently, and sharing
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: your heritage and being proud of your heritage and your
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: background and wanting to make sure that it's preserved through
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: your children and that your children can learn that love
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: as well as a way like that's so beautiful.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, touching. Yeah, it really is.
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: It takes work, it takes dedication. This is not the
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: same level.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: But I remember when the pandemic first happened, I was like,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I'm going to document all of this. I'm going to
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: do everything, and like two weeks later, I was like,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: so much.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Got on the field.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: I'll tell them about the field.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: But it is what it is like it takes like
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: not only the foresight and the like caring, but it
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: is work that it is work and dedication. So I'm
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: glad that she was there to do it and that
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: we could have this conversation today. Jeeves as always who
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: we love talking to you and learning these stories.
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much. Is always for being here. Can
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: the good listeners find you?
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: Y'all can find me at my website first and foremost.
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: You can get to everything from there pretty much, and
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: that is Eve's Jeffcoat dot com. That's spelled y v
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: E S J E F F C A T dot com.
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: You can sign up for my newsletter there. You can
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: get to my Instagram. From there, you can get to
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: my YouTube. From there all of that, but you can
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: also go directly to me on Instagram. I'm at not apologizing.
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: You can also go to many other episodes of female
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: First here on stuff Mom Never Told You about plenty
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: of other people in history with fascinating stories about the
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: things that they accomplished and how they were pioneers.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, please, listeners go check out all that stuff
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: if you haven't already. Eves can't wait to check back
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: in to see what's up next time we talk to you.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Me too.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: But in the meantime, listeners that you can come contact
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: us if you would like. You can email us at
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Hello at stuffnevertold you dot com. You can find us
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: on Blue Sky a Mom Stuff podcast or Instagram and
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: TikTok and stuff We Never Told You brous on YouTube.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: We have a tea public store, and we have a
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: as always to our super producer Christina or executive Dus
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: and my and your contribute Joey.
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: Thank you and thanks to you for listening Stuff Never
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: Jold Just pushed by Heart Radio.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can check
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: out the heart radio app, Apple podcast, wherever you listen
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.