Page 1 of 14 
 
Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Maggie Daniels Barr 
1980 
Cassette 1, Side 1 
 
 
Winona Weber  00:01 
Yes. Oh, really? 
 
Maggie Barr  00:03 
Yeah. If they catch me up, I lose her. And there's nobody here with the boys-- 
 
Winona Weber  00:09 
--to take care of you. 
 
Maggie Barr  00:11 
To cook for me mostly-. I can go-- I-- just like when there's somebody in the toilet, then, just like 
Clarence, if they're bathing last night. Oh, and I had to go somewhere, and I got a pot handy, so I 
had to use it. Then, when there's company here, a lot of times, lots of company, you know, 
people come to see. 
 
Winona Weber  00:35 
Oh, yeah.  
 
Maggie Barr  00:36 
And they go in, and bathe, and everything, my grandchildren. So that I can't get in there. So I got 
wise, and I brought my pot in, and I got two of them. I own two. I let my granddaughter-- maybe 
you know her. You know, I'm sure-- what was her name, not Donna. It's surely, surely Pearl's 
sister. Maybe it is Donna. And she's really sickly. She just can't hold her when she wants to go 
toilet. It just runs down.  
 
Winona Weber  01:18 
She wants to go now. 
 
Maggie Barr  01:19 
That's what's wrong. So I let her use one just because. 
 
Winona Weber  01:25 
Oh, well that's good. 
Page 2 of 14 
 
 
Maggie Barr  01:27 
Because I don't need two. 
 
Winona Weber  01:30 
One bedroom, two baths. Seems pretty good. 
 
Maggie Barr  01:32 
Yeah, well, you see my granddaughter here? 
 
Winona Weber  01:34 
Yeah, I met-- I met a couple that's on Longview. 
 
Maggie Barr  01:37 
Oh, well, one is Yvonne. She's dark and she's beautiful.  
 
Winona Weber  01:40 
Yeah.  
 
Maggie Barr  01:42 
And she bought one for me. Paid 25 dollars for it. So then, my daughter, Mary, she lives in 
Tacoma. She's married to a white man. Even the boys. Even the boys, Jimmy's a good cook. 
 
Winona Weber  02:01 
Let's just get my [?milk?] straight here. Would you like to lie back down or anything? 
 
Maggie Barr  02:14 
Yeah, maybe I should. No, I guess it's alright. 
 
Winona Weber  02:17 
Alright. Well, you let me know. 
 
Maggie Barr  02:21 
Main thing, gotta keep my feet and knees warm, but they're warm,  
 
Winona Weber  02:25 
Keep your feet warm. Kind of hanging out there. 
 
Maggie Barr  02:26 
Yeah, well, I'll move my feet. 
 
Winona Weber  02:32 
Okay, let's see your mother's name was Eliza.  
 
Maggie Barr  02:39 
Eliza Ross. 
Page 3 of 14 
 
 
Winona Weber  02:43 
She-- let's see, when you were a very little girl. Gee, was just after the treaties were signed, pre-
1900. Was your-- got to find this. When you were little, what is one of your earliest memories of 
your mother? Can you think of any? Usually, everybody has one little happy memory of when 
they were little.  
 
Maggie Barr  03:29 
I had so many happy memories, I don't know. See, I was the only girl left.  
 
Winona Weber  03:36 
Oh, I see. 
 
Maggie Barr  03:38 
So I don't know really, all I know is I could remember how she looks, even today. 
 
Winona Weber  03:49 
Oh, yeah. What did she look like?  
 
Maggie Barr  03:53 
She was beautiful. Light complexioned-- do you see Ethel? 
 
Winona Weber  03:57 
Yeah? 
 
Maggie Barr  03:58 
She looked like Ethel. She was beautiful. She had light complexion because she was a breed, 
see?  
 
Winona Weber  04:07 
Yeah, she was a half. 
 
Maggie Barr  04:08 
Her father was a half, half-breed. Ross. She was light complexioned and she was beautiful. 
That's all I can remember. She was short, though, but she was crippled.  
 
Winona Weber  04:25 
Oh, really? 
 
Maggie Barr  04:26 
She was hurt when she was little, and she limped, and she'd walk. She made all her own clothes, 
cook for us, and made biscuits that would melt in your mouth. Indian biscuits, I call, you know, 
made out of bacon fat. She never baked white man's bread.  
 
Winona Weber  04:47 
Oh yeah? 
Page 4 of 14 
 
 
Maggie Barr  04:48 
She never baked, but-- and now, now for cake, she just put a little sugar in the flour. 
 
Winona Weber  04:57 
Yeah, make it a little sweeter.  
 
Maggie Barr  05:00 
And that was our cake. 
 
Winona Weber  05:00 
Yeah, that sounds pretty good.  
 
Winona Weber  05:02 
Hi, where have I seen you before? 
 
Maggie Barr  05:04 
This Ethel.  
 
Ethel Mae Courville  05:12 
I met you-- no, I saw you. We were at that meeting in the University District.  
 
Winona Weber  05:22 
Which one is that? 
 
Maggie Barr  05:24 
There's so many. And then you just put the sugar in there, you know. The way I made my 
fruitcake. And I just put everything you'd put in a fruit cake in that one egg recipe.  
 
Winona Weber  05:47 
Yeah, a regular cake recipe.  
 
Maggie Barr  05:49 
Yeah, just-- and then you-- the way you make it brown is you put chocolate. A tablespoon or 
more, how dark you want it. That's my fruitcake.  
 
Winona Weber  06:01 
Sounds good to me.  
 
Maggie Barr  06:03 
I used to be able to cook, but now I just hate cooking. I always hated it, but I had, I had so many 
children I had to cook for, I had to eat. 
 
Winona Weber  06:11 
You had to, you didn't have much choice. 
 
Page 5 of 14 
 
Maggie Barr  06:14 
And then on top of it, we had our own farm here. And like I say, my first husband was a farmer. 
We had our own beige chickens. The way I raised my chickens, I took a setting hen, and I-- they 
used to sell them little chicks. I don't know if they do now or not. They used to sell little chicks, 
you know little ones? And then I'd get 15 of them, and I'd put it under that setting hen and take 
her old eggs away and put it under the setting hen. She'd raise the 15 chicks. That's why I raised 
my chickens. And then I, anytime I'd see my company coming, oh, I used to have a lot of 
company.  
 
Winona Weber  07:01 
Oh, yeah.   
 
Maggie Barr  07:03 
And I never went anyplace, and I'd go see how many was coming. And I'd run them the chicken 
house and grab my fryers and chop their heads off. And I never took the feathers off, you 
understand? By pulling them? I took and I just cut up and just-- 
 
Winona Weber  07:23 
Skinned them? [Inaudible] good to me [laughs]. 
 
Maggie Barr  07:29 
When you got lots to do, you can't pick at chickens, you know?  
 
Maggie Barr  07:34 
I used to raise my own pickles and sell them. I'd make my bread and butter. Oh, I love bread and 
butter pickles. I take Ethel's, who's got lot of jar from somebody, they make them up here. You 
know where the old picnic ground was? There's a store there. You're going up the line, there's 
usually a store there, I don't know what it is now, but then you go right back, [inaudible] store 
there. [Inaudible]. It can but, you know, I think it's still in it. [Inaudible], but they made the bread 
and butter pickles, and Ethel bought them. Bought a jar, still in there, yet not opened. I told her 
how I loved them bread and butter pickles. 
 
Winona Weber  07:35 
You picked a [inaudible] shortcut. 
 
Maggie Barr  07:35 
Oh I tell you, I had a lot of shortcuts.  
 
Winona Weber  07:43 
Oh, I'll bet.  
 
Winona Weber  07:51 
Oh, they are good. 
 
Maggie Barr  08:48 
Page 6 of 14 
 
And I tried making-- I never could make a dill pickle. They'd spoil on me everytime, I don't 
know what I did to them. Dill pickles, but I can make bread and butter and sweet pickles. I used 
to [?raise?] a lot of my own stuff all the time. Chickens, even had geese and they chased my kids. 
They were real mean. 
 
Winona Weber  09:18 
[Laughs] Mean geese. 
 
Maggie Barr  09:19 
Yeah. I had two of them. I had a full life. [Inaudible.] You know, we're just in it together. [?Life 
with?] the older lady-- one old lady used to be, the one that says in-law, used to live down here? 
And marriage like that, she'd say, Oh, there's somebody--Oh, one old lady. She lived up by the 
church, and she married a guy, old man. He was from Quinault or that [?way?]. She married him. 
She was really old, and this old lady, she's old too. She was married to a man, he was nice, 
[inaudible]. And when that old lady married that guy, she says, Oh, I wonder what that old lady 
wanted to get married for? Very old man. She's old. I wonder what for, she says, Oh, she says, I 
guess they're just partners. [Laughs] Isn't that something. She was a funny old lady [inaudible]. 
Oh, you get tape on?  
 
Winona Weber  10:39 
Yeah.  
 
Maggie Barr  10:39 
Oh, and I'm talking.  
 
Winona Weber  10:41 
Oh, that's okay. I don't think you've said anything damaging to anybody. 
 
Maggie Barr  10:45 
Oh, I might damage something. Damage myself. No, I don't care what people think I do. Don't 
bother me one bit. I live my life the way I want to live. They don't like it. They don't have to 
come. Because I lived with that last guy who died. About two years together. He's got quite a 
few children living. There's one living over there, in [inaudible], Clara Hall. That's one of his 
daughters. They're all down there. It needs-- it-- now, [inaudible]. Something like that. Edna 
[?Yukton?]-- 
 
Winona Weber  11:43 
I know who you're talking about. 
 
Maggie Barr  11:44 
She's down there. She's kind of [?pleasure?].  
 
Winona Weber  11:46 
Yeah, they're all down there.  
 
Maggie Barr  11:47 
Page 7 of 14 
 
And Clara was down there. And Laura Lee, she's married to [Gunner?] And Irene was here the 
other day. She's been my friend for life since I've known her. Irene, his oldest daughter.  
 
Winona Weber  12:07 
Oh, I see. 
 
Maggie Barr  12:08 
She's married to white man. And they bought a place-- they got a place over there. Can't think 
around-- [Roy?] that way, someplace. They got a place out that way. There's another-- there's 
another town there. It's got four letters, but-- 
 
Winona Weber  12:28 
Yelm? 
 
Maggie Barr  12:29 
Yelm, yeah she lives-- After you go through Yelm you're going towards, towards, Centralia, 
Chehalis. And as a road turns to the kind of [?catacombs?], and then you go right straight back 
there. And she built a new house since I seen her. Big house. But they, they still got it, and they 
still-- I guess the boys must have grown up to run it. Yeah, we had about three boys, and then 
they bought this place in Yakima, and they're farming it, and they got cows there. But do you 
know what they're gonna do with their cows? See, it snows over there in Yelm, so they're 
moving them back over here to the old ranch. Ain't that something? 
 
Winona Weber  13:17 
Yeah, really. 
 
Maggie Barr  13:18 
She's quite a character, I really like [inaudible]. They've got a beautiful [?life?]. She's beautiful. 
She's wonderful. She was just here the other day to see me. Stopped in a minute, maybe going 
home, going to her old place. She was trying to tell me where they lived out that way. Yeah? So 
out-- I used to have a place in Harrah, out of Harrah-- Brownstown. I owned 20 acres there, but 
I-- money mad, you know, I went and sold it and I shouldn't have sold it ut. 300 a year for the 
rent. I thought that would be so easy. I got 19,000 on it. Beautiful land, was really rich. So up on 
a hill, yeah. Two little shacks a year ago. That way you might see it. Two little shacks. And they 
said the two little shacks' still there. 
 
Winona Weber  14:19 
Oh, really [laughs]?  
 
Maggie Barr  14:21 
Somebody give us-- somebody give us the little, you know, house, and we lived in that, and our 
table was outside, and our stove was outside.  
 
Winona Weber  14:37 
Your stove was outside? 
 
Page 8 of 14 
 
Maggie Barr  14:37 
Yeah, because it's warm over there, you know. And then somebody else felt sorry for my boys, 
and they gave me another little, another little house. So we kept it [inaudible], but I sold it.  
 
Winona Weber  14:57 
 Where was that?  
 
Maggie Barr  14:59 
You know, out of Brownstown? You know where Brownstown is over there? 
 
Winona Weber  15:03 
No. 
 
Maggie Barr  15:04 
Oh, it's pretty near to White Swan.  
 
Winona Weber  15:06 
Oh, I see, yeah, I know about where that is.  
 
Maggie Barr  15:09 
You  go out on West [?Water?] road and go straight south, I guess you'd call it. Then there's a, 
used to be a garage on that side. And then you turn there and you see them, you don't go very far 
down. And you see two little cabins. But I got money mad, and I sold it.  
 
Winona Weber  15:34 
Yeah. 
 
Maggie Barr  15:48 
What else can I tell you? 
 
Winona Weber  15:51 
Talked a little bit about when you were a little girl, maybe. You know. Did your mother-- did 
your mother know the traditional Indian handcrafts like basket weaving, and that type of thing? 
 
Maggie Barr  16:09 
She knew, but she never made them. What did she do? 
 
Maggie Barr  16:23 
She learned to spin. She learned, you know, the old cards, yeah, she carded by hand. Never sent-- 
they never had no place to card wood then-- card wool yeah. So she had old hand carding, she 
card and then she did a whole pile of it, and then she'd spin it. She had overhaul apron, and she'd 
spin it on her leg like this, and she'd pile it all up, just keep her spinning by hand like this. She'd 
pile up then she had--  
 
Winona Weber  16:23 
She knitted? 
Page 9 of 14 
 
 
Winona Weber  17:10 
What are you doing? 
 
Maggie Barr  17:12 
This. 
 
Winona Weber  17:14 
What is that?  
 
Maggie Barr  17:15 
That's a hand spinner.  
 
Winona Weber  17:16 
Oh, really? 
 
Maggie Barr  17:17 
Yeah, and you put a stick in there, you make it to fit that one side. And then one side, you thin it 
down to about that long, yeah. And on this other side, you haven't bought this long, see. And 
then you hang on to this, and then you put this on your lap, see, yeah. And just spin it like that. 
Spin it like that.  
 
Winona Weber  17:39 
Like this? 
 
Maggie Barr  17:40 
And then, yeah. By the-- by the short part, and then the long, the long part is where you put your 
yarn, and then you roll it up on that, on this-- on the good stick here, on the short, on a long stick, 
yeah, and it's pointed. And then you wind your-- that was the old spinning method, spinning 
wheel.  
 
Winona Weber  18:03 
That's the old, old type of spinning wheel.  
 
Winona Weber  18:05 
Was a treadle?  
 
Maggie Barr  18:05 
Yeah, was a treadle. But I never could [?all this woman?], I borrowed it from her, and she'd 
laugh so darn hard. I just go a little ways then would have to turn around and go back [laughs].  
 
Maggie Barr  18:05 
Then they got some more spinning wheels after that, but you just run it like this.  
 
Winona Weber  18:08 
You had a big pile of wool. 
Page 10 of 14 
 
 
Maggie Barr  18:28 
I give it up, so she spun my wool. I couldn't ever [inaudible], but this one was easy. You just put 
it on your leg. Like that. You got your yarn here. See you tie it on first with a string, roll it onto 
the string, and get your wool on the end of the string, and then just go like that. That's the old 
way. You could even do that. And then you-- a guy from Yakima made that for me, but you 
didn't make it right. See this part here, you've got to run it on something and get it down to a 
point, just a little skinny point here. Cut it on each side here, over, you know? On this side. Then 
it'll come to a little point then, this here. And then they just go flying. An Indian from Yakima 
made this for me, but he didn't know how to make it. He had an idea, but he had it that long, and 
I lost that part. Now maybe they made kindling, yeah, but I could have Jimmy make this just, 
you know, for a keepsake. What I used to do, but I was one of them that was kind of ambitious. I 
just like to learn, yeah, but I hate to cook, I hated housekeeping. But I washed [inaudible], all my 
children. Start in the morning, early in the morning, heat my water. We used to have them long-- 
oh, they still got them, yet. Things are oblong, and they-- about that high and it's got a lid on it. 
But I use it for canner now. I can my vegetables and fruit. Now [?Jimmy?], he can hand-- I never 
did learn to make baskets, a little bit too tedious for me. You'd have to start from the bottom. I 
know how it goes, with cedar, cedar limbs? You know the cedar limbs, or the-- when it starts to 
grow? Well, you split that, and you split it. Almost some of it could be that wide, and then some 
as small as this, the small one, and you put around the bottom, and you take the cedar bark, you 
get off from the cedar? You take that, and then you put it on a needle, and then you make a hole 
in that on-- you know, like you put your little-- this would be the middle. It'd be solid here. Then 
you just take, and you take your needle and hook it through the outer edge and pull your-- put 
your other, your other-- what you're going to make the basket out of the other. And you put the 
limbs of cedar, and you just put that on outside. And you take your needle and put it through 
there, and stick, you know, catch the corner of that little cedar. And you go round, and round, 
and round round. That's so easy done. And then some of them, they just put it around that cedar, 
and then they put it through this round one. I know how they make them, but oh, it's too tedious 
for me. You have to have-- you got to have a lot of patience. I've got beautiful baskets, about this 
high and about that wide. They belong to my mother. And then I bought some, and Bernice has 
got them over to her house. See, when I got sick and then we had to move out of here. And they 
fixed this house. They made a regular mansion. You noticed it?  
 
Winona Weber  22:57 
Yeah, it's nice.  
 
Maggie Barr  22:58 
They try and-- some company fixed these houses up. This was the most beautiful house. You got 
a big sun porch out there?  
 
Winona Weber  23:08 
Yeah, I noticed it's really nice out. It's nice and [inaudible] 
 
Maggie Barr  23:12 
Was it Indian boys? The Indian boys helped on it.  
 
Page 11 of 14 
 
Winona Weber  23:17 
Huh. You got yourself a really nice, big room. 
 
Winona Weber  23:17 
Oh, that's good. 
 
Maggie Barr  23:17 
Young ones, they were my nephew's grandchildren, and they helped. They learned to carpenter. 
Yeah, they done beautiful. I was just wondering that they didn't finish Bernice's. People start 
getting jealous and start kicking because she's getting her house fixed up. Ain't that awful. So 
they quit. Now they're not supposed to quit on job that's funded, no matter what anybody said. 
Some of them that had houses, brand new houses, they got an addition, and some of them that-- 
they just same ones keep getting the same, you know, help. But this man come, he was asking 
what we needed in this place here. I said, This house is too small. I says, What we need was an 
addition. I never knew it was going to be this big. 
 
Maggie Barr  23:43 
 18-- 18 feet long.  
 
Winona Weber  23:55 
Pretty wide too.  
 
Maggie Barr  24:29 
And they put a closet there, see?  
 
Winona Weber  24:31 
Yeah, I noticed that.  
 
Maggie Barr  24:33 
And then, of course, I got my own closet back, sitting in the corner. Then they put glass doors 
out here. Those are two glass doors out to the porch.  
 
Winona Weber  24:43 
Oh, I see.  
 
Maggie Barr  24:44 
Yeah, you can go look. There's a light there someplace. You can see the porch. 
 
Winona Weber  24:52 
Yeah, this looks nice. 
 
Maggie Barr  24:54 
See glass doors? Then they got a screen on it so I can open it. And they put, they put the big 
windows here. 
 
Maggie Barr  25:05 
Page 12 of 14 
 
Mm-hmm. I think that they done a wonderful job. I've been going snacking with that guy, and 
they laid him off. He got sick, and then they laid him off. I think that was a shame, because he 
had done the wonderful work here. I guess they had to, because they went broke, you know?  
 
Winona Weber  25:05 
[Inaudible.] 
 
Winona Weber  25:27 
Oh, I see. 
 
Maggie Barr  25:30 
 No, I heard they got more funding again. They didn't finish my daughter's house. I'm gonna 
[?ball?] them out about that. What they started, they should--  
 
Winona Weber  25:44 
-- They should finish. 
 
Maggie Barr  25:46 
But she's all alone there. Five bedroom. No wonder they got jealous. She's sat in a little chalet. 
You know, how [inaudible] is cute. She hadn't built herself up, [?given?] 500 this time I had 
money. I gave his $500 cash out from her house. She'd already put $500 in herself. She was 
working. I don't know what she's doing. I know she's working. She didn't tell you? 
 
Winona Weber  26:27 
She says she's been busy. Different things with the tribe, and that kind of thing. She's kind of 
semi-retired, she said. 
 
Maggie Barr  26:35 
Yeah, she is-- see, she's old aged now. Do you know that?  
 
Winona Weber  26:39 
Yeah, she doesn't look it, but-- 
 
Maggie Barr  26:41 
-- No, none of my children show their age. You see Clarence here? He's 50 some years old.  
 
Winona Weber  26:52 
And he doesn't look that old.  
 
Maggie Barr  26:55 
Well, my children, I raised him like the white people. And I didn't want him to be Indian-ified, 
you know what I mean? I didn't want him to live like the old people. They had a hard time. They 
had to heat their own water, no hot and cold water. And they used to have to go further down to 
the creek to get our water. Packet and bucket. I was one of them. And if you got lazy and it got 
dark, I'd just go. We had to have water for breakfast and oh, we'd be scared. We'd really [?end up 
lying?]. 
Page 13 of 14 
 
 
Winona Weber  27:45 
Really [inaudible] going down there . 
 
Maggie Barr  27:46 
Well , they got these, I don't know if you know anything about these, what they call-- well, they 
call them White Indians. They come from Canada. They call them Stick Indians. That's really-- 
they got a tape. Gotta see Shirley or somebody. She got a tape with a voice. 
 
Winona Weber  28:05 
Oh, I've heard them.  
 
Maggie Barr  28:07 
Yeah. Have you heard of? 
 
Winona Weber  28:08 
They're-- they're out on the-- they're out on the Humptulips River. Where--  Where my-- where 
my mom and dad live? They have them there, and they have them really bad, up on the fleet. 
 
Maggie Barr  28:20 
Is that right? 
 
Winona Weber  28:21 
Yeah, you-- boy, they really bother you up on the fleet. Well, they bother you during fishing 
season now, out on the hop, because, you know, they want to fish. ' 
 
Maggie Barr  28:31 
They want to fish. Oh, one time-- who was it? There was somebody. They were down near 
[Greenmeadow?], and they were fishing. You know, those Stick Indians bothered them?  
 
Winona Weber  28:52 
Yeah, I believe it.  
 
Maggie Barr  28:54 
They wanted that fish. They're bothering around over here, around the center, across from the 
center, they got a tape of the voice and and somebody seen them on the-- I don't know whose 
children seen them. Seen one out there. And one in Yakima, when Ethel lived over there, she's 
got a home on the top [inaudible], it's not in the reservation, it's in the town, and she's got a home 
over there. It looked right in the window at her. She had a tall-- I mean, a high kitchen window. 
Looked in on her. Had a great big hat. 
 
Winona Weber  29:46 
We've never seen him. Just heard him, you know, I don't know how-- I've never seen them. Just 
hear them all the time. 
 
Maggie Barr  29:53 
Page 14 of 14 
 
There used to be lots here. When we first moved here.  
 
Winona Weber  29:58 
Civilization, probably.  
 
Maggie Barr  29:59 
Yeah, and they used to knock on a wall right here. This was the old house then. They used to 
knock on the wall. And one time, somebody else went there-- I don't know, [inaudible] or 
somebody else there at the house-- at  this house, and somebody opened the door, somebody 
opened the back door. Had a back door. Boy, that's scary. But I know they used to knock on a 
wall. I knew who it was. But you know, down there where my son lives, there's a steep canyon, 
and they used to live there, not avoid this. Jimmy, here they went, and they crawled in there, in 
that cave, blankets and food in it. And there was two white boys went with them. [Inaudible.] 
They were young. These boys going the next day and the school to-- 