Page 1 of 17 
 
Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Wilma Adams Bush 
March 15, 1981 
Cassette 1, Side 1 
 
 
Winona Weber  00:00 
[Recording starts mid-sentence]-- Lived here in Skok.  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  00:02 
Well, my only memories were of my grandmother, and she had a old guy that lived over there at 
her house, his name was Joe Spar, and she used to take care of him.  
 
Winona Weber  00:18 
Yeah? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  00:18 
And she had an old Model A car, and he-- She couldn't drive, so he used to drive her all over, 
and I could remember going with her. We had relatives down to Hadlock, and their last name 
was Patsy, grandma-- We used to call them grandma and grandpa Patsy. And so we used to go 
down there to visit, and they lived right on the beach.  
 
Winona Weber  00:19 
Down where? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  00:19 
Down to Hadlock. 
 
Winona Weber  00:19 
Hadlock.  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  00:19 
Mm-hmm, that's down this way. 
 
Winona Weber  00:19 
Oh, okay. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  00:19 
Page 2 of 17 
 
Straight on down the canal, down by Jamestown, down past Jamestown. And I could remember 
going to visit them, and then over here-- I really didn't stay there long enough, only that I could 
remember Grandma, you know, because she was, she seemed like she was old forever. 
 
Winona Weber  00:19 
Oh, really? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  00:19 
And she had a very, she was hard of hearing, and she had a very loud voice.  
 
Winona Weber  00:19 
Oh, really? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  00:19 
And when she'd go to town, everybody in town knew that she was there because they could hear 
her hollering all over town. She didn't mean to do it.  
 
Winona Weber  00:19 
Oh, yeah. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  00:19 
You know, but that was just her way. Everybody dearly loved her. And I remember, at the big 
old house, she had a beautiful yard.  
 
Winona Weber  00:19 
Oh, really?  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  00:19 
Lots of flowers, used to have that beautiful yard. And people used to come from all over on 
Memorial Day to get flowers from her, to take it to the cemetery. After my sister [?moved out?]-- 
Well, my dad lived in this house, and my husband and I, that Bob Petty, lived up the river. And 
we moved, we had to move because the guy was selling the house that we were living in.  
 
Winona Weber  00:19 
Oh, I see. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  00:19 
So we, the house over there, the big house was empty, and we wanted the big house because it 
was bigger than this. But dad didn't feel like we should, because he was afraid that it would upset 
the other kids or my sister.  
 
Winona Weber  00:19 
Oh, I see. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  00:19 
So then he moved over there, and then we moved here. So, I've been here. 
Page 3 of 17 
 
 
Winona Weber  00:19 
Been here ever since? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  00:38 
Yeah. But in later years, after my first, after my first boy was born, I stayed with my 
grandmother for a short while and took care of her. She was ill, you know, sickly quite a bit after 
she got older. And at that time, my aunt was living there with her. She was working at Fort 
Lewis, but she'd come home on the weekends, and I'd stay with her there during the week. And I 
could remember, when I was small, her and Mrs. Hawk talking in Indian.  
 
Winona Weber  03:24 
Oh, really? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  03:25 
Yeah. And I wasn't around it enough to know too much about it, but I could always tell when she 
was talking about it, you know?  
 
Winona Weber  03:36 
Yeah. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  03:37 
And we used to sit in the dining room and they'd be in the living room and we'd listen to them 
talk and pick up a few Indian words. But now I, you know, I've forgotten all of it because I didn't 
keep up with it. And I was gone from here for so many years that I just lost all track of it. But 
that's about all I could remember, her.  
 
Winona Weber  04:04 
How did she support herself [?when she was older?]? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  04:07 
Well, let me see, she, she got an 18 dollar check that I could remember. Now, well I can't 
remember what year that was, but. 
 
Winona Weber  04:19 
What was it for?  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  04:20 
I don't know whether it was-- I don't know whether they even had social, such a thing as Social 
Security then or not. 
 
Winona Weber  04:26 
I think it came in the, I think social security came in during the '30s, didn't it? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  04:32 
Page 4 of 17 
 
Well, okay, if it did, then that's what it was, it was Social Security. What she got it from, I don't 
know, but I know that she got this 18 dollar check. And then they had their fish, and their clams, 
and their oysters, and their deer meat. And she always had a house full of food. She made her 
own bread, made her own pastries, [inaudible]. And she, more or less, you know, just took care 
of herself. Everybody was always good, and she made her own smoked salmon. So, you know, 
she had a lot of food. 
 
Winona Weber  05:22 
Was she a basket maker or anything like that?  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  05:24 
Yeah, she's made baskets. I had some of them, but after my husband and I separated, and he left 
us, that was Bob Petty, and-- The two kids were down to school in Chemawa, but as soon as they 
found out that he had left me, well, they, they wanted to come home immediately. They had their 
own money in the bank down there, so they were able to buy their ticket to come on up. And I 
felt so rotten about the deal that I left, and the older kids were here, so they stayed with the 
younger ones. I left and went to Seattle for a while and while I was gone, somebody broke into 
the house and stole all my Indian stuff that I had. And I had, like, about 7[000] or 8,000 dollars 
worth of baskets, and beads, and all kinds of stuff. And what I didn't know is, when I came back, 
I could have went to the sheriff's office and turned it in, and I could have got it all back, but 
nobody told me about that until years later. By that time, everything had split from around here.  
 
Winona Weber  06:35 
Oh. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  06:35 
See, whoever took it, took it right up here to Richard Cultee. He's got what they call the 
longhouse. He's got all kinds of Indian arts and artifacts, baskets, and beadwork, and the whole 
bit. Well, he bought it. And if I would have known, you know, that I could have gotten it back, 
well, I would have went and turned it in and got it back. But now the tribe has bought quite a bit 
of it, so they have it in their collection. So, it's not like it's plumb lost, because I can see it, you 
know, anytime I want to. But it's still not mine now.  
 
Winona Weber  07:17 
Did your grandmother have her own distinctive design, so you could look at the basket and say, 
"Yeah, that one was made by my grandmother?" 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  07:29 
Well, they tell me, they tell me that they can tell. I don't know, you know, I actually don't know. 
But they can say they can tell. 
 
Winona Weber  07:37 
Well, I can tell a, you know, a Salish basket from a BC basket.  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  07:43 
Page 5 of 17 
 
Oh, yeah, well, they can tell-- That's about all for me too, I can tell if it's a Skokomish basket or 
not, because, let's see, see that dog up there, on that calendar?  
 
Winona Weber  07:54 
Uh-huh. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  07:54 
Well, that is one of the symbols.  
 
Winona Weber  07:57 
Oh, really? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  07:58 
So, yeah, mm-hmm.  
 
Winona Weber  07:59 
Was it a dog clan or? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  08:02 
I don't know, it might have been, but I know they do use that an awful lot. 
 
Winona Weber  08:08 
Sort of squared off-- 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  08:10 
Yeah, right. 
 
Winona Weber  08:12 
What other kind of symbols do they have?  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  08:14 
I think it's the whale and the fish. 
 
Winona Weber  08:20 
Are they all kind of squarish like that?  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  08:22 
Yeah, mm-hmm. We're, we're in the process now of, down at the tribal center, getting a flag 
made for the Skok Nation. Yeah, they've, they've got the design, but-- Well, in fact, my second to 
oldest boy designed it, but, but he didn't, they wanted Skok Indian Nation on it, see, and he didn't 
put that on, so.  
 
Winona Weber  08:47 
What did he put on?  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  08:49 
Page 6 of 17 
 
Dogs. 
 
Winona Weber  08:51 
Oh, [?just dogs?], oh, I see. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  08:57 
It don't look much like a dog, but that's what it's supposed to be. 
 
Winona Weber  09:01 
Well, yeah, if you think about it, what else was around here at that time that looked like that?  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  09:07 
Yeah, right. 
 
Winona Weber  09:08 
So, yeah, that [?wouldn't be?]. Did your grand-- You said your grandmother smoked her own 
fish?  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  09:19 
Yeah, mm-hmm. 
 
Winona Weber  09:20 
Did she ever do the drying of the berries, that type of thing? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  09:26 
Yeah, she used to make, I don't know if you've ever heard of it or not, Indian ice cream? 
 
Winona Weber  09:32 
I've heard of it, but I've never had it. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  09:34 
Well, it's a berry that they used to get down, way down the canal someplace, down around 
Jamestown, I think. And it was purple in color, kind of a purplish color. And she was, I could 
remember her sitting over there on in a rocking chair on the front porch, and she put it in a big 
wooden bowl, and then she whipped the heck out of it. And it got real foamy like whipped 
cream, and then she put a little bit of sugar with it, and that's what they call Indian ice cream. 
Okay, now when they make it, it's a mockery of what used to be Indian ice cream. They take, 
like, Cool Whip and add berries to it, and then whip it all up and put a little bit of sugar, and 
that's what they call Indian ice cream now. Of course, that's, they have, every year-- They have 
the Indian unit up here at the Hood Canal School, and they have a big powwow at the end, and 
they have baked salmon and clams, and they always make a big pan of this Indian ice cream. But 
actually, I don't know the name of the berry. 
 
Winona Weber  10:45 
Were they small round berries?  
 
Page 7 of 17 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  10:46 
Yeah, they were small round berries, and they were purple in color. But I don't know the name of 
it, but that's what they used to make Indian ice cream. And then I could remember her, she used 
berry juice of some kind, and she put vanilla or something with it, but she called it pop, and she 
used to give it to us kids.  
 
Winona Weber  11:06 
So, as a beverage?  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  11:08 
Yeah, right, mm-hmm. 
 
Winona Weber  11:09 
That sounds good. Was that sort of your treat, instead of a can of pop?  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  11:19 
Yeah, right. We never knew what a can of pop was, or a bottle of pop then, it was all homemade. 
 
Winona Weber  11:29 
Was everybody pretty self sufficient here? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  11:32 
Mm-hmm. 
 
Winona Weber  11:38 
Did you ever go with your grandmother? When she went out to pick the berries? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  11:41 
Mm-hmm, not those particular berries, we used to go with her when she picked blackberries, and 
I can remember, we used to go way down the canal. And beings that my sister lived with her, she 
went more places than I, you know?  
 
Winona Weber  11:56 
Oh, yeah.  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  11:56 
So, she could tell you probably lots [?of things?]. I know they used to go to the mountains to 
pick mountain berries. And they always tell me about one time, grandma was on one side of a 
bush and she was busy talking away because she heard somebody on the other side. She was 
busy talking away and pretty soon she looked or she walked farther around the bush and she 
looked up and there was a big bear. [They laugh.] She was talking to a bear all the time. But I 
never did go up there.  
 
Winona Weber  12:36 
No-- Not to the mountain?  
 
Page 8 of 17 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  12:37 
No. 
 
Winona Weber  12:38 
Well, when you went down, did you say you went down in the canal? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  12:41 
Yeah, way down the canal and picked blackberries. She always knew where there was a good 
blackberry patch. And this old Joe Spar that stayed over there with us, he always drove us, and I 
could remember going down the canal to pick blackberries. 
 
Winona Weber  12:59 
Was it a day-long thing?  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  13:00 
Yeah, it was a whole day's trip. We, she always took a lunch, and we always spent the whole 
day, and that's how she got her berries to can. She always canned them. 
 
Winona Weber  13:09 
Oh, I see. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  13:09 
In fact, she canned everything she could get her hands on, because she had a backroom that she 
called a pantry, and that's where she kept all her canned stuff. She even canned, is it-- I can't 
remember what the name of it is. They're those, well, some of them are red, and some of them 
are kind of purple in color, and they're on a big bush. 
 
Winona Weber  13:38 
Blueber-- Huckleberries? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  13:39 
No. It's right on the tip of my tongue, but I can't say it, but she used to can those with, 
sometimes, and mix them with blackberries, and it was really good. And she made all her own 
jam. And my uncle, Uncle George, had a big farm right down the road, that's where I was born. 
And they had a lot of cows, so she got all her milk, and they made butter, and she got all her 
butter from them, and all her eggs, they had a lot of chickens. So, you know, it wasn't too hard 
for her. 
 
Winona Weber  14:25 
Oh, yeah. I wonder, did she ever sell any of her fish or her, or her baskets [?or anything?]?  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  14:34 
She used to sell her baskets I guess, I really don't know. Doris would know, you know, more 
about that.  
 
Winona Weber  09:34 
Page 9 of 17 
 
Oh, I see. I thought you might remember [inaudible]--  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  14:38 
No, unh-uh, no. 
 
Winona Weber  14:45 
Your parents split when you were what? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  14:48 
About eight years old, yeah.  
 
Winona Weber  14:49 
Did you start school here before they split?  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  14:52 
Yeah, uh-huh. 
 
Winona Weber  14:52 
Where did you go? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  14:53 
I started, well, I first started school up in the Phoenix Logging Camp, way back up in the hills.  
 
Winona Weber  14:59 
Oh, okay. Toward the Olympics? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  15:02 
Yeah, mm-hmm. And then, it was a little one room school, and the teacher had all eight grades in 
one room.  
 
Winona Weber  15:10 
Oh, boy. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  15:10 
And then after we left camp and come down here, well, I went to school down at the Old Lower 
Skokomish School, and Mrs. McGhee was my teacher. And then again, all the kids went to 
school in the same room, so-- [People in background.] She's having a good time.  
 
Winona Weber  15:32 
What's going on? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  15:34 
So, and then we left when, well, I was about nine years old when we left here. And we went, we 
moved to Vernonia, Oregon. 
 
Winona Weber  15:49 
Page 10 of 17 
 
Yeah? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  15:51 
And I just, more or less, stayed around Vernonia until I was 14. I came back here to visit, and 
then I went my first year in high school in Vernonia, my freshman year. 
 
Winona Weber  16:04 
Yeah. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  16:04 
I went in Vernonia. And then after that, I went to Chemawa. So, I was in Chemawa three years. 
 
Winona Weber  16:13 
When you went to Phoenix, was it in-- were there more Indians or whites in there? [?Or neither 
of those?]? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  16:24 
No, it was Indian. 
 
Winona Weber  16:27 
Were there quite a few Indians at the at the logging camp? Or was it your father-- 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  16:32 
Oh, no, no, I misunderstood you. Okay, there-- No, it was more, there were very few Indians, it 
was all non-Indians, most of them.  
 
Winona Weber  16:52 
Oh, I see, at the Phoenix-- 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  16:54 
Phoenix Logging Camp, yeah. 
 
Winona Weber  16:54 
Well, what was it like at the Phoenix Logging Camp?  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  16:51 
Just a bunch of houses, kind of like shacks, where the company men and their families lived, and 
they lived down on, on one section, then farther up the railroad track-- The only way we could 
get in and out of there was on a train, there was no road. We rode the train in and out. So I guess, 
you know, we didn't come out too many times. But they had, we-- When we did come out, we 
bought all our supplies and if we run out anything, we could always go to the [?cook house?] to 
buy, and buy it. And so they had a, they had a lot of loggers there. 
 
Winona Weber  16:54 
What kind of a train did you ride on to get out of there?  
 
Page 11 of 17 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  17:40 
Just a plain old locomotive on one end and a bunch of cars on the other end. And it was closed 
in, you know, and it had seats on it that we rode in, and we had to ride quite a long ways. And 
then, I don't remember just exactly where it came down to, but that's where everybody's cars 
were parked, where we came down.  
 
Winona Weber  18:04 
But it was primary, primarily a lumber train? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  18:09 
Yeah, that's what it was used for, to carry logs in and out of, but then they made trips out so that 
they could bring the families out.  
 
Winona Weber  18:18 
Yeah. [About people in background] He's still talking about the [?piece of paper?]. [Returns to 
interview] If-- Boy, that's hard to imagine, was Phoenix the name of the logging company? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  18:38 
Yeah, Phoenix Logging Company. Which, I guess eventually, later on, it turned into Simpson 
Logging Company.  
 
Winona Weber  18:47 
Oh, I see. Yeah, that I [?recognize?] I never-- 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  18:53 
This was a long time ago. 
 
Winona Weber  18:55 
Yeah. Were there very many Indians in those logging camps when you were [?growing up?]? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  19:00 
No, not in that particular one. However, there were a lot of Indian loggers who were, you know, 
probably around this vicinity. But right-- Well, I was so young then, I can't remember if there 
were any other Indians besides us up there or not.  
 
Winona Weber  19:17 
You didn't have any little Indian friends?  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  19:19 
No, they were all non-Indian kids. 
 
Winona Weber  19:32 
Was the was the logging company, logging company-- Was the school provided by the logging 
camp? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  19:38 
Page 12 of 17 
 
Yeah, it was just a one-room shack, is all it was, with a bunch of desks in it. And it was real 
narrow, that I can remember, there was about three rows of desks, and that was it, because there 
wasn't that many kids. 
 
Winona Weber  19:52 
Oh no, I wouldn't imagine there'd be. It's just that most logging people I've talked to, you know, 
their fathers were loggers; their fathers would go and they'd be gone for, you know, a couple 
weeks. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  20:04 
Well, yeah, that's true enough, but we were just fortunate enough to have our dad and mother 
there with us.  
 
Winona Weber  20:11 
Yeah. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  20:11 
You know, probably if, if we'd have-- didn't move up there, well, we'd have probably been down 
here with grandma and, and dad would have went up there. 
 
Winona Weber  20:11 
Yeah. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  20:17 
But as it was, we did get a chance to live there. They have a logging camp right now, up to Camp 
Grisdale, but they can get up there by car. 
 
Winona Weber  20:38 
Yeah. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  20:39 
You know, so it's not like it was in the old [inaudible] and having to ride a train. 
 
Winona Weber  20:43 
Yeah, you can get out of there [inaudible].  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  20:45 
Yeah, right.  
 
Winona Weber  20:47 
How did you like school up there? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  20:50 
Well, I don't remember too much about it. The only thing that sticks out in my mind was our 
teacher was a little, small lady, and her name was Miss Meyer. And my brother wasn't old 
enough to go to school yet, but he used to run away from home and run down to the school all 
Page 13 of 17 
 
the time. So, she used to let him come in and scribble on the paper. But he wasn't old enough to 
go so, but like I said, he used to run away and come down there. 
 
Winona Weber  21:19 
Real [inaudible] town.  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  21:25 
Yeah, it was. 
 
Winona Weber  21:28 
What was your house like in that, in that--  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  21:30 
Just like a shack, it was probably all in one room, just a long, well, I wouldn't say it was too long. 
All I could remember about it is we had a bunch of beds and table and chairs and-- 
 
Winona Weber  21:45 
Just one big room.  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  21:46 
Yeah, one big room. And the woods was like wonderland to us, because they had beautiful little 
pools with all kinds of moss and ferns growing around them, you know? We used to go out in, 
way out in the back and play around them. So, to me now, if I would have thought about it then it 
would have been like wonderland. You know, that's how it sticks out in my mind now. 
 
Winona Weber  22:11 
Yeah. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  22:11 
Because it was really pretty.  
 
Winona Weber  22:14 
I used to live over in Lake Quinault. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  22:14 
You don't, you don't very often see anything that pretty anymore. You know, it's all been 
destroyed.  
 
Winona Weber  22:16 
Yeah, that's true. I know what you mean. When you came back here, did you notice much 
difference between the people, when you moved from the logging camp back to Skok? 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  22:41 
No, I didn't notice too much difference because we were down, like I said, about every two 
weeks. And of course, when we started living down here, it was different to me than it was, you 
know, up there, because we could go down on the beach all the time and dig clams and get crab 
Page 14 of 17 
 
and I could-- One incident that sticks out in my mind was they have what they call [?Que-hay?]. 
It's like a bull head or a drum head. It's a fish.  
 
Winona Weber  23:17 
Yeah, they're not real big.  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  23:18 
Yeah, they're not very big, but they got a big head on. Well, the Indian name for it is [?Que-
hay?]. And they lay eggs under rocks, and they're really good. And we used to take up old clam 
shells-- 
 
Winona Weber  23:32 
The eggs or the [?Que-hay?]?  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  23:32 
The eggs are really good. We used to take a clamshell and scoop those eggs up and eat them. 
 
Winona Weber  23:39 
Raw?  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  23:40 
Yeah, and they're, they're really good. Of course, I haven't had any in years, but I could 
remember them. And-- [Telephone rings.] Mary, would you get that please? I'm busy. And we 
come home, and dad went to the store and bought some ice cream, and we ate ice cream on top 
of those [?Que-hay?] eggs, and I was the only one that got sick. I got deathly sick from-- Who is 
it Mary? [Tape stops and starts.] The mixture of the ice cream and the eggs, I guess, is what 
made me really sick, but I can remember that, that sticks out very vividly in my mind. And then 
another incident that happened while we were living over there. What leg is it-- See this scar?  
 
Winona Weber  24:35 
Mm-hmm. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  24:36 
I've carried that since I was a little girl. I don't know if you've ever seen those jar lids that, they 
were round and they had a glass on the inside of it, okay? Somebody broke one in grandma's 
backyard over there, and I fell on it, and that was a really, really deep gash. Okay, that-- 
Grandma sent for somebody to go and bring the old doctor. But in the meantime, she chewed 
some, either a rhododendron bud, I believe, or a leaf. Chewed it up, and then she slapped it on 
there and put a bandage on it. And of course, they laid me down. Well, when the doctor got 
there, he took one look at it, and he said, "I couldn't have done any better. Just leave that on 
there," he said, "It'll heal fine." And it did, it healed beautifully, except that it left the ugly scar. 
But that was one of the Indian medicines, and he knew, you know, that it would heal. So, that's 
how they healed my leg was with the, I can't remember if it was the of the bud or the leaf off of 
the rhododendron, but I do know it was a part out of the rhododendron.  
 
Winona Weber  25:56 
Page 15 of 17 
 
Huh, I never, I never heard of that. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  25:58 
And then they, she used to brew what they called blackberry tea for a medication, but I don't 
remember just exactly what that was used for. And then we have a marsh over here, cranberry 
marsh, or we did have, it's probably all grown out now. But she used to go over there and pick 
cranberries and can them, and also pick the leaves off of the bushes and make tea out of it, 
cranberry tea.  
 
Winona Weber  26:27 
I've never had that.  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  26:28 
Yeah, it was, it's really good. 
 
Winona Weber  26:32 
We always had, we just called it Indian tea, it's long, long, narrow leaves like this. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  26:40 
Mm-hmm, I've seen it.  
 
Winona Weber  26:40 
I don't know what kind of--  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  26:41 
I don't, I don't know either.  
 
Winona Weber  26:42 
If anybody asked me, I can tell them, "Those are tea leaves."  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  26:45 
Yeah, we had Treaty Days down here a while back, and some people came with a great, big bag, 
full of tea. And I happened to be working in the kitchen, and so they give it to me, and I put it 
away, and I just found it last week, when I was cleaning up in the kitchen. So, I gave it to one of 
the girls to take home, but it's long, long, skinny leaves. 
 
Winona Weber  27:11 
Yeah, well sometimes they get long, but they're, [?most of them are that long?].  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  27:13 
Yeah, right.  
 
Winona Weber  27:14 
And good, I really like tea. We used our tea for, oh, for kidney infections and sort of a purge, you 
know, just if you were just plain feeling crummy. 
 
Page 16 of 17 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  27:31 
Yeah. 
 
Winona Weber  27:31 
You'd take this and it kind of purges your system.  
 
Wilma Adams Bush  27:32 
One of the things that I do know that they use that blackberry tea for was if a woman had a 
miscarriage, rather than, you know, they never used to take them to the hospital for anything like 
that, so they'd give them that blackberry tea to clean them out.  
 
Winona Weber  27:50 
Oh, I see. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  27:53 
So it, it had a medicinal purpose too.  
 
Winona Weber  27:55 
Yeah. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  27:56 
Yeah. 
 
Winona Weber  27:56 
[?I'd never heard of that one?]. Then, I suppose every Indian group had their own-- 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  28:05 
Yeah. 
 
Winona Weber  28:05 
--medicines. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  28:06 
There is a lot of roots and stuff that they used to use, you know, for medicinal purposes. But I 
don't know what any of them are, only what I've read in books. 
 
Winona Weber  28:15 
Yeah. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  28:15 
And that wouldn't be fair to tell about that, because that, you know. 
 
Winona Weber  28:19 
Yeah. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  28:20 
Page 17 of 17 
 
Everybody knows about what they'd read. 
 
Winona Weber  28:24 
Just about, just about everybody knows one more little medicine that they used. But they, they 
don't, just one medicine sometimes, that's all they know. I collected them for a while. 
 
Wilma Adams Bush  28:36 
You did? 
 
Winona Weber  28:37 
I went around and I asked the elders what medicines they remembered and I wrote him down. I 
don't know what happened to it, so I'm not, I'm not in great shape in that way. This is gonna end 
in just a second here. 
 