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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Lindsay Buxton 
April 21, 1996 
Cassette 1, Side 1 
 
 
Debbie Guerrero  00:01 
The date is Sunday, April 21, 1996. I am Debbie Guerrero, a student at the University of 
Washington, working on the Washington Women's Heritage Project. Today, I will be conducting 
an oral history interview with Lindsay Buxton, who is presently residing in Seattle, Washington, 
and this interview is taking place in her home there. This is tape number one. This is the first 
round of tapes, and Lindsay Buxton will be speaking about her early childhood. Can you tell me 
where and when you were born? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  00:45 
I was born in Petersburg, Alaska, on July 16, 1940 in Petersburg, Alaska. My father was fishing 
at that time. My mother was visiting family in Petersburg. And so everybody tells me it was an 
accident, that I was born there. But before my mother's six weeks checkup, she went back to 
Angoon. So although I was born in Petersburg, I consider Angoon, Alaska, home. I'm a Raven-- 
Deisheetaan, which is the beaver. Beaver house. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  01:24 
Were you born in the hospital or at home?  
 
Lindsay Buxton  01:26 
Yes, I was the first of all my mother's three daughters to be born in the hospital. My two younger 
sisters were born at home. And that was prior to the state intervention. Prior to that, a lot of our 
people did not document, you know, formally, their birth, so I'm the only one of my three-- you 
know, my two older sisters, that has a birth certificate. Yeah. Strange, huh? 
 
Debbie Guerrero  01:49 
That's interesting. What story were you told of your birth? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  02:05 
Just that. But Daddy was fishing. Mama went to visit. And it was an accident that I was born in 
Petersburg, which is called Little Norway, and apparently a lot of Tlingits intermarried with 
Norwegians. And so as I grew older and got red tint in my hair, they would tease me about the 
Petersburg [?stram?], because a lot of Norwegians had red hair. And the way I was teased about 
it was pretty negative, so I never really liked any red highlights. And as I got older, I would 
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always try to darken it [laughs]. Nowad-- it doesn't bother me. I prefer the red than the gray. 
[Laughs.] 
 
Debbie Guerrero  02:58 
How did that make you feel when they teased you? I mean, does it bring back feelings-- 
 
Lindsay Buxton  03:01 
Well, at-- yeah, well, at first-- I was an affectionate, you know, [inaudible] among my own 
family, aunts and uncles, a mother who was-- my dad. Playmates were not so affectionate, and I 
think that was my first realization that I was half white. As all my other cousins-- playmates had 
jet black hair and their skin was darker. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  03:38 
So did it make you feel different? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  03:40 
Yeah, it made me feel-- well, I felt like they [coughs]-- the little teasings was a little reminder 
that I was different. I didn't like being different because I felt like "they", I was "they". [Laughs.] 
Later on, I came to terms, you know, with my half-Indian blood or half-white blood. And I mean 
that literally too, because I had to go through a thing with my Indian identity. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  04:30 
Do you know how old you were then? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  04:32 
When?  
 
Debbie Guerrero  04:33 
When you went through that identity-- 
 
Lindsay Buxton  04:34 
Indian identity? 
 
Debbie Guerrero  04:35 
Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Was that, like, in childhood or puberty? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  04:40 
No, it was early. I think it was nine, about nine. Because my mother brought me to Seattle after 
my kid brother died of whooping cough. He's buried in Juneau, Alaska. And my dad was 
distraught of course, both my parents were. My father took off fishing, not realizing that I was 
getting sick myself, and my mother felt deserted. She was grieving over a lost baby, and then 
come to find out that I was sick, and so they rushed me to the hospital, and flew Mother and I to 
Seattle. And I don't remember any of my illness, but I remember my brother's death as if it were 
yesterday. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  05:41 
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Do you? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  05:42 
Some time ago, on-- in fact, on my 38th birthday-- my father and I had been estranged for 
several years, but on my 38th year, I decided that I was going to try to get to know this white 
father of mine [laughs]. He was telling me, he says, Well, of course, you don't remember, you 
know, when your brother died? And I said, Oh, I do, as if it were yesterday. He said, You 
couldn't have, you know, you were too young. And I described the apartment, how he came in 
late at night from work and went over to the crib, you know, for my brother, and discovered that 
that he was dead. And Mother-- I was sleeping with my mother, and I sat up in bed when Mom 
jumped out of bed, and then her screaming, and all that commotion. And I remember sitting up in 
bed just watching, just like it was a movie, and it continuously plays in my mind. Anyway, he 
was shocked. I remembered everything, you know? I don't remember my illness. I don't 
remember coming to Seattle. I do remember getting out of the hospital. A family member had 
taken a picture of me and my little dolly. I guess maybe that's one of the reasons that it was, you 
know, that moment is vivid [telephone ringing]. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  07:13 
Do you-- how old was your brother when he died? Just a baby?  
 
Lindsay Buxton  07:15 
Yeah, he was. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  07:14 
And you were probably how old?  
 
Lindsay Buxton  07:18 
Well, that is really unclear, because my dad said that I was only two years old. So that meant my 
brother was, well, a baby, of course. And why you say it's a puzzlement, because I remember 
Mother and I being here, just before I turned nine, and I just got out of the hospital, and I was 
told that we had been here for almost a year. And how I remember that year so much is that was 
1948. I went to my first ANS camp Thursdays meeting, and I remember loving being around 
women of color.  
 
Debbie Guerrero  08:15 
I know. 
 
Lindsay Buxton  08:17 
I remember the wonderful array of native dishes that they had, like salmon heads cooked with 
salmon eggs and seaweed, it was wonderful, and dry fish, and hooligan oil [laughs]. I was in 
heaven. I think it came awake then. [?Concious?] me. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  09:04 
That's great though. What memories. 
 
Lindsay Buxton  08:41 
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So yeah. Yeah, my dad said I was only two years old, but maybe he only perceived me as being 
two. My mother and I did go back to Alaska when I was 10, and I remember her feeling so 
excited that I was going to meet this auntie, and that auntie, and that cousin, you know, that 
uncle. And we went by ferry. My mother had a drinking problem, and it seemed as if, in our 
stay-- we stayed in Ketchikan, Wrangell, Juneau, for a while. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  09:29 
And you stayed with family members?  
 
Lindsay Buxton  09:29 
Yes. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  09:29 
Aunties and uncles? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  09:31 
Yes. Most of my aunties were intermarried with Filipinos. And it's blar-- misfortune that our 
Filipino uncles had a very violent temper, and my mother was very outspoken. And if they 
mistreated her sisters, she spoke up and she got lashed. One time-- I can't remember where we 
were in Alaska. One of my uncles had hit my mother in the lip, and it just brought it open. Had to 
take her to the hospital, and I got to sleep in the next bed, you know, with her. And I think at that 
time, I had overheard non-native doctor-- nurse talking about how they thought what a pretty 
little girl I was. And the nurse had said, Yes, isn't it too bad that she'll never get anywhere in life? 
And the doctor, who was female, she glanced over and she was aware that I was awake, and I 
heard that, had said, Not in this day and age, that is not necessarily true. And she turned around, 
smiled and winked at me, and I just made me feel good, and kind of resentful towards that, you 
know, the nurse. But that was just the beginning of prejudices that I was soon, you know, to 
experience later in life. But that wink, that nod, you know, from the female doctor. Her spirit, 
you know, left me with good memories, good challenges.  
 
Debbie Guerrero  11:39 
That's a great story, wow. Are you the eldest, the middle child, or the youngest? And who are 
your siblings? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  12:00 
I'm the third child. My sister Juanita, she's the first child. My sister Dorothy is the second. I was 
third. Mother had a couple of miscarriages. Then there was-- when I was 13, my kid sister 
Dolores was born. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  12:18 
When you were 13? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  12:20 
Yes. I got teased a lot about no longer being the baby of the family. I was a little jealous of my 
sister. I used to pinch her [laughs], and when she'd cry, I feel guilty and hold her. But I fell in 
love with my sister. It was a live doll to me. And I used to play hooky to stay home and take care 
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of my sister, and my mother had a problem with drinking, and then sometimes would forget she 
had a family. So I became Mama. Yeah. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  13:11 
What about Juanita and Dorothy? Were they also?  
 
Lindsay Buxton  13:14 
No. We grew up separately. My mother's history is really fascinating, and it's not really very 
clear. My father-- grandfather was Charlie Jim, he's from Sitka. He-- I'm told that he was a tribal 
chief. My grandmother was Mary King, who I understand was a medicine woman. Her Indian 
name was Kaygaywat. I remember that because that's my name. I was named after her.  
 
Debbie Guerrero  13:55 
How do you spell that?  
 
Lindsay Buxton  13:56 
I'm not sure, I have been phonically spelling it, K-A-Y-G-A-Y-W-A-T.  
 
Debbie Guerrero  14:01 
And do you know what that means?  
 
Lindsay Buxton  14:08 
I was told that it's just a name, like Mary or Susan. I was told that we're not named like lower 48, 
like Babbling Brook or anything like that, just names. [Laughs] Don't know, I wanted to be 
Babbling Brook. [Laughs.] Anyway, when my grandparents died, my mother is one of 14, and 
they had to be placed in other homes. And what is not clear to me is my mother was placed with 
her half-sister. How she's half, I don't know. Either Grandpa had another wife or Grandma had 
another husband. I don't know. But there was a lot of resentment and jealousy. Apparently, Aunt 
Ida was older, she was married and had a home, and my mother claims that Aunt Ida was jealous 
of her because her husband was always teasing or playing, you know, with my mother, Sophie. 
And so, had encouraged this married Filipino to take care of my mother. My mother was forced 
to live with this Filipino, Felix Romero. He was married and had a family in the Philippines. And 
my mother was not happy with him, but had two children, and--  
 
Debbie Guerrero  16:14 
By Romero? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  16:15 
Yes. They-- an opportunity came, my mother ran away, and after my sister, Dorothy, I guess 
was, like, two, Mother had met my father, and they got married, and-- 
 
Debbie Guerrero  16:37 
And his name is? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  16:38 
Howard. Howard Lindsay. 
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Debbie Guerrero  16:40 
David? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  16:40 
Lindsay. My father's Howard Lindsay. And... 
 
Debbie Guerrero  16:46 
And where was he born? Do you know? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  16:48 
I'm not really sure. My father was very closed mouth about him. In fact, when he was dying, he 
said that he had learned that his-- he was born in Canada. And all these years, he had thought that 
he was born in Spokane. Yeah, so... My father is Scotch-Irish, and in his deathbed, and he says, I 
gotta tell you that we have German blood. I asked, Well, why were you so mum about the 
German blood? He said he was always ashamed, you know, of what happened in Germany. I 
said, Well, Daddy, you had-- you didn't have anything to do with that. He said it was still a 
racial, you know, shame. I kind of liked him saying that, yeah. Because I felt that it was too.  
 
Debbie Guerrero  17:41 
[Laughs] It validated your feelings.  
 
Lindsay Buxton  17:45 
Yeah, it-- so I have a strand of German blood in me [laughs]. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  17:56 
Do you know where your mom was born? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  17:59 
Mother was born in a small fishing village, Southeast Alaska. Angoon. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  18:04 
Angoon. And what was their educational background? Do you know? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  18:10 
Mother had a third grade education. My father had three years of college. UW. Mother's pretty 
well self-taught. I remember her reading Reader's Digest a lot, and she really liked the portion 
and the Reader's Digest for vocabulary building. And she would always ask how to pronounce 
things and stuff. I taught my mother how to write a letter. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  18:39 
Really?  
 
Lindsay Buxton  18:39 
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Yeah. She said, Well, you go to school and learn so you can teach me. I took that very seriously, 
and so every time I came home, when Mother was feeling all right, I shared this, and she was a 
good student. [Laughs] She learned quickly.  Yeah. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  19:05 
So what was-- your father was a fisherman for a time?  
 
Lindsay Buxton  19:15 
Yeah, yeah. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  19:14 
As far as occupation, what would you classify him or title him? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  19:17 
Well, my dad was everything. He co-owned a boat with my uncle in Alaska, which is really very 
rare for a non-native to co-own a boat with a native. My family in Angoon told me, when I visit 
there about 10 years ago, that my father was greatly loved in Angoon. Because of his German 
blood, which I realize now, they speak in a gutteral, which is very similar to Tlingit language. So 
he picked up on the language, and he was able to converse. And he's a very humanitarian in 
many respects. They loved him. So, he fished a lot. He was also a carpenter, a longshoreman, a 
house painter. He loved [coughs] classical music. Composed a couple of songs. Songs. His 
favorite composer was Mozart. He was really-- 
 
Debbie Guerrero  19:16 
Interesting. 
 
Lindsay Buxton  19:17 
Very interesting. When I was living with my mother, we listened to country western, and then 
when I went to live with my father when I was 10, he played [?long hair?] music. After a while, I 
got to enjoy it.  
 
Debbie Guerrero  19:31 
Yeah. 
 
Lindsay Buxton  19:31 
One time, I remember I was orchestrating, you know, and he said, What are you doing? And I 
said, I'm the band leader, the orchestrator. Oh, conductor. Yes, I'm conducting. He laughed. I 
said, Why? Why you're laughing? He said, You're going to be there, honey, for hours. I said, I 
like it. I feel it. I'm doing this. And after a while, I could see, Yes, he's right. I loved it. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  21:26 
Do you know what some of his general values and attitudes towards women were? You've 
already spoke about community involvement, but how about attitudes towards women? Was he 
very respectful of your mother and you as his daughters, was he a loving and caring man? 
Anything you can say about that? 
 
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Lindsay Buxton  21:50 
My mother doesn't speak too highly of my father. She did say that she loved him at one time, that 
both my mother and father had a drinking problem. So what they tell me really just goes in one 
ear and out the other. My father, I think, grew up in an era where, you know, he had to be the 
head of the household, and you had to abide by his rules and regulations, and if you didn't like it, 
you'd get the hell out. My mother was always getting the hell out. [Laughs.] He would say to me 
that he loved us. He would all-- he would always qualify that with, In my way. So, in some 
respects, he was very selfish. He was not a good father. Morally, he was a little twisted. I went to 
live with him, and when I was 10, for a year. I was raised in Chinatown with my mother. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  23:20 
In Seattle? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  23:21 
Yes, yeah. And which, you know, it's called the International District now. That was one of the 
greatest opportunities for seeing what it would be right in America to have a multi-ethnic 
environment with everybody, you know, cooperating with one another, respecting one another. I 
learned at a very early age to accept people at face value. And my playmates were Korean, and 
Japanese, and Chinese, and Filipinos, and Irish, and Italians. Jewish, a lot of Blacks, Filipinos of 
course. My mother married several times, Filipino men. She was getting married-- my father and 
my mother were divorced in the late '40s. My mother was getting married, and I remember 
meeting my father for the very first time. This men that had been in life had been dark-skinned 
Filipinos, you know. Been very fortunate that some of the Filipino men that my mother brought 
into our lives were just very family, happy, loving, you know, conscientious men. My mother 
woke me up from a nap one day and said that she had a surprise for me that my father was here. I 
said, My father? [Laughs] And I looked up and there was this white man. I said, Oh, no [laughs]. 
He was handsome. I look now, but I was his attempt to go up to him, and he said, Come here, 
kid. I'm your father. I went up and he hugged me, and I was just shocked. I had forgotten that I 
was half-white. I didn't like being half-white. And he told me, Well, your mother tells me that 
she's fallen in love and wants to get married. I think it'd be-- only be right that you come live 
with me for a while, give your mother and your new, you know, stepdad  a chance, you know, to 
get their married life on. Which I look back on now, I think, That was decent. That was very 
decent. Since he had never contributed to my support all these years, Father had said that he had 
tried finding us. I don't know. I may have been half-hearted. I think I spent more time looking for 
him than he for us.  
 
Debbie Guerrero  23:21 
It felt like that? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  23:23 
Yeah, it did. Anyway, so I went to live with my father when I was 10. We lived in a one-room, 
housekeeping room in Queen Anne, and I went to public school there. My father and I shared the 
same bed. After I had been with my father for, I guess, maybe six months, my father molested 
me. He never sexually penetrated me, but he was telling me that this was the father's obligation 
to prepare me, you know, for a later womanhood. Well, when I found out-- I-- it didn't feel right. 
It felt shameful, it felt bad. And I wanted-- I wanted to believe. I wanted to believe my father. 
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After that, I see-- I guess, about two days, I had-- I told a couple of classmates-- well, I got close 
to a couple of my classmates and I said, Well, has your father prepared you for sexual activity? I 
didn't-- you know, in the future? And they looked at me and said, Are you crazy? Fathers don't 
do that. And then I realized my father is lying to me. That hurt more than anything else, that I 
wanted to believe in him. And so when I went home... [clears throat] And I confronted my father, 
he had tears in his eyes, and he said I was hoping you'd never find out, and I'm sorry. And he 
walked out. And he never came back. So, for two weeks, I lived in the apartment. I had to grow 
up fast. The landlady would come by and I'd say, Oh, he had to work, or he just left, or 
something, you know. But I knew my father left because he couldn't face me. I knew that he was 
ashamed. I didn't want to hurt my mother's chances of her new marriage either, so I didn't call 
her. Finally, the landlady got wise to, you know, like... 
 
Debbie Guerrero  26:16 
You were there on your own. 
 
Lindsay Buxton  26:19 
Yeah.  
 
Debbie Guerrero  23:23 
Was it-- were you scared there alone?  
 
Lindsay Buxton  26:10 
No, you know.  
 
Debbie Guerrero  23:24 
Did you feel better that he was gone? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  29:15 
I missed him, but in a way, I was glad that he was away. But I did miss him. But I pretty much 
bel-- [tape shuts off]. 