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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Lindsay Buxton 
April 21, 1996 
Cassette 2, Side 2 
 
 
Lindsay Buxton  00:01 
My favorite stepfather. They weren't married, but they lived together. His name was Rudy de la 
Cruz. He was a migrant farm worker, and we lived in little shacks, and my godparents came to 
visit us from Alaska, and-- I know I wasn't even in school. I would say that maybe I was five or 
six.  
 
Debbie Guerrero  00:32 
Oh, gee. Do you remember what part of California this was? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  00:36 
Oh, some hot part, like maybe Swanton? 
 
Debbie Guerrero  00:39 
Reminds the farm workers of it? Yeah. 
 
Lindsay Buxton  00:42 
Right. My godmother-- I was sickly. My godmother would take care of me while my mother and 
father labored out in the fields, and my godmother would put sheets over the kitchen table and 
we'd play house underneath and have tea, and she got along beautifully with the Mexican 
women. I love the Mexican culture. They're just so family orientated, and made me feel, you 
know, special. And I learned to love tortillas and beans [laughs]. Their religious practice was 
very devout. Everywhere we-- every home, there was a picture of Christ with His heart exposed, 
and the Virgin Mary, and they lit candles, and I became aware that Mother and I didn't have 
anything spiritual around the house. And that must have made an impression on my mother, 
because one day I came home, and she had a picture of Jesus Christ. I didn't like the picture. It 
made my mother feel very sad. And when Mother was sad, she was more prone to drinking. So I 
kind of ecquaited that sad picture of Jesus Christ-- it was on a crucifix. I don't know whatever 
became of that picture, but I was glad one day when I came home and it wasn't there. I think it 
had fallen and the glass cracked, and I knew-- I was glad that that picture was gone. I went to 
live with my father, I told him that I wanted to go to mass. My father is an atheist. And he said, 
For Christ sakes, what do you want to do that for? [Laughs]. I want to talk to the Lord. He said, 
Well, I don't believe there's such a thing, but if that's going to make you feel good, go ahead. 
Don't expect me to. You know? I had to respect that. But I said, Well, why don't you believe in 
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it? We'd have a lot of dialogue on that subject. He remained an atheist to his death. He was not 
happy with my being a practicing Catholic. I was a devout Catholic little girl. I even enrolled 
myself in Catholic school. And after I lived with my father, which really upset my mother, 
because going to Catholic school cost a lot of money. But I was not happy going to public school 
because we were poor, and clothing with non-natives is very important. And I was embarrassed a 
lot because they didn't have appropriate shoes and clothes, and had to wear clothes over and over 
again, although it was clean, you know. It was just uncomfortable, and I noticed that the Catholic 
students wore uniforms, and I thought they wouldn't be able to tell if I was rich or poor because 
of the uniforms. So on my way to register myself in the public school, I passed by the Sacred 
Heart Grade School in Queen Anne. I just went in there and said, I'm a Catholic and I want to go 
to school here. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  04:49 
How old were you then? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  04:50 
I was in the seventh grade.  
 
Debbie Guerrero  04:51 
Is that right?  
 
Lindsay Buxton  04:52 
Mm-hmm. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  04:53 
So you were probably 12 or 13. 
 
Lindsay Buxton  04:54 
Yeah, yeah.  
 
Debbie Guerrero  04:57 
And they just signed you up? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  04:59 
And they signed me up, and they said that I would have to pay for books, and, you know, the 
tuition and uniform. And the nun that interviewed me said that she liked my spirit, and she said, I 
think we'll be able to make out some arrangements for you. You can help us do some work, you 
know, after school, or come in before school to help with your tuition. We have, you know, 
second-hand uniforms here. And after school-- the orientation, I went home, brought these 
papers to fill out. My mother was, [inaudible], How can you be so stupid? You know we can't 
afford that. And I said, But they said I could work, Mama. And my stepfather-- step-grandfather, 
is a Filipino. Stanley from Guadalupe. He said, I will help. I will help with the shoes, and the 
uniforms, you know. So, he was my guardian angel. So I went to school there. It was hard, after 
coming from a public school to a Catholic school. I loved the discipline. I loved what they 
expected in your students, and I loved the fact that wearing any uniform, it was hard to decipher 
as to whether or not you were rich or poor. I did very well there. Unfortunately, Mother's 
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marriage wasn't working out too well, and she got pregnant, you know, with my kid sister. By 
then, I had turned 13. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  06:56 
Dolores, right? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  06:57 
Dolores, yes.  
 
Debbie Guerrero  06:58 
And what was her last name, Dolores?  
 
Lindsay Buxton  07:03 
Mercado, M-E-R-C-A-D-O, and she became my live doll. And it upset me that the nuns didn't 
understand that I was poor. They had asked us to open up our Washington Mutual savings 
account and put quarters in. You know, every Monday. Sometimes I'd have to steal quarters 
because I didn't want to be embarrassed. And then they would ask for donations for the poor 
children. I'd have to steal to help contribute to poor children [laughs]. Seems though there was 
just so many questions. I didn't like the fact that you had to accept on blind faith, that-- a lot of 
things about, you know, the Catholic ideology. It pained me and that children under the Catholic 
system did not actually see God or the Lord, you know, if they weren't baptized. I thought that 
was very cruel of God to discriminate over a child that had nothing to do. You know-- 
 
Debbie Guerrero  08:29 
--with his baptism? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  08:30 
Right. I didn't like that. I was thinking about my brother. He wasn't baptized. And... A lot of 
things. Anyway, that began my quest for spiritual knowledge. I had been to-- my godmother was 
black.  
 
Debbie Guerrero  08:52 
What was her name?  
 
Lindsay Buxton  08:53 
I can't remember her name. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  08:55 
Oh, okay. 
 
Lindsay Buxton  08:55 
I'll ask my mom. Anyway-- that's such a shame too, because she had such a [inaudible] for my 
life. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  09:08 
She was black and-- 
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Lindsay Buxton  09:10 
Oh, she was a Baptist, and then she converted to make her husband happy as a Catholic. Well, 
she had taken me-- we would go to church together, you know, and the Catholic religion's very 
austere, serious, solemn now, just dry, and you never really understood what was going on in 
mass, because it was in Latin. And I'd look at my godmother, and I just wasn't getting it. I just-- I 
wasn't feeling it. My godmother took pity on me. I said, Well, what do you think, Dolly? I said, I 
don't know what to think. I know [inaudible] miss me, whatever, you know, whatever is going 
on, and she took me to a Baptist church, which is predominantly black. I had a wonderful time. 
We sang [claps], and we clapped [claps], we jumped up and down. I remember looking at my-- 
first, it startled me, because I'm used to this, you know, holding your rosary and being very sad, 
you know? It's something-- 
 
Debbie Guerrero  10:36 
Catholic guilt and shame, yeah. 
 
Lindsay Buxton  10:38 
Yes. Stiff statues, you know. This Baptist Church had a very simple cross, no mournful statues, 
you know, no piercing hands on crucifix. I mean, ooh. It startled me when my godmother got up 
and started clapping her hands and singing, and people were saying Hallelujah, and I was 
getting-- I was moved too, you know. So I got up and I did what my godmother did, and 
everybody hugged and embraced, and everybody had smiles, you know. And when the preacher 
came on, [sighs] he was-- I mean, he spoke English...  
 
Debbie Guerrero  11:25 
So you could understand? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  11:27 
Yes, he-- I felt like, what a difference from a Catholic priest, you know, with his regimentation, 
if you will, to this down-home, you know, minister that knew what life was all about, you know? 
And Godmother and I looked at one another. She winked at me and I-- yeah, like that. Let's go 
back. So we had a little secret. We would pretend we're off going to a Catholic church, but we 
would end up going to the Baptist church [laughs]. My godmother, she would say [whispers], 
This is our secret now. I said, Okay. I kept it until today [laughs]. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  12:21 
That's a great experience.  
 
Lindsay Buxton  12:23 
Yeah, that was great experience. The roles of religion-- Mother really wasn't devout in anything. 
Mama had a lot of pain, you know, and had children after Dolores, there was my kid sister, 
Ruby. Mother had-- 
 
Debbie Guerrero  12:50 
With the same man or a different man now?  
 
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Lindsay Buxton  12:52 
No, same man, yeah. And then Mother divorced Mr. McArdle, which is one of my favorite 
stepfathers, legal stepfathers, yeah. My sister's father. I liked him.  
 
Debbie Guerrero  13:12 
He treated you well? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  13:14 
Fairly well. As I got to be a teenager, he quote, Fell in love with me, unquote, and I guess, tried 
to raise me for himself. I ran away from home to avoid his affection. Outside of that, I liked him. 
He was a hard worker. He also drank, but he was not an alcoholic. He gambled. Sometimes he 
would lose [inaudible] money, card payment money. It caused a lot of stress, and as soon as 
Mom is stressed, my Mom-- she drinks. I got closer to my kid's sister, Dolores, and then there 
was Ruby. Mother had a couple of miscarriages, and then she married-- 
 
Debbie Guerrero  14:18 
After Ruby? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  14:18 
Yeah. Married Andrew [?Salon?], and she had Andrew Jr., who killed himself when he was 16. 
When he was 10 years old, he and his non-native buddy were playing cops and robbers. Little 
boy, his buddy's father was a policeman, and it was  my brother's turn to to be a policeman. And 
they didn't know the gun was loaded, and it instantly killed his best friend. It was tragic, just 
tragic.  
 
Debbie Guerrero  15:09 
And this was in Seattle?  
 
Lindsay Buxton  15:11 
Yeah, he's in the papers.  
 
Debbie Guerrero  15:13 
My God. 
 
Lindsay Buxton  15:16 
Gun control was moving, you know, at that time, and of course, this was policeman's, you know, 
weapon that his son got into. And I was in California when this happened. When I came home, it 
just devastated, you know, my mother, my stepfather. Of course, the worst part was that my kid 
brother never forgave himself. He loved his buddy. And that he killed his only best friend, 
accident or no accident, too. Never forgave myself. So, Brother experimented with drugs in and 
out, and he was in and out of foster homes. When he was really-- released from a mental 
institution, he and my mother got drunk together, and when my mother is drinking, the devil 
comes out in her. She said some painful things to him, like, Oh yeah, well, you killed your own 
best friend. And my brother went downstairs to his father's area, and took out his shotgun, put it 
in his mouth, and blew out his brains. 
 
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Debbie Guerrero  16:49 
Oh my God. So strange. 
 
Lindsay Buxton  16:51 
Mm-hmm. I was living in the Green Lake area at that time, and I had a house full of people, and 
they drove me to where my mother was living, on Massachusetts Street. And there were news 
reporters there, as my mother and father were accusing of one another of killing, you know, the 
son. And when I came, I said, No, no, it's not like that at all. I reminded them that he was the 
little boy that had killed his best friend, and psychologically, he was having a hard time dealing 
with that, I said. All the camera lights went down. I used to work with KOMO, so a lot of the 
news media people knew me. When they saw me running, they, out of respect to turn the camera 
lights down, and... Religion again. When it came time, my brother were-- we're all baptized as 
Catholics, and it came time for making funeral arrangements for my kid brother. Things are so 
expensive, and I suggested to Mother that the traditional Tlingit way was cremation, and Mother 
was just, [gasps] We just can't do that. My stepfather, a little bit more practical and thinking 
economics, had told the priest, Well, we can only afford cremation. And Catholics don't believe 
in cremation. You bury your body under the ground. They said, Under the circumstances, they 
would grant it. Another thing that just I really resented about the Catholics, you know, they 
granted permission. I-- you know? I just had a little problem with that. They-- the memorial was 
Catholic, and I remember talking with my kid brother, you know, about religion. And at that 
time, I, you know, had just decided that I was going to practice Buddhism, and how interested he 
was in it, and how I regretted that I didn't really pursue, you know, our conversation into actively 
taking him to, you know, a Buddhist meeting, introductory meeting. I-- religion, I thought has 
just-- it's such a pitiful thing that, here we are, living in an urban setting, that it dawned on me, as 
I'm going through this Catholic ritual for my brother's memorial, that what a crime it is that us 
Indian people, especially of Alaska, don't even know what our first spirituality was or is. And 
there became my quest of finding out [laughs]. So in some parts, there's my brother's spirit, you 
know, yeah. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  16:51 
Right. Working through you.  
 
Lindsay Buxton  20:14 
That's right, yeah. In Angoon, they're very traditional, but they're very hush-hush about Native-
practiced religions. They had lost a lot of their federal fundings when they had learned that the 
natives were practicing their traditional Native spiritualism. So after they lost a lot of their 
funding, their practices went underground. And I-- It makes me so mad, because I think of the 
freedom of religion, that. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  21:19 
Of course. 
 
Lindsay Buxton  21:19 
Yeah, but yet they're going to penalize, still to this day, natives that have practice and, no, yeah. 
Lot of things to be worked on. 
 
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Debbie Guerrero  21:28 
Lot of work to be done.  
 
Lindsay Buxton  21:29 
Yes, a lot of work to be done. Well, for my childhood and adolescence... One recollection of a 
school teacher was a witch. It was in California, and most of her students were of Mexican 
descent, and there were a sprinkle of non-Mexican, natives, white people [coughs]. And I came 
in late. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  22:09 
What was she?  
 
Lindsay Buxton  22:10 
She was white. She looked like the old fashioned schoolmarm, and she had an art class. And I 
remember being struck by her negatism. She said, Well, everybody had tried to do this project. I 
don't remember what it was. And she said, No doubt-- talking to me, You're not going to be able 
to do it either. And I just looked around. I didn't know what on earth she was talking about. And 
I said, Well, what is it? And she showed me, so I, you know, I did it, and she was surprised. She 
goes, Well, one out of all of these students, you know. She was just-- I thought she had no 
business being a teacher. She obviously did not like working with children of color. Fortunately, 
I came into the latter part of the school year, so I didn't have her very long. But [sighs] how 
dangerous. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  23:28 
But she still stands out in your memory.  
 
Lindsay Buxton  23:30 
She does. I see her-- yes, that was just one, a lot of discriminations, you know, that experience 
and that, have, you know, lasting memories-- 
 
Debbie Guerrero  23:46 
Impacts? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  23:47 
Yeah, impacts are good. I had a favorite teacher. Her name was Mrs. Rice, and she was at the 
[?Bailey Gat?] on Queen Anne, on grade school as-- I-- in many respects, I liked the school 
because it was interracial, and also it accepted challenged students, like in wheelchairs, you 
know, dyslexic or MS, whatever, you know. Mrs. Rice was really encouraging. She sort of 
looked like the old schoolmarm too, but she was a little modern version of the old schoolmarm, 
and she didn't have her hair tight back in a knot, you know, but a fluffy hairdo, very friendly and 
very encouraging. I had-- for an art class, I had drawn a picnic scene with different people doing 
different things, you know, on this big hill. And I got first prize, and I looked at it in comparison 
to others, and I did not think that I really deserved the first prize. And she said, Oh yes, you did. 
[Inaudible] because you incorporated in your art piece activity of other people, and this is what I 
wanted. And so, [laughs]. 
 
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Debbie Guerrero  25:35 
How'd that make you feel? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  25:36 
It made me feel good! And another favorite was a nun, a sister, Mary Colina at St. James 
Cathedral here in Seattle. I had for class, home living, I think it was called, we had to design our 
houses, so, our future house that we would like. I drew somewhat of a longhouse, but a circular 
house in the center. I had drawn kitchen and different family members, like multi-duplex, 
Multiplex, you know? We would all have our own living quarters, but when it came time for 
family, it would be in the center. And she said that was the first time she'd ever seen anything 
like that. And she said, Do you think-- she had asked me, Well, how were you in math? I said, I 
struggle. She said, This would-- you know, she said, Very good architectural design. Maybe you 
should think about that. Of course, Catholic Church is always thinking, you know, telling you to 
think about what you're going to be. An interior decorator, and she had remarked to me three 
times that she had never seen anything like that, and how I came up with the idea of having 
individual, you know, residences and then all coming together for food. I said, Oh, it's a dream. 
You said, make it like you wanted. You know? 
 
Debbie Guerrero  27:16 
Wow. What grade was that? Do you remember? 
 
Lindsay Buxton  27:37 
I was in the eighth grade. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  27:39 
And Mrs. Rice, do you remember what grade that was?  
 
Lindsay Buxton  27:41 
That was seventh-- sixth. Yeah. Mother, towards high school, kind of resented activities outside 
of school. 
 
Debbie Guerrero  27:58 
Did it pose a hardship for her?  
 
Lindsay Buxton  28:02 
It did. It made her have to stay home. And she was very uncomfortable attending PTA. She was 
extremely shy. Very vocal, very hard, very cold, at home, but around white people, she was very 
shy. She was conscious to that-- the prejudice, the discrimination, and she felt inhibited because 
of her lack of education. I didn't realize it at that time, but my mother was losing her hearing, and 
I don't think she even really wanted to face that either. And so when people would talk to her, if 
they didn't talk to her, straight face-to-face. She said they made her feel like she was stupid. So I 
didn't know, really, what was going on there at that time. Mom used to play hide-and-seek with 
me. She used to jump rope, play jacks. They got me a bike. I used to pretend I was a taxi driver 
[laughs]. There certainly was different expectations. My father brought to my attention that being 
a girl was a handicap, you know, couldn't be and do things that boys-- 
 
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Debbie Guerrero  29:51 
[in unison] Boys-- 
 
Lindsay Buxton  29:52 
Yes. And my-- I think my mother just perpetuated that too. And she would say, [?Too?], what do 
you want to go to college for? All you're gonna do is end up being married. And I said, Well, I 
can be an educated married woman. What are you going to do about the kids? Get babysitters? 
You know, I have a-- [tape cuts off]. 