Page 1 of 26 
 
Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Myrtle Charley Landry 
1980  
Cassette 1, Side 2 
 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  00:03 
But I know-- Hazel. I had a sister, Christina. They were all born in Bay Center. 
 
Winona Weber  00:12 
Uh-huh.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  00:13 
But they've also, you know, had the leg trouble. She had hers fixed when she was young. And at 
that time, they had a place out in West Seattle where they could go and recuperate. They didn't 
want to ever come home. [Laughs as she talks.] We used to go up and see her. 
 
Winona Weber  00:32 
Convalescent type thing?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  00:33 
Yeah. Beautiful out east. Overlooked the locks. 
 
Winona Weber  00:36 
Gee, that'd be nice. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  00:37 
It was pretty and on. Of course. Got to play with all the kids. She didn't want to come home. 
 
Winona Weber  00:44 
Indoor plumbing? [Laughs.]  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  00:47 
They lived good. You know, they had, I think it was two to a room, and they had everything they 
needed. She wasn't ready to come home, and when she got home, she was more disappointed 
because-- See, my mother didn't finish the house. So we never had rooms. 
 
Winona Weber  01:04 
Uh-huh. 
Page 2 of 26 
 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  01:04 
That way they were more disappointed because they didn't have a bedroom. [They laugh.]  
 
Winona Weber  01:09 
Shoot, that'd be pretty nice to--  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  01:11 
Oh, they liked it. They wanted to go back to Seattle.  
 
Winona Weber  01:16 
Uh-huh. [Chuckles.] 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  01:16 
Especially when we had the outhouse, that was really a downfall. [They laugh. Small child 
sounds.] Want me to wave that [?bogey?] again? Ah? Is he going bye-bye?  
 
Winona Weber  01:28 
No, he's coming in. [Door opens.] 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  01:29 
No, he's coming in. [Door closes.] 
 
Winona Weber  01:37 
How old were you guys when you moved here, over here from Bay Center? How old were you?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  01:42 
I was 19.  
 
Winona Weber  01:42 
Nineteen, ah. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  01:44 
Mhm. I was 19 years old when everything sort of went crash in Bay Center. The fishing went 
out. [Child babbling.] There was no more logging camp.  
 
Winona Weber  01:55 
Gee, I wonder-- 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  01:57 
So we moved here. And we lived in [?Johnson Shore's?] bunkhouse.  
 
Winona Weber  02:05 
Uh-huh. [Murmurs to child.] Want to get down? Okay.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  02:07 
Page 3 of 26 
 
And then--then my dad started this house over here.  
 
Winona Weber  02:10 
Yeah, where Chief Charley's restaurant is?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  02:11 
Yeah. And so after I got together with Fred and we cleared this land-- We built a shack here. 
 
Winona Weber  02:19 
Yeah, yeah. [Helicopter sound in the background.] Is-- Was-- Have you just been adding on to 
it?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  02:25 
Yeah, we added on an extra bedroom. We added this part on.  
 
Winona Weber  02:29 
Well, I remember what it was like before.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  02:31 
Just a little, was right here.  
 
Winona Weber  02:33 
Yeah, and then you had this right here, that was all--  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  02:38 
Was that--?  
 
Winona Weber  02:40 
Oh, helicopter!  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  02:42 
Bird. Bird. 
 
Winona Weber  02:45 
Whirly-bird! 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  02:46 
See? 
 
Winona Weber  02:48 
Is it a Coast Guard helicopter? 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  02:51 
That sounds more like army.  
 
Winona Weber  02:54 
Page 4 of 26 
 
Yeah. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  02:55 
Yeah, we moved here. [Child babbling.] And I've been here since then. Stayed away-- I stayed 
away 11 years when Gene was ill. 
 
Winona Weber  03:03 
Uh-huh. Oh, yeah, you spent most of your time up in Tacoma and Seattle. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  03:09 
Up in Tacoma and Seattle, uh-huh. 
 
Winona Weber  03:10 
Yeah, I remember that.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  03:10 
I stayed away 11 years, and I had to come home and take care of the place. We rented it once.  
 
Winona Weber  03:18 
[Talking to child.] Stay here. [?Pogey's?] not there. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  03:20 
We rented it once in the man chopped a hole through our floor, [?Blake MicKinnon?]. [Laughs.] 
 
Winona Weber  03:24 
Oh, well! That was the end of the renting, huh? 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  03:27 
So we put an end to that and just came home every-- And my mother stayed here. 
 
Winona Weber  03:34 
Yeah. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  03:35 
Or my dad, and then during the war, they stayed in Taholah. 
 
Winona Weber  03:38 
Mm! World War II?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  03:40 
They had-- 
 
Winona Weber  03:42 
During World War II?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  03:44 
Page 5 of 26 
 
They stayed in Taholah, and he worked at the Navy Yard in Pacific Beach. Now, now. We were-
- We stayed there, too. And then, when the war really got in full blast, we went to Tacoma. 
Stayed, Fred and Harry Baker worked in the shipyard.  
 
Winona Weber  04:07 
Did you work with them?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  04:08 
No. I had Gene when he was just little, and uh. 
 
Winona Weber  04:13 
[To child.] Nothing in there, see?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  04:20 
We stayed there. All during the war. Hazel worked in the shipyard, but I never did. I stayed. I 
worked at Cushman Indian Hospital.  
 
Winona Weber  04:29 
Yeah [affirmative]? 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  04:30 
And then when I got sick, they said, "Well, you didn't call." And I said, "I sure did, every day. 
And I said, "I had to walk two blocks to call." And I said, "There I had the flu."  
 
Winona Weber  04:44 
Really? 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  04:44 
So they--they docked me and said, "Well, you didn't call." I said, "Okay by me." So they fired 
me. I worked six hours a day, and I would get home just in time for Gene getting home from 
school, I'll say.  And then Denny, they went to St.--St. Martin's.  
 
Winona Weber  04:58 
Yeah. Where's St. Martin's?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  05:06 
St. Mart-- What am I talking about? Not St. Martin, Sacred Heart [Catholic Church].  
 
Winona Weber  05:09 
Sacred Heart. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  05:10 
On McKinley. [Child babbling.] She wants you to go outside.  
 
Winona Weber  05:15 
No, I'm not gonna go outside, honey. It's cold out there!  
Page 6 of 26 
 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  05:17 
No, she'll go after a while.  
 
Winona Weber  05:18 
It's cold.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  05:19 
Come on, shut the door. It's really cold.  
 
Winona Weber  05:21 
It's cold out there, shut the door. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  05:23 
Nona's freezing. [Child responds.]  
 
Winona Weber  05:29 
Okay. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  05:32 
Shut it. [Door closes.] 
 
Winona Weber  05:35 
She's gonna go out and see [?Fogey?]. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  05:36 
So I-- I never was so glad to move back here. As the war was ending, [door closed] I moved back 
here.  
 
Winona Weber  05:50 
Yeah.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  05:50 
Fred stayed up there. He wasn't ready to move back. And, uh, I was. Boy, I tell ya. [Clears 
throat.] Get all organized here. And I started to work in the cannery. I think it was Gene then was 
begin, you know, going into school.  
 
Winona Weber  06:08 
Oh, yeah. [Child babbling, getting a little upset.] 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  06:09 
So I worked in the cannery for 12 years. [Child babbles.] Nona. Say Nona. Nona.  
 
Winona Weber  06:20 
Hello, Hannah, how are you doing?  
 
Page 7 of 26 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  06:22 
So I was really glad to get back here, and I've been-- Then when Gene got ill, I went back to 
Tacoma.  
 
Winona Weber  06:32 
Was that when you quit the cannery?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  06:34 
Yes. 
 
Winona Weber  06:34 
When Gene got ill? 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  06:35 
Yeah. He got ill, and I couldn't work. Well, I worked up to the time-- [Child making delighted 
sounds, the two women laugh.] Of the time they released him out of the hospital. He was there 
two-and-a-half years, you know, in the hospital.  
 
Winona Weber  06:48 
Oh, where was that? 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  06:49 
At Indian Hospital, Cushman-- [To child.] Don't! That hurts. And so I moved. [Winona laughs at 
child.] Because a doctor said, "Don't bring him here." And he had to have, you know-- 
 
Winona Weber  07:02 
Physical therapy. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  07:03 
Physical therapy.  
 
Winona Weber  07:04 
Yeah. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  07:05 
Well, in the meantime, they--they decided to kick us out. And-- 
 
Winona Weber  07:11 
[Child babbling.] No, I'm not going outside. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  07:14 
So I said that was alright, so then I went to the hosp-- went to a drugstore in Puyallup, and I said, 
"I gotta have these things." I said, "The hospital told us to get out." And he said, "What 
happened?" And I said, "He's supposed to have tubercular meningitis." 
 
Winona Weber  07:31 
Page 8 of 26 
 
Oh, boy. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  07:31 
He said, "You go right back there." And he said, "You tell him to give him all this. And they've 
got to give it to him for a year." He said, "If they don't give you anything, call me." And he said, 
"And I'll, I'll fix them." 
 
Winona Weber  07:32 
Uh-huh. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  07:33 
So I went back and I said, "I talked to a druggist." And I said, "You people are supposed to take 
care of Gene for one year after he's released." And I said, "I need all this [dang] stuff. And I said, 
"You should have even gave me lessons on what to do."  
 
Winona Weber  07:56 
Yeah.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  07:58 
And instead he just one day said, "Take your boy." He said, "You're a mess-- You're a meddling 
mother." But if I didn't meddle, Gene would lay in--I said, "He used to sweat, and he was getting 
bed sores." I said, "If I hadn't done that, he would have rotted away." Well they said-- one doctor 
said, "Why don't you just go and leave him and forget about it?" I said, "Just who are you think 
you're talking to, anyway?" 
 
Winona Weber  08:24 
Really?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  08:25 
I said, "I got feelings, although I'm a full-blood Indian, I got feelings. "Well, he'll never amount 
to anything." Well, I said, "I sure as heck ain't gonna let him die here." And boy, I raised Cain 
with them. So they told us one day, "You get out of here, you're a meddling mother." So we 
found everything and we left. And as we were going by, Dr. Patterson grabbed the crutches. 
Said, "These belong to the hospital." I said, "Go ahead, stick them up. I'll go down to the 
Goodwill. They'll get me a pair." 
 
Winona Weber  08:52 
Yeah. [Child babbling.] 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  08:53 
So yeah, so I took him home-- Well, we went right to the Goodwill. I got a pair [wheezes in 
laughter] of crutches for him! He was able to use them, you know, because he wore a brace. He 
was able to walk. [Child babbles.] Yes, look at that man out there. He's looking at you. And so--
so I exerc-- I exercised him real good there, and I had things going good, and then the state 
decided that they could do more for him than I could, and they took him to that place in 
[?Windsor?]. That's where they hurt his back and hurt his arms.  
Page 9 of 26 
 
 
Winona Weber  09:06 
Yeah! Yeah. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  09:37 
Became you know-- Lost the use of them.  
 
Winona Weber  09:41 
Thanks a lot. I'm really a lot of protection against [?Pokey?]. [They laugh.]  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  09:45 
So I was-- pretty bad that the state, you know, decided that he was-- Yeah! [Child making 
sounds.] --I wasn't doing enough. I had bladder control and everything on him.  
 
Winona Weber  10:00 
Yeah.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  10:02 
You know, I said, "Worked in your head." I said, "And you can, you know, do that just a certain 
time every day." Well, we won't have no trouble, which we never--  
 
Winona Weber  10:12 
Yeah. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  10:13 
And when they took him on, well he lost all of that. 
 
Winona Weber  10:18 
Ooh [sympathetic]. [Inaudible] sticks. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  10:18 
What are you selling? DMS oil?  
 
Unknown speaker  10:20 
I'm calling [?Gibley?]. What? 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  10:22 
Huh? 
 
Unknown speaker  10:23 
I ain't selling nothing! 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  10:24 
Oh? 
 
Unknown speaker  10:28 
Page 10 of 26 
 
[Inaudible] all of your money. [They laugh.] 
 
Winona Weber  10:29 
Not for DMS oil.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  10:34 
I don't know-- What else, now, could we think about?  
 
Winona Weber  10:37 
I noticed you crochet. Who taught you how to crochet?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  10:39 
I learned by myself when I was about seven years old.  Yeah, I wanted to learn so bad. That's 
what I was just telling my kids the other day. I said, "I wanted to learn to crochet so bad." I don't 
know, I seen the older kids do it in school. 
 
Winona Weber  10:44 
Oh, yeah?  Yeah.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  10:54 
So, I wanted to learn. And my mother dug up an old, ugliest green thread you'd ever seen. I don't 
know where she got it. But I used that for about two years.  
 
Winona Weber  11:11 
Yeah. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  11:11 
Pull it apart and I'd try again. What I was trying to make was a doily, never realizing you had to 
add, you know, to make it flat. Mine would turn out to be a little hat each time, [laughs].  
 
Winona Weber  11:24 
Yeah, that's how my crocheting always comes out. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  11:26 
And I'd pull it apart. Well, them days, the thread was good, you know.  
 
Winona Weber  11:31 
Yeah. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  11:33 
[Inaudible.] Never linked you know, like now you can't do it. And finally, I went over to Bessie. 
And I was showing her my bows, you know, and she showed me then that you add in order to 
make it flat.  
 
Winona Weber  11:48 
Mhm [affirmative]. 
Page 11 of 26 
 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  11:49 
So I was able to make a doily flat. Well, by the time I got into about the third grade, well, then 
they gave us lessons in school.  
 
Winona Weber  11:56 
Yeah.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  11:57 
Me and my green thread. [Laughs.] 
 
Winona Weber  11:59 
Still had the green thread?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  12:01 
Yeah! And I learned then how to make lace, you know?  
 
Winona Weber  12:08 
Where did you get the crochet hooks?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  12:10 
I think Bessie-- or mom had it, I think. 
 
Winona Weber  12:13 
Uh-huh. Did your mother crochet?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  12:15 
Yeah, she used to do edging. That's all. She never did big wide--  
 
Winona Weber  12:18 
No. [To child?] 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  12:21 
I made for her one time-- What do you call it? Hairpin lace. I made enough to make edging for 
her curtains in their kitchen. 
 
Winona Weber  12:32 
Oh, geez. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  12:33 
Yards and yards, [inaudible]. 
 
Winona Weber  12:34 
Yeah, takes you forever.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  12:37 
Page 12 of 26 
 
But I like to do that. And I like to embroidery, when I began having enough money of my own. I 
used to make a pillowcase a week and do the edging on that. My ma used to think it was a waste 
of time because she said, "Your embroidery will last, and the pillowcase will wear out." Which 
was true. 
 
Winona Weber  13:01 
Uh-huh. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  13:01 
See some of the designs I used [inaudible] when I'd do it, and--  
 
Winona Weber  13:05 
How old were you when you were doing that?  Well from-- I started in from six and then onto, 
say 14, 15 years old. I was doing embroidery. I made her a bedspread one time.  Oh, gee! 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  13:21 
When we were cleaning up after she passed away over here, she still had it! 
 
Winona Weber  13:25 
Oh, yeah. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  13:27 
Still had it. A little bit torn on the edges, but the flowers and everything that I'd put in were still 
there! [Laughs.] 
 
Winona Weber  13:38 
Well, the embroidery lasted longer than--  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  13:40 
A long time ago, everything was so much better grade than you get now, you know. Cloth goes 
to pieces. Nothing flat. What else you doing over there, lady? [To child?] No, I liked embroidery. 
And then when I come here, I learned to knit. We had knitting classes down there. And it was 
really nice when just us kind of working women was on it. We were able to meet once a week. 
Little working women were able to discuss what was happening to us like change of life, babies, 
you know, on and on. It was interesting. Besides our lessons, I learned to knit socks and a 
sweater. Then some other women that never had to work joined our club. And then it got to be a 
gossip thing.  
 
Winona Weber  14:40 
Yeah.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  14:41 
So here they were over here, the whole bunch, you know, and then that left just another woman 
and I over here. They didn't include us because we didn't know too much. So then Ethel said, 
"Gee, Myrtle." She says, "I'm not gonna come anymore." She said, "They're gonna just talk and 
Page 13 of 26 
 
gossip over there, and another corner over here, you know, we weren't even included." So I said, 
"Well, I'm not going to come, either." So her and I quit. [Laughs.]  
 
Winona Weber  15:09 
Yeah.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  15:10 
Put it back. [To child?] 
 
Winona Weber  15:11 
Was your grandmother still alive when you were little? [Cross talk.] 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  15:14 
Yeah. I used to wish I knew her because she knew how to make yarn. She knew how to knit 
socks and sweaters, you know. And I-- Of course, she never spoke English. And I never was that 
close to her, you know. 
 
Winona Weber  15:31 
Yeah.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  15:31 
--That she made quilts. My gram never sit down and she wasn't doing something with her hands, 
always went. 
 
Winona Weber  15:37 
Uh-huh. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  15:38 
She was knitting socks. She was knitting sweaters--mostly socks. Or else she'd be doing--she'd 
be doing quilt squares all by hand. 
 
Winona Weber  15:51 
Go put that back. [To child.]  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  15:53 
Go put it away. [Inaudible cross talk.] She likes the center of the bread.  
 
Winona Weber  16:00 
This-- Did your mom do that?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  16:03 
My mom didn't knit, but she sewed. And made clothes. She made all our clothes. And like Audy, 
she made all his shirts. 
 
Winona Weber  16:13 
Oh, really? 
Page 14 of 26 
 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  16:13 
And she made all my clothes.  
 
Winona Weber  16:16 
Yeah. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  16:17 
Patched. Oh my gosh. I used to like to patch my dad's work crab clothes or patch over his old-- 
Over and over. Audy--he didn't like new overalls. He liked to get old, but there was no such 
thing as a secondhand store during our day. If there was, we didn't know they were [inaudible].  
 
Winona Weber  16:38 
Shoot, by the time he-- time stuff. Never had secondhand. [Inaudible cross talk.] 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  16:43 
Sometimes they never wore out, even! [Chuckles.] And, uh-- 
 
Winona Weber  16:47 
Well, and you just kept handing them down, and [inaudible]. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  16:50 
Well they handed down, and handed down, you know. And of course like with Audy, there were 
nobody else to hand it down to. So he wore it until he couldn't get them on anymore. 
 
Winona Weber  17:00 
Yeah. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  17:01 
But he wanted his patched. Course the other kids, you know-- The kids at Bay Center, most of 
them—like we were—didn't have the money to-- --buy. [Clears throat.] A lot of them got down 
to the patches, and Audy wanted his patched whether it had a hole or not. [They laugh.] Just to 
be with them, you know. Yeah. Mhm. And my mom said to him, "You don't need to pass and go. 
You never see Coop and Evie patching their. "Yeah, but," he said, "Their skin is the same color 
as their patch--they had regular suit pads, you know, knee? 
 
Winona Weber  17:39 
Uh-huh [affirmative].  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  17:39 
And they'd have a hole in the rear end and on the knee. [They laugh.] But they never had 
underwear. 
 
Winona Weber  17:48 
Oh, yeah. 
 
Page 15 of 26 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  17:50 
We had to wear white underwear, which was always showed with our socks. 
 
Winona Weber  17:54 
Oh, yeah. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  17:55 
Audy and I needed to patch our socks, too. [Chuckles.] 
 
Winona Weber  18:00 
Did your mother do baskets? Basket work? 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  18:01 
No, no she never done baskets. 
 
Winona Weber  18:05 
Oh! 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  18:05 
She sewed clothes, she'd patch clothes. Seemed like it was, it was her-- She just loved to patch 
clothes. She sewed. She made all the sheets, pillowcases-- 
 
Winona Weber  18:21 
Yeah, wow. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  18:21 
--You know. Course them days, we get flour in you know 100-pound. 
 
Winona Weber  18:28 
Uh-huh. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  18:28 
I made pillowcases and or I made, made my underwear. Course with Audy, she always bought 
cloth for his shirts. She even made my dad's shirts. See, my dad was also trained as to be a tailor 
when he was in Cushman. So he knew how to sew also.  
 
Winona Weber  18:49 
Oh, boy.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  18:50 
Mm, cause if Ma couldn't sew, but he needed [it], he sat down he patched it or put buttons on it! 
[Laughs.]  
 
Winona Weber  18:56 
Did your mother go to school?  
 
Page 16 of 26 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  18:57 
Yeah, they went to school in Cushman. That's where she met my dad.  
 
Winona Weber  19:01 
Oh, I see. How much education did she get?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  19:05 
She got up to about the fourth grade.  
 
Winona Weber  19:07 
Oh, that's pretty good. [Inaudible.] But she learned [?third word?] to cook, see, what she didn't 
learn at home.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  19:16 
Well, she learned in Cushman. That's where she learned the breadmaking, she worked in a 
bakery all the time. She said one time, she had set her bread, and she didn't have to come down 
until early in the morning. And somebody snuck in and they wrote a rat in it.  Uh-huh.  
 
Winona Weber  19:36 
Oh, gee! 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  19:37 
Oh, she said she put it into bake, you know, [Winona giggles] and then they run it through the 
machine here was-- oh, just about died.  
 
Winona Weber  19:47 
Oh gee. Oh, that's terrible. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  19:48 
She says there never was anything so bad. And now you're ruining my good bread. Cut her a 
slice over there and put a little butter on it and see what she'll-- [Winona gets up, knife sounds.]  
 
Winona Weber  20:02 
Come on!  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  20:02 
She's going to cut it for you and put some butter on it.  
 
Winona Weber  20:04 
Let's put some-- 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  20:06 
There's butter in that little thing there.  
 
Winona Weber  20:07 
Well, I think that's what she was trying to do [cutlery clinking] because it was all cut off.  
Page 17 of 26 
 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  20:13 
Cut about half for her and put--put butter-- 
 
Winona Weber  20:19 
There we go. Well who, um-- Did your-did your mom really encourage you to go to school?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  20:30 
Oh, yes, definitely.  
 
Winona Weber  20:31 
You went through the ninth grade.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  20:32 
That was, uh. That was something for--all children had to go to school. There was no, you know, 
but like--  
 
Winona Weber  20:42 
Some parents discouraged it, some [cross talk].  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  20:44 
Some.  
 
Winona Weber  20:45 
So-- 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  20:46 
Well we all had to go to school in Bay Center. It was just something you had to do, or, you 
know, get in trouble and your parents had to pay a fine. 
 
Winona Weber  20:53 
Uh-huh!  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  20:55 
And--  
 
Winona Weber  20:56 
How long do you have to go to school?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  20:58 
We went to school, or-- 
 
Winona Weber  21:02 
I mean, how-how-how old did you have to be before your parents--  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  21:04 
Page 18 of 26 
 
Oh, seven. You had to be seven years old to be in the first grade.  
 
Winona Weber  21:09 
Oh, I see. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  21:10 
Bring me some bread, too, while you're at it. [Chuckles.] 
 
Winona Weber  21:11 
Okay! How old was--was the age cutoff for-for not having to go to school anymore?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  21:18 
Well, you was out of eighth grade then-- [Cross talk.] 
 
Winona Weber  21:19 
Eighth grade, I see.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  21:20 
--You didn't have to go. 
 
Winona Weber  21:21 
Oh, I see. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  21:21 
Because, see, we were isolated at Bay Center.  
 
Winona Weber  21:24 
Oh, yeah. You really were. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  21:25 
And you had you either had to have money, or, or be lucky enough to work for your board and 
room.  
 
Winona Weber  21:34 
But- oh, for school. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  21:34 
And my mother didn't think I was smart enough to work for my board and room. So I didn't get 
to go. And then two girls were the only ones that made it out. And a lot of the families moved to 
South Bend so their kids could go to school.  
 
Winona Weber  21:50 
Yeah? That was the nearest high school, huh?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  21:54 
Yeah, and we were isolated. Only get out by boats, you know. Thank you.  
Page 19 of 26 
 
 
Winona Weber  21:58 
Did any of your family go to high school?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  22:00 
Yes. Hazel graduated from Chemawa. And um, they've had only-- She only had a-- She only had 
about a year or more to go. She [inaudible]. 
 
Unknown speaker  22:00 
[Child making sounds.] What are you eating? 
 
Winona Weber  22:09 
Yeah.  
 
Unknown speaker  22:09 
Bread! You're eatin' bread!  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  22:21 
That was it. [Winona coughs.] By like me and Audy-- Eighth grade and that was as far as we can 
go. 
 
Winona Weber  22:30 
Yeah. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  22:32 
Then the government said that give me $100 to go to school. 
 
Winona Weber  22:38 
Oh!  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  22:39 
$25 four times a year. 
 
Winona Weber  22:40 
Uh-huh. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  22:43 
Well how in the heck was I gonna live? 
 
Winona Weber  22:45 
Oh, yeah-- 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  22:50 
Of course my mom had sent me to Chemawa, I about died there.  
 
Winona Weber  22:54 
Page 20 of 26 
 
You didn't like it there, huh? 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  22:56 
Kids were clannish. There was no half-breeds there. You know, they were mostly full-blood 
Indian. They only talked to Indians. [Chuckles.] And they would stick together. They didn't mix 
with [inaudible].  
 
Winona Weber  23:09 
At home, did you-- Did you speak English all the time at home? [Child asking for Winona.] 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  23:14 
Yes. Never heard Indian. Only time we heard Indian was when-- when my dad would come and 
he'd talk to Agnes. Even with his own parents. They didn't talk Indian. It seemed odd. You know, 
like I used to come over, and my grandmother would sit and she talked English to me 
[inaudible].  
 
Winona Weber  23:38 
Which grandmother was that?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  23:39 
Irene's mother. Chicha we called her.  
 
Winona Weber  23:41 
Yeah. Grandma Caroline? 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  23:44 
Yeah, they never did talk Indian to me. I told mom I said, "You was home with us all the time, 
you should have taught us your language, anyway." 
 
Winona Weber  23:53 
Yeah! 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  23:55 
Then we'd hear-- Unh-uh, leave that now, that's Nona's. Put it back. Put it back.  
 
Winona Weber  24:01 
No, sweetie. Leave that alone. I put this we're here because you were playing--[Myrtle laughs.] 
Wanted--she wanted to play at the table, and she was trying to move my stuff out of the way. 
Your mother never-- Did she work to do anything to bring money into the house?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  24:20 
No.  
 
Winona Weber  24:21 
By herself?  
 
Page 21 of 26 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  24:22 
Oh, yes, she did at home. During the winter she made the big bags and sold them.  
 
Winona Weber  24:28 
I see. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  24:29 
Mhm. 
 
Winona Weber  24:30 
Aunt Irene said that Grandma Caroline did that, too, they made them. Was that kind of a 
common thing for women around here to do in the winter?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  24:37 
The big bag? Yeah, you made big bags for your fisherman husband.  Like my ma, she made 
them for other fishermen because she--she was really handy at it, you know. 
 
Winona Weber  24:45 
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  24:52 
She was fast, because a lot of the other women had big gardens, cows to take care of, you know, 
butter to make, and vegetables to can.  
 
Winona Weber  25:08 
Mhm. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  25:08 
And down where we lived, a swampy place, we didn't have that opportunity to grow too much, 
you know, up in [inaudible].  
 
Winona Weber  25:17 
Yeah.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  25:18 
And besides, the only thing we grew I can remember was lettuce and cabbage. 
 
Winona Weber  25:25 
[Coughs.] Yeah, they probably grew pretty big over there.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  25:26 
Course, the carrots, they would grow [inaudible] bunch of bugs. 
 
Winona Weber  25:30 
Oh, yeah.  
 
Page 22 of 26 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  25:31 
I remember one of the grams-- Of course grandma always had a big garden and everything. Her 
husband showed us how to eat lettuce with-with canned cream and sugar. [Child babbles.] About 
killed my mom to see us do that, waste [inaudible]?  
 
Winona Weber  25:50 
No, yeah [coughs].  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  25:52 
So whenever she'd kind of go visit Emma once in a while, well we'd dash out and get the lettuce 
leaves, you know, and really eat the sugar and the canned cream [laughs].  
 
Winona Weber  26:04 
Do you mean-- [inaudible] type stuff?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  26:08 
You know that like, the canned milk? 
 
Winona Weber  26:10 
Okay, then-- 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  26:11 
Carnation? 
 
Winona Weber  26:12 
And then put it on the lettuce with sugar? 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  26:15 
Little sugar. 
 
Winona Weber  26:15 
I've never eaten that. Hmm! 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  26:18 
Or else, uh-- My mother never believed in frying food.  
 
Winona Weber  26:24 
How did she--?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  26:25 
She either boiled or baked. 
 
Winona Weber  26:27 
Everything? 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  26:28 
Page 23 of 26 
 
Everything.  
 
Winona Weber  26:29 
Hmm! 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  26:30 
So when she'd go again. Boy, we run from the house and get some potatoes and get a frying pan, 
and we'd do it fast as we can, and sometime they kind of raw, and we'd eat [laughs].  
 
Winona Weber  26:42 
You munchin' down on them, I suppose. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  26:45 
We'd eat it. Then we'd wash that pan and put it back just like it was sitting. Course, we knew if 
we didn't set it back, she'd know that we had done something. 
 
Winona Weber  26:56 
Yeah. Then you'd have to tell her what you did.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  26:59 
I didn't know whether she counted the potatoes or not. [They laugh.] Boy, we'd-we'd eat them, I 
tell ya. But we--according to today, we lived good. Because we had all the potatoes we needed. 
And Audy and I would go out and we'd dig clams, mud clams. 
 
Winona Weber  27:20 
Mhm. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  27:21 
Or we'd go further out and they had what they call the-the Olympia oysters then, the little tiny 
ones?  
 
Winona Weber  27:31 
Uh-huh. Yeah. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  27:32 
They were all along the flats. And I'd get a gallon for my mom and she'd clean them. [Child 
babbling.] Looks like she's showing you something great.  
 
Winona Weber  27:48 
Oh, yeah.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  27:50 
And then we got cockles, you know? And then my dad would bring in a mess a crab we would 
eat. He'd cook it outside and we'd eat it right outside. 
 
Winona Weber  27:58 
Page 24 of 26 
 
Oh, boy. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  27:59 
And then he'd come in with a mess of duck. Wild duck. Come on with gunny sacks full of snipe, 
and then my mother would-- they'd sit there and skin them. He said that you know you couldn't 
pull a feather, and see-- That would be the only time we'd be allowed a second dish-- 
 
Winona Weber  28:16 
Oh, boy. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  28:17 
Because-- 
 
Winona Weber  28:18 
The snipe? 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  28:19 
The snipe. We would eat the snipe. 
 
Winona Weber  28:22 
Huh! 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  28:22 
And she'd bake them, you know. 
 
Winona Weber  28:25 
Uh-huh.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  28:25 
They're just the size of a robin, I guess. 
 
Winona Weber  28:30 
Lot of them around, those little birds. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  28:33 
But she'd bake messes of them. Well, we could have all we wanted. But she used to say, "Don't 
eat any more than one dishfull. She said, "because there will come a day when we don't have no 
food, and you're gonna suffer." We were only allowed one dish. Take what you needed in that 
dish and you ate it. Then that was it.  
 
Winona Weber  28:51 
How did they catch the snipe?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  28:53 
My dad used to shoot them. Used to shoot gunny sacks full. They were a little larger than those 
little ones you see out there. 
Page 25 of 26 
 
 
Winona Weber  29:03 
Mhm. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  29:04 
They were a little larger than a robin. But then they'd sit there they'd take the skin and feathers 
right off. 
 
Winona Weber  29:12 
Huh! I haven't-- 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  29:15 
We had all the darn duck--And every once in a-- Geese. Then once in a while, my dad bring 
home a seal. We would have seal. That--the way my mother fixed it, way my dad fixed it. Took--
You know, if you bleed them good just like a pig, you got good meat. 
 
Winona Weber  29:28 
Oh, I can imagine!  Oh, I see. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  29:37 
And then you--before they bleed them, then they'd put them in a fire, you know, and burn all 
that-- --Bristles off and they skinned it like. But one man said, "Well I wouldn't--" Mother, my 
mother's cousin, said, "I wouldn't eat seal." So we just a munchin' away on a big roast my ma 
had. "Boy, that's a good meat? When did you get--" You know, that was something he didn't get 
in Bay Center was fresh meat. 
 
Winona Weber  29:45 
--Hair off? Really?  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  30:10 
Unless somebody killed a cow, you know. [Clears throat.] Wash it, and you know what you're 
eating. It's your beef, and that's seal. [They laugh.] Geez, I didn't know it tastes so good. 
 
Winona Weber  30:23 
Does seal taste like beef? 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  30:25 
If you bleed it good. 
 
Winona Weber  30:27 
Oh, I-- 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  30:27 
You've got to bleed it good, just like anything else, you know? 
 
Winona Weber  30:30 
Page 26 of 26 
 
Uh-huh. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  30:31 
It looks like a piece of beef when you roast it. 
 
Winona Weber  30:34 
Oh, yeah, I can imagine. 
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  30:36 
The meat is grainy. 
 
Winona Weber  30:38 
Uh-huh.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  30:40 
But the thing is to bleed it good. And then, you know get all the stuff out of it. The bristles. 
 
Winona Weber  30:50 
Yeah.  
 
Myrtle Charley Landry  30:52 
Course they used to burn it and just run the knife over it, you know. Skin it. It's like scale, you 
know, to scale fish. But I can remember eating all that and I like-- This time of year, now, Audy 
and I would pick berries and pick berries, you know. We wouldn't let a day go by that we weren't 
out there getting a couple of gallons of berries a day. We hated to see it go to waste. 
 
Winona Weber  31:21 
Oh, yeah. [Recording ends.] 
 