Page 1 of 20 
 
Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Mildred Pickett 
1980  
Cassette 1, Side 1 
 
 
Mildred Pickett  00:03 
Okay, pretty much what do you want me to say?  
 
Winona Weber  00:05 
Um-- 
 
Mildred Pickett  00:07 
Can it hear me just like this?  
 
Winona Weber  00:09 
Uh-huh! 
 
Mildred Pickett  00:09 
Is it on now? 
 
Winona Weber  00:10 
Yeah, the mike is over here. [Recorder slides across a table.]  
 
Mildred Pickett  00:13 
Okay. You have to ask me questions. 
 
Winona Weber  00:17 
I know [giggles]. [They laugh.] Oh, what kind of-- What kind of changes have you seen on the 
reservation down there? In the people? You think? 
 
Mildred Pickett  00:32 
I've seen more people.  
 
Winona Weber  00:34 
Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  00:35 
Page 2 of 20 
 
More people than when I lived there. And I think it's due to the new housing, the new HUD 
housing. 
 
Winona Weber  00:43 
M-hm. Do you think more people are coming back to the reservation or-- or what? 
 
Mildred Pickett  00:51 
Ummm. I think a little bit of that, and I think smaller houses are breaking up the family units, 
and just more people going to more houses.  
 
Winona Weber  01:08 
What do you mean?  
 
Mildred Pickett  01:09 
Well, I mean, like there was-- like one house used to probably would be anywhere from five to 
ten people in it, now two people to a house. That's the way it seems to me. Of course, there's a lot 
of people that's coming--I-- No, I won't say there are a lot of people coming back. It's about the 
same. Families I don't know of any new people that-- that are there. I'm just-- [phone rings, 
someone picks it up and hangs it up]. I know a lot of families that-- Oh, so like for instance, the 
Robinson family. Remember that little house there where we lived close to us? 
 
Winona Weber  02:00 
Mhm! 
 
Mildred Pickett  02:01 
There must have been 20 people in that little house. Now they all have their own. You know, 
Alberta has her home and [?Donnie?] has hers, and her other sister had hers and-- and some of 
the kids all have theirs. They have their own home, so that broke up one, one house with 23 
people into it into probably six or seven homes, and that's-- when I say there are more homes, 
probably more people.  
 
Winona Weber  02:31 
How did they all fit into one little house? 
 
Mildred Pickett  02:35 
Well, you remember how they would-- I used to just dread the thought of a fire over there. They 
would all just burn to a crisp. They all were in that little house, I don't know how that ever 
happened. 
 
Winona Weber  02:54 
Well, Grandma Bum used to have I don't know how many people staying there--  
 
Mildred Pickett  02:58 
Well, Grandma Bum had-- [Cross talk.] 
 
Winona Weber  03:00 
Page 3 of 20 
 
She only had two bedrooms. 
 
Mildred Pickett  03:01 
Now, she had at least two beds in that one bedroom, and then her own bed, and people sleeping 
in that other little room way out in the back, and always two couches in there. So now she's 
reduced to that one little cracker box of a house. Two-bedroom. And there's only two people 
living with her. 
 
Winona Weber  03:27 
I was talking to Grandma Black today, and she was talking about-- Do you remember when there 
was a longhouse at Taholah? 
 
Mildred Pickett  03:43 
Uh-huh. 
 
Winona Weber  03:45 
Who had the last longhouse in Taholah, do you think? 
 
Mildred Pickett  03:49 
Or Mr. Pope? Oh, Bob Pope.  
 
Winona Weber  03:53 
Uh-huh. Where was it? 
 
Mildred Pickett  03:54 
It was right where [clears throat]. It was right where [?Tubbles?] Underwood's house is, probably 
a little farther west.  
 
Winona Weber  04:07 
Where is that? 
 
Mildred Pickett  04:08 
Right on the front street, there. There was Dave Purdy's restaurant and then Urban's trailer.  
 
Winona Weber  04:15 
Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  04:15 
There's a little-- kind of a little vacancy, then Tubbles's house. And this was right in that area. 
 
Winona Weber  04:20 
How big was it? 
 
Mildred Pickett  04:21 
[Clears throat.] I don't know. I can just remember it when I was real little, and you know how 
things seem-- when you were real small, seem so much bigger. It was probably a good size. A 
Page 4 of 20 
 
longhouse, it was just a big long cedar shed. Because Buzz and I went in. Remember I always 
tell you kids about when we went in there, and mom forbid us to go on that longhouse. We went 
in there because they was given away free apples and oranges.  
 
Winona Weber  04:47 
Oh, really? Why were they giving away all this stuff?  
 
Mildred Pickett  04:49 
Well, that's, you know how Indian people do and after they have a ceremony, and then they just 
had boxes of apples and oranges, and they just run around and passed them out, and passed out 
probably blankets and stuff. But all I can remember is the apples and oranges. [They laugh.] And 
we weren't supposed to be there, but we-- you know, we weren't really supervised. But mom 
heard about it anyway, and we still got a lickin'.  
 
Winona Weber  05:18 
Oh. How come you weren't supposed to be there?  
 
Mildred Pickett  05:20 
Well, it was an evil. You know, the Indian doctors were there, and mom-- 
 
Winona Weber  05:26 
Oh. 
 
Mildred Pickett  05:26 
Course mom was already a Christian person.  
 
Winona Weber  05:29 
Yeah. 
 
Mildred Pickett  05:29 
You know, she always served-- since I can remember, she was a Sunday school teacher and 
really was into her church work. 
 
Winona Weber  05:38 
Mhm. And they really preached against Indian doctors, huh? 
 
Mildred Pickett  05:44 
Mhm. 
 
Winona Weber  05:44 
I wonder why. 
 
Mildred Pickett  05:45 
The Indian doctor was still pretty strong at knowin'.  
 
Winona Weber  05:45 
Page 5 of 20 
 
Up until then? 
 
Mildred Pickett  05:50 
They had-- They really believed, they really believed in that Indian doctor, and I can remember 
the old Shakers-- When my little sister died, the Shakers told mom that [clears throat] their old 
neighbor dug a hole, this Indian doctor, because he didn't like those kids running back and forth 
in his yard and playing, and they made so much noise. So he just dug a hole and trapped them. 
And that's what-- that's what happened to my little sister, my four-year-old sister that died, Jean 
Irene. 
 
Winona Weber  06:29 
What happened to her?  
 
Mildred Pickett  06:30 
Well, the Shakers told mom that Indian doctor--this old neighbor man, Indian doctor-- he dug a 
hole in the ground. 
 
Winona Weber  06:41 
Mm! 
 
Mildred Pickett  06:42 
And that actually wasn't a hole. You couldn't see it, but it was there.  
 
Winona Weber  06:47 
Yeah. 
 
Mildred Pickett  06:48 
And so these little kids were playing, and my little sister fell in it. She was the one that fell in it. 
And two, three days later, she was dead.  
 
Winona Weber  06:56 
Hmm! 
 
Mildred Pickett  06:57 
But according to what I can remember of my little sister's death, she had probably dehydrated. 
She had diarrhea and vomiting-- 
 
Winona Weber  07:08 
Oh [sympathetic].  
 
Mildred Pickett  07:08 
And maybe her fluids weren't replenished or whatever. But that isn't what the Shakers told Mom 
that. See, they shook after Jean Irene died. Oh, that-- the Indian doctor was still pretty strong yet. 
 
Winona Weber  07:32 
Page 6 of 20 
 
Do you think that maybe the reason why the-- there was such a high belief in the Shakers? Oh, I 
was talking to Grandma Black today. And she converted to Shaker when she was-- oh, she was a 
young woman. It was 1900s. And she always talks about all the power that the Shaker-- you 
know, the Shaker leaders had. I wonder if it has anything to do with how much they believed in 
Indian doctors? 
 
Mildred Pickett  08:09 
Huh, I couldn't really answer that. Because I've been in the Shaker Church over and over with 
my grandfather.  
 
Winona Weber  08:17 
Mhm. 
 
Mildred Pickett  08:18 
But I was always in there just as a spectator and I'd wait for him.  
 
Winona Weber  08:23 
Mhm. 
 
Mildred Pickett  08:24 
While he-- while he shook. And also from Grandma Jackson, we'd go-- we'd go to the Shaker 
Church and Grandma would, you know, go to shake, and we'd just sit down on the side. And we 
were always respectful. They always told us, you know, just to behave and be quiet and-- and, 
um. But we never were ever involved in the actual ceremony. But I did hear stories about one of 
our old neighbors. He'd go to the Shaker Church. His wife was a Shaker, but he wasn't. And he 
would throw marbles out on the floor--that's what they said-- in their shake. That's what he'd do. 
He just tried to, you know, disrupt them if he could with his Indian doctor. He put things out 
there and they could see it in their shake. They said he was really evil. There was, um-- 
 
Winona Weber  09:33 
Did a lot-- Did a lot of people convert, right from believing in the shamans, to--to Shakerism? 
To--to the Shaker religion? 
 
Mildred Pickett  09:42 
When I first-- when I first moved to Taholah, I-- the only experience I had with anything about a 
shaman was that-- that longhouse. That old, um, Bob Pope was a medicine man. And I was really 
too little to understand anything about it. And I think it was already on the wane because the BIA 
had-- the BIA, seems to me there was some order handed down from the BIA that they had to do 
away with that.  
 
Winona Weber  10:25 
The shamans?  
 
Mildred Pickett  10:25 
With that, um, yes, smokehouse, longhouse. 
 
Page 7 of 20 
 
Winona Weber  10:30 
Did they call it smokehouse? 
 
Mildred Pickett  10:33 
They called it the smokehouse, uh-huh.  
 
Winona Weber  10:35 
What did they do in the smokehouse? 
 
Mildred Pickett  10:37 
Um, as far as I know, it was just a place, a gathering place. I can just-- When I remember it, I can 
just see this big old long house, and it had a door on this end.  
 
Winona Weber  10:50 
Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  10:50 
And there was just like a big fire pit in the middle. And there was place for everybody to sit on 
each side. And I don't know if they used that for a gathering house, or if they used it for-- for 
slahal games, you know, the Indian bone games. They probably did use it for a gathering place. 
But it was off-limits to us.  
 
Winona Weber  11:18 
Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  11:19 
As kids, we just weren't allowed to go there, except for that one time we, we sneaked in there 
came in, got in on the-- Goodies. [They chuckle.] 
 
Winona Weber  11:28 
Did--did he live there? Or was it just--  Goodies.  
 
Mildred Pickett  11:36 
No, he didn't live there. He lived across the street. 
 
Winona Weber  11:39 
In a regular house? 
 
Mildred Pickett  11:40 
In a regular house. 
 
Winona Weber  11:46 
When--when. When was that house torn down? 
 
Mildred Pickett  11:53 
Well, we moved there in 1928. So it was probably shortly after that.  
Page 8 of 20 
 
 
Winona Weber  12:01 
Mm. 
 
Mildred Pickett  12:02 
I have-- I don't-- I couldn't really say that. I know it was-- could have been in the '30s. 
 
Winona Weber  12:10 
Mhm. I've got to sneeze. [Sneezes.] Ones that take forever to build up so you can sneeze. 
[Shifting around.] Well, the way Aunt Irene talks, Papa's mother was a shaman. You know? 
 
Mildred Pickett  12:44 
Uh-huh. 
 
Winona Weber  12:45 
Did--did Grandma Bum ever talk about her? 
 
Mildred Pickett  12:50 
Unh-uh. I never heard anything about Papa's mother. Heard a lot about Papa's father.  
 
Winona Weber  12:56 
Really? What did you hear about Papa's--? I've never heard anything about him.  
 
Mildred Pickett  12:59 
I heard about Papa's father, that he was really a cruel man.  
 
Winona Weber  13:03 
Uh-huh. Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  13:04 
And I remember one-- One story that mom tells us about Papa's father. Papa and [clears throat] 
his wife Caroline were just newlyweds. 
 
Winona Weber  13:21 
Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  13:21 
And they were riding home with-- with the in-laws. Old Lighthouse Charley and his wife. 
 
Winona Weber  13:31 
Oh.  
 
Mildred Pickett  13:31 
And Old Lighthouse Charley just went into a rage about something. And so he got down off the 
wagon, and he just whipped and whipped his horses, and [coughs] told Grandma Caroline, she-- 
she didn't like that.  
Page 9 of 20 
 
 
Winona Weber  13:53 
Mm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  13:53 
So she grabbed the whip away from him and threatened to whip him.  
 
Winona Weber  14:01 
Oh! 
 
Mildred Pickett  14:01 
[Coughs.] Cause she'd never seen anyone so violent as, as Papa's grandfather. He had a real 
terrific temper. 
 
Winona Weber  14:16 
Papa's father, wasn't he? 
 
Mildred Pickett  14:17 
Papa's father. Because I never--I well, I never did see my grandfather ever angry.  
 
Winona Weber  14:28 
Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  14:30 
Wasn't angry, ever angry. He was so-- always so calm and kind and-- 
 
Winona Weber  14:37 
Aunt Irene talks about a lot of stuff that she did, and he never got mad at her--[laughs]. 
 
Mildred Pickett  14:45 
I know. That's what I think, too. He was really a kind person. I know he was upset at times, you 
know, when they'd do things to him, or he was unhappy about something. But he always made 
the best of his situation.  
 
Winona Weber  15:06 
Mm. 
 
Mildred Pickett  15:11 
Kind of reminds me of John, like John Mail. 
 
Winona Weber  15:14 
Oh, really? 
 
Mildred Pickett  15:16 
Uh-huh. John's quite a bit like Papa. Even the way he walks. 
 
Page 10 of 20 
 
Winona Weber  15:20 
Oh, really? 
 
Mildred Pickett  15:20 
Yeah. Kind of like a big old bear. [Winona chuckles.] 
 
Winona Weber  15:28 
I've seen pictures of Papa. Did you know anybody? I know that they used to flatten the heads. 
You know, of babies.  
 
Mildred Pickett  15:39 
Uh-huh. Yeah.  
 
Winona Weber  15:40 
Did you know anybody with a-- with a flat head? 
 
Mildred Pickett  15:42 
Uh-huh. 
 
Winona Weber  15:42 
Who? 
 
Mildred Pickett  15:44 
Oh, John Cliff had a flat head. Grandma Jackson had a flat head. 
 
Winona Weber  15:51 
I met Anna Jackson, but I haven't met Grandma Jackson. 
 
Mildred Pickett  15:53 
No, Grandma Jackson died in the '30s. But she had a flat head, and John Cliff had a flat head. 
John Cliff looked very much like my dad and my grandfather.  
 
Winona Weber  16:04 
Mm. 
 
Mildred Pickett  16:06 
But his head was, you know, a real flat forehead. 
 
Winona Weber  16:10 
Yeah. 
 
Mildred Pickett  16:15 
And Grandma Jackson's forehead was flat, too. The old-timers. 
 
Winona Weber  16:24 
Page 11 of 20 
 
Did you know anybody in Grandma Bum's generation that had a, kind of flattened head? Pretty 
much died with--?  
 
Mildred Pickett  16:32 
Yeah, went out with, uh, with that generation of Papa's and Grandma Jackson and Old John 
Cliff. 
 
Winona Weber  16:43 
Because Grandma Black doesn't, either. 
 
Mildred Pickett  16:45 
No, and I can remember John Cliff's wife didn't have a flat head. 
 
Winona Weber  16:52 
I wonder how come? 
 
Mildred Pickett  16:54 
I don't know. All I can remember about Mrs. Cliff was she was quite blind. And she had pierced 
ears, and the holes were really big. I used to, you know, when I was a little kid, I'd always look at 
those. Her ear lobes, you know, you can just see through it, the hole was so big, and she always 
wore some kind of heavy silver earrings about like that. 
 
Winona Weber  17:19 
Where was she from?  
 
Mildred Pickett  17:22 
I don't know where Mrs. Cliff was from. 
 
Winona Weber  17:24 
Cause there's-- There are certain tribes that--that have, you know, the way they-- we flattened our 
heads. They put in big ear spools, and the bigger, the bigger your lobe, the higher your rank. 
 
Mildred Pickett  17:43 
Well she had-- that's one thing that distinguished Mrs. Cliff from all the other Indian women, old 
Indian women that I can remember, she had the holes--well, you know, like the end of, end of a 
straight pin. You know how that the top, the top is? Well, it was bigger than that. 
 
Winona Weber  18:06 
Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  18:06 
You know, you could actually see through her-- 
 
Winona Weber  18:08 
Through her ear. 
 
Page 12 of 20 
 
Mildred Pickett  18:09 
Through her ear! 
 
Winona Weber  18:14 
Yeah. Okay. And that--that would have gone out just about the same time that head flattening 
would have.  We talked about this famous chief, he was a real well-known leader in his tribe, 
you know, and he chewed on his earlobe in council. You know how some people chew their 
nails or something to think? 
 
Mildred Pickett  18:21 
Mhm.  Uh-huh. 
 
Winona Weber  18:29 
He chewed on his ear lobes! 
 
Mildred Pickett  18:39 
It was that long, huh?  
 
Winona Weber  18:40 
Yeah, and they talked about when they'd work, they'd have to throw their ear over their shoulder 
like you throw your hair over your shoulder. [Laughs.] 
 
Mildred Pickett  18:48 
I never heard of that. 
 
Winona Weber  18:49 
Yeah. Ear spools. And, um, this right here. Um, they'll break. They'd cut a hole right here in the 
newborn and they'd fill it with a spool. Copper spool. 
 
Mildred Pickett  19:05 
Oh. The Indian people did? 
 
Winona Weber  19:07 
Mhm. Certain tribes. That's funny-- it's funny that they were-- all that head flattening stopped 
with Papa's generation. 
 
Mildred Pickett  19:18 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  19:18 
I wonder why. 
 
Mildred Pickett  19:22 
Well, that probably was not getting-- I think maybe more medical people were coming into the 
tribe, and they probably discouraged that, you know, it looked pretty gruesome, I suppose as the 
flattening process was--was being done.  
Page 13 of 20 
 
 
Winona Weber  19:44 
Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  19:46 
They would flatten and put that board there, you know, in this--kind of wrap their heads and 
cause that skull to be flat. 
 
Winona Weber  19:58 
Mmm. It never affected Papa.  
 
Mildred Pickett  19:59 
Un-uh, not-- it didn't affect any of them. In fact, the people with the flattened heads were 
supposed to be of the higher class of people, just not everyone had their foreheads flattened. 
 
Winona Weber  20:11 
Not everyone could flatten their heads, isn't that right? 
 
Mildred Pickett  20:14 
That's right. We were talking the other day about Grandma Jackson-- one of the kids was asking 
me about--I think Andrew was asking me--and we were talking about when you'd go into town 
with Grandma, when she'd barter with her baskets and stuff. 
 
Winona Weber  20:38 
Mhm. 
 
Mildred Pickett  20:39 
Oh, I know what it was. We were talking about the money. How Aunt Irene always puts her 
money in a little sack down the front of her.  
 
Winona Weber  20:47 
Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  20:48 
I said, "Well, Grandma Jackson always had about [clears throat] at least three slips." [Winona 
chuckles.] And when we get ready to go into town, she always had a nice kerchief to wear on her 
head. She always wore it the regular traditional, you know, style. It came overhead like this, 
crossed in the back, and then it came on the front and she tied it right here. And she had about 
three slips, and then one of those slips, sometimes four, she'd always have her money pinned to 
one of those slips. So if she had to make any change or anything, she'd pull up her slips like that 
in order to find your money. [Winona laughs quietly.] Take what money she had out, tie this 
little bag or whatever it was up and pin it to her slip. And she always had those slips, and cotton 
stockings, long cotton stockings. And I know she didn't have any kind of a garter belt or anything 
because she--they didn't wear any kind of a foundation garment. So she probably tied them or 
rolled them on her knees, you know, because her dress was long [inaudible] to her ankles. And 
she'd always wear black tennis shoes. Always wore black tennis-- She never wore white tennis 
Page 14 of 20 
 
shoes, unless they didn't make them, I don't know, but she always wore black tennis shoes, and 
then she'd wear black tennis shoes and her cotton stockings, and three or four slips and of course 
her dress. She always made most of her dresses. She gathered them on a waist, you know.  
 
Winona Weber  22:28 
Mhm. 
 
Mildred Pickett  22:28 
And just had the bodice, and she always have some kind of sweater and her, her, um--silk 
kerchief.  
 
Winona Weber  22:40 
Silk, hm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  22:41 
Yeah not silk, but probably rayon. 
 
Winona Weber  22:45 
Yeah. Rayon didn't come out until-- 
 
Mildred Pickett  22:48 
Maybe-- I think it probably was silk because it was a shiny fabric.  
 
Winona Weber  22:52 
It was super--[cross talk]  
 
Mildred Pickett  22:54 
--Wasn't cotton, it was probably-- could have been satin, too. But it wasn't real slippery because 
it wasn't forever sliding off of her head.  
 
Winona Weber  23:07 
Hm! 
 
Mildred Pickett  23:07 
But she never wore a hat of any kind. Sometime when she's working at home--she'd be cutting 
wood or something-- she always wore a little stocking hat.  
 
Winona Weber  23:17 
Uh-huh. 
 
Mildred Pickett  23:17 
Little stocking hat. She had braids. She always had braids. They weren't big, thick braids, either. 
They were just kind of little braids. 
 
Winona Weber  23:28 
Was she old? 
Page 15 of 20 
 
 
Mildred Pickett  23:29 
She was old. 
 
Winona Weber  23:30 
When you knew her, wasn't she-- 
 
Mildred Pickett  23:31 
She was old when I knew her. And she lived for a good many years after that.  
 
Winona Weber  23:41 
I'm trying to picture her. 
 
Mildred Pickett  23:44 
I wish we could get a picture of [?Che?]. There must be-- [?Jug?] must have a picture of 
Grandma Jackson. I should call him up and ask him. 
 
Winona Weber  23:52 
Yeah, would you? I would really appreciate it if I could-- I got a picture of Ellen Slade. 
 
Mildred Pickett  24:00 
Oh have you? 
 
Winona Weber  24:01 
Yes, I've been thinking about-- 
 
Mildred Pickett  24:02 
Is that [Swight's] grandma? 
 
Winona Weber  24:03 
Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  24:05 
Uh-huh.  
 
Winona Weber  24:05 
Got a picture of her in Taholah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  24:07 
Yeah.  
 
Winona Weber  24:08 
Angeline Frank had about three or four pictures. 
 
Mildred Pickett  24:11 
Oh, really?  
Page 16 of 20 
 
 
Winona Weber  24:12 
She gave them to me.  
 
Mildred Pickett  24:13 
Oh, that's good. What did she have? What pictures did she have? 
 
Winona Weber  24:20 
She had pictures of Emma Slade working in her garden at Taholah with, uh, with a man. And she 
didn't know who the man was. 
 
Mildred Pickett  24:27 
Oh, Ellen.  
 
Winona Weber  24:28 
Ellen.  
 
Mildred Pickett  24:30 
Was it Otto? Was it a white man?  
 
Winona Weber  24:32 
You couldn't tell.  
 
Mildred Pickett  24:33 
Okay, just the back. [Cross talk.] See, Ellen Slade was married to Freda Charley's-- 
 
Winona Weber  24:40 
Yeah. 
 
Mildred Pickett  24:41 
--father, that was Otto's second wife was Ellen, that's how. Andy [Inaudible name] came to have 
that property. See, cause old Otto Strom died before Ellen did. So she inherited all that property. 
[Cross talk.] 
 
Winona Weber  24:57 
So her son was, um.  
 
Mildred Pickett  24:57 
Archie and Levi. 
 
Winona Weber  25:00 
Yeah. 
 
Mildred Pickett  25:01 
Levi was married to Mary. Mary would be a good person to interview. 
 
Page 17 of 20 
 
Winona Weber  25:05 
Mary-- 
 
Mildred Pickett  25:05 
Mary Slade. 
 
Winona Weber  25:06 
Where is she?  
 
Mildred Pickett  25:08 
She's in Taholah, right across from Nellie and-- 
 
Winona Weber  25:12 
Oh, I knew her. I didn't know she was [inaudible]. 
 
Mildred Pickett  25:15 
And, um--Nellie and Elsie. Elsie Sireech. See, Elsie Sireech. That's Hazel Baker's cousin. 
 
Winona Weber  25:24 
Mm. 
 
Mildred Pickett  25:25 
She was married to a Sireech, but she's married to Robert Capoeman now.  
 
Winona Weber  25:29 
Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  25:30 
And Nellie is Robert's mother. 
 
Winona Weber  25:34 
Oh. Oh, I want to-- I want to find out-- Nellie's dress up in Puyallup. Isn't that where she sent it-- 
I want to find out. I'm gonna try to interview her. I was wondering, people are always asking me 
how, how we figure out our kin system. You know? They-they-- I'll tell them, "That's my 
cousin." "That's my cousin." You know? How far out do you think that--? How, how far a 
relative do two people have to be before they can consider each other eligible for marriage? 
 
Mildred Pickett  25:40 
Mhm. Well, I--I think my mom's always-- Let's see, we just never were allowed to associate, um, 
in, um, you know, in a real close relationship with even our second or third cousins. 
 
Winona Weber  26:41 
Yeah. 
 
Mildred Pickett  26:42 
Page 18 of 20 
 
They-- we just knew that those were our cousins, and there was just no hanky-panky. We didn't 
even think about it.  
 
Winona Weber  26:49 
Yeah. 
 
Mildred Pickett  26:50 
But see some of our younger generation have. Like John and-- John McCrory, and Cecily's girl. 
Becky. 
 
Winona Weber  27:02 
How are they related? 
 
Mildred Pickett  27:03 
Well, John McCrory is [?Sunny?] Bum's, son, Yeah. And Becky is Cecily's-- 
 
Winona Weber  27:14 
And then--  
 
Mildred Pickett  27:14 
--daughter, so they would be. 
 
Winona Weber  27:16 
Geraldine's granddaughter? 
 
Mildred Pickett  27:17 
Yeah, Geraldine and [?Sunny?] are our first cousins. So they would be pretty close. 
 
Winona Weber  27:25 
That would be like me and [?Danny?] Baker, wouldn't it? 
 
Mildred Pickett  27:29 
Mhm. Mhm. 
 
Winona Weber  27:30 
Mm. Well, how were--? 
 
Mildred Pickett  27:39 
I think in the Indian way, your-- gosh, if you're about eightieth cousin, you're--[they chuckle]. 
 
Winona Weber  27:45 
Yeah, every time I go-- Well, I went and interviewed Edith Heck, and we sat there and talked, 
and we finallly found a common relation. [Laughs.] 
 
Mildred Pickett  27:52 
Page 19 of 20 
 
Yeah, I know. They always say, "Oh, I know your grandfather was my cousin." And I'm always 
really interested to know of his relationship with the different people. But a lot of times, I find 
that they aren't even, you know, closely related. They just call that just like a brother or a sister. 
 
Winona Weber  28:17 
They call each other brother and -- They call each other brother and sister. Did you ever hear 
that? 
 
Mildred Pickett  28:23 
Edith Heck and--? 
 
Winona Weber  28:24 
No, um. The-- Grandma Bum was talking-- Grandma Bum was talking about how, how Papa and 
some--some woman that was related to the Jacksons called each other brother and sister, and 
they were cousins or some distant-- 
 
Mildred Pickett  28:28 
The Shaker religion?  I think they-- I think they did. I can, you know, I can hear like my 
grandfather talking at a dinner or something, and he said, "This--And this is my sister." 
 
Winona Weber  28:57 
Mhm. 
 
Mildred Pickett  28:58 
And I just, you know, I, I didn't think-- I knew it wasn't his sister, but I think that just the way he 
addressed her. I don't know if that was in a sister in his religion or how he meant it. 
 
Winona Weber  29:12 
Was it a relative of some kind? Sometimes? 
 
Mildred Pickett  29:16 
Sometimes, it would be a relative, uh, huh. 
 
Winona Weber  29:23 
I wonder if they were raised to-- 
 
Mildred Pickett  29:25 
But Papa but never had a-- Yes, a lot of them were, you know, raised in the same village and in 
the same area. But my grandfather was really a popular, well-known man. So, you know, he 
knew a lot of people up and down the coast. But as far as I know, he only had one half-sister and 
that was Maggie Kalama. And he used to, you know, he always acknowledged her. He went to 
visit her all the time and, and they got along real well together. Maggie and-- Maggie lived in 
Hoquiam up there right where Most Western Laundry is. She had a home there in East Fork 
when she was married to-- She was married to Bill Kalama, he was a Hawaiian. And the Indians 
called him Kanaka Bill. 
 
Page 20 of 20 
 
Winona Weber  30:22 
[Chuckles.] Kanaka Bill. What was he doing over here? 
 
Mildred Pickett  30:28 
I have no idea, I imagine he was probably a seaman. Don't you think he was?  
 
Winona Weber  30:34 
No, I don't know.  
 
Mildred Pickett  30:36 
I--I just--I imagined because Aberdeen and Hoquiam were seaports, and--and I never did ever 
hear how Kanaka Bill made to Hoquiam. [They laugh.] 
 
Winona Weber  30:51 
Kanaka Bill. Well, who are their children? 
 