Page 1 of 17 
 
Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Mildred Pickett 
1980  
Cassette 1, Side 2 
 
 
Winona Weber  00:06 
What about Uncle Simon? 
 
Mildred Pickett  00:07 
Uncle Simon and his wife didn't have any children, but they raised Josephine. 
 
Winona Weber  00:13 
Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  00:17 
And she always lived with them. 
 
Winona Weber  00:21 
How did they end up with Josephine? 
 
Mildred Pickett  00:23 
Um, she was Alice Johns' child. 
 
Winona Weber  00:33 
Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  00:33 
And I, I really can't say. Maybe there were a lot of children, or-- You know, and since Simon and 
Lucy didn't have any children, and Lucy and Alice were sisters-- 
 
Winona Weber  00:39 
Yeah.  Alice--? 
 
Mildred Pickett  00:50 
Alice Johns-- Benny Charley's mother. 
 
Winona Weber  00:54 
That's right. That's what [inaudible]. 
Page 2 of 17 
 
 
Mildred Pickett  00:55 
Uh-huh. 
 
Winona Weber  00:55 
Hm! Simon-- What was Simon's name? Was he--? 
 
Mildred Pickett  01:09 
Charley. Mhm. 
 
Winona Weber  01:11 
And they both took-- 
 
Mildred Pickett  01:13 
Simon and Maggie and Papa were all Charleys. 
 
Winona Weber  01:17 
Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  01:17 
But Papa was-- He was a half-brother to them. And older than both of them. 
 
Winona Weber  01:24 
Yeah. The way I understand. Old [Ma-Tote]. Is that--Was that Papa's father? [Ma-Tote]. 
 
Mildred Pickett  01:36 
I don't know. Yeah, [Ma-Tote].  
 
Winona Weber  01:37 
Because Lighthouse was-- 
 
Mildred Pickett  01:38 
Yeah. 
 
Winona Weber  01:39 
--Was married twice.  
 
Mildred Pickett  01:40 
Yes, he was married twice.  
 
Winona Weber  01:42 
And the second wife. And he took his second wife when he was still married to Papa's mother. 
 
Mildred Pickett  01:52 
Well, I think with his status as a chief, he knew that was his privilege, to have more than one 
wife. 
Page 3 of 17 
 
 
Winona Weber  01:59 
Mhm. 
 
Mildred Pickett  02:01 
And I, and I'm sure the wives accepted it because I never heard anything to the contrary. 
 
Winona Weber  02:09 
I was just wondering what you heard about about Papa's mother. 
 
Mildred Pickett  02:14 
I never heard-- I have never heard very much about Papa's mother.  
 
Winona Weber  02:22 
That's funny.  
 
Mildred Pickett  02:25 
Never heard anything about her.  
 
Winona Weber  02:31 
What about Grandma Caroline? 
 
Mildred Pickett  02:33 
Not too much about Grandma Caroline. All I know about Grandma Caroline is she was from the 
Chinook area. And her last name was Martel.  
 
Winona Weber  02:48 
Mhm. 
 
Mildred Pickett  02:49 
And I don't know if there was something lost in the translation of her name. If the Indian-- old 
Indian people called her Mattell. 
 
Winona Weber  02:57 
Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  02:58 
If they disregarded the "R", and some books have it Mattell, some-- Mom and Aunt Irene called 
it Martel. And Martel was a French family, and I think maybe my grandmother may have taken 
their name because she worked for them. 
 
Winona Weber  03:18 
Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  03:21 
Page 4 of 17 
 
Worked as a domestic. And also she learned to speak French from that family. That's all I can 
understand is because when Uncle Hank went to war, and he went to-- went overseas during 
World War One, he could speak French.  
 
Winona Weber  03:40 
Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  03:41 
So he got along fine with the French in France. [Winona chuckles.] He knew probably the basics 
of French and, you know, his mother taught French to him along with his Indian language. Then, 
you know, my Uncle Hank was a pretty sharp character, so I suppose he picked it up, he picked it 
up very easily. 
 
Winona Weber  04:05 
Hm. How come Grandma Bum never spoke French? Cause it seems like she would have taught 
all of her children French, if she spoke [inaudible cross talk]. 
 
Mildred Pickett  04:22 
They had they spoke a little bit, you know, they understood a little bit of French, but I don't 
know because she was much younger than my Uncle Hank. 
 
Winona Weber  04:36 
Hmm. 
 
Mildred Pickett  04:38 
And she spoke, you know, her own language real well, and she spoke good English. See my-- 
my grandmother died when my mom was quite young. 
 
Winona Weber  04:52 
Yeah. Yeah. 
 
Mildred Pickett  04:55 
Let's see, Aunt Irene was what, nine, so Mom must have been about-- Mom was a teenager.  
 
Winona Weber  05:00 
Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  05:02 
She was quite-- probably 18 or 19 when her mother died. Cause Uncle Hank was overseas when, 
when, when Grandmother Caroline died.  
 
Winona Weber  05:12 
Hm.  Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  05:23 
Page 5 of 17 
 
She died in that great flu epidemic. I think that was in 1919. Just a lot of people died. She was 
among them. That flu epidemic. And she couldn't have been very old. 
 
Winona Weber  05:38 
No. Couldn't have been. I've got a, I've got a birth date for her. [Murmuring.] 
 
Mildred Pickett  05:50 
Well, Papa was born in 1855, as near as we can tell.  
 
Winona Weber  05:56 
Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  05:58 
He has a signature on a piece of paper--I have it someplace-- 
 
Winona Weber  06:03 
Hm! 
 
Mildred Pickett  06:03 
--That he signed it at a pioneer picnic. And it had on there place of birth, and he put Bruceport, 
Washington, and the date. And that was August of 19-- I mean, 1855. 
 
Winona Weber  06:03 
Oh, really? 
 
Mildred Pickett  06:11 
And I don't know what the day-- day was in August.  
 
Winona Weber  06:24 
How did he know what month it was? 
 
Mildred Pickett  06:26 
I don't know if he-- See, he could have-- he could have traced his birthdate back to when Mrs. 
Kindred was born because the white people knew all about the days in the month and so forth. 
And they recorded her birth, and she and Papa were born the same time.  
 
Winona Weber  06:49 
Oh, I see. 
 
Mildred Pickett  06:52 
So I imagine he knew-- 
 
Winona Weber  06:56 
He could have traced his birthday.  
 
Mildred Pickett  06:57 
Page 6 of 17 
 
Uh-huh. He could have. 
 
Winona Weber  06:58 
[Stretches.] Oh. [Yawns.] Have the people changed in Taholah, do you think? You know? 
 
Mildred Pickett  07:20 
Mhm. I think they have. 
 
Winona Weber  07:26 
How? 
 
Mildred Pickett  07:30 
Oh, there's been a lot of changes in the people in Taholah. Um. For one thing, fish aren't as 
plentiful as they used to be. 
 
Winona Weber  07:44 
Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  07:46 
There's-- The economy isn't as good as it used to be. In some ways, as far as the fishing industry 
is concerned. Um. I think that people have-- there's always been-- It seems it-- I think that the 
people aren't as caring as they used to be. 
 
Winona Weber  08:18 
Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  08:18 
Or caring for one another. And I and--probably one of the reasons is the mobility. There, it's 
easier for them to to be in a certain place in a short time, where a long time ago, it used to take us 
a long time to get where we wanted to go. Now, even the young kids have cars. 
 
Winona Weber  08:49 
Yeah. 
 
Mildred Pickett  08:50 
And we used to have to borrow a car or hire a car. 
 
Winona Weber  08:58 
Hire a car? Where would you hire a car? 
 
Mildred Pickett  09:01 
Oh, once in a while, your dad would hire a-- pay someone to take him into town. 
 
Winona Weber  09:08 
Town? Yeah. 
 
Page 7 of 17 
 
Mildred Pickett  09:11 
Course, he didn't include us, but. 
 
Winona Weber  09:13 
Mmm. 
 
Mildred Pickett  09:16 
I think that one thing about the young people now at Taholah, they're pretty much-- they're pretty 
much into the drug culture, and it makes a difference in their lives, too. 
 
Winona Weber  09:36 
I can still see differences yet, though, in the way Indian kids are brought up and the way white 
kids are brought up. I can see a difference between Nicole and a little kid Scott [?Tahoam?]. One 
thing Nicki is much more apt to be able to read, I think. And some of the little kids, they're are 
just too, too quiet, gotta speak up.  
 
Mildred Pickett  10:06 
Mhm. 
 
Winona Weber  10:06 
[Inaudible] --those kids.  
 
Mildred Pickett  10:10 
Well, I think some of them, I see a change in the kids, though, now Nona. There's more kids 
going to high school than ever before, we had maybe like one, the first Indian girl to ever 
graduate from North Beach High School was Ada Black. That was Grandma Black's daughter. 
 
Winona Weber  10:29 
Yeah? I didn't know her. 
 
Mildred Pickett  10:32 
Ada, mhm. That's, uh, she lives in Olympia, I think she lives in Olympia. And she just retired 
from SeaTac Airport. She worked there for a lot of years. And she was the first Indian girl to 
graduate, then there may be three or four kids that would go and then there, then it was increased 
to five or six. And now this year, of course over a period of years. [Yawns.] [Inaudible] did. It's-- 
The percentages have been better. More kids are graduating from high school and more kids are 
going on to college. And I see that's a real tremendous difference in the education of the young 
people. Which has to say something for the parents. 
 
Winona Weber  11:26 
Yeah. I wonder, do people-- are people encouraging their kids more these days to go to high 
school, or what? There's more kids graduating now, you know, that are [?Loving's?] age than 
there was those who were my age. 
 
Mildred Pickett  11:48 
Page 8 of 17 
 
Oh, I know, there. I think there are several factors that contribute to the young people going to 
school. A lot of the family, the families that are real supportive of their kids are graduating, and 
some of our kids that have one heck of a family, you know, hardly any family at home are still 
graduating. And I think that's through efforts of the teachers and probably some of them federal 
programs that are in the school that's helping the Indian kids. And I think the Indian kids 
themselves are really aware of the fact that they have to stay in school. 
 
Winona Weber  12:32 
Yeah. Do you think that there's less prejudice on the part of the teachers toward the Indian kids 
than there was a few years ago?  
 
Mildred Pickett  12:42 
I think there's a lot less prejudiced. I think so. There's still prejudice in our school. 
 
Winona Weber  12:49 
Oh, yeah. 
 
Mildred Pickett  12:51 
And I think there's prejudice in--in Hoquiam, too. 
 
Winona Weber  12:54 
Mhm. 
 
Mildred Pickett  12:56 
But not like there was. I think our kids can speak up more for themselves, too. If someone gets 
down on them, they just don't hang their head. They just say something. 
 
Winona Weber  13:08 
Mhm. 
 
Mildred Pickett  13:08 
Even if it's not very nice. [Winona chuckles.] 
 
Winona Weber  13:14 
Stereotype of the Indian-- 
 
Mildred Pickett  13:16 
Uh-huh. 
 
Winona Weber  13:16 
--doesn't say anything, [inaudible]. 
 
Mildred Pickett  13:19 
Well, we've got, um, here we have Lisa Hamilton, and she's a four point kid. Just about all 
through her high school years, she's been a four point student. And she's a Puyallup Indian. 
Cheryl Hamilton's daughter. 
Page 9 of 17 
 
 
Winona Weber  13:41 
Mm! Is she from Taholah?  
 
Mildred Pickett  13:42 
No, she's from Pacific Beach.  
 
Winona Weber  13:44 
Oh, I see. 
 
Mildred Pickett  13:46 
But we have some top-notch kids from Taholah. Danny [Chenois?]. And-- 
 
Winona Weber  13:57 
Who were there--who were the old-- the old families in Taholah that were the, you know, the-the 
upperclass families, do you think? 
 
Mildred Pickett  14:11 
The upper class? Um. Do you mean money-wise, or--? 
 
Winona Weber  14:17 
Or social-wi-- I'm thinking about-- Well, like the flattened heads were the--  
 
Mildred Pickett  14:25 
Flattened--  
 
Winona Weber  14:26 
--Old way they distinguish the upper class and the lower ones. So Grandma Jackson-- 
 
Mildred Pickett  14:31 
Grandma Jackson and Papa--  
 
Winona Weber  14:33 
And all them. Do you think that their descendants are treated any differently than, say, the 
descendants of the slaves of the people that were slaves at the time? Do-- You know, at the turn 
of the century? 
 
Mildred Pickett  14:52 
Uh, I don't think they're treated any differently. The only family that I can speak about are the 
Masons.  
 
Winona Weber  15:02 
Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  15:03 
Page 10 of 17 
 
And whether or not they were the traditional chiefs. I don't know if that's questionable. I'm not 
sure they were one of the treaty signers. 
 
Winona Weber  15:16 
Yeah. 
 
Mildred Pickett  15:18 
And that's the only family that I would think about that would be of, of the royal clan. And then 
see Grandma was related them. Grandma Jackson was related to them. 
 
Winona Weber  15:32 
Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  15:33 
That was-- she was a sister or an aunt of Billy Mason. [Clears throat.] I think she was an aunt to 
Billy Mason, probably Chief Taholah's sister.  
 
Winona Weber  15:44 
Yeah, someone--  
 
Mildred Pickett  15:47 
I don't think they're-- In fact, I would say that the Mason family was pretty much alcoholic, and 
they didn't really have too much respect for them. And the last one, the last Mason that died was 
Harry Mason. And when, when Billy Mason, that was Harry Mason's father. 
 
Winona Weber  16:10 
Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  16:11 
Before he died, he realized that his family just wasn't fit to take on any of the chieftain duties. So 
he delegated the chieftainship to Cleve [short for Cleveland]. And that was his nephew... 
 
Winona Weber  16:27 
But he could do that. 
 
Mildred Pickett  16:28 
But he could do that. He just felt that none of his family was strong enough to take the leadership 
role.  
 
Winona Weber  16:37 
So the Jacksons kind of came in--[Crosstalk.] 
 
Mildred Pickett  16:40 
So the Jacksons came in on that, they did. And Oliver Mason now is the--is the Vice President or 
Vice Chairman of the tribe, but he is-- he's not a strong leader. He just isn't a strong leader at all. 
And it again, it's due to alcoholism. 
Page 11 of 17 
 
 
Winona Weber  17:05 
Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  17:06 
He isn't-- he isn't drinking now, as far as I know, I don't think he is, but just not just for the fact 
that he isn't respected. 
 
Winona Weber  17:17 
What about the Shales? 
 
Mildred Pickett  17:20 
Uh, the Shales were-- I don't think the Shales were into any type of-- of a class.  
 
Winona Weber  17:34 
Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  17:35 
They just had a lot of money from having a good fishing ground at the mouth of the river, and 
they enjoyed all the comforts that a lot of other Indian people didn't. They had a huge big house 
and always had a nice car, and I think they had a three-car garage. 
 
Winona Weber  17:51 
Hmm! Someone was asking me one day if the--if the descendants of the traditional leaders were-
-were treated any differently than--than the, you know-- 
 
Mildred Pickett  18:10 
--No.-- 
 
Winona Weber  18:11 
--Than the descendants of the slave class. I didn't know how to answer them! 
 
Mildred Pickett  18:15 
Unh-uh. I don't think so, Nona. In fact, I think-- I think the Mason family, because of the alcohol 
problem that they've had for many years, just people weren't really too sure of them. I really 
didn't have that much respect for them. And I don't think it was their personalities or anything 
that they did. It was just that they couldn't depend on them, so that just put them down-- 
 
Winona Weber  18:49 
Do you think-- 
 
Mildred Pickett  18:49 
--low where they should have been. 
 
Winona Weber  18:51 
Page 12 of 17 
 
--that when the-- when the European influence-- Ah, I don't know. I wonder what did more to 
sort of help destroy the social system that the Indians had set up. [Inaudible] Was it alcohol or 
the religion that was introduced? 
 
Mildred Pickett  19:21 
I think alcohol had-- was the greatest factor in breaking down the structure of the tribe.  
 
Winona Weber  19:32 
Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  19:34 
It not only broke their-- their moral fiber, but it also destroyed their health. 
 
Winona Weber  19:44 
Yeah. 
 
Mildred Pickett  19:44 
Destroyed the strong family unit, and I'm really sure that alcohol was probably one of the 
number one-- one of the number one killers. It still is. It's still the number one killer on the 
reservation. I just read an article not too long ago, when the National Congress of American 
Indians had a big meeting, one of their national meetings, and they said they-- one of the, um, 
one of the goals set for 1981 was to destroy alcoholism. Try to do away with it as much as they 
could on the reservations. That's still the number one problem. 
 
Winona Weber  20:31 
I wonder why? Why do we have such a high alcoholism rate? Why they--Why the Indians have 
such a high alcoholism rate. We've got one of the highest per capita anywhere. 
 
Mildred Pickett  20:43 
Mhm. Well, for one thing, we haven't any jobs.  We don't only have the highest alcoholism rate, 
we have the highest teenage suicide rates, the highest infant mortality rates, the highest 
unemployment rates. So, you know, there's really not a heck of a lot for the Indian to look 
forward to. And so they just booze it up. And another thing our young people in that-- this is 
what I keep telling them at the school all the time, "Go on to school and finish high school. Go 
on to college, not necessarily if you-- You don't have to go to a four-year college. Go to 
vocational school and get a skill and be able to survive. And if you can't find work on a 
reservation, go where you can find a job. You don't have to live on the reservation." There aren't 
enough jobs provided for our young people on the reservation. There's just not enough, um-- Not 
enough spots in the forestry division or the fisheries division. You know, we have-- say we have 
12 kids that's graduating from high school this year. And if four of those kids would go to the 
University of Washington and major in fisheries or forestry, we still wouldn't have a spot for 
them when they came out. We wouldn't. There just isn't that much work on the reservation. So I 
urge the kids to--if they do get a degree in forestry or fisheries--to look for a job, maybe with the 
state or private industry or wherever they can make a good living for themselves. Get some type 
of a skill. From our kids that are graduating this year, we've already filled out financial aid forms 
for at least four of them. [Cross talk.] Four kids are going up to Grays Harbor. One is going to 
Page 13 of 17 
 
Centralia Community College. Cecily's boy wants to take up small motors, so we've been 
investigating small motors programs in Olympia and Clover Park. Sean James wants to go into 
the Air Force. One of our kids is thinking about going to Haskell. I'm not too sure about Haskell. 
I haven't heard-- I didn't hear such good things about that school, so I'm-- you know, I've got to 
check it out.  
 
Winona Weber  20:52 
Yeah.  Didn't it used to be a real good school? 
 
Mildred Pickett  21:38 
Used to be a real good school. But when it was run a long time ago, it was run almost like when I 
went to Indian boarding school. It was almost like a military academy.  
 
Winona Weber  24:03 
Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  24:03 
We had to--everyone was still obedient at that time.  
 
Winona Weber  24:08 
Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  24:10 
So I don't know what about Haskell, just what kind of a school it is. But we wanted to check it 
out. 
 
Winona Weber  24:20 
Is--is Chemawa a good school anymore? 
 
Mildred Pickett  24:23 
I don't think it is. It's a beautiful school. We went down there.  
 
Winona Weber  24:29 
Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  24:31 
When we went to Northwest Indian Education Conference, and they bussed us down from 
Wilsonville. And we went to this beautiful big cafeteria, just great. It looks just like any college 
campus. It's better looking than a college campus cafeteria.  
 
Winona Weber  24:51 
Hm! 
 
Mildred Pickett  24:52 
It's built up high, like, you know, it's up like on a second story. You walk up the steps and go in 
and take your tray and go along. They just had fantastic food. And I don't know if it was because 
Page 14 of 17 
 
we were invited, they were expecting us or if this is what the kids got all the time, they had a 
nice big bar up there, we could get milk and, and tea, coffee, or juice. And you could go back as 
many times as you wanted to. It was, it was really a pretty school. And we had a little mini tour, 
we went into the gym, and the girls were playing volleyball against an oppo-- another team from 
around in that area. And Cecily and I are so used to our kids being state champions. We thought 
that that coach there was pretty crummy that was coaching the Indian girls, and there was one 
Indian girl there, that was really a good server. 
 
Winona Weber  25:52 
Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  25:53 
She'd serve and she'd just clear the net, you know, a real good serve. But that coach, and this is 
what makes me-- it just kind of makes me angry to think that we have all these neat kids that 
could have a good coach, a top-notch coach. But they aren't there. If--if Chemawa--as beautiful 
school as it is. And there's so much drug traffic, there's not enough discipline at that school 
would get right back on a beam again. Boy, Nona, that would be the best thing that could ever 
happen to our Indian kids. It's setting out on that beautiful Willamette Valley, and it's brick and 
glass, and it's landscaped so beautifully. It's just an ideal spot for Indian kids. 
 
Winona Weber  26:52 
Do you know any Indian kids from up here that are going down there? 
 
Mildred Pickett  26:56 
Uh, Sabina?  
 
Winona Weber  26:58 
I mean, from [inaudible] Beach. 
 
Mildred Pickett  27:00 
I mean, Jonette Bastian is going there and she likes it.  
 
Winona Weber  27:01 
What kind of kids do they send down there? 
 
Mildred Pickett  27:07 
They send kids that just can't make it in-- 
 
Winona Weber  27:11 
Regular school? 
 
Mildred Pickett  27:11 
Yeah, regular school. I think that's one of the reasons that they have such a bad drug problem. 
 
Winona Weber  27:16 
Mhm.  
Page 15 of 17 
 
 
Mildred Pickett  27:18 
Is because all the kids are--They're-- They just don't settle in into a regular high school setting. 
 
Winona Weber  27:30 
Mhm. What kind of kids were sent there when you would have been there? 
 
Mildred Pickett  27:34 
Probably, when I went to school, probably all the top notch kids were sent there.  
 
Winona Weber  27:39 
Mhm. 
 
Mildred Pickett  27:39 
Some of the kids that, uh-- When I went to Chemawa, Nona, there was hardly any kids that 
attended high school. Any Indian kids. And we had some-- 
 
Winona Weber  27:51 
Where did the kids from Taholah go? 
 
Mildred Pickett  27:53 
No one from my class that I know of went to high school. 
 
Winona Weber  27:56 
Mm. 
 
Mildred Pickett  27:58 
Except your Uncle Sonny, and he only went for two years, and he dropped out. 
 
Winona Weber  28:04 
Why did he drop out? 
 
Mildred Pickett  28:06 
Oh, he dropped out because Uncle Hank hired him to build him a house.  
 
Winona Weber  28:11 
Oh, really? [Laughs.]  
 
Mildred Pickett  28:14 
So there when he's high school. And when I was in Chemawa, he wrote me a letter one time--the 
first letter I ever got from him--and he said. He said, "Gosh, sis. Don't get such good grades, and 
you sure make me look bad." [They laugh.] 
 
Winona Weber  28:30 
Where did he go to school?  
 
Page 16 of 17 
 
Mildred Pickett  28:32 
[Inaudible] Moclips. 
 
Winona Weber  28:32 
Oh, [inaudible]? 
 
Mildred Pickett  28:35 
But see, Stepdad went to all four years in Moclips, and he--he played football with your Uncle 
Sonny. 
 
Winona Weber  28:47 
Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  28:49 
And that's kind of an odd thing because Stepdad didn't really have that much support from his 
parents. But he just plugged away and went to school. And I think that may have been--there was 
a difference between the white kids and the Indian kids at that time. I don't think it was so much 
prejudice as it was just probably the-- It just didn't mean that much to the kids to go to school. 
 
Winona Weber  29:17 
Mhm.  
 
Mildred Pickett  29:20 
But I went to school, uh, because I liked it.  
 
Winona Weber  29:24 
Yeah.  
 
Mildred Pickett  29:24 
I really enjoyed going to school. And we had a lot of fun. We did a lot of things down in 
Chemawa that I probably wouldn't have been able to do at home.  
 
Winona Weber  29:34 
Did you go out for sports?  
 
Mildred Pickett  29:36 
I went out--what we just had the intramural sports. 
 
Winona Weber  29:39 
Oh, really? 
 
Mildred Pickett  29:39 
Uh-huh. Just the boys. You know how it was a long time ago. Just the boys got to compete. 
 
Winona Weber  29:46 
Page 17 of 17 
 
Freda Charley, she got [inaudible]-- Her--her get--Her girl's basketball team got to play all the 
little farm towns around Chemawa. She said-- 
 
Mildred Pickett  29:56 
We didn't!-- 
 
Winona Weber  29:56 
She really liked it because they'd go out there and she said they'd play [cross talk]. 
 
Mildred Pickett  30:00 
They'd really cream them, huh? 
 
Winona Weber  30:01 
And--and then-- Well the food at wasn't so hot. [Chuckles.] 
 
Mildred Pickett  30:03 
Uh-huh. No. 
 
Winona Weber  30:03 
She said there wasn't very much of it. And they'd go out they'd play against these farm schools. 
And then all the parents would have this big dinner, and they'd just chow down! [They laugh.] 
 
Mildred Pickett  30:22 
And there's a lot of little, little-- There's Forest Grove and Silverton and all those little towns 
around there, but it-- See, Freda was probably, Freda's probably 12 years older than I am. 
 
Winona Weber  30:37 
She was born in 1909.  
 
Mildred Pickett  30:39 
So when-- So when I-- when it came my turn to be in Chemawa and play, maybe they didn't 
have a coach for us. 
 
Winona Weber  30:47 
I don't know.  
 
Mildred Pickett  30:48 
Because we had intramural sports, and the boys played--we had an all-star boy's team. [Low 
voice speaking.] We had an all-star boy's team that-- 
 
Winona Weber  31:02 
Huh? What's the matter? 
 
Mildred Pickett  31:05 
That used to play the-- 
 