Page 1 of 25 
 
Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Mary Goodwin Slade 
1981  
Cassette 1, Side 1 
 
 
Winona Weber  00:02 
--Seen meat smoke--ah, you know, dried. And I've heard that the--the way the Indians used to do 
it, you-- They smoked the fish so dry, that it would keep forever. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  00:18 
Mhm [affirmative]. 
 
Winona Weber  00:18 
Nowadays--oh, let's see, when was the last time I smoked fish--I only smoked it for a day or two.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  00:25 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  00:26 
So how long did you have to smoke fish to get it that hard? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  00:31 
Oh, you can-- You keep fire, steady fire, under it, and I don't know, you dry it for about a week 
or so, I guess. Maybe-maybe more than that. About a couple of weeks.  
 
Winona Weber  00:42 
Mm.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  00:43 
Until-- You can tell, you know, you can test it-- 
 
Winona Weber  00:45 
Oh, yeah.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  00:45 
--and tell it gets real--it gets real hard. And then you put it away, and it just keep for--just a long 
length of time. You just keep until, you know-- I always soak it before I cook it, then I'll soak it 
overnight because it'd be so hard. You could use it for I don't know what, but--[chuckles]. 
Page 2 of 25 
 
 
Winona Weber  01:05 
You could give it to your kid and they can teethe on it. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  01:08 
Yeah.  
 
Winona Weber  01:09 
Baby-- 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  01:10 
Yeah.  
 
Winona Weber  01:15 
You only-- Did you only go to school for nine or ten months a year? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  01:20 
We went nine months a year. 
 
Winona Weber  01:24 
What did you do during the summer? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  01:26 
We helped our father get wood. 
 
Winona Weber  01:28 
Oh, yeah? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  01:28 
And we had to go with him because he had to cut all his wood by hand, you know, with a 
crosscut saw. 
 
Winona Weber  01:33 
Mhm [affirmative].  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  01:34 
And we'd go with him, and we'd help him roll the blocks out--he'd have planks, you know, so we 
could roll them over other logs or roll them out to the--to the road. And then, um, he'd split them 
up, and my grandfather would haul them with his wagon. He had horses and a wagon.  
 
Winona Weber  01:51 
Mm.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  01:52 
And we'd bring them home, and we'd stack them up in our woodshed, because we had to get 
enough wood during the summer to last us all winter. 
Page 3 of 25 
 
 
Winona Weber  01:59 
Oh, yeah.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  02:00 
Because we just burnt wood. We didn't have any other kind of heat. 
 
Winona Weber  02:06 
Did your mother can wild berries?  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  02:11 
Yes, uh-huh. She canned wild berries.  
 
Winona Weber  02:14 
Where would you go to--to, um, to pick the wild berries? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  02:19 
Right around the village. So you see the trees are right--the bushes are right close to the--bushes 
are right close to the village. And then we always--they always had these evergreen blackberries. 
They were always growing. I don't know how they got started, but they were always here. And 
she used to can those. And when I was about--I must have been about ten years old--she taught 
me how to make jam and jelly.  
 
Winona Weber  02:43 
Yeah.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  02:44 
So I used to make it. Every summer, I'd make it for the winter. We got, um, butter in little stone 
crocks. Some of them held five pounds, some held ten pounds. And she always-- 
 
Winona Weber  02:57 
That's a [inaudible], not a little crock! Mhm [affirmative]. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  02:58 
So she used to--she used to save those, and, uh-- and we'd fill them up with jam and jelly for the 
winter. We always made a lot with blackberries. Evergreen blackberry. So we had to, you know, 
do a lot of things like that. And of course my mother made--made her own bread. Everybody 
made their own bread.  We ne-- I was about--I must have been about twelve years old before I 
tasted a piece of baker's bread, and I didn't like it. It didn't taste good to me. [Chuckles.] 
 
Winona Weber  03:33 
Sounds like me. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  03:34 
Uh-huh? 
 
Page 4 of 25 
 
03:34 
I was about, oh, nine or ten when I first tasted store-bought milk, and I thought it was terrible. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  03:43 
It didn't taste good?  
 
Winona Weber  03:44 
It wasn't any good at all. It tasted like chalk.  I thought it was a real good thing.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  03:48 
Mm [understanding]. God, that's the way we thought about bread because they didn't happen up 
here. You know, we went to [?Tacoma? Cathlamet?] and Mom said, "I'm going to treat you girls 
to some baker's bread." We didn't know what baker's bread was. [Laughs.] 
 
Winona Weber  03:49 
Yeah! 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  03:50 
So she--she got a loaf of-- It was warm yet from the bakery-- 
 
Winona Weber  04:09 
Yeah.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  04:09 
--and she cut it up. She gave it to us, and I said, "Oh, that don't taste good. That doesn't like--
taste like your bread, Mom!" [Laughs.] And I wouldn't eat it. She thought she was gonna give us 
a treat, but nobody wanted to eat the bread--eat the baked bread. 
 
Winona Weber  04:27 
That's funny.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  04:29 
It didn't taste good. See, it tasted like it was kind of raw. Because you know--you--you take a 
piece of baker's bread, and you squeeze it by cut and does a little, just a dough. That's what tasted 
to me. I didn't like it, either. 
 
Winona Weber  04:45 
Oh, gee! [Cross talk.] That's the only kind of bread I've ever had.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  04:51 
Mhm [affirmative]. 
 
Winona Weber  04:53 
Did your mother make that, um-- Did she ever make that--oh, gee, what is it called? It's--It's a 
kind of bread, 
 
Page 5 of 25 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  05:01 
Do you mean flatbread? 
 
Winona Weber  05:02 
Uh, yeah and you-you wrap it up, and you bake it in the sand, you know, under a fire or 
something.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  05:10 
I baked it, but she never didn't make us that. She used to put it in the bottom of the oven on our 
stove and cook it.  
 
Winona Weber  05:17 
Mhm, yeah.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  05:17 
You know, I've cooked it in the sand. It's pretty good. You put a lot of flour on it, you don't--you 
don't have to wrap it in anything. 
 
Winona Weber  05:28 
Yeah.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  05:28 
You can just put it, and then when you get it out of the sand, you can just brush it off. [Inaudible 
cross talk.] Uh-huh. 
 
Winona Weber  05:35 
I've heard it-- You know, I've heard it discussed different ways.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  05:40 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  05:40 
Some people say they wrapped it in a towel or something.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  05:43 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  05:43 
Other people say that just put a lot of flour on it.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  05:45 
Mhm. And then I've--I baked it in a frying pan by the fire, too. And then you can take it and you 
can take a stick and you can grease it, then you can cut long strips of that bread dough and you 
can wrap it around it and stick it into the fire and cook it down. I don't have anything else to put 
it. You can cook a meal on a campfire without any utensils.  
 
Page 6 of 25 
 
Winona Weber  06:11 
Uh-huh.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  06:12 
Cook your fish on a stick. 
 
Winona Weber  06:14 
Yeah.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  06:14 
You can put your bread in the ashes, potatoes in the ashes. 
 
Winona Weber  06:18 
Oh, yeah.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  06:18 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  06:24 
Such a funny dog. He really thinks he's quite the thing, doesn't he? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  06:29 
Come here, Shaggy. Come here. [Kisses.] 
 
Winona Weber  06:32 
Go on! Funny dog [chuckles]. Your husband was from Skok, huh? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  06:43 
Yes, Skokomish. 
 
Winona Weber  06:49 
Did he move down here to Taholah when you got married, or did you move up to Skok?  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  06:54 
No, he--he came down here in 1930-- 
 
Winona Weber  06:57 
Uh-huh.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  06:58 
--when they were building the first water system here. 
 
Winona Weber  07:03 
Oh, I see. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  07:04 
Page 7 of 25 
 
 See, he's been here over fifty years.  
 
Winona Weber  07:07 
Yeah. Everybody always told me that he was always here. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  07:12 
Yeah, he's been here since-- 
 
Winona Weber  07:13 
I thought he was a Quinault! [They chuckle.] 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  07:16 
--since 1930. Been here a long time. 
 
Winona Weber  07:20 
Yeah, I knew that he'd been here for quite a while. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  07:23 
How long was your dad here, Nona?  
 
Winona Weber  07:26 
My dad has been here since-- 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  07:27 
About that long, hasn't he? 
 
Winona Weber  07:31 
No, he came down here about 1940s. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  07:35 
See that's a long, long time. That's been over 40 years. 
 
Winona Weber  07:39 
He's been down here since your mom got married.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  07:41 
Mhm. [Dog shakes.]  
 
Winona Weber  07:44 
Funny dog. And he's still here! [They laugh.]  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  07:46 
Yeah, he'll be here all the time! Everybody sure likes him.  
 
Winona Weber  07:52 
Yeah. I like him a lot better now that he's sober all the time [chuckles]. 
Page 8 of 25 
 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  07:56 
Yeah, he doesn't-- I don't see him drinking anymore. I know that-- He doesn't anymore, does he? 
 
Winona Weber  08:02 
Uh, he hasn't in quite a while. [Pause.] Did you get-- Did--did your parents-- Did your 
grandparents go on living at Roy after--after your mother and father were married?  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  08:31 
See, my grandfather and my grandmother lived here for-- 
 
Winona Weber  08:36 
Uh-huh.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  08:36 
--I don't know how many years it was, and then after my grandmother passed away, well, my 
grandfather bought a ranch at Roy--out from Roy. And he just stayed there with my--one of my 
uncles stayed home with his dad. And he had that--he was--he was ninety... let's see, ninety-
three, I think, or something like that when he died. 
 
Winona Weber  08:47 
Mhm.  Wow. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  09:02 
And he was still milking his cows.  
 
Winona Weber  09:05 
Yeah. I think my great-grandfather was [inaudible] when he died.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  09:14 
Mhm. The old Indian people lived a long, long time because they didn't eat all this stuff that you-
-you know get nowadays. 
 
Winona Weber  09:23 
Mhm.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  09:24 
They ate just common food. Most of them didn't use salt or pepper, you know, any seasoning on 
their food. 
 
Winona Weber  09:34 
Mm! Yeah, they wouldn't, because there wasn't-- They weren't raised with salt and pepper. They 
probably wouldn't like it when they grew up. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  09:47 
Page 9 of 25 
 
No. You know, my--my mother said she lived with my grandfather's aunt. Said she lived, that 
old lady lived in a smokehouse. She wouldn't stay in the house with her nephew, my grandfather. 
She stayed in the smokehouse, so Mom said she stayed there with her in the smokehouse.  
 
Winona Weber  10:10 
That's strange.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  10:10 
And they had no-- they didn't have beds or things, you know, in there. But she had--she made 
these mats out of, out of these rushes, you know, the rush ones we call cattail? 
 
Winona Weber  10:23 
Yeah, [?tulees?].  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  10:24 
Uh, [?tulees?] And she piled them up high on it. My mother said it was more comfortable than a-
-than a mattress and springs-- 
 
Winona Weber  10:32 
Huh! 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  10:32 
--because it had this give to it. 
 
Winona Weber  10:34 
Yeah, [inaudible]. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  10:35 
And they slept on those in the smokehouse. She said her, her aunt used to dry fish, and you 
know, she had it hanging up over a fire all the time. And clams and all stuff like that. 
 
Winona Weber  10:51 
How big was their smokehouse? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  10:54 
My mother never said how big it was, but it must have been pretty good-sized. Mhm. She said 
Grandpa tried to get his aunt to stay with him in the house. And she said no, she wanted to live in 
her smokehouse. So my mother said she stayed with her in the smokehouse when she was small. 
[They laugh.] That must have been fun, though. She liked that.  
 
Winona Weber  10:57 
Yeah.  What kind of a house did your grandfather have? Was it a-- 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  11:22 
Lum-- 
 
Page 10 of 25 
 
Winona Weber  11:22 
--lumber house? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  11:22 
Yeah, a lumber house, uh-huh. She said those men those--those times, they made their own 
homes. You know, they didn't hire anybody to build a house for them. They just got--got 
together, neighbors, and then they helped build houses.  
 
Winona Weber  11:38 
Yeah. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  11:39 
They used to do that here years ago, too. Somebody got married and they needed a home? Well, 
they just all got together and built it. 
 
Winona Weber  11:44 
Mhm.  Mm. Old-fashioned house-raising. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  11:50 
Uh-huh. Yeah, that's what they had. And everybody went, and then went there with their saws 
and hammers and nails, and they got busy--their houses together for them. That was something, 
you know, it's not like it is nowadays. And if someone was--didn't have anything to eat, you 
know, if they were out of food, ran out of food, well then neighbors just got together and boxed 
up food and took it to them.  
 
Winona Weber  12:17 
Yeah.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  12:18 
That's the way they took care of everybody. Took care of everybody else, those days. And 
everybody took care of everybody else's children, too.  
 
Winona Weber  12:27 
Mhm.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  12:27 
You had to mind if you were in, in somebody's house, if you didn't mind, the owner of the house 
would take a stick and give you a lickin'. And nobody went home to tell their parents because 
they knew they'd get another licking [chuckles].  
 
Winona Weber  12:27 
Yeah.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  12:41 
So if there's anybody in our house, kids do, they had the mind when they were in our home, too. 
Nowadays, you can't do that. Can't make other people's kids [inaudible crosstalk] days. 
Page 11 of 25 
 
 
Winona Weber  12:53 
Yeah. [Inaudible.]  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  12:53 
Mhm. But those days, though, you know-- well, they didn't, you know, try to hurt you or 
nothing-- 
 
Winona Weber  13:00 
Oh, no-- 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  13:01 
--but they just spanked you so that you knew you had to mind when you were in their home. 
[Sighs.] So...  
 
Winona Weber  13:08 
Did your mother ever spank you?  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  13:10 
No. My father did once, that's the only time I remember him spanking me. I used to think that it 
was better to mind than to get a lickin'.  
 
Winona Weber  13:19 
Oh, yeah.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  13:19 
So they told me to do somethin’, I did it. I didn't answer back or nothing. I just went ahead and 
did it. Well, we had one boss, you know, in our home when we were growing up. My father was 
the head of the house.  
 
Winona Weber  13:33 
Yeah.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  13:33 
And my mother used to tell us, "You ask your father, he's the boss." So we knew that we couldn't 
ask him and then go ask her, you know? 
 
Winona Weber  13:42 
Yeah.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  13:43 
That's the way. Well, I think that was better.  
 
Winona Weber  13:45 
Yeah, they should be, um you know, it kept it consistent.  
 
Page 12 of 25 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  13:54 
Mhm. Because now, you know, there's children, they'll ask their father, and he doesn't want them 
to do something, they'll go ask their mother and nine times out of ten they let them do it. And 
that, uh.  
 
Winona Weber  14:04 
Just the opposite in my house. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  14:05 
Yeah, friction. You're the one that they go to.  
 
Winona Weber  14:08 
Yeah, they come to me, and I say--Nicole comes to me, and I say no. Then she goes to her dad, 
and her dad's a lot more easygoing than I am.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  14:15 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  14:15 
And he'll let her do just about anything. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  14:19 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  14:19 
Oh boy, does she get in trouble when she find-- if I find out that she went and asked her dad. 
[They laugh.] Her dad gets mad, too.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  14:30 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  14:30 
She--if he finds out that I told her no, and then she came and asked him.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  14:34 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  14:36 
Did the people--of course, there wasn't a heck of a lot of... The village wasn't very big. Why--? It 
was so small then. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  14:48 
It was. As the years, you know, went by, along, well of course, we got more people, you know, 
and more--more streets. But then they--when they first, you know. when I first remember, that's 
all there was. 
 
Page 13 of 25 
 
Winona Weber  15:02 
Just [inaudible]? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  15:03 
Yeah, and then--then later on, down by the beach, there was a--there was, see, Harry Shale's 
house was always was there. And the government buildings. And a store. Cleve Jackson's mother 
had a store. And at that time, there was--and then, um, there was a row of houses down to just 
about where Ethel Corwin's house is now.  
 
Winona Weber  15:19 
Hm.  Mhm.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  15:32 
And then beyond that was where they had all their barns. That's all beach now. 
 
Winona Weber  15:39 
Yeah, I've heard that. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  15:41 
And then there was a cannery there years ago, down on that end of town. But that's all beach 
now, too. It's out on the beach no.  
 
Winona Weber  15:50 
Whose cannery was it? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  15:52 
That was--Mr. Rogers owned a cannery. And they canned, uh, mostly blueback, you know. 
That's what they canned. 
 
Winona Weber  16:01 
Mhm.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  16:01 
And then the ball field was--they had a ball field, too. That's all beach now. Just shows how 
much the ocean has come in.  
 
Winona Weber  16:09 
Yeah, it really has. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  16:09 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  16:09 
It's--well, since I can remember, it's only been that far as it is now.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  16:17 
Page 14 of 25 
 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  16:18 
So I didn't--I didn't remember, but someone told me that the old church here. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  16:23 
Yeah.  
 
Winona Weber  16:23 
The Pentecostal church was moved from the beach. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  16:26 
Yeah, it was moved from down the other end of town. [They laugh.] You want to go out, huh? 
[Shuffling sounds. Getting up to take the dog out.] 
 
Winona Weber  16:42 
What was the--what was the main-- Where did the people come from? That--that enlarged the 
village so much? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  16:55 
It just-- oh there's, everybody had children, you know.  
 
Winona Weber  16:59 
Oh, yeah. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  16:59 
As their children got older and built homes. And there was some that came, and they didn't stay. 
Like there was a lot of, them, Chinooks that came, and they didn't stay. They'd stay for a wi--
some just stayed for one winter, and they left again. They couldn't make--couldn't make a living. 
 
Winona Weber  17:20 
Mm. I wonder where they'd go from here, then. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  17:26 
Come back where they came from, I guess. 
 
Winona Weber  17:31 
Do you think some thought the Columbia River would be more hospitable than the Quinault. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  17:37 
At that time, though, they just, um. They had to live here in order to hold a fishing ground, too, at 
that time. 
 
Winona Weber  17:47 
Oh.  
 
Page 15 of 25 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  17:47 
Yeah. See that was the Indian--the Agency was right here, the Indian Agent lived right in the 
village.  
 
Winona Weber  17:54 
Hm! 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  17:55 
They had their government buildings just down. Just beside of where, where the tribal office is. 
You remember that old, old building they had there? They tore it down?  
 
Winona Weber  18:05 
Yeah, I remember.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  18:06 
That was--that was a school. That was the last school we had. 
 
Winona Weber  18:09 
Yeah, I remember that old school. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  18:11 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  18:12 
I remember all that. All those big buildings there.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  18:15 
Yeah, those were government buildings. 
 
Winona Weber  18:17 
Was there a hospital here?  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  18:18 
No. We had no doctor, either. 
 
Winona Weber  18:22 
There's uh, part of the treaty is that the governor would put in a hospital and a doctor. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  18:28 
We never had any whatever-- Doctor [?Kick?]. He was the Indian agent, and he was uh, kind of 
a like a doctor. But when he was gone, there was nobody ever after that until, gee, it was years. 
When we were real small, they didn't have any. All we used--all we had was Indian medicine. 
And still today I use some of it.  
 
Winona Weber  18:52 
Oh, really?  
Page 16 of 25 
 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  18:59 
Mhm. That's about all we had those days. [Inaudible.] A lot of things they were supposed to do, 
but they never did, though. [Chuckles.]  
 
Winona Weber  19:09 
Yeah, I know, I was just reading the treaty the other night. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  19:13 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  19:13 
Of all things [chuckles]. I was reading the treaty.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  19:16 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  19:17 
I read a lot of stuff in there. All of the subs--all the chiefs and sub-chiefs, and the elders, you 
know, they all made their x's.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  19:27 
Mhm. 
 
Winona Weber  19:29 
That's all it said.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  19:29 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  19:34 
Did your folks ever belong to the Shaker religion? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  19:37 
No. My mother was a Catholic, and my father was Presbyterian. 
 
Winona Weber  19:41 
Oh. Gee, where was the nearest Catholic church?  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  19:47 
That's--I used to wonder why my mother never went to church with us. You know, and my father 
told me, he said, "Your mother's Catholic. Catholics don't go to other churches." 
 
Winona Weber  19:56 
Uh-huh.  
 
Page 17 of 25 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  19:56 
They do now, I guess, but they never those days. My mom never went to church with us. I never 
knew that-- 
 
Winona Weber  20:04 
Hm! 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  20:04 
--until my dad told me. I know she had the rosary beads, you know, but I never thought, you 
know. Nope. She was Catholic. Once she passed away, we couldn't have a Catholic funeral for 
her because she was married to a Protestant. 
 
Winona Weber  20:21 
Oh, yeah, that's right.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  20:24 
Oh, boy. 
 
Winona Weber  20:25 
That's enough for excommunication right there.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  20:27 
Oh, I'll say. [Chuckles.] 
 
Winona Weber  20:32 
Did your-- Did your mother go to school? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  20:39 
She went to Cushman Indian School.  
 
Winona Weber  20:42 
Oh, I see. She seemed to know quite a bit. And she was Catholic.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  20:50 
Mhm. She said that years ago, that was all that ever came around, was the Catholic priest. He 
came around so many, so often, and he married couples, and he baptized babies and things like 
that. But she said that there was no-nobody else that ever came around. It was just all Catholic 
priests. That's why there were so many Indians that were Catholics.  
 
Winona Weber  21:19 
Yeah.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  21:20 
So many of them. 
 
Winona Weber  21:23 
Page 18 of 25 
 
She never. [Moving around.] Oh, that's just about done. Oh. [Winces.] Just uncomfortable.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  21:35 
Maybe your digestion.  
 
Winona Weber  21:37 
Yeah.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  21:38 
Maybe something you ate didn't agree with you.  
 
Winona Weber  21:40 
Might have been. I had a piece of ham-- [they chuckle]. Do you remember there being 
longhouses here in Taholah? The old--old?  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  21:51 
Yeah, there used to be one. That was Old Man Pope. Bob Pope had a longhouse. 
 
Winona Weber  21:56 
Uh-huh.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  21:58 
We used to go there because they had Indian dances there. 
 
Winona Weber  22:02 
Oh, yeah? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  22:02 
And they had bone games, you know, slahal games and all that stuff. And they had, they'd hold 
big dinners in there, you know, they'd have dinners. Cook their stuff over the fire in those big old 
iron pots, they'd boil meat and stuff in. And of course, we--they had dances, you know, in the 
wintertime, too. We had, you know, something to pass the time. 
 
Winona Weber  22:29 
Oh, yeah? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  22:29 
We used to have dances, and I had basket socials and stuff like that-- --when we were children, 
so. We had a good life, I think [chuckles].  
 
Winona Weber  22:33 
Hm.  Oh, yeah.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  22:41 
And there was no drinking in the village at those times, when I was small because if they did get 
drunk, well, the--the Indian Agent, uh, find them and made them gravel roads, you know, in the 
Page 19 of 25 
 
streets and place. And if they didn't have no steam horse, anything, you'd see them with a 
wheelbarrow. They didn't care how they got it done, but they had to do it.  
 
Winona Weber  23:04 
Oh, gee.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  23:05 
And they had to go to jail at night, but they had to feed themselves. They didn't feed them. 
 
Winona Weber  23:12 
Boy.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  23:14 
They didn't like to give-- The first time I saw a drunken man, I thought he was sick. And I asked 
my mother, I said, "Do you see that man fell down." I said, "Is he sick?" And she said, "No, he's 
drunk." I didn't know what drunk was, though, because I'd never seen a drunken man-- Yeah, 
there was just no drinking. Now it's different. 
 
Winona Weber  23:29 
[Inaudible.] Do you remember when the first car in the village was? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  23:43 
Gee, I don't remember now. It must have-- It was--It wasn't a--  I think the first car they brought 
up here was Charlie Strong. And they had they--had to pull it from, you know, across the 
Moclips River and so they brought it up. 
 
Winona Weber  24:04 
Oh, really?  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  24:06 
I don't remember now what year it was, but they just didn't have no cars because it was too 
dangerous to go on a beach with a-- 
 
Winona Weber  24:13 
Mhm.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  24:14 
Because it'd uh, you know, get stuck in the sand and then they'd get washed out. Ocean would 
come over the--so they didn't. We never thought anything of it, because we used to like to ride 
on wagons. Especially Freda Charley's father had-- 
 
Winona Weber  24:33 
Oh, really? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  24:34 
Page 20 of 25 
 
--a wagon and horses, and Freda and I used to go out, always riding on it. Get on the back end of 
it. Go and get wood. Get a ride on the way. 
 
Winona Weber  24:46 
That's something-- 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  24:52 
I remember my grandfather took us to Tacoma, up from Tacoma out to Roy. And it took from 
here to there, it took us four days to get there.  
 
Winona Weber  25:05 
Uh-huh.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  25:06 
We'd go until it was dark and then we'd find a creek someplace, and we'd stop and camp. The 
next day, we'd go again. Pitch our tents and you know, Mom would cook on a campfire. But they 
didn't--he didn't stay on the road like you go on a highway, no, he used to go cross country, you 
know. Because there wasn't fences all over the place now like there is. 
 
Winona Weber  25:29 
No.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  25:30 
He could go across the prairie, you know, and get that was shorter. I don't know how long it 
would take him now with the horse. 
 
Winona Weber  25:38 
I don't know. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  25:39 
I took us--I know it took us four days to get there. To arrive.  
 
Winona Weber  25:46 
What was Tacoma like when you first started going there? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  25:50 
Well, it was, um. Yeah-- Yeah, that Stadium Way? They used to call it Cliff Avenue then.  
 
Winona Weber  25:59 
Uh-huh.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  26:00 
We used to go there. My aunt had an apartment house on Broadway. 
 
Winona Weber  26:04 
Oh, I see.  
Page 21 of 25 
 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  26:04 
We used to come down and we used to go down over the bluff over the back, then we'd play 
down there in those trees and stuff. It's changed a lot since then.  
 
Winona Weber  26:14 
I bet. Um. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  26:20 
As a person thinks back over the time, there is--well, it's a lot of changes. 
 
Winona Weber  26:26 
Oh yeah. It's been-- 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  26:28 
Even in your time, there's a lot of changes.  
 
Winona Weber  26:30 
Oh, yeah. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  26:30 
We had--see we had--that was before you had radios. When I was small, we didn't have radios or 
TVs or anything like that. We had one of those record players that had them round cylinders, 
that's what there were. And then later, on we got one had flat records that you had to wind them 
up, you know. Well you see pictures of that with a dog on there with a big horn on it? 
 
Winona Weber  26:56 
Yeah, I've seen.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  26:56 
Well that's what they had first. 
 
Winona Weber  26:58 
I've never seen those ones with the cylinders. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  27:00 
Freda's, uh, Freda's folks had one of those. 
 
Winona Weber  27:04 
Uh-huh.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  27:05 
Yeah.  I don't know whether they saved it, or whether it burned up in that fire. Their first house 
burned down. So maybe it burned up. 
 
Winona Weber  27:12 
Page 22 of 25 
 
Hmm! 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  27:13 
Did you go talk to Freda yet? 
 
Winona Weber  27:15 
Yeah, I did. I caught her at home. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  27:17 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  27:18 
I have to just kind of catch people at home sometimes, you know? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  27:22 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  27:23 
And if I'm lucky, I'll catch two or three people at home. If I'm not so lucky, I don't catch anybody 
at home.  I had one day when I didn't catch anybody at home! I don't know where they all were. 
But no one was home. I couldn't believe it! You know? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  27:36 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  27:37 
Just not my day, I guess. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  27:40 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  27:40 
There we go. Yes. Taholah has changed a lot, just since I was a little girl. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  27:48 
I know. There's houses across there. Used to be wood--wood lots across the street. 
 
Winona Weber  27:56 
Yeah.  All these houses around Archie's barn. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  27:59 
Uh-huh. And then up on the hill. 
 
Winona Weber  28:01 
Yeah. 
 
Page 23 of 25 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  28:02 
Those are nice homes up there. 
 
Winona Weber  28:04 
Yeah, my, my brother got [inaudible] one up there.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  28:07 
That's good. Does he have one of the five room--five bedrooms?  
 
Winona Weber  28:14 
No, I think it's four bedrooms.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  28:16 
Uh-huh.  
 
Winona Weber  28:16 
It's a nice house. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  28:20 
Mhm. You--Well your uncle's got one up there, too, hasn't he? 
 
Winona Weber  28:23 
Sunny's got one up there.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  28:25 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  28:25 
Well it's really expanded-- 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  28:27 
Mhm. 
 
Winona Weber  28:27 
--a lot since I-- 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  28:31 
It's nice up there. 
 
Winona Weber  28:33 
But, I'd asked my mom one reason why there had to be so many more houses. And she said she 
thought that one of the reasons why is because there's more nuclear families now, you know? 
Just--just the parents and the kids and that's it.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  28:55 
Mhm.  
Page 24 of 25 
 
 
Winona Weber  28:56 
And not so many families with grandparents and children and, you know-- 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  29:04 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  29:04 
--all under one roof. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  29:06 
Yeah, it used to be that way years ago, but not now. I think it's-- Most of these old people are all 
gone. 
 
Winona Weber  29:16 
Oh, yeah.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  29:16 
But she--or your grandma's, let's see. I'm seventy-two. Your grandma's eighty-two.  
 
Winona Weber  29:21 
Mhm.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  29:22 
We just--our birthdays are on the same day, and we're just ten years apart. 
 
Winona Weber  29:26 
Oh, really? [They laugh.] That works good. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  29:30 
Oh, yeah. Our birthdays are the same. We used to get together and we'd talk about, you know, 
what things had, a lot of things. I remember when they first came here. I don't remember what--
what year it was.  
 
Winona Weber  29:43 
Thirty-one--It was--between '28 and '31. [Cross talk.] I think it might have been '28 or '29. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  29:57 
Mhm.  
 
Winona Weber  29:57 
I'm not sure about-- 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  29:59 
Mhm.  
 
Page 25 of 25 
 
Winona Weber  29:59 
Mom said she was about eight years old when they moved here.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  30:02 
Mhm. Is Frances older than her? 
 
Winona Weber  30:09 
Yeah. Uncle Sonny is a year older than she is, you know. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  30:12 
You know, I can't-- Everybody says Johnny Bum and I can't get used to it. But I always, when I 
talk to him, you know, I always say Francis, and he finally turns around and looks at me. 
Realizes him, I guess I'm talking to! 
 
Winona Weber  30:26 
Huh! 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  30:26 
Keep callin' him Francis, I never could call him Johnny Bum. 
 
Winona Weber  30:28 
I didn't call him anything but Uncle Sonny. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  30:32 
Uh-huh.  
 
Winona Weber  30:39 
Everybody has nicknames. 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  30:41 
Yeah. Just like in our family, I think. I think. Rachel and I, we never did have nicknames. I never 
did have a nickname. 
 
Winona Weber  30:54 
I wonder how come? 
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  30:55 
I don't know. Nowadays, it seem like you don't know who anybody is if you call them by their 
real name, because they all got nicknames, especially these kids nowadays.  
 
Winona Weber  31:03 
Uh-huh.  
 
Mary Goodwin Slade  31:05 
Aren't they growing up fast, though? There was a-- [tape cuts off]. 
 