Chocolate And Chickens

A Sunday Drive

6:59 PM

It is April, and it rained all day Saturday, so I got all the indoor chores done. Was so looking forward to spending my Sunday getting back into sewing, before heading back to work on Monday.
Well....
My Beloved had other ideas, it seemed. When he was measuring the fence line we have to repair and said 'let's go for a ride', I figured we would head out to pick up supplies and we'd be repairing fence today instead of me sewing.
As Maggie loves going for rides, she was invited too.
Instead of going down the hill, he headed up.
And up.
And up.
We went for a Sunday Drive.
We drove up old highway 49 and goggled at the hillside damage from and now cleaned up landslides that had closed the highway several times this winter. We marveled at the traffic being reduced to one lane , that accommodated the current repairs of massive sinkholes and a road collapse. We passed through the small town of North San Juan, and enjoyed the always lovely view of the tall trees and mountain winding roads.
The Yuba River is running fast and high, amazing with it's white crests over submerged boulders and stunning jade green pools. A cinnamon coloured doe trotted nonchalantly across the road, and then hopscotched without any effort up the near vertical slope that bordered the other side.
Arriving in Downieville some time laer, Maggie enjoyed a walk to explore where the convergence of the Downie and Yuba rivers. We ambled down the sidewalks, sidestepping a 'town dog', who was a gentle giant. Lunch was a couple Mexican style beef tacos, while sitting behind the tiny restaurant, enjoying the river flow, roaring near our feet. The stack of sandbags on the little patio, and debris in the trees and bushes told us just how high the river had crested.
Leaving Downieville, we headed further up: through Sierra City (a village, but it boasts some of the best fly fishing in the area and several quaint but pleasant looking lodging choices) and Sattley (a hamlet at best). The view gave way from chilly but sunny green, to snow on the ground. The higher up we went, the more snow, until we reached about 5,000 feet where it all looked like a Christmas card, with fresh snow weighing down the branches of the conifers and glistening (an over used word for snow, but the best description) on the mountains sides.
Reaching a large turn out, we parked and let Maggie play. The fresh snow was a good 2 foot deep there, on top of a couple feet of more solid stuff. She had a grand time chasing snowballs and leaping through the drifts. She did look rather surprised when the first snowball she 'caught' disintegrated between her jaws, but continued the game merrily.
The turn out overlooks a pristine Alpine valley that contains the village of Sierraville. This area is mostly cattle, and was settled by some Swiss emigrants during the Gold Rush days. They must have recognized a little bit of home there, and rightly so. We traveled down into the valley and through: they also have plenty of snow for this fine April day.
If you make a right turn in the center of Sierraville (you can't miss it; it is the only corner), you head to Truckee, passing groves of aspens, amongst other lovely trees. There are times that I have to drive this area for work, and especially enjoy it in the autumn, when the aspens show gold. It is so worth the long drive.
Hitting Truckee, we took the old Donner Pass Road and were thrilled at the 12 foot high snow walls left by the plows: Truckee still has plenty of snow and the back roads are incredible.
Up, up and over: these roads are closed often in the winter months. How lucky we were to be able to enjoy them during this brief, perfect moment. Is there anything more magnificent than tremendous granite outcroppings adorned with thick layers of pure white snow on their more horizontal edges?
Heading down, now, we passed by Sugar Bowl ski resort, who's parking lots were over packed and too many folks had parked alongside the roads.
Getting back onto highway 20, which leads back down to our area, we stopped at the Little Town of Washington and had an ice tea in the old hotel built in 1857. The hotel's charm is from the creaking architecture and very funky décor, a hodgepodge of leftover odds and ends from the late 1800's and mid 1970's.
The hotel's true treasure is the wide back porch that runs the width of the building, and overlooks the river. A mish mash of planters (old feed troughs included) were sporting red tulips on this fine day.
The hotel/bar presides over the tiny town, and the locals were very happy that the little general store has re-opened after 4 years. Those 2 establishments are the only businesses in the town.
Arrived home too late to even think about sewing, but I thought about this... sharing a lovely day with someone dear to you is the very best way to spend the day. I am sure you will agree.

Family History

8:44 AM

Have you ever read the book or watched the move BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE? The protagonist is a young Sioux man who was torn between two worlds and who did not belong in either world. Its a compelling and tragic story; the not only end of a way of life for an entire race of people, but of the young man as well. I know for a fact, he was not alone: there were many who walked between worlds, trying to find their way. My paternal great grandfather was Osage, and being torn between two worlds was his life as well.

I never really knew my biological father, George Schwarz, as he and my mother divorced when I was about 3 years old. I was lucky to enjoy time with my father's mother, who was called 'Dinny'. My mother never knew why or how she got this unusual name: she was just 'Dinny'.

One of the great joys of my very young life was sleeping in Dinny's bed on a rare visit with her. Usually I was asleep when Dinny came to bed, but one night I was still half awake. Dinny sat down in front of her chipped dressing mirror and starting removing the pins and un-weaving the braids to let down her silver crown of hair.

As the white waves of hair tumbled down Dinny's back like angels' wings, I recall saying 'I wish I had hair like yours', for my own hair was at the time, a bold and alarming red. Dinny stopped, looked at me in the mirror and replied in the slow way she had of speaking; 'You have my mother's hair...'

Dinny's story will never really be told, for so little is know of it. George wrote a nice bit of family history, which matched the bits and pieces I'd heard over the years, but neglected to write anyone's actual name in his writings. He carefully noted that his grandfather, Dinny's father, was full Osage American Indian, and had been removed from his own family as a young child. The boy was placed in the Carlisle School for Indians in Pennsylvania during the times when the government felt the best hope for the vanishing Indian people would be to somehow convert the children into the modern times.

Save the blood line but destroy the culture.

The family stories go that Dinny's father (his name is lost forever) did well at the school and completely embraced the new ways. He graduated with a medical degree, and set off into the world.

Hanging up his shingle, open for business, dressed in white man's clothing and his hair cut short, he quickly discovered that the whites would not let an Indian be their doctor. At some point, he gave up, and headed to the reservations, to treat the Indians confined there.

There he found that the Indians thought he was 'too white'. They did not trust him and did not welcome him.

Trapped and lost between two worlds. And in this strange, small place, he stayed, it seems, the rest of his life.

The stories vary here: some say he worked for a time with a man who doctored animals. Some say he immediately headed out West.... as the mass migration was on the move in the late 1800's. The stories all agree that he met up with what is now called a Traveling Medicine Show, where he played the part of the Indian sidekick, and learned the trade.

I can only imagine his humiliation, his bitterness, his scorn. Maybe even his secret joy in bilking whites with snake oil medicine. Not all was lost though, for at some point in his travels, he met up with a young woman of Scottish descent (again, name forever unknown), and they had my grandmother, Dinny.

Dinny herself told me stories of being very young, and living in San Francisco, “right after the earthquake” she said. They were comfortable enough to have a Chinese houseboy. Dinny shared that she was fascinated by the houseboy's long braid. Life was good, life was easy, until Dinny's mother died.

Was the loss of his wife the trigger that put Dinny's father and herself back on the road again? They left San Francisco behind and made their way slowly eastward. Dinny told of working in small, traveling circuses and Wild West shows; her father took care of the animals and she learned the trapeze. It was a vagrant and hard life; her father once again, using his talents and skills to take some back from the whites. They did anything needed; George wrote of his grandfather’s juggling skills, and how he used to entertain my father juggling anything imaginable.

Dinny never told me, but George wrote that at some points, when they had to, Dinny would dance and sing in various small bars as they traveled. I can only imagine those were desperate times and her father had to cringe to have this happen. My father wrote of Dinny's deep shame of their vagrant life.

At some point in their journey, Dinny's father met up with an English woman, who joined the two of them. This woman (again, name unknown) had family in Georgia, and it was decided to send a now teenage Dinny to live with her family to be schooled. Dinny never talked about those times. Somewhere, somehow, she and her father were reunited and the English woman was gone.

Dinny's vagrant lifestyle ended when she married a quiet German-Jew widower who had a young son (my Uncle Lew). The widower was an accountant, and they had a lovely little home north of Chicago, complete with white picket fence (so reported by my mother). I can only imagine Dinny's joy of finally having a home, a neat and tidy life, and a respectable lifestyle. She and her husband has just the one child, my father, George.

George wrote of how his grandfather would come to visit every Sunday, his hair long and braided. At times, he would coil his braids up under his hat, and sometimes he'd show his braids proudly. In my imagination, I’d be thinking he might have had an 'in your face' attitude at times: how could he not? The stories told of his fine taste in clothing, which to he would add Indian touches. A man caught between 2 worlds.

My great grandfather purchased an automobile, and he'd fight with it religiously. (this, I'd guess, would be how most any man would view then new contraptions) George wrote of how his grandfather could never get the thing in reverse, and how his temper would flare trying to maneuver the automobile to get it parked.

My great grandfather doted on his grandson. George wrote of how he harangued his grandfather to take him to see a cowboy movie. His grandfather obliged, purchasing popcorn for the two of them to enjoy. George, being young, didn't think it through. When the eventual Cowboys versus Indians battle scene started, his grandfather got up, took the boy's hand and walked quietly but quickly out of the movie theater.

George wrote that, the light bulb went on and he never asked his grandfather to go to a cowboy movie again.

My mother would tell me she recalled seeing my great grandfather: a tall man with a straight back, always dressed so nicely in a black suit with the tall, doomed, wide brimmed hat decorated with a band of beads and sometimes feathers. She described him as a quiet man, staying in the background at any family gathering.

As the Carlisle School for Indians burnt down years ago, there are no written records of my great grandfather's time there. Even if there were records, as no one wrote down the man's name, there is no way to find him in history’s records. Dinny had no birth certificate, and her death certificate does not show her parent's names. She died when I was about 10 and I had no contact with my father, George, who died about 2002.

How wonderful it would be, to have really known Dinny, to get to know her, the person she became, and to know her fascinating life. Did she find happiness with her quiet husband and stable lifestyle? Or at times, did she long for the travels she lived through as a child?

And my great grandfather: did he ever find contentment, a feeling of belonging? It seems not: a man, one of so many, trapped forever between 2 worlds.

A Sunday Drive

Family History

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