The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing

Whatever you think of what the Whites did to the Wallowa Nimiipuu and the Chiefs Jospeh, Older and Younger, one can still admire the hard work of pioneers settling here.  This mountain valley though productive because of the rivers coming off the mountains, is isolated.  Roads and railroads to anywhere were non existent in early years and few in later years. That meant you could not readily ship in goods such as ploughs.  You had to make them.  Indeed the need for steel and iron forges was a factor in developing the bronze forges used by artists beginning in the 1980s. But not only did iron have to be forged locally, you could only survive by your own hard work here.  You had to grow it and refine it by hand whatever it was from beef to dairy products to clothing to hand hewn fences and homes built from stone or wood. Princess took me to the Leap, just north of the town of Enterprise.  Here you cannot see Wallowa Lake and the Wallowa mountains are s...

She styles herself a princess. It is the positive self talk she struggles to use to heal herself and propel herself forward to a better life. Probably it is her way of trying to answer the words she heard from those who should have loved her from birth. Princess was not only abused by those who actually beat her physically, but also by members of her community and church who judged her and blamed her and sided with the men who abused her. Perhaps because of this she talks hesitantly about the past and not at all about some events and memories. Like so many survivors sometimes all she can say is, "I was abused." The abuse started early.  She was not as a wanted child.  She was reminded of this over and over in her life. Her mother's family were Wallowa County pioneers who came from the South after the Civil War.  The men in the family treated everyone around them as though they were plantation owners.  Her grandmother was different.  Princess love...

Iwetemlaykin:  Safe and Welcoming Home This is the location of the summer home of the Wallowa Nez Perce  or Nimiipuu (nee-nee-poo) people. They moved between semi-permanent encampments or villages.  Their fall home was by the Columbia River where they traded for dried salmon.  Their winter home lay in the mild climes along the Imnaha River Canyon.  Their summer hone was here, at the North end of Wallowa Lake, close to where Old Chief Joseph is buried.  Old Chief Joseph is the father of Young Chief Joseph, who led his people on their legendary fighting retreat from pursuing US soldiers in 1877.  The US government gave the Nimiipuu no choice but to leave their home and go to the reservation in Idaho.  Some young Nimiipuu men, frustrated with the unfairness of the situation, attacked some white settlers.  The US Army was ordered to pursue and subdue the Indians.  The Nimiipuu amazed all with their stamina: 750 Indians including w...

Many people have heard of Young Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce (Nimiipuu) Indian people who said, "I will Fight No More Forever." Statue of Young Chief Joseph in Joseph, Oregon He said this after leading his people on an 1,800 mile trek through Idaho, Oregon, Montana and Wyoming after they were ordered to leave their home in the Wallowa Valley of Oregon and become permanent residents on a small reservation in Idaho.  Eventually Chief Joseph had to surrender because the Nimiipuu warriors were dead, the elderly were freezing, the children were starving, and the women were alone. Old Chief Joseph was the father and namesake of Young Chief Joseph.  He converted to Christianity in 1839, and tried to live in peace with white settlers who kept coming and coming from the East.  He signed the treaty in 1855, that gave much land to the white people but protected Wallowa Valley as a sacred homeland for his people.  After gold was found nearby, white miners and settl...

Please know this blog is just a draft and not finished. I sometimes lose my blogs so I published it. As I was reading about the Nez Perce, I felt awful for how White people treated them and so many other Native Americans and ethic minorities.  Of course not all whites were bad.  Some were pretty decent.  I am proud to have Quaker ancestors who were among the pretty decent white people, but anyway, I needed to share what I was reading from different sources online.  Even though I wrote about  atrocities, I was not including all the details.  I needed to include more -- just not in specific blogs as it did not serve the purpose of those blogs.  So I included it here.  Just know this is a rough draft and not a finished edition. I have read about clergy abuse, and I have read about what happened to Native Americans in the last few hundred years.  What happened to Native Americans is a particularly awful form of clergy abuse (until I start ...