Post by blackcrowheart on Jan 17, 2006 22:14:42 GMT -5
Death of Chiricahua elder is the end of an era
By Dianne Stallings
Special to Today
RUIDOSO, N.M. (Ruidoso News) - The great-granddaughter of Chiricahua
chiefs Mangas Coloradas and Victorio, Evelyn Martine Gaines, died
Jan. 2 at the Mescalero Care Center.
She was born Jan. 10, 1912, at Fort Sill, Okla., while tribal members
confined there were considered prisoners of war. During an interview
in April 2000 for her 88th birthday, Gaines said she recalled nothing
of her early days at the fort or of the trip to Mescalero with her
mother, Lillian Mangas Martine, and father, George Martine, both full-
blooded Warm Springs Chiricahua Apache.
''As history has it, in 1886, after Geronimo and his band finally
surrendered to the Cavalry of the U.S. government, Chiricahua men,
women and children were rounded up and herded onto trains like cattle
and transported to St. Augustine, Florida,'' said granddaughter
Nettie Fossum.
The climate was hot and humid. After years of captivity, the Apache
were moved to Mount Vernon Barracks, Ala., where George Martine was
born in 1890. He married Lillian Mangas, daughter of Dilth-cleyhen
and Carl Mangas, who was the son of Chief Mangas Coloradas. Dilth-
cleyhen was the daughter of Chief Victorio.
After 27 years, the Apache were moved again - this time to Fort Sill,
where they were taught to farm and learned other trades, Fossum said.
When the opportunity was offered, Gaines' parents, along with many
other Chiricahua, decided to live with the Mescalero and Lipan Apache
on the 463,000-acre reservation that abuts Ruidoso.
When Gaines arrived with her parents in Mescalero, no houses were
built in Whitetail, a pastoral community in the mountains of the
reservation that became the Chiricahua base. For a while, they lived
on the feast grounds in Mescalero.
One of her earliest memories is Christmas in Whitetail.
''It was the first Christmas I ever knew and we were in a big tent,''
she said in 2000. ''We had candles lit on the Christmas tree and when
they would start to burn down, the man folks would blow the candles
out. I got a little washboard from the Reformed Church.''
Gaines also recalled being forced to stand in the corner at her
school because she spoke Chiricahua instead of English.
Her mother died in 1936 and Gaines took over raising her siblings.
Her little sister, Imogene, was only 11 months old at the time. The
family lived in a two-room house until 1937, when new and larger four-
room homes were built.
She remembered her house in Whitetail being destroyed by a bomber
that crashed dead center into the building in 1941, destroying family
mementos and photographs. The only thing salvaged was Imogene's straw
hat.
She fondly recalled working as a midwife at the reservation hospital
during World War II.
''We had one doctor, one head nurse, one night nurse and four nurse's
aides,'' she said during the interview for her 88th birthday. ''We
wore blue uniforms and they called us 'The Blue Girls.'''
Gaines lived through the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl days when
even from the mountains, she could see a dark cloud of dust coming
from the east and the ground cracked so deeply it frightened Imogene.
She slept through the first atomic bomb detonation at White Sands
Missile Range, although she remembered tremors.
Gaines smiled as she recalled the meals she prepared for her family
for $1 a day. They often included venison and canned goods for 10
cents each. She baked cakes from scratch and created her own yeast
bread in a wood-burning stove.
But as times changed and new people moved into neighboring
communities in the 1960s, Gaines became active in preserving the
traditions of her tribe, later helping to assemble the first
Mescalero Apache dictionary.
She was known around Mescalero as ''grandma'' and in the 1970s,
counseled young people through the Traditional Counselors Program,
trying to reconcile the old and the new.
''Both she and Grandpa Amos [Gaines] were instrumental in teaching us
to bead, tan deer hides, show us how to make cradles for infants,
identify herbs used for medicine and to pick and harvest Indian
bananas, mescal plants, mesquite beans and to preserve them for later
use in feasts,'' Fossum said.
Schooling always was important to Gaines. She attended schools in
Mescalero, Albuquerque and Phoenix. Illness prevented her from
finishing college, but her three daughters all graduated.
''My grandmother has shared many stories with me of long ago, which I
will share with my children,'' Fossum said. ''Growing up, my
grandmother remembered working hard, doing chores and caring for her
siblings. She was responsible for them because she was the oldest
after losing her older brother Edward to tuberculosis when he was 3,
shortly after coming to Mescalero. Altogether, my great-grandparents
had eight children.
''We as a family were taught to be respectful of our culture and
people as well as our elders. We were taught to be helpful and
considerate, especially when our elders are speaking to us.''
By Dianne Stallings
Special to Today
RUIDOSO, N.M. (Ruidoso News) - The great-granddaughter of Chiricahua
chiefs Mangas Coloradas and Victorio, Evelyn Martine Gaines, died
Jan. 2 at the Mescalero Care Center.
She was born Jan. 10, 1912, at Fort Sill, Okla., while tribal members
confined there were considered prisoners of war. During an interview
in April 2000 for her 88th birthday, Gaines said she recalled nothing
of her early days at the fort or of the trip to Mescalero with her
mother, Lillian Mangas Martine, and father, George Martine, both full-
blooded Warm Springs Chiricahua Apache.
''As history has it, in 1886, after Geronimo and his band finally
surrendered to the Cavalry of the U.S. government, Chiricahua men,
women and children were rounded up and herded onto trains like cattle
and transported to St. Augustine, Florida,'' said granddaughter
Nettie Fossum.
The climate was hot and humid. After years of captivity, the Apache
were moved to Mount Vernon Barracks, Ala., where George Martine was
born in 1890. He married Lillian Mangas, daughter of Dilth-cleyhen
and Carl Mangas, who was the son of Chief Mangas Coloradas. Dilth-
cleyhen was the daughter of Chief Victorio.
After 27 years, the Apache were moved again - this time to Fort Sill,
where they were taught to farm and learned other trades, Fossum said.
When the opportunity was offered, Gaines' parents, along with many
other Chiricahua, decided to live with the Mescalero and Lipan Apache
on the 463,000-acre reservation that abuts Ruidoso.
When Gaines arrived with her parents in Mescalero, no houses were
built in Whitetail, a pastoral community in the mountains of the
reservation that became the Chiricahua base. For a while, they lived
on the feast grounds in Mescalero.
One of her earliest memories is Christmas in Whitetail.
''It was the first Christmas I ever knew and we were in a big tent,''
she said in 2000. ''We had candles lit on the Christmas tree and when
they would start to burn down, the man folks would blow the candles
out. I got a little washboard from the Reformed Church.''
Gaines also recalled being forced to stand in the corner at her
school because she spoke Chiricahua instead of English.
Her mother died in 1936 and Gaines took over raising her siblings.
Her little sister, Imogene, was only 11 months old at the time. The
family lived in a two-room house until 1937, when new and larger four-
room homes were built.
She remembered her house in Whitetail being destroyed by a bomber
that crashed dead center into the building in 1941, destroying family
mementos and photographs. The only thing salvaged was Imogene's straw
hat.
She fondly recalled working as a midwife at the reservation hospital
during World War II.
''We had one doctor, one head nurse, one night nurse and four nurse's
aides,'' she said during the interview for her 88th birthday. ''We
wore blue uniforms and they called us 'The Blue Girls.'''
Gaines lived through the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl days when
even from the mountains, she could see a dark cloud of dust coming
from the east and the ground cracked so deeply it frightened Imogene.
She slept through the first atomic bomb detonation at White Sands
Missile Range, although she remembered tremors.
Gaines smiled as she recalled the meals she prepared for her family
for $1 a day. They often included venison and canned goods for 10
cents each. She baked cakes from scratch and created her own yeast
bread in a wood-burning stove.
But as times changed and new people moved into neighboring
communities in the 1960s, Gaines became active in preserving the
traditions of her tribe, later helping to assemble the first
Mescalero Apache dictionary.
She was known around Mescalero as ''grandma'' and in the 1970s,
counseled young people through the Traditional Counselors Program,
trying to reconcile the old and the new.
''Both she and Grandpa Amos [Gaines] were instrumental in teaching us
to bead, tan deer hides, show us how to make cradles for infants,
identify herbs used for medicine and to pick and harvest Indian
bananas, mescal plants, mesquite beans and to preserve them for later
use in feasts,'' Fossum said.
Schooling always was important to Gaines. She attended schools in
Mescalero, Albuquerque and Phoenix. Illness prevented her from
finishing college, but her three daughters all graduated.
''My grandmother has shared many stories with me of long ago, which I
will share with my children,'' Fossum said. ''Growing up, my
grandmother remembered working hard, doing chores and caring for her
siblings. She was responsible for them because she was the oldest
after losing her older brother Edward to tuberculosis when he was 3,
shortly after coming to Mescalero. Altogether, my great-grandparents
had eight children.
''We as a family were taught to be respectful of our culture and
people as well as our elders. We were taught to be helpful and
considerate, especially when our elders are speaking to us.''