Post by Okwes on Mar 25, 2006 11:56:52 GMT -5
Eva Rehner; Pala tribal elder once challenged state power
PALA INDIAN RESERVATION
Known for speaking her mind, Pala tribal elder Eva Linton Rehner ultimately lost a legal battle that took her to the U.S. Supreme Court. But she will be remembered for standing up, as an American Indian, to the powerful state of California.
Thirty years ago, as the proprietor of a tiny general store at Pala, Mrs. Rehner filed a lawsuit in federal court, arguing that Indian merchants should not be subject to state licensing to sell alcohol on reservation lands.
An initial ruling for the state was reversed by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1983 that states have authority to regulate reservation liquor sales, despite tribes' sovereign status as governments of their own.
Mrs. Rehner didn't set out to become a crusader. “She wasn't a so-called activist, jumping up and down,” said her son, Ted Linton of Pala. “If something bothered her, she'd let somebody know.”
Mrs. Rehner, who at 95 was the oldest member of the Pala Indian band, died of natural causes Thursday in an Escondido nursing home.
“She was very well known” on the reservation, said Pala tribal Chairman Robert Smith. “Everybody knew her, and she knew everybody.”
Mrs. Rehner was born on the Santa Ysabel Reservation near Lake Henshaw, the daughter of a Cupeño Indian father and a mother who was Luiseño and Diegueño Indian. Although she spent her early childhood at Santa Ysabel, Mrs. Rehner maintained her enrollment in her father's tribe at Pala.
Like many Indians of her generation, Mrs. Rehner was sent at age 12 to the Sherman Indian School, a boarding school in Riverside. There, she learned English for the first time. After graduation, she went to Los Angeles to work as a nanny, her son said.
She met her late husband, Robert Rehner, in Long Beach, where he was stationed in the Navy. They were married at Pala's Roman Catholic mission in 1935 and made a home on the North County reservation.
While her husband re-enlisted and served in World War II, Mrs. Rehner stayed at Pala, working in the fields picking chili peppers, her late husband told The San Diego Union in January 1988. The couple opened their small store in 1959 after he left the Navy.
The Rehners' store was the smaller of two on the reservation, but it had one competitive advantage: It was open Sundays, when the larger one wasn't. “I used to go over to her store every Sunday,” said Smith, the Pala chairman.
The store closed in 1988, shortly after Robert Rehner's death. The 24-by-24-foot building now serves as a family storage shed. “Instead of a garage, we have an old store where we put all our junk in,” Linton said.
Linton, a retired sheriff's deputy, was Mrs. Rehner's only child. She also is survived by four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Visitation is scheduled from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, with a rosary at 7 p.m., at the Mission San Antonio de Pala near Pala-Temecula Road just north of state Route 76. A funeral mass is scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday at the mission, to be followed by burial at the Pala tribal cemetery.
<http://www.kumeyaay.com/news/news_detail.html?id=3724>
Material appearing here is distributed without profit or monitory gain to those
who have expressed an interest in receiving the material for research and
educational purposes. This is in accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. section 107.
www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
PALA INDIAN RESERVATION
Known for speaking her mind, Pala tribal elder Eva Linton Rehner ultimately lost a legal battle that took her to the U.S. Supreme Court. But she will be remembered for standing up, as an American Indian, to the powerful state of California.
Thirty years ago, as the proprietor of a tiny general store at Pala, Mrs. Rehner filed a lawsuit in federal court, arguing that Indian merchants should not be subject to state licensing to sell alcohol on reservation lands.
An initial ruling for the state was reversed by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1983 that states have authority to regulate reservation liquor sales, despite tribes' sovereign status as governments of their own.
Mrs. Rehner didn't set out to become a crusader. “She wasn't a so-called activist, jumping up and down,” said her son, Ted Linton of Pala. “If something bothered her, she'd let somebody know.”
Mrs. Rehner, who at 95 was the oldest member of the Pala Indian band, died of natural causes Thursday in an Escondido nursing home.
“She was very well known” on the reservation, said Pala tribal Chairman Robert Smith. “Everybody knew her, and she knew everybody.”
Mrs. Rehner was born on the Santa Ysabel Reservation near Lake Henshaw, the daughter of a Cupeño Indian father and a mother who was Luiseño and Diegueño Indian. Although she spent her early childhood at Santa Ysabel, Mrs. Rehner maintained her enrollment in her father's tribe at Pala.
Like many Indians of her generation, Mrs. Rehner was sent at age 12 to the Sherman Indian School, a boarding school in Riverside. There, she learned English for the first time. After graduation, she went to Los Angeles to work as a nanny, her son said.
She met her late husband, Robert Rehner, in Long Beach, where he was stationed in the Navy. They were married at Pala's Roman Catholic mission in 1935 and made a home on the North County reservation.
While her husband re-enlisted and served in World War II, Mrs. Rehner stayed at Pala, working in the fields picking chili peppers, her late husband told The San Diego Union in January 1988. The couple opened their small store in 1959 after he left the Navy.
The Rehners' store was the smaller of two on the reservation, but it had one competitive advantage: It was open Sundays, when the larger one wasn't. “I used to go over to her store every Sunday,” said Smith, the Pala chairman.
The store closed in 1988, shortly after Robert Rehner's death. The 24-by-24-foot building now serves as a family storage shed. “Instead of a garage, we have an old store where we put all our junk in,” Linton said.
Linton, a retired sheriff's deputy, was Mrs. Rehner's only child. She also is survived by four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Visitation is scheduled from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, with a rosary at 7 p.m., at the Mission San Antonio de Pala near Pala-Temecula Road just north of state Route 76. A funeral mass is scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday at the mission, to be followed by burial at the Pala tribal cemetery.
<http://www.kumeyaay.com/news/news_detail.html?id=3724>
Material appearing here is distributed without profit or monitory gain to those
who have expressed an interest in receiving the material for research and
educational purposes. This is in accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. section 107.
www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html