MISSOULA, Mont. – Though sisters Marilyn Aubertin and Pat McKinney live in driving distance here approximately 280 miles away from the Colville Reservation, the tribal elders are far apart in the way they view the world.
As they sat in a conference room here at The Village Senior Residence, they provided their differing views on a variety of subjects. Take, for instance, Pat's framed photo of Bald Hill, a vastly green hillside overlooking the Columbia River where the Aubertin family resided for a time. It's arguably the most important photo she has.
"Every day I just get a peaceful feeling when I look at that picture," Pat, 87, says.
Marilyn, 83, quickly follows with, "All the bad memories."
Then there's Donald Trump.
"I love Trump," Pat says, enthusiastically.
"I'm not for the present situation at all," Marilyn follows.
"Obama wasn't doing our country any justice," Pat replies.
"Well I disagree with that," Marilyn follows.
But they do share several commonalities: Their vocabularies include foul language stemming from the days of their youth; they've both mourned losses of a son to suicide; they both hold the Colville Reservation dear; and, on that day, they were both ready to divulge a family history to the tribal membership that dealt with mental illness, stealing, addiction, prejudice, and molestation, among other subjects.
"My children have been excluded,” Marilyn says of her life story. “I think my kids, grandkids, great grandkids need to know what we actually went through and what little we had to survive.”
"Everybody was in the same boat at that time," Pat adds. "Born in the 30s, in the [Great] Depression..."
There’s a toughness to the sisters that’s prevalent, even in their old age.
“This growing old stuff isn’t for sissies,” Pat says.But given their family history and experiences, one could likely see why.
A SHAMED INDIAN AND A TRAUMATIZED ENGLISH WOMAN
Pat and Marilyn were the daughters of Charles Newell Aubertin and Clarabell Elizabeth (Peggy) Hubbard. Charles was a half-Indian and Peggy full English.
Due to the dilution of blood, Charles was able to pass for Caucasian in certain instances. "[Being Indian] was mostly negative,” Marilyn says. “He liked being Indian, but the circumstances didn't allow it. He was always fearful of being caught with alcohol. He couldn't go to taverns. One of our relatives gave up her Indian rights because of those things. Dad always like being Indian but it just didn't work out in the real world."
"When he was a kid [other children] would spit on him," for being Indian, Pat recalls hearing. "He did not learn to speak English until they went to school. They spoke French Indian. The [Aubertin siblings] were always spit on and treated horribly by the white kids."
"When the catechism came in there was more shame," Marilyn adds, "because they weren’t supposed to [live like an] Indian."
The siblings suspect Charles did not get more than an eighth-grade education.
Peggy had a traumatic childhood of her own. Her mother died when she was three. Her father, a civil engineer and leader of the Moses Lake community, abused her sexually and physically. “[Mother] fled from Moses Lake in the middle of the night,” Marilyn says. “She was molested by her father. He would do digital inspections on her to check if she was not being messed with by anyone. That was a very bad thing. She was 12 or 13 and she fled in a rowboat."
Their mother had warned her grandmother of the situation, according to Pat. "She had to slip a letter to someone because they were living there [with him]. She knew her dad was ready to molest her. So the letter got to her grandmother and she made arrangements to pick her up."
Another incident saw their mother whipped in the back for wearing lipstick as a freshman in high school. "She shared lipstick with a friend," Marilyn says. "She forgot to wipe it off before she went home for lunch and her father caught her with it on and strapped her on the back; cut her back with a strap. He made her go to school and the teacher found her bleeding through her top where he had beat her."
Their mother met their father after a brief career in music. "She had a wonderful singing voice," Marilyn says, "and played the piano really well. She was, I believe, 16 when they were having a [show]. She had a cold and could not sing that night. They forced her to do it anyways and her voice cracked and she never played music again."
Charles played the fiddle and had a sense of humor, which attracted her. "She said I'm going to marry me an Indian," Marilyn recalls hearing from a story re-told.
Concluding from the histories, Marilyn says the marriage between her father and mother was in trouble before it started.
BORN AND ON THE MOVE
Pat and Marilyn are two of the six children Charles and Peggy had. First came Patricia, Joanne and Marilyn, then Gary, Donny and Kenny.
Their father worked at logging camps and also on the Grand Coulee Dam. He was a skilled diesel mechanic and catskinner. Their mother maintained a clean a home that always had food on the table, including fresh bread on a daily basis, Marilyn recalls. Fruit was given out for their children’s birthday presents.
Pat was born in Old Kettle Falls in 1930, in an area now submerged by Lake Roosevelt. Due to fluctuations in the water, she attempted multiple times to find the foundation when the levels permitted.
For an extended period of time the family resided in a place called Bald Hill, which lies within the boundaries of the Colville Reservation. It is a place Pat has a picture standing in her room. Marilyn recalls it with a memory of her uncle encouraging her to stop sucking her thumb. “He would take me out and put my thumb in fresh cow pies. They would put stockings on me at night.”
The family moved from Kettle Falls to Cusick and Dalkena when Marilyn was four, around 1938. Charles took on farming in the area. In Cusick, Pat recalls going to school and singing. “They had us dressed up as senoritas and we had to sing ‘South of the Border.’ I just got stage fright.”
Marilyn explains the family had a name for every place they lived. In Dalkena, they lived at the Lloyd Matinee place. "It came into our life because my father, he had five children, was afraid he'd be drafted into the war," Marilyn said.
For Marilyn, it seems every place is associated with a memory that stand out above all. In this instance, she recalls some childhood trickery from her brothers. "There was a big ol' tree out back. Limbs went clear down to the ground and made a perfect playhouse. My brothers Donny and Gary were mad at me. I think it was a pair of shoes. Well Donny and Gary climbed the trees waiting for me to come to my little playhouse. When I did Donny peed on my head."
Charles had a unique method of punishing his children. He didn’t anger, or strike them. Instead, he embarrassed them. After the urination incident, for instance, he dressed up Donny and Gary like little girls and took them to the neighbors’ houses.
Sherman Creek was their next destination. They moved into a one-bedroom shack they called the Smith Place. It was a two-mile walk to school, and Pat — being the oldest — was charged with carrying a lantern for the siblings. They recall trekking through thick snow just to attend in the winter.
"We just plowed through it," Pat says. "When it was really cold dad took us down in the sleigh. There was cougars and we was scared of cougars and they took us down. We only lived there that winter and summer."
While attending Sherman Creek, Marilyn recalls playing baseball. “I threw the bat and broke the teacher’s ankle.”
The Aubertins occasionally ventured to Inchelium and Kewa, where they had relatives.
"We would go down and visit the Bannings," Pat recalls. "Grandma (Sophie) and Grandma Banning would fish there in that creek. They'd make their own poles out of the branches. They'd be talking Indian one minute, English the next. Or they would talk Indian for a while, then they'd talk French."
In Kewa, Marilyn believes she was affected by a chemical warfare balloon she heard had popped over the area. She recalls her aunt Delia Lawrence and her children talking about witnessing an event during World War II near their home in rural Washington state.
“They were outside one day and they saw this balloon and it burst,” Marilyn says. “And they said what happened was it was like these little airplanes you make, paper airplanes, just gillions of ‘em, masses of ‘em come out of that balloon and disintegrated.”
Marilyn recalls hearing government officials came from all over to address what had happened. “They threatened people: You are not to talk about it. It was never in the newspaper. They didn’t want to create panic. But they never could talk about it so it was hushed.”
The then-13-year-old recalled seeing sores on her relatives and even getting sores herself from exposure after the event occurred. “Aunt Delia ended up with sores on her legs especially, arms and legs, wherever she was exposed. It was a running, oozy sore. It was crusty spots and it oozed. I didn’t know about this thing at the time. I went down and spent a week with ‘em. I ended up with some sores on my buttocks.”
“In those days, everything was like syphilis. If you talk of that you’re promiscuous. I was terrified to talk about this for fear someone would think I had syphilis.”
The family had its first telephone at the next residence, the Foster Place, which sat on the Columbia River. Marilyn recalls being in third or fourth grade at that residence, where the marriage between Charles and Peggy dissolved. Charles left to Alaska and “mother was on the right side of the tracks, so to speak,” she says.
Peggy was left with her six children to raise alone. “We slept in only one bedroom,” Marilyn says. “Six kids and mom. The three of us girls slept in one bed. We always had to say ‘shift.’ Mom and [my youngest brother] were in the bed. It was just a little shed built off the back. No insulation.”
As the children got older, restrictions were removed for the most part, Marilyn recalls. "She became a single mother. We were just turned loose. I can never remember someone saying you'd have to be home."
Suspected mental illness in their mother Peggy made for some interesting times in the Aubertin family, especially after the divorce.
"To this day, people still think mom was normal," Marilyn says.
"She shoulda been an actress," Pat follows. "She could put on the biggest front."
"You would never know [she suffered] because she could be very charming: Good personality; pretty beautiful woman; well liked,” Marilyn says. “But inside she was always in a panic. Her fear of people and things."
The reality was she had become a recluse, Marilyn says. "People would knock on the door and she'd hide us. She didn't like us out in the sun. She found alcohol. She never went to dances with alcohol with dad, but she found alcohol and that gave her confidence. She lived her whole life agoraphobic."
Because less responsibility was required of the children, some began acting out, which led to an appearance in county court.
“They started stealing chickens,” Pat says, “and they got nailed.”
"Just once," Marilyn responds. "We were hungry, damn it."
After a dance at Sherman Creek, Marilyn and a group of teens had been drinking and she and a friend decided to go steal some chickens from Butch Hardwick, the barber in town.
"The really stupid part of the whole thing: we loved him dearly," Marilyn said. "It was his chickens and he played (music) at the dance. We needed something to eat. We really did, there was nothing at the house. We got caught."
Just as the chickens were being prepared in old wash tubs the party was crashed by law enforcement. "We had a wood stove and we had two tubs for dipping."
"They raided us," Marilyn says. "And I think there was 21 kids there, only one was 21 years old."
Marilyn and her accomplice had to go to court for the crime. She and her friend were still in their band clothing because they didn't have time to change after school. The prosecutor brought out the two old tubs as evidence, Marilyn recalls, laughing. "Here's our old tub with chicken feathers in it. The judge is shaming us. Here you are representing your school. Then he zeroed in on me personally because of an Aubertin thing in the past that ended up in court."
Their mother missed the trial. "Murph Hurst was there," Marilyn recalls, noting he was her friend's father. "After we got through the whole thing, he took me downtown and bought me the biggest box of chocolates I ever had in my life."
Reflecting on the situation, Marilyn says "We just had no direction at all."
When Pat was old enough — 18 — she says she "got married and got the hell out of there.”
Marilyn wasn’t far behind.
PAT’S ADULT LIFE
Patricia Aubertin married Ernest McKinney, a timber cruiser who spent most of his days outdoors, in 1948. Ernie was a military veteran who survived the 65-mile March of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II, and the torture that came with it.
“[Those who were marched] spent all their war years in Japanese prison camps,” Pat says. “They tortured them there and it was horrible. He darn-near died with pneumonia. He was lucky he was a medic.”
But Ernie wasn’t the type to let the trauma affect his life in his return home. Instead, he was proud of his survival, Pat says.
Due to her husband’s work, they bounced around the northwest — from Kettle Falls, to Tillamook, Oregon to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho up into Superior, Montana — due to Ernie’s work. “He was transferred here to Diamond National Mill, and the kids [Kathy and Tom] graduated here.”
Kathy is the family historian. She’s written a 2-page document detailing the family’s genealogy and Lakes ancestry back to the 1800s.
Tom struggled with bipolar disorder. “He was a very intelligent kid,” Pat says. “He was so intelligent the teacher put him in the library because he’d ask them so many questions. She said, ‘He will ask me questions I can’t answer.’”
Her son eventually entered the workforce and rose up to second in command of the Weyerhaeuser Timber company in California, Pat says. But his bi-polar disorder continued “and that’s when this first medication came out, Prozac. And the company would send Tom down to California to this clinic. They’d get him straightened out. The doctor kept increasing his dose. He committed suicide at age 40 in Eureka, California. It was very devastating, hardest thing I ever had to go through. He’s buried in Keller.”
Pat lived in Keller for about six years, not far from where her father Charles eventually settled in a HUD house near the end of his life. “That’s when they gave us these 5-acre lots. I took advantage of it and I lived right there on the San Poil. We put a Boise Cascade home there, this was about six or seven years after Ernie retired.”
Eventually, Pat and Ernie decided to move to Montana. “We really like it in Keller. The only problem was you had to go so far to get to town. We decided to sell the place.”
Previously, they lived in Newport. “I worked in the post office there. When he retired, I had to give up my job.”
Pat’s husband Ernest died in 1999. Benefits she lives off of allow her to stay at a senior residence in Missoula.
MARILYN’S ADULT LIFE
Marilyn was 19 when she and her friend Jo left Kettle Falls for something new.
“She had always wanted to go to Glendive, Montana where her grandfather had been killed by runaway horses. Her sister had this old ’36 Dodge car. And she had rolled it going from Kettle Falls down to old Kettle Falls. She just left it. She says, ‘If you want it, go get it out and it’s yours.’”
Her brothers fetched it and they bought a battery to get it working. Due to the crash, the driver’s side didn’t open. “We had no driver’s license, no spare tire, my mother’s credit card. We told her we’d use the card for gas and we’d pay her back, so that got us on the road. I think we had 36 dollars, two guitars and an ironing board.”
Marilyn and Jo traveled to Portland first “because Jo wanted to put in for a stewardess job.” They showed up at her friend’s aunt, who made them park the vehicle behind the house because they were embarrassed it had shown up at their house.”
In order to make some extra money, Marilyn and Jo played their guitars on the streets. “That’s what saved me through my whole life was my guitar,” she says. “I was too busy singing to bother with other things. [Jo’s] aunt and uncle loved to hear us sing and play guitars. They had a party and let us sing for the people.”
Since they were in Oregon, Marilyn wanted to see her father, who stayed in a school bus in Tillamook. “He and Earl McClung were up Cook Creek. We had to go see dad and Earl before we went to Glendive. After the visit, they began driving, sleeping straight up in their seats when it was necessary and eating cold food.
“How we even survived this I don’t even know,” Marilyn says. “We had to look for work because we only had this $36.”
They stopped in Anaconda, Montana at The Copper Inn, a place Marilyn says has been burned down. “We pull in there in the afternoon. The guy that owned it was an Iranian, or something like that. He and his two sons and wives ran this place. The wives, the son, the papa got into some sort of disagreement and needed help badly. He asked if either of us could cook. Dining was from 4 to 10 p.m.
“…So we find ourselves in this kitchen. The meat had to be butterflied. Everything was served with spaghetti. These big pots, getting all this spaghetti ready. I don’t know how we did it but she waited tables and I cooked.”
After two weeks, they began playing music after their shift ended. “We’d get our guitars and go in the bars and sing. That’s what we wanted to do anyways. We weren’t getting paid.”
Their performances led them to getting to know several people in the area. “One night, there was a madam from one of the houses in Wallace. She was having a party. She’d ask if we’d play this song or that. She would ask for ‘Yesterday’s Girl’ and she’d give us $20.”
Eventually, they knew they had to keep going, Marilyn says. “We got home one night with all this wherewithal and just looked at each other and said ‘We’re out of here.’ So in the middle of the night, we loaded up. We had to park this car on a little incline and give it a shove to get going.”
A flat tired stopped them in Miles City, 75 miles from their goal. They found work — and a ride — at a bar and grill. “I was on breakup shift and this guy was watching me and I finally said, ‘Would you be interested in going to Glendive, Montana?’ He says ‘I bartend at the Dairy Club. I’d like to offer you a job.’”
The trio left for Glendive where Marilyn worked at the Dairy Club and Jo took on work. After six months living there, the local newspaper published a centennial edition. Inside, a story on Jo’s grandfather was published. To them, it felt serendipitous.
Marilyn eventually moved on to becoming a singing barmaid. “I would serve drinks and take the Cokes and run up and sing.”
She met her future husband, Ward Cook, an entrepreneur, while in the area. They lived in Moses Lake for 16 years and eventually moved to Sentinel Butte, North Dakota — a 100-person town, Marilyn says — and had four children: Kim, Scott, Clint and Julie. Marilyn drove a mail truck while her husband managed several businesses. At home, they lived humbly and off the land — eating wild game on a frequent basis. “We had a shoestring existence. No indoor bathroom.”
After the pair divorced, Marilyn moved to Butte, Montana. She got into the karaoke business. “I was the first one in Montana to bring karaoke.”
She says she sold KM products — a health product manufactured in Canada, she says — and as a top saleswoman she earned a trip to Hawaii, where she found karaoke. “I was there three days and I kept hearing music. I ended up doing karaoke. She eventually was featured in a newspaper in Butte, she says, for bringing karaoke to the state. “I was being successful on my own and that was all good.”
Marilyn moved to the Keller next. She got a job at Mount Tolman and recalls riding the van to work every day. She was always the last one picked up, as the van traveled from Inchelium to Keller. “The young people called me “Ma Cook.” Around that time she lost a son to suicide, and had him buried next to her father in Keller.
Eventually, she was employed by AMAX mining company. “That was the best thing that ever happened to the rez. If that could have just kept going,” she said. “I ended up as a Geo-tech which meant lift a lot of damn rock. They started teaching us drafting. I heard a lot of scuttlebutt. And [AMAX] was really good for the Indian workers and how talented they were.”
After retiring, she moved to Montana. “I truly feel blessed even though I live on $1,000 a month and I have since ‘94. And that’s plenty.
WHAT ARE THEY PROUD OF?
The tribal elderly sisters play o ff each other when it comes to answering questions. When prompted with what are they most proud of in their lives, this was the exchange:
“Other than my children,” Marilyn says, “I would say learning to be at peace with what is. That means I’m in the moment. I live in the moment. This is the moment I’m going to get into my past forever. I don’t go there. I’ve learned to live in the moment. And that's through mediation and things like that that we have to train ourselves. But I feel that is my where I feel the best. Is just staying out of the past and out of the future and right now.”
“Take what comes,” Pat adds.
“Be at peace inwardly,” Marilyn says. “The outer world to me is very disturbing right now.”
“It’s getting disturbing for everybody,” Pat follows.
“I just try not to look at it,” says Marilyn.
“Just raising a family and surviving,” Pat adds.
“Homemakers, we were taught to be homemakers for sure,” Marilyn continues.
“To this day we make sure our apartments are clean,” says Pat, in reference to their mother’s expectations.
Though they’ve left the Kettle Falls and the Colville Reservation, much of their life is still based on the values they learned in their youth.
“Kids are so different now days,” Marilyn says. “They expect so much and they have too much. We had it so rough but it also taught us so much.”
“I’d like to be right back up there on Bald Hill any day, the way things are now,” Pat says.
The Tribal Tribune’s elder series chronicles the lives of Colville tribal elders aged 80 to 100, of which approximately 200 exist—about 2 percent of the entire tribe. This is the 14th installment of the series.
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