December 20, 2025 • 36 mins
Hariette Shelton Dover had the foresight and dedication to preserving the language and traditions of her people. Yves stops by to share her story in this classic episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Sanny and Samantha, all of them stuff,
I never told you, a producted by Heart video. And
as we're getting to the end of the year, we're
bringing back some of our hits, our favorites, and both
(00:26):
Samantha and I have chosen some favorites to replay for
the year, including Female First. We both chose a female First,
and I chose Harriet Shelton because I really love the
story of preserving language. That's something we've been talking about
a lot, and it's just something that as someone who
(00:49):
is interested in different languages that I really enjoyed that story.
You know. The unfortunate kind of thing is sometimes you
can't replay an episode that just happens, so you go
back a little bit further because there have been some
some recent episodes that I also love, but I'm like
that just came out.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So but I do.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Love this one and hopefully you listeners love it too,
So please enjoy this classic episode.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Hey, this is.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Annie and Samantha and all coome stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I never told you pro Actually I heart rate you,
and it is time for another edition of Female First,
which means we are once again joined by the resilience
the definitely not.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Probably not a zombie thieves, welcome, thank you.
Speaker 5 (01:45):
I do not wish to be a zombie, so.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I do not wish.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
I just want everybody to know that I don't want
that for myself.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
That's a fair caveat.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
We should probably explain you have been a feeling ill.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Feel a little bit right, Yes, yes, And.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
We were discussing before and there are just some things
that my horror movie Braid was like, this sounds a little.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
Like, yes, And I was trying to reassure Annie that
I'm not a zombie. I'm not like infected by any spores,
because I know that I got whatever illness that I
had from the cleaning I was doing in the dust
that was kicked up from that cleaning, and.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
My body was trying to expel it.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
I was pretty sick, had a fever, all kinds of
symptoms for a week, and it really took me out.
But like I'm here now, I feel fully alive. I
feel like I'm not going to try to like eat anybody.
You know, I'm not going to anybody. I don't have
any of those feelings right now. I don't feel inherently changed,
(02:58):
you know, I feel like I feel like I would
say that if I was a songbie. But at the
same time, i'm I'm I'm all here, So I think
we're okay thus.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Far you're all here. I will say, maybe you're just
allergic to cleaning just say it.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Oh wow, that sounds like such a like you're trying
to get somebody to clean and they're like, oh, I'm allergic.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
I can't do that.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
But you know, there are so many different allergies, many
of them surprising and like necessary to like things people
are allergic to that seem like they would be necessary
to functioning in.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Life, and I like it probably exists.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
Like I don't want to say that that doesn't exist,
because I know for my thing I was, I was
quote unquote allergic to exercise. That's like why I would
start itching when I would have exercise induced art to carria.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I mean, so I don't know.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
That's true though, right, because some people get the I mean,
there's asthma. But I'll so like sweat and itch and
stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Yeah, I did that one time. My face blew up.
My roommate got real scared. She's like, I gotta, I
gotta get you some bena drill. I was like, yeah,
you gotta give you some benadrill.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Bennadrill.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
I once had a very very severe h allergic reaction,
and through a comedy of errors that could have gone
really terribly, I couldn't get to a doctor. And uh,
I just took some benadrill and I was like, hopefully
this doesn't and it did. So now benadril is a
thing that I always carry with.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
It does help.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
It does help, Okay, our good reminders of how fragile we.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Are as humans.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, they're like, hey, can't handle a little pollen, Just
a reminder it's everywhere.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
No, it's like completely necessary to the sustenance of life.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
But can it kill you?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Maybe that's right, that's the fun and misery of it all. Well,
have you been up to anything other than being sick?
Eve since we last spoke?
Speaker 5 (05:07):
Oh, since we last spoke, I believe so. I'm really
trying to remember it because we're in May now. I
think after the last time we spoke, that was after
I went to Guatemala, I think I have been I've
been kind of chill since then. I have really been
about staying in place and I like have been just
(05:30):
like with my head down working so I don't really
think there are many updates since the last time we spoke.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Okay, I feel like you could have a hole where
in the world is ease, Like I never know what
you're gonna say when we asked this, So it's great.
Speaker 5 (05:47):
Yeah, No, I needed to stay. I need to keep
my feet on solid ground for a second, and I
still do. And I have some travel coming up, and
I'm like, like, this week, next week, a lot of travel.
I just I signed myself up for more tras. I
just got where today. There is a lottery for seeing
synchronized fireflies in the Great Smoking Mouns, and I got
(06:10):
got into the lottery, so I finally get to see
them after wanting to see them at a different National
park for a minute. That I always forget the lottery
for every year, and I'm like, dang it, I always
miss it, and I missed it again this year after
setting a reminder. But then I was like, I could
just do it in a smoking mountains. I realized that,
So yeah, but like I keep this This month is
(06:31):
very like jam packed of like family obligations and graduation
things like that. So I've been really feeling like I
need to stay here and when I do go away,
it's got to be for a little bit of a time,
a little bit of time, because I'm about to like
be gone for a little bit in June.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Well, congratulations, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I'm jealous.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
I forgot about that because I had a really good
friend who was a hiking enthusiast and love to do
camping and hikes, and they're like, we have to come back.
You will love. This is magical.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Man.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
Yes, it's gonna I can't wait to hear about it. Yeah,
it's gonna be like a Miyazaki movie. Is kind of
what I'm imagining. I don't know, but yeah, I'm I'm
excited that I finally remembered because I was always I
would try to sign up for the one in Congrey
in South Carolina. That's the national park in South Carolina,
(07:21):
and they have it there as well, but it was
just before the one in the Great Smoking Mountains and
I was right on time and remembering, Uh so I
got to sign up for the lottery.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Unfortunately got in. So yeah, I'm so cool.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
And also, if anybody else listening knows about any sort
of like specific natural phenomenon that only happens ever, so
often in like whatever landscape terrain where you are. Please
let me know because I'm trying to find more things
like this and it's kind of hard to google. I
(07:55):
tried to google it, but the Internet has no idea
what my request is.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
So I was gonna say, I guess some like videos
from my fyp or TikTok and such, but it's always
like a week after it. I was like, well, damn, yeah,
that happened.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yes, Unfortunately, what happens to me, it's like you're not
working algorithm.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Right, like this, this is not the way this works.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Right. You have bought us quite a wide ranging story today.
So who are we talking about today, Eves?
Speaker 5 (08:34):
Today we're talking about Harriet Shelton Dover, And I actually
this was born from travel because I was looking for
people in Washington and the n the Seattle area, and
I also wanted to talk about more Indigenous people in
these female first episodes, so like it really worked out well,
but this actually was born of travel. So yeah, we're
(08:57):
talking about Harriet Shelton Dover today. And she was the
first woman chair of the Tulalip Tribes Board of Directors
and also in Harriet's autobiography, she also says that she
thinks that what she wrote was the first history of
te Lalap written by a t Lalup Indian, So that
is another first that she said that she had.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And I said.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
Indian because she preferred to use the terms Indian and
American Indian throughout the episode. Whenever that comes up, I'll
probably say Native American or Indigenous people or something like that.
But Harriet herself did prefer to use those terms.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
And she she did all kinds of stuff. She really
really I was reading, like whoa, and so now we're
over here. Now we're over here, so let's get into it, Eves.
Can I start with the history?
Speaker 5 (09:50):
Yeah, So Harriet was born on November nineteenth, nineteen oh
four to William Shelton and Rusie Home. They were from
different tribes, but Harriet herself was born on the Tulalp
Reservation at Mission Beach in Tulaylip Bay, and that's near Marysville, Washington.
So the Tulalip Tribes are a confederation that includes Snowhomish, Skycomish,
(10:14):
snowqaal Mee, and many other tribes that were successors to
the ones that signed the Treaty of Point Elliott. In
eighteen fifty five, so her dad was also the last
hereditary Snawhomish tribal chief in Tulayalip. He worked at the
local mill and as a general mechanic, but he was
also just a very important person and did lots of
(10:38):
community work. Harriet was the youngest of six children, and
she said that her home as a child was a
three roomhouse that her father called a cottage, and it
was on the old Tulaylop Mission school grounds, So her
father had a history going to the mission school, but
once once Harriet was in the picture, the school was
(11:01):
no longer in existence. Harriet mostly spoke the Snahomish dialect
of the Coast Salish language. In her younger years, as
a child, she would collect firewood, pick berry. She learned
to do things that her family taught her how to
do that were traditional, like she learned to smoke salmon,
(11:24):
and she.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Was baptized as a Catholic.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
But Native Americans couldn't go to public schools and her
dad didn't want her to go to the mission school,
so Harriet ended up going to the reservation's government run
to Leilap boarding school when she was seven years old,
and there is a lot that's said about her experiences
at the boarding school.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
She talks about it in her autobiography.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
It was standard that like all the students were assigned
in ID number Harriet's was thirty three.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
They wore uniforms.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
They started the day with the roll call and exercise
and ended at nine pm sharp. They would have like
inspections on Saturdays. They couldn't speak their native languages at
the boarding school. And I was watching there is a
short documentary about Harriet, and there's a clip in there
(12:21):
of her of an interview with Harriet, and she was
talking about an experience that she had when she was
nine years old and a friend and her were speaking
in her native language and they got in trouble for it.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
So they were like whispering to each other.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
They were overheard and she was beaten from her neck
to her ankles, So the back of her neck to
her ankles is how they describe it.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
So she was hit pretty hard.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
It was described that like in her tribal culture, it
wasn't the case that the kids were like punished in ways.
There wasn't There wasn't really physical punishment. There were no
beings as part of punishment. And raising a child and
disciplining them. But it was in her school, and she
seems to have been very affected by that beating, like
she says she remembers it to that day and said
(13:08):
that she was really hurt by it to that day.
So it definitely affected her. But I would imagine more
so because it was because she was speaking her language,
and the way she described it was like I loved
the language it was, it sounded great. I wanted to
speak it with her at that time, and it was
for that simple fact that they were beat for it.
(13:29):
But in February of nineteen seventeen, Harriet's sister Ruth was
sent home because she was sick. Harriet soon also got
sick and was sent home. Ruth unfortunately died of tuberculosis
in May. Harriet got better, but she ended up kind
(13:50):
of lagging on her education. She finished at the boarding
school in nineteen twenty two. When she got out of
the boarding school, she says in her autobiography, she was
like she swore she was never going back to church
again because she had been in church all the time
and was praying all the time. Her mother was pretty devout,
and she was disappointed because you know, her mother was
(14:12):
in church every Sunday, and Harriet was like, I'm not
doing that again. But Harriet did say that there was
a lot of pressure on the Native Americans from the Christians.
This is a quote from her autobiography. Harriet said, those poor,
misguided people, they were bound and determined to save all
of our miserable souls. If people have heard anything about
(14:38):
this time period and about how Native Americans were treated
by white folks and by Christians, it was a lot
of talk and action of trying to civilize people in
Native American tribes, trying to get them to assimilate, punishing
them for taking part in their traditional culture, in their religions,
(15:01):
in their language, in the clothing that they were wearing,
in actions that they were taking, like what they did
as far as lifestyle, making them farmers, things like that.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
There was a lot of.
Speaker 5 (15:15):
Doing their best to in harmful ways, separate them from
all aspects of their traditional identities. So that was part
of that, and Harriet briefly talked about that from a
religious perspective in her autobiography. But Harriet did end up
graduating from Everett High School in nineteen twenty six, and
(15:38):
she said that high school was a better experience than
boarding school was. She didn't care for the boarding school
experience that much, but it was definitely formative, a formative
time for her. So Harriet had dreams of going to college,
but she didn't end up going to college at this time. Okay,
(16:02):
that's a little bit of foreshadowing. So she was involved
in her community though, as we said earlier, her father
was also very involved in the community. By nineteen twenty three,
her brother Robert was working with the Tulalup Improvement Club
and he was preparing claims and complaints against the government
about fraudulent sales of native land. There are lots of
(16:24):
fishing rights and lack of medical care. And Harriet would
type up the testimonies of elderly natives and she recorded
meeting minutes. So she was already working as this kind
of tu Laylup historian, gathering stories, documenting people's stories. In
nineteen twenty six, she met Francis aka Frank Williams at
(16:47):
a dance event in Seattle. Now Harriet's mom was a
little concerned that Harriet didn't know him well enough, but
the two of them, Frank and Harriet's still got married
in July of nineteen twenty six. Only Francis's cousin was
a witness.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
For their marriage.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Harriet's parents were not there, but they still moved into
an apartment together, and later in nineteen twenty eight, they
had a son together named Wayne Williams. But it didn't
seem like she had the best experience in their marriage.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
She was.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Described as being lonely, homesick. Sometimes Frank would send money
to his mother, but it didn't seem.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Like Harriet was always so supported.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
He had a temper apparently didn't always trust her while
he was away working. But their marriage was strained, is
what it came down to. They didn't end up divorcing
at this time, but they did divorce many years later.
When Harriet's brother died in nineteen thirty, suddenly the Snahomus
(18:06):
tribe voted Harriet in to replace him as secretary. Eventually
the org became the Northwest Federation of American Indians. Then
it was the Tulaela Tribal Council, and that council focused
on bettering Native environments and welfare, and at that point
it had five members, but then it evolved to become
(18:27):
the Board of Directors and it had seven members. But yeah,
so Frank before they ended up getting divorce, Frank had
gotten a job with the Washington State Ferry System, but
then he ended up getting laid off. Technology was changing,
(18:47):
the old steamships were being phased out, and Harriet ended
up moving back in with her parents. So all the while,
Harriet is working different jobs, and eventually she was elected
to serve on the Tulalup Tribe's Board of directors. So
she served on the board from nineteen thirty eight to
(19:10):
nineteen forty two, then nineteen forty four to nineteen forty six,
and later nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty one. But yeah,
so Harriet's also working. She's working different jobs over the
course of this year. So she was at a job
at a restaurant in Seattle that was called Twin Tpe's,
(19:30):
which had a lot of like cheesy Native American themed decor.
In September of nineteen forty two to around nineteen forty five,
she was working a job at the Boeing plant in Seattle.
But she also served as the chair on the board
of directors for a year in about nineteen forty five
(19:52):
or nineteen forty six, and This is her first and
made her the first Native American woman.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
To be in that position.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
She was also working at a post office on the reservation.
By nineteen forty nine, she was and this is where
she met a man named George Dover because he would
come by to pick up mail for his family members.
And once again Harriet's family members didn't really approve of George,
(20:27):
but she still married him in nineteen fifty They had
a son named William Dover and they stayed married until
George's death in nineteen sixty nine. So she Harriet did
a lot. So she also served as a tribal judge.
Nineteen fifty one, she served on the Marysville School Board.
(20:48):
She was also a teacher's aide and electoral Native American
culture so she would go to different classrooms and talk
about her culture and bring some of her artifacts along
with her. She was the first PTA president at Tulela
Elementary School after it opened thanks to her donating some
of her own land. She was also a member of
(21:12):
the Seattle Historical Society and she gave testimony for United
States Versus Washington Phase one in nineteen seventy three, which
was a salmon fishing rights case, and so one notable,
I mean a lot of stuff is notable about her legacy,
but one really big thing that she did was the
(21:35):
salmon ceremony that they held in their tribe was outlawed,
but Harriet was involved in bringing back the tradition. So
in nineteen seventy, Harriet and a group of other people
gathered to talk about the salmon ceremony and bringing it back.
They met for several weeks, so Harriet herself hadn't been
(21:58):
at it and put on a salmon ceremony before, but
as the group of people, they were collectively gathering information
that they had, so what they remembered growing up, what
they knew of and heard of their family doing, they
would get together and talk about it. They ended up
finalizing the run of ceremony based on what they could
remember their families would do. And then Harriet went to
(22:20):
a board of directors meeting and the board said that
they would appropriate some money for the ceremony. Said it
was basically like she was like, Okay, it's official, now
this must happen. Harriet and the other planners determined that
they would hold the ceremony in June when it was
high tide and they did, so she was instrumental in
bringing the salmon ceremony back. In her autobiography, it was
(22:45):
mentioned that Harriet didn't really want to include her role
in bringing the salmon ceremony back, and that was because
she didn't want to sound like she was.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Gloating about it.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
It seemed like she was pretty she was pretty reserved
about certain things, or like to be modest about certain things.
Because it's also mentioned in her autobiography that like she
preferred to speak in the passive voice rather than the
active voice. So in general, her speaking her own tribal
(23:18):
language was a big part of how she saw the world.
She cared about it a lot, and it was instrumental
at understanding how she interacted with people and communicate it
with people. So like, uh, the the way that she
would prefer to speak was in passive voice because active
(23:41):
voice felt a little bit too to direct for her,
and that was something that was taken into consideration as
they were figuring out how to put the autobiography together.
But anyway, we'll come back to the autobiography in just
a moment. But in nineteen seventy six, Harriett ended up
(24:03):
going to Everett Community college, and at first she was like,
it's been a long time since I've been in school,
It's been like fifty years, Like I can go back
to college. Do I want to go back to college?
But she did end up going back for a few reasons.
At this point, tribal members could enroll at the local
community college and be funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
(24:25):
The federal government could no longer keep tribal members from
getting an education at these colleges due to change in
the relocation determination programs, and Harriet wanted to be a
role modeled to young folks in this regard. And she
also wanted more education so that she would be able
to write a history of the Tlala reservation. So she
(24:50):
majored in anthropology and history, and she took classes with
Darlene Fitzpatrick. They ended up developing a French and Darlene
helped Harriet in the recording, editing, organizing the narratives for
her life for the autobiography.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
So Darlene also is.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
Talks about Harriet in the autobiography if you read it.
But yeah, Harriet graduated with her associate's degree in nineteen
seventy eight and she was on the council for about
fourteen years. Over the years, she also worked as a
domestic servant for families. She would also speak with people
(25:35):
on other reservations about how their lives were and how
they were changed after the treaties were signed. She collected
materials about t Laylap history and she did research and
she began working on the manuscript for the book around
nineteen eighty one, and they were taping her narratives for
(25:59):
a a couple of years. And in her later life,
Harriet spent time teaching other people her language, Lashutsi, and
she dedicated a lot of her time to going out
in the community and making sure that her language and
(26:23):
cultural history were preserved. She did end up getting breast
cancer and she died when she was eighty six years
old in February of nineteen ninety one. So many of
the Shelton family's artifacts are at the Heba Cultural Center,
and Harriet's life is documented in the book To Lay
(26:45):
Up from My Heart, an autobiographical account of a reservation community. Yeah,
it's work. It's a book that was published after she
passed away, but it was also in her own words
because she was able to document that and record it
(27:08):
before she passed away, so it seems to be like
it's a real treasure. As I said at the beginning
of the episode, she said that it was, you know,
the only one written by like the other accounts of
t Laylap were written by white people basically, so she
said that it was the first history of t Lalup
(27:30):
written by a t lalem Indian. So definitely worth reading
and an amazing thing to have because it's like clear
how much love and thoughtfulness was put into the autobiography,
even down to the way that they like the syntax
(27:51):
of it, in the way that they structured sentences, because
she liked to speak in longer sentences and really disliked
short sentences, and so because of that reason, they wrote
the more longer sentences in the book. And also they
were really thoughtful about how they were presenting the timeline,
(28:12):
so she didn't really want to do it completely chronologically,
even though there was a little bit of pushback from
the publisher in that way, they really felt it was
necessary to be because of the way time is interwoven,
in the way that they think about time, necessary to
not go one hundred in a linear chronological fashion, but
(28:34):
instead documented how Harriet would have documented it, which is saying, well,
this is this is a topic, this is something that
happened at one moment in time, but this is the
history of it, or this is what it links back
to in my history and in our history. And that's
evident through the way that they like they organized the autobiography. So, yes,
(28:59):
Harriet had a history, and it is documented in the
autobiography and the documentary that you can find online about her.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
I love that the autobiography exists because having that in
her own words. We've talked about that so many times
about how valuable that is. But I'm also a huge
language nerd, so I love how I love thinking about
that kind of stuff, about how you're the language shapes
the way you think.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
And that's not to say you can.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
You can think outside of that, but it is really
interesting how it shapes your thoughts. And so I'm really
glad that she was a force. And we're gonna make
sure this language and this traditions and these cultures and
all of that all right, which were erased in like
(30:04):
this are attempted to be erased in this horrible way,
Like We're going to make sure that they're preserved. I'm
going to do everything I can to make sure that
they're preserved. So I'm just grateful that it's one of
those things, just like I hate that she had to
do it, but I'm grateful that she was there to
do it.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
It's interesting because we've talked about the extinct languages, especially
when it comes to native native languages and how they
have been forcefully erased and being taken out altogether, like
just forgotten. And I love that she had the foresight
because honestly, it took a lot of other people a
lot longer to realize what was happening. Eshe she understood
(30:42):
pretty quickly what was going down and what the white
people were doing. They're like, yeah, they're trying to erase
us initially, and just talking about how important it was
to preserve that. Also, she is an obvious writer. She's like, no,
this can't be this can't be chronological order. We mean,
we need we need to change this up. Has to
be different. I'm like, oh, oh, so you're not just
the teacher his Dorian, You're a storyteller so much among
(31:06):
the like native peoples and understanding this is how it goes.
And I'm gonna I'm gonna I want to write it
this way. Also, I'm a big fan of long sentences, as.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
You can tell, I have too.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah, me too. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (31:19):
And she also talks about in her autobiography how like
she learned things because they were passed down orally, and
that's also how she was like transmitting her story. And yeah,
I think it's also just really inspirational to see people
who are committed to preserving history, because that's not everybody
(31:44):
that like thinks about in real time what something's value
is in the long term. You have to have like
a really long long view on things to think about that.
So it's like, Okay, I have this belt, and I
saved it because I know that it's going to be
important to the preservation of our my tribes, my community's
cultural history, and that should be saved for other people
(32:06):
in the future to enjoy and also for them to
be able to learn about their own history, because that's
because it's important. It's so easy to just go on
about your life, you know, have it be wrote and
not in real time understand the weight of artifacts and
the weight of how things are changing. Because I imagine
(32:30):
over the course of her life she saw a lot
of change. She experienced a lot of change, and she
also heard about a lot of change from her elders
and from her grandparents. She said in her books she
was like, yeah, my parents loved me, but like I
had like three grandmothers who lived in the area like
(32:52):
close to me, and they just really.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Loved on me, is what she said.
Speaker 5 (32:58):
So you know, she had a lot of She had
a lot of clearly respect and reverence for preserving cultural history.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
And it's so.
Speaker 5 (33:12):
It's so important to have people who come to that
calling because if it weren't for.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Them, then this wouldn't exist in the first place.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
And I imagine she inspired many other people to do
similar kind of preservation and historical work angle and continue
the quest for education and knowledge no matter how old
you are in life. Was clearly, you know, part of
a way that she she inspired people. So yeah, I
(33:46):
think it's really that's a nice part of her legacy
to reflect.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
On, right, No, that's just such amazing, Like we just
celebrated Mother's Day, and that's kind of that tale of
like showing love shows it comes out differently, and sharing
your heritage and being proud of your heritage and your
background and wanting to make sure that it's preserved through
your children and that your children can learn that love
as well as a way like that's so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah, touching. Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
It takes work, it takes dedication. This is not the
same level.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
But I remember when the pandemic first happened, I was like,
I'm going to document all of this. I'm going to
do everything, and like two weeks later, I was like,
so much.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Got on the field.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
I'll tell them about the field.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
But it is what it is like it takes like
not only the foresight and the like caring, but it
is work that it is work and dedication. So I'm
glad that she was there to do it and that
we could have this conversation today. Jeeves as always who
we love talking to you and learning these stories.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
Thank you so much. Is always for being here. Can
the good listeners find you?
Speaker 5 (35:01):
Y'all can find me at my website first and foremost.
You can get to everything from there pretty much, and
that is Eve's Jeffcoat dot com. That's spelled y v
E S J E F F C A T dot com.
You can sign up for my newsletter there. You can
get to my Instagram. From there, you can get to
my YouTube. From there all of that, but you can
(35:24):
also go directly to me on Instagram. I'm at not apologizing.
You can also go to many other episodes of female
First here on stuff Mom Never Told You about plenty
of other people in history with fascinating stories about the
things that they accomplished and how they were pioneers.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yes, yes, please, listeners go check out all that stuff
if you haven't already. Eves can't wait to check back
in to see what's up next time we talk to you.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Me too.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
But in the meantime, listeners that you can come contact
us if you would like. You can email us at
Hello at stuffnevertold you dot com. You can find us
on Blue Sky a Mom Stuff podcast or Instagram and
TikTok and stuff We Never Told You brous on YouTube.
We have a tea public store, and we have a
book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
as always to our super producer Christina or executive Dus
and my and your contribute Joey.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Thank you and thanks to you for listening Stuff Never
Jold Just pushed by Heart Radio.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can check
out the heart radio app, Apple podcast, wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Sanny and Samantha, all of them stuff,
I never told you, a producted by Heart video. And
as we're getting to the end of the year, we're
bringing back some of our hits, our favorites, and both
(00:26):
Samantha and I have chosen some favorites to replay for
the year, including Female First. We both chose a female First,
and I chose Harriet Shelton because I really love the
story of preserving language. That's something we've been talking about
a lot, and it's just something that as someone who
(00:49):
is interested in different languages that I really enjoyed that story.
You know. The unfortunate kind of thing is sometimes you
can't replay an episode that just happens, so you go
back a little bit further because there have been some
some recent episodes that I also love, but I'm like
that just came out.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So but I do.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Love this one and hopefully you listeners love it too,
So please enjoy this classic episode.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Hey, this is.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Annie and Samantha and all coome stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I never told you pro Actually I heart rate you,
and it is time for another edition of Female First,
which means we are once again joined by the resilience
the definitely not.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Probably not a zombie thieves, welcome, thank you.
Speaker 5 (01:45):
I do not wish to be a zombie, so.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I do not wish.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
I just want everybody to know that I don't want
that for myself.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
That's a fair caveat.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
We should probably explain you have been a feeling ill.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Feel a little bit right, Yes, yes, And.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
We were discussing before and there are just some things
that my horror movie Braid was like, this sounds a little.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
Like, yes, And I was trying to reassure Annie that
I'm not a zombie. I'm not like infected by any spores,
because I know that I got whatever illness that I
had from the cleaning I was doing in the dust
that was kicked up from that cleaning, and.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
My body was trying to expel it.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
I was pretty sick, had a fever, all kinds of
symptoms for a week, and it really took me out.
But like I'm here now, I feel fully alive. I
feel like I'm not going to try to like eat anybody.
You know, I'm not going to anybody. I don't have
any of those feelings right now. I don't feel inherently changed,
(02:58):
you know, I feel like I feel like I would
say that if I was a songbie. But at the
same time, i'm I'm I'm all here, So I think
we're okay thus.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Far you're all here. I will say, maybe you're just
allergic to cleaning just say it.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Oh wow, that sounds like such a like you're trying
to get somebody to clean and they're like, oh, I'm allergic.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
I can't do that.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
But you know, there are so many different allergies, many
of them surprising and like necessary to like things people
are allergic to that seem like they would be necessary
to functioning in.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Life, and I like it probably exists.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
Like I don't want to say that that doesn't exist,
because I know for my thing I was, I was
quote unquote allergic to exercise. That's like why I would
start itching when I would have exercise induced art to carria.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I mean, so I don't know.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
That's true though, right, because some people get the I mean,
there's asthma. But I'll so like sweat and itch and
stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Yeah, I did that one time. My face blew up.
My roommate got real scared. She's like, I gotta, I
gotta get you some bena drill. I was like, yeah,
you gotta give you some benadrill.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Bennadrill.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
I once had a very very severe h allergic reaction,
and through a comedy of errors that could have gone
really terribly, I couldn't get to a doctor. And uh,
I just took some benadrill and I was like, hopefully
this doesn't and it did. So now benadril is a
thing that I always carry with.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
It does help.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
It does help, Okay, our good reminders of how fragile we.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Are as humans.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, they're like, hey, can't handle a little pollen, Just
a reminder it's everywhere.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
No, it's like completely necessary to the sustenance of life.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
But can it kill you?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Maybe that's right, that's the fun and misery of it all. Well,
have you been up to anything other than being sick?
Eve since we last spoke?
Speaker 5 (05:07):
Oh, since we last spoke, I believe so. I'm really
trying to remember it because we're in May now. I
think after the last time we spoke, that was after
I went to Guatemala, I think I have been I've
been kind of chill since then. I have really been
about staying in place and I like have been just
(05:30):
like with my head down working so I don't really
think there are many updates since the last time we spoke.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Okay, I feel like you could have a hole where
in the world is ease, Like I never know what
you're gonna say when we asked this, So it's great.
Speaker 5 (05:47):
Yeah, No, I needed to stay. I need to keep
my feet on solid ground for a second, and I
still do. And I have some travel coming up, and
I'm like, like, this week, next week, a lot of travel.
I just I signed myself up for more tras. I
just got where today. There is a lottery for seeing
synchronized fireflies in the Great Smoking Mouns, and I got
(06:10):
got into the lottery, so I finally get to see
them after wanting to see them at a different National
park for a minute. That I always forget the lottery
for every year, and I'm like, dang it, I always
miss it, and I missed it again this year after
setting a reminder. But then I was like, I could
just do it in a smoking mountains. I realized that,
So yeah, but like I keep this This month is
(06:31):
very like jam packed of like family obligations and graduation
things like that. So I've been really feeling like I
need to stay here and when I do go away,
it's got to be for a little bit of a time,
a little bit of time, because I'm about to like
be gone for a little bit in June.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Well, congratulations, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I'm jealous.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
I forgot about that because I had a really good
friend who was a hiking enthusiast and love to do
camping and hikes, and they're like, we have to come back.
You will love. This is magical.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Man.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
Yes, it's gonna I can't wait to hear about it. Yeah,
it's gonna be like a Miyazaki movie. Is kind of
what I'm imagining. I don't know, but yeah, I'm I'm
excited that I finally remembered because I was always I
would try to sign up for the one in Congrey
in South Carolina. That's the national park in South Carolina,
(07:21):
and they have it there as well, but it was
just before the one in the Great Smoking Mountains and
I was right on time and remembering, Uh so I
got to sign up for the lottery.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Unfortunately got in. So yeah, I'm so cool.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
And also, if anybody else listening knows about any sort
of like specific natural phenomenon that only happens ever, so
often in like whatever landscape terrain where you are. Please
let me know because I'm trying to find more things
like this and it's kind of hard to google. I
(07:55):
tried to google it, but the Internet has no idea
what my request is.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
So I was gonna say, I guess some like videos
from my fyp or TikTok and such, but it's always
like a week after it. I was like, well, damn, yeah,
that happened.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yes, Unfortunately, what happens to me, it's like you're not
working algorithm.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Right, like this, this is not the way this works.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Right. You have bought us quite a wide ranging story today.
So who are we talking about today, Eves?
Speaker 5 (08:34):
Today we're talking about Harriet Shelton Dover, And I actually
this was born from travel because I was looking for
people in Washington and the n the Seattle area, and
I also wanted to talk about more Indigenous people in
these female first episodes, so like it really worked out well,
but this actually was born of travel. So yeah, we're
(08:57):
talking about Harriet Shelton Dover today. And she was the
first woman chair of the Tulalip Tribes Board of Directors
and also in Harriet's autobiography, she also says that she
thinks that what she wrote was the first history of
te Lalap written by a t Lalup Indian, So that
is another first that she said that she had.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And I said.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
Indian because she preferred to use the terms Indian and
American Indian throughout the episode. Whenever that comes up, I'll
probably say Native American or Indigenous people or something like that.
But Harriet herself did prefer to use those terms.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
And she she did all kinds of stuff. She really
really I was reading, like whoa, and so now we're
over here. Now we're over here, so let's get into it, Eves.
Can I start with the history?
Speaker 5 (09:50):
Yeah, So Harriet was born on November nineteenth, nineteen oh
four to William Shelton and Rusie Home. They were from
different tribes, but Harriet herself was born on the Tulalp
Reservation at Mission Beach in Tulaylip Bay, and that's near Marysville, Washington.
So the Tulalip Tribes are a confederation that includes Snowhomish, Skycomish,
(10:14):
snowqaal Mee, and many other tribes that were successors to
the ones that signed the Treaty of Point Elliott. In
eighteen fifty five, so her dad was also the last
hereditary Snawhomish tribal chief in Tulayalip. He worked at the
local mill and as a general mechanic, but he was
also just a very important person and did lots of
(10:38):
community work. Harriet was the youngest of six children, and
she said that her home as a child was a
three roomhouse that her father called a cottage, and it
was on the old Tulaylop Mission school grounds, So her
father had a history going to the mission school, but
once once Harriet was in the picture, the school was
(11:01):
no longer in existence. Harriet mostly spoke the Snahomish dialect
of the Coast Salish language. In her younger years, as
a child, she would collect firewood, pick berry. She learned
to do things that her family taught her how to
do that were traditional, like she learned to smoke salmon,
(11:24):
and she.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Was baptized as a Catholic.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
But Native Americans couldn't go to public schools and her
dad didn't want her to go to the mission school,
so Harriet ended up going to the reservation's government run
to Leilap boarding school when she was seven years old,
and there is a lot that's said about her experiences
at the boarding school.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
She talks about it in her autobiography.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
It was standard that like all the students were assigned
in ID number Harriet's was thirty three.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
They wore uniforms.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
They started the day with the roll call and exercise
and ended at nine pm sharp. They would have like
inspections on Saturdays. They couldn't speak their native languages at
the boarding school. And I was watching there is a
short documentary about Harriet, and there's a clip in there
(12:21):
of her of an interview with Harriet, and she was
talking about an experience that she had when she was
nine years old and a friend and her were speaking
in her native language and they got in trouble for it.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
So they were like whispering to each other.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
They were overheard and she was beaten from her neck
to her ankles, So the back of her neck to
her ankles is how they describe it.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
So she was hit pretty hard.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
It was described that like in her tribal culture, it
wasn't the case that the kids were like punished in ways.
There wasn't There wasn't really physical punishment. There were no
beings as part of punishment. And raising a child and
disciplining them. But it was in her school, and she
seems to have been very affected by that beating, like
she says she remembers it to that day and said
(13:08):
that she was really hurt by it to that day.
So it definitely affected her. But I would imagine more
so because it was because she was speaking her language,
and the way she described it was like I loved
the language it was, it sounded great. I wanted to
speak it with her at that time, and it was
for that simple fact that they were beat for it.
(13:29):
But in February of nineteen seventeen, Harriet's sister Ruth was
sent home because she was sick. Harriet soon also got
sick and was sent home. Ruth unfortunately died of tuberculosis
in May. Harriet got better, but she ended up kind
(13:50):
of lagging on her education. She finished at the boarding
school in nineteen twenty two. When she got out of
the boarding school, she says in her autobiography, she was
like she swore she was never going back to church
again because she had been in church all the time
and was praying all the time. Her mother was pretty devout,
and she was disappointed because you know, her mother was
(14:12):
in church every Sunday, and Harriet was like, I'm not
doing that again. But Harriet did say that there was
a lot of pressure on the Native Americans from the Christians.
This is a quote from her autobiography. Harriet said, those poor,
misguided people, they were bound and determined to save all
of our miserable souls. If people have heard anything about
(14:38):
this time period and about how Native Americans were treated
by white folks and by Christians, it was a lot
of talk and action of trying to civilize people in
Native American tribes, trying to get them to assimilate, punishing
them for taking part in their traditional culture, in their religions,
(15:01):
in their language, in the clothing that they were wearing,
in actions that they were taking, like what they did
as far as lifestyle, making them farmers, things like that.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
There was a lot of.
Speaker 5 (15:15):
Doing their best to in harmful ways, separate them from
all aspects of their traditional identities. So that was part
of that, and Harriet briefly talked about that from a
religious perspective in her autobiography. But Harriet did end up
graduating from Everett High School in nineteen twenty six, and
(15:38):
she said that high school was a better experience than
boarding school was. She didn't care for the boarding school
experience that much, but it was definitely formative, a formative
time for her. So Harriet had dreams of going to college,
but she didn't end up going to college at this time. Okay,
(16:02):
that's a little bit of foreshadowing. So she was involved
in her community though, as we said earlier, her father
was also very involved in the community. By nineteen twenty three,
her brother Robert was working with the Tulalup Improvement Club
and he was preparing claims and complaints against the government
about fraudulent sales of native land. There are lots of
(16:24):
fishing rights and lack of medical care. And Harriet would
type up the testimonies of elderly natives and she recorded
meeting minutes. So she was already working as this kind
of tu Laylup historian, gathering stories, documenting people's stories. In
nineteen twenty six, she met Francis aka Frank Williams at
(16:47):
a dance event in Seattle. Now Harriet's mom was a
little concerned that Harriet didn't know him well enough, but
the two of them, Frank and Harriet's still got married
in July of nineteen twenty six. Only Francis's cousin was
a witness.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
For their marriage.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Harriet's parents were not there, but they still moved into
an apartment together, and later in nineteen twenty eight, they
had a son together named Wayne Williams. But it didn't
seem like she had the best experience in their marriage.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
She was.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Described as being lonely, homesick. Sometimes Frank would send money
to his mother, but it didn't seem.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Like Harriet was always so supported.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
He had a temper apparently didn't always trust her while
he was away working. But their marriage was strained, is
what it came down to. They didn't end up divorcing
at this time, but they did divorce many years later.
When Harriet's brother died in nineteen thirty, suddenly the Snahomus
(18:06):
tribe voted Harriet in to replace him as secretary. Eventually
the org became the Northwest Federation of American Indians. Then
it was the Tulaela Tribal Council, and that council focused
on bettering Native environments and welfare, and at that point
it had five members, but then it evolved to become
(18:27):
the Board of Directors and it had seven members. But yeah,
so Frank before they ended up getting divorce, Frank had
gotten a job with the Washington State Ferry System, but
then he ended up getting laid off. Technology was changing,
(18:47):
the old steamships were being phased out, and Harriet ended
up moving back in with her parents. So all the while,
Harriet is working different jobs, and eventually she was elected
to serve on the Tulalup Tribe's Board of directors. So
she served on the board from nineteen thirty eight to
(19:10):
nineteen forty two, then nineteen forty four to nineteen forty six,
and later nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty one. But yeah,
so Harriet's also working. She's working different jobs over the
course of this year. So she was at a job
at a restaurant in Seattle that was called Twin Tpe's,
(19:30):
which had a lot of like cheesy Native American themed decor.
In September of nineteen forty two to around nineteen forty five,
she was working a job at the Boeing plant in Seattle.
But she also served as the chair on the board
of directors for a year in about nineteen forty five
(19:52):
or nineteen forty six, and This is her first and
made her the first Native American woman.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
To be in that position.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
She was also working at a post office on the reservation.
By nineteen forty nine, she was and this is where
she met a man named George Dover because he would
come by to pick up mail for his family members.
And once again Harriet's family members didn't really approve of George,
(20:27):
but she still married him in nineteen fifty They had
a son named William Dover and they stayed married until
George's death in nineteen sixty nine. So she Harriet did
a lot. So she also served as a tribal judge.
Nineteen fifty one, she served on the Marysville School Board.
(20:48):
She was also a teacher's aide and electoral Native American
culture so she would go to different classrooms and talk
about her culture and bring some of her artifacts along
with her. She was the first PTA president at Tulela
Elementary School after it opened thanks to her donating some
of her own land. She was also a member of
(21:12):
the Seattle Historical Society and she gave testimony for United
States Versus Washington Phase one in nineteen seventy three, which
was a salmon fishing rights case, and so one notable,
I mean a lot of stuff is notable about her legacy,
but one really big thing that she did was the
(21:35):
salmon ceremony that they held in their tribe was outlawed,
but Harriet was involved in bringing back the tradition. So
in nineteen seventy, Harriet and a group of other people
gathered to talk about the salmon ceremony and bringing it back.
They met for several weeks, so Harriet herself hadn't been
(21:58):
at it and put on a salmon ceremony before, but
as the group of people, they were collectively gathering information
that they had, so what they remembered growing up, what
they knew of and heard of their family doing, they
would get together and talk about it. They ended up
finalizing the run of ceremony based on what they could
remember their families would do. And then Harriet went to
(22:20):
a board of directors meeting and the board said that
they would appropriate some money for the ceremony. Said it
was basically like she was like, Okay, it's official, now
this must happen. Harriet and the other planners determined that
they would hold the ceremony in June when it was
high tide and they did, so she was instrumental in
bringing the salmon ceremony back. In her autobiography, it was
(22:45):
mentioned that Harriet didn't really want to include her role
in bringing the salmon ceremony back, and that was because
she didn't want to sound like she was.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Gloating about it.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
It seemed like she was pretty she was pretty reserved
about certain things, or like to be modest about certain things.
Because it's also mentioned in her autobiography that like she
preferred to speak in the passive voice rather than the
active voice. So in general, her speaking her own tribal
(23:18):
language was a big part of how she saw the world.
She cared about it a lot, and it was instrumental
at understanding how she interacted with people and communicate it
with people. So like, uh, the the way that she
would prefer to speak was in passive voice because active
(23:41):
voice felt a little bit too to direct for her,
and that was something that was taken into consideration as
they were figuring out how to put the autobiography together.
But anyway, we'll come back to the autobiography in just
a moment. But in nineteen seventy six, Harriett ended up
(24:03):
going to Everett Community college, and at first she was like,
it's been a long time since I've been in school,
It's been like fifty years, Like I can go back
to college. Do I want to go back to college?
But she did end up going back for a few reasons.
At this point, tribal members could enroll at the local
community college and be funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
(24:25):
The federal government could no longer keep tribal members from
getting an education at these colleges due to change in
the relocation determination programs, and Harriet wanted to be a
role modeled to young folks in this regard. And she
also wanted more education so that she would be able
to write a history of the Tlala reservation. So she
(24:50):
majored in anthropology and history, and she took classes with
Darlene Fitzpatrick. They ended up developing a French and Darlene
helped Harriet in the recording, editing, organizing the narratives for
her life for the autobiography.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
So Darlene also is.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
Talks about Harriet in the autobiography if you read it.
But yeah, Harriet graduated with her associate's degree in nineteen
seventy eight and she was on the council for about
fourteen years. Over the years, she also worked as a
domestic servant for families. She would also speak with people
(25:35):
on other reservations about how their lives were and how
they were changed after the treaties were signed. She collected
materials about t Laylap history and she did research and
she began working on the manuscript for the book around
nineteen eighty one, and they were taping her narratives for
(25:59):
a a couple of years. And in her later life,
Harriet spent time teaching other people her language, Lashutsi, and
she dedicated a lot of her time to going out
in the community and making sure that her language and
(26:23):
cultural history were preserved. She did end up getting breast
cancer and she died when she was eighty six years
old in February of nineteen ninety one. So many of
the Shelton family's artifacts are at the Heba Cultural Center,
and Harriet's life is documented in the book To Lay
(26:45):
Up from My Heart, an autobiographical account of a reservation community. Yeah,
it's work. It's a book that was published after she
passed away, but it was also in her own words
because she was able to document that and record it
(27:08):
before she passed away, so it seems to be like
it's a real treasure. As I said at the beginning
of the episode, she said that it was, you know,
the only one written by like the other accounts of
t Laylap were written by white people basically, so she
said that it was the first history of t Lalup
(27:30):
written by a t lalem Indian. So definitely worth reading
and an amazing thing to have because it's like clear
how much love and thoughtfulness was put into the autobiography,
even down to the way that they like the syntax
(27:51):
of it, in the way that they structured sentences, because
she liked to speak in longer sentences and really disliked
short sentences, and so because of that reason, they wrote
the more longer sentences in the book. And also they
were really thoughtful about how they were presenting the timeline,
(28:12):
so she didn't really want to do it completely chronologically,
even though there was a little bit of pushback from
the publisher in that way, they really felt it was
necessary to be because of the way time is interwoven,
in the way that they think about time, necessary to
not go one hundred in a linear chronological fashion, but
(28:34):
instead documented how Harriet would have documented it, which is saying, well,
this is this is a topic, this is something that
happened at one moment in time, but this is the
history of it, or this is what it links back
to in my history and in our history. And that's
evident through the way that they like they organized the autobiography. So, yes,
(28:59):
Harriet had a history, and it is documented in the
autobiography and the documentary that you can find online about her.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
I love that the autobiography exists because having that in
her own words. We've talked about that so many times
about how valuable that is. But I'm also a huge
language nerd, so I love how I love thinking about
that kind of stuff, about how you're the language shapes
the way you think.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
And that's not to say you can.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
You can think outside of that, but it is really
interesting how it shapes your thoughts. And so I'm really
glad that she was a force. And we're gonna make
sure this language and this traditions and these cultures and
all of that all right, which were erased in like
(30:04):
this are attempted to be erased in this horrible way,
Like We're going to make sure that they're preserved. I'm
going to do everything I can to make sure that
they're preserved. So I'm just grateful that it's one of
those things, just like I hate that she had to
do it, but I'm grateful that she was there to
do it.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
It's interesting because we've talked about the extinct languages, especially
when it comes to native native languages and how they
have been forcefully erased and being taken out altogether, like
just forgotten. And I love that she had the foresight
because honestly, it took a lot of other people a
lot longer to realize what was happening. Eshe she understood
(30:42):
pretty quickly what was going down and what the white
people were doing. They're like, yeah, they're trying to erase
us initially, and just talking about how important it was
to preserve that. Also, she is an obvious writer. She's like, no,
this can't be this can't be chronological order. We mean,
we need we need to change this up. Has to
be different. I'm like, oh, oh, so you're not just
the teacher his Dorian, You're a storyteller so much among
(31:06):
the like native peoples and understanding this is how it goes.
And I'm gonna I'm gonna I want to write it
this way. Also, I'm a big fan of long sentences, as.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
You can tell, I have too.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah, me too. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (31:19):
And she also talks about in her autobiography how like
she learned things because they were passed down orally, and
that's also how she was like transmitting her story. And yeah,
I think it's also just really inspirational to see people
who are committed to preserving history, because that's not everybody
(31:44):
that like thinks about in real time what something's value
is in the long term. You have to have like
a really long long view on things to think about that.
So it's like, Okay, I have this belt, and I
saved it because I know that it's going to be
important to the preservation of our my tribes, my community's
cultural history, and that should be saved for other people
(32:06):
in the future to enjoy and also for them to
be able to learn about their own history, because that's
because it's important. It's so easy to just go on
about your life, you know, have it be wrote and
not in real time understand the weight of artifacts and
the weight of how things are changing. Because I imagine
(32:30):
over the course of her life she saw a lot
of change. She experienced a lot of change, and she
also heard about a lot of change from her elders
and from her grandparents. She said in her books she
was like, yeah, my parents loved me, but like I
had like three grandmothers who lived in the area like
(32:52):
close to me, and they just really.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Loved on me, is what she said.
Speaker 5 (32:58):
So you know, she had a lot of She had
a lot of clearly respect and reverence for preserving cultural history.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
And it's so.
Speaker 5 (33:12):
It's so important to have people who come to that
calling because if it weren't for.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Them, then this wouldn't exist in the first place.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
And I imagine she inspired many other people to do
similar kind of preservation and historical work angle and continue
the quest for education and knowledge no matter how old
you are in life. Was clearly, you know, part of
a way that she she inspired people. So yeah, I
(33:46):
think it's really that's a nice part of her legacy
to reflect.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
On, right, No, that's just such amazing, Like we just
celebrated Mother's Day, and that's kind of that tale of
like showing love shows it comes out differently, and sharing
your heritage and being proud of your heritage and your
background and wanting to make sure that it's preserved through
your children and that your children can learn that love
as well as a way like that's so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah, touching. Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
It takes work, it takes dedication. This is not the
same level.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
But I remember when the pandemic first happened, I was like,
I'm going to document all of this. I'm going to
do everything, and like two weeks later, I was like,
so much.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Got on the field.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
I'll tell them about the field.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
But it is what it is like it takes like
not only the foresight and the like caring, but it
is work that it is work and dedication. So I'm
glad that she was there to do it and that
we could have this conversation today. Jeeves as always who
we love talking to you and learning these stories.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
Thank you so much. Is always for being here. Can
the good listeners find you?
Speaker 5 (35:01):
Y'all can find me at my website first and foremost.
You can get to everything from there pretty much, and
that is Eve's Jeffcoat dot com. That's spelled y v
E S J E F F C A T dot com.
You can sign up for my newsletter there. You can
get to my Instagram. From there, you can get to
my YouTube. From there all of that, but you can
(35:24):
also go directly to me on Instagram. I'm at not apologizing.
You can also go to many other episodes of female
First here on stuff Mom Never Told You about plenty
of other people in history with fascinating stories about the
things that they accomplished and how they were pioneers.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yes, yes, please, listeners go check out all that stuff
if you haven't already. Eves can't wait to check back
in to see what's up next time we talk to you.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Me too.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
But in the meantime, listeners that you can come contact
us if you would like. You can email us at
Hello at stuffnevertold you dot com. You can find us
on Blue Sky a Mom Stuff podcast or Instagram and
TikTok and stuff We Never Told You brous on YouTube.
We have a tea public store, and we have a
book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
as always to our super producer Christina or executive Dus
and my and your contribute Joey.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Thank you and thanks to you for listening Stuff Never
Jold Just pushed by Heart Radio.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can check
out the heart radio app, Apple podcast, wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
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