Native Writes: Wondering about ‘Mothers people’

People have been questioning every tidbit of news coming out of disaster zones all along the West Coast and that’s as it should be.


It has directly affected me because all of my mother’s people live in the area marked on maps as burn areas and I want to know where they are.


I refer to “my mother’s people” is due to the fact that, around 1950 all the family except two of my mother’s sisters rejected the move, caused by the lure of a burgeoning lumber industry.


I will state, with my own verification, that one uncle who was doing very well brought along a “snow job” in a desire to have family join him.


I don’t believe he had any ulterior motives. He just wanted his birth family nearby.


He was one of the first to suffer the decline of the timber industry when the plywood plants closed. Letters were no longer boasting of greatness but asking for assistance.


My grandparents had packed up and moved, along with some of their willing descendants.


I only have one uncle living, three years less a month older than I, but there are hundreds of first, second, third cousins, and more, since they followed Biblical guidance, went forward, were faithful and multiplied.


My mom and the one sister who remained here had one child each. An aunt who ended up in British Columbia also had just one.


The climate in Oregon seems to encourage fertility, since most of the aunts’ and uncles’ families are large They are also heads of huge families. One uncle fathered more than 12 children and then married a widow who had the same number.


Most of those kids are now grandparents and great-grandparents, who followed Scripture and multiplied.


My friend said I was nuts for praying and worrying about them all, since there are hundreds I have never met and probably never will know.


It seems terrible, but they are kin.


No one in the immediate families of the aunts and uncles and the cousins I have met keeps in touch and I do receive one or two Christmas cards. All are religious and share their faith, so I assume their descendants I log into searching YouTube every night follow scripture.


I do learn things from the mainstreaming news, though.


I found out my uncle is selling Avon. He also sells books through the mail.


His wife is my age, so I imagine there are a couple of social security checks coming into their household and handfuls coming into the homes of their children.


I would just like to hear someone’s voice telling me they are all okay.