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Every winter, after the first snow fell on Tiller, a man in his 90s would take off his shoes and run in circles around his log cabin with arms raised.
by Stacy D. Stumbo
Oldest tribal member: At age 89, Emily Rose Krantz is the oldest member of the Cow Creek Tribe of the Umpqua Indians. She remembers how her grandfather was dedicated to educating his children. Inspired by his example, she went to college and became a nurse in her forties. Jean Baptist "Tom" Rondeau had witnessed the end of the fur trade and tried to create a life on the South Umpqua River in the aftermath of the Rogue River Indian Wars. He supported a wife and 16 children, including three sets of twins. He understood poverty and racism. An American Indian in a time when westerners saw them as disposable, Rondeau fought for compensation from the federal government.
He never saw a dime. He watched powerlessly as the Roseburg office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs closed under suspicion of embezzlement, while he and his family struggled to survive. Today, his descendants help comprise the 1,300-member Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians, one of the wealthiest tribes in Oregon and the only recognized group without a reservation.
Rondeau didn't live to see his people become a sovereign nation, build a casino, parlay their success into other business ventures, establish trust funds for their young, receive universal health care, or send their children to college.
But his granddaughter did.
"He would have been so very proud," said Emily Rose Krantz, 89, the oldest living member of the tribe and Rondeau's granddaughter.
It's been nearly 22 years since the tribe won recognition from the U.S. government and a $1.5 million settlement in the U.S. Court of Claims. In spite of successes, tribal elders remember financial hardship and discrimination. Their grandchildren face different challenges. Although they enjoy free health care and financial aid for college, they find people harbor misconceptions and resentments toward them based on race.
DETERMINATION BORN FROM TERMINATION
Jack "Tooter" Ansures holds a medallion in his palm and looks at the words on the back, knowing they represent 23 years of freedom.
"Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path," it reads. Ansures, 69, is a recovering alcoholic with a past marked by brushes with the law. He is also Cow Creek. His Alcoholics Anonymous medal is proof that his rocky journey, like that of his tribe, has reached a happy conclusion.
Tribe members: Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indian members Tom Rondeau, left, Jack "Tooter" ansures are the tribe's cultural resources representatives in Douglas County. Last week, the pair monitored an archeological excavation near Interstate 5. "You get tired of being tired," he said of his decision to clean up. "I was doing life on the installment plan. I quit three times before it stuck."
The causes of his problems were myriad, but a defining moment in his life came when he was "terminated" by the U.S. government.
Ansures was a young man in 1954, when the Justice Department passed Public Law 588, which declared there were no more American Indians left in Western Oregon, and terminated their benefits.
"I can't tell you how that word makes me feel," he said.
It's been more than two decades since he took his last drink. He credits federal recognition, support from tribal members and his work as the tribe's cultural resource representative with giving his life purpose.
Raised in Roseburg, he was sent in his teens to live with his uncle Lewis Thomason in the Tiller-Drew area. Through the BIA, Ansures was supposed to receive vocational training in Denver, but was injured in a logging accident and couldn't go.
Sue Shaffer, tribal chair and Ansures' cousin, said, "It wasn't really a program for the Indians. It was a way to take them away from rural communities and force them to integrate." Ansures' contemporary, Tom Rondeau, 73, is the grandson of Jean Baptist Rondeau. His father, Walter, worked a number of odd jobs. The family would pick hops and strawberries -anything to earn money.
"Relief? Welfare? Dad would have nothing to do with it," his son recalled. "We'd go wherever the work was."
Rondeau went to work at 14 in the logging business. Like Ansures, in the '50s he had an opportunity to attend school as "a generic Indian." He'd just married May and thought the strain of trying to maintain a household on $1,000 a year was ridiculous.
He became a heavy equipment operator and worked for Roseburg Paving until he retired in 1980, when he became deeply involved in the effort to obtain tribal recognition. He recalled that once the goal was attained, some members wanted a one-time payout.
It wouldn't have amounted to much, Ansures said, about $5,000 apiece, and it would have been gone in the blink of an eye.
Instead, what remained of the settlement after legal and consulting fees was used as seed money for education and economic programs.
"We wanted to be self-sufficient, and we are," Rondeau said. "Look at what we have now. And it's going to help our children and our grandchildren, and many generations to come."
EDUCATION OPPORTUNITIES BRIGHTEN TRIBE'S FUTURE
Emily Rose Krantz, who credits her longevity to good genes, said Jean Baptist Rondeau wanted his children to be literate and built the first school in Tiller. Inspired by him, she went to college in her 40s and became a nurse.
He would be relieved, she said, to learn that education has remained a priority for his people. Michael Rondeau, Tom's son and tribal government operations officer, said the tribe has been part of a federally funded education program since 1991. The Cow Creeks further help members by contributing its own money, something that would not have been possible 30 years ago.
Today, each child born into the tribe receives $1,000 in trust. More is added until the child reaches 18.
"It's a little nest egg for college," Shaffer said.
Kelly Strickler LaChance, director of tribal education, conducts seminars to inform potential college students of how best to secure federal financial aid for American Indians. The tribe receives requests for help from between 80 and 100 members each year. Roughly 40 tribal members have received college degrees since the program began. Numerous others have received GEDs or gone through vocational training.
"Very few people are denied if they want help," Michael Rondeau said. "They're getting out of high school and going right into college. They're going into things like engineering, biology, anthropology and wildlife biology. ... We have two members in master's programs."
Lonnie Rainville, 29, was among the first tribal members to go to college using Cow Creek and federal resources. He is director of human resources at Seven Feathers Hotel & Casino Resort in Canyonville.
College-educated: Lonnie Rainville, human resources director at Seven Feathers Hotel & Casino Resort, was one of the first members of the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians to take advantage of scholarships offered by the tribe to its members. Rainville grew up in Days Creek and graduated from South Umpqua High School. His college education was fully funded. The tribe paid for his books and rent, while grants and scholarships covered the rest. He spent his freshman and sophomore years at Oregon State University, then transferred to Western Oregon University, where he received a degree in business.
"Without that help I would have had to work to get through," he said. "I know a lot of people do it, but it would have taken a lot longer. This is very much a benefit for all of us."
Rainville remembers when only a small bingo hall stood on the lot now occupied by the casino. He didn't anticipate that one day he'd have an internship at Seven Feathers, and after a stint at Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg, he would return to the casino and oversee insurance plans and policies that affect 925 employees.
"It's exciting," he said. "It's ever-changing. The tribe has truly provided my entire opportunity to learn, and it's nice to come back and work for them. It's home."
In addition to furthering its members' education and job skills, the tribe encourages cultural education. The tribe offers an annual cultural camp, where youth can learn the ancient skills of flint knapping, drum making and beadwork. A summer pow-wow is held at South Umpqua Falls and family meetings at a huckleberry patch, where the tribe would gather more than a century ago.
UNDERNEATH THE SKIN
After wars and disease decimated the populations of most Oregon tribes, the survivors were resigned to life on distant reservations. But not in the Umpqua Valley. A handful remained, landless and without a name recognized by the government.
Although the physical features that once made the Cow Creek easy targets for racists have all but disappeared after 150 years of assimilation, criticism has taken a new form. They face accusations that they are now not ethnic-looking enough.
Shaffer said it's ironic that the very thing that saved the tribe, interracial marriage, changed their appearance and now draws the most criticism. Physical appearance, she said, has nothing to do with the law, or what is just.
Douglas County Commissioner Dan Van Slyke said American Indians should not receive privileges based on race.
"I don't believe special interest groups should have special rights," he said. "I'm interested in equality. I think either you're American or you're not American. We've created a mechanism where these people feel entitled."
Gerald Ben, deputy regional director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said in Oregon, each American Indian tribe sets its criteria for enrollment. Genetics is becoming an increasingly complicated issue, he said. For this reason, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde has had to change its membership criteria three times in the last five years.
The trend, Ben said, is for most tribes to require only proof of descent. Previously, bloodquantum, or percentage of tribal blood, was required.
No blood degree requirement is necessary to be enrolled with the Cow Creek tribe, Ben said. Members must either be listed on the tribal roll of Oct. 26, 1987, or descended from someone on that roll.
Rainville acknowledges most people wouldn't know of his American Indian background if he didn't tell them. He doubts many of his classmates at South Umpqua High School were aware of his ancestry. Only close personal friends and his high school sweetheart and now wife of six years, Sheryl, knew.
"I'm very proud of my heritage," he said. "Whatever is going on outside, it's what's inside that matters. I'm a Cow Creek."
The Rainvilles have a 3-year-old daughter, Alisa, and a second child due in May. He plans to involve both in tribal programs that include field trips, heritage talks and pow-wows. As a young man, Rainville remembers there was uneasiness over the tribe moving into gaming, and even suspicion over what it had in mind. He believes since the Cow Creek Umpqua Indian Foundation was created and the tribe began contributing to the community, some of that anxiety has dissipated.
"They've begun to realize that it's a positive, and they've begun to respect us," he said.
Van Slyke disagrees. He believes the Cow Creeks, by taking thousands of acres off of Douglas County's tax rolls, have done the community a disservice, and that this will ultimately create greater animosity toward them.
"We're going to wake up one day and find that creating a nation within a nation does not work," he said. "This creates an unfair and unbalanced system where the Indians receive preferential treatment."
Tribal member Riley LaChance, 25, of Canyonville said he has heard similar resentment over benefits given to American Indians from his peers at school. He is studying business administration at Umpqua Community College and working part time.
Scholarship pays off: Cow Creek tribal member Riley LaChance says goodbye to his 1-year-old son before he heads off to take an economics test at Umpqua Community College. LaChance has a scholarship that allows him to attend school. The tribe set up a trust fund for Logan when he was born. "I hear people complain that they shouldn't have to pay for what their ancestors did. There have been lot of negative reactions like, 'Why do you get this, why do you get that?' Why do you worry about it?," he said. "They forget that the land belonged to the Native Americans before any white men came here. And what the Cow Creeks have done benefits everyone. "
Van Slyke said, "I can't be accountable for what my dad did, or what my dad's dad did. They'll call me a racist and everything else, but I believe that this has to stop."
Michael Rondeau said there are no free rides, not even for American Indians, and likened the tribe's settlement with the government and the casino's success to an inheritance.
"If your great-grandmother died and the government owed her money, and she willed that money to you, aren't you entitled to have it? That's how this is," he said.
LaChance and his wife, Dana, have a 1-year-old a son named Logan, on Tuesday.
"I'd like to see him become a professional baseball player," LaChance joked. "No, whatever he wants to be is fine. I just hope he's happy and that someday people are more understanding."
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