Barbara MacKenzie

OREGON VOICES

Barbara MacKenzie moved from Lincoln City to The Dalles in 1952, when her husband was hired to supervise the construction of the Wasco County Bridge, which connected Wasco and Klickitat counties, replacing a ferry system. Wasco County hired MacKenzie as a juvenile and veterans' officer, a position that introduced her to the Indians living at Celilo Village. Because of that experience, the Bureau of Indian Affairs hired MacKenzie to oversee the removal of Indians living in a portion of Celilo Village that would be inundated by The Dalles Dam reservoir. She immediately formed an advisory commission comprised of Indian leaders to assist her in determining how relocation would proceed. In this selection from her interview, MacKenzie talks about that process and also describes Flora Thompson, a woman with whom she worked closely and held in high esteem.
MacKenzie was interviewed by Katrine Barber and Janice Dilg on August 27, 1999; the interview is archived at the Oregon Historical Society.

I WOULD GO INTO FLORA'S HOUSE and she might have a dish towel over her shoulder and a fly swatter in her hand and a big long table in her living room and it would have black oil cloth on it and the floor would be bare but it would be clean. There would be nothing there. And she loved to preside and it was interesting. One of the major engineers for the dam would come up and talk to them and I knew all of the engineers and they would have meetings at Flora's house and I remember a group was meeting one day and one of them wanted an ashtray and I whispered to Flora, "do you have an ashtray?" And she said, "Oh yes." And she walked into her kitchen and she came out with a polished sardine can, just shone, and handed it by the little handle and there was the ashtray. I mean things like that would happen. You could have been in the most elegant dining room. She had a dish towel over her shoulders and she wasn't all dressed up but she was still a lady and she was the hostess and this was the way it was.

Flora was very dignified. I never saw Flora flustered or at a loss. Usually she wore the calico but her hair was always combed and you knew that she was the lady of the house, you knew that she had to be consulted and — but those [photos] are very typical of her. She never laughed or giggled or any of that sort of thing. She was very serious.

[Indian women] took care of all of the food. They all had their little berry baskets that they went out and gathered roots and berries. They did all of the cooking, and I never saw any of them doing any of the laundry, but they had to do some washing someplace. Probably in the streams. They had lots of good water at Celilo. They had a big water tank up on the hill. Early on, I don't know how many years before, the Bureau of Indian Affairs had tried to build some buildings out there for the Indians, and they didn't listen to the Indians or talk to them at all, and they built two-story houses with up and down boards. And the wind whistled through, and they couldn't heat them. They had no way to heat them because they couldn't have a bonfire. They didn't have stoves or anything. And the Indians tore them down and built lower houses out of them where they could have the pit fires in the middle.

And always the people in The Dalles said, "Well, see, we built good houses for the Indians and the savages didn't know how to use them." I mean, in other words, they didn't. But I can remember being very young and being told how the Indians tore down the houses. Well, after I got to know them, I knew why they tore down the houses. At one time the Bureau of Indian Affairs did try to build them some houses, and it didn't work, as far as that's concerned. The Indians weren't perfect, and a lot of it was different backgrounds, and their ancestors did things one way and ours did them another. And we became the dominant people and said, "Do it our way, not your way." And I think the things that saved my [relocation] program and taught me the lesson was that I had to know the Indians approved. That was one of the reasons I formed this group that had the final say. And there would be only the things that I felt would hurt the Indians that I would step [up] and say we can't do this or we can. Otherwise it went back to this group of chiefs who were all very intelligent. And I think that's why it was accepted even though it was an unhappy thing for them. Really a terrible thing for a number of them.

Barbara MacKenzie hands Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie George keys to their new home, part of the Celilo Village relocation project.

OHS neg., bb002886, detail

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