INDIAN SUMMERS: A Memoir of Fort Duchesne 1925-1935 [Paperback]

Virginia Carlson Parker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 1998

Thought-provoking, sensitive, factual history by this retired professional librarian. She includes Native American Folklore stories and many of their photos. While her father supervised an experimental farm, the author lived at Fort Duchesne during 1925-1935. She gives a detailed physical, geographical, day-to-day, and emotional account of life there, and includes her observation of the plight of her friends, the Uintahs and Ourays, who were forced to live in the old Fort converted to an Indian Reservation. It changed her forever and in ways that were in conflict with the opinions of the adults around her. In 1883, Fort Duchesne was converted from a military stockade to an Indian Reservation for the Uintah and Ouray Indians. Old Fort Duchesne, now gone, was located a mile south of U.S. Highway 40, hidden behind a large grove of Cottonwood trees. When the Indian lands in the Uintah Basin were opened to white settlement in 1905, it was Utah's last frontier. A growing network of roads and canals connected the small settlements of Ashley (now Vernal, Utah) in Uintah County and Roosevelt, in Duchesne County. This book recounts memories of a little girl's early childhood spent at Fort Duchesne between 1925 and 1935. Thought-provoking, sensitive, factual history by this retired professional librarian. She includes Native American Folklore stories and many of their photos. While her father supervised an experimental farm, the author lived at Fort Duchesne during 1925-1935. She gives a detailed physical, geographical, day-to-day, and emotional account of life there, and includes her observation of the plight of her friends, the Uintahs and Ourays, who were forced to live in the old Fort converted to an Indian Reservation. During our "long talks," Johnny Victor told me most of what I learned about Native Americans. He had been sent to a special school for Native Americans and had learned about many tribes. He told me they called themselves "The People." He told me the Creation Myth of the Utes, which explained how they got their name. He talked about their dances, explaining that the Sun Dance didn't belong to the Utes. Their totem was the bear, whose characteristics they tried to emulate. The dance of the Utes was the Bear Dance. Johnny told me various myths about animals. In general, I listened to his stories much as I did the stories my Swedish grandfather told, as pastimes. I have rewritten them as I remember them, and as they pertain to my experience. Virginia Carlson Parker, of Logan, Utah, obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University. She has Masters' Degrees in Library Science from the University of California at Berkeley and American Studies from Utah State University.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

After my Mother died, there was no one left in my family with whom I could reminisce about the decade we lived at Fort Duchesne, because my brother Leroy, who shared those years, had died during World War II. It occurred to me to write about those years on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, so that they could be preserved in the memory of the family. Though I told these stories many times, writing them has been an adventure in self discovery that revealed a significance to the events that I had not suspected. I also believe they are an important part of local history and folklore that needs to be documented.

Autobiographical writing about childhood memories falls somewhere between history and fiction. Selecting experience that can be recounted in an interesting manner results in a somewhat fictional account of historical facts. A memoir of childhood is not free from the influence of adult experience and perspective. Therefore, writing the history of my personal past has necessitated the addition of information acquired outside of memory.

As a life long reader of autobiographical writing, I learned that men and women choose a different pattern to recount their lives. Men usually present their life as an orderly progress toward the achievement of a goal, or career. Women record those events that have had significant influence on their own growth, and understanding of themselves in relation to others. Women write about mentors and teachers.

In keeping with this pattern, I have written this memoir as a collection of essays and stories about real events and people, that affected me. I have augmented my memory with historical research to verify what I remembered. I have added editorial comment to give meaning to a world that no longer exists. Many of the people I have written about are no longer living, yet they were important to the development of a community that does exist, however changed. In writing about the persons who served as my mentors, I have added biographical information in order to document their history, as well as mine. Rather than a narrative of sequential events over a decade, I have chosen experiences that were significant to my growth and development. I have presented those events as perceived by the child I was. Often the events of several summers merge into one remembered image, and separation has not always been possible; therefore, I have presented the stories as the events of one long summer. The stories really happened, and I have used real names of the people who shared them with me. I have added fictional dialogue to create stories that convey folklore in a more dramatic way than prose narrative could.

Some of my experience was unique among my peers. It was unique even in my own family, for my surviving sisters did not share most of them. My sister, Lorraine, was too young; and my sister, Nancy, was not yet born. This account of the decade of summers from 1925 to 1935, is also prompted by rapid change and a greatly increased population of the Uintah Basin. A knowledge of the past is necessary to an understanding of the present.

During my childhood, my family migrated winter and summer between two worlds of contrasting scenery, values and experience. While a child, I was unable to reconcile conflicts which resulted from those contrasts. I was often squelched by older members of our extended family, who were disinterested and impatient with a child's stories. I was often hurt by wintertime schoolmates, who did not want to share my experience of a place unknown to them.

After we moved permanently to Logan, I ceased talking about my previous experience and stories, because I needed to be accepted by my peers. I became integrated into life as lived in Logan, and the events of Fort Duchesne were replaced by different activities and concerns. But, I never forgot Fort Duchesne, for it remained the home of my childhood. It was there that I gained awareness of the world. The most vivid memories were of the Indians, my childhood home, and the natural world that surrounded it. Those are the images that inspired my stories. My Memoir is an attempt to preserve those events and people which remain uniquely mine.

I am grateful to those whose stories I tell, and to those who shaped and influenced my understanding of those events. I wish to acknowledge those who consented to an interview after so many years had passed. I value the comments of several historians who read earlier versions of these stories, and encouraged me to continue writing them. One folklorist said to me, "It is powerful stuff to remember this in first person. But, when you played games, and when you sang songs, what did you play?And what did you sing?"I have included those games, and some of the songs. I am grateful to my own children, who first listened to these stories.

I dedicate this Memoir to My Family all of them!

From the Back Cover

In 1883, Fort Duchesne was converted from a military stockade to an Indian Reservation for the Uintah and Ouray Indians. Old Fort Duchesne, now gone, was located a mile south of U.S. Highway 40, hidden behind a large grove of Cottonwood trees.

When the Indian lands in the Uintah Basin were opened to white settlement in 1905, it was Utah's last frontier. A growing network of roads and canals connected the small settlements of Ashley (now Vernal, Utah) in Uintah County and Roosevelt, in Duchesne County.

This book recounts memories of a little girl's early childhood spent at Fort Duchesne between 1925 and 1935. The experiences of this time would shape her forever.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 184 pages
• Publisher: Agreka Books (May 5, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888106441
• ISBN-13: 978-1888106442
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,409,716 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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