STORIES / Okara’shòn:’a
Not that fluent
I think that I’m fluent in Mohawk but I’m not that fluent. I think about that often. I could say carrots, onions, and beans but as for other veggies or fruits, I have no idea. I don’t know why. It’s very important to teach children all the veggies because they need to learn that when they’re very young.
Children in the garden
My great grandmother and grandfather always had a big garden. They had one cow. There’s an old picture where he’s milking the cow and my great grandmother is walking down the path from their house. They lived across from where Eileen’s Bakery is.
My wife beat me up
Amelia wasn’t working at the time. Each morning, she’d be sleeping so I’d always give her a kiss and then go to work. This time, while she was sleeping, I went there to kiss her and she punched my face.
A heavy job
I used to do readings for people. When people have problems, like if they’re scared that somebody is sick in their family, they would come to see me.
Working on bones
My grandmother used to work on bones. Not broken ones because broken ones are very hard to heal but she would work on their muscles.
Dancing softly
My grandmother and her sister performed at the Indian Village together and they did a dance called “Harvesting the Corn.”
The two sisters
My grandmother’s sister stayed just up the road from us. We stayed here on this corner lot with our grandparents, about four houses away.
My grandmother Elizabeth
We had a hard time continuing in education because the church was in control of the education here, the nuns. They had these special nuns from Boston. Sisters of St. Anne they call them. And they were experts at what they call proselytizing – how to change who you are.
Candy, soda and ice cream
We went to church in New York when we were kids. Every Sunday we used to go. After a while, our mother stopped going but she still used to make us go.
Keeping it cold
My grandfather’s birthday is in the summer and he loved his strawberries. He loved his strawberry juice and his strawberry shortcake so he would have that for his birthday.
Our spirituality
There is so much to be taught and there is so much to bring back. I think a lot of it has to do with our spirituality and understanding life. It isn’t life affecting you, it is you affecting life.
Farm abundance
My father was laid back, a man of not many words. When I was younger, I asked him, “What did you do during the depression?" He looked at me kind of funny. He had a habit of kind of shrugging his shoulders.
Rhubarb fields
I grew up on a farm, the Bordeau farm, which was in the family since the 1800s. My late grandfather, he passed in 1948, somehow had secured a contract with Nathan Steinberg of the Steinberg chain of grocery stores.
