CAROLYN BLAIR INTERVIEW

   

   [BEGIN SIDE A]

   

   This is Brad Cole from Northern Arizona University.

We're at the home of Carolyn Blair, in Farmington, New

Mexico.  It's Thursday, February 12, 1998.  Others

present in the room are Karen Underhill from Northern

Arizona University, Elijah Blair, and Lew Steiger.

   

   Cole:  Carolyn, we'd like to start from the very

beginning, and I'd like to ask you when and where you

were born.

   

   Blair:  I was born in New Britain, Connecticut, and

the date was September 16, 1922.

   

   Cole:  And tell us a little bit about maybe your

life there, who your parents were, what they did.

   

   Blair:  My maiden name was Carolyn Recknagel,

R-E-C-K-N-A-G-E-L.  Both my parents were of German

extraction.  [I] grew up in New Britain, went to all

the public schools, and then graduated from Teachers

College of Connecticut, 1943.

   

   Cole:  As you were growing up, did you or your

parents ever imagine that you'd come to the Southwest?

   

   Blair:  I had an uncle that in 1907 went to the

White River Apache Reservation as a Lutheran Minister.

And of course the family heard all the stories, him

having a horse and having to go horseback to the

different camps.  So that was an idea, you know.

   

   Cole:  What was his name?

   

   Blair:  His name was Emil Recknagel.

   

   Cole:  So this Southwestern bug kind of hit you at

an early time.

   

   Blair:  Yeah.

   

   Cole:  When did you come to the Southwest, and tell

us a little bit about that.

   

   Blair:  I applied through the Bureau of Indian

Affairs in Washington, to teach on the reservation.  I

said I'd go to Arizona or New Mexico, and I was sent to

Teec Nos Pos in 1945.

   Cole:  Did you imagine this as a short-term trip to

the West, or did you think you might relocate?

   

   Blair:  Well, I thought I'd stay.

   

   Cole:  And in 1945, how did you travel to get here?

   

   Blair:  The school had a school bus, and then there

was another teacher at the school, and she had a car.

Didn't come out to Shiprock or Farmington, but once a

month.  The roads were pretty unimproved.  The school

at Teec Nos Pos was built by John Collier, and it was

one of those rock buildings with the big vigas in the

ceilings.  It was comfortable.  It was a two-teacher

school.

   

   Cole:  I'm sort of curious, what were your initial

thoughts when you first set foot at the place you were

gonna teach at?

   

   Blair:  Well, I was very fortunate to be met in

Gallup by Dr. George Boyce.  I don't know whether

you've ever heard of him or not.  He was the

superintendent of schools on the Navajo Reservation.

And he was a very, very nice man, and had the Navajo

education as his prime goal.  He told me about the

place and saw that I was settled out there.  The first

summer we had orientation school over at Tuba City, and

we had some noted anthropologists and noted teachers.

Let's see, Ruth Underhill was one of the teachers over

there.  It was a good summer to have the orientation

and learn about it.  We set up programs the way we were

going to teach.  That helped me a great deal.  While we

were at Tuba City, we visited Grand Canyon, we went to

Navajo Mountain, Betatakin, Flagstaff, so it gave us a

good background for teaching.

   

   Cole:  What did you teach?, and what grades?

   

   Blair:  I taught children who were from ten years to

sixteen.  And the other teacher at the school had the

kids from six to ten.  We had about seventy-five kids.

   Cole:  And was it a boarding school?

   

   Blair:  We had hogans for the kids to stay, yes.

   

   Cole:  Did you have any role in taking care of the

kids after hours, or were you just specifically the

teacher?

   

   Blair:  We were teachers, but before the kids came

into the classroom, a lot of times we were the nurse,

because they had a lot of sores, they had a lot of

things that they needed taken care of, so we were

nurses and teachers and social workers ... and mothers.

(chuckles)

   

   Cole:  And one question that I kinda wonder about is

what did your parents think of you traveling out here?

   

   Blair:  My mother could not pronounce Teec Nos Pos.

(laughter)  And they worried at first, but then I sent

them home letters that were reassuring.

   Cole:  Did they ever visit?

   

   Blair:  My mother came out later, when my first son

was born.

   

   Cole:  How did you go from being a schoolteacher to

becoming involved in the trading post business?

   

   Blair:  My husband said I put out a bear trap

(laughter) to catch him.  The trader at Teec Nos Pos at

that time introduced us.  So that's how I met my

husband.  He was at the trading post about twenty miles

away, Red Mesa.

   

   Cole:  And what was his name?

   

   Blair:  Bradley Blair.  Should I say "Bradley

Booze"?  Laughter.  He always said he didn't have a

middle name, and then we got his birth certificate, and

his middle name was Boaz, B-O-A-Z, Bradley Boaz Blair.

   

   Cole:  And how long had you been at Teec Nos Pos

before you met Bradley?

   

   Blair:  I'd been there about six months.

   

   Cole:  Tell us a little bit about how that

relationship all evolved, if you don't mind.

   

   Blair:  Well, he brought me the mail several times,

and I went over to Red Mesa and visited him, and he

came over to Teec Nos Pos and visited.

   

   Cole:  How did you travel to Red Mesa, and maybe

tell us a little bit about what it was like, what the

post looked like.

   

   Blair:  Well, I didn't have a car, but like I said,

the teacher with me had a car, and then Brad came over

in a pickup.  I asked the kids....  Teec Nos Pos School

covered a large area, and some of the kids did come

from Red Mesa.  So I asked the kids one day to draw me

pictures of the store.  And they drew it in pretty

detail.  The roof at that time was held down with

cables, and they even put the cables in the picture.

The whole yard was fenced, and they showed where the

pickup was parked, and the way the windows were.  They

really picked up the details.  I have the picture

somewhere, and I'll have to get it out sometime.  It

gave me a pretty good idea what it was like, and I had

visited there a couple of times.

   

   Cole:  How long would it take you to drive from the

school out there?

   

   Blair:  Oh, I imagine almost an hour.

   

   Cole:  Did the schoolchildren have any interesting

stories about the trading post?, did they know Bradley

at that time?

   Blair:  I don't think they recognized Brad as the

trader there then, because they were in school most of

the time.  If they went home, they might have gone home

on a weekend.  After I moved to Red Mesa, a lot of the

kids would come into the store, that lived in that

area.

   

   Cole:  So when you moved to Red Mesa, were you and

your husband the owners of the store?

   

   Blair:  No, we just worked there.  Brad went there

December 1, 1945.  He'd just gotten out of the Marine

Corps, and he worked for a hundred dollars a month.  We

got married in 1946, and we earned a hundred and fifty

dollars.

   

   Cole:  And who did he work for?

   

   Blair:  He worked for Roscoe McGee.

   

   Cole:  Did Roscoe live out there, too?

   

   Blair:  He would come out with the truck with

supplies, and he would come out when the busy seasons

were:  the wool season when we were buying wool, and in

the fall when we were buying lambs.

   

   Underhill:  What was he like?

   

   Blair:  Roscoe was a congenial fellow to work with.

He had been in the trading post business way back in

the thirties, I guess, when he graduated from high

school.  But he and his wife, Ruthie, were real

congenial.

   Cole:  Tell us maybe a little bit about what life

was like at the trading post.  We're sort of interested

in maybe what your water situation was, any electricity

or light or anything like that?

   

   Blair:  Well, the trading post had two bedrooms and

it was real comfortable.  I had a wood stove for

cooking, and a wood stove in the living room for heat.

We didn't have electricity right at the beginning.  We

had a wind charger and a battery.  There was one light

in the living room and one light in the store.  And

then otherwise we used kerosene or some other light.

Our water, we had a windmill and it was piped, oh, I

don't know how far away.  But we depended on the wind,

you know, in order to have water.  [We] had a kerosene

refrigerator, and a gasoline motor for the washing

machine.  We had an outhouse (chuckles), but we were

comfortable.  And the store and the house were built of

red sandstone--thick, thick walls.

   

   Cole:  And how was the actual interior of the store

set up?  And then maybe you could talk about how

trading actually took place at Red Mesa.

   

   Blair:  Well, the store was a typical old-time

trading post with the high counters, and things hanging

from the roof, like saddles or, you know, the reins for

the bridles and what not, pots and pans.  We had a

place for the potatoes and the onions.  And then under

the counter was a place for the oats and the corn for

the feed for the horses that the Navajos rode in.  We

had dry goods, we had the satin, we had the velvet, we

had the calico.  We had the old-fashioned shoes down

there.  (laughs)  They called them Diné bikee’, the

high-topped shoes.

   

   Steiger:  Who wore those shoes?

   

   Blair:  The women usually wore those.  Then we had

the work shoes for the men.  But Roscoe and some of his

partners got a shoe manufacturer to make the shoes, and

the label on them was Diné bikee’, "Navajo shoes."

   And we would have fresh mutton that was butchered

out in the corral.  We had a counter that had

medicines, oh, like aspirin and Ben-Gay.  We weren't

allowed to carry alcohol because that was in the

traders' regulations.  We did sell cigarettes and Skoal

and things like that.  I haven't thought about that in

a long time.

   

   Cole:  That's really good.  What was your role in

the trading post?  Did you actually work in the store

and carry trade on?

   

   Blair: Oh, yes, I worked in the store, and I guess

the extra fifty that Brad got when he got married was

supposed to be for me, but I never received a check or

anything like that.  And it wasn't until we were at

Kayenta, and we had a new accountant, and he couldn't

understand why the women, if they worked, didn't

receive a wage--or even our kids.  Our kids always

worked, and we always called it slave labor.

(laughter)  But it wasn't until the sixties or

seventies that we were paid.  But I did work in the

store and cooked meals for the hired help, or anybody

visiting, like the salesmen or anyone that came out.

   During the first years there--and this was after

1945--we just had busy times during the wool season or

the lamb season.  And then about 1949, the oil

exploration started out there, the Aneth oil field, and

we had surveyors, geologists, seismograph crews.  And

that went on until the sixties, and we really were

busy.  We had all these outside people coming in,

besides the Navajos.

   

   Underhill:  How about tourists?

   

   Blair:  Like my son will say, if there was a

tourist, they were lost.  We did have, occasionally, a

tourist.  We had rug buyers come out.  We dealt with

the Rocky Mountain National Park people.  They came out

and bought rugs and jewelry.  We had rug buyers, like

Maxwell.  He and his wife started the museum down at

the University of New Mexico.  But like I say, after

1949, we had the surveyors.  We had the uranium, the

vanadium people, come out exploring.  So we got busy

after the first four years.

   

   Cole:  Did you and Bradley speak Navajo?

   

   Blair:  I speak substandard Navajo.  He spoke very

well.  He would sit in the store with some customers

and try to get the right pronunciations and the right

idioms for the different things.  I can speak, I can

name everything in the store, but grammatically, I'm

not very good at Navajo that way.  I get along with the

old folks, I get along with the children.

   

   Cole:  Did either of you have nicknames?

   

   Blair:  Brad was called "black hair,"

Bitsii’»izhinii.  And usually a trader's wife was

always called "the angry woman," ´Asdzání hashké.

(laughter)

   

   Underhill:  Why was that?

   

   Blair:  Well, she'd have a meal ready, and something

would come up in the store, and it couldn't be closed,

you know, at noon, so she'd come in and say, "Why

aren't you eating?"  Or, "Why don't you come in and

eat?  The food's warm."  Or somebody would be at the

back door on a Sunday, and they'd need something.  So

the woman was always sort of prickly.  (laughs)  Her

schedule was interrupted.

   Cole:  I'm sort of curious to see if you could

maybe--you're in the store and Navajo customers come.

Maybe kind of walk us through how that would work:

what kind of transportation they had, how the trading

would take place with them, would they stay overnight?,

and some things like that.

   

   Blair:  Outside, near our corral, we always had a

hogan--we called it "the hotel."  And a lot of our

customers came, you know, twenty miles in the wagons.

And so there was a place for them to stay.  And we

always had a box in the store, and it had a coffee pot,

a frying pan, and probably a big pot, and they could

borrow those and use them.  And they came by horseback.

Like I said, we had oats and corn under the counter,

and we'd fill nosebags.  They'd go out and feed their

horses while they traded.

   Then another item we had in the store were these

seamless bags.  They were large, looked like a

pillowcase, but it was heavy material.  And the Navajos

would fill those up and put them on the back of their

saddles and get the weights right, and that's how they

would carry their stuff home, if they weren't in the

wagon.

   We always had a pencil or a pen, and we always had

accounts--everything was on credit.  In fact, when we

took inventory January first, that's about the only

time we counted our money, because there wasn't much

cash, it was mostly credit.  That was in the early

days.

   

   Cole:  Did both men and women come to trade?

(Blair:  Oh, yes.)  Or was it more one than the other?

   

   Blair:  No, it would be the men and the women, and

sometimes they had separate accounts.  Sometimes they

felt better that the woman would have her own account,

and she would pay for it with her livestock or her rug.

And then the men would have their own accounts.

Sometimes they were joint accounts.  And those accounts

would go from wool season on to--we'd credit from the

spring to the fall, and then the fall to the next

spring.  And they would pay that way, or they would pay

with some of their arts and crafts.  But it was a

credit.  One time I explained this to a relative of

mine from California, and he said, "Well, you're in the

commodity business."  So I'd never thought of that.

   

   Cole:  You talked about the wool season.  Could you

maybe talk about the components of that?  What time of

the year?

   

   Blair:  It was usually in the spring.  It would be

when the cold weather had gone, and then they could

shear the sheep.  In the early days, we stored the wool

in our wareroom, and then eventually we built a barn.

Then a lot of times we'd have to resack the wool

because it would be so dirty and full of red sand.  And

so we hired people to resack the wool.  And it had to

be weighed, and we had to check the prices, because a

lot of times the wool market would go down.  One year

it went from seventy-five cents down to a quarter.  So

we had to watch that.

   

   Cole:  Did they bring wool in?  Did they do the

shearing?

   

   Blair:  They did the shearing, yes.  And it was all

by hand, with the hand shears.  There weren't any

electric shears.

   

   Cole:  Would that be done at the post?

   

   Blair:  No, they would do it at home, and a lot of

times they'd bring it in damp (chuckles) to add more

weight--or rocks and stones.  We've even found dead

dogs.  (laughter)

   

   Cole:  Was there any way that you'd try to _____?

If the wool was damp, would you....

   

   Blair:  Oh, yes.  We'd unsack it right there and

resack it, with them watching.  And then a lot of times

we'd have to dry it out, and explain to them it was

damp.

   

   Cole:  And what about the sale of livestock?  Was

that part of the wool season, too?

   

   Blair:  The livestock was usually in the summer or

in the fall when the lambs--we'd buy the lambs in the

fall.  And then the cattle we'd buy in the summer.  And

then a horse buyer would come out and maybe buy some of

the horses.

   

   Cole:  Do you remember amounts of animals, or

approximately?  Was it a lot, a little, or....

   Blair:  I can remember buying a thousand head of

sheep.  And then, in the early days, we would herd them

from Red Mesa into Farmington to the narrow gauge

railroad in here.  It'd take a week or so.  We'd have

herders.  Then some people along the way got angry that

we were using up their feed along the way, so they

started whipping the sheep--come through the sheep,

whipping them, and scattering them.  And then after

that we got large trucks to come out to haul the sheep

into town.

   

   Cole:  Did you have any involvement in herding?  Did

you ride with the herders?

   

   Blair:  We would go out and check on our herders,

yeah.  And then when we got closer to town, our

partner, Roscoe, he would check on them.  He pretty

well knew the route that they were going.

   Cole:  Something you said interested me.  You

mentioned your partner, Roscoe.

   

   Blair:  Well, after the forties, he wanted to keep

us in the trading business, and so he offered us

10 percent of the trading post.  And then we paid that

up and then he offered us another 10 percent.  And

finally we got 50 percent, and that was by 1965.

   

   Cole:  So during this period that you were at Red

Mesa, the Navajos working on the railroad and things

like that occurred?  (Blair: yes.)  Were you involved

in that at all?

   

   Blair:  Brad was a railroad retirement agent, and

during the winter he would sign 'em up for their

compensation.  We also sent them off to work in the

potatoes in the fall.  Certain families up in Colorado

would come to the store and pick them up.  There were

certain families that always went at the same time,

same families.  And they made money that way.  That was

Red Mesa.  Of course Kayenta was different, because of

the coal mines.

   

   Cole:  It sounds like, from talking to different

people--especially once the railroad work and the

migrant work started--the Navajos would leave at times

of the year, and their children, of course, were in

boarding school.  Did you have any role in helping

families communicate to each other?

   

   Blair:  Oh, yes.  Since we were out there in 1945,

and that was when the war ended, things changed then,

because a lot of the men were in the service.  And then

in 1952, Brigham City was opened up as a boarding

school, and Dr. Boyce was in charge of that.  So a lot

of the kids who were older--say, sixteen to twenty-one--

they went off to school then.  That was another change

for them.  And then another change was when the whole

highway went through about 1962.  That opened the whole

place up.  And that's when the new trading post was

built on the highway.

   

   Cole:  What highway was it, and how far _______.

   

   Blair:  It's Navajo #1, isn't it, Lige?

   Elijah Blair:  Sixty.

   

   Blair:  Yes, but I mean the Navajos always said it

was #1.  It finally went through from Shiprock to Tuba

City.

   

   Cole:  So then you lived on the highway.

   

   Blair:   Yes, in 1962.  It was three miles from the

old store.  The old Red Mesa was almost on the Utah

border, state border.

   

   Cole:  And what happened to that post?

   

   Blair:  We left it for the tribe, and then people

went in and desecrated it and tore it down.  That was

very, very sad.  Very sad.  It could have been used,

you know, as a chapter house or senior citizen place or

something like that.

   

   Cole:  During this period, did the Red Mesa Post

have a lease at all for....

   

   Blair:  We had had a twenty-five-year lease, yes.

   

   Underhill:  When did that take effect?

   

   Blair:  I can't remember.  (laughs)  The date on

that, I probably have it written down, but I cannot

remember that.

   

   Underhill:  You mentioned regulations, like not

selling alcohol at the post.  (Blair:  yes.)  Who had

got out the regulations, and what were some of the

other restrictions?

   

   Blair:  The Bureau of Indian Affairs started many,

many years ago, with all those regulations.  We always

had a copy at the store.  Another regulation was that

we did not participate in any of the native ceremonies.

And a lot of the traders ignored that and would give

flour, coffee, and things for it.  But there were a lot

of regulations.  I can't remember all of them.

   

   Steiger:  Why would that be a regulation?, that you

couldn't participate?

   

   Blair:  Well, at that time, they were trying to

anglicize the Navajos, and they didn't think that there

was anything to their ceremonies.  The attitude has

changed now.  But there were these people that came

out.  At Teec Nos Pos there was someone we called "the

supervisor."  And he was a supervisor for that

district, and he would come out and visit at the

[trading post].  He was real nice, his name was Jack

South at that time.  And then there was a supervisor in

Shiprock that was over the whole area.

   

   Cole:  And by "supervisor," is that....

   

   Blair:  It was supervising the range, supervising

the trading posts, the schools.

   

   Cole:  So at that time were there Navajos involved

in supervision?, or was it all....

   Blair:  It was mostly Anglos.  Now, the range riders

at that time, some of them were Navajos.

   

   Cole:  And what is a range rider?

   

   Blair:  He would ride out and check.  If there were

fences, he'd check the fences.  Or he would check for

the overgrazing.  The overgrazing was the big topic in

the thirties.

   

   Cole:  You mentioned that.  I know you weren't there

then, but what do you know about the whole stock

reduction, John Collier....

   

   Blair:  Well, there was a lot of anger among the

Navajos, and John Collier was a bad name.  And then six

months before I got to Teec Nos Pos, a group of people

at Teec Nos Pos kidnapped the supervisor and took him

off to a hogan.  His wife wouldn't let him go alone, so

they took the wife, too, and they kept them for several

days.  And they cut the telephone wires, and the trader

at Teec Nos Pos knew something was going on, and he

slipped a note to a salesman going through.  And so

Shiprock was notified that something was going on.  And

then they caught the people that'd done it, and they

were taken to Federal Court down in Prescott and they

were given jail terms.  So in 1945 there was still a

lot of anger.  And I think to this day.

   

   Cole:  What was the condition of the range in 1945?

Had it improved because they had done that, or not?

   

   Blair:  I don't think it had improved.  They always

talked about the grass being up to the bellies of the

horses and what not.  I hadn't seen that for many

years.  I saw it once or twice, after a hard winter.

In about 1949 we had a blizzard.  Is that the right

date, 1949?

   

   Elijah Blair:  Yes, in 1949.  __________ went to

Mexican Water, in 1949.

   

   Blair:  And then they had hay lifts to help with

feeding the livestock.  Then there was a lot of

sickness, a lot of Navajos died.  The kids contracted

measles and pneumonia.  One family at Red Mesa, four of

them died.  Just kids.

   

   Underhill:  Was Brad involved in any burials at all?

   

   Blair:  No, they usually took care of their own.

   

   Cole:  Did you folks ever participate or go to

ceremonies?

   

   Blair:  Yes, if we were invited, we did.

   

   Cole:  What types of ones would you be invited to?

   

   Blair:  The squaw dances and the fire dances, the

yei-be-chai.  But we only went when we were invited,

and we were usually invited.  Like I said, a trader

usually would help contribute with flour, coffee, the

necessary things, you know.

   

   Cole:  Did Brad do that, then?, contribute?

   

   Blair:  Yes.  We wouldn't say very much about it,

but we would, yes.

   

   Cole:  Did that happen upon arrival?, or beforehand?

   

   Blair:  Oh, beforehand, when the family asked.

   

   Cole:  Do you have any special memories of those

ceremonies?

   

   Blair:  Well, they never started until midnight or

after, and then we'd have to go to work the next day!

(laughter)  But they were different from any of the

Christian things that we had gone to.  And our kids

enjoyed going to them.

   

   Cole:  Were there missionaries at Red Mesa?

   

   Blair:  Red Mesa was isolated.  The trading post was

the only thing there.  At one time, one year we had a

trailer school.  Then, oh, about ten miles from us, at

Boundary Butte, there was a man and his wife living

there, and they were in charge of the pumping station.

Like I said, we had all that exploration out there.

But Red Mesa didn't have a school, didn't have

missionaries, didn't have a phone.

   

   Cole:  Was it a post office?

   

   Blair:  We received our mail here in Farmington.  If

we came to town, we picked up the mail, and if Roscoe,

our partner, was coming up, he picked up the mail.  But

we did not have a post office.

   

   Cole:  Now, when the Navajos started getting the

railroad retirement checks and things like that, how

did they get those?

   

   Blair:  It came through our post office, and we

distributed them.

   

   Cole:  Did you then act like the banker?

   

   Blair:  We were the bank, yes, if they wanted to

cash their check.  And of course a lot of them wanted

to do it right on the spot, so yes.

   Cole:  I was sort of wondering from before, when you

moved to Red Mesa, did you quit teaching then?

   

   Blair:  I taught my own kids, there was no school at

Red Mesa.  And let's see, you met Hank.  (Cole:

Right.)  I taught him from about kindergarten to sixth

grade, and his sister to about fourth grade.  Then when

I got three, it was gettin' harder and harder.

(laughter)  And then we bought a house in Farmington.

But they enjoyed it, being schooled out there.  They

watched us buying rugs, the arts and crafts, dealing

with the jewelry.  And with all the oil exploration out

there, they got to see all the equipment.  They even

got to ride in some of the airplanes that came in.  So

they didn't get just the three "R's," they got a

trading post education.

   

   Underhill:  Did they speak Navajo, growing up?

   

   Blair:  Well, no.  (laughter)  Now, Hank does pretty

well, I think.  And three of the kids took Navajo over

at NAU.  I took Navajo over at NAU.

   

   Underhill:  How did a language class differ from

what you heard in the trading post?

   

   Blair:  The pronunciation, I think, was a little

different.  Irvy Goosen [phonetic spelling] was the

instructor.  (slightly miffed) He gave me a "B."

(laughter)  And he gave my daughter an "A"! (laughter),

because she was doing it phonetically right, and I was

doing what I heard at Red Mesa.  And then we also took

Navajo Culture over there.

   

   Cole:  Was Red Mesa known for any particular style

of jewelry or rugs?

   

   Blair:  Oh, not necessarily.  You know, like "Two

Gray Hills" or "Ganado" or something.  We had some good

rugs there.  The rugs in the other room came from a

very good weaver.  Her name was Martha Warren.  She

bought a steel frame from us, instead of old wooden

frames that the ladies used.  We were selling metal

frames, and the rugs came out straighter, and she was a

good weaver.

   

   Cole:  Now, when you mentioned selling the metal

frames, is that something the Navajos wanted?  Or was

that....

   

   Blair:  Someone out of Gallup was manufacturing

them, and we bought about three different sizes, and

then we sold them--on credit.  They would bring a rug

in and pay for it.

   

   Cole:  When you were first at Red Mesa, were people

still carding their own wool?

   

   Blair:  Oh, yes, definitely.  And we would sell the

tow cards, the cards that took out all the bugs and

weeds and things.  Those tow cards came from New

Hampshire, and they're still manufactured back there.

That's the only place that makes them.

   

   Cole:  Were you or Brad involved in trying to help

influence the weavers at all in what they were doing?,

or change their style?

   

   Blair:  No, not necessarily, because there would be

good weavers and bad weavers, and we would tell them

that this wasn't straight, and it still had a lot of

... oh, I'm tryin' to think of the word, the weeds in

them.  And there were needles in them--made them rough.

We weren't like the Bloomfields, that had a lot of

influence.

   

   Cole:  You're at Red Mesa now.  How long did you

stay there?

   

   Blair:  Brad was there from December 1, 1945, until

November 30, 1965, which is exactly twenty years.

   

   Cole:  And where did he go after that?

   

   Blair:  Well, for six months he was unemployed.

(laughter)  He went all around the reservation at that

time, looking for a place.  He went everywhere, went to

Crownpoint, went over towards Page.  Kayenta was

offered, but you had to buy the Wetherill Inn [phonetic

spelling] Motel, if you bought the trading post, and we

didn't know a thing about motels and such things, you

know.  And so after six months, he and Lije decided to

try it, and we moved to Kayenta.  One reason he sold

out at Red Mesa, he was still pumping his own water.

He was generating his own electricity with a diesel

plant.  We had no telephone, and two of our kids were

in high school here in Farmington.  He was away from

us.  He decided he'd look for a more convenient spot,

and Kayenta was a community.

   

   Cole:  What kind of trading post was Kayenta,

compared to Red Mesa?

   

   Blair:  It was in downtown Kayenta.  (laughter)  It

was small at that time.  And one reason, there were

public schools that our kids could go to.  The

community was the deciding factor, I think.

   Cole:  And was it an over-the-counter trading post?

   

   Blair:  It was, yes, at that time.  Some of it was

open.  And there were still accounts.

   

   Cole:  And between Wetherill Inn and Kayenta to

begin with, did you have to hire more employees than

you had in the past?

   

   Blair:  Yes.  We kept the same people who were

managing Wetherill Inn, and that helped, because they

knew what they were doing, and then eventually we

caught on to how to run a motel.  But the store, we had

more clerks than at Red Mesa.

   

   Cole:  Sort of backing up a little bit, I'd like to

have you talk a little bit about pawn, say, maybe at

Red Mesa, and then at some point we can contrast that

to maybe how things were at the Kayenta Post--if they

were larger, or whatever.

   

   Blair:  In the forties we didn't have a pawn vault,

and the pawn was up on that roof that had all the

things.  And eventually we built a pawn vault, and I

think that's the only thing that's still standing at

Red Mesa, because there were those rebars in the

cement.  But in those days, the jewelry was beautiful.

It was the real turquoise, the real silver, the real

coral.  We would keep it for years and years because

we'd know the situation of the family, whether the man

was able to work or we're having a drought and they

didn't have many lambs, or, you know, if there's

sickness in the family or not.  And we were allowed to

keep it for six months, but we usually kept it for

years and years.

   

   Cole:  How much money would you give out, percentage-

wise, on a piece of pawn?

   

   Blair:  Oh, it depended on whether the jewelry was

worth anything.  I don't think we ever went over $500.

   

   Cole:  So you would actually maybe loan the full

value of the pawn?

   

   Blair:  Yes.  The red coral, if you had at least

twelve strands, a lot of times each strand would be

worth $100, and there were quite a few of the ladies

that had that, and the men.  But it depended on the

family, it depended on the piece of pawn.

   

   Cole:  Once you were in Kayenta, how did that store

evolve?  Did it always stay as an over-the-counter

store?

   

   Blair:  No, we enlarged the Kayenta store at least

four times.  Let's see, it was in 1967 that the next

blizzard hit the reservation.  Just before the blizzard

hit, we bought six tons of piñon nuts, and that six

tons of piñon nuts paid for the enlargement of the

store, the largest enlargement that we made at that

time.  But I remember 1967, because our daughter was

over at NAU, she couldn't get home, because the snow in

the pass.  Took us a week to get her home.  The snow

covered those Volkswagens over there.  (laughter)

   

   Steiger:  I remember that year.

   

   Blair:  You remember that year?

   

   Steiger:  I sure do.  We got out of school for a

month.

   Blair:  Where were you at school?

   

   Steiger:  In Prescott.  Sorry to interrupt.  Go on.

   

   Cole:  So when the store was enlarged, it sounds

like the trading post ______________.

   

   Blair:  We were the biggest trading post in that

area.

   

   Cole:  Did you carry the same kinds of goods

__________.

   

   Blair:  We had a big butcher shop, carried all kinds

of meat.  We had a freezer compartment along one side

of the wall.  We had a very good dry goods department

and grocery department.  And so with all those

departments, we had more people working--twenty-five or

more.

   

   Cole:  That's just in the store?

   

   Blair:  In the store.  And I was out there recently

at Thanksgiving, and I came across a man who had worked

for us at the beginning as a handyman at Wetherill Inn.

And he told me he'd been working for thirty years.  A

very dependable fellow.

   

   Underhill:  Were your employees mostly Navajo?

   

   Blair:  Yes.  The only white people were the

managers, probably at the motel.  But we gradually

trained the girls to work at the motel, in the office.

   

   Cole:  Did you see a big change?, did you receive

more cash business? (Blair:  Oh, definitely.), or was

it still on credit?

   

   Blair:  Let's see, we went to Kayenta July 1, 1966,

and just about that time, Peabody Coal Company was

coming in.  In fact, they rented Room #1 as their

office.  From that time on, it was a big cash business.

   

   Underhill:  How much cash would it take for Peabody

payday?  Were you still functioning as a kind of bank?

   

   Blair:  We were the bank before the bank came in,

yes, I hate to tell you.  (laughter)  Somebody's gonna--

I won't say a number, but it was thousands and

thousands of dollars, and that's why we got an

airplane.  My husband would make two or three trips on

a payday to the bank in here, in order to fill the

payroll in the morning and the four o'clock payroll.

   

   Cole:  Did you continue a credit business also?

   

   Blair:  We still had the credit business, yes.

   

   Underhill:  And how did all that growth change the

nature of the company itself?  Did you move to having

benefits, or some kind of profit sharing, or....

   

   Blair:  We had profit sharing, yes.  Lije was the

instigator of that.  And we were incorporated, too.

But at Red Mesa we started out real calm, cool, and

collected, just two busy seasons.  And then all the oil

exploration came in, the vanadium, uranium.  And that

made it a busy place.  Brad had probably two store

clerks, and somebody to take care of the corral and

stuff like that.  Red Mesa did not have very many

educated Navajos.  When we moved to Kayenta, it was a

different story.  There were a lot of people that we

could call on to work.

   

   Underhill:  What were your hours of operation like?

   

   Blair:  At Red Mesa?  Twenty-four hours!  (laughter)

And Sunday, too!  Yes, somebody knocking on the door,

needing something--oats for their horse.  But Kayenta

was a community and it was probably eight 'til six.

There would be times people would be knocking on your

door.

   

   Cole:  Once the store had really boomed with the

coal mine, et cetera, did you still continue to take

pawn?

   

   Blair:  We took pawn until, what was it, 1973, 1974?

   

   Elijah Blair:  [It was 1974.]

   Blair:  And then the Federal Trade Commission put

down regulations.

   

   Cole:  Were you involved in that dispute at all, you

and Brad?

   

   Blair:  Brad was called as a witness and he came out

smelling like a rose.  The Navajos really said he was a

decent trader, and they didn't have any complaints

against him.  I think I can find a newspaper clipping.

And he's mentioned in the books as being a decent

trader.

   

   Cole:  But apparently his ideas on pawn didn't sway

the federal government?

   

   Blair:  No.  And you're paying on your credit cards

(laughter) what they were complaining of.

   

   Cole:  How did the Navajo customers that dealt in

pawn feel about the issue?

   

   Blair:  Well, they came in for a year afterwards,

still wanting to pawn.  And they'd say, "You know me,

you can do it."

   

   Cole:  Did they understand what had taken place?

   

   Blair:  A lot of the old-time ones did not, no.

   

   Cole:  In Kayenta did you do a big rug and jewelry

business there, too?

   

   Blair:  We did.  We had contacts with--I don't know

whether you've ever heard of George Putnam Publishers.

(Cole:  Uh-huh.)  His son came out and ordered special

rugs for his home.  We had National Park people come

and buy for their concessions.  We had furniture people

from California.  Someone had a modern Swedish

furniture store, and they thought that the rugs and the

baskets and all of that went with it.  And so we had

many contacts like that.

   

   Cole:  When somebody like Putnam's son would come

and order a special rug, did you have the weaver in

mind?

   

   Blair:  There were just certain weavers that would

do it, and this certain lady over at Shonto made it.

It was a huge rug.

   

   Cole:  Do you remember what her name was?

   

   Blair:  I cannot remember right now.  I may have it

written down.  (pause for drink of water)

   

   [END SIDE A, BEGIN SIDE B]

   

   Cole:  Were you and Brad involved with the United

Indian Traders Association?

   

   Blair:  We were just members, and attended meetings.

   

   Cole:  Was Brad on the board of directors?

   

   Blair:  No, he wasn't.

   

   Cole:  Do you know how early his involvement was?

   

   Blair:  Probably in the fifties or forties when we

finally got into a partnership in the store.  I don't

remember the date.

   

   Cole:  We've been told that the earliest members

started it because they wanted to be able to stamp

jewelry with a number.  Did you ever run across that?

Did Brad have a number?

   

   Blair:  No, we didn't have a number.  My brother-in-

law may have, because he would sell silver to Navajos

to make buttons.

   Cole:  And who was your brother-in-law?

   

   Blair:  Raymond Blair.  I'm not sure whether he had

one or not.

   

   Cole:  Do you remember any of the big issues that

the Association was involved in?

   

   Blair:  Well, it was getting the licenses for the

leases, and they cooperated on buying the different

products- buying the piñons, buying the cattle, buying

the lambs.  And then be sure there was a market for it.

   

   Cole:  So when you say "cooperative," what do you

mean by that?

   

   Blair:  Well, they'd get together and find a buyer.

Like I said, six tons of piñons from one place, in one

certain year, there had to be a market for it.  And so

they helped on things like that.

   

   Cole:  So the Association would....

   

   Blair:  Find a buyer, yes.

   

   Cole:  And would they then take all the piñon nuts

from everybody?

   

   Blair:  There would be buyers that would come out

and buy them, yes.

   

   Cole:  And the Association did the same thing with

livestock?

   

   Blair:  Yes, at times.  Different areas on the

reservation would do it different ways, or they'd have

different buyers.

   

   Cole:  How would you describe the workings of the

Association?  This would be social or business.

   

   Blair:  Well, for the women, it was mostly social.

We never were included in the business meetings that I

can remember.  They'd be held in Gallup or Flagstaff or

even Farmington, here.  And it'd be a social gathering.

   

   Underhill:  Now, why do you think that is?  You're

working in the store!

   

   Blair:  (chuckles)  It's just those men who were ego

tripped, I guess.

   

   Cole:  Did that change after you started drawing a

paycheck?

   

   Blair:  No, (laughter) because just about that time,

the Association was having trouble getting the leases,

and individual traders had to do their own leases.

   Cole:  It seems like in the fifties you had a twenty-

five-year lease.  (Blair:  Uh-huh.)  And after that ran

out, you would have been at Kayenta.  (Blair:  Uh-huh.)

Did you get another lease for that?

   

   Blair:  It was usually a five to ten-year lease.  Of

course that didn't give you time for making

improvements and things like that.

   

   Cole:  Now, when you say it wouldn't give you time

for making improvements, what do you mean by that?

   

   Blair:  Well, major improvements like getting more

equipment into the store.  For tax purposes, too, your

depreciation.

   Cole:  So when you made a major improvement....  (a

few seconds of blank tape)  This is Brad Cole from

Northern Arizona University.  This is Tape 2, we're

with Carolyn Blair in Farmington, New Mexico, on

February 12, 1998.

   We were just discussing when you were in Kayenta,

your long-term lease ran out.  You're negotiating five

to ten-year leases, you were mentioning it made it

difficult to make capital improvements.  I'm a little

bit....  When you make a capital improvement, usually

then when you sell, you get your money out of it then.

How would that work on the reservation?

   

   Blair:  Well, we had to leave everything there.

About that time, we wanted to improve Wetherill Inn,

and its lease was coming up.  It took nine years to get

that lease--in fact, it came after my husband died.  We

wanted to add more rooms.  Started out with about

thirty-eight, and eventually got to fifty.  And down at

the trading post it was newer equipment and new cash

registers and things like that.  You hesitate to put

the money in it if you're not gonna have a lease.

   

   Cole:  When did you finally leave Kayenta, then?

   

   Blair:  I left April 15, 1987.

   

   Cole:  All those years of working in trading posts,

do you remember any, can you tell us about the Navajo

culture, and maybe how it changed over all that period?

   

   Blair:  Well, I can tell more about watching the

kids at school.  I taught school at Kayenta for six

years.  And when I first was teaching out there, we had

kids that really didn't speak any English at all, and

those were the ones from Oljato [phonetic spelling] and

Dinnehotso and way out away from Kayenta.  And that's

when we really needed a program, and the program is

called English as a Second Language.  And I went back

to college, NAU, to get my degree in that.  And later

on, there were kids that were speaking English, but it

was substandard English, it wasn't correct English.

And so nowadays, they're speaking slang, because they

see it on TV and what not.  But in those early days....

And I had students who wouldn't write their names,

because they were told if you wrote it, an evil spirit

or something would take it away.  And now, they're

writing graffiti all over the place.  But I noticed the

change in the schools.  And then at the trading post we

had, I can remember the first Easter we were out there.

We bought a few items with the Easter theme, and we

hardly even sold them.  And now, Easter's a big

holiday, Mother's Day is a big holiday, and a lot of,

you know, the anglicized holidays are important to

them.  But you don't see as many of the older women

with their native dress.  They're changing that.

There's lots of pickups, lots of new model cars out

there.  When we went to Navajo Culture classes with

Irvy Goosen, he said that the Navajos really adapted.

And he said you would think that they had invented the

pickup truck.  (laughter)  And that came out of the

college!

   

   Cole:  In your memory, do you remember first seeing

the proliferation of pickup trucks?

   

   Blair:  I have a picture on the wall, and it's

painted by Peter Hurd, and there is one pickup going

towards a ranch house.  And at Red Mesa, in the

forties, we had one Navajo that had a red pickup, and

that's why I like that painting.  And then after World

War II, there was someone in Farmington that was

selling all kinds of vehicles, used vehicles, to the

Navajos.  And I can remember seeing some of the army

surplus Jeeps, and dump trucks and things like that.

And of course they broke down soon (chuckles) on those

roads.  Some of those people that worked for Peabody

Mine, they'd have one or two pickups and a car.

   

   Cole:  Did the fellow that had the pickup at Red

Mesa have an elevated station in life?

   

   Blair:  Well, he hauled other people around, and

they would buy gas.  And I forgot to mention, our old

gas pump was the kind that you pumped ten gallons.  And

there was always a discrepancy, because the Navajos

felt that it didn't fill the whole tank, and there was

always a little space up there.  And they'd say, "No,

you didn't give me ten gallons."  You remember that,

Lij?

   

   Elijah Blair:  Yeah.  There was one of those at

Oljato, Carolyn, ____ out in front of the trading post.

And Reuben's got all the pictures of it.  Whole story

inside __________________.  I think it's gonna be

wonderful.

   

   Cole:  You mentioned that with the gallons of gas:

did you ever run across similar kinds of situations

when, say, you were exchanging cash money or anything?

   

   Blair:  Oh, yes.  There's always someone that would

say that you didn't count out the money and what not.

That was especially true during the big payroll days.

But I had very good clerks, and they would count the

money twice.  Sometimes when you're buying wool or the

lambs, they'd say the scales weren't right, and so

you'd have to show them with the weights how it would

be balanced.

   

   Underhill:  How would you describe the Navajo

economic system in the early years when you were first

trading?

   

   Blair:  Well, it wasn't cash.  (laughter)  It wasn't

a cash system.  It was just, like I said, commodities.

And then when more work came and they were paid with

cash, then we had more of the cash settlement.

   

   Underhill:  Was there a great deal of

misunderstanding about making a profit, as opposed to

just taking something and keeping __________?

   

   Blair:  There was always someone.  And there were

certain families that would be just as congenial as

they could be.  And there was others that you knew that

would question whether you were doing the right thing.

And we always tried to explain to them, show them how

things were.  And being uneducated, it just took time

and patience to explain it to them.

   

   Cole:  How many children did you and Brad have?

   

   Blair:  We had five children.

   

   Cole:  And were some of them born at Red Mesa?

   

   Blair:  No (laughter) thank goodness!  (laughter)

No, I came into Farmington, and they were all born here

in Farmington.  We couldn't use the Public Health

facilities out there, so we always used a doctor in

town.  Or, when we were at Kayenta, we used Monument

Valley Hospital for small colds, and used the dentist.

     Do you want to know who my kids are?  There's

five.  You've met Bradley Henry, who is Hank, and he's

still in the trading business out of Lukachukai.  He's

married to a Navajo lady, and they have four children.

Nancy is married King Mike, Jr. [phonetic spelling],

and they teach at Dine´ [phonetic spelling] College at

Tsaile [phonetic spelling].  She teaches physical

education and he is the financial vice-president of the

college.  Lucinda is married to Robert Nash and she

teaches at Monument Valley High.  She's taught there

for twenty-five years.  She's been married for twenty-

five years, and Hank's been married for twenty-five

years to the same person.  Then there's Roxanne, and

she's married and lives up in Washington State.  And

then there is Fred, and he's out at Kayenta and he's

the Ferrell Gas man, propane.  The ones that live on

the reservation are married to Navajos.

   

   Cole:  How did they like growing up on the

reservation?

   

   Blair:  They enjoyed it.  The two oldest graduated

from Farmington High, but the other three graduated

from Monument Valley High School.  And they're still

out there, and that's their life, they enjoy it.

   

   Underhill:  What do you think an Anglo person should

understand about Navajo culture?

   

   Blair:  Well, they should be taught that there are

different ways of thinking of things:  their religion,

their customs ... and their relatives, because

relatives can be begging a lot of times, because they

feel that, you know, you have more.  But we've got good

relatives.  Can they see the wall hanging behind me?

   

   Steiger:  Just a little bit.

   

   Blair:  Okay, that wall hanging was a gift from one

of my in-laws.  It's all handmade, and the name of it

is "The Storyteller."  It was a gift.

   

   Underhill:  What do you think you've learned from

the Navajo over time?

   

   Blair:  Well, I think I've learned patience,

because, you know, I could be impatient.  I think that

they have their own religion and should be honored.  I

don't think it should be blotted out like some of the

missionaries wish it could be, 'cause they think it's

pagan.  And just that I had good neighbors out there.

(pause)  And all my grandchildren have dark hair!

(laughter)

   

   Cole:  What do you think they learned from you and

Brad?

   

   Blair:  The kids?

   

   Cole:  The Navajo.

   

   Blair:  Oh, the Navajos.  Well, that the white man

could be friendly and could be understanding.

   

   Cole:  You would have probably taught--when you

started teaching, did they allow any Navajo to be

spoken at the school?

   

   Blair:  Yes.  Dr. Boyce, who was in charge of the

whole reservation at that time, I think he turned it

around, where in the early days the kids' mouths were

washed out with soap and things like that.  But he was

a very, very caring person, and very tolerant.  He was

from back East also.  And there's a book that I like

especially well of his, and it's called When the

Navajos Had Too Many Sheep.  And he shows how Congress

has played political football in giving money for

Indian education.  He kept records during the forties,

and he shows how much money did come on the

reservation, and how much they really needed.  He also

mentions medical care.  But it was changed then.

   

   Cole:  If you were to describe Brad as a trader, how

would you describe him?

   

   Blair:  Oh, Brad and his brothers were Kentucky

hillbillies, but they came out and adjusted.  They were

independent, but they came from a poor background, and

they knew that the Navajos were poor, and they took

that into consideration in trading with them, and

helping to educate them, helping them get jobs.

   

   Cole:  Did Brad ever have any political aspirations?

   

   Blair:  Oh, yes.  He was a Libertarian.  (chuckles)

Brad's commanding officer in the Marine Corps was

George P. Schultz, and he was secretary of state for

the Reagan administration.  He also was secretary of

labor for Eisenhower, and he had a lot of writings

about free enterprise.  And then Brad got to reading

Ayn Rand and he joined the Libertarian Party, and he

also ran for mining inspector for the State of Arizona.

He didn't win, but he got 33,000 votes.

   

   Cole:  Was that while he lived in Kayenta?

   

   Blair:  Yes, while he was in Kayenta.

   

   Elijah Blair:  Carolyn, aren't you gonna tell 'em

what his platform was?

   

   Blair:  Oh, yes.  His platform was that he would

eliminate the office of mining inspector.  (laughter)

   

   Underhill:  And what year was that?

   

   Blair:  Oh, let's see, that was in the seventies.  I

can't remember the exact date.  But he also worked to

get the free enterprise system in the high schools, and

that is a required course in the high schools in

Arizona.

   

   Cole:  And how did he work on that, do you remember?

   

   Blair:  Well, he wrote to the state legislature, and

there were other Libertarians down in Phoenix that

helped him on that.

   

   Cole:  Is that also a requirement in the Navajo

schools?

   

   Blair:  It would be in the public schools.  There

aren't too many Navajo high schools.  I think Gray

Hills is under the Bureau of Indian Affairs.  But most

of the high schools on the reservation now are public

schools.  The boarding schools just go to the eighth

grade.

   

   Cole:  Why do you think you two stayed in the

business of trading?

   

   Blair:  Well, we made a good living and we enjoyed

it.

   

   Cole:  What are some of your favorite memories in

the trading business?, or some of the humorous

stories?, or maybe some of Brad's stories?

   

   Blair:  Oh, we have some humorous stories with the

motel out at Kayenta, Wetherill Inn Motel.  Our kids

would work in the office, and none of my kids are real

black-haired like their dad, and tourists would come in

and they'd just be frustrated because they'd traveled

so far, and they'd look at the kids and say, "Do you

speak English?"  (laughter)  Because all they saw was

Navajos outside, and they came into the office, they

just assumed that....

   There's a lot of tourist stories.  We always had a

horse for the kids, and there was a space between the

store and the motel, so our horse just grazed there.

One day we found out that the horse had stuck its head

in one of the first-floor showers.  (laughter)  We

thought that the tourists would be just horrified, but

they thought that was the best thing that had happened

to them (laughter) on their trip.  Buck was lookin' for

water, and there was water in the shower.

   I've told you about the blizzards, and that was

devastating.

   We would have Christmas dinners for the whole group

of people--especially Red Mesa.  And we'd cook outside,

and everybody was real congenial, and thanked us for

having a Christmas dinner.  [We gave] out candy to the

kids.

   Let's see, in 1995 or 1996, my kids arranged for a

reunion out at Red Mesa at the Senior Citizen [Center].

It's right next to the Chapter House at Red Mesa.  And

we went out there and met several of the people who

were our customers, and then two of the fellows who had

worked for us.  And that was a real happy time for the

kids and for me.  It was like a fifty-year reunion.

They were all interested in where the kids were living,

what we were doing.  I can go out to Wal-Mart on the

first of the month and have a reunion.  Everybody comes

to town to shop.  (laughter)

   

   Cole:  You mentioned Christmas dinner, and you

invited everybody.  Do you mean just the employees?

(Blair:  No.)  Or would you have....

   

   Blair:  No, the people who traded with us.  A lot of

people, if they heard about it, they'd come in, too.

It was usually mutton stew and fried bread and coffee,

outside.  Served huge bunches.  At Kayenta I would cook

Thanksgiving dinner for the help in the store and

Wetherill Inn.  And one year I didn't do it, and one of

the maids wanted to know why, so we had it at

Christmas.  (laughter)  But they did things for us and

we did things for them.  It was quite a congenial

community.

   

   Underhill:  What are you most proud of over the last

fifty years?

   

   Blair:  My kids.  (chuckles)  Grandkids.  Eighteen

grandchildren and seven greats.  So something must have

been working.  (laughter)

   

   Cole:  Did customers in Kayenta, did any of 'em

remember Wetherills’, or was there any connection

[now?]?

   

   Blair:  Yes.  There were some of the people that

were real young that would work for Mrs. Wetherill in

her café.  And then some who would help with the

tourists that they would take.  And then I met a lady

here in Farmington who is a quilter, and her husband

had been the maintenance man for the roads out there,

and she was there in the forties.  And she knew them

quite well.  But we didn't know them.  I knew the

people out at Monument Valley, Harry....  What was his

name?  Goulding [phonetic spelling].  I'm getting old!

(laughter)

   

   Elijah Blair:  (inaudible)

   

   Blair:  Yeah.  And then his wife had moved away and

then came to retire at Monument Valley.  The people

there provided her a place and she would work in their

museum.

   

   Cole:  Let me backtrack a little bit here, 'cause I

just thought of a question that I was sort of curious

about.  Did Red Mesa or Kayenta, did you have regular

suppliers?  Did you buy your goods from one place, or

was it all sorts of salesmen?

   

   Blair:  There was a mercantile here in Farmington,

it was called The Farmington Merc.  And they would

deliver.  And then out of Gallup was Gross-Kelly.  And

Gross-Kelly was--oh, they had a history of being on the

Santa Fe Trail:  Las Vegas, New Mexico, and Sante Fe,

and Albuquerque, and Gallup.  There's a book written

about them called The Buffalo Head.  And that's a good

story about freighting out in the Southwest.

   

   Cole:  Did they bring, at Red Mesa, perishable stuff

in?  Or did you have ________.

   

   Blair:  We had perishable stuff after we got a

diesel light plant and had a place to put the produce

and the meats.

   Cole:  Was it kind of an event at all when the....

   

   Blair:  Oh yes.  Each improvement, it seemed like it

came with every kid that I had.  (laughter)  I told you

we had an outdoor john.  Okay.  After the first one, we

got a bathroom, an inside bathroom.  And then we got a

propane stove for cooking.  And then propane for

heating.  And then we got the generator.  We had an old

Kohler generator, and that we just used at night.  And

then we got the diesel, and we had electricity all the

time--when it didn't break down.  But like I said, Red

Mesa never had a telephone, even when a new store was

built.

   

   Cole:  When the fellow from--was it Gross-Kelly?

(Blair:  Gross-Kelly.)  How often would he come?

   

   Blair:  Maybe once a month.  They would carry some

things that the mercantile, here--or their prices would

be different.

   Cole:  And when a salesman or a delivery person like

that came, did they stay for any length of time?

   

   Blair:  They might stay for a dinner, or they might

stay overnight.  We had many people stay over.  There

would be a man come out of Albuquerque, and he would

buy up the hides.  He would stay, because he had to

load all the hides into his big truck.  Do you remember

him?

   

   Elijah Blair:  Cox.  _________.  He's still living

in Albuquerque.  I talked to him about six, eight

months ago.  He's [still over there?].

   

   Blair:  Then sometimes we had people that broke

down, and their cars needed a part.  Elijah has a good

story of someone broke down in the sand pile and almost

died of heat exhaustion.  Did you tell them that story?

   

   Elijah Blair:  (chuckling)  No.

   

   Cole:  Well, a lot of people, you know, tried to

cross the reservation, and right at Dinnehotso there

was sand traps and solid rock.

   

   Elijah Blair:  I guess I did tell 'em that story.

Who that was--and they knew that--see, that was David

Brenniger [phonetic spelling], who and his wife

Loretta, which I dictated, broke down, and I went and

pulled them back, and they stayed there.  And they were

sittin' there in a sand dune forever, and then we

brought 'em back to the store.  I probably didn't say

about the heat.  That is right, I remember that now,

they were really....

   

   Blair:  They were really dehydrated.

   

   Elijah Blair:  Yeah, they had been there forever

when I finally....  Well, a Navajo actually came in and

told me about it, and I went over there and got them.

That was that David Brenniger.  You remember who he

was, Carolyn.  And his wife Loretta, they were

together.  That's the one that took the picture of

Claudia and I up on the wall at Mexican Water.

   

   Cole:  Is the Red Mesa period, or the Kayenta

period--is one more favorable than the other?  Or do

you have fonder memories of [one or the other]?

   

   Blair:  Well, no.  We were comfortable at both

places, but like Red Mesa, it was so isolated we didn't

have anything.  And Kayenta was a community.  And even

Brad mentioned, he said, "They don't call me "black

hair," or Bitsii’»izhinii like they did at Red Mesa.

They called him "Mr. Blair," or "Mr. Blairy," because

of the "R" sound.  A lot of them heard something

besides the "R."  I'm still Mrs. Blairy.  (laughter)

   

   Cole:  If you could change anything about your life,

would you do it?

   Blair:  No, I've been satisfied here.  The last year

I taught in Connecticut, we had forty days and forty

nights of rain.  And you cannot beat the Southwest.

Now, the sandstorms were pretty awful at Red Mesa, but

it wasn't forty days and forty nights (laughter) of

rain.

   

   Cole:  Do you still have any kind of Connecticut

connection?

   

   Blair:  I still have cousins back there, and I go

back every once in a while, and to reunions and things

like that.  And I've taken different families of my

kids, and I said, "You choose--Kentucky or Connecticut--

and we'll show you where your roots are."  We've done

that.

   

   Cole:  Is there anything else you'd like to add?

   

   Blair:  No, I've enjoyed it.  I haven't remembered

an awful lot.  And I do have files, I'll go through the

files and find things to add to the collection.

   

   Cole:  On behalf of NAU and the United Indian

Traders [Association] Project, we thank you very much

[for your time?].

   Blair:  I'm glad to be able to do it.

   

   Steiger:  I have one question.

   

   Underhill:  _________________.

   

   Steiger:  When you made the switch from Red Mesa to

Kayenta, it sounds like that was kind of a big decision

for you.  (Blair:  It was a big decision.)  Did you

have any idea that things were gonna go large, like how

that was gonna end up?

   

   Blair:  No, we had no idea.  Even at Red Mesa, it

was a quiet....  Well, we could have called it a

honeymoon period for four or five years, until all the

exploration started out there.  I did meet a Navajo out

at K-Mart, and he took my hand and he said, "Thank you,

thank you for _______.  I am retired from thirty years

of working for an oil company, the Mobile Oil Company."

His name is Tom Toney [phonetic spelling].  So we

helped people there get jobs in the oil field.  You

know, they didn't know anything technical, but they

were trained.

     And then at Kayenta, I was in a restaurant Sunday

with my youngest son.  A man came up to me and he said,

"Where are you living now?"  I hardly recognized him,

but he was really interested in what I was doing.  So,

like I said, the first of the month, I can have a big

reunion out at Wal-Mart or K-Mart!  (chuckles)

   

   Cole:  When that boom hit Red Mesa, did you still

stay a behind-the-counter store?

   

   Blair:  Oh, yes.

   Cole:  That was always the case there?

   

   Blair:  Like I said, we built a barn for the wool.

And then when the wool wasn't in there, it would be the

hay. And then we put big windows.  It was just small

windows in the beginning, but we remodeled there.

   

   [END OF INTERVIEW]