EDITH KENNEDY INTERVIEW

   

   [BEGIN SIDE 1]

   

   This is Brad Cole from Northern Arizona University.

We're at the home of Edith Kennedy in Farmington, New

Mexico.  It's March 12, 1998.  Also present in the room

is Lew Steiger.  We're here to talk to Edith about her

experiences working as an Indian trader on the Navajo

Reservation.  This is part of the United Indian Traders

Association Oral History Project.

   

   Cole:  Edith, if we could begin by having you tell

us when and where you were born.

   

   Kennedy:  I was born in Roger Mills County,

Oklahoma, a little town called Cheyenne, Oklahoma.  It

was the home of the Cheyenne Arapaho Indians during

early days.

   

   Cole:  When was that?

   

   Kennedy:  June 23, 1919.  (laughs)  I'm not very–I

don't tell anyone I'm old, I just say I'm not as young

as I used to be.  (laughter)

   

   Cole:  What brought you to the Southwest?

   

   Kennedy:  I had a brother that lived at Portales,

New Mexico, and it was the end of the Depression, and

I'd gotten a scholarship when I graduated to Women's

College in Oklahoma, but I still had to pay for part of

my board and room, so I had my brother that lived at

Portales, and there was a college there.  I came and

stayed with him and went to college at Portales.  And

then I took a civil service test for a stenographer.  I

passed with flying colors, after I got my associate's

degree.  So I made the remark, "Oh, I'll probably  end

up at Farmington, New Mexico.  That's the farthest town

in New Mexico from Portales. The government sent me to

Farmington, New Mexico, to work for the Farm Security

Administration, Department of Agriculture.  And I came

here in 1939 to work for the Department of Agriculture,

to Farmington.

   

   Cole:  When did you meet your husband?

   

   Kennedy:  Well, it was after I'd been here about,

oh, about a year, I guess.  His folks  lived at

Kirtland–he was born at Kirtland, New Mexico.  We

started dating.

   First, I was taking flying lessons from a teacher

here–his name was Oscar Thomas–was teaching lessons.

So I was taking flying lessons, and Troy started taking

flying lessons.  We started dating then.  Finally we

were going steady, and then World War II started, and

he was one of the first ones drafted into the war.  He

went into the Air Force.  After he got out of boot

camp, he was sent to Kingsville, Texas.  I went down

there and roped him in–we married (laughter) in 1942.

And then when the war was over, we came back to

Farmington, and that's all he knew, was the trading

post business, because he had worked for his dad, and

he had worked at Lukachukai Trading Post–his dad and

brother owned that.  He had worked there and spoke

Navajo fluently.  When we first came back, for two

years we worked at the Fruitland Trading Post, owned by

Jack Cline.  He hired us to work for him across the

river at a little store called Southside Trading Post.

And it was Nenahnezad area.  We worked there two years.

And then Jewel McGee needed someone to work for him at

the Red Rock Trading Post at Red Rock, Arizona.  It was

called Red Rock, Arizona, at that time.  It's now Red

Valley.  We bought an interest in Red Rock and moved

out there in 1948.

   

   Cole:  You mentioned Troy's family were traders.

Who were his parents?

   

   Kennedy:  Troy's dad came here to this area and

homesteaded in 1887, I think it was.  He homesteaded

some property down at Kirtland, New Mexico, when

William McKinley was president.  He homesteaded 160

acres.  He began trading with the Indians from that

time.  He would go with his wagon to Durango, Colorado,

and he always carried a gun on his hip in those times.

I have his gun with ivory handles on it.  And he would

go back and forth with his wagon, bringing supplies to

the Kirtland area.  And he started a little store

there.  He had a farm on the property he had

homesteaded.  And then he had stores at different

places.  The longest one that his son owned with him

was Lukachukai Trading Post–Lukachukai, Arizona.  I

think they were there close to forty years.  Then he

had a store at Kirtland, New Mexico–Fruitland–same

thing, nearly.  He traded with the Indians 'til he died

in 1944.

   

   Cole:  What was the name of the store in Kirtland,

do you remember?

   

   Kennedy:  It was just Kennedy Store, right across

from the old high school building there, and the grade

school building at Kirtland/Fruitland–I don't know

which one, really, to make the difference in it.  One's

a post office a little ways, and another one's another

post office, but they call it mostly Kirtland.

   

   Cole:  And Troy's father's name was....

   

   Kennedy:  His name was William Leroy Kennedy, but

they called him Roy.  He was known as Roy.  He dealt

with the Indians so much.  He had a little thumb that

jutted out from his main thumb, and he could pinch with

it, so the Indians gave him the name, "Two Thumbs."

That was his name, Létsoh.  And then my husband was

named Létsoh Biye’, "Son of Two Thumbs.”  Mr. Kennedy

was really well liked–and his wife, too.  They lived

right there and worked with the Indians all his life

after he settled in the area.

   

   Cole:  What was his wife's name?

   

   Kennedy:  His wife was Viola.  I just met her once

before I married–she passed away before Troy and I were

married.  Her name was Viola Kennedy.

   

   Cole:  And while I'm thinking of it, for the record,

what was your maiden name?

   

   Kennedy:  My maiden name was Nichols, Edith Nichols.

I had no relatives here whatsoever.  I knew no one when

I came to this town.  And the town was, I think, less

than 2,000 population, Farmington was, and I liked it

from the time I arrived  here.   I’ve always enjoyed

this area.

   

   Cole:  Did they ever tell you about, like Troy's

father, how long would it take him to make a run to

Durango and back?

   

   Kennedy:  No, I never did ask that.  You know, isn't

it sad that we don't sit down and talk to people?  We

were married in 1942, and he lived just two more years.

Troy was in the Navy, and he'd get leaves, but I just

never sat down and visit with him, and it's a shame,

because none of the family really did.  I don't know

whether my brother-in-law Walter knows for sure or not,

but he has gathered a lot of information.  I don't know

how long it took him to go up there by wagon, but he

hauled supplies until the little narrow gauge railroad

came into Farmington, and then he stopped, because

supplies were brought in on the train.

   

   Cole:  So Troy had two brothers?  Or more?

   

   Kennedy:  No, there were seven children in the

family.  Out of the seven, five of them were Indian

traders, including one daughter [who] had Leupp Trading

Post, Leupp, Arizona.  She was a McGee.  And four

brothers then were traders.

   

   Cole:  And what was her name?

   

   Kennedy:  Lucille McGee.  Her husband was Elmer

McGee, and they had Leupp for many years.  They lived

out at Leupp.  Then Walter lived at Dinnehotso,

Arizona.  Earl Kennedy was at Lukachukai.  And at one

time they had a store at Mancos, Colorado.  I've heard

Troy talk about it.  And then Harold Kennedy was their

youngest brother, and he worked at Tosito.  Troy and

Walter bought a store for him, bought Tohatchi Trading

Post for the youngest brother, Harold.  Harold  died

quite young.  I think he was in his forties when he

died.  Five out of the seven were traders.

   

   Cole:  Did Troy's father have any influence on

weaving or anything like that, that you know of?

   

   Kennedy:  At that time I don't really believe he

did.  They had an influence all up and down the valley.

He had coal mines, and I've heard them say that if it

hadn't been for Mr. Kennedy, a lot of the people would

have gone hungry, because Mr. Kennedy was a [real]

entrepreneur, and he always had something going.  At

one time he had a feed mill, a flour mill, along with

his trading post.  He really did a great service to the

community down in the valley, by letting people come

and have groceries on credit.  Indians would come, and

he'd let them have credit.  He really had just an

influence on doing good for the people.  But I don't

believe he had any influence on the rug weaving–never

heard him say much about that.

   

   Cole:  So after Troy got out of the military, he

came back here.  And then when did you first go to a

trading post to live?

   

   Kennedy:  As soon as he came back, there was a huge

piñon crop over on the Lukachukai Mountains.  Just

every five, six, seven years, there's a piñon crop.

That year there was a piñon crop, and his brother,

Earl, at Lukachukai, needed help.  We went straight

from being released from the Navy in October to

Lukachukai and helped him with the piñons.  I had never

been on a reservation in my life, and it was all new to

me.  We'd been in the Navy four years–I'd been with my

husband, and he was in the Naval Air Corps.  And so we

were really ready to settle down.  We were glad to be

at Lukachukai.  We were snowbound that Christmas, and

we couldn't get out.  So we just had our Christmas with

the Navajos at the school, and the Catholic priest was

there at church, and we joined right in with them and

had Christmas along with them.  I would go in the

trading post and work, trying to learn a little of the

trading business.

   One funny thing, we were also buying pinto beans

along with the piñons.  So they'd bring them in little

twenty-five-pound flour sacks.  So I was so smart, I

went back and weighed up pinto beans.  They wanted

their sack back, so I just emptied it in a great big

gunny sack, and it was piñons!  (laughs)  I emptied my

pinto beans in with the piñons!  (laughter)  So that

was one of my unusual experiences at the trading post

at Lukachukai.  We stayed there until we got through

with the piñons.  That was, I think, about February,

when we came in and went to work for....  Well, we went

to Teec Nos Pos and helped them out for a couple of

weeks.  Ken Washburn's daughter got ill, and he had to

take her to the hospital, so he asked Troy and I to

come and work while they were gone, and we were there a

couple of weeks.  And then from there we went to

Southside Trading Post, as I mentioned, and was there

two years for Jack Klein that had a store at Fruitland.

We went across the river to Southside Trading Post.  We

had to go across a swinging bridge, not a real road,

just down the side of the river from Farmington.  But

we would park our car on the north side of the river

and walk across the river to our store.  We were there

two years until we went out to Red Rock the end of

1948.

   

   Cole:  Do you remember what year you got snowed in,

in Lukachukai?

   

   Kennedy:  Well, that was right after World War II.

Wasn't it 1945?  Yeah, it was 1945 when the war was

over.  It was December, and we went out in October.  It

was December of 1945, and oh my, it was a snow!  It was

up to our waist when we'd walk out in it.  I've got

some pictures of Navajos diggin' out, trying to get

across the Lukachukai Mountain to Farmington.  They'd

just have to dig and dig to get a tunnel through there,

to get a pickup through.

   

   Cole:  Did they do it?

   

   Kennedy:  Yeah, they did it.  You can see there's

dozens of Indians and everybody would be digging in the

snow to make a road.

   

   Cole:  I'm sort of curious about the pinto beans.

Was that a crop that the Navajo grew?

   

   Kennedy:  Yeah, they raised pinto [beans].  Up on

the top of the mountain, and especially over at

Lukachukai, they did quite a bit of farming.  And then

up on top of the Lukachukai Mountains, it's flat, and

there's several farms up there, and it rains quite a

bit, and they raise pinto beans, some wheat, and

potatoes.  Sometimes they raised potatoes.  They would

take the pinto beans and beat them out by hand, and

just very few compared to a real big pinto bean

operation.  I know I certainly bought the twenty-five

pounds and mixed it with piñons, and that was a sad

day.  I wasn't so smart after that.  I had to determine

where the pinto beans were, and where the piñons were.

(laughs)

   

   Cole:  Were the piñons like a winter crop?  Did they

mainly....

   

   Kennedy:  Usually it develops after a real wet year

on the mountain.  There was a huge boom when there was

a piñon crop, because the Indians would go and gather

them by the hundred pounds and bring them in.

Sometimes the price would be a lot higher than other

years, but this was a good year.  I forget how many

tons that the Lukachukai Trading Post bought, but great

big, hundred-pound bags of them that we would ship out

by the pickupload.  It was a good crop for the Navajos

to be able to gather.  They were hard to gather, but

they had a lot of time.  After the first hard frost,

the cone would open, and they would beat them and shake

them on a screen or on a cloth to get the nuts out.

Then they would clean them and put them in the bags and

bring them in to the store.

   

   Cole:  Did you ever try gathering them yourself?

   

   Kennedy:  Yes, and it's hard.  (laughter)  I tell

you!  I've tried it sometimes before they got out of

their shell, out of the cones, and you get pitch on

your hands.  (laughs)  I would hate to have to do it.

But they really pick them, they bring lots of them in.

It's a good money crop.  I don't know when there's been

a–I don't think there was much of a crop last year.

I'm not sure when there's been a good crop.  There was

one or two after that, but that was the first time I

was ever connected with piñon.

   

   Cole:  And then with all that snow, did the Navajos

have difficulty getting into the posts, too?

   

   Kennedy:  Not really.  They would come by foot.

Most of the time–at Lukachukai, many lived right close

by, and a lot of them, there was a Catholic church and

a government school.  And the Catholic priests were

very well-liked and helped the community.  The Indians,

oh my, the night for Christmas Eve, the church was

full, even though with all the snow.  It was full, and

we stayed nearly all night, and they gave out gifts,

they brought the gifts into the church to the tree, and

they gave out gifts.  And then the next day we all came

back over to the church and had Christmas dinner.

Everything revolved around the school and the church at

Lukachukai.  The priests and the sisters were very

influential in that area.

   

   Cole:  Do you remember what you had for Christmas

dinner?

   

   Kennedy:  I imagine it was mutton, but most of the

time when there would be any Anglos, they would try to

have us some beef.  And it really was funny:  I'd go to

Navajo weddings where they would have mutton stew and

all that.  They would have a table set up with

beef–boiled beef or beef stew.  I guess they just

expected us not to like mutton stew, 'cause I didn't

like it.  (laughter)  I love lamb, but the mutton, I

don't know why I didn’t care for it.

   

   Cole:  We were talking at one point about the

educational system with the BIA.  Did you observe the

Catholic educational system there?  Did they have the

same taboo with speaking Navajo and stuff in the

classroom, do you know?

   

   Kennedy:  They just naturally spoke English at that

time.  I mean, they taught  English.  They just all

taught English in the early days.  A majority of the

Navajos wanted to learn English.  Even when my boys

started to school at Red Rock, they went when they were

six years old.  There was a school through the third

grade at Red Rock.  Don and Ron were the only two

Anglos in school.  They had to speak English on the

ground.  The teachers saw that the Navajos spoke

English.  I think it was a great idea, because even

though I think my boys would have learned Navajo

faster, if they were allowed to speak Navajo on the

school ground, but after all, you get out in the world,

you can't make a living speaking Navajo–you gotta speak

English.  They were progressing so fast, and then when

they started saying we had to give back [their]

culture, they sort of digressed, in my opinion, and

lost a lot that they had been gaining toward being able

to make their own living.  But now, I understand they

speak English, but their main language is Navajo on the

reservation, at the schools.

   

   Cole:  When was Troy born?

   

   Kennedy:  He was born in 1919, the same age as

I–February 16, 1919.  He was born at Kirtland, New

Mexico.

   

   Cole:  You said he had worked in trading posts as a

boy.  Do you know which ones he worked in?

   

   Kennedy:  I've heard him talk about Mancos Trading

Post.  They owned a store at Mancos.  Then he also went

to Leupp and worked for his sister a while.  When I met

him, he was working at Lukachukai Trading Post for his

brother, Earl.  He learned to speak Navajo very

fluently–in fact, he spoke it better than he did

English, really.  He would tease the Navajos and tell

some of them they didn't know how to speak Navajo.  He

was a good linguist in the Navajo language.

   

   Cole:  How about yourself?  Did you learn to speak

Navajo?

   

   Kennedy:  When I first went on the reservation and I

had the twins, I didn't have time to go in the store

and do much work.  I was busy with the twins.  But I

could understand.  After I was out there for several

years, I would understand most everything they wanted,

and I could speak sentences, enough to get by.  Then I

moved into Farmington to send my sons to school when

they finished the third grade out there.  And I'd just

go back out on weekends and holidays, and Troy stayed

out there.  When the boys graduated from high school in

1965, I moved back out there all the time.  Then I

learned more Navajo than I did when I was there when

they were little, because I worked in the store all the

time then.

   

   Cole:  Did you have a nickname?

   

   Kennedy:  I don't know that I had a nickname.  When

I go out there now, they just say I'm Troy's ‘asdzání,

(laughter) if somebody doesn't really know me.  Or else

they call me Edith or Edie.  They just call me my first

name.  But I was going to ask a Navajo, Vera, when she

was in here the other day, if I had a nickname, and I

forgot to ask her.  I never did hear it.

   

   Cole:  And what does Troy's ‘asdzání mean?

   

   Kennedy:  "Wife."  (laughs)

   

   Cole:  So what was the post like at Southside when

you were there for a couple of years?

   

   Kennedy:  Well, it was a small trading post.  We

bought a lot of hay from the Navajos.  They'd bring in

hay.  There was a school there at Nenahnezad, and we

did a lot of business with the schoolteachers.  That's

where my twins were born, and they were quite a novelty

to the Navajos, because they all wanted to see them.

[The] Navajo superstition about twins was that they had

different fathers.  And so they would laugh, you know,

and want to see those twins.  They were quite the

novelty there.  I've heard the story now.  After my

twins were born, I've known of two or three sets of

Navajo twins and they didn't do such a thing, but I

heard the story that if they had twins, they wouldn't

keep but one of them, they would do something with the

other one.  But really, that was a story that might

have been–I've never heard of it really happening,

because I've known of some twins.  There was a set at

Red Rock, and a set also at Southside Trading, over

across the river at Fruitland, and they kept the twins.

So I don't know whether that was just a fable or what.

   

   Cole:  Do you remember what Mr. Klein paid for wages

at Southside?

   

   Kennedy:  Yes (chuckles) we didn't get very much.

However, we were really proud, because we hadn't been

use to much in the Navy.  But I made a good salary

because I worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad

during the war.  I was a billing agent and a secretary

and different things.  But Troy didn't make very much,

of course. We received $200 a month and our board and

room, which was quite good in those days, quite good.

   

   Cole:  When you said they'd bring hay in, how'd they

bring that?

   

   Kennedy:  Well, they had wagons.  Most of them at

that time had a wagon.  Everybody nearly had wagons and

a team, and they'd bring in their hay.  They had a lot

of sheep, we bought sheep and wool and some mohair.

That was true of every trading post in those days.

That was big business with the sheep.  Now it's cattle

mostly, there's not too many sheep left.

   

   Cole:  Did they bring the hay in baled, or was it

loose?

   

   Kennedy:  Yeah, they had these old-fashioned bales

where they had to punch the wires in themselves and

everything.  They'd bring it in bales.

   

   Cole:  Were they still using horsepower to cut the

hay?

   

   Kennedy:  Oh, yes, the mowing machine, old mowing

machine.

   

   Cole:  Did they have draft horses?

   

   Kennedy:  They were just ordinary horses.  They'd

raise them mostly themselves.  There was a lot of wild

horses around on the reservation–I think there still

is.  And the stallions were just–they weren't the

thoroughbreds that we see in the race horse business,

but there were some pretty good horses.  Everything was

horse-drawn in those days, of course, in 1945 and 1946.

Out at Red Rock, when we first went there, there were

horsed pulled covered wagons which brought them to the

store, until in the times when they started getting the

uranium.  Then they would have money to buy pickups,

and that's when they started getting pickups, in the

1950s, when they started getting good salaries.

   

   Cole:  Would they buy hay back then in the winter?

   

   Kennedy:  Oh, yes.  We'd usually have to buy more

hay from farmers who farmed in  Farmington and San Juan

County.  We'd have to buy hay to put in our barn to

have for the sheep and horses and the few cows they had

in the early days.  Now there's many cows on the

reservation.

   

   Cole:  Was Southside known for any kind of arts and

crafts?

   

   Kennedy:  Not really.  Southside was just a small

store of Jack Cline's Trading Post of Fruitland.  He

had a large store.  It was just because of the hard way

to get across the river, if you had to walk across that

swinging bridge, he established this trading post.  And

after we left there, he closed the store, and it never

has been there since, because they did start getting

better roads on the south side of the river, and they'd

come into Farmington.  They could walk across to Jack

Cline’s Trading Post, and it [Southside] was closed

down after that–it never was operated after we left.

   

   Cole:  And which river is that?

   

   Kennedy:  San Juan.

   

   Cole:  I was kind of curious what the names of your

twins were.

   

   Kennedy:  Donald and Ronald.  Donny worked at the

trading post in the summers after he got older, but

Ronny was born with club feet.  We had 'em corrected,

but he didn't stand on his feet a lot and work.  He

would work–well, he was on his feet, he was teaching

tennis in Farmington during the summer when Donny would

go with us out to the trading post and work all summer.

Consequently, Donny speaks Navajo fluently, and Ronny,

the other twin, didn't learn much Navajo, but he did

work in Farmington.

   

   Cole:  And then so at this point you moved out to

Red Rock?

   

   Kennedy:  Yes, Jewel offered us a partnership in Red

Rock.

   

   Cole:  How much of a partnership did you start with?

   

   Kennedy:  We got a third to start with, and it was a

working partnership.  We had a small amount to pay

down.  Most of the time we'd pay him in the spring when

we'd buy the wool and mohair and we'd get our

share–we'd give it to Jewel.  And in the fall when we'd

get our share from the lambs, we'd give it to Jewel,

and we paid for our trading post like that.  It was a

working interest, we paid him when we got our share.

   

   Cole:  And then were you always partners with Jewel,

or did you buy the whole thing at some point?

   

   Kennedy:  No.  We [then] bought half later on.  We

bought half of it.  I forgot what year that was.

Again, we were paying it out for what we'd take in from

the trading post, as we most of the time just had our

money twice a year, as probably the traders have told

you–in the spring and in the fall, 'cause we’d credit

the Navajos six months at a time.  We bought a half,

and then later, like I say, I think it was

1966–probably Jewel might have told you, too–I believe

it was 1966 that we bought the full amount of the

store.  And Jewel was ready to move into Farmington,

where he started a ranching business.  He had a big

ranch.

   

   Cole:  Then how long did you keep the trading post?

   Kennedy:  We kept it 'til 1992, by ourselves.  Troy

got sick in 1985.  He got restrictive lung disease, and

at that time our son Donny went back out there and took

it over.  Troy had to use oxygen.  We would go out, he

never really was an invalid, but we would go out and

work at the trading post, but he didn't have the

stamina that he had to have to really do it, so Donny

took over.  The last three years of his life, he didn't

get to go out there very often.  Donny ran it until we

sold it in 1992.

   

   Cole:  When you first moved out there with two small

children, what were the living conditions like for your

family?

   

   Kennedy:  Well, we had a stove that was a coal

heating stove in our living room.  And our bedrooms had

no heat, of course.  In the kitchen we had a stove that

had one part wood and coal, and the other part was

propane.  That was what we had in the kitchen.   We had

a compressor, or what do they call it for electric

lights?  We had electric lights.

   

   Cole:  A generator?

   

   Kennedy:  A generator, uh-huh.  It wasn't bad living

conditions.  I didn't mind at all.  I know my family

came out and they'd say, "How do you stand it out

here?!"  And I'd say, "Well, what are we missing?  I

don't see as we're missing very much.  We have a good

time, we go picnicking."  We didn't come to town most

of the time, but about every third weekend we'd come to

Farmington for something.  I had to take our son Ronny

the first several years of his life to Albuquerque for

his feet to be corrected.  But I would go my myself

with him, and a lot of times Troy would keep Don.  So

we really had our social life right out there.  Jewel

and Troy and I would play pinochle or pitch or

something in the evenings.  We didn't have television

in those days.  We had radio.  But I didn't get lonely,

and Troy loved it of course.  He was use to it.  But my

family thought it was the end of the world.  To this

day, we are a very close family, and my twins come to

visit.  They were all here the Fourth of July and the

first place they wanted to go was to Red Rock.  And we

went up on the Lukachukai Mountain and they'd say, "Oh,

I remember when we had a wienie roast there."  "Oh, I

remember when we had a picnic here."  They have a lot

of good memories about the time we spent on the

reservation.  It was a great life, I loved it.  I still

love it.  If Troy had been livin', we'd have never left

Red Rock.  He would have died right there, 'til he's a

hundred, if he had been healthy.  And the Navajos loved

him, too.  They had some good traders.  Jewel was a

marvelous trader–they called him Joe.  Did he tell you?

   

   Cole:  No, he didn't.

   

   Kennedy:  He was called Joe.  One time when I was

out there not long ago, they wanted to know how Joe

was.  A couple went to see him here not long ago, and

when they told me they went to see him, they felt badly

that he was havin' a hard time breathing.  He was

really well-liked.  He and Troy really made a good

pair, and they did quite well.

   

   Cole:  Was there a lot of livestock at that point

then?

   

   Kennedy:  We had lots of sheep.  I suppose Jewel

told you how we would herd them into Farmington to get

on the little narrow gauge train to ship them, 'cause

we didn't have trucks or anybody to come out to get

them, so we'd gather up all the 2,000-3,000 sheep and

hire herders, and they'd have the chuck wagons.  When

we had bought all sheep at the end of October,

November, they'd start them toward Farmington.  And a

lot of times Lukachukai would come over the mountains,

and they would keep 'em in our corrals sometimes at

night, waiting to gather the next day to go on their

way.  The traders would all meet in Farmington.  When

the train came in to ship them out, they would really

have a big party–all the traders, the men.  That was

the end of their season, when they sold all those

lambs.  All of the trading posts nearly had a lot of

lambs in those days.  It was good business.

   

   Cole:  You mentioned your stove and electricity.

Did you have refrigeration?

   

   Kennedy:  Uh-huh.  Yes, we had a refrigerator.

   

   Cole:  And that was run by the generator?

   

   Kennedy:  Uh-huh, the generator.

   

   Cole:  Did the store have refrigeration?

   

   Kennedy:  Yes, they had a refrigerator–not as big as

later on when we really got electricity–but we had a

small refrigerator that we could keep things cold.

Navajos just drink pop warm.  They had to have their

pop, regardless, and they would drink it warm, they

didn't care.

   Our trading post was built with such thick walls

that even in the summer the old part of the trading

post was always cool.  Merchandise kept very well in

the back warerooms.  The soda pop would keep cool–it

never was really hot.  It was real thick walls, adobe,

sort of mud walls.  Well, when we went there, as you

can see, it was a dirt floor, and the walls were dirt.

Later, in the warerooms, we put concrete over the floor

and plaster on the walls and all.  They were very thick

walls, made with dirt.  It wasn't really adobe, it was

mud, mostly, put between the logs.  And it was cool [in

the summer] and it was warm in the winter, our house

was too.  It was an old house, but it was comfortable.

We only had two bedrooms and a big living room and

kitchen and a bath.  We had a bathroom.  It wasn't bad

at all.

   

   Cole:  What were the living conditions like for the

Navajo at that time?

   

   Kennedy:  Well, most of them lived in their

hogans–they didn't have very many houses.  The thing

that was sad, was so many of them lived in just one big

hogan/room, and they would all pile down on the floor

on their Pendleton shawls or robes and sleep.  But they

kept warm because they had a stove, usually, right in

the middle of the hogan, and wood.  They didn't have

many possessions, so they weren't really crowded.  And

what they did have, they would hang up on the side of

the hogan on the wall on pegs or nails or something.

They had to haul all of their water, of course, which a

lot of them still have to haul water.  They had Coleman

lights.  We sold an awful lot of Coleman fuel, and

mantles for them.  They made bright lights.  Or they

had lanterns with kerosene.  They were very scarce

possessions that they had, just their cooking utensils,

and they slept on the floor, and their blankets that

they covered up with.  And they also wore their

Pendleton shawls or robes for coats, too.  But as you'd

go into those hogans, they were neat inside, because

they didn't have a lot of trash in them at all–they

kept them neat, the ones that I was in always, they

were very neat.

   

   Cole:  How far away did some of your customers come

from, do you know?

   

   Kennedy:  Oh, my, they came from up on the mountain,

way up the foot of that mountain, probably, I imagine,

let's see, from Cove, oh, probably twenty, twenty-five

miles.  And we had a hogan out by our trading post.

Maybe I'm repeating what Jewel told you, I don't know.

   

   Cole:  No.

   

   Kennedy:  We had a hogan near the store.  They'd

come and spend the night.  It was too far, it'd be

late–in the winter, especially–and we had a stove in

it, and they would stay all night in that hogan.

They'd just bed down out there, and bring feed for

their horses, and spend the night.  Of course when

they'd come to the trading post, that was their social

event, too.  In the bull pen they would meet and talk

and laugh and have a good time.  That was when they

would come to the store to buy groceries, also to

socialize.

   

   Cole:  How late would the store be open sometimes?

   

   Kennedy:  Well, we stayed open most of the time 'til

six o'clock every day.  But when the uranium started,

we'd close for a little while and open back up.  We

stayed open lots of times until nine o'clock, because

they didn't get out of the uranium mines 'til late.

And Jewel and Troy would have to cash their checks.

They'd bring their checks in for us to cash.  It was

big business, that uranium, when it was going

on–vanadium trucks were coming out and hauling it into

Shiprock to the smelter there.  And Kerr McGee had this

big smelter at Shiprock–or whatever they call that,

where they took the uranium and vanadium, separate it,

ship it out.  We would stay open during those years

until late at night.  And then a lot of times when we

were buying lambs in the fall, we stayed open, because

they always liked to get the lambs real full (laughter)

to bring 'em in, so that they would weigh more.  And so

we would be late in the afternoon and evening, buying

'em, and we'd be open until maybe seven or eight

o'clock, 'cause it was still sunlight, and light, you

know in the fall.  But we'd usually buy 'em.  We didn't

buy very many early in the morning, 'cause they weren't

full enough.

   

   Cole:  What would they fill 'em up with?

   

   Kennedy:  Oh, just water.  (laughs)  Let them eat

all day, and drink water just before they came in.

   

   Cole:  Did you compensate for that at all?  Or did

you just pay 'em for what they weighed?

   

   Kennedy:  Oh, Troy and Jewel, they took off a

little, but never very much.  They would tell 'em,

"We're takin' off so much of the scales."  But we had

our scales checked quite often by the government, would

come and check our scales.  You couldn't take anything

there, you had to just take it off, five pounds, or

something–three or four pounds, or something like that.

And we also did the same way with wool.  Many times

they would wet the wool sometimes.  They would put big

rocks.  We've emptied the wool out sometimes and find

great big rocks in the wool.  But that was just a few,

there wasn't too many of those kind of Navajos.  We had

good people out there, but there was always, even the

same as traders, there's some of the traders that

weren't good traders, the same as some Navajos, the

same as any race, there's bad ones, and they would try

any way they could to get the best of the trader by

putting rocks or something–wetting the wool, or put

sand in the wool.  All kinds of ways to make that wool

weigh more–and mohair.  But that was just the minority

that did that.

   

   Cole:  In the early years, was there any Navajo that

traded at your store that stands out in your mind as

individuals or stories about 'em?

   

   Kennedy:  Oh, yes, we had....  This one, Carl Thomas

and Alberta, she was one of our very good weavers.  And

I have a picture of [her].  And her mother, who's

Despah Nez, and her sister was Anna May.  Carl and Troy

had a real good rapport.  He was a big teaser, and

every time that Alberta would weave a rug, Carl would

bring it, with her along, but he'd hold the rug and

bring it in, and he'd say, "I worked so hard making

this rug for you.  And you know I did.  I wove this

rug."  And Troy would say, "Yeah, I know you did, Carl.

Alberta doesn't even know how."  And they'd go on and

on about that rug.  It never failed that Carl wouldn't

say that he made the rug.  That was one thing that was

always amusing.

   Then another time, Marie Begay from up at Cove, she

and her sister, they were big teasers, and they really

joked.  They'd come in and just Troy and Jewel, the

four of them would just laugh and laugh and laugh.  I'd

walk in the store, and I would see them standin' there,

just tellin' jokes and giggling.  So one day, Minnie

had walked back, and Marie, her sister, into the vault

where we bought rugs and had pawn and things.  I don't

remember for sure whether Troy was buyin' a rug–he

might have been.  But anyway, I heard laughing back

there.  So I just thought, I'm just gonna be kinda

silly and act like I'm real jealous.  So I walked back

and I stood there and I put my hands on my hips, and I

just stared at those two women with a snarly face.  And

they looked up at me and laughed and laughed and

laughed.  They didn't pay a bit of attention to me.

(laughs)  They didn't care whatever I knew, they were

just–Troy was teasin' them so, because he was a big

tease.  But they were always fun when they came in.

And then we had–oh, there were so many good ones.  If

they needed money on Sunday morning and we were out

there, and they needed something, they'd come to the

back and yell.  We had a dog in the yard, but they'd

yell and we'd go out.  And maybe they'd need ten

dollars or five dollars or something, and Troy'd hand

it to them and write it down when he went in the store.

At Troy's funeral, one of the men mentioned that they

knew they could always get money, even if it was

Sunday, from Troy.  He was that kind of a trader.

   

   Cole:  Were you closed on Sunday?

   

   Kennedy:  Yes, we were closed on Sunday.  We didn't

start opening on Sunday 'til our son started running

the store.  My husband always said–and Jewel, too–if

you can't make a living in six days, you'd better quit.

So we never kept the store open on Sunday.  And that

was our day.  Jewel would come to Farmington as his

family lived in Farmington.  And on our day off, our

weekend off, every third weekend, his wife Leona would

come out and stay with him on the weekend.  He had

several children that needed to go to school, and that

was the reason he wanted us to have an interest,

because his children couldn't stay out there–either had

to send them away to school, or the wife lived there,

or else move into some town.  So Leona, his wife, lived

in Farmington, and we stayed there 'til my boys went

through the third grade.  We built a house in

Farmington and lived in it forty years, until I moved

where I live now.  But I went back and forth out there

all the time.  I still go out and visit, I love it.  I

go out and see the people.  I get so many hugs I'm

squeezed to death when I go out there.  (laughter)

   Cole:  What year did the uranium mining pick up?

   

   Kennedy:  It was in the late 1950s.  It was really

going strong everywhere in those days.  We had many

accounts.  In fact, we had a uranium mine, we leased

it–Troy did, and Jewel.  I sometimes wonder–he'd go up

there every weekend nearly–if some of that uranium dust

didn't get in his lungs, along with his cigarettes.

But we had a uranium mine in interest with a Navajo.

You could lease it from the BIA or the tribe, in

partnership with a Navajo.  We had it in partnership

with Paul Shorty.  And then he had a uranium mine

himself.  There was some individual Navajos had them.

And Paul Shorty had a very good uranium mine, and he

made money.  I was on his checking account with him,

and he bought truck after truck after truck, and built

a nice house, but unfortunately he spent it all, and

when the uranium went dead, he didn't have much left

but his house.  But his trucks, he lost all of the

trucks.

   Kerr McGee really had uranium mines up there, and

many, many trucks hauled it back and forth into

Shiprock.  And our Indians also went to Utah, Green

River, and worked.  They also went off the reservation

in other areas.

   

   Cole:  Would they then come back?

   

   Kennedy:  Yeah, they would stay up there for quite a

long while, and they'd come back and bring money to

their families.  Meanwhile, their families would get

credit while they were gone.  They'd bring back and pay

us.

   We also sent Navajos off to work on the railroad.

We would gather however many wanted to go work on the

railroad when we first went out there.  Jewel was doing

that when we went there.  They would go and stay for

many months at a time.  There's three or four Indians

out there that's getting a large pension right now from

the railroad company.

   

   Cole:  Did you work on the railroad retirement?

   

   Kennedy:  Yes, we did.  We did a little bit of

everything for the Navajos in those days.  Well, we had

to because no one else was to do it.

   

   Cole:  Did Jewel go up and mine some also?

   

   Kennedy:  Yeah, Jewel would go to the mine on

weekends.  And he and Troy would go up there after work

sometimes, and go down in it.  It was located near Oak

Springs.  It was north of Red Rock, and it was not too

deep.  A lot of the uranium was close to the top of the

ground, so we didn't have to go deep down in the

ground.

   

   Cole:  Have you noticed any, out of curiosity, any

other Navajos that were their contemporaries that mined

that have developed lung problems also?

   

   Kennedy:  Oh, my, yes!  There were so many of them

that have died it's unbelievable.  And they really did

have the lung problem.  This Carl Thomas that I was

telling you, he was one of the miners.  He died very

young.  Betty Jo Yazzi's husband.  There were so many

of them that died from the black lung.  It was rampant

in that area.  Oh, I forgot how many we counted, but

who knew the danger of uranium at that time?  You

really didn't know.  I really didn't.  The government

probably should have known, I don't know, because they

did come out and inspect the mines, trying to determine

if they were safe.  But evidently they weren't.  But

it's the same way in the coal mines.  They had the same

black lung where there's coal mines, you know.  They

just weren't ventilated right, I suppose.  But oh,

there was hundreds.  They died, many, many of 'em so

young, out around Red Rock and the Cove and Oak Spring

area.

   

   Cole:  You mentioned you were a co-signer or

whatever on that person's checkbook.

   

   Kennedy:  Uh-huh, Paul Shorty, a Navajo.

   

   Cole:  Why was that?

   

   Kennedy:  Well, he couldn't write, he just could

write his name, and I kept track of the checks and

money that he spent.  He had to have a bookkeeper, so I

just did it for him.  He could write his name, and that

was all.  I would write a check, and then I would

explain it to him, and tell him we had to pay his

expenses, had to pay for this and that.  Then he'd want

a truck, and we'd have to write a big check.  And we

tried to talk him out of these trucks, but he thought

he had to be big-time, you know.  And so we just had to

let him spend what he wanted.  [He] had to have a

bookkeeper, so I was his bookkeeper.  And I was trying

to think what I got paid–I don't remember.  Must not

have been very much, but he traded with us.  (laughs)

They were life-long friends of mine.  His wife hasn't

been dead too long.  And the children still live in

Shiprock.  We did everything for the residents of Red

Rock Valley.

   

   Cole:  So were most Navajos like him with money?, or

were they savers?

   

   Kennedy:  No, Navajos have never been savers.  The

government's paid them $100,000 when they proved that

their husband died of black lung.  And I don't know

more than three or four that saved any of it.  They

spent it very fast for cars and pickups.  A few have

fixed up their houses.  But they're not savers.

   We bought out–I don't know, maybe Jewel told you–we

bought two trading posts in the Cove, Arizona area,

stores that were started by Indians.  And they would go

along and they'd sell their groceries out.  Well, when

it came time to restock, they'd already spent all that

money.  They didn't understand profit, that you had to

keep some of your profit to buy your next bill of

groceries.  After they were there a while, they never

had any money to restock, because they'd spent it as

soon as they got it.  We had a little store called

Cottonwood up there that we bought from an Indian.  He

had some outstanding bills.  We bought it from him, to

keep somebody else from buying it.  And then another

Indian started Cove, and Willard Layton bought it.  But

he couldn't make it either, so we bought it from him,

and we had it for several years.  We had Raymond Ismay

run it for I forget how many years.  It ceased to be

lucrative.  And I think we closed it down about 1988, I

think.  We just closed it down.  The Navajos, when they

all got pickups, most of them went to town.  And you

can't blame 'em.  They don't have anything else to do,

and they love to come into the city–Farmington or

Gallup or somewhere.  We'd have to pay a high price for

a case of groceries, where we buy by the case or two

cases–they'd come into the discount stores where they

buy by the trainloads.  So naturally you can't compete

with that kind of business.  That's when the trading

posts started going down, when they had their pickups

and cars and could go to town.  We bought more cattle

than we did sheep in the latter days that we owned the

store.  We bought a lot of cows.  And because they just

didn't want to be sheepherders anymore–didn't have

anybody to take care of the sheep.  They just turned

their cows loose and let them go–herd 'em in once or

twice a year.

   

   [END SIDE 1, BEGIN SIDE 2]

   

   Cole:  [gives tape ID]  Edith, we were talking about

your life at Red Rock Trading Post.  One thing, you

made the comment about how Navajo didn't really

understand profit.  Maybe you could tell us a little

bit about how their economic system worked.

   

   Kennedy:  Well, they really weren't businessmen.

They were stockmen and farmers, really mostly stockmen

from the beginning of time.  And when they did start to

try to get into the business world, they hadn't been

trained at all for it, and the majority were failures,

which was bad, because like I say, they just didn't

know the business world, and they didn't know how to go

about saving up their money to have to invest in the

next month's groceries or whatever business they were

in, to pay their bills.  They had so many

failures–they're still having failures.  They're

becoming more and more educated, and getting into the

business world, but you see very few that actually owns

the stores and businesses.  Like I say, for a while, I

thought up until about the seventies, maybe, I really

think they kind of stood still a while, 'cause they

were trying to go back to their culture.  They just

kept thinking, "We've got to get back to the way we

were before."  You know, the medicine men and this and

that.  They depended too much on the government.  The

BIA has really made them to be not as ambitious as they

should be.  When they'd have a bad year of sheep, the

lambs would be cheap, and the wool and mohair would be

very cheap, which we had many years.  They didn't have

much food.  The government had to start the welfare

program, and so many of them were on it.  They got to

depending too much on the government.  And they'd have

big families with boys that never worked anywhere, just

lived off of the dole, as you might call it.  And I

would get upset–sometimes we couldn't get people to

stay working any length of time.  They'd get their

paycheck and they'd be gone.  One time I know there

was–even one of the Navajos came down and wanted

somebody to go help him on his farm.  He was raising

some potatoes on a little farm up at the foot of the

Lukachukai Mountains where there were springs that he

could irrigate.  And he came and asked me to see if I

could find him someone to help him, and there was this

family came in and the fair was going on over at Tuba

City, and this family, they had some big, five or six

young boys, and all were living on welfare that they

could get.  And so I asked one if he wanted to go work,

and he said, "Oh, no, no, we have to go to the fair at

Tuba City."  And it just hit me wrong, and I lost my

temper, and I said, "Oh, hell, yes!  Go to the fair,

spend your welfare money and have babies–not work!

That's what you like to do."  I turned and I walked

off, and he looked at me and he said, "Well, I'll go

work for a little while."  I mean, I scared him, I

guess, 'cause I screamed at him, because I just

thought, "I've just had it, not wanting to work."  So

he did go work, but later (laughs) I guess he told the

chapter people about [it], and they asked Troy, "Maybe

you'd better hush Edith."  (laughs)  But I was really

upset that day when they were going to the fair with a

load of kids, babies and all, and didn't want to work a

few hours.  But that's what the government has done.

They ceased to get their education there for a period.

Now, I think they are getting back to where they've got

schools [all] over the reservation–even at Red Rock now

it goes up through the eighth grade.  They have buses

that come in and take them to high school.  So the

schools have improved very much, because before they

had boarding schools and they'd just go up through,

like I said at Red Rock, through the third grade, and

they'd have to go away to school.  So consequently,

they didn't send them a lot of times, or they'd go off

to stay with families and boarding schools.  But it has

improved.  There's not as many of them, I'm sure,

getting on the welfare system as there was for a

time–that was just really bad.  After the uranium days

were over, it was really....  When the uranium stopped,

they had been use to a lot of money, and they didn't

know what to do.  They all had cars–not cars, mostly

pickups–now they're beginning to get cars.  But we had

dirt roads and all, and they nearly had to have pickups

in those days.

   But their economic system was–even when they got

their money, so many of them didn't improve their

living conditions, because they were happy the way they

were–they really were.  Instead of building a house and

furnishing it with furniture that was fairly nice,

they'd just go buy another pickup, something like that.

They really didn't raise their standard of living.  But

now they're building the HUD houses, but you can see

there at Shiprock, it's like a ghetto, from the houses

that were built west of Shiprock.  They haven't taken

care of the houses.

   But the young ones are getting the education, and

teaching school, and they're very good.  So I think

there was just a period of time in there, during the

seventies, that they were sort of regressing back, and

not going forward at all.  I can see a difference now

in the schools and the young people, and their children

are really getting–like a lady said that was in here,

her daughter had gotten her master's, and she'd been

teaching at Shiprock.  Another one is retiring from

Shiprock Schools, so really, I think the last–the

eighties and the nineties, they really have come a long

way.

   

   Cole:  When did your trading post–I assume initially

it was a bull pen operation.

   

   Kennedy:  Uh-huh.

   

   Cole:  Did it ever change to come out from behind

the counter, self-service?

   

   Kennedy:  Oh, yes.

   

   Cole:  When did that happen?

   

   Kennedy:  All during the time of the uranium days

and the real business, everything was behind the

counter.  But in 19....  After Jewel left or before?

We built a big addition on and made it serve-yourself.

I think it was in 1965 or somewhere in there.  We built

an addition clear across the front and got grocery

carts and all that, and made a serve-yourself out of

the store.  We had a lot of stealing going on and

things like that, but most of the time we knew who

would do it, and we'd catch 'em.  But they didn't think

it was a sin to steal–thought it was a sin to get

caught.  (chuckles)  But, like I say, it was just

certain ones that would steal.  But it was a lot

easier, and we could stock more items.  (aside about

refrigerator noise)

   

   Cole:  You were talking a little bit about when your

store went from a behind-the-counter to a self-service

operation.  Did the pawn and credit business continue,

even with the self-service store?

   

   Kennedy:  Oh, yes, we always gave credit.  Of course

when the pawn stopped,

   Jewel and all the traders probably told you, a big

part of our economy was the pawn, because it was always

a way that the Indians could keep their good jewelry,

and most good traders would never sell their pawn–they

would keep it and they'd pay on it and pay on it.  They

could always get groceries with the pawn.  When the

government and the BIA and the Indians made it so rough

to pawn jewelry, and all the traders quit, it really

did hurt the economy, and it hurt the Indians.  They

didn't realize it at the time, but so many would lose

their good old jewelry.  They'd bring it to off-

reservation pawn shops, and if it was dead, it was sold

in nothing flat, they didn't keep it for them.  There's

some good shops that did:  Russell Foutz Indian Room,

and the Mannings, they were old-time traders.  There's

so many new pawn shops, that they lost a lot of their

good jewelry because they couldn't take it out.  But

the traders would keep it for them.  A lot of times

they would bring it in just for safekeeping, and they'd

borrow it back when they wanted to wear it to a squaw

dance or something.  But the pawn was a big part of our

economy.  And then, as I say, they started getting,

after the uranium mines, and as they got older they got

disability when they started getting the black lung.

And then many got old enough to get Social Security

checks.  We gave credit 'til we sold the trading post

to all of the old Indians, because as long as they had

credit, they had groceries.  We tried to leave them

enough money to have a little cash from their check.

We had a post office at Red Rock, and their checks were

delivered to Red Rock after–I forget what year we got

that post office.  That's when we had to change the

name to Red Valley, because there was already a Red

Rock Post Office over by Tucson, a Red Rock, Arizona.

So the Indians got together, and named it Red Valley.

The checks came to the post office and they would pay

their bills.  We had very little trouble with the old

people, especially, ever payin' a bill.  And we would

try to leave them some money so they would have some

cash.  And if they didn't get credit, they'd cash the

check–that's what's going on now–they cash their checks

and the young people, or some of their family,

evidently seems to end up with most of their money, and

they have no money left.  When they don't get credit,

they don't have any money by the middle of the month.

Their money's gone from the Social Security and other

means, and they have no money left.  And it's sad that

the credit system is not on the reservation very much

now.  It was a way of their life, they always had

credit at the trading posts, and paid their bills twice

a year, in the days when we just got livestock.  And

then after they got the Social Security checks and

their disability checks from the uranium, they'd pay

every month.  And then they'd take out their pawn.  But

when the pawn stopped, they had to go off reservation

to redeam their pawn.  It was sad when traders didn't

get to pawn anymore.  That's why Mannings moved the

pawn shop off; Foutzes moved the pawn shop off; because

they were good to keep the pawn and they have their

regular customers, and they have the same pawn over and

over.  They don't have many new customers, because

they've had them for years.

   

   Cole:  Would it be mainly men or women that would do

the credit and pawn transactions?  Or both?

   

   Kennedy:  It was usually they'd both come in most of

the time with us.  They'd come in most of the time.  I

think it was about equal, it seems to me.  They were

usually together when they'd come into the post.  They

didn't, many of 'em, live near the store.  Like I say,

they made a social trip and visit.  Even though we had

serve-yourself, we still had a big area for them to

visit–you might still call it a bull pen.  And we had a

bench, and in the winter we'd put up a big stove right

in the middle, and they'd sit around that stove.  Even

though we had electric heat and all, they would still

sit around the fire and talk and tell their stories and

laugh and visit.

   But it was sad days when their sheep started

dwindling, because the children didn't want to help,

and nobody wanted to do it, and the old ones started

dying off.  So the wool and the mohair has gone down,

and the lambs and goats.  It's just not there much

anymore.

   

   Steiger:  Why didn't people want to do it anymore?

   

   Kennedy:  Well, the children wouldn't help–they

wanted to go off reservation and do things.  They had

their cars, and they didn't want to stay home, and

you've got to herd those sheep every day for food.

They just wanted to run around.  They didn't want to

stay home.  The mother or the dad had to do it, and so

many of the old ones that had been stockmen are dying

and the young ones are not taking it up.  They've got

cows.  A lot of 'em have cows, but they are not takin'

up the sheep.  A lot of the traders even quit buying.

After we sold Red Rock, they didn't buy lambs or

anything for a long while.  I think they finally did

last year.  It's just something that's past, that they

don't want to do anymore.  And they do keep–I laughed

at them the other day–they keep a small flock to

butcher.  They love to butcher their own mutton.  My

friends that come in here, in the winter especially,

they will kill an old ewe for mutton.  They've got a

few, and they'll turn them out right around their

house, and then go bring them back in, let them eat

half a day or  buy hay to feed.  My friend that was in

with her pickup was buying a load of hay to feed 'til

they got their grass.  They buy hay and feed them.  And

then they have calves and cows that they have to feed a

lot.  But it's more cows now.  The sheep are almost a

passing thing.  I'm sure most of the traders will tell

you that.

   

   Cole:  I was going to ask you, when you were talking

about your guest hogan, what would happen when you'd

get one family had moved in for the night, if another

family wanted to stay the night.

   

   Kennedy:  Well, sometimes there'd be two families in

there, and they'd just bed down.  Absolutely.  They'd

bring their bedding.  We had a stove and they'd bring

in wood, and we also kept a pile of wood out there by

it most of the time.  And they'd keep the fire going

all night.  And the next day they'd go home.  We never

did seem to have any problem with it at all.

   Those days were great days.  The dances, you'd go to

the yé’ii bicheii and you'd really enjoy it.  And the

squaw dances and the sings they had.  They were fun

times.  We went to many in those early days... and the

medicine men.  Of course the medicine men are dying

off, too–the real good medicine men are dying, and the

young are not learning it like they should.  The

medicine men played a great part, I think.  They were

like psychologists, and then they did have herbs and

pollen.  I had great respect for the medicine men, I

really did.  We had some great ones out there.  They

really helped the people.  And they're just not there

anymore.

   

   Cole:  Do you remember any of their names?

   

   Kennedy:  Oh, yeah, Allan George.  He was a great

one.  Tsetah Begay was great.  That's Vera Begay's

husband.  I have a picture of her.  He was really a

smart medicine man.  Allan George was one of the best.

He would go into Shiprock and perform the yé’ii bicheii

lots of times.  And of course we had Molian.  He was

called a witch doctor, but he was in a way a medicine

man, too.  And, oh, we had several good ones out there.

But I can't think of any that's living now.  They're

all gone.  There's a few young ones, but they don't

learn the sings, all of the chants and things.  Maybe

they'll learn yé’ii bicheii and the squaw dance, the

sing.  But long years ago, there were many, many chants

that the medicine man knew and practiced and learned

from others–handed down through generations.  They're

just a thing of the past.

   

   Steiger:  Could you describe kind of what they

looked like, and what they would do, how they

___________.

   

   Kennedy:  Well, a medicine man was mostly–he was

just like any person.  But they would come by when they

were–when a young girl would come into her young

womanhood, they always had a celebration.  And they

would come by on a horse, and they'd be riding a horse

and they'd be carrying a banner of a thing, and they'd

be running by, going from their house over to where

their hogan, their house, was, where they would have

their sing.  And the medicine man would perform the

rites for her to come into young womanhood.  And then

they would oftentimes come by when they were having

their chant of some kind, a night-way  or yé’ii bicheii

and ask for donations.  And most all traders would

donate flour and sugar and potatoes and things because

they cooked and served everybody at those ceremonials.

They were quite often.  They had weddings with the

wedding basket that was passed around containing

cornmeal mush called a cake, for everybody to taste,

and it was a big event.  The medicine man performed the

wedding.  It was just a big part of the community with

the medicine man.  They'd go to him for several things.

Just like I say, Jewel went to Molian, you know, and

you live out there long enough, you get to belieivin'

everything (laughs) that the Navajos do.  We had great

respect for them, we really did.  There's a

superstition–not a superstition, it's just a

belief–when you drive up to their hogan or their house,

you don't just jump right out of the car and run in and

knock on the door.  Most of the time, you would sit a

while and observe what's going on around you, and look

around, maybe ten minutes.  I first didn't know what

was going on.  I went to a wedding and there was people

sitting out in their cars, and I thought, "Well, I

guess [it's] not time to go in."  Well, then I found

out that that's what you do.  You drive up in front of

a house, you sit there a while before you get out and

barge into the house.  I went to many weddings and

enjoyed them very much, and sat right on the floor or

the ground in the hogan.  They'd pass the wedding

basket around, the cake, and you'd dip your finger in,

everybody takes a bite of the cornmeal mush.  The

medicine man marries them and gives them advice, and

the father, the mother–it goes on for hours, giving

them advice, telling them what to do.  And you're there

for a long, long time, sitting on the floor or ground.

And they always have lots of food, lots of food.  And

that was when they would usually make something

different for whomever was with me and myself.  We'd

have beef instead of the mutton.  But I always ate the

fry bread, loved the fry bread.  It’s very good.

   

   Cole:  Did you or Troy ever have occasion to use a

medicine man yourself?

   

   Kennedy:  Well, a few times we thought we might.

Troy would talk to them.  Let's see, what was it one

time we....  Elwood Tsosie up at Cove.  What was it?

Something was stolen, and Troy was going to talk to him

as to where the lost could be found.  He was going to

use Elwood Tsosie for something, 'cause he was a good

medicine man.  He died quite young.  Yeah, like I say,

we'd get to the point where we believed.  And I was

always having them bring me some "tea," they would call

it, the tea that they would gather up from kind of a

sage.  They'd bring it and you'd boil it, and it was a

good herb.  They have a lot of herbs that they use

that's good.

   

   Cole:  Did you guys sell anything in your store, any

herbs or anything?

   

   Kennedy:  No.  We never did.  They'd bring it in,

and we'd buy some for our own use, but we never did

sell any.

   

   Cole:  Were there certain things that you would do,

running the store, that would kind of fit in to respect

their beliefs?

   

   Kennedy:  Let's see.  I don't know as there was any

special thing.  I know they would walk in and stand for

quite a while.  We would never rush right over and

speak, 'cause they will stand in your store for a

while, and then they walk over and they just barely

reach out, and it's not  really a handshake.  They just

put their hands together.  It's not a strong handshake

or anything, but they shake hands.  After they've been

there quite a while, they'll stand there and like I

say, it's the same kind of–on the outside they observe

what's going on when they walk into the bull pen.  And

then eventually you start talking to them and they tell

you what they need.

   Jewel, our partner, spoke very good Navajo, and my

husband did, too.  He spoke fluent Navajo.  Like my

son, he grew up with 'em and it seemed easy for him to

learn.  I wish my son, Don, had a business where he

could still use it.  It's a shame to have the

Navajo–he'll run into Indians in Arizona in the Phoenix

area, and he starts talking in Navajo, and most of the

time they don't know what he's saying 'cause they don't

know how to speak Navajo.  (chuckles)

   

   Cole:  What was Molian like?

   

   Kennedy:  Oh, he was a great guy.  He was so honest.

He could have any amount of credit he wanted in that

store.  He was tall and thin and happy and everybody

respected Molian.  He was a stalwart of the community.

We just believed in him.  (laughs)  I really think he

did have some power.  And I'm sure Jewel thought so

too, when he told you, that he couldn't believe that he

told us where to find those things that were missing.

He was missed very much when he passed away.  He was

really missed.  Allan George was, too.  Those medicine

man families were really good families.  All of the

children in every one, they came from good families.

It was kind of like the minister or something almost.

   

   Cole:  When you mentioned Molian, you said something

about associated with witchcraft.  What did you mean by

that?

   

   Kennedy:  Well, I don't know as it was really

witchcraft.  Like I said, when this young girl was

missing in Farmington, we had a sheriff named Andy

Andrews.  Molian, Troy was talking to him and Jewel

also, about this little girl being missing, and he

said, "Well, if you would bring me some of her

clothing, I probably can tell you where she is.  I can

probably help you find her."  And so I came into town

and told Andy Andrews, our sheriff, if he would come

out and bring some clothing, that we would have Molian

go into his hogan and try to see if he could get

something coming to his mind as to where she was taken,

kidnapped.  And so Andy Andrews did, he brought a dress

out, and Molian took the dress and he had it for a

while, and eventually he came out of his hogan and he

said, "She is in the south, where the people that wear

the big hats [live].  They talk a different language

than us.  She is there.  And you go down in that area,

and she's all right, and she's down there."  So

naturally we assumed it was Mexico, El Paso or Juarez.

They started doing their search there, they found her!

She was in Mexico, and they found her.  So we really

were believers after that, because they hadn't looked

there for her.  But he could see people with the big

hats, a foreign language, and in the south he said.  So

that's where they hunted.  Might have just been a

coincidence, but we believed in him after that, I tell

ya'.  But he did a lot of things like that, he helped

people find things.  He was different than a medicine

man, he didn't really perform any of the ceremonial

chants, more like a fortune teller.

   

   Steiger:  Was that occupation passed down through

the families?  Or could some boy say, "I want to be a

medicine man"?

   

   Kennedy:  No, it took years to learn the chants.

They had to learn the songs.  They were called chants,

and they were long.  And then they had to also gather

their paraphernalia.  They had rattles, they had

different kind of [wands?].  Some wore mink collars

around.  They had different kinds of costumes they put

on–pieces of clothing.  They had to gather their

paints, because they painted a patient's face.  And

they had to get their whole complete set of costumes

that they wore, and paints, which were mostly ground up

plants and things that they would get to paint their

faces and their bodies.  And it took many years to get

to be a medicine man.  No, they couldn't just say, "I'm

going to be a medicine man,"... because you spend years

gathering all this.  It's unbelievable, everything that

you have to have.  It's in some of the books, shows all

of the things that the medicine men had with their

medicine man kit.  In the later days, when we were

pawning, some of the medicine men got down to where

they would even bring in some of their articles and

pawn to us because they'd need money.  We would have a

wand and a rattle and different things–arrowheads and

different things that they used.  Little pouches–they'd

get little leather buckskin pouches with a drawstring,

and they'd put their herbs in there, and corn pollen,

and things like that that they used in their

ceremonies.  They had many different herbs in their

little pouches.  It took a long time to get your

medicine man kit.  It was just like being a doctor, it

takes a long time to be a doctor, it takes a long time

to be a medicine man.

   

   Cole:  What about somebody like with Molian's

abilities?  Would that be passed through families, or

would that just be sort of an ability?

   

   Kennedy:  I never knew of anybody but him–never did.

Never knew of anyone but him that was like that.  He

was sort of a fortune teller.  But he really was good.

I believed in him.  We all got to believe in him.

(laughs)

   

   Cole:  Did he use crystals at all?

   

   Kennedy:  No, he didn't.  Elwood Tsosie used

crystals.  That was when we were going up to have him

look in the crystal to see what we'd lost.  I forgot

what it was that we had lost.  And he used crystals,

but I don't believe Molian did.  I didn't see them, if

he did.  I won't swear to it.  I don't know whether

Jewel did or not either.  He was really something, he

was used a lot.  People would lose things, and this and

that.  (aside about light)

   

   Cole:  I was going to ask you, when you first moved

out to Red Rock, what types of arts and crafts were

coming into the trading post at that time?

   

   Kennedy:  We bought many, many rugs.  Oh, gosh, we

would have rugs stacked so high, as tall as I, many

times, before we would sell them.  We didn't have

anybody out on the road at that time.  We just depended

on wholesalers coming to the trading post.  And mostly

it was just rugs, was all that we bought at that time.

   Then the jewelry boom started in the 1970s when

everybody was wanting jewelry.  That was the era when

we had many silversmiths bringing us jewelry and we

sold lots of jewelry.  We were commissioned by Ed

Kennedy of Ohio University to make many pieces for him,

different silversmiths.  And we bought lots of jewelry

at that time, and had many wholesalers and people that

came by for jewelry.

   Then later on we did start buying a few oil

paintings.  There were some artists out there.  I have

two or three of theirs, and they've become quite

famous.

   

   Cole:  And who would those people be?

   

   Kennedy:  One of them was Jackie Black.  He sells

down in Scottsdale.  And then we have Clifford Bryce

Lee.  He lived up in the Cove area.  He brought by a

portrait of a Navajo man once, and needed some gas.  It

was an oil on canvas, and he just traded it to Donny

for a tank of gas, and Donny took it in the vault and

just threw it down, and it laid there for a long time.

I retrieved it and kept it.  And then he had another

one that Donny bought, and he had it hanging up.  I

didn't think much of them, and he kept coming back.

Then he married an Apache girl.  Then he left her.  My

son moved to Georgia and one day picked up the

newspaper, and I was reading about a little town called

Helen, Georgia, and it said there was going to be a

showing of C. Bryce Lee's paintings at So-and-So's

gallery at Helen, Georgia.  I thought, "My gosh!

That's where C. Bryce Lee is now?!"  So Don and I and

the family, we went up there, and we walked in and

surprised him.  He nearly fainted.  Well, he had

married a plains Indian, and this was his mother-in-

law's gallery, and he had moved to Georgia.  We had

lost track of him, and he had moved there.  Now he was

selling his paintings for $3,000 and up.  But he was

doing a lot of tepee paintings, plains Indian paintings

and things–not the same type that he was doing here in

our area, Red Rock and Cove.  I came home and I got my

paintings out, and I have both of them up here in the

house, that he did, because I liked them.  But he's

quite famous now.

   Jack Black, he was down to Scottsdale not long ago

on a selling trip, and he'd gone to see Donny and told

him that he was still painting.  So there's quite a few

artists out in that area that are good.  We'd buy

paintings from them, but they came in a lot of times

and traded for groceries or something, and then later

they'd become famous, you know.  That's the way I think

most artists are, though.  Those are two that really

stand out.  Bryce Lee's doing real well in Georgia.

His folks still live up in the Cove area.

   One of the old Indians made some little red pottery

I have over there, but she didn't have a kiln or

anything, and she didn't bake it.  We'd buy it from her

when she'd come in and need some groceries.  Now I have

people wanting that, just some little red clay that she

put together–little cups and bowls and things.  Now,

they're making pottery, the Navajos are, but they

didn't when we were in business at all.

   Mostly rugs was our business.  Some of the best rugs

are ours, I say, in that area.  The ceremonial rugs

that we had made for Ed Kennedy, that he has given to

Ohio University, are out of this world, absolutely the

most fabulous rugs that you'd ever see anywhere.  Many,

many collectors would love to have them.  Very few are

being woven at this time.  But what is being made is in

demand.  We can't get the wool, like Troy and I bought.

We asked the weavers to make thinner rugs as they were

using four-ply, and most of them got to the point where

they would buy their yarn instead of spinning it,

because they're like Anglos or anybody, the easy way,

that's the way they're going to do it.  So they began

to buy commercial yarn.  We found a place in Canada

that had absolutely the most beautiful yarn for the

background for these ceremonial sand painting rugs, the

chants.  And it looked just like sand, and it was one

ply.  And so we started ordering it, and it was hard to

get the Navajos to use it, because it took them much

longer to weave the rug, because it was thin, but when

they found out they were getting much more for the rug,

then they didn't mind.  And so we got several of the

weavers to weave the thin rugs.  We worked on these

rugs for this man for his collection from the fifties

up through about 1990.  We quit selling.  He got sick,

and we quit selling to him in about 1990.  But the rugs

are just absolutely incredible to see.  We worked and

worked on those rugs.  It was through the Red Rock area

that the ceremonial rugs came into being.  Hosteen Klah

years before had made a few of the ceremonial rugs.

The people had a taboo about sandpaintings, as in

making the painting in sand for a ceremonial curing

rite, etc.–it had to be erased before sundown.  There

was no record of the sandpaintings until two or three

of the people from Newcomb, different ones, reproduced

them in books.  Troy and I bought up all the books we

could find, published in the 1930s and 1940s, and I'd

buy several of them and I gave them out to the good

weavers, and would tell them which rugs I wanted them

to make to go with each ceremonial chant.  So sometimes

it would take them six months to make the rug.  They

were just absolutely fabulous rugs.  Mr. Kennedy from

New York and New Jersey, bought them, and he got the

complete ceremonial chants.  He credits Troy and me for

getting them to be made for history, because there's no

others like them anywhere in the world.  Ohio

University is the only place that has these rugs for

exhibit.  Mr. Kennedy that bought them–no relation to

us–he thinks that scholars will go there and study them

in years to come.  And they may, 'cause that's the only

[place] they'll see the ceremonial rugs and know what

went on in the past, because they're a thing of the

past–the chants are a thing of the past.

   

   Cole:  Tell us about Mr. Kennedy, the person from

New Jersey.  How did you meet him?

   

   Kennedy:  Well, he's the one that came out with Kerr-

McGee.  He was on the board of Kerr Industries' oil

field and minerals in Oklahoma.  He was on the board.

And he came out to look at the uranium mines.  And that

was when he bought his first rug, in the 1950s, a

little yé’ii rug of Vera Begay's.  He began to love the

Southwest, and he brought his wife out, and she liked

the Southwest.  They'd make two or three trips or more

a year and stay for several days.  We would visit and

go places with them.  He became interested in

collecting and couldn’t stop.  We would tell the Navajo

weavers which rug he wanted, and they'd make it and

we'd send it straight to him.  It was a quick way to

move the rugs.  We didn't have to have our money tied

up, because these rugs were expensive, in the range of

$1500 to $15,000.

   

   Cole:  And when did you start?

   

   Kennedy:  In the 1950s, getting them established.

He had the complete set of the ceremonial chants.  He

has the Bead Chant, the Shooting Way, the Coyote Way,

the Water Chant, the Great Star Chant, and the Hail

Chant.  Most of them have fifteen, sixteen rugs in each

one.  And then he collected all other kind of rugs,

too–Ganadas, Crystal–all kinds of rugs–Two Grey Hills.

One lady made very fine Two Grey Hill rugs.  I think

there was about twenty-two in the collection, and he

bought all of those from us.  He had the Beautyway

Chant.  That was the first chant that we had completed

for him.  I think there were just twelve in it–and he

gave those, along with other rugs, to the University of

New Mexico at Albuquerque.  They're there at the

college in the museum.  He gave other types of rugs to

UNM too.  He had such great regard for Troy, as I read

to you, that he wrote:  "Troy's contribution to the

development of this collection may someday cause him to

be remembered as one of the most influential of the

reservation traders, and rank him with J. L. Hubbard

and J. B. Moore for his impact on the history of Navajo

weaving."  And that's what he thought about Troy and

me.  We had worked for so long to get the chants

completed.  The more they wove, the finer they got.

They were just almost tapestries.  I hope to go this

spring to the Ohio University as they're going to have

the museum opening there.  I'm going to see an exhibit

they'll have.  They can't show but about one at a time.

But he collected a lot of old, old rugs, too, made back

in the early 1900s.  He collected every kind of rug,

but the ceremonial rugs are outstanding.

   

   Cole:  Did Troy and you influence them in other

areas of weaving?  Or was that the primary one?

   

   Kennedy:  We needed different types, and we had some

that could really weave pretty Ganado reds, like the

one I have in there on the floor.  And we would tell

them once in a while, "Why don't you weave a red rug?"

We'd just throw it out like that.  Or we'd say, "We

need some Two Grey Hill rugs.  Weave us some of those."

See, each area was noted for a certain type of rug as

they intermarried from different areas.  The women that

wove these ceremonial chants were nothing but

artists–absolutely artists–or they could not have woven

the fine chants so well.  The weavers had a picture to

copy. Most of their rugs were 5x7 or larger.  As the

weaving progressed, the rug had to be rolled from the

bottom toward the top of the loom.  And they'd come out

exactly.

   

   Cole:  When you talk about rolling them up, could

you explain that?

   

   Kennedy:  They have a tall loom, and they thread the

loom with the warp and the weft. They start at the

bottom.  And as they get so much finished, they have to

reach up high, they roll this up from the bottom, and

they keep rolling it from the bottom until the rug is

completed.

   

   Cole:  Was the Red Rock area known for any type of

rug prior to the ceremonial rugs?

   

   Kennedy:  Yes, mostly we were known for the white

background yé’ii rugs.  They had yé’ii figures.  That's

a deity that doesn't have much meaning.  But they would

have  five or six yé’ii figures with a white

background, and very colorful bodies.  And they bought

the yarn for the bodies, and a lot of times they'd spin

the background.  And sometimes later they used grey

backgrounds and different colors.  The Red Rock–and the

Shiprock area, too–was known for these yé’ii rugs.

Many of the ceremonial chants contained snakes.  The

weavers wove the snakes in the 1950s and 1960s.  One of

the Navajo superstitions concerns snakes.  A few of the

weavers began to have sick spells, and they just knew

that's why–they wove a snake in a rug, and that's what

made them sick.  They never got sick just from gettin'

sick, it was always some cause that they had done, that

they had caused themselves to get ill.  And so we were

fortunate in the beginning to get our rugs that had the

snakes in them before they quit weavin' snakes.  I did

have one of the women make a snake in a rug before

Christmas, and I told her, "It's $3,000 if you make it

without the snake.  It would be $4,000 if you want the

snakes in there."  She said, "I'll put the snakes in,"

so she did, but they weren't very big snakes. She put

snakes at the top of the rug, at the opening.  But

another one was sitting here, and she said, "Ooo, I

won't weave a snake."  (chuckles)  That's just one of

their taboos, and you can't blame them for feelin' that

way.  I kind of feel that way myself.  (laughter)

   

   Cole:  When you were paying that kind of money, sort

of on commission, for

   these rugs, how much credit or up-front money would

you have to put out?

   

   Kennedy:  Oh, those weavers could have any amount of

credit they wanted, when they were trading with us.

Like in one of those books, one tells about where we

paid her enough to go buy a pickup.  But most of those

that did the weaving were well-off Navajos anyway.

They had a lot of sheep, and they had cows.  They were

our more well-off Indians that did that real good

weaving.  But they had unlimited credit at the trading

post.  They usually didn't owe too much on their rugs.

They kept their bills paid pretty well.  But like I

say, Troy told one of them if she'd weave a certain

rug, it was very complicated–it's in one of those

books–and he told her if she'd weave it–she was wanting

a mobile home to live in–and he said, "Well, if you

weave this rug, it'll buy you a mobile home, we'll pay

you enough."  She got diabetes, Anna May Tanner, and

she became very ill.  She couldn't work on the rug

anymore, so her mother and sister took the loom with

the rug and finished it.  So we paid them for the rug.

Anna May got well enough to weave, she started that rug

again, and she said, "I am going to finish this rug

before I die."  Troy died while she was still working

on the rug.  She worked on that rug, and oh, it was

beautiful.   She was on a dialysis machine and

everything with her diabetes, and her kids said, "I

know Mom is going to finish that rug before she dies,

and then she'll die."  She finished the rug, and Troy

was gone, but I bought the rug from her, and she lived

about two months longer.  She finished the rug.  She

lived with her daughter.  She never bought her mobile

home, but she got enough that she could have made a

good payment on a mobile home.  [She] was so proud of

that rug.  She didn't like her mother and sister to

finish it–she was going to finish it herself, 'cause

Troy had told her to.  She had such respect for Troy.

They'd sit in the living room after he got ill, and he

would be on his oxygen and they'd bring a rug in and

they'd sit in the living room, gossiping and dealing

over the rug.  Instead of selling it to Donny, they'd

rather sell it to Troy.  He was a big teaser, and he

teased a lot, and they liked to come in and see him.

They were upset when I moved from the old house, nearly

all the Indians, because they'd been in that house so

much.  And they said, "We can't believe you're gonna

sell that house and move, after Troy lived here all

these years."  And I said, "Well, Troy's gone now, I

have to live by myself, and it's up to me."  But now

they come here, and they like it.  (laughs)  But they

didn't like me to leave the old house where they came

and Troy bought rugs from them in the last few years of

his life.  They're good people.

   

   [END SIDE 2, BEGIN SIDE 3]

   

   Kennedy:  Despah went to school and she said she had

to quit because she had to come home and help with the

sheep, and so she didn't get to finish school.  And

Allan George, our medicine man, he went to school.

Despah wrote in the book, Song of the Loom, "My two

daughters and I had been selling our rugs to Edith and

Troy Kennedy.  They're the best traders we ever had.

They keep us selling our rugs to collectors.  I'm

getting old for this kind of weaving, but I like to

weave, and do not have anything else to do."  She said

she was getting old in her weaving, and this was 1973.

And she's still weaving!  (laughter)  Then her

daughter, Anna May, that died, wrote, "Troy and Edith

bought books with sand paintings, ceremonial pictures,

and they gave me books and told me which rug collectors

wanted to buy.  Most of our rugs I sold to Troy

Kennedy."  Then the other sister, Alberta–her daughter

was writing this for her–and it says that Despah and

her sister Anna May taught her how, the art of weaving.

"And she places a high value on the encouragement of

the Kennedys and of the collector of Song of the Loom,

of whom she says, 'He bought most of my rugs at Red

Rock Trading Post.  He pays me a good price, and then

he would send me a bonus if the rug was extra good.'

Troy always let my family charge at the store.  I

bought my first pickup with rug money."  Isn't that

something?  "I continue to weave because this is the

only source of income, because I didn't have much

education.  I have to pay for my house and my car.

Troy Kennedy gives me loans to take care of my electric

and other needs.  I get sick on and off, because I'm a

diabetic and losing my eyesight, but I must continue,

for this is my way of life, it's my income."  She died

last Christmas in 1997.

   

   Cole:  And her name was....

   

   Kennedy:  Alberta Thomas.  Very good weavers were

Betty Jo Yazzi and her mother.  Her husband died with

the black lung, very young.  And she's made her living

weaving, and then she got disability after her husband

died.  Then she had money and she received the $100,000

for her husband’s black lung.  And she said about Troy,

"Betty Jo Yazzi is now fifty-five years old, and has

always lived at Red Rock.  There were ten children in

her family and she started weaving at the age of seven.

Her mother, Grace Jo, was her only teacher.  I herded

sheep most of my early life until I got married–then I

took care of my family."  So some started very young,

weaving.  We usually paid more–some little girls would

come in and we'd mark the rug "ten years old" or

"eleven years old" on it, when wholesale people came in

to buy rugs.  We would pay them, even though the rug

wasn't very good.  We would pay them a good little

price for that little rug, just so they would keep

interested in weaving.  Betty Jo Yazzie started weaving

very young.  And she's one of the really good weavers

now.  She's got pictures in this book of her rugs.  But

not many weavers are doing this kind of rug work.  I

don't think they ever will again, because there'll

never be a trader that will work at it hard enough to

get the complete chants made.  It takes a lot of time.

Now they can't buy the books containing the chants.

They can get this kind of book, but I have the old

books that are priceless.  The weavers said their books

are almost all torn to pieces because they've used them

so much.  I'm very glad to have the books because they

have all the rugs that were made for Mr. Kennedy, the

collector.

   

   Cole:  [gives tape ID]  Edith, how would then a

young girl start weaving?

   

   Kennedy:  Well, most of the time for pastime.  I

went up to Despah Nez once and her two granddaughters

were there, and she didn't have anything else for them

to do.  They were staying with her that summer, so she

set up a small loom and was trying to teach them.  And

one of the girls is weaving now a little, but the other

one didn't learn.  Just different times their mother

would try to teach–they'd watch her.  They'd watch, and

then they'd get interested.  The mother would set up a

small loom, and they'd bring in just small rugs.  It

was through the encouragement of the traders, I

believe, all over the reservation.  They always did

that, they'd encourage the young ones to bring in their

rugs, and they would pay them more than they were

worth.  At that time, they didn't have much to do.  And

if they were sitting around, watching their mother, I

think they  took up the habit, just as a hobby.

   

   Cole:  With the exception of Mr. Kennedy, who you've

told us about, how would you and Troy market your rugs?

   

   Kennedy:  We had Gilbert Maxwell.  He was the

wholesaler that came there.  He has a memorial at the

University of New Mexico, the Maxwell Museum.  He gave

them kachinas and a lot of rugs, too.  We had Jackson

Clark from Durango, Colorado.  We bought Pepsi from

him.  He had the Pepsi-Cola Company in Durango, and he

would come and go through our rugs, and we'd pay for

the pop with rugs.  We sold to the Grand Canyon.

What's the person over there at the Grand Canyon?

   

   Cole:  Fred Harvey?

   

   Kennedy:  Fred Harvey.  They had a salesman out on

the road.  And they came and would buy them.  Of course

later years, my son Don sold rugs while in college.

He'd take rugs to Phoenix, and he sold rugs on

weekends.  He'd go out and sell rugs to different

stores–Scottsdale and everywhere.  Later Donny would go

out on the road, selling rugs.  He sold in Santa Fe and

Albuquerque to the Covered Wagon, and different places.

We had quite a few tourists in the summer [who] came

out, even though we had terrible roads.  Someway or

other they found their way to Red Rock.  We would sell

some in the summer to tourists, and just different

people.  Later years, of course, the Navajos had cars

and pickups that they could travel off reservation to

stores in Gallup and Farmington–even Albuquerque,

Sedona, different places–they go all over with their

rugs when they make them.  The good weavers, people

know them, and they make a bid for them.  We would get

upset when somebody would come on the reservation and

go out to their hogans to try to buy them, because we

were paying rent to the tribe, and yet every once in a

while some unscrupulous fellow–well, not really, I

shouldn't say that–but they would find out a good

weaver, and they would try to undercut us and go

directly to them.  And once in a while some of the

weavers would sell to them, but most were pretty loyal

to the trader.  It upset the trader, because we paid

rent and had to have a license to buy on the

reservation.  We couldn't buy and just come out there

like they did, and they weren't really supposed to do

it, but they did.  The Indians could go off

reservation, which when they got cars, they did start

doing.  But I do think there's four or five weavers

from whom  we bought every rug they ever made.  Jewel

was buying them when we went there, and we continued

after he left.  They like a trader, they're going to

continue to bring things to him.

   

   Cole:  When would you say the heyday of the Red Rock

Trading Post was?

   

   Kennedy:  I think it was during the uranium days.

That was when we had large salaries being made at that

time for the 1950s.  That's really when they started

buying their pickups and getting a little more things.

In the 1970s, during the jewelry boom, the jewelry time

was a big heyday too, because silversmiths were

working, and we were selling jewelry everywhere.  Just

any kind of jewelry seemed to sell, the good with the

not so good.  A lot of the people went into the

silversmithing business.  That was a good time.  Then

it started dwindling in the late eighties into the

nineties.  It's gone down, and as you know, many of the

stores are closed down all over the reservation.  We

had people begging us for our trading post around in

the seventies and eighties, and we could have sold it

for three times more than we did.  We kept it too long.

Troy did not want to sell.  I tried to get him to,

tellin' him we weren't makin' any money, but he didn't

care, he still wanted the store as long as he was

living.  He loved those people, it was his way of life,

and it was a good life for him, he liked it.

   

   Cole:  What kind of cash would you have to keep on

hand when you were cashing all the uranium checks?–if

you don't mind.

   

   Kennedy:  We had to keep a lot.  In those days, it

was a lot.  Of course it wasn't the amount that you

would say now, but it was worth about an equal amount.

We would come into the bank and take money out.  We'd

have to take $20,000 to $25,000.  Same way after they

started their Social Security checks.  So many of them

got on disability and Social Security that the first of

the month they got their supplemental checks, and then

the third of the month, Social Security, and we had to

keep a lot of money out there for that.  But we were

never robbed but one time.  They took the cash

register, but they couldn't get into the vault.  It was

sort of dangerous, but it's different times now.  I

know our banker said, "You worry me to death, going out

there with $25,000-$30,000 cash in your car."  I said,

"Oh, I just put it under the seat and away I go."  And

he said, "Well, you worry me about it."  But it never

was any problem, and we had to keep it to cash the

checks.

   

   Cole:  What kind of value in pawn would you build

up?

   

   Kennedy:  Well, our Navajos really–they were good

people out there.  They had some really good jewelry,

and I know I saw some beads that Troy had pawned, and

he put "no more," and he had given them $1,800 on this

string of turquoise beads.  So good jewelry, we'd give

half on it, at least, good jewelry.  And the people,

too.  It made a difference who was doing the pawning.

They'd had this coral in their family for years and

years, old coral, and they wouldn't sell it for any

amount of money, they weren't about to lose that coral.

And you could give quite a sum of money on it.  It made

a difference in who the Navajo was, what you'd give him

on it.  And it was just a difference in the Indian

character is what you'd usually give on the pawn.

   

   Cole:  How much pawn might you build up in the vault

at any one time?  Guess on that.

   

   Kennedy:  I don't know.  Did you ask Jewel?  Did he

ever know?

   

   Cole:  I didn't think of asking him.

   

   Kennedy:  I don't know how much pawn we had in

there, but we had drawer after drawer after drawer of

pawn.  But I really don't know what the value would be.

   

   Cole:  Did you insure that?  Were you able to insure

that?

   

   Kennedy:  No.  We had a good vault, with a bank

vault door, and we kept it in there.  Never had any

problem with anyone trying to rob us.  Might be now,

it's a different world now out there.

   

   Cole:  Tell us, if you would, a little bit about

your friendship with Laura Gilpin.

   

   Kennedy:  Well, Laura was a darling person.  She had

been in the Red Rock area before we went there.  She'd

been there in the 1930s and took pictures in the 1930s.

She took pictures of one generation.  She came out in

the early 1950s to retake some pictures of the people

that she had taken twenty years before.  She came into

the store, she just had an old van and a camera that

she'd put a black cloth over her head and take

pictures.  She'd come out and camp out on the mountain.

The Indians knew her very well, from when she was there

in the 1930s.  She and I would get in the car, and

she'd want to go to see a certain family that I knew.

After we were there a few years, I knew where everybody

lived, because we'd take out on Sunday and go to their

places and see who lived there.  I'd go with her, and

she'd take their pictures again.  And then she'd come

back and have the pictures which she had taken on her

last trip.  She always gave a copy of the picture to

the one in the picture.  And then this one weekend, we

found out about a ruin through the uranium miners.  A

Navajo had told Troy how to get there.  (phone rings,

tape paused)  One weekend she wanted to go to this

ruin.  My twins, Troy and I, and Laura, we took out for

Cove Mesa.  Troy and Laura decided they'd go to the

ruin.  It had kind of some steps going down this big

cliff.  And then they walked across the wash and they

had to climb up steps to get to the cliff.  Inside they

found a burial ground some bones and different things.

Laura took a picture of it.  We spent the whole day out

there.  The Smithsonian Institute had been there and

had a sign up.  We were real proud of that ruin and we

thought it might amount to something.  People then

later started–well, a geologist came out from Austin,

Texas, and he got friendly with Troy, and he wanted to

go to the ruin, which they did.  He got some turkey

cloth and a few things out–not very many–and he wrote

about it.  And he went back to Austin, took these

things back to Texas.  I have a–I think they call it an

awl, a thing that they used in sewing–it's a bone–is

all we kept.  Anyway, he left it intact.  The oil

fields started out there.  They drilled some oil wells

up on top of the mountain, and then they drilled some

over on the other side of the mountain.  Some of the

people that worked on the rigs found this ruin and they

destroyed it–absolutely destroyed the ruin..  But Laura

took a picture of it.  We have one of the black-and-

white pictures, but I don't remember whether it's in

that Enduring Navajo or not.  But we were with her all

day.  She was always writing and taking pictures.  She

either had hip surgery or broke her leg as the next

time she came she was on crutches.  Laura Gilpin never

was a wealthy person, she didn't have a lot of money at

all, and she came in this old dilapidated car, driving

while on crutches.  She just wanted her last trip

through the area.  She loved the people, and that's why

I was upset at this author that wrote that she

exploited the Indians, because she didn't, and they

loved her.  So she'd still camp out.  She'd go up on

the mountain and camp out in her little tent or in her

car–she stayed in her car this time, her van, an old

van.  And that was the last time I saw her.  She went

back to Santa Fe and she didn't live too long after

that.  She was so well-liked by everybody, and she

photographed three generations of people over the

years.  She really knew her subject when she wrote The

Enduring Navajo.  It's a good book.  I don't know how

many printings.

   

   Cole:  How about telling us a little bit about

Troy's brother, Earl, if you could.

   

   Kennedy:  Well, Earl was sort of a hermit on the

reservation.  He went out there and he stayed, he never

went anywhere.  I don't know whether he ever went to

our Indian Traders Association meetings or not.  Don't

remember of him.  We'd try to get him to pay his dues,

in case he needed any help legal-wise.  But he and his

wife lived there.  He had four children, and he sent

all off to school.  Instead of his wife moving away,

she stayed there, and they sent their children off

reservation, which a lot of the traders did.  I didn't.

He didn't really make his house modern at all.  It was

still an old-fashioned trading post–really was old-

fashioned....  He had the post office.  His wife ran

the post office, Lukachukai Trading Post, Lukachukai,

Arizona.  It was a small store.  He never made it

anything except behind-the-counter.  He bought

everything they brought in.  He was there a long time

and he accumulated quite a lot, because he never spent

anything.  His wife died, and then he still ran the

store.  I was trying to think, it was after the war

quite a few years that he died.  It must have been–I

wouldn't be surprised if it was 1960s after he died.

His son tried to run the store for a while, but  he

didn't like it.  So finally they closed the store.  I

think somebody was in there starting a fire, trying to

keep warm or something–Navajos–and it burned down.

It's a shame, because it would have been truly a

historical building.  But Earl stayed right out on that

reservation.  He certainly wasn't a social person.  He

was one of the Navajos, he was just like them.

   

   Steiger:  Jack Manning told us this story.  He said

if somebody that Earl knew had troubles or something,

there'd be a way that he would help 'em out–they would

get some money that they wouldn't know where it came

from or anything, but that it would come from him.

   

   Kennedy:  Yes, that's true, he helped people.  He

was so good to his children.  He was at the store by

himself, and he had a heart attack.  He was sitting at

his table, and he dropped dead at the table.  It was a

shame, because the Indians really loved him, too.

Clarence Wheeler had a trading post nearby him, and he

helped Clarence out very often.  Earl did a lot of good

for people that nobody knew of–just like his dad,

Mr. Kennedy, when he settled down at Fruitland and

Kirtland.  He helped people out there so much, it's

unbelievable–the people out there in his credit ledger,

people now that their descendants are very wealthy,

still owed Mr. Kennedy when he closed his store down.

And so Earl was just like him.  He was always doing

something, even though you'd never know it.  I mean,

you'd think he was just a cranky old guy.  But he was a

good fellah, he really was–good to his kids, tried to

give them a good education.  A daughter died and a son

died very young.  He has two daughters living.

   It was a great life on the reservation–peaceful in

those days.  Very different now.  Alcohol and drugs are

so rampant on the reservation.  It wasn't that way

during the forty-three years we owned Red Rock Trading

Post.

   

   Cole:  Do you still dabble in trading at all

yourself?

   

   Kennedy:  Oh, like I say, they come and need to

borrow money and I'm an easy touch.  I have quite a few

hundred dollars out right now that if I don't get back,

it's okay if I don't.  This girl I tried to help go to

college, I told her when she paid back, "You may need

some more money to go to college," and she said,

"Probably will."  Anytime they want an education, I'm

for helping them, because they definitely need to get

their education.  And they need to go back and use it

on the reservation, which so many times they don't want

to.  And that's where they need to go, they need to try

to improve the reservation and their schools.  They

have good schools and good Navajo teachers  at the Red

Rock School, that I know they're good.

   There is still a lot of people that don't have water

and electricity.  But they're building houses in the

little areas of HUD.  If they have money, they pay rent

for them–if they don't, sometimes they can get in and

live there until they can start payin' a little.

Whatever they can afford is what they pay for the home.

They're scattered all around now.  There's not too many

who live in hogans anymore.  If they do, they're

building larger hogans.  It's just changed all

together.

   

   Cole:  What do you see for the future of weaving?

Do you think it's going to continue?

   

   Kennedy:  We have as good a weavers as we've ever

had in the time of weaving.  We really do have some

good weavers.  But they're getting old.  We don't have

any weavers–very few–in their twenties.  The weaving

that we do get is some very good weave.  Some will

still, if they're older, spin the background–they'll

spin the white or the grey backgrounds sometimes,

'cause in this rug that I just bought the other day,

she said, "That white and grey in there, I hand-spun

that," she said.  But if they need a certain color,

brown or grey or white, sometimes they will spin it for

a rug.

   But I think that the weaving is going to be far and

between in the future, because there's only a few

traders like Bill Foutz who work at it, and Kathy Foutz

who owns Teec Nos Pos Trading Post.  And Bruce Burnham.

You've probably talked to these people.

   

   Cole:  Uh-huh.

   

   Kennedy:  Bruce really works hard at it.  He's

married to a Navajo.  The women spin yarns especially

for him to sell.  He has some of the weavers just doing

nothing but spinning yarn for him, and he sells it back

to the weavers.  But there's no need for them to weave

now, they can make money other ways.  A long time ago,

that was their way of getting some money, and they

didn't travel off the reservation.  Now, the young

kids, they come into town and they're clerks, and you

notice all the stores, there's always Indians working.

They get the majority of the jobs, so there's really no

need, except as a hobby, like we do crocheting and

things–it's just a hobby, there's no need now for  them

to try making a living at it, except the old ones that

are getting old.  And they still love their money from

those rugs.  And when they weave a good rug, they get

good pay for it, they really do.

   

   Steiger:  Can I get you to hold up that ________ one

more time?

   

   Kennedy:  The good weavers have their special people

they sell rugs to.  They know who will give the right

amount for them.  They usually stay with the same

person.  I have one collector that buys rugs, but since

I sold the trading post, I buy very few.  They don't

even pretend to buy rugs at Red Rock, which is bad,

because there's some good weavers out there.  If I was

runnin' that store, I would buy a lot of rugs still,

I'm sure I'd get my share, because we always did.

   

   Cole:  Were you and Troy members of the United

Indian Traders Association?

   

   Kennedy:  Oh, yes.  Troy was president one year.

   

   Cole:  Was he on the board of directors at all?

   

   Kennedy:  Well, after you're president, then you're

on the board of directors for a year after that, and he

was on that.  We wouldn't miss a meeting of the United

Indian Traders for anything, because it was a big

social event and a party, and it was held one year at

Farmington, one year at Gallup, one year at Flag, and

everybody went and spent the night.  Really, that's how

we got acquainted with the Blairs and everybody that

was way out on the reservation.  It was that AT&T

original stock that they bought with the silver that

they sold during World War II, and the Springers, he

invested it for us.  But in the later years, the

Springers are the one that was responsible for keeping

it going, when we weren't in existence anymore.  The

traders just started moving off and closing down, and

quit meeting.  I don't know why it did–we just lost

interest, I guess.  Eddie moved away, and different

people moved away.  Troy got ill in 1985, and a lot of

people just kinda drifted away.  We just kinda let it

drift, we didn't think about what was going on, I

guess.  All of a sudden we realized we had to

distribute some money somewhere before we all died off.

(laughs)

   

   Cole:  Tell me about the sale of the silver.

   

   Kennedy:  Well, that was in World War II.  It was

very hard to get silver for anybody, and yet there were

silversmiths that were making jewelry and things.  So

the traders could get it.  They'd get the little silver

square or bars, and they would sell that to the

silversmith's.  They took that money and put it in the

treasury, each one, whenever they sold it.  It belonged

to the trading association.  So someway they got this

silver.  Now, my brother-in-law would know exactly

about this, he's done research.  But they must have

been able to get it from the government some way by

being a nonprofit association.  We used some of it for

legal–we had two or three big legal battles, on

nontaxable battle in Arizona, that we felt like we

weren't supposed to be taxed.  And different things

that we did use some of the money out of the

Association for lawyers.  We used the dividends and

things from it to pay Bud Tansey and different people.

But it just kept–after we quit meeting, you know, the

stock market's just been going up and up and up, and

AT&T has split off and done everything else, the baby

Bells and everything.  And it was just invested right.

It accumulated to the point where we had almost

$600,000.  And as Eddie said, in the 1930s, if we had

bought stock instead of lambs, we'd have been better

off!  (laughter)

   Cole:  What was the tax issue you were talking

about?

   

   Kennedy:  Well, it came up–I thought maybe someone

had already told you about it.  It was the State of

Arizona decided they'd put a gross receipt tax on us,

on merchandise we sold, that we had to pay gross

receipts tax.  So we all paid it under protest, because

we didn't tax the Indians, we had no way, we couldn't

collect any tax from them.  And there was no taxes on

the reservation.  We hired a lawyer and went to battle

over it, and we won.  We didn't have to pay the gross

receipts tax.

   We tried to fight the pawn business.  When they were

taking the pawn away from us, they made it so hard for

us to ever sell a piece of pawn, that the traders just

wouldn't do it.  And we did hire a lawyer and tried to

not have to go through that, but that was during the

militant days of some of the Navajo, and some thought

the traders–some of them–were all tryin' to get to

them.  So the traders just decided it wasn't worth the

battle to keep fighting to try to get the pawn like it

always was.  I think that was about the time we quit

meeting in the Traders Association.

   

   Cole:  Did your Navajo customers understand why you

quit in the pawn business?

   

   Kennedy:  It was hard for them, our old ones,

tryin'–they kept bringing it in, and trying to get us

to take it, and trying to get us to take it.  I think

some of the traders did, under the table, take it.  But

like I say, so many of the traders moved off the

reservation and started some pawn shops.  The Foutzes

had always had the–not always, but I think they bought

it in the forties or fifties–The Indian Room in

Farmington was a good pawn shop.  John Kennedy in

Gallup, and Tanners and different people had some pawn

shops.  And Mannings and different ones built pawn

shops off the reservation.  But it was hard for us to

explain, because they'd keep bringing it in, wanting us

to pawn it.  We'd try and tell them to take it to a

certain person so they wouldn’t lose it.  Sometimes

they couldn't take it out when they were supposed to,

because they'd just pawn it for three months or two

months, where we always pawned it for six months or a

year–whatever they wanted on it, we let them have it.

But it was hard to explain for those old people that'd

had a trading post to pawn with for years and years.

It was hard for them to get use to it.  They didn't

have that way of buyin' their groceries anymore.  But

then about that time, they did start getting more

government money from Social Security, and supplemental

income.  So it wasn't as bad when they started getting

the Social Security and disability from the uranium

mines.  They had a little more income then.  We bought

a lot of cows, so they had other income to make up, but

they still would have to pawn.  But a lot of them still

have some of their good jewelry, and a lot of them have

lost a lot of it, too.

   

   Cole:  When you mentioned disability from the

uranium mines, what happened with that?

   

   Kennedy:  After they started getting the lung

disease, they would go into the hospital and they'd be

so sick–they'd just get sick and they coughed and

coughed.  So they would go to the doctor and they got

so weak they couldn't work anymore.  So they got on

disability Social Security.  They had paid in Social

Security when they worked at the uranium mines.  But

the majority of them have died off now–nearly all of

those old uranium miners have died.  They really did

have black lung disease, and a lot of people didn't

believe it, but they did have the black lung.  I

wouldn't be surprised if that might have been a little

bit of what was wrong with Troy's lungs, and Jewel's,

our partner's, lungs.  We just didn't pursue it.  I

said maybe we should have tried to get the $100,000

from the government (laughs) that all the Navajos got.

(laughter)

   

   Cole:  So they would actually get that kind of a

settlement?

   

   Kennedy:  They got $100,000.  The majority of them

have already been paid.  There's still some that are

tryin' to prove that they have lung problems.  They've

been paid the last....  Let's see, it's been probably

three or four years they've started getting it.  And

they had to go to a doctor and be X-rayed and X-rayed

and had to prove that their husband had black lung,

which was easy to do because they'd go and get their

records and show that.  And so when the ones that had

died, their widows and their children received the

$100,000.  It went through–Udall really fought for

them.  And one of the Navajos from Red Rock, his name

was Phil Harrison Jr.  He really went to bat–his father

died, and it was his son that went to bat because his

dad died so young with the black lung.  And Udall, from

New Mexico, he argued for the money from the

government, and finally they won the settlement.  And

now, a lot of them are still trying to prove that they

are sick from it.  But the ones that were the worst

have already died, and their widows have gotten the

money.

   

   Cole:  Were there many Anglos that worked in the

uranium mines on the reservation, too?

   

   Kennedy:  There were foremans.  Most of them were

foremans that worked in the mines.  Most of the truck

drivers were.  But the majority that really got down in

the mines were the Navajos.  And just like my husband,

he'd go over to see that everything was going all right

and go down in the mine.  Our mine wasn't very deep,

but some of the mines up along Cove Mesa were very deep

mines, and they weren't ventilated hardly at all.

That's how they breathed all of that uranium dust.  It

was really dusty.  You could see the yellow dust on

them when they'd come into the store.  The mines

weren’t ventilated right.

   

   Cole:  What do you think you've learned from the

Navajo during your years on the reservation?

   

   Kennedy:  Oh, land! I learned patience!  (laughter)

And slow moving.  I really think that they're so slow

moving, you can't hurry them–you could never hurry them

for any amount of anything.  You just had to be patient

and wait for them.  I think I learned not to raise my

voice too loudly (laughs) if I got angry, because

they're very low-speaking people.  They don't speak

loud.  And you had to have patience in order to work

with them, and not speak loudly.  It's like the time I

said I screamed out at this Navajo–they listened, when

I did, but most of the time you speak very softly and

just wait for them to make the move most of the time.

That's why you had to have patience.  I really learned

patience and compassion, because if they liked you,

they loved you to death.  They'd do anything for you,

they really would, when they liked you.  Most of the

old ones were that way.  The young ones that were

growing up during the last few years we had the store,

very few could get credit, because they thought it was

smart to beat us out of it.  They weren't like the old

ones when we went there, how good they were.  Like I

say, if they liked you, they couldn't do enough for

you.  They were there to help you, as well as you were

to help them.  It just was a slow-moving game, it

really was.  They didn't hug and kiss on their

children, but they loved them.  They had a way of

telling stories.  The old grandfathers would sit around

and tell the children all of the old stories of the old

days.  And that's so great for an older person to tell

their family.  That's why I say, my father-in-law, I

should have done that.  I didn't get any information

from him.  He came here as an orphan.  We knew at one

time he did have parents, but they died off when he was

very young, and he came here with a Baptist minister.

We knew that much, but we didn't sit down and ask him.

Where the Indians, the old grandfather would sit around

in the hogan with the kids gathered around him, and the

family, and they would tell stories.  And they did that

at night for entertainment.  So their stories and

legends have been handed down to the younger

generation.  I don't know about now, what's going on.

I doubt if any of that goes on much now, but in those

days, when we first went out there, they would.  And

you know, I've always thought of that picture at the

end of the trail, the man on the horse.  You would see

a flock of sheep out on the prairie between Shiprock

and our trading post, and there would be a Navajo just

sitting there, up on a little knoll, slumped over in

his saddle, looked like he was asleep–just a beautiful

picture sitting there.  Peaceful, quiet, you know, and

the sheep out there grazing.  And I'd think, "Oh,

that's a peaceful picture.  They would go out like that

and take their sheep and just sit and sit.  They were

content, it didn't bother them, they weren't restless.

But now, it's a different story all together–they're a

restless people.

   

   Cole:  What do you think they learned from you?

   

   Kennedy:  Well, I think they learned–they knew that

Troy and I were honest, and I think they learned a lot

of love, because like I say, they weren't a real lovin'

and huggin', and I go back out there now, and I get

hugs and hugs and hugs.  I feel like I'm squeezed to

death, and they'll say, "Are you coming back?  We want

you back.  Come back and run the store."  So they must

have thought that I was honest and liked them, or they

wouldn't be that way to me, because I really appreciate

the way they act towards me when I go out there,

because I just can't talk and see them enough.  They're

always wanting me to come back.  And it's sad when I go

back to the reservation, but it is also a happy visit..

   

   Cole:  What were your major contributions, do you

think?–especially when you were really working in the

store.

   

   Kennedy:  Well, I helped them.  (laughs)  Oh, gosh,

I wrote letters for them all the time, if they had to

have a letter written about school or anything.  And

then, like I say, we carried their mail for a long

time.  We would gather the mail up at Shiprock and

bring it out and hand it to the addresse.  They had to

get their mail from us–they had no other way to get

their mail.  And I think that we helped a lot by

bringing their mail out, because otherwise, I don't

know how they would have gotten it.  Then in the later

years, we worked and worked until we got a post office.

   I think Troy and I contributed honesty to them, and

they knew that we were very honest.  They knew they

could get help from us, and we did a little bit of

everything for them.  In those days, we would take a

message.  They would call us, and we would take a

message to them if somebody needed to get a message

out, an important death or a sickness.  We often wrote

letters on legal affairs.  Oftentimes I would go in

when they did start going to funeral homes, and the

people would try to really sell them an expensive

funeral, and I'd say, "Don't pay a whole lot for your

casket.  There's no use in that.  You don't have to do

that, you can have a nice funeral without going into

debt."  I would advise them on so many things like

that–what to do to try to save their money, that they

would have some money left.  Troy and I, they were

always appreciative when we would tell them if they got

a $300 check, we'd say, "You can trade up to $200 or

$250 because you need some cash left."  And we'd have a

hard time trying to get them to stay under that limit,

but we knew if we didn't insist for them to have cash,

then they'd want to borrow the cash.  So we would try

to do that for them, to have cash left.  We tried to

help them every way we could, because we liked the

people.  We were there because we liked it.  We could

have done other things.  I was a secretary and a

bookkeeper, I didn't have to work out there.  If I

needed to work, I could have worked in Farmington or

somewhere.  But I liked it, and I went back to Red Rock

and lived, after 1965 when my boys graduated.  I always

felt that I had spent my life with my boys, and it was

time for me to spend my life with Troy.  So I moved

back out there and stayed.  And we'd come in on

Saturday nights and go back Sunday night and open back

up Monday morning.

   

   Cole:  So your post wasn't open on Sundays?

   

   Kennedy:  No, it didn't open [on Sundays] until

Donny started running it.  And then we felt like you

almost had to do it to make a living, because all the

stores were open.  Many of the children went off

reservation and they had cars, and they'd come back out

on Sunday morning, and they'd buy things to take to

their parents.  We had videos, and VCRs we even rented.

They would come by on Sunday morning and get a lot of

that for their families.  They appreciated us being

open on Sunday.  I imagine about 1988 or somewhere in

there we started staying open on Sunday.  At this time

they don't stay open on Sunday.

   

   Cole:  Was that unusual then, early on, for a

trading post to be closed on Sunday?

   

   Kennedy:  No, most trading posts were closed on

Sunday–nearly all were closed on Sunday.  No other

traders hardly ever stayed open on Sunday.  They had to

have a day of rest, and so many didn't go into town,

but they stayed and did–even when we were out there on

Sunday, we were in that store doin' business.  We were

doing bookkeeping or stocking shelves or doing

something.  If we didn't go out on picnics and things,

we were in the trading post working, even when we were

there on Sunday, but we didn't keep it open.

   

   Cole:  I have one more question about the Traders

Association.  Being the spouse of a trader, what was

your status at the annual meetings?  Were you involved

in the meeting?

   

   Kennedy: Yes, we could speak our minds, but we never

held offices or anything.  It was just the traders.  We

were more the partners to dance and have a good time.

We could offer our input and tell them what we thought.

We'd speak up about what we thought about things.  We

were never on the board or in an office or anything.

But it was a strong association during the hey-day of

the trading post.  Yes, it was a strong a strong

association.  And I think it's still doing good for the

traders, and it will continue to be known by the

donations that we've made.  Yesterday I went to a bank

stockholders meeting, and one of the board of