LES WILSON INTERVIEW

   

   

   [BEGIN SIDE 1]

   

   This is Brad Cole from Northern Arizona University.

It's Wednesday, March 31, 1999.  We're visiting with

Les Wilson at the Two Grey Hills Trading Post in Two

Grey Hills, New Mexico.  Also in the room is Gail

Steiger, running the camera equipment.  This interview

is part of the United Indian Traders Association Oral

History Project.

   

   Cole:  Les, I'd like to start with just a little bit

of your background, if you could tell us when and where

you were born.

   

   Wilson:  In 1948 in California.  I grew up in

California.  As soon as I finished high school there, I

went to college in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  That's where

I met Ray Drolet, who later offered me a job out at

Shonto.

   

   Cole:  When did you go to Shonto?

   

   Wilson:  I think I went to work out there at the end

of 1972.

   

   Cole:  And what are your memories of that?

   

   Wilson:  Well, I think that was sort of the tail end

of the "good ol' days" of trading, because it was a

very, very busy store.  Ray was the manager, working

for his parents.  I was the assistant manager, and we

had anywhere from three to four to even five clerks

workin' every day.  This was before people up there

could get to Page, to a supermarket, or before the

supermarkets had been built in Tuba City, Kayenta.  So

we were pretty much it for a large area, and it was one

busy place.

   

   Cole:  Was that a bullpen operation?

   

   Wilson:  No, it'd been converted to self-service,

oh, at least ten years before--probably early sixties.

There are pictures of it when it still had the bullpen.

Have you been to Shonto yet?  No?  You will, though.

   

   Cole:  Yeah.  And then what was that like for you?

Was it a pretty big shock, going out there?

   

   Wilson:  Well, it was, yeah, but I needed a job so I

just....  I was there about a week or so and Ray said,

"Take over, run the place, 'cause I'm goin' into

Farmington."  He stayed three or four days, and it was

kind of the "off the deep end" method of learning how

to run a trading post.  There was good help there that

told me what to do, so I could....

   

   Cole:  And then what were the living conditions like

at that time for you?

   

   Wilson:  I lived out in a stone cabin that had been

built in the back of the store.  I didn't live there at

first, I lived in the living quarters in the store.

Ray and I were both sort of bachelors then, and we

lived like bachelors--we never washed the dishes.  We

got frozen steak out of the store and fried it up every

night, and lived on steak, and corn flakes in the

morning.  It was primitive.  (chuckles)

   

   Cole:  And at that time was Shonto pretty much a

cash business?  Or was there still some barter that

went on?

   

   Wilson:  No, it was at least three-quarters credit,

I think.  Yeah, maybe more than three-quarters, and it

had always been a credit store, like all of them.

That's one reason we were so busy, I guess, 'cause it

was liberal with its credit.  Have you seen Bill Adams'

book on Shonto?

   

   Cole:  Unt-uh.

   

   Wilson:  The Smithsonian.  It was his Ph.D.

dissertation.

   

   Cole:  Was he out there when you were?

   

   Wilson:  He had been there in the fifties.  It's the

green Smithsonian book right there.

   

   Cole:  Oh, okay, yeah.

   

   Wilson:  You must have a copy of it at NAU.

   

   Cole:  I've seen the outside of it, but haven't

really looked at it.

   

   Wilson:  You need to dig into that.  Adams came back

in, I think it was 1974, while I was there.  He came

back in his 1946 Dodge pickup with a homemade camper on

the back, with his wife and two sons.  He stayed about

a week or so.  I understand that some of the things he

had to say in that book on Shonto were not well-

received by the Carson family, so he was kind of

persona non grata.  But while he stayed at Shonto in

1974, Ray and his family were on vacation or something,

so I was there, and I was glad to meet him, he's a real

interesting fellow.  He's had a career in archaeology.

But he had been the bachelor assistant trader there in

the late forties, I think it was.

   

   Cole:  And at Shonto was there still a lot of

weaving going on?

   

   Wilson:  Yeah.  What they specialized there were

saddle blankets, and large, thick rugs, rough rugs--

nothing like the fine Two Grey Hills here.  Oh, they

were heavy rugs, and they were all still mostly

handspun and died at home with aniline dyes.

   

   Cole:  Something you don't see much of here?

   

   Wilson:  I think the western side of the

reservation, they're still making handspun rugs, rough

ones.  But the rest of the reservation, except for

here, handspun has mostly died out.  It's all

commercial yarns now.

   

   But, see, the reason there were so many saddle

blankets up there, as you probably know, is due to

Stokey's [phonetic spelling, last name Carson]

influence, 'cause he kind of specialized in those, and

he shipped 'em out all over the country--the Navajo

saddle blanket.

   

   Cole:  Was that still a going concern when you were

there?

   

   Wilson:  Oh, yeah, very much.  And I think it

probably still is, probably with reduced numbers.  I

don't know.  Have you asked Al Townsend [phonetic

spelling]?

   

   Cole:  And then, do you speak Navajo yourself?

   

   Wilson:  I speak what you might call "trader's

Navajo."  It's store Navajo.  You get along okay in the

store, but you lose it outside in another situation.

   

   Cole:  How long did it take you to learn that?

   

   Wilson:  Oh, just as soon as you go to work, I

guess, you start pickin' it up.  I think Ray told me,

"The first thing you need to learn is how to say 'no.'"

Since we were doing a lot of credit business, you had

to say no sometimes.

   

   Cole:  At what point did you feel like you were

accepted by the Navajo?

   

   Wilson:  Oh, just a week or two.  I did get into a

fight with a guy that threatened to come back and kill

me that night, and that was probably during the first

six months.  I've been at three different stores--

that's happened at each store.  You'll get in a fight

with somebody when you're still relatively new there.

   

   Steiger:  Do you think it's like they're testin'

ya'?

   

   Wilson:  It could be somethin' like that, yeah.  But

once that was over with....

   

   Cole:  Did you ever get a Navajo nickname?

   

   Wilson:  Yeah, I was called Dághá_chíí’, which means

"Red Moustache."  It used to be red--it's grey now, but

it used to be red.

   

   Cole:  Did that name follow you over here?

   

   Wilson:  It's followed, yeah, as far as I know.

They probably call me something else, too.

   

   Cole:  And after Shonto, what was your next stop?

   

   Wilson:  I left Shonto I guess at the end of 1976.

I worked for a short time at Tuba City at the Chevron

station that used to be on the corner there.  It's been

replaced by a big convenience store, but it used to be

a standard gas station, and I sort of co-managed that

place.  Did a lot of flat tire repairs and things.

That was just a temporary job, maybe less than six

months.  Then I went on to Many Farms, and I stayed at

Many Farms for six years--Many Farms, Arizona.

   

   Cole:  Were you working at a trading post there?

   

   Wilson:  There was a store there.  The tribe had

actually built the store, I think in the forties.

There was a movement to get the tribe into the trading

business, but they soon gave up on managing it, so it

went back to private hands.  In other words, Many Farms

Trading Company is not one of the real old stores.  But

I went to work for the owners there and stayed six

years.

   

   Cole:  Who were those owners?

   

   Wilson:  It was owned by Keith Redd out of

Monticello, Utah.  He was partnered with somebody else,

but he bought out his partner and put me to work as his

manager.  They've since torn that down and replaced

that with a convenience store.

   

   Cole:  And did they have a pretty big rug business

there at all?

   

   Wilson:  Oh, a fair-sized rug business.  They made a

lot of nice Yé’iis, a lot of general rugs, rugs that

you could call Ganado style or Chinle style.  I got 'em

all there--kind of specialized in Yé’iis over there.

There is one in our stack here that came from over

there.  I don't know where it is.  I think right there.

   

   Cole:  Yeah, I can see about....

   

   Wilson:  The first ten years I was here, weavers

from Many Farms would still come and see me and bring

their rugs to me here.  But it's kind of faded out, now

that I've been here sixteen years.

   

   Steiger:  They just liked doin' business with you?

   

   Wilson:  I guess they did, yeah.

   

   Cole:  Keith Redd, was he in the trading business

elsewhere?

   

   Wilson:  He was the Exxon distributor for Kayenta,

Inscription House, Shonto, Monticello, Blanding--all

that.  Mormon family, the Redds up there.

   

   Cole:  That's a pretty big Southern Utah name.  And

then from Many Farms you came to Two Grey Hills?

   

   Wilson:  That's right, in 1983.  I finally ended up

in a squabble with the Redd family and I quit.  Came to

work here.  Marie Leighton still owned Two Grey Hills.

She and Willard Leighton had bought it, somewhere

around 1950, and she had held onto it.  Willard died in

1958, and she had held onto it all those years.  She

had different managers.  She had Derald Stock here for

a long time, who was a co-owner.  But when he died,

Marie bought out his widow's half and put me to work as

manager here.  I worked for her about two years, maybe

three years, and then I bought it from Marie.

   

   Cole:  So you've been here then since 1983?

   

   Wilson:  Since 1983, yeah.  Let's see, Two Grey

Hills has had nine owners in its 102 years of

existence.  I'm the ninth owner, and I just beat the

record.  Ed Davies was here fifteen years, and now I'm

the longest-lived trader at Two Grey Hills at sixteen

years.

   

   Cole:  And what years was Ed Davies here?

   

   Wilson:  From 1909 to 1924.

   

   Cole:  And maybe tell us a little bit about the Two

Grey Hills rugs.

   Wilson:  They're famous.  They were famous as far

back as 1904, we found out, because we came across....

Well, Win Wetherill, one of the Wetherill brothers,

owned the store from 1904 to I think 1908, something

like that.  There's a quote from him where he says that

the weavers around Two Grey Hills make the best rugs,

or make very good rugs.  So something started long ago

to produce the best.  At that time they were still

making red and blue and yellow and green--general rugs

like you see everywhere.  Nowadays those are usually

called J. B. Moore rugs.  They're not just specifically

J. B. Moore's designs, though.

   

   I think about 1910 the first experiments in using

brown and grey natural wool colors began, with a black

border.  And today's style just evolved.

   

   Cole:  Have you had any involvement in trying to

change the style yourself at all?

   

   Wilson:  No, I don't try to change it.  I make

suggestions to weavers on improving things.  Generally

we don't have an influence.

   

   Cole:  How many weavers in the area do you still

work with?

   

   Wilson:  Well, a lot of people ask how many Two Grey

Hills weavers are there?  I usually say, "I think

there's a hundred."  That would include little girls

and old ladies and people that don't weave anymore, but

know how.  There's gotta be at least a hundred.  We

don't buy from that many.  They can take their rugs

elsewhere.  But we buy just about everything we can,

including the very rough stuff, like Mary

Silversmith's.  (pulls out an example)  That's the best

she can do.  Lack of a design there.  She starts out

with a design at this end, but she loses it before she

gets to the top.  So we don't just buy the best, we try

to buy everybody's.

   

   Cole:  Why do you do that?

   

   Wilson:  Well, for one thing, we have clientele that

can spend different levels of money.  But you need to

support all the weavers, not just the best, or there

eventually won't be any best.  There has to be the

whole supporting cast of people with different levels

of skill, in order to produce the finest.  And part of

our mission here is to keep the fine weaving alive.

   

   Cole:  Since you started in 1972, and now working

here for fifteen, sixteen years, what are the big

changes that you've seen in the trading business?

   

   Wilson:  Probably the collapse of the credit system.

It still exists, but on a small scale.  And, you know,

the beginning of a different economy where people spend

most of their money in town, the border towns.  They

travel a lot.  The roads have improved, so they've left

the local stores, and we've become sort of a

convenience stop.  Gasoline is probably our biggest

seller now, instead of a large grocery business, we

have a small grocery business.  We were two-thirds

credit, in 1983 here, when I took over, and we're down

to about 25 percent or less now.  The big credit

accounts were mostly old people here, elderlies that

got Social Security, SSI checks.  Unfortunately, a lot

of those good accounts, or the owners of those

accounts, have passed away, or gone into nursing homes,

and we miss them--the store misses them.

   

   Two Grey Hills also used to have a lot of rug

accounts--you know, credit paid off with weaving.  And

we're down to about two or three on those.

   

   Cole:  How does a Navajo approach selling a rug?  I

know it used to be a trader would usually give credit,

and they'd produce it.  Has that changed dramatically?

   

   Wilson:  Mostly they just come in with the rug now,

and want to sell it for cash, and we pay cash.  One

thing that probably never has changed, the rugs are

always rolled up in a piece of sheet or a pillowcase or

blanket or something.  I think they've done that since

the old days, when they bring it in.

   

   Cole:  Do they shop the rug around?  Or do they

just....

   

   Wilson:  Not a whole lot.  I think some weavers do.

I will make an offer on rugs, and they'll shop it

around and sometimes come back and take my offer.  It's

not easy to buy rugs, it's always been a difficult

thing to judge the quality of a rug and what you can

sell it for when it first comes in.  Stokey Carson once

told me that all his life he'd been paying too much for

the bad rugs and not enough for the good rugs.  It was

always hard for him to get it just right.  I consider a

lot of what I know about trading, or the way I treat

customers and the way I do things, the way I run the

store, to come from Stokey and his family, because

they're the people I worked for first.

   

   Cole:  What were some of their main philosophies or

tenets in the business?

   

   Wilson:  Well, they liked the Navajos, or they

wouldn't have lived with them.  Stokey was a sheepman,

too, and he brought up his four daughters on mutton.

They always loved their mutton, all the time I knew

them.  Sunday dinner was mutton.

   

   Is Mildred Heflin still alive?

   

   Cole:  Uh-huh, she's on our list.

   

   Wilson:  Is she in good shape?

   

   Cole:  Apparently she's still doin' pretty well.

   

   Wilson:  Good.  Have you talked to any of her kids?

They don't have direct memories of working in stores,

but Nina and Richard Mike own and operate the Burger

Kings that are around.  I think you ought to talk to

both Nina and Richard.

   

   Cole:  Yeah, that's right, 'cause it seems like--

isn't Nina, Hank Blair's wife's sister, too?

   

   Wilson:  Yeah.  Richard is Hank’s wife’s brother.

Nina is the daughter of Mildred Hefllin.

   

   Cole:  Tied-in there somehow.

   

   Wilson:  Uh-huh.  I think Richard would have some

perspectives you could use.  Definitely talk to

Mildred.

   

   Cole:  Yeah, she's on the list.

   

   Wilson:  She must be way up in her eighties by now.

   

   Cole:  She's eighty-four, eighty-five, something

like that.

   

   I'm sort of curious, when you buy a rug, how long do

you usually end up having to hold it before it'll turn?

   

   Wilson:  Anywhere from a week to five years.  It's

real inconsistent.  It just depends on your tourist

trade.  This store has a heavy tourist trade--

especially in the summer months.  We probably couldn't

survive without it.  As a grocery and gas stop, it

wouldn't survive.  It needs both parts of the business

here to remain in business.

   

   Cole:  When you were out at Shonto, did you get many

tourists out there?

   

   Wilson:  A fair number, but not as many as here.

It's not as famous.  We sold probably more to dealers

out there--wholesaled our rugs and pottery and baskets.

Pottery and baskets were both important there, which we

don't have here.

   

   Cole:  Do you get much jewelry through here?

   

   Wilson:  A little bit, not much.  It's the weaving

that's famous.

   

   Steiger:  Is that what brings the tourists?

(Wilson:  Yeah.)  ___________ Two Grey Hills?

   

   Wilson:  Yeah.

   

   Cole:  You had mentioned how the Navajo economy had

changed.

   

   Wilson:  Well, it's in the pits.  It's always been

in the pits.  (chuckles)

   

   Cole:  How about their philosophy towards economics?

I know they have a different philosophy of that.

   

   Wilson:  Oh, we're still from two different

universes, it seems like, yeah.  A lot of customers

don't see things the way business owners see things.

That's one of Richard Mike's gripes, you'll hear that

from him when you talk to him.  He's not really a

trader, but he's in business, from the Navajo point of

view, somewhat.

   

   I don't know, there's one story you just can't kill.

It's been in circulation for years and years, and it

keeps showing up in newspaper articles and magazine

articles.  A little old lady brings a rug into a

trading post and she gets five dollars' worth of coffee

and sugar for it, and then the reporter finds later

that the rug has been marked $500--or a similar story.

And we just can't kill that story.  It just can't be

true, or we would all be driven out of business.  It's

sort of a prejudicial story that just bugs the heck out

of me.  You know, the trader exploiting the innocent

victims.

   

   Cole:  When you had started in 1972, that would have

been right about the time of the FTC hearings.

   

   Wilson:  Yeah, I heard about those.

   

   Cole:  Did you have any involvement in that, or any

memories of that?

   

   Wilson:  Well, only--we took a lot of pawn at that

time, at Shonto, so I handled the old stuff, the old

jewelry that was in circulation.  I never cared much

for jewelry since then--the new stuff doesn't impress

me at all after handling that old heavy stuff, bridles

and bracelets and so on.  But they tightened up the

regulations to make it illegal to actually profit from

the pawn.  And there was a major robbery of pawn

jewelry at Cameron Trading Post.  I don't know what

year that was--maybe 1974, thereabouts.  So Ray and his

family decided to stop taking pawn.  That's probably

the major influence those FTC regulations had on that

store.  The credit we continued to operate about like

we always had.

   

   Cole:  What about with your business here?  Can you

operate the credit the same way?  Or have they

tightened up regulations?

   

   Wilson:  There is very little enforcement of any

rules.  There doesn't need to be, because credit's a

dying thing anyway.  We're down to about twenty, twenty-

four accounts, I think.  When I came, there was, oh,

200, something like that.

   

   Cole:  And as far as pawn, you've never....

   

   Wilson:  We've never pawned since I've been here,

yeah.

   

   Steiger:  And again, the reasons for the

disappearance of the credit trade?  The old people....

   

   Wilson:  Well, they're the most trustworthy

customers, and have been, and the population is

shrinking.  The pawn has moved off reservation, and

it's almost become....  The big thing now is cars,

trucks, trailers, horse trailers.  I mean, that's out

of control.  You drove up from Gallup this morning?

Did you see the yard there at Tohlakai?  The Thriftway

pawn operation there.  He's gotta have 200 vehicles

behind the fence, depriving everybody of their

transportation for hundred-dollar loans.  So I don't

like what pawn has become.  I'm opposed to it now.

   

   Steiger:  On your credit accounts, you're basin' 'em

more on just the trustworthiness of your accounts?

   

   Wilson:  Yeah.

   

   Steiger:  Rather than them havin' to leave something

for collateral.

   

   Wilson:  That's right.  There's no collateral.  It's

mostly people that have had an account for years--and

two or three of the best weavers.

   

   Cole:  When you were at Shonto, compared to now,

have the goods that they want, changed?  Or the goods

that sell the most?

   

   Wilson:  Well, up there we were able to sell a lot

of hardware and things that had to do with rural

living.  You know, kerosene devices and tack for

animals and so on.  A lot of that, there's just too

many other....  We sold a lot of dry goods, hardware.

But there's too many other outlets for all that now in

town.  Like in this store, this store had it all, too,

but we're reduced mostly to groceries and gas.  And

even the grocery sales have shrunk, but the gasoline

stays steady, because people are on the go all the time

and want to drive.  It's hard to find a Navajo at home.

They're always driving somewhere.

   

   Steiger:  And that wasn't the case eighteen years

ago?

   

   Wilson:  The roads have improved, so it couldn't

have been as much, yeah.

   

   Cole:  Were you a member of the United Indian

Traders Association, or are you a member?, I should

say.

   

   Wilson:  Yeah, I guess we still are.  Yeah, this

store was for years.

   

   Cole:  What about at Shonto?

   

   Wilson:  At one time I was an officer.  I forgot

even what office I held, but it was for just one term,

when the Association was in the dying stages.  Must

have been early eighties or so.

   

   Cole:  Do you remember about how many members there

were then?

   

   Wilson:  Gosh, no.  I don't have any hard

information on that.  They were still having annual

meetings in Gallup or Farmington, or once or twice in

Flag.  But those kind of fizzled out, I'm not sure

when, 1985, 1987, somewhere in there.

   

   Cole:  Do you remember any of the issues they were

talking about during your involvement?

   

   Wilson:  Well, the first meeting I went to was

probably in the early seventies, and they were still

talking about the FTC hearings.  No, we talked about

dealings with the tribe, and how difficult that was.  I

don't know, it was a get-together, but nothing much

ever got resolved.  Leasing, I guess, was the primary

concern--how to get the leases from the tribe

processed.  It's still a concern.  The leasing process

is still in chaos, it's never been straightened out.  A

lot of stores operate without leases.

   

   Cole:  How does that work for you here?

   

   Wilson:  Well, when I bought this from Marie

Leighton, her lease ran out.  We went through all the

proper steps of applying.  We got it approved by the

tribe and everything.  It took eleven years to get that

far.  They had my wife and I sign the lease and send it

back to 'em, which we did.  Now another three years

have gone by.  We still don't have the lease.

   

   Cole:  Do you think you'll get your lease?

   

   Wilson:  Yeah, but I don't even think about it

anymore.  We are not paying rent.  I would be glad to

be paying rent, as soon as I have that lease in my

hands.  So the longer it takes, the less rent I have to

pay.

   

   Cole:  So actually the tribe owns the trading post?

   

   Wilson:  Yeah.  They own it all, they just don't act

like landlords.

   

   Steiger:  When a faucet leaks, they don't come and

fix it?

   

   Wilson:  No, they're not about to fix anything.

When the stores are abandoned, the attitude seems to

be, "We couldn't care less," 'cause you've seen

probably some of the abandoned stores and how they're

just burned up or torn down.

   

   Cole:  So would you describe the UITA then as more

of a--would it have been more of a social organization?

   

   Wilson:  Well, it was in the years that I knew it.

I guess they did a lot of good in the nineteen twenties

and thirties and forties and fifties.  Did you talk to

John Kennedy?

   

   Cole:  Yes.  He was really good.

   

   Wilson:  He can tell you--I can't.  I don't know

that much about it.

   

   Cole:  And so your experience, maybe describe what

an annual meeting was like that you went to.

   

   Wilson:  Us younger traders didn't have a whole lot

to do with it.  There was a couple of blowhards among

the older generation that did all the talking and

complaining.  We were there just as observers, I think.

I always hoped something would come of the Indian

traders in the 1980s, but instead it just went down.

As there were less and less working traders, less and

less people with economic stakes out here, there seemed

to be less need for that organization, and the tribe

seemed to be harder and harder to deal with.  I think

we all did best just dealing on an individual basis.

As an organization, it didn't have any clout anymore.

I've always done pretty well with people in the tribe,

just face-to-face, one-on-one.  So the organization

became kind of irrelevant by the time it died.

Remember, it's not technically dead, it still exists.

Bill Foutz is the one interested in keeping it alive.

So he needs to call a meeting, if it's still alive.

   

   Cole:  (chuckles)  What kind of impact has the

Thriftways had on the trading posts?

   

   Wilson:  Well, it had a lot to do—that one company

had a lot to do with the demise of most trading posts--

probably more than anyone will ever know, because they

had an inside track with the tribe.  They brought

influence to bear on people and got what they wanted.

During the eighties there were no leases being written

for any trading post.  Everyone was on hold.  A few got

temporary, three-year leases, or five-year leases.  But

during that time, Thriftway was putting up a new store

once a month, on every highway intersection.  It just

happened, and it couldn't have happened without someone

greasing the skids.

   

   Cole:  Yeah.  And they were actually getting leases

for those, then?

   

   Wilson:  A lot of theirs were on subleases.  A

Navajo would get a lease, and Thriftway would take over

his lease.  For instance, the councilman at Many Farms

had two or three business site leases, and they became

Thriftways.  And presumably a councilman knows better

than anyone else how to get a lease.  So I don't know

if you're going to dig into that or not.

   

   Where Thriftway goes, where it went, it provided

pretty stiff competition for these old broken-down

trading post buildings, because they had the bright

lights and the nice new buildings.  And they would just

undercut everyone on the gas price, so it became pretty

tough to deal with.

   

   Steiger:  Gas was a loss-leader then?

   

   Wilson:  Uh-huh.

   

   Cole:  What kind of traits makes a good trader?

   

   Wilson:  What kind of traits, or what kind of

customers?

   

   Steiger:  Characteristics.

   

   Cole:  What characteristics yourself do you

think....

   

   Wilson:  You just have to be reasonably honest, and

you have to like the Navajos.  I don't know!

(chuckles)  I'm not sure I'm successful.  I've kept

this place alive.  That's sort of my goal.

   

   Cole:  What do you like about the Navajo people?

   

   Wilson:  I just consider them down-to-earth,

ordinary people.  I'm married to a Navajo, so maybe

that helps.  I've been married to two of them.  I first

married a lady from the Shonto area, and I had two kids

by her.  And when we split up, I raised those kids.

It's the two boys in the picture up there, holding the

big rug.  But they've grown up and mostly left the nest

now, and I've remarried to a lady from Sanostee over

here.  So I'm kind of part of the Navajos, I guess.

   

   Cole:  Did your wives work in the trading post?

   

   Wilson:  No, never.  Well, my first wife,

occasionally, but not formally.

   

   Cole:  Have you had any other family involved in

your business?

   

   Wilson:  No, I'm not a member of one of the trading

families.  I just came by myself.  So, no, I'm kind of

a loner.  I don't know if my kids will be interested in

this store or not--it's too early to tell.

   

   Cole:  What do you think you've meant to this

community?

   

   Wilson:  I've heard Navajos say, "Oh, you still have

a nice store here.  Where I come from"--you know,

visitors--"where I come from, we lost our trading post

long ago, and we miss it."  I've heard them say that.

So it does mean something to 'em.  Maybe you need to

interview some Navajos.  I don't know who I could

suggest, but you need something from their perspective.

   

   Cole:  We've done a few, and hope to do a few more.

We're hoping maybe somebody will try to continue, get

another grant and work on customers.  We've actually

done a project at NAU before I came, where they

interviewed exclusively Navajos and their experiences

with traders.  So we have that.

   

   Wilson:  That's good.

   

   Cole:  The other day we interviewed Peterson Zah,

just mainly out of his interest in--because he was so

involved with the DNA.

   

   Wilson:  Yeah, he was.  (brief break, tape turned

off and on)  So I'm gonna go back to old rolled

roofing, which is the way it was built up here.

   

   Cole:  Well, Les, do you still have any livestock

business?

   

   Wilson:  No, we don't.  There are sheep here, but my

wife owns those.  She inherited them from her mother

when Grandma died.  We do sell wool--some from our own

sheep, and some from wherever we can get it.  We

actually take the wool and clean it ourselves, wash it,

and have it carded.  And then we can sell that product

back to weavers, and they can spin from it.  Then they

can continue to produce handspun rugs, instead of using

commercial yarn.  Now the reason we have to do that, is

because most families don't have a flock of sheep

anymore--even the weaving families.  Sheep raising, as

you probably know, has gone way down on the reservation

in twenty years, and it's been replaced by cows and

horses, or people just don't lead that kind of

lifestyle anymore.  They don't herd sheep in the

numbers that they used to.  So we're tryin' to fill the

demand there for good wool that goes into Two Grey

Hills.

   

   Cole:  Where does all your wool come from?

   

   Wilson:  Local people.  We'll just buy the weaving

wool, the colors--and even then, not in large

quantities, but what we need to have processed.  Or not

processed, but cleaned and carded.

   

   Cole:  And then you were talking about your wife has

Churo sheep?

   

   Wilson:  Uh-huh, she's got about twenty of 'em out

in the corral.

   

   Cole:  And what color of wool?

   

   Wilson:  We've got browns--not much grey, but mostly

browns and light browns.  A couple of white ones.  Need

more grey.  The brown wool is in short supply,

especially the dark brown, like in this rug here.

There just isn't enough of it.  When we have it for

sale, it sells out fast to the good weavers.  It's a

lot of work to clean it and card it and get it for

sale, but it's worth it to maintain the integrity of

these rugs.  Some of the rugs here are made of

commercial yarn, like the one I'm holding up.  But even

then, this weaver has used a natural handspun dark

brown right here.  The rest of the rug is commercial.

We'll continue to buy their rugs if they've used

commercial yarn, but we do everything we can to promote

hand spinning, because it's a superior product, makes a

superior rug.

   

   Cole:  So they actually then do the spinning

themselves?

   

   Wilson:  Yeah, most of 'em still do, and still use

the Navajo spindle.  There's other ways to spin, but

they haven't really caught on among the Navajo weavers.

   

   Cole:  Does your wife do any weaving herself?

   

   Wilson:  Well, she would if she had the time, but

she's a mental health social worker.  So she spins a

lot, yeah.  She spins when we travel in the car, or

just to relax at the end of the day, she'll spin.

She's trying to finish a rug she started eighteen years

ago.  She had it rolled up and put away.  Just recently

she put it back on the loom.  You can do that.  You can

take one down half finished and roll it up, and then

string it up again in the future.

   

   Cole:  I'm sort of interested with those folks that

dropped in.  Do you get a lot of large tours like that?

   

   Wilson:  We're startin' to get more and more, yeah.

I guess bit by bit we're moving away from being a

traditional trading post to one that's a little more

oriented toward tourism, and people looking for

history, people looking for an authentic old store.

But we don't want it to completely turn into a "frozen

in time" situation like Hubbell's is.  We want it to

remain a real working store.  I mean, Hubbell's is

good, it preserves a piece of history, but it's kind of

a museum exhibit, too.  I think Billy Malone wants to

keep it a working store.  But he's real limited as to

what he can do there, by the Park Service and so on.

   

   Steiger:  The historic register, too?  Are they on

that?

   

   Wilson:  Hubbell's?

   

   Steiger:  Yeah.

   

   Wilson:  They must be.

   

   (several inaudible comments)

   

   Wilson:  We're on the State of New Mexico Register

of Historic Sites.  And I don't know, I'd like to be on

the federal, if we could.  But we are on the state

register.

   

   Cole:  Have you ever tried to nominate it for the

federal register?

   

   Wilson:  I don't know how to get started on that.

It was hard enough to get it on the state.

   

   Cole:  Sometimes usually if you have it on the

state, then you're kind of over halfway there.

   

   Wilson:  Yeah.  Well, maybe it's comin'.

   

   Cole:  Why did you stay in the business--why do you?

   

   Wilson:  I've just done it long enough it's too late

to move on to something else, I guess.  It's not a way

to make a large amount of money anymore.  It may have

been at one time, but it's not now.  But it provides a

living for yourself and your family.

   

   Cole:  What kinds of differences do you see between

the trading posts like yourself, that's on the

reservation, versus the trading posts that are off the

reservation?

   

   Wilson:  Well, they're almost like two different

things, two different types of business.  The ones off

the reservation are strictly arts and crafts:  they buy

and sell and take pawn.  We're still trying to be a

community general store.  As you were saying earlier, I

think we live with the Navajos in a different way than

the store owners in town do.  I mean, we're just part

of the community here.

   

   Cole:  What are some of your favorite memories as a

trader?

   

   Wilson:  Oh, I don't know.  I like living away from

town.  I'm the kind of person that doesn't like to be

in the big city, so maybe it's a good place for someone

like that.  Other traders that I've known that have

stayed for a while are the kind of people that can't

take the big city.  But as for memories, I don't know,

I've had good times.

   

   Cole:  Do you have much involvement with the

different ceremonials, like Gallup or the Window Rock

fairs or any of that?

   

   Wilson:  Yeah, a little involvement.  We had a

display at last year's ceremonial in Gallup, and we're

gonna do that again this year.  Two years ago, our

centennial, we had a big celebration.  We put a lot of

time and effort into that.  We had maybe a thousand

people here.  I think it was probably the largest crowd

ever to gather at Two Grey Hills.  I estimate maybe 500

Navajos, 500 tourists/visitors--an all-day thing that

was real successful, with games and speeches and music

and dancing and open house.  We repeated it last year.

We're gonna do that every year.  It's gonna be this

year June 27.  So far we don't have a name for it,

other than the Third Annual Centennial.

   

   Cole:  Sounds like fun!

   

   Wilson:  Not a bicentennial, but "second annual,"

"third annual," "fourth annual."

   

   Cole:  What do you think of the future of the

trading business?

   

   Wilson:  It doesn't have much future, except the

pawn operations.  So I don't know, I guess we could

last quite a while, doing what we're doing.  It's an

institution worth preserving.  We have a role to play

in the community.  If we can do that successfully,

they'll let us stay here.

   

   Cole:  And how about the future of Navajo arts and

crafts?

   

   Wilson:  It's in danger.  I mean, the quantity of

good rugs being woven is way down, but still healthy.

So there needs to be people like ourselves working with

weavers and doing all we can to promote weaving.  I

can't say much about silver and baskets and so on,

'cause I don't know that much about it.  Weaving needs

encouragement, and other traders like Bill [Malone] and

Bruce Burnham, they're all doing their part.  All of us

need to do our part.  Weaving probably would have died

sixty, seventy years ago, without traders promoting it.

It would have died again in the 1950s without traders

promoting it.  So it's a mutual thing.  The traders

have been an important part of keeping it going.

   

   Cole:  And as far as yourself, when you look back at

the short time you've been in trading, would you change

anything about that, if you could?

   

   Wilson:  Change?  How do you mean, what would I

change?

   

   Cole:  As far as if you could change anything in

your life or work.

   

   Wilson:  Oh, what I've done?

   

   Cole:  Yeah.

   

   Wilson:  No, I'm happy with what I've done.  I just

wish financially it was a better thing to do.  It's

been difficult to keep this store going, especially

about the first ten years I was here.  It was

struggling at that time, and it'd been struggling for

some time before that, too.  And then so have the

others--that's why they're not there anymore.

   

   You were mentioning quantity and quality of arts and

crafts.  Take a look in the picture book there of the

rug room at the Gallup Mercantile Company in 1941.

Oop! turned right to it!  And look at that pile of

rugs.

   

   Cole:  Holy smokes!

   

   Wilson:  There isn't anyplace, anywhere--Garland's

or anywhere--that has a pile like that now.

   

   Cole:  The biggest pile I think I've seen is

probably down at Hubbell.

   

   Wilson:  Yeah, and that'd just be a small fraction

of this.

   

   Cole:  Probably be an eighth of that, or something,

at that.

   

   Wilson:  Well, Gallup Merc., of course, supplied a

lot of stores, so they undoubtedly took those rugs in

payment for their merchandise.  There's 5,000 rugs

there, I think.

   

   Cole:  Yeah.  That's amazing.  How many rugs do you

have when you're really stocked up?

   

   Wilson:  Oh, a hundred or so, at most.

   

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

   

   Wilson:  No.  (chuckles)

   

   Cole:  Gail, any other questions?

   

   Steiger:  Can't think of any.

   

   Cole:  Well, thanks, Les.  Like I mentioned, we'll

make a copy of this and send it over to you.  We have a

transcriptionist who'll transcribe it.  That takes a

lot longer to do, because the person types it out and I

have some students that go through and recheck stuff.

   

   Wilson:  When do you think the exhibit will be up

inside NAU?  Where will it be, the library?

   

   Cole:  It's gonna be in the library.  We have a

small exhibit area.  We've set a date, the third

weekend in October.  I'll send that in a letter.

   

   Wilson:  Oh, this here?

   

   Cole:  Yeah.

   

   Wilson:  That soon, huh?

   

   Cole:  We're hoping to have that, and the web

exhibit up.  We're going to be working on the CD ROM

project and we're gonna try to add a lot more documents

and stuff like that, to that, and make that available

to high schools and stuff like that around, sort of as

kind of a library resource.  So that'll probably take a

little longer to put all that together, 'cause we want

to go over to Farmington and kind of see what they have

in the college there, and see maybe if they'd be

willing to let us do some.

   

   Wilson:  In the college?

   

   Cole:  I think maybe Stokes Carson's stuff is there.

   

   Wilson:  Some of that went to the Farmington Museum.

   

   Cole:  The museum, yeah.

   

   Wilson:  In fact, when Ray and I were batchin' it at

Shonto, there was an old Westinghouse refrigerator--big

square thing, double size--that the store had

originally got so they could finally have cold pop when

they had a generator.  That thing was still running in

the 1970s.  It'd been running for fifty years, it

refrigerated perfectly.  We mostly had it filled with

steak and beer, 'cause that's what we were livin' off

at the time.  And that refrigerator Ray donated to the

Farmington museum.  And they've set up a little trading

post exhibit.  I don't know if it's still up.  It was

up a couple of years ago.

   

   Cole:  Yeah, I know.  We interviewed Edie Kennedy,

and she had kind of big [plans].  I guess they're

gettin' a new building, and a component of that is

going to be a trading post exhibit.

   

   Wilson:  Oh, they're not going to give up on that?

Okay.

   

   Cole:  With the money I guess the Traders

Association gave them.

   

   Wilson:  Yeah, we gave 'em a chunk of money.

   

   Cole:  So that's kinda....  She's really into that.

   

   Wilson:  Well, take a look at that refrigerator if

you get there.  And other stuff that Ray donated.  You

need to go see him.  You have his address and all that?

   

   Cole:  Yeah, Willow gave that to us.  He's in

Albuquerque right now.

   

   Wilson:  Yeah, his interest was in European history,

and he went off and studied that, workin' towards a

doctorate or something in that.

   

   Cole:  Right.

   

   Wilson:  Even though he grew up out at Carsons' and

he knows the Navajos.  My wife has been a social worker

over in that area around Carson, and she says that all

the people there know Ray, and they think of him as

their son.

   

   Cole:  That's great.

   

   Steiger:  You know, I do have one question.  Is

there anything, like if you think of your great-

grandkids lookin' at this sometime, or somethin' like

that, is there anything you want them to know about, or

whatever, way down the line?

   

   Wilson:  I'd want them to keep the store going.  If

it goes through an inheritance thing, yeah.  It'd be

neat if it could go for two hundred years.  That's

really a stretch, but it might happen.

   

   Cole:  Well, thanks again.

   

   Wilson:  Okay.

   

   Cole:  Boy, that sure is a nice rug there.

   

   Wilson:  Yeah, but I just sold it.  This weaver's

eighty-two years old.  She's a mostly unrecognized

master of weaving.  Another big one of hers is over

there, and that's also been sold.  I hope she can weave

ten more years.  It would be nice.  She may not last

that long.  This is the best, there's nothing finer.

There's finer weave, like the tapestries rolled up in

the cabinet, but for conception of design and the

execution and the workmanship and everything, this is

the best.  This is Ramona Curley, handspun from wool

from her own flock.

   

   Cole:  Does she have any daughters or descents that

are taking it up?

   

   Wilson:  Yeah, her daughter, Mary Clah, is just as

good as she is, and Mary will weave for a long time to

come.  The granddaughter also knows how, but she's got

ten kids and she doesn't do it.

   

   Cole:  Does Ramona Curley still live a real

traditional lifestyle?

   

   Wilson:  Pretty much, yeah.  Like a lot of people in

this area, she's gotten electricity and water the last

few years, and probably lived a more comfortable life

lately than she ever did before.  There's a picture of

Ramona up there.  No, not that one--just a Polaroid.

So we sold this one in less than a month.

   

   Cole:  A tourist?

   

   Wilson:  Yeah, he had looked at it a week ago, and

then decided to buy it.  It's no problem selling the

very best of the weaving.  It can be more difficult

with second-best.

   

   

   

   [END OF INTERVIEW]