Page 64 - 1st Anthology 2011

The first to have a TV in black and white was James Starlight. You know up the hill. He
was the first one to have a TV on the reserve. On weekends all the guys would go up and

watch hockey night. I have to ask Mary Jane how did she like all those guys coming to
your house. She’s still alive Mary Jane. She probably remembers that too. They were a
good couple. Mary Jane was the nicest Chief’s wife.

I’m not too fond of beading, Katie’s good at it. Up north we weren’t really that type of
work, more ribbon. Adding ribbons and porcupine quills. More of that kind of
handicrafts. We do like bead work. With porcupine quills we do that more not too much
bead work. When the Crees started coming on to the reserve, we started doing bead

work.

My mother and my grandmother, my aunties and I did more ribbons and feathers, like
eagle feathers. I’m not for it. I like sewing. I can make dresses and Indian shirts and all
that. No bead work, not everybody’s cut out for that, but I can make moccasins. I can cut
it and make moccasins. Plain ones, I made one for Vera last year she said she still has
them.

You know something that really changed. I get uncomfortable wearing slacks, women
wore skirts and dresses. The women copied the trend of wearing slacks. I don’t remember
seeing some women wearing a dress. I remember seeing others wearing a dress. You know
I didn’t see too many women wearing slacks or jeans. Even myself, I didn’t. The change
happened in the 60’s because women started to work. They started to wear slacks. Now
everybody wears them even brown ones. It kind of bothers me. When I go to a special
function I try to wear a skirt because I’m a grandmother and to set that model. I’ve never
saw my grandmother wear slacks or my mother. I think she was raised up, off the reserve.

She copied that style you know white way. Up north there was group that dressed that
way too. We call them Métis Stoney.

I could picture her, Lucy Big Plume. She used to be the head of the Home Maker’s Club
for a long time. There was women’s Home Maker’s Club. She used to be the head of that.
Then May Whitney, Larry Whitney’s mother. She was a white woman that married on to
this reserve. So she use to head that Home Maker’s Club on the reserve.

We used to have a women’s group at the Anglican Church a women’s club. We use to call
it Women’s Auxiliary Club, that’s where your mother, Queenie, was really active. Your
grandmother Mary BigPlume. She used to be the head of it and it use to be good. We got
together monthly. Women getting together making things, raising money, I use to like it.

Now at the swearing in, I heard the Chief’s wife Brenda is going to be starting up the
th
Homemakers Club. January 11 I think she said at 6 o’clock at the administration office.
63