The Back Story

Exceprt from Lower Valley column, originally published December 23, 2015 Methow Valley News

Last week, the Methow Valley News began a five-part series featuring the history of the Miller family. I met Richard Wipple, a cousin of the Miller’s, after the Carlton Complex fires of 2014. There was a cold drizzle that day in October when I drove up to a tepee flying Seattle Seahawk colored ribbons. A large man, tall and broad-shouldered, met me. Despite the damp air, he wore a Seattle Seahawks T-shirt. A Seahawk cap kept the rain off his face. He offered me a diet Coke and spoke fondly of his family — memories of playing with his cousins, tales of his grandparents, and the strength of his mother. His name was Richard Wipple.
Richard agreed to meet with me at a later date to talk about his mother, Mary Marchand, who worked for decades to preserve the Salish language into a written format. Being a linguistics geek, I was intrigued. Richard passed away unexpectedly before we could meet again. I wrote a column about our conversation and, after it was published, I received a phone call. Wendy Snook interviewed Richard’s mother before Mary passed away in 2013. Over cups of coffee at Blue Star, Wendy shared her notes, and suggested that I contact Mark Miller, Mary’s nephew.
Mark and his sister Cyndy graciously agreed to share their memories of Mary, and other family members who worked to improve their communities. With their permission, I spoke with historians and contacted museum archives. Everyone I contacted held a deep respect and admiration for the Millers.
I was touched by their story, and I hope that everyone will be just as inspired while reading about their intimate connection to the Methow Valley.

The Methow Tribe - 500 Generations in the Methow Valley

Originally published 16 December 2015 Methow Valley News

Photo licensed under Creative Commons by photographer Surachit

The lower Methow Valley near Pateros was home to over 1,000 members of the Methow Tribe before the group was decimated by smallpox.

Traditions are strong in the Miller family, direct descendants of the Methow tribe

Editor’s note: For more than 13,000 years, Native Americans have lived along the waterways of the Pacific Northwest. Columbia River tribes share the names of waterways they call home: the Entiats, the Wenatchis, the Chelans, the Lakes, the Okanagans and the Methows.

Members of the Miller family are the longest known continuous residents of the Methow Valley. Descended from indigenous Methows, their story is told through generations by the intricacies of their artwork, their native language, their connection to the land and their dedication to building strong communities.

They generously agreed to share their story with the Methow Valley News. In a five-part series, we will share the history of the Methows through the Millers.

By Joanna Bastian

At a recent community meeting in Pateros, neighbors introduced themselves by sharing how long their family had lived in the area. Mark Miller stood, announced his name and quietly sat down. The meeting coordinator reminded him to share how many generations of his family had lived in the area.

“Well, as far as I can tell,” Mark said, “we’ve been here since the last Missoula flood,” referring to the cataclysmic floods that formed much of the dramatic topography across eastern Washington 8,000 years — or 300 generations — in the past. For as long as the Millers can remember, previous generations of their family have called the land along the banks of the Methow River “home.”

A few days later, Mark spoke with his friend, archaeologist Stan Gough from Eastern Washington University. Out of curiosity, he asked Gough what the records show in terms of human activity in the area.

Gough explained that Mark’s ancestors may have been in the area as early as 5,000 years before the Missoula floods. Recent finds of human activity in the Pacific Northwest provide evidence that people lived along the Columbia waterways for over 13,000 years. For anyone doing the math, that is approximately 520 generations of people.

A Methow community

Photo licensed under Creative Commons by photographer Joe Mabel
It was near this site — at the confluence of the Chewuch and Methow Rivers — that one of the larger groups of Methow Indians was living in the later 1800s when Pateros was founded further south, where the Methow River joins the Columbia.

When Lee Ives — the founder of Pateros, originally called Ives’ Landing — arrived at the confluence of the Columbia and Methow Rivers in 1886, he reported seeing a Native American settlement led by Chief Neekowit (also know as Captain Joe), made up of two dozen tepees. The Methows’ presence at one time consisted of villages located throughout the valley.

At the mouth of the Methow River, the town was referred to as “Captain Joe’s settlement” or “Bluffs at the Mouth of the River.” Larger settlements were located at the confluence of the Chewuch and Methow Rivers, the mouth of the Twisp River, and also at Benson Creek.

If Ives had arrived a generation earlier, he would have seen thousands of Native Americans.

Local historian E. Richard Hart offers a sobering insight to the impact of the smallpox epidemics on the Methows within just a few generations. “The prevailing theory is that the smallpox virus traveled up the Columbia, but there is another recent theory that it came from the eastern states,” Hart said. “During the late 1770s through the 1800s, a series of smallpox epidemics hit every other generation of Native Americans. They had no natural resistance and by the 19th century, the smallpox virus had killed 80 percent of the [Methow Valley Native American] population.”

Once home to nearly 2,000 Methow Indians, the valley in 1886 held only a few hundred. The flu epidemic of 1918 was another blow to the tribe.

One with the land

The Millers live on the very last Moses Allotment. The original Moses Reservation, formed in 1878, reached from the Spokane River to the Columbia River to Lake Chelan and north to the Canadian border. Less than a decade later, in 1886, miners and settlers pushed to claim these lands and pressured Congress to eliminate the entire Moses Reservation and force the Native Americans to move to the Colville reservation in the Okanogan Valley.

Chief Moses compromised, and negotiated the Moses Allotments. Every head of household along the Methow and Columbia Rivers who wished to remain on land they had lived on for generations was allotted 640 acres of surveyed land. Forty allotments were issued. The Miller family remains on the last existing allotment, MA 27, a piece of history in the Methow Valley.

The Miller family members in the lower Methow Valley are direct descendants of Chief Neekowit’s sister, Mary. Siblings Lewis Jr., Thomas Senior, Cyndy, and Mark, along with their families, live on land long inhabited by previous generations of the Methow Tribe. They are also the longest-known residents to continuously call the Methow Valley home.

On their father’s side, they are direct descendants of Sam Miller, founder of Wenatchee, and namesake to Miller Avenue there. Sam Miller married Chos Chostq of the Methow Valley. She was also known as Nancy Paul.

Mark and Cyndy’s mother, Elsie Miller, was the great-great- granddaughter of Chief Seattle. No matter where you look in the Miller family tree, each generation holds a compelling story of historical significance.

Honoring the past

Perhaps because of their long-held family ties, Memorial Day is bigger than Christmas for the Miller family. Multiple generations of extended family members come together to honor past generations by, “rebuilding, pulling together, and taking care of ‘here’. Doing it the right way,” Mark said.

As they gather to tend both graves and landscape, they tell stories, remembering the lives of the people buried there.

“To remember our sister Bobby is very compelling,” Cyndy said, fondly recalling her older sister Roberta Minnis, a cultural anthropologist.

A special assistant to Washington Gov. Dan Evans, Roberta was deeply involved in the civil rights movement and worked to improve conditions on Native American reservations. She called for an audit of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and promoted a reformation of the agency. She brought together tribes nationwide to identify common issues and coordinated groups to lobby Washington for change.

One common issue at that time was unemployment and poverty on reservations. The government would invest millions of dollars on reservation projects. Complete strangers would descend on the reservation to work, then disappear. The tribes never saw any employment opportunities from these million-dollar investments. Mark recalls the origin of Roberta’s idea that became the turning point of change: “she outlined this idea on a napkin in a hotel room,” he said. The idea was TERO — Tribal Employment Rights Office.

The goal was to reduce poverty on the reservations, increase employment, and eliminate discriminatory employment practices by requiring that each business venture on a reservation consider qualified local Native Americans for employment. In the first year, five tribes enrolled in TERO. Ten years later, every single tribe in the nation had signed on.

In 1978, after many days of driving long distances to meet with different tribal leaders around the nation, Roberta died in a car accident. Her family believes the accident was the result of pure exhaustion.

Family involvement is a common thread. Mark’s daughter Crystal also obtained her degree in cultural anthropology from the University of New Mexico and currently works with the Colville Confederated Tribes.

Traditions continue

Family is a continuous concept. Younger members of the family are selected to be the “hands and feet” of elders who need care. This practice of cultural responsibility and respect builds a strong connection between the generations of a family: the elders pass down stories and traditions to young adults, and the needs of the elderly are met.

It could be said that both Roberta and Crystal continued that connection into their adult years, by extending their knowledge and skills to both preserve the history of a culture, and ensure that the future needs of the people were met.

The land in the lower valley, with a view of the “Bluffs at the Mouth of the River” has always been home to the Millers. At times, the dynamics change — as young adults go to college, start jobs, and raise families of their own. But everyone eventually returns to care for their parents and grandparents, and to rebuild homes lost in floods and fires. As Mark and Cyndy spoke, the pride, love, and closeness of the family was palpable.

“This land, this family, this is what makes us the Millers,” Mark said with a smile.

WWII POWs from Pateros

Original publication date 11 December 2015 Methow Valley News


Roy Gebbers, Pete Joseph, and Jack Nickell
Photos courtesy of Chuck Borg

This week marks the 74th anniversary of the United States entering the Second World War. The Methow Valley felt the effects as gas, food and other materials were rationed. Men were drafted into service, women stepped into the work force, and children collected recyclables. Everyone felt the weight of the war. Seventy-two people from Okanogan County lost their lives. Three men from Pateros were captured and lived to tell the tale.
Roy Gebbers was 19 years old in February 1941 when he enlisted in the U.S. Army. The following month, he was already in action in the Philippines, defending Manila Bay from Japanese invasion.
On Dec. 7 and 8 of that year, Japan deployed multiple air strikes against the United States, attacking Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and Manila Bay in the Philippines. Gebbers was taken prisoner and started the Bataan Death March. Thousands of soldiers died of starvation, thirst and brutality as they marched 60 miles under the Philippine sun to a POW camp.
Pete Joseph graduated from Pateros High School in May 1942, and turned 18. He was a star athlete, often running home after basketball practice to his family’s home at Azwell. He was called into service with the U.S. Army Air Force in February 1943. Joseph’s wiry build was a perfect fit for the ball turret on the belly of a B-17. He underwent flight training and aerial gunnery practice before deploying to England shortly before D-Day.

Not long after Joseph arrived in England, Gebbers endured yet another nightmare as he was moved to Camp Hoten in Manchuria via hell ship Tattori Maru. Hell ships were overcrowded, and prisoners were starved and brutalized. The unmarked prisoner ships were targeted as enemy ships by the Allies, and were often under attack.
While Joseph was fighting for the Allies from his ball turret, and Gebbers was fighting for his life at sea, Jack Nickell turned 18 and joined the U.S. Army on Oct. 30, 1942.
Eleven days after Nickell enlisted, Gebbers landed at Camp Hoten in Manchuria. Reports by the U.S. Consulate show a tough life endured by men who were even tougher. Rations were slightly above a starvation diet. Prisoners were beaten and executed. Still, they found small ways to fight back: planning escape routes and performing small acts of sabotage.

On March 8, 1944, Joseph’s B-17 bomber was hit. He bailed out and fell so fast that his boots were ripped from his feet. He was captured and held in solitary confinement while the Gestapo guessed at his ancestry: Japanese, Filipino, Chinese or Mexican.
The Native American refused to speak, giving only name, rank, and serial number. He was transported to Stalag Luft 17B, home to 30,000 Allied POWs. Men slept three to a bunk and food was scarce. Conditions were brutal.
In November 1944, while Gebbers and Joseph planned their escapes from POW camps, Nickell landed at Marseilles, France. He fought in the Battle of Hatten on Jan. 9, 1945, and was captured. Nickell was sent to Stalag 9B, Bad Orb, Germany.
In April, Germany began losing its foothold. Nickell was liberated April 1, 1945. The Soviet army was advancing fast, and the Nazis did not wish to be captured — so they started clearing the camps. A week after Nickell gained freedom, Joseph, along with 4,000 other Americans, was forced by the Nazis to march 281 miles, as the Germans tried to clear the camp and move the prisoners.
Joseph’s ordeal was nearly over. On May 3, 1945, Patton’s 13th Armored Division caught up with his group, captured the Germans, and evacuated the prisoners to France. One member of the liberating unit was PFC Eddie Holbrook, also a Pateros man and friend of Joseph.
Gebbers remained in Manchuria until after the atomic bombs ended the war. Japan surrendered on the Aug. 14, and the Office of Strategic Services, precursor to the CIA, rescued Gebbers and his fellow POWs.
Gebbers returned to the United States in October 1945, and spent six months in medical rehabilitation. He was discharged from the service with honors in May 1946. Of his five years of service, three were spent as a POW. Gebbers served as Pateros’ chief of police for 25 years until he retired in 1977. He passed away in 1982.
Joseph rehabilitated and was discharged with honors in October 1945. His outfit, the 379th Bombardment Group, took some of the heaviest losses in the war. Joseph returned home and worked on the Columbia River hydroelectric projects. He passed away in 1991.
Nickell was honorably discharged from service in December 1945. He served on the Pateros school board. He was the mayor of Pateros in 1962, when the city council accepted the creation of Wells Dam. Nickell resigned in protest. He passed away in June 2013.