https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/d3ba0469ae5f1519b4b1d0e51245cb4d.pdf c810f46e5c1762b56e5ebf73a71e267d PDF Text Text BELLE (Williams) CUTHAIR Belle Hancock Williams, one of seven children of Price Williams and Maria Capote William, was born in the Florida Valley of La Plata County, Colorado, on January 12, 1906. "My parents owned a frame house in the valley just south of where the narrow gauge railroad crossed the Florida River. (1& 1/2 miles south of where the present U.S. 160 crosses the river.) The valley was not cleared for hay fields then. II was full of sage brush. There were huge clumps, some 5 feet tall and so thick we used it for firewood. My parents could hunt and fish and gather wild food, but my father wanted better things for his family. He decided he would have a better chance for jobs if he could speak English, so after he was married, he went to Fl. Lewis to learn English. When he came home, he brought a Navajo boy named Jake who was in trouble with the Ft. Lewis people. Jake stayed with us a long lime and helped with the work. My father got a job at the lumber mill. He drove a team lo drag logs. He had his own horses and mules and donkeys. He cut wild timothy down by the river and in hollows watered by the springs coming out of the Florida Mesa. Our nearest neighbors were a Mormon family. They loaned my father their mowing machine and then he would share the hay. Every summer and fall my parents sent me out to pick blue berries, chokecherries, buffalo berries and Indian bananas (the fruit of the soap weed). The Indian bananas were my favorite. When the stalk gets dry and the pods hang down their heads in the fall, they are ready lo pick. They are as sweet as apricots. I've been back to the places where we used to pick them, but the deer and elk always get them first. We also picked wild onions and wild spinach. Sometimes my parents bought a bitter plant from the Mexicans for medicine." After a few years, Belle's parents moved over to her grandparent's farm 3 1/2 miles north of La Pasta in the Animas Valley. Belle soon learned all about milking goats and herding sheep. "Most of the milk we made into keso (cheese). It's a simple thing. You boil the milk. Squeeze the juice from the Soap Weed into the milk and boil it some more. Let ii cool. Then put the milk in a cloth and let all the water drip out. The keso we made was something like cottage cheese." Belle was finally sent to the Indian School at Ignacio. She well remembers the big sign there which said, "Don't talk Indian," but even so Belle mostly enjoyed the school. "It was more fun than milking goats and herding sheep!" Belle's mother died when she was fourteen. "I stayed with my grandparents for a while. Then I got a job at La Pasta working for the Candelario Vigil family who owned the store and dance hall there. I cleaned, carried water and helped with the cooking. I lived with that family two years and they treated me very well. In 1922 Superintendent McKeen sent me to school at Towaoc. In the summers I didn't have any place to go, so I got a job working at the Wrightsman Hotel in Mancos. Ellen Watts and I both worked there two summers. We washed dishes, ironed table cloths, 42 �picked berries and cherries and currents and made them into ice cream and pies. Near the end of the second summer Ellen and I heard about the Spanish Fiesta in Durango. Our jobs were about to end at the hotel, so we took the train to Durango to watch the games and the races. When we found the Indian camp, we located Daisy Eagle, Ellen's sister. She took us home with her to Spring Creek." Belle attended the Haskell Institute in Kansas until she was 18. When she came back to Colorado, she worked for the hotel at Mancos again. Ellen Watts got married and it wasn't long till Belle had married Curtis Cuthair. "I met Curtis in Mancos. We had known one another several years. Finally, one summer Curtis came to see and said, "I don't have a family of my own. I'd like to settle down and have a family to be long to." Curtis had been to trade school. He got a job operating the steam heating system at the Agency in Ignacio. In his spare time he farmed his place north of Ignacio where the family home is located . Belle and Curtis had seven children, Richard, Garnet, Christine, Larry, Vera, Laverne, and Darlene. ) ) ) ) ) ) _) J _) J J .,_) .,_) J .J J Curtis probably never dreamed his wife would become a movie star, but that happened last year. Belle was selected to be in the cast of the movie "Winterhawk." She and Thelma Kuebler appeared in mountain scenes in their native dress. Belle enjoyed her part in the movie very much. Whether they knew it or not, when the casting crew chose Belle, they chose someone w ith authentic ties with and memories of the tribal history of this area. Belle says, "My grandmother was a half-sister to Ouray. My grandparents moved around with Ouray and fought the Comanches with him over the salt in the San Luis Valley. They chased the Comanches all the way to Antonito once and killed a lot of them. At one time there were Indian trails all through the mountains. My grandparents traveled there, hunting and fishing during the warm time and in the winter time settled in the valleys. I might know more about the old days, but when I was a child, it was not proper for children to ask many questions. When I wanted to know something, my mother would often say, 'Don't ask questions. Mind your own business. You are too young to know'." Belle's memories of her own time are very strong. "I can remember our home in the sage brush in the Florida Valley. I remember learning the worship dance from Tom Newton's mother and the oldest memory I have as a little child is the time - I must have been about three -when I was wrapped in a blanket and tied on my aunt's back and she was dancing and dancing and dancing. I can't forget things like that." February, 1976 -- Shelby Smith .,_) .,_) J J J J ·....J 43 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Shelby Smith Interviews Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource https://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-NC/1.0/?language=en Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1973-1980 Subject The topic of the resource Ignacio; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Collection of biographies, predominantly of residents from the Ignacio Senior Center, based on interviews conducted by Shelby Smith from approximately 1973 to 1980. The abridged interviews were originally published as individual entries in The Thoughtful Years newsletter, published by the Ignacio Senior Center, beginning in 1973. They were later published as a whole in Smith's book: Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley, from which the original scans in this collection have been derived. Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Belle (Williams) Cuthair Biography Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1976-02 Subject The topic of the resource Cuthair, Belle (Williams); Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Biography of Belle (Williams) Cuthair based on an interview conducted by Shelby Smith. Originally included in the February, 1976 issue of "The Thoughtful Years" newsletter published by the Ignacio Senior Center. Later included in the book "Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley" by Shelby Smith. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cuthair, Belle (Williams) Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2 pages Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/ Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby