The White Boy and the Indians: A Memoir of Reservation Life, the Depression and the Okies
The White Boy and the Indians: A Memoir of Reservation Life, the Depression and the Okies
By Paul Austin Jennings. The Indian communities of the 1930s and 40s in the Klamath Mountains and the small railroad towns in California’s Central Valley during the Depression: these are the places that hold rich stories of life and times now almost forgotten, except in the memories of a boy who experienced the adventure of living them. As the only white boy in an all-Indian school, the author developed strong relationships with his Native American classmates and neighbors.
Despite the possibly off-putting title, Jennings' story is entertaining, humorous and touching. It tells the early years of a boy whose parents were missionaries in north eastern Humboldt among the Hupa, Yurok and Karuk.
Divided essentially into three parts, it begins with their early life in a log cabin where horses and canoes were the easiest manner of travel and where the young boy remembers rattlesnake encounters and outhouses. Place names familiar to Humbodters, like Martin's Ferry, Pecwan and the Bald Hills, sprinkle the pages.
Then the family moves south to California's Central Valley to a "typical American small town" peopled with various immigrants and dust bowl refugees -- plus plumbing, electricity and paved roads. Here it chronicles schoolboy adventures, favorite radio programs and the impacts of the Depression and the war years.
When the family returns to Humboldt's Indian Country, our author experiences being the only non-Indian in his one room schoolhouse. His shenanigans and hunting adventures with his native friends stayed with him all his 90+ years.
Now this book can extend those memories into our own lives, making them richer for it.
