Lynn Terrance and Ruth Terrance

00:04 Yes, my name is Lynn Terrance. My age is 69, today's date is Friday, July 30th, and I'm in Rochester, New York. My conversation partner is Ruth Terrance, and she is my mother.

00:21 And I,

00:24 Acrimony.

00:32 Your name?

00:36 My name is Ruth Terrance.

00:40 93 years old today is Friday.

00:46 July 30th 1921.

00:51 2021, 20 21.

00:57 The location is Rochester, New York.

01:02 Okay, so

01:07 My what what reservation did your husband come from, Saint Regis?

01:13 What type of Indian is a Mohawk Indian and hobby?

01:20 Where is st. Regis New York State?

01:30 Did the Saint Lawrence Seaway?

01:39 Okay, and why did he come to Rochester, New York, Rochester. New York because of the work and what kind of iron or what kind of work did he do? He was a real worker and what is that put up building?

01:58 He constructed the steel of the buildings.

02:04 And I,

02:09 And what and what time. Was this about? What year was that that he started his iron work? He was very young. And did you have a lot of relatives that did Iron work out so perfectly? Everybody nail for people on the reservation were in some kind of iron work and did they just come to Rochester or did they? They want wherever the work was plentiful?

02:45 So big cities, like New York City, New York City.

02:54 And how did you meet him?

03:08 Where everybody in?

03:14 And now speaking about his, his childhood did people in his family. Did they did they all live home and I or were some of his brothers sent to boarding schools by the government, the government sent to boarding school.

03:37 Why?

03:43 I have no reason. Okay, and, and where they allowed to speak their language. It's a boarding school. They were not allowed to speak their language. So they were took taken away from their families.

04:00 And footman putting up a boarding school. Yes.

04:05 And where was the boarding school? I have no idea.

04:12 Okay, so they received like a $2 check every year. What was that for?

04:21 That was supposedly to take care of them. So who sent them the topic government sent the checks? And why did they send the shock?

04:34 Supposedly, it was to take care of their welfare.

04:41 So they were Wards of the government. They were Wards of the government. Okay.

04:52 So what was it like for him to move from the reservation to to Rochester? Well, I think that because other people and on the reservation and then into this that it wasn't that hard.

05:15 So it came Pretty Natural to him came Pretty Natural.

05:21 So, how how did they get up on the high steel being? They climbed and climbed what the bean declines of beans?

05:35 Did they have safety equipment? Not know much later.

05:45 There. Lightning.

05:48 And how did he feel about doing that kind of work? He loved it, loved it. It was his work. It was something he enjoyed.

06:00 And it was it was more like a natural thing for them and we're all his brothers into that to. Yes, they all were into it. And did he have a brother that died when he was doing ironwork? Yes. He did. And how old was his brother. He was a teenager was like 19.

06:24 Yes.

06:26 And his brother lived with him in your house.

06:31 Yeah, other than that he lived on the reservation, right? But he lived with you because he was here in Rochester doing ironwork. Yeah, and and what happened?

06:51 The accident you don't know what happened know, except that. He sells the building collapsed, building the beam.

07:04 The bean Bell, okay, and he went with the beam. He was not. So he fell and did your husband also file.

07:17 Yes.

07:19 But he knew how to fall his brother. Didn't know how to fart. He was young and did his brother survive.

07:30 No, it's brother. Did not brother died at the hospital. And what about your husband? What? What happened to him?

07:39 He did not he survived, but did he have any broken bones?

07:48 Yeah, got a broken leg broken arm. But otherwise he was okay. Mentally. Yeah, right. Okay. And just continue to do iron work after this after he recovered from his injury. Yes, because it was it was in his blood.

08:12 It didn't go away. It was in his blood and did he go home, often to visit his family very often. And how far is it from here about how many hours of a drive?

08:34 And then his most of his family still remain on the reservation reservation, accept the Ironworkers. They would go out during the week and go home on the weekends. If they could most certainly they couldn't because it was too far away, right? New York City, Ohio, or Pennsylvania, or or whatever. I just couldn't because of the distance, right?

09:05 But their heart was their. Yes. And did they speak Mohawk to each other or did they speak English know? They spoke to each other. There was no English speaking between the burger.

09:23 Do you write?

09:28 And when they went home, they all spoke mohawk.

09:33 And did he work in New York City? Yes.

09:49 How was it that? I'm your husband survived to the accident?

09:54 He just was a he just trained himself to do certain things during the growing up, knew what was happening and he knew what he would do if that was him, right? So he got up when he when he fell. He got up and ran as soon as he fell so that the beans would not fall on him exactly what he did.

10:30 With a broken leg has happened.

10:35 Yes.

10:37 Okay.

10:43 Did you go to visit his family on the reservation, Austin?

10:47 It's often as we could.

10:51 What was it like for you?

10:54 It was a different experience for me was that they didn't have, they didn't have running water. They didn't have toilets the hoses. Okay, so you had to go outside to go to the bathroom and no running water.

11:15 Did they get electricity?

11:19 No.

11:24 How did they Heat their house?

11:28 Wood.

11:31 Kerosene and kerosene, heaters.

11:38 And did he live on a farm? Yes, it was a farm. So they hit they look, they raise their own animals. They raise their own animal. What kind of animal

11:52 Farm animals.

11:55 And what would farm animals, what farm animals would that be?

12:10 And what did his mother do?

12:16 His mother did a lot of crocheting and knitting.

12:23 And she made her own basket, Boosie everybody on the reservation made biscuits.

12:31 And what did they do with them? Sold them for quite a bit of money to the white people to the people in New York City. They were like Walters.

12:44 They are everybody wanted a basket made by an Indian or Native American.

12:54 What were they made out of?

12:56 They were made out of

13:03 Wood and parts of the tree.

13:10 Parts of bushes and the Sweetgrass in them.

13:18 It was part of the Porsches.

13:23 Not today for did they slaughter their own animals when they would eat them?

13:34 It was no other way. It was their way.

13:39 And that they eat most of the animal.

13:43 It was hard to eat animals. You raise.

13:47 But they did.

13:49 Yeah, yes, but it was pretty hard.

13:54 Your father couldn't always eat.

13:59 Because it bothered him.

14:03 Because he may be raised.

14:11 If you raise something, you're not going to slaughter it.

14:17 And where did they get a date? Did they have a milk that they got from the animals that they make their own cows yesterday?

14:27 And so everybody before they left, the reservation would have to work on the farm.

14:35 They worked on the farm.

14:38 And then they lost want to get working in other settings.

14:44 They left, they get things that they needed like furniture.

14:54 I don't know.

15:01 What was it like for you? When you got married to him? Because you were not a Native American, we can't married in Pennsylvania because we couldn't get married in New York state. And why is that? Because they wouldn't allow the intermarriage between a white person and a Native American all really?

15:26 Until we went to Pennsylvania, senior Suite. You couldn't get married in New York state and we wanted to get married and plus in New York state, you handicap.

15:40 Blood work done.

15:42 Oh, and it took three days to do the blood work.

15:49 In Pennsylvania, it was they didn't have the restrictions. You could go to Pennsylvania and get married. Okay?

16:05 Was there other discrimination against the Native American? Yeah, it was.

16:13 It was like, you couldn't, you couldn't be seen enough in a bar.

16:18 Really? Wow.

16:23 What about towards your because you were white. Will you discriminated against? No?

16:33 And how was the life on the reservation? Would you say they were lived? Well, or live poor or how was their life? They lived better than I lived.

16:48 Well.

16:49 How are they treated by the government?

16:53 They were treated like the government treated them like Wards of the government. They were only allowed. They were allowed once a year to go, get clothing and shoes and things like that. So they really had a sort of Health for life.

17:16 They had a very polite.

17:24 And I did, your husband ever have anything to do with the traditions of the Native Americans, like your brother just brother. Ted and was his brother was one of his brothers chief.

17:47 Yes, his oldest brother was Chief Keef on the reservation at 1 at one point.

17:57 And these were these were elected office. Haha. They were elected.

18:07 The reservation. Is he like it there, right?

18:28 So most of them know, most of the Native Americans return to their home when they get older and retire.

18:42 And usually, they have relatives that they wanted to visit.

18:48 Or be with my husband.

18:53 Always would say, I've got to go see my mother. Okay, and did your husband participate in some native dances cultural things for people. Most big cities?

19:20 They had cultural dances and things that they would say to each other and then translate it into English. And did you find that there that they, their Cuisine was different than yours? Did they eat different kinds of food than you did? They prepare food different?

19:44 Horse.

19:46 Yeah, yeah, so it was a different then and you were used to like their traditional food.

19:57 What did they have? What did they have? That was different than yours?

20:10 Well, I mean to eight different things than you like, what did they have? That was different?

20:16 It's just

20:19 Seem different to me and it probably wasn't being different different than you were used to.

20:34 Did they have different ceremonies when people passed away?

20:39 Yeah.

20:41 They would do dances.

20:44 And did they have their prayers and Native American and Mohawk? And everybody would go to the house. They'd be laid out in the phone and people would go to their to visit them and they would do Native singing.

21:03 Is it how long did they do this for when they grieved and did the church priest also speak Native American?

21:22 Well, that's nice and tired of his reservation is not completely in the United States, right know. So do they have dual citizenship?

21:35 Yes, they are dual citizenship. Okay, so they could move back and forth between Canada and the US and was his mother American Native, American or Canadian?

21:56 But then then she became Native American when she married on someone from her resignation on the American side.

22:08 But she still kept her citizenship.

22:16 Did she also speak Mohawk? Yes, okay.

22:29 Did you speak it all the time? And she would say something to me and then she say what I understand. But you also spoke English the Indian. And they say, what he means, is that right?

23:03 So you you had a good relationship with his family. And will you the only white person that was in his family at the time, when you were married? And I remember,

23:18 How did they treat you that you were not native, but you were white treated me. Fine. Didn't treat me any different.

23:29 And you'd like stuff to be up there on the reservation with them?

23:35 I was with my husband.

23:38 So, I was happy to be wherever he was, and it does he have a brother that it does? A lot of that. It's an artist and does a lot of crafts, Native, American crafts. Yes, but that is very true with a lot of Native Americans. They

23:59 It a lot of Chris.

24:05 And his brother is still active active doing that.

24:09 But he, what did he do? He does it now, did he do that all his life?

24:15 For a living. What did he what did he what? Did his brothers do for a living are all Ironworkers?

24:27 Iron worker also.

24:35 Okay.

24:38 Is there any other stories that you can tell us about a lot, but I can't think of them at this moment.

24:47 You were saying that they used to when he did Iron Work, they would throw the rivets up to them on the iron and how did they catch him in a bucket in a bucket?

25:01 What happens if they didn't catch up with a hot?

25:07 Yeah, I didn't.

25:17 And they say in his work. He did he walked up to watching the steel being liked or even like it was a sidewalk and they had

25:30 Natural Balance.

25:36 They slid down when they came down. They slid down the down the iron.

25:42 This way, a lot of side of their pants were ripped from sliding down.

25:51 And now, when you're hungry.

25:55 Your husband is passed away. He's deceased. And where is he buried?

26:03 Is he on the reservation?

26:15 Did the government ever give the Native American food?

26:21 I don't know. They might you. Okay. All right.

26:34 And did your husband, did he fight in for his country in any of the wars but they were made to voluntarily, right?

26:48 I believe that it was no draft back then. So if they fought in the War, was the voluntary thing, I believe you.

27:00 What war was it that he fought in?

27:06 World War 1.

27:12 Okay.

27:16 And how old was he when he went in the service?

27:22 He was 16-17. So he wasn't even 18 years old and he was now wanting to fight for his country. Well, that's a good thing.

27:34 How did he do that? How did you get into the service without being 18?

27:39 You volunteered. Yeah, but they wouldn't take you if you were 18. Did he whenever he could? He would?

27:49 If he whenever he was able to volunteer, he did.

27:57 You didn't use somebody else's name though. You did the first time, really?

28:07 Whose name did he use?

28:11 I don't know.

28:16 Okay, it is Brothers also enlist in the service.

28:23 Yes.

28:25 Oldest brother or her.

28:30 And I don't know.

28:52 Second act.

29:01 Can you tell us how much time is left?

29:14 Okay.

29:18 10 minutes.

29:27 So what it was it was a long time before they got running water on the reservation and toilets and everything. It was they nearly behind the time. Yes. Very much behind the times. He has electricity wasn't there until after your father and I were married.

29:55 So they definitely had a very different lifestyle than I'm here.

30:04 What did they do for entertainment?

30:12 Probably head polos.

30:20 Did they they have the long house back then?

30:26 Long nose actually was a different reservation.

30:37 It didn't help.

30:39 I don't know. I don't know. Okay.

30:45 All right, just so you know, you can and whenever you would like you have to take it before 40 minutes if you don't want to think of anything else.