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Pride in her tribe Growing up American Indian
By Sean Barron
YOUNGSTOWN
On one hand, Helen L. Harris vividly remembers a childhood and young-adult years that were characterized by hard work and poverty, which included having to live for a while in a boxcar during the Great Depression.
On the other, though, she recalls when she developed great pride for her heritage as a member of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma.
“I will never forget that. We used an outhouse and had a small table to eat on,” the Youngstown woman said recently from Park Vista of Youngstown Health Center on the North Side, referring to her hardscrabble life.
Harris is at Park Vista for rehabilitation after having suffered a stroke.
When she was young, her mother, Pearl L. Sanchez, made Harris and her sister a rag doll for Christmas, Harris said. She remembers having only two dresses.
Something else that seems safe to assume she won’t soon forget was having been the guest of honor at her surprise 89th birthday party, which was earlier this month at the St. George Croatian Center on the West Side.
Harris, who also has endured cancer on three occasions and suffered a heart attack and a major stroke, remembered having lived with several family members, including her mother and grandmother, in a log cabin near Badger, Kan. An uncle often fished and hunted for food while another relative prescribed plant-based remedies for various maladies, said Harris’ daughter, Shirley Matyi of Austintown, who visits her mother five or six days each week.
Harris also lived in Oklahoma and Kansas with relatives who are Miami Tribe members. A cousin named Floyd Leonard served as chief from 1974 to 1982 and from 1989 until his death in 2008, Matyi said.
Harris moved often before settling in the Mahoning Valley and moving to her Eleanor Avenue home on the West Side, where she’s lived for about 50 years.
Hard work has been a theme that has wound through her life. As a teenager, Harris worked in a laundry facility in downtown Youngstown, where she washed sheets for hotels. Later, she worked at the Ravenna Arsenal and at Omni Manor Health Care Center on Vestal Road for 10 years.
More recently, Vestal Road was the site not of work, but of pleasure and surprise, as an estimated 30 to 40 friends and relatives attended Harris’ surprise birthday party. Among the guests was Donna Wynn, a longtime friend who’s also part Sioux Indian.
The occasion gave Harris an opportunity to reconnect with several people for the first time in a while. In addition, the gathering featured a card box with an Indian headdress as well as the Miami Tribe’s seal on her cake.
“I did everything I could think of for her,” Matyi said with pride.
Even though she’s gone through many hardships and dealt with serious health problems, don’t think that Harris spends time harboring bitterness or regrets.
“I feel good; thank God for that,” she said.
“She’s a headstrong, wonderful person,” Matyi added. “She doesn’t let anything get her down.”