Voices from This Long Brown Land: Oral Recollections of Owens Valley Lives and Manzanar Pasts

241 Pages·2006·28.553 MB·English

by  NA NA

Voices from This
Long Brown Land
Palgrave Studies in Oral History
Series Editors: Linda Shopes and Bruce M. Stave
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by Sandy Polishuk; foreword by Amy Kesselman (2003)
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by Samuel Iwry, edited by L. J. H. Kelley (2004)
Education as My Agenda: Gertrude Williams, Race, and the Baltimore Public Schools,
by Jo Ann O. Robinson (2005)
Remembering: Oral History Performance, edited by Della Pollock (2005)
Postmemories o/Terror: A New Generation Copes with the Legacy o/the "Dirty war,"
by Susana Kaiser (2005)
Growing Up in The People's Republic: Conversatiom between Two Daughters o/China's
Revolution, by Ye Weili and Ma Xiadong (2005)
Life and Death in the Delta: African American Narratives o/Violence, Resilience, and Social
Change, by Kim Lacy Rogers (2006)
Creating Choice: A Community Responds to the Need for Abortion and Birth Control,
1961-1973, by David P. Cline (2006)
Voices from This Long Brown Land: Oral Recollections o/Owens Valley Lives and Manzanar
Pasts, by Jane Wehrey (2006)
Radicals, Rhetoric, and the war: The University 0/ Nevada in the wake 0/K ent State,
by Brad Lucas (forthcoming)
Sisters in the Brotherhoods: Organizingfor Equality, by Jane Latour (forthcoming)
Voices from This
Long Brown Land
Oral Recollections of
Owens Valley Lives and
Manzanar Pasts
Jane Wehrey
Palgrave
macmillan
* VOICES FROM THIS LONG BROWN LAND
©Jane Wehrey, 2006.
Permission to quote from Barry Lopez in "Mapping the Real Geography,"
is granted by Harpers Magazine, copyright November 1989.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2006 by
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Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS
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Union and other countries.
ISBN 978-0-312-29541-7 ISBN 978-1-349-63573-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-63573-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Voices from this long brown land : oral recollections of Owens Valley lives
and Manzanar pasts I [edited by] Jane Wehrey.
p. cm.-(Palgrave studies in oral history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Manzanar War Relocation Center-Anecdotes. 2. Manzanar War
Relocation Center-Anecdotes. 3. Japanese Americans-California
Owens Valley-Biography-Anecdotes. 4. Japanese Americans--evacuation
and relocation, 1942-1945-Anecdotes. 5. Interviews-California
Owens Valley. 6. Oral history. 7. Owens Valley (Cali£)-History-
20th century-Anecdotes. 8. Owens Valley (Calif.)-Sociallife and
customs-20th century. 9. Owens Valley (Cali£)-Ethnic relations
Anecdotes. 10. Owens Valley (Cali£)-Biography-Anecdotes.
I. Wehrey, Jane. II. Series.
F868.09V65 2006
979.4' 48053-dc22 2005049864
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: February 2006
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Transferred to digital printing in 2006.
For my mother

If one is inclined to wonder at first how so many dwellers came to be in the loneliest
land that ever came out of God's hands, what they do there and why stay, one does
not wonder so much after having lived there. None other than this long brown land
lays such a hold on the affections.
Mary Austin, The Land ofL ittle Rain, 1903
If! were now to visit another country, I would ask my local companion, before I saw
any museum or library, any factory or fabled town, to walk me in the country of his
or her youth, to tell me the names of things and how, traditionally, they have been
fitted together in a community. I would ask for the stories, the voice of memoty over
the land.
Barry Lopez, "Mapping the Real Geography," 1996

Contents
Acknowledgments ........................................ XU1
Introduction ............................................ . 1
ONE
Nettie Roeper Fausel (1874-1968) 29
I raised some coyotes once
TWO
We. "Stub" Lydston (1870-1957) 37
The valley is nothin'like it was in the old days
THREE
Truman Buff (1906-1996) 43
That's how I spent most ofm y time, among the white people
FOUR
Vic Taylor (1910-2001) .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . .. . . . . . 59
~ter is everything
FIVE
Emily Roddy (b. 1911) .................................... 79
It was a railroad hotel made ofb ox cars-everything was box cars
SIX
Concha Lozano Salas (1915-2003) ........................... 95
we were a close bunch ofp eople, a lot ofg ood people
SEVEN
Owen Cooper (b. 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 109
we maintained the individuality oft he towns and the newspapers
EIGHT
LaVerne Reynolds Zediker (1919-1996) ....................... 123
I was what they called a real good cowgirl