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When I am riffling through my files in search of a document I know is on my computer, or in a file cabinet, or (more likely) strewn across some lateral surface in my house, I often see things that previously escaped my eye--a newly familiar name, a suddenly meaningful date, or reference to yet another document I must go track down. Other times, a subtle tension or sarcastic tone leaps off a page of correspondence I had previously pegged as perfunctory and mundane. Tonight, I am struck by the power and affect of family, filled with sentiment and sweet sadness for the short-lived mother-daughter team embodied in a simple set of initials: 

    

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Marie Potts:pansy marine

This snippet is clipped from a letter to Sol Tax. It is less significant for what it says, than for what it reveals: family. A Maidu mother and daughter working hand in hand, side-by-side, making do in rough patches, raising children and grandchildren, putting up with each other one minute and laughing merrily together the next, always dedicated to California Indian lands and rights. Four years after typing this letter, Pansy died, leaving her mother and young children absolutely bereft. But in April 1961, sorrow was nowhere in sight. Potts was headed to Chicago and D.C. for a grand adventure. 

The AIPA's Marie Potts Journalism Award

Jerry Gambill (aka Rarihokwats), Managing Editor of Akwesasne Notes, was the first recipient of the Marie Potts Journalism Award, an honor created and bestowed by the pioneering American Indian Press Association (AIPA). The inaugural ceremony took place at the Denver Indian Center on November 16, 1972. The Rocky Mountain News covered the story, reporting that "The Award includes a $500 prize and is the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. Mrs. Marie Potts, the award's namesake is the 77-year-old editor of 'Smoke Signals' [sic], a Sacramento, Calif. monthly news magazine. She was instrumental in the founding AIPA." Note: The Smoke Signal was often, and continues to be, inaccurately referred to in the plural; and while Potts was indeed one of approximately 10 co-founders, the driving figure behind development of the AIPA was Charles "Chuck" Trimble.)

1950 Mother's Day Tribute to Elizabeth Bender Roe Cloud

Marie Mason Potts often wrote Smoke Signal stories based upon news she found in the national press about Native Americans of note.  This column is based on an announcement that Mrs. Henry Roe Cloud had been named "Oregon Mother" for 1950. It seems likely that the story was particularly important to Potts as both women had connections to the Carlisle (and may well have been there at the same time). 

April 1950 Smoke Signal

Fifteenth Anniversary Dance

While working on a chapter about Marie Potts's participation in the American Indian Chicago Conference, I ran across this front page story about the FIC celebrating its 15th anniversary with a dance at the VFW Memorial Hall in Bryte on March 18, 1961 from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Reading the directions made me wonder what the Mecca Club was like. Is it still there? 

Apologies for the poor quality of this 2nd generation copy 

Kitty Potts Flores (August 9, 1924 - April 1, 1951)

Marie Potts lost her youngest daughter, Kitty Marie "Pumpkin" Potts Flores, on April 1, 1951. Bertha Stewart (Tolowa), Secretary of the FIC,  had worked closely with Kitty for many years and wrote a touching tribute to her as founding editor of the Smoke Signal. Marie Potts, who was elected to the position of Smoke Signal editor in March 1949, added biographical information about her daughter just beneath Bertha Stewart's typescript signature.

Kitty--beloved daughter, wife, and aunt--was laid to rest in East Lawn Cemetery. Her untimely death was clearly a tremendous loss not only to her family, but to the larger world of California Indian activism. 

Lettered Life of a Mountain Maidu Woman at Maidu Museum & Historic Site (Roseville) until May 9

Had a great time this past Saturday night (March 21) at the opening reception and lecture for a small exhibit I was invited to install out at the Maidu Museum, in Roseville. The exhibit is called The Lettered Life of a Mountain Maidu Woman: An Archival Portrait of Marie Mason Potts. I was especially pleased that some of her daughter Pansy Marine's descendants were there and that I was able to chat with them afterwards. The flyer for the show is posted below.

University Library Exhibit Highlights Marie Potts' Life Story

In conjunction with this year's University One Book Program, which features Sherman Alexie's book Blasphemy,  the University Library is featuring an exhibit I co-curated with Dr. Brian Baker, entitled Before 'The Search Engine': Education, Identity and Tradition. Our exhibit was inspired by the short story The Search Engine, and includes four exhibit cases. Two feature Americana Indian artifacts from Dr. Baker's collection, and two (shown below) feature my research on Marie Potts--her years at the Greenville Indian Industrial School and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and the period of her land claims activism here in Sacramento.  The exhibit is up through December 12, 2014.