|
Growing Up and Growing Old in Cherokee - Jerry Wolfe Tells it Like It Was
by Rob Hunt
Stickball at the Cherokee Fair - Roger Haile photo
|
Stickball players have been in Jerry Wolfe's family for generations.
Wolfe, 83, gets a twinkle in his eye when he thinks back to his playing days: "I loved to play that ball when I could run, and I could move pretty good back in my young days."
Stickball is the father of lacrosse and was played by the Cherokee people generations before the first Europeans stepped foot on this continent.
"It's an old old sport that was always played, and it dates back to who knows when, on back beyond," says Wolfe, who often shares the legend his father told him about the stickball games.
Wolfe is still asked to coach and call games at his home on the Qualla Boundary -- land in Western North Carolina that is owned by the Eastern Band of the Cherokee. He also makes the sticks the men play with, crafting them by hand from hickory.
He is summoned to the playing field every last week in May to be the caller, otherwise known as the announcer, of the annual Fading Voices stickball games in Robbinsville. He was also asked a few years ago to coach a women's team before it was disbanded.
He paid a visit last fall to Mars Hill College, where he told legends, talked about his life, and took a liking to some of the Mars Hill lacrosse players. In January he agreed to sit down with a Hilltop reporter for an interview about his life.
Three days a week, Wolfe drives his small, black, four door sedan a short drive to work at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in the town of Cherokee. He grabs a cup of coffee and the morning paper to see how his favorite basketball team has done the night before. He enjoys talking about the Cherokee and the Qualla Boundary with visitors to the museum. Often he travels from school to school in collaboration with the museum.
Wolfe was born September 28, 1924. "It was quite a life," he says with a little smile.
He has seen a lot of change in his time. The once wooded areas he used to play in as a child have shot up with development. The town of Cherokee is filled with gift shops. The Casino brings in a constant flow of visitors and tourists. The small trails Wolfe once followed into town have now become paved, two-lane streets, packed with cars and traffic.
Click to enlarge
A Cherokee home (Photo - Ramsey Center, MHC)
|
Like many of the Cherokee people in his generation, Wolfe grew up in a family that depended on logging and farming. He was raised on a plot of four hundred acres in the northern part of the Boundary, a place called Big Cove.
In those days there was little or no technology. There was no TV for him to sit down at every night, and there were no cars racing by in front of his house at all hours. "The only roads we had were farm roads, used by horses and oxen."
There was only one radio close by, and every Saturday night people would gather around and listen to whatever was playing.
He remembers the first movie he ever saw. "We thought that was really something to see, that movie…But it didn't have any voice at all, any sound." A few years later they were saying, "Hey, that movie talks!" He remembers that "we'd enjoy seeing cowboys and Indians up on the screen, fighting and shooting at each other."
As a child, Wolfe would always find ways of entertaining himself. When he was not helping his father with the logging or farming, he would be out with his siblings or his friends exploring everything that was around him.
"We had absolutely no toys…We did have sleds, home made sleds. During the winter months we would slide --get on them sleds and ride down the mountain."
Sometimes they would go fishing. "We had cane poles, with just a line. It didn't cost anything to go fishing, except a fish hook or two, and a line…My dad would say, "Don't fish there now. Always look for a place like this, here. And so all down the river I'd look for the same kind of a pattern, and that's where I'd fish. And sure enough, I'd do good."
I'll tell you the legend, a legend my father told me about the stickball games....
...He said the animals had a rough line up, a big line up. The Big Bear was the captain. In his lineup he had the Fast-Running Deer. And he had the Big Wolf, and the Big Bob Cat, and the Big Panther. He named over all those big rough animals that were on that ball team.
He said the Big Bear liked to boast. He'd get in front of all his ball players and show them how strong he was by picking up boulders and tossing them, or maybe picking up a big log, and tossing it. He said there's no team can win over us....
CLICK for a stickball legend
|
|
Because there was not a lot of technology while he was growing up, he and his family would spend many nights around the big fire in their log cabin listening to the legends his father would tell. "He told a lot of legends. A lot of legends. We'd sit around a big fire place, and have a big fire going."
Wolfe carries on his father's stories today. Often in his travels to schools he tells the legends his father told him - tales of how his area got its name, how the chipmunk got its stripes and how the bat got its wings, and other legends that explain the natural world. Wolfe is always willing to share a bit of his culture and his life with anyone who wants to learn.
Food and water were never taken for granted in Wolfe's household; he was not able to just drive down to the grocery store and stock up for the month. Wolfe's family depended for the most part on hunting and the food they grew on their own farm.
"We did a lot of hunting; I was good with the rifle. I could pop a squirrel off a tree at several yards…shoot a rabbit on the run."
Even getting water was a challenge. "There was no plumbing in the house. We used spring water coming out of the mountains. …It was fresh and clean. …My dad used to cut little poles, maybe six inches in diameter, and make a trough out of them. And he'd run the water from the spring down through those poles that were routed out."
Growing up he learned how to log, learned to cut timber, learned to hook up a yoke of oxen, hook up a team of mules or horses, shoe a horse, and hoe corn.
Click to enlarge
Marching at Cherokee Boarding School, 1926 (Photo - Ramsey Center, MHC)
|
But then his life changed. When he was eight years old he was sent to boarding school. The life he knew --helping his family around the farm, and helping with the logging -- was put on hold. He now had to focus on school and the hardships that came with it.
"We stayed in dormitories that were built by the Quakers from Pennsylvania, who came down and built all the necessary buildings for our campus. We had three dormitories for the young men, two dormitories for the girls, dining room, kitchen, all those things. We also raised our own food."
The boarding school was very militaristic. "We lined up to go to our meals early in the morning…whether we had shoes or not, we lined up on an old cold sidewalk and stood at attention. And then a little captain would say, 'right face, forward march!' or 'left face, forward march.' And we would march down to the dining room. We didn't go in and just sit there. We stood up, we had our prayer; then we sat."
Wolfe led a rough life at school. He had to follow a very tough and precise schedule during the week, but he still had the weekends to act like a kid.
Cherokee 1956, already a tourist town
|
"On Saturdays we did not have anything to do much but go out into the woods and play, maybe ride sleds down the mountain on pine needles where it was slippery. We had a big time on Saturdays. And all you could hear was the Cherokee language spoken by the kids."
This was a memorable time for Wolfe because it was when he learned how to speak the Cherokee language. His parents spoke Cherokee, and he could understand it. But his mother taught him to speak English as his first language. She did this because she had also been sent to boarding school and remembered how hard it was for her to learn English. She did not want the same problems for her son and figured it would be easier for him this way.
The boarding school tried to separate Cherokee children from the culture and customs they grew up with. "They didn't allow us to speak our language in school. They wanted us to learn English. A lot of times we were punished if we were caught speaking the language. You got a good strapping for that with a big old wide belt they'd carry around. I never did get strapped, but I seen a lot of the boys get a good strapping."
Today he is a strong supporter of efforts to revive the Cherokee language, which today is spoken fluently by only a handful of older people. The school system now teaches the language in elementary, middle and high school.
In 1943, Wolfe joined the Navy and served in World War II. He was in the Navy for six years, until 1949. During those years he got married, and when he returned home from the Navy, he went to live in the part of the Qualla Boundary where his wife, Juanita, had been raised.
Like many other soldiers coming back from the war, he took advantage of the GI Bill to further his education and get a job. He first took up carpentry, but then he began to lean more toward masonry.
Wolfe made his living as a stone mason, and much of his work can still be seen in the Qualla Boundary today.
Wolfe also built his own house on his wife's land, doing most of the carpentry and masonry. They went on to raise their seven children there. Their son Joseph attended Mars Hill College, graduating in 1980, and today lives not far from them on Qualla Boundary.
Over the years, life on the Qualla Boundary changed. Four lane roads now cover the old trails he used to walk as a child. The area has developed, and gift shops cover the streets. Were his elders to see it today, he says, they "wouldn't know what to do, (and) wouldn't know what to say."
Wolfe's life style has changed. Wolfe still farms for the love of farming, but the food isn't essential for survival, as it was for his father. Usually he just gives away the produce. Hunting is no longer needed to survive. Wolfe admits that he does shoot a few boars every year, but this is primarily because they are dangerous to children.
Jerry Wolfe and Rob Hunt at the Cherokee Museum last winter
|
Now Wolfe just sits back and enjoys all the life around him. He listens to the birds sing, and he laughs about the black bears climbing and falling out of the trees in his back yard. He still fishes, and he still loves it just as much as he did while he was fishing with his father when he was younger. He still uses the same guidelines his father taught him for finding a good fishing spot. Just last fall he caught a five-pound brown trout.
He loves giving back to the community he grew up in. The Museum of the Cherokee Indian has been his workplace for years now. He comes in when needed at the local school, and he is a prominent member of his church.
It sure has been "quite a life."
Hilltop reporter Rob Hunt played lacrosse in high school and in his first semester at Mars Hill College. He met Jerry Wolfe at Mars Hill after a Crossroads program where Wolfe spoke, and in January he spent a day with him on the Qualla Boundary.
Give us your feedback. We value your opinions.
The Hilltop reserves the right not to post anonymous comments, personal attacks, or any comments that could be judged slanderous, that make unverifiable allegations of fact, or use language we consider in bad taste.
All fields must be filled in.
HOME
| 
