The first Thanksgiving Day is said to have taken place in the land now known as Massachusetts. Whether or not it is true that the Pilgrims sat down with the Indians to enjoy a feast, it makes a good story and is an excuse for 220 million Americans to overeat on the day of giving thanks to God for blessings received.

God is said to work in strange and mysterious ways, but it really is not so mysterious when one considers He works through people who are in tune with Him.

Most of us, if we think about it, has known someone like that. Now days it seems people must have a particular brand of religion, such as Baptist, Episcopalian, Methodist, Catholic, etc., to be considered "religious," but there are some chosen ones, I believe, who perform God's work without any brand name and do it "just because it's the right thing to do."

I would like to tell you about one such person who I have known. This story begins circa 1932. There was a family that lived on an Indian reservation along the western bank of the lower Colorado River which formed the borders of California and Arizona, just a few miles North of the Mexican border near Yuma, Arizona.

The indigenous Quechan people (pronounced Kwe-tsahn) had lived in this green river valley from time immemorial. If you can imagine a green and lush valley in the middle of a harsh desert, this was it. The forests of that time lined the river for a hundred miles up and downstream, and were blessed with wild game and birds, while the river ran thick with fish. This red river ran high and wild, and at spring flood time it was a mile wide.

The family consisted of Dad, Mama, and their five children. Two boys and three girls. Mama came from the Pueblo people of New Mexico, and was an ambitious and energetic person. Dad was of the local Quechan people.

The Pueblo people had always been farmers, and the Quechan people had always been hunters, fishers and farmers, so something was always growing on their small place. Dad was a butcher at a local grocery store, so Mama and the children did most of the work on the small farm. At any one time there would be a field of wheat, or a crop of sweet strawberries, melons, corn, squash, you name it, they had it. And chickens, there was a gazillion of them laying eggs and waiting to be part of Sunday dinner. By selling eggs and vegetables Mama was able to buy a cow which gave a lot of milk to wash down the chicken and squash.

During this time in 1932, there was what was called a "depression" in the rest of the country. A lot of people were out of work and they were moving from one place to another trying to find a way to make a living. Many were the so-called hobos and some were called tramps who jumped off freight trains then ran to this place to ask for something to eat. The hobo would offer to chop wood or do other work for a meal, and a tramp would eat and run. But it was okay with Mama. She said "Everybody's got to eat to get where they're going."

There was a steel bridge which spanned the Colorado River at a narrow point near the U.S. Cavalry's famous old Fort Yuma, which joined Arizona to California. It had a large sign on its side which read "Ocean-To-Ocean Highway" followed by the word "YUMA," if one had any doubts about where they were.

The new ocean-to-ocean highway was U.S. Highway 80, which if one had the money and the inclination, they could drive from Los Angeles to all points East. But who cared. This family was already where they wanted to be. The family's home was located nearby the Methodist's mission church, alongside Highway 80 just about a quarter-mile past the California inspection station. Every car or truck that came into California from the East had to be inspected for insects or whatever. William B. Quick was the Inspector.

Beginning about 1930 and continuing for several more years, more and more highway travelers crossed that bridge into California in all kinds of old cars and in beat up trucks piled high with everything they owned, tables, chairs, beds, and household items, and looking like the Clampett family in the old Beverly Hillbillies TV show.

These people were refugees from the dust bowls of Oklahoma and Texas who were on their way to "the land of milk and honey in California," as one old lady told Mama. A terrible drought in America's Midwest farmland region, coupled with the depression, had caused all these people to lose their farms, jobs, and businesses. Now they had reached Quechan Indian country on their way to fortune in California. They apparently didn't realize they had already reached California, so where was this promised land?

By the time they arrived at this California/Arizona border location on Quechan Indian land, they first had to cross the hot desert areas of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Their beat up cars and trucks, as well as their bodies, needed rest and repairs, and both children and adults were hot, tired, dirty and hungry.

One can only imagine the thoughts in their heads when they saw this little oasis which this Indian family had right handy to them. There was a flat piece of land nearby with the inviting shade of willow and mesquite trees, and a slowly flowing irrigation canal next to it where they could wash off the accumulated days or even weeks of grime from their bodies.

Each day at least a half-dozen families would pull off the highway and ask Mama if they could camp there. Today, it seems amazing that in those days, even these poor tired people would first ask an Indian's permission to rest there. None of them were ever rude or discourteous to this family. Mama never refused free food or rest to any family.

If they camped, she would provide them with a chicken, eggs, milk, or a loaf of bread. She told her children, "The Okies are people just like us, only they don't have a home." She called them Okies, not as a pejorative, but said that was where they were from, Oklahoma.

Once Dad said, "Maybe we should charge them something for the food." She wouldn't hear of it. She always said, "We have enough for them and us, and they need it more than we do."

Remembered especially, is one family whose old Ford truck needed extensive repairs, so they stayed longer than most. They had a small girl possibly five years of age. Mama invited her to have dinner with our family several times. On her first visit, Mama served dinner to her first. She was really hungry. She asked the girl what she would like to drink, water or milk? She immediately answered, "I'll have some White Horse." Dad broke out laughing because White Horse was the name of a Scotch whiskey. The children didn't know what he was laughing about. Mama said that this is probably what her family called milk.

That family, named Johnson, stayed awhile so Mr. Johnson could work somewhere to earn some traveling money. They had two husky sons, the older, Junior, being about age six. He was a pleasant boy, and talkative. While his parents were off working during the day, he would tell of the many places he had been "back East," with embellishments for sure, but for the Indian children it was like reading a book about far away places.

Junior had to take care of his younger brother and already knew something about fixing a meal. Using milk from our cow, a spoonful of lard, a cup of flour, and tomatoes from our garden, he could make a lunch of milk gravy and sliced tomatoes. In return the younger Indian boy would show Junior and his brother the wonders of his world, the desert and the forests of the green river valley.

Today, his green river valley no longer exists. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cut down every blessed tree during the early 1940s, and huge dams have restricted the flow of river water. The Indian boy's world is no more, but the memories linger.

The important thing remembered about Junior, his brother and sister, and the Indian children is that they were just kids getting along together. They didn't think about their differences, of being white or of being Indian. I think that's the way it was supposed to be, then and now. I wonder if that's they way it was with the Pilgrims and the Indians. I hope so. I only wish it could be like that between all of us.

What we need is more Mamas to go around. Mama never looked for a reward or asked for cash payment just for helping others. "It's only right," she would say. For her, every day was thanks giving day. This Good Samaritan of the Desert didn't need a special holiday to make it so.

The 1937 Hollywood movie, "Grapes of Wrath," depicted the Okie refugees exactly. I have often wondered if any of the hundreds of families who stopped there and received her help, remember what this "Good Samaritan of The Desert," this Indian woman, had done for them.

If you ask how I know this is a true story, well friend, she was my Mama.

******

And Thank You, Elmer Savilla!

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