Nana!

Jeanie Shaw Wheeler, known as "Nana," speaks to a class of elementary school students about her childhood in the rural Pacific Northwest in the late 19th century.

00:08Copy video clip URL Nana, a woman in her 90s, sits in front of the chalk board in a classroom. The teacher introduces her. Significant image distortion.

00:19Copy video clip URL Nana begins by telling “a little sad story, but that will be the only sad story.” She talks about her mother’s trip across the ocean from Scotland at age 13, during which a baby the ship died and was buried at sea. 

01:11Copy video clip URL Growing up in Wisconsin “before horse and buggy days.” A story about seeing a sturgeon swimming in a frozen river. Being in a rural area with wolves and other wild animals. 

03:49Copy video clip URL A story about their dog Fido getting stuck by porcupine quills. 

04:46Copy video clip URL Loggers transporting logs down a river to a mill. Her father nearly dying when he fell in between logs, but being saved by a nearby man who was Black. “I always tell my family that they owe their very existence to the Black race.” 

05:54Copy video clip URL Riding on the “immigrant train” to Tacoma, WA. Duck hunters in the mud flats of Washington beaches. Logs on the beach. 

08:40Copy video clip URL Riding canoes in Grays Harbor, WA. The Siwash people living in the area fishing on the harbor.

10:35Copy video clip URL Living in a log cabin for two years. Her little brother Jimmy falling into a nearby creek. Jimmy is now a veterinarian in Corvallis, OR. 

13:30Copy video clip URL Heavy rainfall resulting in occasional flooding. Finding a man up in a tree because he got caught in the woods during a flood.

15:15Copy video clip URL Going to a small school in the area. Being the only girl at the school for years. Befriending a young girl named Tweeks who was half Native, half white. 

19:20Copy video clip URL A child’s question about whether canoes go in circles if the person rowing on one side is stronger than the person on the other. 

20:30Copy video clip URL A child’s question about whether it’s easier to grow up now than when she was a little girl. Nana says that it was very hard to grow up during “those old horse and buggy days…. We had lots of fun but I think it’s better now. ‘Course there’s more troubles for children to get into nowadays.”

21:23Copy video clip URL The man in the tree, named Tom Ford. 

21:39Copy video clip URL Only remembering a few words of the Native languages she encountered as a girl. 

22:22Copy video clip URL There not being any girls around when she was a child. 

22:35Copy video clip URL Another question about the man in the tree. 

22:58Copy video clip URL Carrying a boat across land when unable to continue over water. 

23:35Copy video clip URL Reading being her favorite thing. 

24:00Copy video clip URL The size of the boat that needed to be carried. More questions about the boat. 

25:11Copy video clip URL A question about dolls. Another question about the canoe. 

25:58Copy video clip URL The layout of the log cabin. Sleeping in the attic. 

26:43Copy video clip URL Having a chicken as a pet. 

27:58Copy video clip URL The clothes she wore as a little girl. 

28:30Copy video clip URL Her teachers, who she thinks were very good. She liked all of them. 

29:04Copy video clip URL How they got food when they lived in the log cabin. 

29:49Copy video clip URL “What was your favorite adventure?” Going up the river on the canoe. 

30:16Copy video clip URL A question about the TV show Little House on the Prairie. 

30:35Copy video clip URL A story about almost getting stuck between logs on the river.

31:43Copy video clip URL The teacher thanks Nana and the class. The camera zooms in on “Nana! 1978” written on the chalboard.