 |
Emily Pauline Johnson»
(10 March 1861 - 7 March 1913)
Excerpt from the "Memoirs of Evelyn Johnson"
"And copper-tinted face and smouldering fire of wilder life, Were left me by my sire,
to be my proudest claim... Red Jacket." Pauline the Poetess.
Sunday's child is fair of face,
Sunday's child is full of grace.
The name Emily was after mother. In regard to Pauline, father at least got his wish to
name a child after a member (sister) of the family of the great General Napoleon
Bonaparte.
Pauline loved snowshoeing. Archery was another game which Pauline tried.
Pauline preferred to use a bow & arrow & never aimed at her target with a
gun. Pauline was never a skater. She said her ankles were weak. Nor was
she a swimmer.
Pauline was artistic in many ways. Her stage outfit was made while still living at
Chiefswood. It is now at the Vancouver Museum.
Pauline's literary attempts began at an early age when we were children on the Reserve.
"In the Shadows" was written in our canoe, which she had paddled up the
river a short distance. She drifted under a willow which overhung the bank of the
river on the south side directly across the Old Tuscarora Church, and here the poem took
form.
|
|
|
