Elder Profile

Sophie Matt: one-of-a-kind gem

By Maggie Plummer

Tribal elder Sophie Matt has seen plenty of changes here during her almost 81 years (Maggie Plummer photo)

They broke the mold when they made Sophie Matt.

That's what daughter Barbara says of her fun-loving 80-year-old mother.

"I read my paper every day," Sophie points out with a big laugh. "...I check to see if my name is in the obituaries. If not, then I go on to the crossword puzzle."

On her last birthday, the elder posed for a hilarious picture on Tony Grant's motorcycle, complete with helmet and goggles. She was too scared to go for an actual ride, but swears that on her 81st birthday, coming up May 30, she's going to ride that motorcycle with Tony Grant.

Sophie describes herself as "the biggest coward who ever walked."

As her brown eyes sparkle with a mischievous look, that's difficult to believe.

This is what Sophie looked like at the time of her 1945 graduation from Polson High School (photo courtesy of Sophie Matt)

Sophie's story is an unusual one. Although Salish and French by birth, she grew up in a traditional Kootenai family and speaks Kootenai.

Born to Art and Mary Marengo, she was adopted at the age of three when her Mom got sick and died. "There was TB (tuberculosis) around at the time," Sophie notes. "That could have been it."

It's been only recently that she's known who her biological relatives are.

Her adoptive Mom, Cecille Stasso Kallowatt, was a good friend of her mother's. "Cecille had told my mother she wanted me," Sophie explains. "My adoptive father was Phillip Kallowatt. They lived in Dayton, where he had an 80-acre allotment."

The day her mother died, Gabe Saloway picked up Sophie, her sister Ann, older brother Antoine "Howdy," and sister Mamie, she recalls. Gabe adopted Howdy and Mamie.

"Gabe took me to Browns Meadow, west of Kalispell, just out of Kila," she remembers. Phillip Kallowatt was out there cutting hay that day, and she went home with him when he was finished working.

Sophie's sister Annie was adopted by an elderly couple, and Mamie stayed with their biological grandmother, Lucy Ducharme, in the East Bay area.

Sophie was the only child of Cecille and Phillip until Howard was born in 1933. "He was a character," she says of her adoptive brother.

She and Phillip had a close relationship. "Phillip never spoke English," Sophie explains, "that's how I picked up the Kootenai language. Cecille spoke some English, but was not fluent. She knew enough English to get her point across."

Just like everyone else during those Depression years, the family didn't have money. Phillip (whom Sophie called Old Man) would trade firewood for vegetables.

Cecille and Phillip were strict parents, and young Sophie worked hard at home. "But I don't regret a minute of it," the elder is quick to add.

Cecille and Phillip were active in their culture.

"He would go up in the woods," Sophie remembers. "He always wore this stiff-brimmed hat. One time he felt something on his head, and it was an owl he said spoke to him and told him an old lady had been killed. Another time, he was over at the Blue Bay CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) Camp, and Mom was in Dayton. She went to Blue Bay to tell Phillip someone had passed. When she found him and told him the news, Phillip said, 'I know, that's why I'm here in camp, not out working.'"

The Kallowatts raised her spiritually: "Mom made me go to the cultural activities. We just sat quietly. I enjoyed watching the activities."

As a little girl, she thought she belonged: "But as the years went by, I wondered why I thought I was accepted by the Kootenais. I learned a lot from their traditions. A lot of it I keep today - the practices."

She was a timid girl, she says. "People would ask Mom, 'Where'd you get this little white girl?' She'd just say I was her daughter.

"Would you believe I ate raw kidney?" Sophie continues. "Deer kidney. I used to watch Mom eat raw kidney. It was good and fresh, but today I wouldn't touch it. In those days it was pure, it was just fresh food. It was a delicacy for them, a treat. We ate lots of deer, and they would buy half a pig. In the shed it hung all winter. In those days it used to be cold. Winter was colder."

Was there more snow then?

"Oh good grief, yes," she says in her way. "We had a cabin up in the Jette area. There were five or six feet of snow in there and we'd get stuck coming back from the highway to the cabin."

One of Sophie's favorite people was Phillip's sister, Ellen Pierre Kenmille, who spent a lot of time at the family's Dayton home.

"Ellen taught me a lot," Sophie says, nodding her head slowly. "At five or six years old, I was watching them, that's how I learned to bead. I called her Auntie."

Another favorite memory is camping at "West Fisher" (near Libby) for huckleberrying and for a big annual encampment. "It was near highway 2," the elder recalls, "a big gathering. The Nez Perce, Colville, Coeur d'Alene, and Kalispell would come at huckleberry season. We used to have a blast up there."

Huckleberries were 35 cents a gallon.

She remembers being afraid of bears, and of so many things: "I was scared of my own shadow!"

The family moved to Elmo, where she went to school for first and second grades. She spent the rest of her elementary school years at the Ursuline Academy in St. Ignatius.

Sophie never complained about being at the Ursulines, because she didn't have to work as hard there. For her, the Ursuline school was a "Godsend," she says. "I learned to do crafts, sewing, crochet, knitting, embroidery, and they taught us respect, too."

Because her Mom spoke English, English was young Sophie's number one language - which helped immensely at the Ursuline school.

Sophie used to where thick glasses, but hasn't had to since eye surgery. (photo courtesy of Sophie Matt)

She graduated eighth grade in 1940, then went to Polson High School except for one year over in Thompson Falls.

During those high school years in Polson, Sophie would see her Auntie Ellen and speak Kootenai with her: "I respected her. She would give me the shirt off her back. She was a wonderful person, so generous. She was all heart."

In the early 1930s, Phillip worked as a laborer at Kerr Dam. "We stayed in a wall tent," Sophie remembers. "Old Man built a floor and dug a cellar, and we had a wood stove in there."

The family lived there a couple of seasons, then went back to Dayton.

At Polson High School, Sophie got involved in bowling, tennis, basketball and baseball. "I fit in any place," she says, "it didn't bother me at all."

She graduated from high school in 1945.

Sophie thought she wanted to be a nurse. "But then one day Phillip chopped his big toe cutting wood," she says, "all I had to do was see the blood, and that cured that."

Then she wanted to go into the service. Women's Army Corps (WACs) recruiters came and when they asked Cecille, she said, "Absolutely not," the elder recalls. Apparently the WACs had a bad reputation.

"That shot that in the head," she says with a hearty laugh.

Then, the same year she graduated, she met up again with Joe Matt, whom she'd originally met at the Ursuline school.

One Sunday we went to the stickgame in Dixon," Sophie remembers, grinning. "I was sitting in the car with a crossword puzzle, and I needed a pen. So I borrowed a pencil from him, and he made me sit in his car to use it."

And, she sums up in her uniquely comical way, "Things escalated."

She was 19 and he was one year older.

"When I was going to get married in July 1946, they (her folks) were getting ready to go to West Fisher," Sophie says. "I told him, 'I'm getting married today.' He lowered the boom, told me to stay married to one man, no matter what happens, you stay and you raise your kids."

And that she did. Sophie was married to Joe for 58 years, and they had four children: Barbara, Dean, Randall Lee, and Rik.

Through the years the family moved around with Joe's jobs as an ironworker. He worked at Kerr Dam, Hungry Horse Dam, the Columbia Falls aluminum plant, missiles near Great Falls, Butte, on pulp mill construction in Missoula, the Noxon Rapids dam, a dam at Bridgeport, Washington (near Wenatchee), and Libby Dam.

Then he hurt his back and retired in 1975.

Sophie was a full time mom. She made a point of staying home to take care of her kids. "I did a lot of beading and knitting," she remarks.

She used to wear thick glasses, but doesn't any more, since having contact lenses surgically implanted.

"Being raised an orphan, having my own kids was the joy of my life," she says. "I was going to adopt a kid from an orphanage in Great Falls, but 10 months later I found out I was going to have Rik."

She enjoyed dressing her children well, especially for holidays, she recalls. "As a kid, I was poor and wore clothes from the Salvation Army sometimes. So I thought, 'My kids are going to get the best.'"

It wasn't until her kids were raised and out of college that she went to work.

She worked at the Kalispell library. But on her first day working there, a shelf fell on her and she hurt her back, ending up with a slipped disk.

In Bonners Ferry, Idaho, she translated documents from Kootenai to English. She was a history book writer for the Kootenai Culture Committee for 10 years. She also worked for 13 years with the elderly program, covering the whole reservation.

"I'd still be there if I hadn't hurt my back," she comments.

She moved to her current Big Arm home in 1980, and still struggles with back problems.

But she stays busy, and her funny, witty personality seems to inspire smiles wherever she goes.

There are many things she would like see changed. High on that list are people who make big money but don't "work big," she says. "People should earn their pay. Some are getting top pay for very little work. It's amazing how some people can make top money, be in a position for years, and have very few results."

Sophie worries about the reservation's young people, and recommends a tribal detention center for them.

"If we don't do something about these younger kids, they'll all be brain dead," she says. "It's really scary. Cultural activities now are way different from how they were 75 years ago. They don't even compare. Nowadays, alcohol and drugs have taken over this area. We desperately need help with our alcohol and drugs. If we don't take care of it, it's going to just get worse."

She feels that the kids aren't listening to the elders. "They do the opposite," she says. "When our parents told us no, it meant no. Sit meant sit."

Now, the children run around, at wakes for example, Sophie observes. "They don't understand the word 'no.' We got punished if we didn't do what our parents said. It was never this, 'how much are you going to pay me?' Never! These were just chores, just what your parents asked."

Now, parents can't correct their kids, the elder says. "They'll call it abuse. Old timers would use a switch or a belt, never their hands. Now it would be called child abuse. It's a sad situation."

She's been knitting zippered cardigan wool sweaters for kids. "I think I've completed 81 of these sweaters," the elder says, getting out her photos of them.

Sophie's health is good, except for her chronic back problems. "That, and being ornery," she says, flashing those big brown eyes again.

Sophie had a rip-roaring good time a her 80th birthday party last May, and swears that this year she'll celebrate turning 81 for an actual ride with Tony Grant on his Harley. (photo courtesy of Sophie Matt)