Elsie Fox: Portrait of an Activist

By Karen Stevenson and Elsie Fox

On Mothers Day of 2006, ninety-eight-year-old Elsie Fox stepped up to a microphone at a park in Bozeman, Montana, and called for people to wake up, remember, act, and make a difference. Spanning a century, this biography of feisty Elsie Fox tells the story of a woman who made activism her life.
Born on a remote Eastern Montana ranch, Elsie was nurtured by a strong desire to be self-reliant at a time when women were expected to be good housewives. She came of age in the rip-roaring decade of the twenties and witnessed the Depression in Seattle that led her to discover Marxism and a like-minded husband. The road led to San Francisco, the International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union where she worked for twenty-eight years. Elsie spent WWII fighting for her husbands release from a Prisoner of War camp in the United States where he was being held as an illegal German alien.
With photos included, Elsie Fox paints a vivid picture of a woman who fights for what she believes. She asks, If we dont take action when there are problems in the world, then what are we?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 30, 2008
• ISBN: 9780595620647

Karen Stevenson

Karen Stevenson wrote the script and performed a living history presentation of Montana pioneer photographer, Evelyn Cameron. Stevenson has written for the Miles City Star, Billings Gazette, and Montana Magazine and taught in a one-room schoolhouse. She lives in rural Miles City, Montana, with her husband. They have raised three children.

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Copyright © 2008 Karen Stevenson. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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COVER PHOTO: Watercolor portrait of Elsie Fox, 1939, by artist Cecelia Corr, a fellow activist for peace and civil rights.

ISBN: 978-0-595-51856-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-0909-6 (dj)

ISBN: 978-0-595-62064-7 (ebook)

iUniverse rev. date: 12/18/2008

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FOREWORD

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE—1536 TO 1924

CHAPTER 1:

CHAPTER 2:

CHAPTER 3:

CHAPTER 4:

CHAPTER 5:

CHAPTER 6:

CHAPTER 7:

PART TWO—NOW AND THEN

CHAPTER 8:

CHAPTER 9:

CHAPTER 10:

CHAPTER 11:

CHAPTER 12:

CHAPTER 13:

CHAPTER 14:

CHAPTER 15:

CHAPTER 16:

CHAPTER 17:

CHAPTER 18:

CHAPTER 19:

CHAPTER 20:

CHAPTER 21:

CHAPTER 22:

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

EPILOGUE

APPENDIX A:

APPENDIX B:

APPENDIX C:

APPENDIX D:

APPENDIX E:

ENDNOTES:

BIBLIOGRAPHY

For Elsie

When I give bread to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why people are poor, they call me a Communist. —Dom Helder Camara

Acknowledgments 

Early on my daughter Ann provided creative and wise consultation and enthusiastic support. My writing group patiently plodded along with me through drafts and re-drafts. Friends read the manuscript and offered gentle critiques and encouraging words. Clay Scott gave a listening ear and kind support. Kathy O’Brien shared her expertise in sorting through a tangle of endnotes and smiled at just the right times. Glenda Pearson at the University of Washington dug in dusty archives and my cousin, Lynn Montgomery, took the time to be my research assistant in Seattle. James Gregory at the University of Washington, head of the research project about Communism in the state of Washington, unwittingly provided a wealth of knowledge to loose Elsie’s memory. Catherine Powell at the Labor Archives in San Francisco found photos and pertinent information regarding Elsie and Ernie. My husband Mike believed in me. Thank you … and gratitude to all.

And to Elsie, thank you for trusting me with your story.

Foreword 

I met Elsie Fox for the first time a few years ago. A friend had told me she was someone I should get to know, so I drove out to Miles City to see her. We spent the better part of a day in her modest trailer, drinking tea and talking. I returned to see her the next day, and we picked up the conversation where we had left off. Since that first visit I have found excuses to go out to Miles City on several more occasions. Elsie would talk for hours about her life, but her narrative was more than a simple recounting of events. She constantly strove to make her past experiences relevant to the present, and she often interrupted her stories to challenge me.

"What do you think? Or, What would you have done in my place? Or, What do you think the government’s role should be in that situation?"

She told me the stories you will read in these pages: of her dirt-poor childhood on the Powder River, a childhood filled with hard work, and with long, dusty cattle drives, and with loneliness; and peopled with itinerant horse traders and cattle thieves.

You will also read in this remarkable book about Elsie’s time in Seattle during the Depression, of her later move to San Francisco, of her political awakening – and its consequences.

I became a political progressive, she told me. You can call me a radical if you like. I have sometimes been ostracized for my political beliefs. But if you are passionate about seeking the truth, being ostracized is part of the package!

Still, Elsie confesses to feeling depressed and frustrated at times.

"I always had the perspective that the world would get better, that it must get better, she said. I dedicated my life to that belief. And it has been a tremendous disappointment to me to realize that, on the whole, the world has not gotten better. But then that feeling of depression and despondency turns to anger, and that anger turns into action. Because if we don’t take action when there are problems in the world, then what are we?"

I called Elsie the other day, to get her thoughts on the 2008 presidential campaign, and was pleased to find her—at 100 years of age—as curious, forceful, passionate and intense as always.

This country seems so passive! she told me, her voice shaking. So many Americans seem content to let things happen to them! Sometimes I think my countrymen believe history is something you watch on television! They seem to have no idea that they are making history! They have no idea that their very lack of engagement is helping to shape history! I am so angry!

Then she paused, took a breath, and chuckled.

I’m forgetting my manners, she said, sweetly. How are you, my dear?

And that is Elsie in a nutshell: impassioned citizen of the world, and attentive friend; able to grasp the big picture, and appreciate the small.

I asked her once if, after all her experiences, she ever felt isolated in Miles City. She laughed at the question.

When I was a little girl, she said, there was a little ditty we used to sing in Sunday school. ‘Brighten the corner where you are.’ And I have found that I have been able to do that. So no, I don’t feel isolated at all. Wherever there are people, life is interesting.

By Clay Scott

Clay Scott is a freelance writer and radio producer. He spent several years as a foreign correspondent for ABC News and Christian Science Monitor Radio.

October, 2008

Helena, Montana

Preface 

Ninety-eight year old Elsie Fox leaned into the microphone and surprised the crowd with her strong voice. I want to voice my appreciation for all of you that are here today. Dressed in a long, black skirt with a gold and black vest and matching earrings, Elsie stood behind the podium on a raised platform in a city park in Bozeman, Montana, on Mother’s Day of 2006. She was the guest speaker at a peace rally, which had attracted a large crowd of all ages.

I also want to voice my appreciation for Montana Women for Justice and Peace. Their aims embody the tradition of Jeanette Rankin. They are fast becoming spokespersons for we, the people. Let’s give them a cheer that can be heard up the mountainsides of the Gallatin Valley! She waved her arm in the air yelling, Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray!

The crowd reacted to this white-haired, less-than-five-foot-tall woman by following her lead, and their shouts resounded loudly in the warm, May air. She held yellow index cards, which had key lines of her speech printed in bold, black letters big enough for her to read, yet, Elsie was determined to deliver her speech, not read it.

Elsie began her speech after the crowd settled on the lawn under the fir trees that towered overhead. I was born in 1907. I remember when my mother voted for the first time in 1914. She put her shoulders back and said with pride in her voice, ‘I voted today!’ This event was only made possible by the actions of thousands of women known as the suffragettes. They chained themselves to courthouse pillars. They tirelessly marched and protested and petitioned throughout the country until women won the right to vote.

Elsie continued, I was a young woman living in Seattle during the Depression of the thirties. I saw the crash. I saw the banks close and people losing their jobs and being evicted from their houses. I saw industry stop. I saw the country stop. I saw people go hungry! I saw fear. Fear of hunger is almost as bad as hunger itself. I saw people go without health care. I saw racial discrimination among black people, immigrants, women, and the elderly. I saw unfair labor practices. Does all this sound familiar? President Hoover told us that the benefits of big business would trickle down to the people. Sound familiar? And what did we, the people, do?

Elsie knew how to work a crowd. She was an experienced agitator. Her voice grew stronger as she emphasized key words.

"We, the people, marched from one end of this country to the other to demand change. We marched ten-thousand-people strong down Main Street of Seattle—demanding work and food. Incidentally, the man who led that march later became my husband. We pooled our resources and drove our tin lizzies and took boxcars and thumbed rides to Washington DC to demonstrate on the Capitol Mall.

"We, the people, educated the working class by publishing a newspaper, the Voice of Action, and distributing it door to door.

"We, the people, organized Townsend clubs after pensions were lost when the banks closed and discussed ways to provide security for the working man’s future. This was the beginning of Social Security.

"We, the women, boycotted silk stockings. We knew that Hirohito was flexing his muscles dangerously. We knew that the scrap iron Japan was buying from us could very possibly come back to this country in the form of bullets, which it did. But we made ourselves heard.

"We, the people, united to help our neighbors. People had no jobs—no money to pay the rent. Evictions were common. I saw, in my own neighborhood, the sheriff taking the little furniture and sorry belongings of a family out the front door and neighbors, on the other side of the truck, taking it off and returning it through the back door. We, the people, fought back.

"What were the results of our actions? If there is one thing I want to make clear today, it is that Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, bank reforms, and the New Deal came from the people! The Works Progress Administration was established by the insistence of people who wanted work and not charity. FDR got these ideas because he heard the voice of the people from the grass roots of America!

"That’s the way it happened, folks. We did it then; you can do it now! It’s not going to happen through politicians of both stripes in Washington DC. In the spirit of the suffragettes a century ago, we must unite in a common cause!

"I want to end with a quote written by Pastor Neimoeller, a Protestant Minister in Germany who survived the concentration camps:

First they came for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for me and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me."¹

Elsie paused, and her gaze swept over the crowd. The challenge came as she pounded her fist on the podium.

"We, the people, must have solidarity … unity! The voice of action must be heard … by the people, for the people, from the people. We, the people, can take back our country! We can make a difference! We can win!"

The crowd, seven hundred strong, leapt to their feet with cheers and applause. Elsie Fox stepped off the stage and was surrounded by people eager to meet her. Several young men in their early twenties shook her hand and started asking questions about her life and the details she had mentioned in her speech. The Nation later posted her speech on their Web site in the Moral Compass section. Elsie stepped out of the forgotten pages of a history book that day, shook her fist, and called for people to wake up, remember, act, and make a difference.

image_00.jpg

98 year old Elsie - Mother’s Day Speech, Bozeman, Montana

Introduction 

When Elsie Fox stepped up to read at the open mike event at the Custer County Art Center in Miles City, Montana, I saw for the first time the woman who would eventually inhabit my life with the force of her will. She walked briskly to the front of the room and waited for someone to adjust the microphone down to her size. Elsie wore a black, mid-length skirt that flared at the bottom revealing stylish boots. Silver earrings bobbled below her upswept, white hair, and the rings on her fingers sparkled as she held her manuscript. Rouge added color to her cheeks, softening her sharp nose, and her lips were tastefully painted with bright lipstick. The person next to me leaned over and whispered, She’s over ninety years old!

Elsie read her story about growing up dirt poor on a remote ranch in eastern Montana at the turn of the last century. She told about a runaway team of horses and a one-room school. She described her childhood home—a sod-roofed log cabin with no electricity or running water. I had heard similar hard-luck stories from elderly people in the area, but her almost exotic appearance and the flair with which she spoke suggested there was more to her story. Afterwards, over coffee and cookies, I introduced myself, and we talked briefly. It would be years later that I would really get to know Elsie.

image_01a.jpg

Elsie and her 1976 Gremlin

Elsie drove a yellow, 1976 Gremlin, which was easy to spot among the pickup trucks, SUV’s, and family vans that were the norm in Miles City. Everyone in town knew if Elsie was out and about blocks away just by recognizing her car. Despite her age, she got around.

Elsie sold her car when her eyesight began to fail and relied on friends or a taxi to take her places. On occasion, I would take her to the grocery store. I trailed behind Elsie that first shopping trip, pushing my cart, anxious to help her. She turned to me and said, Don’t you have your own shopping to do, dear? I’ll meet you at the checkout stand, and off she went.

Twenty minutes later, I pulled up behind Elsie at the checkout stand. She turned to me and said, Dear, would you please watch my cart? I forgot something. I was happy to finally be of some help and pushed her cart toward the clerk as Elsie hurried over to the counter where lottery tickets were sold. It didn’t take long before she came back, ticket in hand. I buy one every month. I plan to build my dream house when I win! She chuckled and stuffed the ticket in her purse.

One Friday evening, I met Elsie—never one to pass up a good time—at the local bookstore where musicians played and sang for an appreciative audience. During an intermission, I went to greet Elsie, who was sitting in the front row. With simple hellos out of the way, she obviously had something other than pleasantries on her mind. So … what do you think of the impending invasion of Iraq? she asked. I muttered something about it being terrible. Well, I have the most fantastic idea, dear! Wait until you hear this … and I think it will work! I sat down beside her while she continued excitedly. I’m very concerned about this present military escalation. When you’re my age, you don’t sleep a lot and have time to think. So as a result, I’ve come up with a brilliant idea. Now listen to this. She put her hand lightly on my arm while sitting on the edge of her seat. "It will take the women of the world to stand up to war. The women have to unite to stop this insanity. We’ll call it WOW: Women Opposed to War. She swept her hand in front of her, rings flashing, like a talk show host introducing a famous guest. Now visualize this—we’ll get as many women as we can and form this great line. We’ll stand, arm in arm in a line that will stretch for miles and miles between the two armies. We won’t have guns or weapons—just women standing for peace! I think it will work! I mean, how could they shoot at all us women? I noticed that her pronoun usage while relaying her idea had turned plural. Don’t you think that’s a great idea? I gave her a thumbs–up, and she sat back and smiled. Now, who can we get to see this idea through?" Elsie asked, and she wasn’t kidding.

The autumn day that I first visited Elsie at her home has remained vivid in my memory. Elsie was ninety-eight years old when she phoned me wanting my help with a community health project that she was involved in. She asked me to come visit her. Home was a trailer that sat on a corner lot of a tidy, established trailer park. A white picket fence outlined the perimeter of the lot. The faded green trailer, with thin aluminum siding and little or no insulation, looked to be from the seventies. It was small—about twelve feet by sixty feet—with an enclosed particleboard porch that doubled as an entryway and storage room. Potted flowers and tomato plants lined the deck, which looked out to a small yard and the next door trailer. I rang the doorbell.

Elsie graciously greeted me and motioned toward a wicker rocking chair. As she fixed tea, I glanced around the living room. I was intrigued with what I saw. On the wall in front of me, a silk screen wall hanging—a monochrome of gold and brown—presented an intriguing scene of a river and a woman with flowing hair that floated in the sky with a crescent moon. A Chinese pastel of running horses hung above the television set while a herd of figurine horses graced the top of a small shelf in the corner. Worn, orange cushions in a black, bamboo frame served as her sofa. It has a minimalist, European feel to it, Elsie explained about the sofa. It was in my apartment in San Francisco. A big, copper-engraved plate hung on the wood-paneled wall behind the sofa. She later told me it was from Iran. She handed me a cup of tea, then settled onto the sofa. The trailer’s outside appearance seemed to echo her homestead beginnings while the art on her walls and steaming cups of tea before me hinted at the middle of her story—the one I sensed at the art center years earlier. A dozen questions surfaced, but Elsie had business in mind.

She explained her role and the possibility of mine in the new community health center. She was direct and businesslike. Here is a piece of paper and pen. You might want to take notes. Satisfied she had gotten what she wanted out of me—a promise to help with signage for the community health center for low-income people—she sat back and said, Now, tell me about your life.

Her directness circumvented the usual chitchat and caught me off balance. I felt like I had just been given a topic for an impromptu speech, and the judges sat expectantly alert. Elsie’s calico cat, Mia, jumped onto the sofa. Elsie absentmindedly stroked Mia as she waited for me to begin. I managed to sum up my homegrown, Montana background in short time—growing up on a wheat farm, my widowed mother raising three children and later my husband and I living on a remote, southeastern, Montana ranch, where we raised our three children, and I taught eight grades in a one-room school.

After I finished, Elsie pushed aside a pile of markers and notepads and set her teacup on the coffee table. A magnifying glass sat on top of a stack of New Yorkers, and local newspapers littered the glass top. A confusion of books spilled out of the bottom of the table—Howard Zinn’s A People’s History, Marx’s The Communist Manifesto, Fodor’s India, and numerous western history books.

Now, I’ll briefly tell you about my life. I knew the beginning—the remote ranch and log house. She had almost a century of living behind her, and I thought I’d be there for hours. Mia jumped onto the floor as Elsie folded her hands in her lap and began. It may have taken five minutes, or maybe it took two hours—poverty, single-mother struggles, the Roaring Twenties. I was a flapper in the twenties … that doesn’t mean I was promiscuous, but it doesn’t mean I was a virgin, either! Bootleg-whiskey and speak-easies, radicalism and the labor movement, intrigue, suspense, conviction, and a cause—this was nothing like the stories my homesteader grandparents had told me. Elsie finished by saying, "I think