Biography: Lucy Young
Contributed by Ben Schill of Phillipsville
According to Lucy Young's biography written by Frank Essene in 1942, Lucy was his principal Lassik informant and probably the oldest Indian in Mendocino County, possibly the state. She was approximately 90 years old at the time and in spite of her advanced age and near-blindness, she was able to give a detailed account of the Lassik culture. He describes Lucy as three-fourths Lassik and one-fourth Hayfork Wintun. - Ben Schill
 Lucy was born near the present village of Alderpoint, on the east side of the Eel River. The "rancheria" was about 200 yards north of the bridge that crosses the Eel River at this point. When she was a small girl many of the Lassik, including herself, were rounded up by the whites and taken to Fort Seward. While she was at Fort Seward, some of the old Lassik women were tattooing the girls. Lucy was really too young to be tattooed (normally, tattooing was done at puberty; Lucy was about nine years old.) but the old women caught her and took her out in the brush. Lucy struggled and screamed but the old women paid no attention to her cries. Two women held her and a third scraped her face with a tiny flint. A sooty mixture of burned grass and soaproot stalks was rubbed into the lacerated flesh. Tattooing was done in the spring so that green grass could be used. (Lucy's tattooing consists of eight vertical lines on her chin and two lines on each cheek that slant from the corners of the mouth to the molars.) Lucy was not supposed to eat meat or any warm food for two or three days after being tattooed. Her father told her to go ahead and eat meat because she was too small to go without food.
After about two years at Fort Seward, the women and children were allowed to go out and shift for themselves. Most of the Lassik men, including Lucy's father, had already been killed, mostly by white settlers, occasionally by soldiers. A few years later nearly all the Indians on the Eel River were again rounded up and taken to Fort Baker. Lucy, her little sister, and her mother managed to slip away during the march. They spent all summer by themselves. One night in the late fall, Lucy dreamed that she would see her cousins. The next afternoon they met a number of Lassik who had escaped from Fort Baker. They had a few months of freedom before the soldiers captured them again. This time only the women were taken to Fort Seward. The children were all taken south and never heard of again. (They were probably sold as slaves in Sonoma County.) Lucy hid in the brush and was the only child able to escape. By this time Lucy was beginning to grow up. She had been a rather small child but was smart enough to make a living by herself. She got in contact with her people from time to time, but was not taken to the reservation. The last surviving Lassik adult male had been killed by this time, and the Lassik women were allowed a certain measure of liberty. They were allowed to go out and gather seeds and acorns to eke out the rather meager rations supplied by the government. The country was gradually settled by the whites who sometimes took Indian women from Fort Seward for wives, and, more often, mistresses.
 When Lucy was a young woman, she went to live with a white man, Abraham Rogers, who had a ranch near Blocksburg. This was about 1870. She stayed with him more than thirty years. Their union resulted in four children: three girls and one boy. One of the girls died in infancy; when this happened Lucy almost became a shaman. Lucy has outlived all her children but has eleven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren that she knows of who are living. Most of her descendants have married whites; all are scattered over northern California.
About 1902, Lucy left Rogers and moved to Van Duzen. There she lived with another white man named Arthur Rutlidge. She left him in 1907. This time she finally moved back to Lassik territory, the region called Soldier's Basin. There lived the only other full-blooded Lassik survivors, two old women. One was Lucy's mother's younger sister, Ku' nigil an (win at gambling). The other was Lucy's second cousin, Kai 'itai (spring flowers). Kai 'itai was the widow of Ouneil (legs bad), the old Lassik chief. Lucy lived with these old women, took care of them till their deaths in 1924 and 1927. No doubt, this long contact with her own people renewed Lucy's knowledge of Lassik culture which most certainly must have been largely lost in the forty years she had been living with the whites.
While Lucy was living with her two aged relatives, she met Sam Young, who is half white, one-quarter Lassik, and one quarter Hayfork Wintun. In 1910 he came to live with her in Soldier's Basin. In the summer they traveled around a great deal, often coming to Round Valley. In 1927, they moved to Round Valley permanently and today own a small farm there. They were legally married soon after moving to Round Valley.
* This information was recorded by Frank Essene in Round Valley. It can be found in Anthropological Records, vol. 8 (1942).
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