Cleo Mustache

All I would say is you’ve got to work. Look out for yourself. It’s hard out there. I look out for myself—and three others. I’m helping out somebody else and trying to help out those guys on the street. Take care of yourself and don’t be stingy. Open your heart a little bit. Be generous. If you don’t have much keep it. If you have more hand someone half of your sandwich. It ain’t going to kill you—just by sharing one little thing. Help out one another and take care.

Cleo Mustache

My name is Cleo Mustache. I was born September 28th, 1944. I’m from Lac Courte Oreille Reservation this is toward Ashland Wisconsin. I wasn’t born in a hospital. I was born at home with a midwife.

There were no cars. There was no electricity, or telephones. Only trails. We didn’t have new clothes what so ever. Everything was hand me downs, or mother had to sew our clothes. There was a truck from the Salvation Army that came in once a month to take people shopping. In the summer there was a guy at the top of the hill. He had a horse and buggy. During the summer that’s what he took people into town with.

We had gardens, so my mother had to can food. She canned the food, smoked the meats, and fish to last all summer. If the person went out and got a deer it was like a family. Everyone got a piece of deer meat. With the elderly they got the fish and most of it.

We had one heck of a time growing up. Only thing I would switch was school. If you talked Indian you got hit and sent to the corner. My favorite subject in school was history, because I liked to read about a long time ago. I never read about Indians that were free. They were in camps and they were slaughtered. Prejudice always was in my life.

We had lots of things to do on the reservation, we were never bored. We would take old pieces of string and we would make a ball. We had sticks for baseball bats. We had a lot of fun. We made our own rope out of old pieces of coats. We would tie them together and make our own jump rope.

To tell the truth we had nothing growing up but we always had something. We were satisfied. To this day having money spoils you. I help people on the streets who are homeless or in soup lines. I get blankets from one place. I would hand them out to people on the streets. At Thanksgiving somebody asked me why I don’t have leftovers. I wrap them up and put them in tin foil and give them to someone on the street. The homeless have no place to go.