Holding on to history
One family takes Global Village event seriously
By Johna Strickland
Argus Observer
Thursday, June 5, 2008 10:21 AM PDT
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| Michael Tyner (from left to right), Benjamin Tyner, April Tyner, William Tyner and Jake Tyner try out their costumes and a few props for the pioneer village they will staff Saturday at America’s Global Village Festival in Lions Park, Ontario. Each Tyner will portray a character who once lived and worked in the Treasure Valley. |
Nyssa — The Tyner brothers — Jake, William and Benjamin — don’t just read about history and how the West was won in a textbook.
They wriggle into a family heirloom buckskin shirt, pick up a branding iron and pin on a Wells Fargo badge to relive the lives their ancestors led.
Together with their parents, April and Michael Tyner, the brothers will live out the next chapter of their alter egos Saturday at America’s Global Village Festival in Lions Park, Ontario. The Nyssa family will lead the pioneer village for the sixth year, Michael Tyner said.
“We do this because I have such an intense love for history. I was a history major ... I was born right here (Nyssa) and always wanted to know more,” Michael Tyner said, adding the family feels history is an art form.
William Tyner, 14, said he works at the village to help others learn.
“It’s nice to spread knowledge around because that’s how it stays alive,” he said. “There are parts of history that have fallen away because no one spreads it.”
At each stop, villagers will share their culture’s history, food and a craft. In addition to the pioneer village, Basque, Japanese, African and Native American cultures will be portrayed.
Dressed in costumes, the Tyners will represent Idaho and Oregon’s history from the fur trapper age in 1810 to the homesteaders’ in 1939, Michael Tyner, 50, said. Despite the Oregon Trail’s presence here in 1849, towns didn’t spring up in the Treasure Valley until later, with Ontario in 1883 and Nyssa in 1907, Tyner said in explanation of the 1939 date.
“Our history here is still pretty young, so that’s why we go to the homesteaders,” Michael Tyner said.
Jake Tyner, 17, who inherited Cherokee blood from both parents, will take on the first person’s pavilion and represent the Native American tribes — Paiute, Bannock and Shoshone — that first lived in the Treasure Valley. His research, often reliable Internet sites such as the Oregon Historical Society’s, has happened in just two weeks since the committee working with the Ontario Chamber of Commerce decided to include a Native American village in this year’s offering. His character and costume is a composite of these tribes, Jake Tyner said. While his family heirloom buckskin shirt and feather headband lack tribal authenticity, he will still educate visitors.
“People will say, ‘Look at the Indian,’ and they’ll go learn about Indians, and that accomplishes our goal,” Michael Tyner said.
Back in the pioneer village, the rest of the Tyners will give visitors a taste of American culture and the characters that came to the West. Wearing a red calico shirt and a leather hat, Michael Tyner will reincarnate Hudson Bay Company’s chief trader at Fort Boise from the 1840s or ’50s. This pioneer-style head honcho would have spent his days running the civilian fort and trading post, supervising employees, and negotiating deals with Native Americans, fur trappers and wagon trains, Michael Tyner said.
April Tyner — outfitted in Civil War-era garb, “they wore what they had,” she said — embodies a woman who traveled the Oregon Trail. Looking at photos of her in character, Tyner, 44, said she shouldn’t have been smiling.
“I’d just walked 400 miles, buried a child along the way. They didn’t have much to smile about,” she said. Michael Tyner agreed.
“I’m sure the husbands got a verbal lashing every night,” he said.
With a badge pinned to his chest, Benjamin Tyner, 14, will be on the prowl for bad guys Saturday in his role as a Wells Fargo agent.
“He chases down stagecoach robbers,” Benjamin Tyner said of his character. William Tyner, Benjamin’s twin, will stand in for the cowboys who rode the range in the late 1880s.
“The paycheck wasn’t too good, maybe 2 or 3 dollars a week, and that’s for doing the dirty work, mending fences, branding cattle, going on cattle drives,” William Tyner said.
Saturday, William Tyner will wield an iron that burns the rocking chair brand used by the Arriola Ranch near Westfall, Ore. In the village, the family will display hundreds of other artifacts from pioneer life they have collected. Michael Tyner said he’s thinking about turning the collection into a traveling museum.
On reader boards and in vocal presentation, the family will spend hours telling the history and stories accumulated over the years, he said. This year, they will tell the story of Oregon’s first migrant workers, Michael Tyner said. In 1807, John Jacob Astor brought Hawaiian laborers to the United States to build Fort Astoria. Later, the Hudson Bay Company contracted with the workers and brought them to Eastern Oregon. Once here, two or three Hawaiians drowned in a river. After their deaths, locals tried to commemorate them by naming the river after Hawaii. The locals dubbed the river the Owyhee, having missed the “H” in Hawaii, Michael Tyner said. William Tyner said they will also talk about the land deals that enticed settlers to the West.
“It’s like goin’ to the dollar store and buying like a hundred acres,” he said.
When asked why the community should come out for Global Village, Jake Tyner gave a two-word answer: “It’s fun.”
William Tyner agreed, adding, “it’s free, it’s fun, you learn. Just listen and you’ll learn something.”
