“My Father Was an Iroquois Indian”: Mary Ann Told Us Herself
Sometimes the most important genealogical document isn't a baptism record or a marriage certificate.
Sometimes it is the person themselves telling us who they were.
In my family research, I have found a remarkable testimony from Mary Ann Brulé Voutrin, born around 1832 and who lived until 1922.
When she was interviewed later in life, she was asked a simple question:
What is your blood?
Her answer was extraordinary.
She said:
“My father was an Iroquois Indian named Louis Marchelle, usually called Frizzee on account of his curly hair, and my mother was a Marysville Indian woman.”
This is Mary Ann describing her own ancestry.
She told them where she was born
Mary Ann said she was born at Marysville, Oregon, which is now Corvallis.
She said that when she was little, she was taken to French Prairie and sent to the Sisters' School at St. Paul, Oregon, where she remained until she was fifteen.
Then she married.
At only 15 years old, she married Joseph Brule, whom she described as a French Canadian.
They went first to Cowlitz and later to Victoria, British Columbia.
They had six children.
Mary Ann said that only two of those children were still living at the time of her testimony: Ellen and Cecille.
Her description of Joseph is fascinating
Mary Ann called Joseph a French Canadian.
But the earlier 1848 Catholic marriage record tells us something else.
That record identifies Joseph as the:
“minor son of the late Jacques Iroquois and of Marguerite Brulé.”
It also identifies Jean Baptiste Brulé as Joseph's foster-father and step-father.
So we have two different descriptions of the same man.
Mary Ann remembered her husband as a French Canadian.
The 1848 church record identified his biological father as Jacques Iroquois.
These statements aren't necessarily contradictory.
A person can have a French-Canadian cultural or social identity and an Iroquois biological father.
That is exactly the kind of complicated identity we encounter throughout the history of the Pacific Northwest fur-trade communities.
Mary Ann's own childhood confirms part of the story
Her testimony also helps connect the generations.
She said she was born in Marysville and was sent to St. Paul as a child.
That fits remarkably well with the earlier baptism record I found.
On July 4, 1839, the Catholic register records a five-year-old Marie Anne as the natural child of:
Louis, Iroquois, nicknamed “le Frisé,” an engagé
and
Louise, Kalapoya by nation.
Another child, Michel, was recorded immediately afterward as the child of the same parents.
The five-year-old Marie Anne in the 1839 record is consistent with Mary Ann's later testimony that she was born around 1832.
So we have something unusual and valuable:
A childhood record from 1839.
And decades later:
Mary Ann's own testimony about her parents and childhood.
The two pieces of evidence reinforce one another.
Her father's name changed in the records
This is another reason genealogy can be so difficult.
In the 1839 baptism record, her father appears as:
Louis Iroquois, dit le Frisé.
In her later testimony, Mary Ann called him:
Louis Marchelle, usually called Frizzee because of his curly hair.
The nickname makes the connection especially interesting.
“Le Frisé” essentially refers to someone with curly or frizzy hair.
So the unusual nickname appears in both the earlier church record and Mary's later recollection.
This is exactly the sort of clue genealogists need when names and spellings vary across historical documents.
And what about her mother?
The 1839 priest identified her mother as:
Louise, Kalapoya by nation.
Mary Ann later described her mother as a Marysville Indian woman.
Those two descriptions fit the same general geography and Indigenous community.
So we have contemporary and later evidence pointing toward the same family:
Louis — Iroquois
Louise — Kalapuya
Marie Anne/Mary Ann — their daughter
Then Mary Ann's life took her north
Mary Ann told the interviewer that she and Joseph went from the Willamette region to Cowlitz, and later to Victoria, British Columbia.
This is another important part of my family history.
The political landscape around them was changing rapidly.
The Oregon boundary had been established along the 49th parallel in 1846.
The United States created the Oregon Territory in 1848.
British territory remained to the north.
Families who had moved throughout the Pacific Northwest for generations suddenly found themselves living within increasingly rigid political boundaries.
But the families themselves didn't suddenly become different people.
They continued moving.
They continued marrying.
They continued raising children.
And then Joseph died
Mary Ann said that Joseph died after they had six children.
Two years later she married John Baptiste Voutrin, whom she described as Canadian.
She had nine more children with him.
Eventually she returned to the reservation.
And even that part of her story tells us something important about Indigenous community and family connections.
Mary Ann said that she returned because she received word that her mother, who lived on the reservation, had died.
That sentence matters.
Her mother's family and community were still there.
The connection had not disappeared.
Why this testimony matters to me
When I first started looking at my family tree, I saw names.
Then I found documents.
Now I'm finding voices.
Mary Ann wasn't simply a name on my family tree.
She was a woman who lived through enormous changes in the Pacific Northwest.
She was born into an Indigenous/fur-trade family.
Her father was Iroquois.
Her mother was Kalapuya.
She was sent to a Catholic school as a child.
She married at 15.
She travelled from Oregon to Cowlitz and then to Victoria.
She raised children.
She lost her first husband.
She married again.
She eventually returned to an Indigenous community connected to her family.
And decades later, someone sat down and asked her about her life.
And she answered.
Three records. One family.
What makes this discovery so exciting is that I am no longer relying on one source.
I have three different kinds of evidence.
1. The 1839 baptism record
A five-year-old Marie Anne is recorded as the daughter of:
Louis Iroquois dit le Frisé
and
Louise, Kalapoya.
2. The 1848 marriage record
Marie Ann marries Joseph Brulé.
Joseph is identified as the son of:
Jacques Iroquois
and
Marguerite Brulé.
Jean Baptiste Brulé is identified as Joseph's foster- and step-father.
3. Mary Ann's later testimony
Mary Ann herself says:
Her father was Louis Marchelle, an Iroquois man known as Frizzee.
Her mother was a Marysville Indian woman.
She was born at Marysville.
She attended the Sisters' School at St. Paul.
She married Joseph Brule at 15.
She went to Cowlitz and later Victoria.
Now the family history begins to look less like speculation and more like a documented story.
And there is still more to discover
I am still investigating the exact identities and relationships in these records.
I want to know more about Louis Marchelle / Louis Iroquois dit le Frisé.
I want to know more about Louise, Mary Ann's Kalapuya mother.
I want to understand more about Marguerite, Joseph's mother, and her connection to the T’Sou-ke people.
And I want to understand how these families navigated the changing world of the Oregon Country, Vancouver Island and the emerging Canadian and American borders.
But I don't need to invent the answers.
Mary Ann left us clues.
The priests left us records.
And nearly two hundred years later, her descendants can still follow the trail.
Sometimes the past doesn't speak very loudly.
Sometimes it speaks in an old church register.
Sometimes it speaks through the testimony of a 57-year-old woman remembering her childhood.
But if we listen carefully—
it is still speaking.
