JOHN FRANKLIN PAMBRUN

CUT BANK - John Franklin Pambrun, 56, retired director of Family Services, died of congestive heart failure Wednesday at a Cut Bank hospital. Survivors include his wife, Denise Pambrun of Cut Bank; children Sean Pambrun of Billings, Vonnie Pambrun of Cut Bank and Jeremy Pambrun of Bozeman; and grandchildren Kaiden Pambrun, Iris Pambrun and Adian Pambrun.

John was born July 4, 1951, in Browning, to Audra Pambrun. He was raised and educated in Browning and graduated from Browning High School in 1969. John attended the University of Montana in Missoula and Montana State University in Bozeman, receiving degrees in business administration, social services, anthropology and history. He served as director of Family Services in Browning for the Blackfeet Tribe and the state of Montana, retiring in July 2007. On Oct. 13, 1978, John married Denise Racine in Browning.

John's interests and hobbies included fishing, shooting guns, and arts and crafts, and he loved his computer and traveling. Most especially, he enjoyed family gatherings. John was preceded in death by his mother, Audra Pambrun. John will be fondly remembered for his great sense of humor and will be dearly missed.

John’s humor was “off-the-wall” and meant to deflect anger and calm meetings with laughter. Once he said to an impetuous child, “Why don’t you go eat some cat food? You’ll feel better!” But when the child, who valued John’s advice, did just that, John was a bit abashed. Much of his joking was about his weight, which was massive. approaching morbid obesity (like his mother), and probably genetic. Smokey Doore, who was on the football team with John, told about the boy’s attempts to lose weight and gain stamina. He asked the football team to help him, so they all ran wind sprints with him and otherwise encouraged him. At the end of the week John joked, “I guess I like food better than football,” and quit the team to their disappointment. There were jokes about how big his coffin would have to be, because everyone knew that the weight would cause an early death.

John was an only child. His mother, Audra Pambrun, a beloved nurse and expert on Native American health issues (esp. suicide) was also very heavy. She was born in 1929 and died in the early 1990’s. She graduated from the Columbus School of Nursing on June 10, 1949. John was born two years later and she told about bringing him back to the reservation from her first job (she was a single mother), traveling by Greyhound bus, and how she was prevented from entering any of the little cafes where the bus stopped. They wouldn’t even warm the infant John’s bottle. The conclusion she reached from suffering this racial hatred was that she was better than them. Many white people benefited from her determination to show them by example what compassionate helping was like.

John and his mother had many friends. In his job with Child and Family Services, John at one time had 140 children as his responsibility and he considered all of them “my kids.” He kept a little trove of personally purchased gifts for them, knew them all by name, and worked desperately hard to keep any of them from slipping through the cracks. His favorite holiday was Halloween because he knew a lot about “trick or treat” and wearing masks. However, being overweight did not hide his lively mind and his heart was as big as his waistline.

Where does all this come from? Perhaps as the Blackfeet Tribe just passes through another tumultuous election, it’s useful to look at Audra’s father, George Pambrun. Paul Rosier’s book, “Rebirth of the Blackfeet Nation, 1912-1954” has a dozen index entries for George, who was on the Tribal Council during WWII, then Secretary and finally the Chair. He was part of a faction that wanted self-determination because they did not think the white BIA officials were fair or informed about allocating loans and other funds and thought they could do a more efficient and equitable job themselves. They were actively opposed by the more full-blood people who feared mixed-bloods than whites, though the Blackfeet old-timers were never as oppressed by mixed bloods as the Sioux were. Mixed-bloods tended to have white fathers who could give them special advantages that pushed full-blood fathers and their children to the side. Besides, the Blackfeet have always had a tribal belief in the importance of a “big man” who dispensed food and privilege -- it was clear to them that the whites were the “big men.”

In George’s time, the tribal council could not or would not cap welfare grants for burials and hardship. George himself answered Office of Indian Affairs demands for explanation and explained patiently that they could hardly turn away their own people and that they had kept good records they would be glad to show to the OIA. In this time period Blackfeet were in the military in larger proportions than others, the more assimilated mixed-bloods went to the cities where they worked to build airplanes and ships, and the more traditional full-bloods went to the fields to bring in the food. They didn’t see why these contributions didn’t entitle them to run their own affairs.

In the spring of 1945 the “more competent” people met with the government to review their constitution. The dark side of wanting independence was that now a nation that had spent so much on the war wanted to terminate the reservations as an unnecessary financial drain. This was the key to “relocation,” the Eisenhower attempt to clear out the reservations by training and employing NA people in cities. The dark side of THAT was the creation of urban NA ghettoes which eventually gave rise to the American Indian Movement. About this time Pambrun warned that the new-found oil reserves were making the council vulnerable to corruption and bribery. These patterns are being re-enacted today.

In 1950 there was a referendum and election that put George Pambrun, Joe Brown and two women on the Tribal Council. The tribe clung to BIA supervision, evidently feeling a known evil was better than an unknown future. This is about the time Audra gave birth to John and came home to live with her father. Both their lives were committed to George’s dedication to “the least of these,” but not in a political way -- rather they acted personally and professionally.

If one goes back into the history of George Pambrun, the names that come up are Metis: Gallineaux, Burdeau -- until one comes to Pierre Chrysologue Pambrun, a valued employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who worked with Dr. John McLoughlin (the White-Headed Eagle who ruled the Oregon Territory) until he was assigned to run Fort Walla Walla in the very early days. Much of what we know about him -- that he was warm, courteous, generous, and competent -- comes from the journals of Narcissa Whitman, a great missionary heroine of Oregon history.

This material cries out for an epic saga of generations. “Generativity” was the name Erik Erikson used to mean working towards the good of the future generations. If there is one word that describes John Franklin, Audra, and George (who was John’s father-figure) it is generativity. Luckily, John had many, many children.