Obituary: Mary Dodds Schlick

At the camp, Mary was often on her own and happily occupied with nature and making things with her hands. Those summers fed her great curiosity and ultimately led to her interest and expertise in basketry. Throughout her life, Mary collected bits of twigs, feathers or objects to repurpose into baskets and other creations. 

Mary met our father, William T. (Bud) Schlick, in seventh grade in Ames. While he was in the Army Air Corps, she earned a bachelor’s degree in household equipment and technical journalism from Iowa State (and later a master’s in human development from Virginia Polytechnic Institute). Mary and Bud married in 1949 and soon left Iowa for good when Bud took a job as a forester with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) on the Colville Reservation in Washington. There they welcomed three children: Bill in 1951, Katherine in 1952, and Joseph in 1953. Mary and Bud didn’t know then that they would spend the rest of their lives working with and living among and near Native people. Mary wrote of those experiences in her memoir, Coming to Stay: A Columbia River Journey (Oregon Historical Society, 2006). 

Our family moved many times between reservations in Washington (Colville and Yakama) or Oregon (Warm Springs) and Bud’s work at BIA headquarters in Washington, DC.  Mary found meaningful volunteer and paid work in each location. As examples, she became active in a cooperative preschool program in Virginia, then started a similar program on the Warm Springs Reservation. On the Yakama Reservation, Mary developed and trained educators on culture-based curriculum. She wrote newspaper features and a column for the Toppenish Review and from 1985-2000, the weekly column “Mountain Musings” in the Hood River News. 

Mary’s interactions with Tribal members sparked her enduring passion and respect for the Native arts of the Columbia Plateau. Mary had a drive to learn all she could about traditional basket techniques, materials and styles. She also cared deeply about recognizing and documenting the basket-making families and individuals, their works and their tribes. On this many-year journey, Mary conducted both formal and independent research. She studied at the Smithsonian Institution and museums across the US and Canada. Mary talked with and observed traditional weavers as they worked and then learned to weave on her own. Among her proudest accomplishments was a grant from the Oregon Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program in 1990 to help weavers Pat Courtney Gold, Bernyce Courtney and Arlene Boileau revive their traditional Wasco twining techniques.  

Mary consulted on and curated many exhibitions on Native arts, wrote numerous articles for magazines and presented papers at Native arts organizations. She served as adjunct curator of Native American arts at Maryhill Museum of Art. In 1995, Mary published Columbia River Basketry: Gifts of the Ancestors, Gifts of the Earth, an award-winning book on the history, makers, materials, and techniques of the Native peoples of the Columbia Plateau. 

Mary and Bud built their forest home near the community of Mount Hood in the upper Hood River Valley in 1978 and lived there until his death in 1992. Mary continued to love living in the woods and to write, teach, weave, and maintain the close relationships she treasured. In 2014, she moved to Rock Cove Assisted Living in Stevenson, Wash., near Joe and his wife Patty.  Katherine and her husband Russ now live in the Mount Hood house. 

Mary is survived by her daughter Katherine L. Schlick Noe (Russ) and son Joseph D. Schlick (Patty); grandchildren Bill Weiss (Natasha Godard), Joseph Noe (Jessica), Alexandra Wilcox (Jeremy) and Jack Noe (Darci); great-grandchildren Will Wilcox, Mason Turner, Marshal Turner, Hazel Wilcox and Miles Wilcox; and numerous nephews, nieces, cousins and dear friends near and far. In addition to Bud, Mary was predeceased by their oldest son William C. Schlick in 1972, her parents and siblings Robert H. Dodds, John Parry Dodds and Katherine D. Fletcher. 

We deeply thank Elaine Jeffries and staff at Rock Cove Assisted Living for their loving care; Heart of Hospice for easing Mary’s passage; and the Basketmakers (Gretchen Lape, Melody Robichaud, Marie Louise Penchoen and Colleen Paulus), Peggy Dills Kelter, Margarete H. Noe, the Calliope poets (Tina Castañares, Mimi Maduro, and Lynda Sacamano) and all the wonderful friends and relatives who signed her guestbook and made Mary’s life so full. 

A celebration of life will be held at a time when people can gather again.  Arrangements are under the direction of Anderson’s Tribute Center, Hood River. We suggest donations to Washington Gorge Action Program; Helping Hands Against Violence; food banks in Stevenson, Hood River or Parkdale; Hood River County or Stevenson Community Libraries; Thrive Hood River; or Columbia Insight.