Rowena Jackson

A member of the Klamath Tribes, Rowena Jackson spent her early childhood in Klamath Falls and Chiloquin. “My dad passed away when I was 9,” she says. “He died of alcohol poisoning when he was 25. Then we moved to Portland.” Feeling that she didn’t fit in at school, Jackson dropped out at age 15, took GED classes at Portland’s Urban Indian Center and passed her exams at 16. “After that, I played,” says Jackson, who had $15,000 in an account derived from termination of her tribe’s treaty rights in 1954. Continue reading