Grampa Quepkachee’s Hero
This is a story of immigration that is good to relate during this time of celebration of the founding of United States.
My great grandfather was an American immigrant from England, arriving as a child in the early 1850s. His given name was David Rees, but the Native Americans gave him another one, Quepkachee.
Ten years after he first arrived, he was back on the trail, helping newcomers cross the American plains. As he was passing, a young Native American boy pointed at David’s bare feet, then put his hand over his heart. Then he gave David his own moccasins.
I don’t know that young man’s story, but his actions transformed David and it has had, I believe, a profound impact on my family. David later became a marshall and constable in Brigham City, Utah. He learned Shoshone and Paiute and developed close relationships with the Native American communities throughout his life. He was a particularly close friend to Sagwitch, the chief of the Shoshone band in the region. He was a longstanding friend and peacemaker. On one occasion, he helped restore Sagwitch to health after Sagwitch had been shot on the way to a peace mission (Christensen, 1999).
They gave him the name Quepkachee.
…an unknown assassin approached the makeshift prison where Sagwitch was yet held and shot him. The ball reportedly entered his left breast and exited through his right shoulder, “inflicting a fearful, but it is believed not a mortal wound.” Family stories say that Sagwitch was shot in the hip, rather than in the upper torso, with the injury being so severe, that Sagwitch walked with a limp for the remainder of his life. After the shooting, the California Volunteers released Sagwitch. His sister Payhaywaikip Payhaywoomenup then loaded her wounded brother on her back and with much effort carried him from Mantua to the Brigham City home of David Rees, who the Shosone called Quepkachee. Rees, a fluent Shosone speaker and a longtime friend of Sagwitch, willingly took the injured leader into his home, where he cared for him until his wounds healed (Christensen, 65).
I looked long and hard to find out what the name meant after reading this in a biography of Sagwitch, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I asked a few Shoshone. I looked up native language dictionaries online — there is one at the University of Utah and another at Idaho State University — but could find nothing.
I assumed it was a fine and fancy name, evoking both grandeur and grace. I found the answer in the transcript to Grampa Rees’ funeral. Beeshop Moroni Timbimboo, Sagwitch’s grandson, spoke and gave the meaning of the name, but did not speak it. It means ‘the blacksmith’s son’ (Norr, 2018). Indeed, David was the son of the blacksmith. His father, John Davis Rees, had stopped along the way from England to learn to be a blacksmith and got his equipment in St. Joseph, Missouri. Romance had to give way to practicality as to the name, at least in my mind. The name was a map.
The point of the story, though, was that of the boy along the road. He had compassion. He acted. I see him reflected in the acts of my parents and the families they grew up in. Whatever else his life brought him, he did a very good thing there, reflecting the best of his heritage. I wish his family the very best.
Reference
Christensen, S. 1999. Sagwitch: Shoshone chieftan, mormon elder 1822–1887. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press.
Norr, C. (Ed.) (cyndeenorr@aol.com). 2018, August 17. Funeral services for David Morgan Rees, Tuesday, January 23, 1940. Brigham City, UT: Fourth Ward, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Available: https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/62998169.