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Details
Term

Lena Dick

Alternate Term

Dick, Lena

Dick, Lena?


Occupation/Role

basket weaver

Nationality/Ethnicity

Washoe

Geography

Coleville, Mono County, California

Date

ca. 1889-1965

ca. 1889-1965

ca. 1889-1965

Remarks

Lena Frank Dick was born in Coleville, Mono County, California. She was a daughter of Charley and Lucy Frank. She was married fist to George Emm (died 1951), with whom she had daughter Juanita Summers (ca. 1910-1971). She remarried Levi Dick (died 1963), also from Coleville, the son of Minnie and Washoe Dick. Lena spent her years of active weaving in Coleville, but during the 1930s and 1940s, family moved often due Levi’s construction job. They retired back to Coleville in the early 1950s. Lena died in March 1965. In the middle 1920s, Lena was commissioned to weave baskets exclusively for Roscoe A. Day, a San Francisco orthodontist. This arrangement lasted through the early 1930s, when illness on part of Dr. Day required him to end the commission. By this time, Lena’s sight was so impaired that she had difficulty weaving very fine decorative baskets, and for the rest of her life she continued to weave only utilitarian baskets. After the death of Roscoe Day’s wife in 1944, his basket collection was given to the State of California and all of the documentation was lost. The baskets by Lena were assumed to be Dat-so-la-lee’s work, and until 1978 were displayed as such. Two of Lena’s sisters, Lillie Frank James (died 1948) and Jessie Frank Wade (died 1973) were also noted weavers.

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