Lane County Historian
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Lane County Historian Doll House Replica of Peters-Lèston-Wintermeier House, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Chase to Lane County Pioneer Museum Courtesy Mrs. Clarence Chase LANE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Vol. XVII, No. 4 Eugene, Oregon Winter, 1972 LANE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Mrs. C. A. Huntington, 740 West 13th Street, Eugene, Oregon 97402 President Stuart W. Hurd, Rt. 2, Box 345, Eugene, Oregon 97401 Membership Secretary LANE COUNTY HISTORIAN Inez Long Fortt (Mrs. James 0. Fortt) __1ditor 3870 Watkins Lane, Eugene, Oregon 97405 The Lone County Historian is a quarterly publication of the Lane County Historical Society, a non.profit organization. Membership in the Lane County Historical Society includes subscription to the Lane County Historian. Annual dues: $3.00; family membership: $5.00. CONTENTS THE CHRISTMASES THAT WERE 63 By Lucia W. Moore, author and poet Author, "The Story of Eugene" written in collaboration with sisters, Nina W. McCornack (now deceased) and Gladys W. Mecready Author, "Wheel on the Hearth," "Old Fashioneds," short stories FROM THE PRESIDENT'S ORNER 72 By Hallie Huntington (Mrs. C. A. Huntington) President of the Lane County Historical Society THE SMEED HOTEL AND THE QUACKENBUSH STORE 77 By Inez Long Fortt, editor, Lane County Historian Eu9... ot the turn of lb. century Courtesy of Luau Moore 62 if/he Chris1rnaoeo if1hat 'I/Vere By Lucia Moore Christmas is in the air. We can agreement between some shop own- feel it and smell it. For, changed ers and St. Nicholas to avoid load- as it seems, it is a Birth and not ing the sleigh too soon and push- the hustle and tussel we make o'f ing it down Main Street? To be it. People have changed, not Christ- sure, the grocer's candy barrels mas. Our streets are bright, our were bulging in December; he most shops elegant, our friends eager certainly would have oranges when and hurried; but somewhere there he could find some. All the apples are still shepherds in the quiet hills. were shinier than usual and the And I think there are prayers. shelves held ears of unshelled pop- We can go back to our own quiet corn along with the good wire mesh hills and to the open, wide prairie poppers with handles as long as a land; to the Christmases we knew broom's. But mostly, thefe were in our valley with their gentle si- only more men sitting longer hours lences, their soft, rainy mornings around hotter pot-bellied stoves; and foggy ones and, sometimes, and more and busier women at fields, hills and small towns white home scheming and d r e a m ii g and sleepy under the snow. Time about Santa's work while tying the was sane then, and slow to move. sawdust safely back in dolls' leak- There were evenings shared around ing arms and legs, or pushing a log fire while we listened to peddles on Singer sewing machines, talk of the first Christmases our so new and helpful. grandparents and great grandpar- No one had Santa's address. No ents knew in a pioneer land. Beside one made demands. And among t h o se hard earned holidays we children the suspense was terrific. wide-eyed children thought ours all My first mind-picture of Christ- polished, well filled and beautiful. mas seems to be of wreaths in our And in the talk there was the windows and of fir garlands along sound of sleighbells from Illinois or the high lifting stairway bannister Maine and of Christmas fireworks in the big house where I was born. from North Carolina, Virginia and Possibly it was a!bout 1890; why Tennessee, with all the December when I was three, I wouldn't know remembering. We were a little en- now, but maybe the sharp memory vious of grandfather's vast world. is due to the smell of the fir boughs However, in our stores on the that, stripped of most of t he i r main streets we could discover a beauty, burned frighteningly in the few sleds, red mittens and hoods, fireplace. Some may remember the sometimes boots; and oh, wonders, pale green house that stood so red kid shoes and china dollseven early on "Eugene City's" Ninth a rare bisque one. Merchants who Street (now Broadway) and Char- refused to let it be known that nelton, where the Eon Marche now Santa was about to take over from covers our whole quarter block. our parents went right on filling The house was never any color but windows with blankets, churns and soft greenI suspect because it yardgoods, which, after all, made glorified the many, many t r e e s up the bulk of needed gifts. Busi- father a n d mother h a d planted ness could wait with the children there. Across Ninth and south of for Christmas morning and Santa's us was the tall, pinkish house of doings. Was there some sort of H o r a c e C r a i n whose thousand 63 clocks ticking in his jewelry store and as strict as a banker's busi- on Willamette Street I still hear ness; the Crams, tall and shuttered wonderingly. Who wound them all? from the outside. On the others the Who but Mr. Cram? Catty-corner shutters were inside, and our house across the muddy intersection, the was shuttered only in its big east big home of my Uncle and Auntie diningroom. Holt loomed among trees, its tall It seems strange to think that windows marvelously rounded at in those late 1880s there were but the top. West, across Charnelton, 2500 people in Eugene, "with some was the white house of Thomas 224 students," says history, "at- Grundy Hendricks, one of the tending the university." The rutted founders, and president, of the al- streets were lined by wooden side- most new First National Bank, wa]ks, many of them built high off just two blocks away. There were the ground to escape flood waters trees in the Hendricks yard, too, that sometimes came. Most of the and beds of forgetmenots and maid- curbs were wide, g r ass ed, and en hair fern behind a white picket proud of their maples, locust trees, fence, a grape arbor, a big barn or elms and poplarseven now- far out of view, and horses, with and-then an apple or cherrytree. fringe-topped carriage that came I spoke especially of the win- and went, sometimes with a black dows. At Christmas time the par- driver holding the reins. lor ones were never so black-dark We all had barnsat least those as on other winter nights. There of us who drove teams to carriages might be a lamp in one, or a or wagons, or a single horse to candle to light the Christ Child, but phaeton or buggy. Also, there were never a sight there of a Christmas many other contraptions on wheels tree until Christmas Eve, for the that would cope with the mud and tiny candles on its branches were dust. Father had one or two horses gold-precious and eyed every min- always; our first carriage was long, ute as they burned down much too with three leather seats, one back- quickly in their tin holders, mak- ward riding one where my sister ingit necessary for a papa to Nina and I rode and sometimes hustle, putting them out by means felt seasick. Our barn had room of a long-handled snuffer. As for too for a cow, one just at first. lighted streets, there were none, Later the cow barn stood across really. Here and there a street lamp our alley, and housed two, usually such as Charles Dickens knew and jerseys. wrote about, made a small glow Our fence was black iron, not half way down the block after the really handsome iron grille b u t lamplighter came at dusk with overlapping four-foot-high arches his ladder; but arc lights came where frost made beauty in the later, strung high above street in- spiderwdbs on a cold winter morn- tersections to sputter and "arc" at ing. The wide east gate almost al- their carbon will. ways stood open for the goings My first sharp memory of a real and comings of the carriage or the Christmas morning is of the good high seated buggy. I especially re- smell of breakfast in mother's kit- member the windows o ft h o s e chen and of father calling "Merry houses on Eugene's first "four cor- Christmas, children!" as he came ners." Ours were narrow, and as I from milking two cows and putting said, high, and squared off at their down feed for Black Hawk, our tops with decorative lintels. The spirited black horse. I was three or Hendricks windows were as plain four. My sisters and m y o 1 d e r 64 brother were in school, and I knew p a s t Governor Whiteaker's b i g they were doing the things Central white house on Tenth, then shroud- School planned for Christmas and ing my Auntie Holt's even bigger when we were eating buckwheat house, then the Cram's and Hen- pancake breakfast in the dining- dricks' and at last the big wet room I left my chair to show them flakes settling on our lawn and I could write my name on the foggy trees. Rarely, it came from the window. Or it might have been north, blotting out the other high frost. It was cold in spite of the Butte, Skinner's, and 'b 10 wiflg Franklin stove.