Moving On By Winona Johnson Holloway J; ~tnn,I ~M

;r= ·~ - ;}/-~ _?~ lq?7 Moving On

by

WinonaJohnson Holloway

©1989 Shadow Butte Press Live Oak, California

All rights reserved included the right to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form

Cover picture courtesy of Alice Mccully Printed by "The Printer" in Davis, California, U.S.A.

I I dedicate this book to Merritt Louis Holloway, whose genes have mixed with mine to produce our own line of descendants, now in its fourth generation.

Thank you Merritt for having such interesting ancestors.

Thank you for our adventurous life together.

II Our past is not a dead past. It is still alive in little pockets and trickles to surprise us in places still to be found. How lucky are those who have perceived it- a spark that shines within us dimly-to tell us who we are and why and how. We know better where we are going, if we know from whence we came.

WJH

III Grover and Zora Johnson and family, 1926 Front: Zora, Grace, Joe, Tom, Maybeth, Grover Rear: Winona, Dorofy, Ellen, Mildred

IV Moving On

Contents

Chapter 1 Others came before me ...... 1

Chapter 2 The world is full of a number of things ...... 15

Chapter 3 That was the time that was, a time that will not come again ...... 39

Chapter 4 Of fun and foibles ...... 71

Chapter 5 As the twig is bent, the tree's inclined ...... 87

Chapter 6 Making do ...... 103

Chapter 7 On my own ...... 125

Chapter 8 In which we try it out there in the big world ...... 133

Chapter 9 Someone told us that if we kept at it, everything would come out O.K...... 139

Chapter 10 We fought hard on the home front, and some got battle fatigue ...... 169

Chapter 11 There were other things in other places ...... 191

Acknowledgements and Sources ...... 203

Appendix

Map, and family tree ...... 206

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------Moving On

Chapter 1 Others came before me

Way back in the outreaches of northeastern lies a special spot rimmed by great mountains and deep canyons; a well kept secret from much of the world, and a spot many native Oregonians have heard of but never visited. It has come to pass that people raised here in Wallowa County are just a little different, in some ways provincial. They still gather to talk of people-to take account and remember who they are, and who they married and where their children are living at the present time. This is a family oriented country, and those who have left to live in other places always look back on it as home and the people they knew there as part of the family-as a united group, a special fraternity. Coming into this country from the confines of the Wallowa River canyon one is first greeted by a cozy cove where bare hills hold a little sprout of the larger valley in the hollow of their hands. Wooded hills show darker above the small valley which is passed quickly on a good straight road up to Wallowa town, a few short miles away. Summers are cool and refreshing. Here the Indians lived in a summer paradise away from the heat of the canyons. Grass grew high and for over 100 years their horses roamed the hills freely, symbols of wealth and freedom, and so they multiplied and were cherished. Game and fish were plenty. One band claimed it for their special land and called it home. White men came for the beaver and were welcomed. Some married Indian women-were not the Nez Perce women desired above all others for their industry, beauty and character? All was well, and remained so for decades more. More white men came along with their families and the country was shared in the summer by Indians and whites. The first white men did not set out to drive the Nez Perce from this country but they stayed all year and built homes and plowed the earth. There was disagreement on the use of the land. People who had never been in the valley and did not understand, made the rules and laws. The settlers stayed and the Indians had to go. As people multiplied there was not enough land, or products of the land, for all who would have liked to have stayed on in this place which was their home. So they left, most of each generation born to those who came in early-going to busier places to make a living for their own. But they come back steadily and often, most of them so intent upon reaching places farther up country that they hardly notice the little Lower Valley cove.

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------MowngOn county and just learning about difficult childbirth. In his long career in the Wallowa County he acquired plenty of practice and much skill in obstetrics. Most of my generation in Wallowa received their first spank on the posterior from him, that being the accepted procedure to get a new baby to take his first breath. A hearty cry from the newborn let anxious listeners know all was well, at least with the baby. Several neighbor women were in attendance, among them a little hard- working, chirp of a woman, Sarah Jane Bramlet Knott, credited, at least down in Lower Valley, with the distinction of being the first white child born in the county. All attention was paid to my mother who was thought dead. An aunt said she stuck pins in her feet to see if she was alive, which was done in fear and anxiety, as a . (Zora lived to bear four more children, the largest of all, my brother Thomas, also being a breech baby.) I smiled in the morning and was dressed. After a week or so I was even given a name, when my father found one that pleased him on a Watkins liniment bottle-Winona-which was the place in Minnesota where these products were manufactured. My mother had a strong will, as well as a strong constitution, which served her well in a long and rigorous life; she lived to be almost ninety-four years old. Several males in her direct line of ancestors also lived well into their nineties. Born the eldest of nine children to Josiah and Ellen Malone Burgett in Lucas County, Iowa in 1887, she was her mother's mainstay and helper from an early age, at a time when a telephone was the only modern convenience in their home. She attributed her permanently rounded shoulders to hard work; however, her father was "humped backed" in his later years and some of her descendants have an inclination to be so.

My father's name was Thomas Grover, but he was usually called Grover or T.G, to distinguish him among the numerous Johnsons in Wallowa County. He was born at Humeston, Iowa, May 20, 1886. In 1903, when he was seventeen, he came west to live with his grandfather, Luther Samuel Johnson, in Wallowa County, Oregon for his health. Grover, or T.G., had acquired a chronic cough, and because three of his aunts had died of tuberculosis it was feared that he might have the disease. His time with Luther was to have a lasting influence upon Grover, who otherwise might have been called a self-made man. Like many other men of his time, his grandfather Luther had not thought his own early experiences out of the ordinary. The glimpses we have are intriguing enough that we wish we knew more. Luther was born in 1835 in Ohio, of English parentage in a family that "held eight or ten" chil-

3 Moving On------dren. Like many young men of his generation, he spent some time in the California gold fields, and told my father that he and his partner had panned enough gold from the dirt floor of their cabin in Rough and Ready, California, to buy their winter groceries. This must have been in the early 1850's because he was only fourteen years old in 1849. However, his gold rush experiences could have been at that early age or much later than '49. Gold fever struck old and young, male and female. He married his first wife, Elizabeth Mosburgh, my great-grandmother, in 1854 when he was nineteen. Her were on their way west in a covered wagon. She had a club foot and my mother told me that Luther thought she was not treated very well. Her deformity may have been passed on in some degree to her descendants in the form of a pigeon-toed walk. At least my mother thought that is where they "got it". Thomas Kingsberry Johnson, my grandfather, was born to her in 1856 in Lucas County, Iowa. Two of his brothers died early, one in a fire, and his mother passed away when T.K. was six. Seven months later his father married Lovisa Coal Horton, and they had five children. Luther again tried his luck in California. He and Lovisa were living at Grass Valley in 1884. However, he moved to Oregon shortly after that; he had been in Wallowa County for some time when Grover, my father, came to live with him. He lived first at Alder, which was a settlement on the slope before the nearby town of Enterprise was started. Here he gave some of his ground for the cemetery, as did the Beechers and Wades. Later he took up a claim on Diamond Prairie. There was an old graveyard already there under some trees on a little hill. The first grave was that of a Mr. Webber, who had attempted to cross the Wallowa River near the the head of the canyon when it was high. Mr. Webber had been rescued from drowning in this very river at an earlier time. That story was told by one of the first settlers into the Valley, Henry Schaeffer, to his grandchildren. Henry and his brother Logan were visiting with Chief Joseph and his brother Alocott whose band was camped close by in front of the Schaeffer house in Lower Valley. They were all mounted on good horses. The Webber family came down off Smith Mt. with a wagon load of supplies they had bought in the Grande Ronde Valley. Their daughter was with them and Mrs. Webber was carrying a new baby. Henry said, "You had better stay; the river is too high to ford." Chief Joseph also cautioned Webber against crossing but he was anxious to get home after an absence of several days. He started the wagon into the swollen river and was in trouble at once. Alocott said, "Henry, don't you think it is time to pull those people out of the river? Throw me the rope and spur your horse hard!" Henry followed Alcott's direction and Joseph swam up to the wagon, put the lady on his knee while he was mounted, and swam out with her and

4 ------Mo~ngOn

the baby. There would have been too much weight for the horse to swim if he had put her behind him. The family stayed all night with the Schaeffers. Later, during high water, Mr. Webber again attempted to cross but was drowned. He was buried on his son's farm on the lower end of the Diamond Prairie which was the start of a little cemetery there. (My great-grandfather Luther, bought a plot of twenty-four grave spaces in the newer Wallowa Cemetery east of the town of Wallowa for sixteen dollars and was buried there in 1906-one of the early occupants of the cemetery. Twenty-one of his descendants now lie there in that Johnson plot.) When living on the prairie, Luther built a large, grand barn for the McDonald brothers, Hector and John-usually called Johnny. (The name Johnny McDonald rolls off your tongue nicely; it was later shortened to Johnny Mac.) Hector kept his young horses in the barn when he was raising blooded stock. Luther was a good carpenter and could make almost anything out of wood-a skill pioneers in the early part of the nineteenth century learned by necessity. They learned to peg instead of nail because iron was a scarce article at that time and place and they built to last. He was extra careful with his tools because they also had to last. He never had much and never spent much money but if he did he wanted the article to be good. It wasn't the cost as much as it had to be good. His good clothes lasted him for decades and he never had many of them. His wife was a little more fixy; she was a pretty woman, and despite the fact that her religion forbade false adornment, she liked good clothes. Luther taught my dad that you give a man a full day's work for a full day's pay. Furthermore, when you worked for other people, you did what they wanted done and not what you felt like doing. When a definitive survey showed that the grand new house of the McDonalds was over eight feet on Luther's claim they offered to pay him for that strip, but he said, "Just give me $1,800 and you can have it all." This was done and he and Lovisa moved down on Bear Creek close to the town of Wallowa, where he bought forty acres from an Adventist friend, Walker Barton. They lived in a log cabin until he could build a nicer house of planed lumber. This gentleman was so frugal and honest that he figured right down to the last penny. My father said that he quarreled with a neighbor over twenty-five cents and never spoke to him again. Pioneers, like Indians, were prone to apply nicknames from personality or physical peculiarities. Luther acquired his honestly. He sold and traded farm produce, especially grain. His neighbors were in the habit of giving so-called "good measure" when trading, but he noticed that they sometimes brought a small bushel basket with their own produce, toting along a larger basket in which to receive goods. After a time the difference became of considerable proportion. To

s MovingOn------avoid argument, he sent back east for a certified bushel measure made of metal. When it arrived after many months, he noted that the top edge was very straight, smooth, and true. All argument was over. He took a perfectly true piece of lumber-straight edge and slid it across the top of the grain even with the edges of the measure. The only consideration thereafter was whether the grain should be poured freely into the measure or if it should be bounced to settle it before the "straight edge" was used. In any event, Straight Edge Johnson's bushel was the standard measure in the valley thereafter. He always said it was just as dishonest to cheat yourself as it was to cheat others.

Luther Samuel Johnson "Straight Edge"

My Grandfather, Thomas Kingsberry Johnson-usually called T.K. or Tom, the first child of Luther, told me that his family lived in a sod house on the prairie when he was young and his father, Luther, worked on the railroad, staying out with track laying crews for several weeks at a time. (We all called Thomas Kingsberry Pa at his request and our grandmother, Florence, was always called Ma.) One night, when his father was not at home, Tom's stepmother called to him to get a rat that was rampaging in the house. He got up and grabbed the axe to attack the rat and seeing a white one, came down with all his might, cutting off the white thing. It was his big toe! His step-mother Lovisa, sewed it on and it healed well. At the age of eighty-three, while bedridden with cancer, he told me the story and showed me the scar on his toe. Tom's shoes were boots in those early days, if he had any, and were made to fit either foot; they were not very comfortable. In his old age he bought nice, soft shoes. When he was sixteen years old he collected buffalo bones on the prairie and hauled them into Dodge City to the railroad.

6 ------Moving On

They sold for about ten dollars a ton and he could "generally" get a wagonload a day. He told me that Johnson was spelled Johnston at one time but the "t" was dropped. As he held my hand that day in 1939 he said, "I know this thing has got me; I don't mind dying, but I'm curious. I want to see what happens to you all, all the rest of the years." At this date I can better understand what he meant. Pa or T .K., was very family oriented and was deeply hurt if his relatives did not visit him often. When his sisters died he took some of their children into his home in Iowa and raised them until they were big enough to go out on their own. One cold winter day one of his small nephews was observed floundering through the snow poorly clad, and with his feet wrapped in gunnysacks. His father was not providing for him and his mother was dead so he had come to Uncle Tom's place where he knew he would find food and shelter. He stayed on until he was grown and was considered one of Pa's own family. Pa sold out in Iowa where he had been working in various jobs on the railroad, as well as farming, and came out to Oregon on the train with his wife Florence, daughter Laura, and sons Charles and Boyd. From Elgin they came to Wallowa on the stage. This was in 1905, three years before the railroad came into the valley; their good, heavy household furniture must have been freighted in by team. I remember it being of a much earlier vintage than of that time. His seventy year old father, Luther, and nineteen year old son, Grover, were living in the valley and he had a chance to buy 160 acres from his father's friend, Walker Barton, for $3,450. There was a good two-story house on the place, which was down at the end of Valentine Hill on the Promise road and at the bottom of Smith Mt. The house is no longer there but the view is just the same; a wonderful panorama of Diamond Prairie, up through the narrows in the hills going out of Wallowa, up into Middle Valley-the Thomas Kingsberry Johnson and Wallowa Mts. filling the distant gap in Florence Miller Johnson in Iowa all their majesty. "Pa and Ma" Because of their location, Pa and Ma fed many travellers from Promise Land on their trips in and out, especially in bad weather. Ma set a good table and was noted for her humor which she kept until illness diluted it to some

7 Mo~ngOn------extent. When forty years of age she gave birth to another son, Jasper, which surprised her neighbors. It was not the custom of the times to broadcast a pregnancy until one "showed." T.K., or Pa, once proved himself the strongest man in his county in Iowa in a lifting contest. When Dad told me that was where I got my big legs, I replied, "I wish he had not been so strong". A story was told in Wallowa County when he came to live there, about the time he was boss on the railroad. T .K. was a section foreman on the Union Pacific and laid a lot of track. His crew became the champion track layers of the area. He would take a new crew out on a handcar, stop by a pile of ties and say, "Load them on". When the men were through he would say, "Now put them back. You have learned who is boss on this job!" When the crew found out who was boss they could really lay track. In the days before labor unions it was do as the boss said, or have no job. He had done his share of the heavy labor also, which contributed to a rupture that plagued him in his later years. He taught his grandsons to lift heavy loads in unison at the count of three so they might escape this injury; when there was a lifting job to do in the neighborhood he could be counted on to find a way to do it the easiest way. Pa was inventive. He liked to fix things at home to make work easier. He learned a lot from Straight Edge who could make things. Pa was also a jack-of-all-trades, and would do about anything there was to do. One summer, when he was an old man, he herded a flock of turkeys for his son, Charley, on the bare hills around Lower Valley after the grain harvest. He clasped his hands behind his back and walked with a slow, measured, steady stride over those hills all day. This neatly built man with large, benevolent, brown eyes, always wore a moustache which grew progressively whiter as the ends grew longer. In his old age he did not drink coffee, preferring Cambric tea which he requested while visitings at our house-an innocuous concoction of hot water, milk, and sugar-"saucering it" before drinking-neatly wiping the tips of his mustache with his forefinger afterward. It was a great privilege when one of his grandchildren was invited to his house for the night. He might be invited to walk along with Pa to town for the mail, where he was given a nickel to buy lemon drops, or those huge jawbreakers of the time-the ones that became sharp as they grew smaller and cut the tongue. He was treated with the utmost courtesy and consideration. Food was served on Ma's best dishes and Pa took the time to tell a few stories and converse with him. The latter was a rare treat for me. Being the middle child in a large family, I felt detached-not feeling I fit in with the big girls who were older than me, and on the other hand not relating at this time to my brothers and the "little girls." In the days before togetherness or child psychology, I had not known that grown-ups really thought what a child had to say was of any importance. Alas, Pa became so deaf in old age that a conversation with him was almost impossible. This handicap has been inherited by many of his offspring, and he would have regretted that.

8 ------MowngOn

When my father came to the valley to live with his grandfather Luther, or Straight Edge, he travelled by railroad to Elgin, the end of the line. The rest of the way from Elgin into Wallowa was by a horse-drawn stage. Although early accounts call this vehicle a Concord stage pictures taken at the turn of the century show a Concord mud wagon with a rather high seat for the driver. The top and sides were covered with canvas which could be rolled up in warm weather and closed in cold. The two seats in the riding compartment faced each other. A third might be put in the middle. Two to six horses were used on this stage according to the load and condition of the road. The large, grand stage coaches, the type one sees in western movies, came in for special trips but the regular stage was not so grand. The route was over Cricket Flat (so named because of notable infestations of Mormon Crickets), plunging down the old Minam Hill which crossed the Wallowa River on the bridge below its junction with the Minam River, and on up the Wallowa River canyon. This road had been built in 1879 by volunteer labor from all parts of Wallowa Valley whose residents were relieved of climbing up Smith Mountain above Lower Valley and serpentining down steep switchbacks to the river some distance above Victor's stage stop. In the event of floods, washouts and fallen debris, the old road was still sometimes used. The small round prairie at the bottom of the hill was given the name of Lower Valley; it being almost a thousand feet lower in elevation than Wallowa Lake which is south of all the settlements in the valley but higher. My Dad's cousin Ellery Rose, the son of Pa's sister Aunt Minnie, was the driver of that stage for some time. He liked to come into Wallowa on the run-if his horses had enough energy after such a trip-flourishing his whip. He and his brothers were dark and dashing and I like to think they were part Indian. His brother Omar was to touch our lives for a time as I shall relate later. There were times that tried Ellery for all he was worth and took away some of his dash. Driving that route from Elgin to Joseph was pleasant enough in the summer and fall, despite the treacherous descent from the top of Minam Hill and on down the steep grade and tight turns. Travel in winter when wind-driven snow piled up in huge drifts across Cricket Flat was difficult. Passengers and freight might need to be transferred to bobsled and back to the stage a time or two, due to change in elevation. But spring-thaw, presented almost unsurmountable problems.

Wallowa Chieftain, April 11, 1907 Bad Roads The roads through the Cricket Flat country this side of Elgin are in the worst condition possible. Twenty horses stuck with one wagon was the report brought in yesterday by Ellery Rose, stage driver for the McCully

9 Moving On------

stage line. Tuesday's stage did not arrive in Enterprise until Wednesday morning owing to the fact that they were delayed so in crossing the flat. Many times the stage coach went down in the mud until the running gears were out of sight. The horses often get mired down and it becomes necessary to pull them out with another team. The people of this county will certainly have cause for rejoicing when the railroad reaches here which is hoped will be before another spring rolls around.

Dad arrived in the county with only fifty cents to his name. His ticket from Iowa to Elgin had cost twenty-five dollars, the stage fare into the valley was two and a half and dinner down at the Victor stage stop in the canyon about three miles up from where the old bridge was at that time, had cost two dollars. He thought that dinner was "awful high"-board and room could be had at boarding houses in the valley at the time for four dollars a week-but he soon recouped his losses by working for his grandfather for his board and working on valley ranches for board and cash money-from a dollar and a half to three dollars a day. When he was working in the hay on the Wolf ranch in middle valley he slept in a narrow bed with a young man about his age, Oscar Maxwell. Little did these teenagers think that their grandchildren, Zora Belle Trump and Don Bartmess, would marry each other fifty years later. Nez Perce Indians had been forced from their ancestral home in this beautiful land only twenty-five years before, after early settlers had shared it with them for six years, and the country was well settled with five thriving towns, Wallowa, Lostine, Enterprise, Joseph and Flora. Wallowa, with a population of over 300, was already incorporated. There were telephone connections between towns and telephone companies were being organized in outlying districts. There was much rivalry among the valley towns each striving for more trade and business. No town had a high school but the Wallowa Academy, a private school which was the equivalent of today's high school, had just been opened by Leonard Couch. Dad enrolled but was only able to attend for one year before it closed down due to lack of attendance. He always regretted his limited schooling. Family legend says that he wanted to become a preacher. The closest college was over at Walla Walla run by the Seventh Day Adventists, which they called College Place; it had been going for more than ten years. The school was a big one with over 100 students and ten teachers. It had a hall for boarding students with dorms in the south hall for girls and in the north hall for boys. There was even a bathtub on each end. Luther did not encourage Grover. This seems strange as he was a religious man, but perhaps he felt Grover was not attuned to a Godly life or he may have thought it would be too expensive. By the time a county high school opened at Enterprise and each town had high school courses in their school curriculum Grover was twenty-one years old and married.

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He was large and strong at age seventeen and, like most men in the country, he grasped opportunity where he found it. One man of that time expressed it well: "I always turned over a rock". He worked on farms during harvest and helped stockmen get their animals to the railroad at Elgin in the fall. On trips east the stock cars were loaded with animals for the slaughterhouses at Omaha or or Kansas City and attendants were needed to care for the stock en route. This was the great sheep raising time in the Pacific Northwest-In 1906 sheep range cost only twelve cents a head and there were ranchers with large herds-up to 20,000 head in the county. Long, six-horse-team freight wagons loaded with giant wool sacks labored through the valley to the railhead at Elgin after shearing time and sheep for market followed the same route. In 1906 The Chieftain noted that every clip of wool was sold at the sealed bid sale at Elgin for the price bid which was highly satisfactory "at an average of fully twenty cents a pound." Sales at Shaniko down in the middle of Oregon brought no higher bid. Grover helped trail a band of lambs for Mr. Jordan, the elder, out of the Snake River country, through Wallowa Valley and out to Elgin, where they were loaded on railroad cars for the trip to Kansas City. It took two or three weeks for the driving. After loading, he travelled along with them on the caboose to see that they were cared for, stopping over in Iowa on the way home to visit and extol the virtues of Wallowa County to his friends. Later he wrote back telling just how they could get out to Oregon without spending a dime by travelling on the freight trains, that is, if they had food packed at home for the trip. At least four of them took his advice and became permanent settlers in Wallowa County; Martin Peterson, John Gillespie, Clarence Burgett and Sam Armon. On one of those trips back home Dad became engaged to Zora Burgett, a former schoolmate in a little rural school in Iowa, whom he had made a point to visit when he stopped over there on his way back to Oregons. Their love letters are preserved. His are full of accounts of his finances and plans for their future-of buying a few head of stock, of exchanging work with neighbors, of farming his father's place down at the bottom of Valentine Hill while Pa and his sons, Charley and Boyd, were cutting brush in Wallowa canyon for the railroad right-of-way. When he felt he had enough money saved he rode that stock train once more back to Zora's home where they were married at "high noon", as the society columns liked to put it, on Feb. 3, 1907. Her wedding dress of sheer white lawn just fits one of my slender granddaughters. Their honeymoon was the trip back to Oregon on the train. To save money they came on a combination sheep and immigrant train. The trip took four days and four nights and they sat up most of the way, eating food that had been packed in Iowa. Zora had a beautiful gray, wool cashmere suit

11 Mo~ngOn------made especially for "going away". It was still in excellent shape thirty years later when I made it over for just such an occasion for myself; therefore, she may not have worn it all the way out to Oregon. It pained her when Grover spent time in the caboose playing cards. Romantic novels of the time had taught that you married the perfect prince charming and lived happily ever after. Here she was, going to a wild raw land, and she was homesick already. Pa, who was still in his prime at fifty years of age, came to Elgin in a buggy to get them. That all-day trip proved especially rigorous to Zora who insisted on walking all the way down the mountain, which wound in treacherous switchbacks down Minam Grade on a much steeper road than she had imagined. Ma had a good supper waiting for them down at their new place in Lower Valley and the rest of the family welcomed her. Zora, or Zory as my Dad and other relatives called her-it being a term of endearment to replace the ending vowel in the name of a person of whom your were fond with a "y" -soon became westernized enough to have her picture taken astride a horse, wearing a big felt hat and holding a gun. I say holding because there was no way this woman would have ever pulled a trigger. But she was full of grit and did try, as you shall see later. Thus began a successful, if often stormy, marriage which lasted almost sixty-seven years.

Travelling the old Minam Grade, c1890

12 ------MowngOn

Customs of this western country did not follow her sense of fitness. If you thought she was going to walk in front of a saloon, "You had another think a'comin". Iowa ladies were not accustomed to doing that; therefore, Zora walked in the middle of the street when she shopped in the town of Wallowa because there were saloons on both sides. Western men were continually taking off their hat and "bowing and scraping" when they met a lady, perhaps an indication of chivalry to some minds, but not to her; she thought it was a "put on". She did not like undue flattery or anyone who was a "blatherscatt." It also took some time for her to accept the fact that boots and spurs might have a utilitarian purpose for cowboys and were not just for "puttin' on the dog". But never mind that; she was a worker and saver and a real help to my Dad in his various occupations. She was dedicated to the physical welfare of her eight children. We knew that as soon as she saw us coming she would "rustle up ," there would be something to eat at home at the drop of a hat and we would always be clothed as well as possible as long as we were under her roof. We learned that education would be the stepping stone to a bigger world than we saw as children and most of us received higher education after high school.

13

------Moving On

Chapter 2

The world is full of a number of things

Children of Zora and Grover Johnson in 1917 Top from left: Dorothy, Ellen, Mildred Bottom: Winona, Joe

Children came right along at about two year intervals in those days. In the first eight years of marriage Zora and Grover had five children. Dad hustled to make a living; he farmed, sold Watkins products, worked at logging, took livestock to market, and whatever else he could find to do. There were many homesteaders all over the west in the early days of the century who had proved up and sold their land to a bigger outfit or

15 Mo~ngOn------became discouraged and left it, salvaging what they could. Before the days of good roads and the handy pickup trucks, moving was expensive and difficult. Having an auction solved that problem. Consumer goods came in less variety than today and there was much demand for what there were out in out-of-the-way places. Grover had a natural bent toward auctioneering. He loved to face a crowd and in his booming voice start the action and keep things going. He studied the technique of other auctioneers and decided he could do as well. He soon developed a reputation for getting a fair price for the seller and keeping the buyers entertained so they would hang around and possibly buy more. The Flora Journal of March 13, 1914 noted that T.G. Johnson, the Watkin's man returned to Wallowa the first of the week. In the same issue he advertized two auctions he was crying, back to back, at Flora the next weekend. John Groah who lived two and a half miles west of Flora was selling horses, cows, some household and kitchen furniture as well as new 11ceder doors" and three windows. The other sale was an all-day affair at the Chas. Evans homestead four miles from Flora on the Wallowa road. John West who was selling out had a large assortment of items for sale which included a II thoroughbred Jersy boar, a thoroughbred J ersy sow with pigs, and one without pigs, a pump organ same as new, and two hardwood bobsleighs." A free lunch was to be served at noon. Copies of the Flora Journal are rare. This little four-page newspaper was published every Friday morning by a lady editor, Edith Davis who put out an 11Indipendent News Paper". She was willing to take chickens as payment for subscriptions which cost one dollar a year. No item of interest was so picayune that it was ignored. This issue stated: Hiram Merry over in Grouse has received his new Edison, disc phonograph; A Sunday school was organized at Troy; Miss Claire Leslie has commenced a term of school in the Dry Gulch District {This was down out of Troy); Dr. T.M. Gilmore had regular office hours in Flora and would answer calls promptly. Edith ran the novel, Going Some, by Rex Beach as a serial. The subtitle , A Romanceof StrenuousAffection, was enough to woo the romantic as well as the literary. To say that one of Dad's endeavors did not meet with my mother's enthusiasm is an understatement. In 1914, 45,000 acres of land in Oregon had been set aside for homesteading, one area being out from Enterprise and Joseph. Original entries could be for 330 acres. The prospect of getting that much free land was enticing. Dad thought he could manage that and sell Watkin's products and cry sales as well if he had a car to cover ground more quickly. Like many of his generation he took up a homestead, which was located out on Marr Flat between Joseph and the Imnaha River. His friend John Gillespie, who had come out from Iowa at his instigation, also

16 ------MowngOn homesteaded there, as well as Bertha Womack another friend. The first settler had been William Pipton Marr, a Civil War veteran and his wife Sabina who had come west in a covered wagon in 1887. I was a toddler the next summer and if I don't have a few, brief flashes of that summer's events, they were later told to me vividly and well. My cousin Bonnie, came to visit and my three older sisters would not let me paint with the watercolors she brought which fascinated me. Our barn stood on a point which led down into a steep canyon and all those girls kept screeching at me when I ventured toward the edge. This made me all the more determined to crawl to the brink and peep over. We would all climb out of bed and rejoice when Dad drove in from town in the middle of the night in his new Chevrolet touring car-cost $600-which was loaded with groceries. The most intriguing packages were the corn flakes which made a nice crispy sound when they were munched in your hand. We called them Toast Posties. Dad had already started a business selling Watkins products before we moved to the homestead. This company was started in 1868 and is alive and well to this day. (In June 1989 I met a man at the Kit Carson Rendevouz in Reno, Nevada, who has been selling Watkins products for thirty years. I had bought Watkins' famous pure vanilla from him six years earlier in California.) In 1912 the Watkins Almanac was full of recipes, uplifting messages, and advice. One article gave warning that one should observe female lips if contemplating marriage. In case anyone is thinking of perpetuating such an old-fashioned institution as marriage, it may be useful:

The Lips Indicate Character A certain learned man gave simple rules for the choosing of a wife, and bade young lovers beware of a girl whose lips drooped at the comer, as such would probably make a home anything but a happy place. At the time, he advised the intending husband to remember that upward curving lips indicated frivolity, so that here, too, he would need to be careful; while lips which are very thin and quite straight usually belong to a woman who is shrew. It is a merry person generally who has a stout upper lip with a depression under the nose and comers of which tend upward. If the corners also dimple deeply the owner will probably be quick at repartee. A , morbid and dominating woman frequently has a long, thin mouth with clear-cut firm lips; while the cruel woman as often as not boasts lips which are unusually red. A general slackness as regards the great question of right and wrong is at times found in the owners of mouths where the under lip is thick and rolls outward. A large and well-closed mouth indicates sagacity; while a chin which is firm and rounded generally associates itself with determination and strength.

17 MowngOn------

Sor.'le of Dad's old ledgers survive from that early time when the business was very profitable. Ranchers could not take time off for a long trip to town for medicine for man and beast, for spices, cosmetics or cleaning products, stock dip, louse killer, or Petro-Carbo salve which is an excellent healer-upper for everything from chapped hands to severe burns. The Watkins Man brought these articles to your door whether you lived in Lost Prairie, Imnaha or Promise Land. A big seller was stock tonic which came in five gallon buckets or smaller size. In 1914 his sales for stock tonic amounted to so much that Pa hauled several loads of that item to Troy and the northern part of the county for Dad, with a four-horse team. Dad needed cash to keep the homestead going and had to leave home to get it. My mother was stuck with the care of a garden, as well as several cows to milk, when Dad was away and she was just not a ranch woman. However, she made a supreme effort one day when a buck deer came close to the garden. She grabbed Dad's rifle thinking she would get us some wild meat without much trouble. Drawing up the weapon to eye level she took aim and froze-just could not pull that trigger! We girls were watching from

the window. She stayed until the buck sauntered off and Ellen, Dorothy and Millie ran out to help her into the house. Back in the cabin she was really shaky for awhile. My sisters helped her save face and did not tell Dad. She usually did what she set out to do without "making a bobble of it." In addition to her ineptness for rough work, she had four children to care for "away out in that God-forsaken place" and, despite visits from relatives and friends from the valley, could not tolerate the isolation. The

18 ------Moving On winter was severe, the growing season short, and the roads were awful. We moved back to Lower Valley in the late fall. The road was icy and Dad got out to guide the team over the slick spots, some of which were on a steep slope. Mom was handed the reins and she was frantic with fear not knowing how tight to hold them. She held me up in the high seat until we reached the bad places then she handed me down to Ellen. As the horses slipped and slid on the icy downgrade, falling and rising to their feet only to fall again, all five of us females screamed and carried on as my father led the horses over the worst spots. Ellen wanted to get out but could not. I have been told that I could not possibly have remembered that event but, if not, I heard the tale from a very dramatic storyteller. Dad learned to contend with a lot of excitable females in his long life. My mother was happier back in Lower Valley in that small frame house built by my father, where we had lived before the homestead adventure. There were neighbors within walking distance and school was only a mile away. With two children of school age that was a lot more convenient than away out on Marr Flat. Dad knew he had to come up with another way to make more money to support his growing family; therefore, he made a big decision. In the winter of 1916-17 he took his family and went east so that he might attend the Missouri School of Auctioneering in Kansas City and become a full-fledged auctioneer. Zora and her four daughters stayed with her parents in Iowa, Josiah and Ellen Malone Burgett. This is a good time for some history of that couple.

Grandma, Ellen Malone Burgett, had an Irish temper and was so short and so fat that you could not even sit on her lap. She was dark; pictures of her Malone brothers show large, dark, handsome, bearded and mustached young men with flashing dark eyes. Black Irish was the term used in those days to distinguish such a peculiar people from the fair, freckled and red- headed Irish. She may have had lace curtains but she did not put on airs. One of children, most of whom were males, she had most of the work to do after her mother Melinda suffered a "breakdown". Grandpa, Josiah Burgett, was a small, slender man with a hunched back in his late years. His red beard and curly hair were still red at that time and he was still farming. Documents giving the history of the family Burgetts go "way back" and make an interesting story.

19 Moving On------

My grandfather Burgett was of French Huguenot ancestry. These people fled France about 1665 after they had taken up Martin Luther's protestantism because the French government was oppressing all those not of the Catholic faith. They settled on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border after coming to the new world. Simon, the first direct ancestor of which we have an account, moved from that area down to Virginia. He has been credited with fathering sixteen children by three wives. He prospered and deeded three of his sons land in what is now West Virginia. Valentine, one of these sons, got a start there but, when he received bounty lands in the Ohio Valley for service in the Revolutionary War, he was ready to move west. (The Atlantic colonies had laid claim to western lands before the war and gave land there as a reward to those who had served in the war from their state.) Well established gentry were usually satisfied to stay on the eastern seaboard although they might buy western lands for speculation and get frontiersmen to settle it for them. One such company advertised for "Warrior Christians" to settle their western lands and this may have been a good description of these rugged, determined, religious, but unlettered people who populated it. Valentine deeded his Virginia lands to his brothers and in 1795 joined a party of war veterans and their families, who were heading north and west. The land was more open and productive than land they had been farming and who could resist the lure of free land in a new country? Few could, and at this time, soon after the Revolution, settlers came in hordes through the gaps in the mountains into the Ohio country. The group which the Burgetts joined was one of the first into the area who came to make homes; the earliest had been surveying parties, or parties or those just out for adventure. Strong family ties, as well as friends to be counted on, were needed for survival and widespread religious intolerance of the time kept people with their own kind. Early settlers came in such groups. The availability of new land in this vast area made it possible for several generations of the common man to get a start as new areas were opened up. They could leave behind the disadvantages of competing with large slaveholders in the southern states because slavery was prohibited in the upper Mississippi valley regions. Almost without exception it was here that my children's ancestors settled after the Revolutionary Wars and got a new start-the Johnsons, Burgetts, Malones, Webbs, Hodgkins and Holloways- along with their spouses who have contributed just as much to our gene pool as the males. And almost without exception these people, born in the colonies before the time of public education or in a new raw country without schools, were illiterate. Wills, deeds and testimonies which survive are always signed with an "X" (Their Mark). The migration was by foot and pack horse, along ridges and canoe- shaped valleys over Indian trails, that were a test of endurance for pregnant women and small children with no choice but to follow their men. These

20 ------Mo~ngOn females were always pregnant or nursing babies-most of those I have an account of had thirteen recorded children. A resourceful man might need little more than an axe, a rifle and a knife to get along, but a family needed a pot or two and some bedding. At that time before roads for wagons some families brought little more than that. Bibles were brought even if few could read them, to be used as textbooks and a guide to life and there names of our ancestors were laboriously recorded, sometimes the only record we have. Time was told by the sun. The few that might have possessed a tall clock would have found it almost impossible to bring along and mass produced, mantle clocks were not made until after 1814.

First dwellings were crude. Valentine was in Ohio for thirty years or more before a durable house and barn were built on his property given for war service. This dwelling is still in use in Brown's County, Ohio, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Valentine had a son he named after himself and one or the other possessed the intriguing nickname of "Felty" which may have come from an activity which is no longer done entirely by hand. The common man bought his hats from a felter in those days, who made them in a home workshop using animal fur. This he pounded and wet, pounded and wet- repeating the operation to produce a durable, waterproof, matted fabric. One of its uses was for hats which were shaped on rounded wooden blocks. Paintings of early 19th century flatboatmen on the Ohio and Mississippi show them wearing these big, floppy-brimmed hats. The two Valentines, father and son, died the same year.

My great, great grandfather Aaron, was thirteen years old when he came along to this new country with the elder Valentine who had raised him. He was thought to be Simon's son, born when the latter was in his sixties, and therefore a half brother to Valentine, but there is evidence that Aaron considered Valentine his father. When Aaron was eighteen he married Elizabeth Hodgkins, age sixteen. Her father Samuel and family, had come into the country with the Burgetts. Samuel had not received any money from the estate of his father, a poor man on a primitive frontier, but he had pride as we shall see.

This man served five times in the Revolutionary War over a period of six years from 1777 to 1783. The testimony by which he hoped to receive a pension was given at two different times and do not quite agree, perhaps because he was an old man by that time. He did not apply for a pension until late in life because he thought he could get along without it. He enlisted at least three times, in Maryland or Pennsylvania, and was drafted at least once. On another occasion he served for pay in the place of another man who had been drafted. It has always been easier for the rich to save their hides.

21 Moving On------

It was sometimes more expedient to enlist and go home between stints of duty because regulars were usually paid in paper money which was often worthless and some states gave cash bonuses, paid in gold, as an inducement for enlisting. Furthermore, soldiers often fared better at home in the winter than going hungry in army camps. So ravenous were the starving troops at Valley Forge that freezing February that, when Washington appealed to wealthy colonists for food, the 300 head of cattle sent by the Trumbulls in one drive were devoured in five days. One drover remarked, "You might have made a knife of every bone". Samuel may have received bounty lands but was not awarded a pension. His second wife, Lydia, had two unmarried daughters when she married Samuel. He married this lady when he was over seventy years old. (The marriage application says seventy; family records say seventy-four. She stated her age as forty-five. Other records say fifty.) Most astounding, is the fact that records show a daughter, Hannah, born to this old man and Lydia four years later. Lydia did receive a widow's pension and all three "daughters" were named in Samuel's will. Intermarriage among in-laws was common among these people and there were quarrels over inheritances and land. A son of Valentine Sr. sued Aaron because the latter had received much of Valentine's land; these lands had to be sold to settle the suit. There was still plenty of land further west and Aaron moved on. There are other incidents in isolated pockets of provincialism forming love-hate relationships and some of these people became delightful eccentrics. One distant relative was said to have been in the habit of sitting in his orchard on moonlight nights playing his fiddle and holding communion with spirits. (Surmounting hardships is bound to instill character and it is through character that one dares to be eccentric.) Elizabeth, Samuel's daughter by his first wife, had thirteen children by Aaron. When their son William was five months old, Aaron "marched out with mount and rifle" to raise the siege of the British on Fort Wayne, . As a "mounted rifleman" he furnished his own mount, rifle and food. He must have made quick work of it because he was home in a month. Indians in the Indiana country were bought off by token treaties and the land was opened to settlement. When Aaron and Elizabeth moved there in 1827 they had several children old enough to own land. Whether of age or not each one was "settled on" with eighty acres and Aaron had another piece of sixty acres. When he was eighty years of age the government awarded him a grant of forty acres for his service of 1812. The family may have held more than 1,000 acres among them and so were well fixed. That lawsuit down in Virginia had not kept Aaron down.

22 ------Moving On

Their son William, my great grandfather, came further west into Iowa in 1857 when he was forty-five years of age. He and his wife, Hannah Leach, brought their twelve children and stayed with a friend until they could get settled on their own place. Two years later Hannah bore her thirteenth child. (There we are, thirteen again!) One can presume that William was also well-fixed when he came into the new country of Iowa where he purchased raw prairie land, gently rolling and immensely fertile, finally owning 640 acres. Indians rode by to call on whites and there was plenty of game and hardwood trees for building. Houses and public buildings were all made of logs. He survived his wife by almost a quarter of a century. My grandfather Josiah, their twelfth child, helped develop his father's large holdings. In 1886 at age thirty he married Cynthia Ellen Malone. They became the parents of nine children. My mother, Zora Blanch was the eldest. It was on this farm which had been started by William Burgett, that our family lived for a time in the winter of 1916-17 when my Dad was in Kansas City.

Dad wrote to "Zory" on stationery from the Cotter Hotel in Kansas City with this description: European-100 rooms, sixty showers and bath tubs. Telephone in every room, one dollar a day and up. "Had a preacher teaching us today to cultivate our voices. He had us sing, count and cry bogus sales. I think I might be a great singer when I graduate". He learned quick computation of figures-forward and backward, took courses in the value of household goods and animals and how to to stimulate interest and competition among bid- ders. He graduated in February 1917. Zora Burgett at 24 years, top left, and her sisters, clockwise from top right: Grace, Gay, Myrtle, May

23 Moving On------

That winter was cold and snowy in "Ioway", so called by many of the old-timers who were born there. We slept in feather beds. Ellen remembers her breath frosting up the windows and eating lots of black walnuts-a scarce item in Wallowa County-which we smothered in syrup and all of us being entertained by our uncles and aunts, two of whom were not much older than she was. It was also cold and snowy when we arrived back at Wallowa and we were glad to see Pa and Ma waiting for us there in the sled with plenty of warm covers. It was customary to carry footwarmers of hot bricks wrapped in an old carpet or some other heavy material if the trip was to be a long one. A ride of five miles in a sled behind good trotting horses, was not a long one. Pa got a Model T Ford In 1917 but would not have driven it in the winter. Cars were usually "put up" in the wintertime, drained of water and put up on blocks. This practice was thought to save the tires which were reinforced with linen threads and thought to deteriorate if left setting on the ground while they were not running down the road. Most sledding teams wore sleigh bells which were advertised as coming in any tone and these made music as the team trotted along, gliding smoothly and easily. Bobsled runners had only to replace the wheels of a hack or buggy in snow time to make travelling easier in winter if snowdrifts were not too deep.

My impressions of our time in Lower Valley for the next four years are spotty but vivid; touching a red-hot stove to see why it was red only to find that the skin of my fingers stuck to the stove; hiding under the bed when a grotesque creature called Santa Claus burst in our door; (I found a wooden pail of candy hid under there, with six different kinds of candy in compartments separated by cardboard, and stuffed myself silly until I was discovered and dragged out. Premature sampling of Christmas candy stopped when Dad started the practice of replacing the center of chocolate cremes with a ball of red pepper and placing it on top); standing by the window in my long, flannel nightgown and crying for the only reason I can remember-attention. Joe came along only eighteen months after me, and he and I were fascinated by the bands of sheep passing by on the way to the north country in the spring. He could not understand why the herder yelled at us to get back to the house; we were not hurting any of his sheep. I took the death of our roan cow without too many qualms as most farm kids do the death of animals. She was put out of her misery by a sledge- hammer blow on the head when she became choked on sugar beets but the smell of her hot entrails nauseated me as they rolled out. About that time I stepped on a pitchfork when allowed to ride on the hay wagon. One of the haying crew plastered a wad of chewing tobacco over the hole and I have escaped tetanus to this day.

24 ------MowngOn

Our world became larger when Dad acquired timber property in the north woods, which we called the Cox place, and set up a sawmill there. His brothers Charles and Boyd, were in cahoots with him on the deal and his sawyer was Charlie Smith, an expert in his work and a sawyer at various times for other mills in the area. My mother and her sister May met the challenge of garter snakes at the spring by the mill with loud screams while stoning them to death. Snakes have filled me with terror since that time. Those sisters screamed again when the 1915 Chevrolet touring car my mother was driving started rolling backward over the grade on Valentine Hill on the way up to the mill. It was loaded with six children, several forty pound boxes of peaches, and groceries for the cook house. Aunt May, who weighed about one hundred pounds and had a weak heart, had been coaching my mother as to the gear she should use and how to shift into it. When her instructions were to no avail May jumped out and put rocks behind the wheels, losing the French heel of her white-laced shoe. I don't think my mother drove out of that peril. Our wails and screams must have alerted men at the mill.

The smell of newly-sawed lumber always reminds me of the house there which my dad had just built. Rooms held necessities only. Nails driven into bare walls held our clothes but we had comfortable beds and lots of good food because it was a matter of pride for my parents to provide the best for working men-always. My introduction to "canned" music came late one night when my father returned from Wallowa and I was awakened by the magic of Pretty Redwing issuing from the horn of our new cylinder- record, Victor music machine. I hopped out of bed to see what in the world could be making such a delectable sound and my Dad played records over and over: It's a Long Way to Tipperaryand The Preacherand the Bear. Not very high-toned selections but I cherished that machine for those memories. My mother gave it to a neighbor boy who helped carry in her wood in her later years. It may have helped foster his interests in antiques. That boy, Jack Evans, among other accomplishments, became an authority on the architecture of old houses. Dad sold the Cox place in 1935, during hard times, to Clifford and Howard Johnson-no relation, but kept the timber rights for three more years so that he might cut for firewood. Grover was crying auction sales in those years, as well as farming and selling Watkin's products. I still have a postcard sent to me by my father in the year of my birth from Paradise, Oregon, where he had spent the night in the old log hotel on one of his "Watkins trips" as we called them. He drove a team and a rather fine buggy with his logo on the side, or a sled in winter, keeping warm on winter trips with a buffalo-hide greatcoat. Kids all over the country looked forward to his visits because of the gum he handed out. He paid a minimum price for cartons of this enduring substance, which lost its flavor early, but retained its elasticity for days. That free gum was his calling card-an icebreaker. His talents for story telling and joshing also made him welcome in all but the most prim and stringent household. No matter what

25 Moving On------

else he was doing, he was always selling something to help make a living for his large family which eventually held eight children. Being out on the route suited his gregarious nature. He liked people, liked to joke and "blarney." Mom missed him when he was gone for a week or more on those trips, driving Maude and Meg on his Watkins wagon out in the back country, when she was left at home with a house full of small children. True, she sometimes had a car for transportation when Dad was not using it but was not comfortable driving it. Most women were accustomed to staying home and keeping house in those days but she was lonesome and stuck with the chores. Almost everyone had chores of caring for milk cows, calves, and hogs, and chickens, even those who lived in town. Of course, there was no radio at that time; if one were lucky and talented enough she had a piano or, more likely a pump organ for diversion. Church was only a mile away, but difficult to attend with toddlers and babies in arms. She was stuck. Ellen remembers a time when she was very unhappy when Dad left. She took Dorothy in her arms and walked in the field along Dry Creek. "I was tagging along hanging to her long skirts, afraid she might fall in the water. That left an impression in my mind and I remember it often."

Grover Johnson and his Watkins Wagon c. 1913

When he came home Dad always brought a treat; apples or other fruit in season, candy, or real ripe bananas from the store-something to make up for his long absences. He did not tell many stories of families he had visited, some of which would be of historical value now, but despite his unbending standards of strict morality concerning sex, he was no . His byword was, "See nothing, hear nothing, say nothing".

26 ------MowngOn

One year he had a lemonade stand at the Fourth of July celebration at Promise and we all went out and camped in tents, along with Aunt May and Uncle Charley Krutzsinger who had come west from Iowa to see what it was like. On the way out Dad illustrated one of his adages, "Do what you must do to get done". It was hot and as we climbed the hill smoke began emitting from the Chevrolet touring car engine. It was on fire! We carried a five gallon can of gasoline in its special carrying case on the side but no water! We were all hustled out while the men threw dirt on the flame to no avail. Our mothers piled us children behind bushes and we were allowed to look only after the fire was out. We learned later that fright was the main force enabling the fire extinguishers, the hoses given to men by nature, to spray hard enough to quench the flame. Need I say more? They were scared enough to do it. When I later heard the true story of when Dad put the fire out, I was old enough to realize that things were a lot more convenient for men than for women. We carried water on the way home.

Out at the celebration it was hard for me to keep up with my three older sisters and I caught up when it was too late for treats. I had my day when Ellen dropped a whole package of gum and I stuffed all five sticks in my mouth at once supposing they were to be eaten like candy. We girls had white dresses for the occasion, with eyelet lace, and white shoes with several straps which buttoned around the leg; our stockings were also white; of course we wore hats, big round flower trimmed ones, which were worn like inverted kettles. There were horse races in the clearing and booths with . Running around through the dust messed up our white outfits fast but Mom caught us on the fly and spent most of two days keeping us looking decent, as well as looking after our new baby brother Joe. My father made "a big to-do"-one of my mother's favorite expressions-about dividing several kinds of candy among us when we got home. As I look back, I see that his acting funny might have been due to the fact that he had been celebrating the fourth by imbibing some of that good Promise Land moonshine. Ellen did not go to school until she was eight years old. Mom thought she should walk along with Dorothy when she was ready to start, for mutual support and protection. The old, white schoolhouse of that day, which stood where the nice brick one was later built, was less than a mile away but that distance could be fraught with danger for a six year old. She also needed Ellen at home. Being the eldest Ellen was accustomed to helping with younger children. I had been her special ward because my brother Joe was born so soon after me and my mother had her hands full. She learned authority early and I felt she exercised an inordinate amount in dealings with me. She

27 Moving On------cleaned me up in the icy waters of the nearby creek when I was still in diapers which was a shock to my system but may have speeded up toilet training. In those days when homemade, flannel diapers were washed by hand such measures were condoned and even deemed necessary.

When she finally did start to school the leadership qualities which Ellen had acquired at such a young age did not sit well with the middle-aged, male teacher, who sat with his feet propped up on his desk chewing tobacco. His method of chastisement was to throw a ruler at an offender and Ellen thought she received more than her share of that ruler. She learned quickly and was promoted to second grade and the next year on up to the fourth grade where she held classes for the teacher, Miss Nina Miller, while the latter taught someone else. The snow lay deep in the winter in those years before snowplows. When Ellen and Dorothy trudged through it to school their floursack bloomers would be soaked and they would stand backside to the wood stove to dry out enough to sit down. On one occasion Dorothy, Ellen and a friend, Veriee Conklin, jumped into every snowbank they could on the way home. Mom saw them coming , met them at the door with her broom to sweep them off, paying inordinate attention to their backsides. In the days when girls wore dresses instead of jeans, plus stockings and long, full bloomers, getting wet and soaked in bad weather was easy to do. Sickness was harder to combat and many a girl was thought to have "met her death by foolishness" by not dressing properly. Before antibiotics pneumonia from exposure, and death from it, were common enough. We had our chests rubbed with hot camphorated oil and hot, flannel clothes put over them at the slightest indication of a chest cold. None of us have died of pneumonia.

Lunch pails were usually lard pails and lunches definitely not scientifically balanced. More biscuits and bacon sandwiches were consumed than light bread because the former could be prepared at time and bread took more care and time for a large family. Mom thought it a disgrace to send biscuits for lunches, remembering the times in Iowa that she was compelled to eat corn bread and fat pork at school while the 300 pound female teacher sat at her desk munching away at crisp, fried chicken, eating bones and all. (This teacher was kept on at that rural school even after breaking both ankles of a small boy, Martin Peterson, who refused to go to her desk and take his whipping for some misdemeanor. He had wrapped his legs around the iron desk supports and kept his grip. She could not budge him but kept trying until his small bones gave way)

Zora was determined to do better by her children than she had fared as a child and prepared the best lunches she could. Ellen did a lot of lunch trading in those days. Having good stuff to exchange increased one's social standing and at a young age kids were aware of that.

28 ------Moring On

When I visited school before I was old enough to enroll I was much made over, as were most small visitors, being treated to the best in lunch pails and flitting from desk to desk to sit with the big girls. What the young teacher thought of this practice of baby sitting pre-schoolers, when parents went to town or wanted to be relieved of their care for a day, I never learned. She may have been so busy with eight grades and as many as forty pupils that she did not notice me. Christmas programs were big social events in which the whole community participated. Adults often gave recitations, orations, or musical numbers, and we looked forward eagerly to the appearance of Santa Claus and his big sack of treats. He had a red cap, white hair and beard, a big fur coat, and sounded just like my Dad. There were camping trips. Bear Creek at that time was a wild and solitary place. In the latter part of the nineteenth century it received its name from a large bear population enticed by secluded nooks for denning and plenty of fish and huckleberries. The bears had been hunted ruthlessly by early settlers for sport or because they were a menace to livestock until they were cleared out. A faded picture taken far up Bear Creek shows a very real waterfall of ten or twelve feet with Dad perched on a boulder at the top of the falls and Pa fishing in a pool below accompanied by Tige, the dog of the photographer, who was Pa's half-brother Isaac Johnson. This falls, like the early one at Wallowa Lake, was a sight to see before it was destroyed by a flash flood following a cloudburst early in this century. Isaac Johnson, son of Luther and Lovisa, was a handsome man only a few years older than my father, his half-nephew. An enthusiastic naturalist, he took stereoscopic photographs of the wonders of the Wallowa country which turned out in varying degrees of excellence. His death resulted from a peculiar accident which occurred while he was camped in a mountain meadow in Montana milking a herd of cows. He was separating milk in a tent when he was struck by lightning! When he got back to Wallowa he was bothered by what seemed a mastoid infection which doctors though was a result of this accident. Alas, Isaac died soon after. He refused an operation saying, "No one is going to cut on me"! One of Dad's 1906 letters to Zora in Iowa gave exciting news of a new venture and possible riches: "I have a gold mine. Met an Indian who told me about one up in the Wallowa Mountains. For five dollars he told me where it is. It is a but there is gold there. I am going to file a quartz mining claim." The Nez Perce Indians were known to have considerable gold with them at the time of their forced exodus from Wallowa country and there are hints that they had a source in the Wallowa Mountains but no stories of their mining activities exist. Placer mining would have been the simplest and easiest kept secret. Hard rock mining is more difficult and complicated; ore must be transported or crushed and milled on the spot and refined. Word would have leaked out.Luther, Isaac, Pa, Dad, and his

29 Moving On------brothers had been up the canyon often on their way into the high mountain prospecting. Luther was familiar with gold mining and may have instigated the trips. More likely it was due to the influence of John Henry . This respected and knowledgeable old settler, along with being skilled in all arts of pioneer living paramount of which was his marksmanship, had a mania for going out gold hunting. After the spring crop was in many of the men in Lower Valley accompanied him to the high country to prospect. This was a good time to leave responsibilities behind and have some fun while ostensibly seeking their fortunes. Ma, and other Lower Valley women, called it going "John Henrying". This term may have been copied after Breyfogling down in the Death Valley country where outfits were still determinedly searching for the lost Breyfogle ledges. No one has been sure he found Jacob Breyfogle's gold. None of our tribe got rich either but men continued John Henrying almost every year while physically and financially able. We had chunks of gold- bearing quartz around our place for many years which had come from our mine. The Forest Service maps have long noted a Johnson Mine on the southern slope of the Wallowas, which may have been named for any one of the numerous Johnsons, our tribe or others. I remember a trip up Bear Creek camping by team and wagon when I was about four years old. Aunt May and husband Charley and their children, Howard and Irene, fresh out from Iowa, also went. As it narrowed the canyon deepened; ferns grew rank under the tall evergreens and at tight

Peter Knott, Charlie Johnson and Grover Johnson at the Johnson Mine

30 ------MowngOn spots higher up the water sprayed over huge boulders. It was dark and mysterious and I, for one, looked for bears. This had been a favorite hunting place in the early days of settlement. Beside the many bears there were a great many deer and even bighorn sheep. The men fished all day or headed out for the high country to prospect leaving the women with nothing to do but cook and herd seven children. One morning I hopped from a log into the grey ashes of our campfire. My feet were cooked by the red coals underneath. What to do? The creek was right at hand for foot-plunging but my mother, thinking air should be kept from burns, doused my feet in lard and then in flour! My agonized screams disturbed everyone most of the day-no aspirin, no other pain killer. In the morning we camp and I endured the long trek by slow wagon down to Wallowa in the heat and dust. My feet were plunged in cold water at Ma's house and bandaged loosely. Never will I taste anything as soothing and delicious as her iced lemonade which helped me forget the pain.

Because my memories of her are few, Ma is best typified in the words of my sister Dorothy, who felt she was her special friend: "This grandma was very strict but also kind. You knew where you stood with her. She wore long, white, starched aprons every day and scrubbed her wooden kitchen floor every day in lye water until it became so white you could have eaten off it. If she and Pa came to our house in the evenings and found me washing dishes standing at the sink with bleeding, blistered heels after a day in the hay field driving derrick, she would light into Mom and Dad and I would get a gentle pat on the behind and sent upstairs to bed while she finished the dishes. She loved to run her fingers through my curly, red hair and called me her Moptop Suzzy. When she was in bed with her last illness she asked me to get down beside her bed so she could do that. The fall before her death of diabetes and kidney failure, I was proud that she asked me to make her some prune jelly which was the wrong thing to do and the worse thing she could have had." Little was known about diabetes at the time,and although insulin was discovered in 1921, it was a year or two before its widespread use and Ma died in 1924. Her cleanliness held little fascination for me but I liked the way she joked when she was well and felt like being funny. Some of her expressions were decidedly earthy. I'm still trying to figure out what she meant by, "The tail of a dog dies last." Some of her quaint misconceptions about food were prevalent at the time. Tomatoes were poison unless cooked and woe to a child she caught eating a raw one even though it might be red-ripe. Cucumbers were toxic, very apt to give you a belly ache unless peeled, sliced and marinated in vinegar and salt. They were good that way and the peelings are bitter but hardly poison in their natural state. She was completely herself with female

31 Moving On------confidants, but a true lady when that action was appropriate. She brought up her only daughter, Laura, to be a lady also.

A Fourth of July camping trip to The Lake was made by a caravan of teams and wagons in the company of relatives. In Wallowa Valley one never says Wallowa Lake; it is The Lake as if it were the only one in the world. Scraped neatly and deep by a glacier, it nestles at the foot of Mt. Joseph, between the two most perfect specimens of glacier moraines in the world. It is just the right size for boating and fishing and to be looked at. The Nez Perce camped at the lower end for hundreds of summers because the upper end was largely covered with deadfall. One can still envision a scattering of skin lodges in the pale but glittering light of a full moon of August reflecting on still water. Sit quietly and you might hear the plaintive thrill of a lover's flute serenading that beautiful Indian maiden who is smiling in approbation while tucked safely away in her father's lodge.

No rhapsodizing for us kids who were interested in the moment. For me the big thrill would have been to ride on the excursion boat gliding majestically on the lake from which sweet strains of music, played by a real band, could clearly be heard. We camped at the head of the lake over toward the west side about where dock is now. That whole end was marshy and full of debris and although mosquitos swarmed that seemed the best place. There were many big dead trees there so supported by stubs of large limbs that they rested quite a distance above the mud and sand in many places. That led to games of tag and hide and seek, until we were sought out, cleaned up, and cautioned to stay from under those hazards before they fell on us and squashed us flat. The men did their fishing at Aneroid lake up at 7,500 feet. They must have brought extra horses along for riding and packing or perhaps our draft horses were versatile and useful for all such chores. They would come back down to camp with the fish layered in a tub with leaves between each layer.

The falls were still the real thing at the end of a long rough trail and we were thrilled at the viewing. They were a must for anyone who went to the lake until they too lost some of their grandeur at the hands of a water spout. It was wild country then and beautiful, with no tourism to mar its primitive feel except down at the lower end where boats were launched. On that 4th of July several big, open campfires blazed into the night; firecrackers livened things up until all hours; fish were cleaned; horses dropped big piles of manure. In other words we broke all of the rules that must control the camping area now. We did not know there would ever be rules and we did not care. Our campsite would be purged by the next big wash and the deadfall and small, delta rivulets coming down from the falls would be arranged differently the next season.

32 ------MowngOn

Although church was the center of many activities there was other entertainment. Perhaps the most important was Town on Saturday Night! How can this simple pleasure be explained to those of later generations who may view the whole world, and parts of the universe, at the touch of a button? This scenario began after dinner on Saturday-which always came at noon-when we were scrubbed and gussied up in our clean, good-clothes and arranged in the Chevy, along with any eggs my mother might have to sell. First stop was Rinker's general store where she did her trading before the Skagg's (which later became Safeway), or across Main Street at Shell's. She turned over her eggs to be traded for items she bought, and handed Mr. Rinker her grocery list which he filled from bulk supplies stored in barrels or sacks, wrapping each sack with twine after which he added prepackaged items from the shelves. Often she seated herself on one of the high stools in the other side of the establishment where Mrs. Rinker displayed bolts of material, lace, buttons, corsets, hats, and hat decorations. Mom was a sticker for hats having grown up in the day that a beautifully-plumed hat on a Gibson Girl hairdo was the acme of style and sophistication and Dad saw that she had a new one every season when he felt he could afford it. If not, she would have an old one redecorated; Mrs. Rinker was an artist at that using artificial flowers and fruit; one of Mom's hats was cheery with red cherries. An older cousin says that Zory was the only person she ever knew who cooked with her hat on .

. t d ,l~:+~r ~~.-~i..-.· Wallowa Lake

33 Moving On------

Mrs. Rinker removed articles for inspection from shelves or drawers and displayed them on the long counter before the customer who was truly the queen. I can still hear the rhythmical thump of the bolt hitting the counter while she unrolled material for inspection or measuring. She was always eager to visit and, although she was careful to be discreet, much news could be gathered there which could be had no other place. She was a pretty lady whose hair was always beautifully arranged; her blouses were dainty and the best that could be bought from a wholesale house; a small gold watch adorned her bosom and pince-nez glasses hung from her neck on a chain. I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. It took awhile for Mom to choose her "goods" as she called any dress material. When she was thus occupied we children were apt to help ourselves to the big sack of peanuts on the floor until we learned that they were not there especially for our enjoyment. Alas, Mrs. Rinker died of cancer many years before her husband, who tended her grave every Sunday providing fresh flowers every week if possible. He became a familiar figure there in the Wallowa cemetery, lonesome and grieving.

Most places of business had awnings over the wooden sidewalks, held up by wooden posts. Down at Shell's store, which was located where the Rogge Mill office is at the present time, wooden inclines led up to the walks in front of the store. This was to keep walkways out of dust and mud, of which there was plenty before paved streets, and to compensate for buildings raised above ground level by basements. These walkways resounded heavily when walked on firmly and we liked running on them. (I wonder why the makers of Westerns do not always clue in on that bit of Americana.) It was another matter when we lost our pennies down the cracks. We couti crawl under the porch down at Shell's and hunt. There was tobacco spit and all sorts of dirty stuff under there and we younger ones had to stop this when Ellen or our parents discovered and dragged us out.

Shell's store had a lofty ceiling and shelves so high that some merchandise was only to be got by a tall, tall ladder which ran on a railing at the top of the shelves. Mr. T. T. Shell was a small man with spectacles- always polite and all business. Our childrens' shoes were usually bought there. There may have been a female in attendance in the womens' section but it was more fun to sit on a stool, be treated like a queen and visit Mrs. Rinker at her store.

Right up against the same building as Shell's was the James Hayes harness and shoe repair shop which smelled of harness oil and leather. If anyone wanted a shoe fixed on the spot, he went in, removed the shoe and Mr. Hayes stitched it at once on his huge, foot-pedalled leather-sewing machine. No leaving it until next week. Many repairs were done for five cents. We often took care of our shoes on our own when we were rather small children-just stopped in and had them fixed. If we did not have

34 ------MowngOn money, they would be put on the bill. A lot of harness was fixed in that shop and perhaps made there. When Shell's burned in 1934, I don't remember Mr. Hayes being in business any more. Shell's moved across the street where it remains under that name to this day.

The Haupriches, Vesta and Mr. Hop as we called them, ran a variety store on that side of the street in the building now occupied by Wallowa Pharmacy. In the very early days of the town, before the Haupriches bought it, it had first served as a Drug Store. Cigars, stationery, small gifts, and candy could be bought there. The big stove was always fired up in winter and ladies from a few miles out of town came in to get warm. Their menfolk went to the saloon-after prohibition called the pool hall-but as far as I knew no ladies entered the doors of the pool hall. When we went to town the afternoon of Christmas Eve for last-minute shopping, I was wont to spend the dollar I was allowed for presents at Hops. With handkerchiefs at a dime a box, powder puffs a nickel, and a pasteboard-backed miniature picture of moon-sky-and mountain scenery for fifteen cents, I could pretty well shoot my wad and have a store-bought present for all the females in the family. Doughgod marbles made of clay, were a penny apiece, so I could fix up a tissue paper-wrapped bunch for Joe and Tom, my young brothers, pretty fast. "Glassys" were about two for a nickle and "aggies" were more, but I did not buy those. They could be won from an opponent, when the boys played for keeps. This practice was forbidden in some families because it might lead to the gambling habit. Joe and Tom paid no mind, and always had a good collec:ion of these in a drawstring, tobacco sack which was kept hidden. They could be used as currency and bought all kinds of good things if traded to the right person.

Mrs. Hop taught me my first lesson in practical arithmetic. Having just learned in the first grade that zeros had no value, I was surprised to see that a pound box of candy in her showcase was to be had for only five cents. True, it was marked fifty cents, but sure in my newfound knowledge, I plunked down my nickel and said I would take the whole box. She said, "That will be fifty cents." "The sign says fifty, but the zero does not count," answered I. "Oh yes it does," said she. "A five with a zero behind it is a half dollar". I felt humbled but indignant just the same. "Was she trying to cheat me?" It took further explanation at home to convince me. I remained her friend. Baird's Variety across the street had a larger selection but we did most small shopping at Hauprich's-1 think it was because there was a place to sit and visit.

Poole's jewelery and watch repair shop was on the same side of the street as Baird's but it was just for looking. Small window showcases held real jewelry which I coveted without hope when I grew tall enough to peer into the window.

35 MoWngOn------

After shopping was completed our parents sat in the car and visited or strolled up and down Main Street to pay their respects. This was the custom all over the west at the time. Town on Saturday night meant excitement and fun for everyone. Ellen, being the eldest, was commandeered to take Dorothy, Millie, and me to the show. (We never called it the movie. It was the show or picture show.) This meant that she missed most of it, because we each needed several trips out back to the wooden outhouse and several drinks of water. Duncan McClean, the nearly blind proprietor, kept order by pounding his cane as he walked down the aisle through all the noisy goings- on of a silent movie. If any kids sat in the rows of seats which had arms when grown-ups needed them we were sent down to the less comfortable benches on the front row where we jostled for space. We had to lean our head so far back to see the screen, when we were sitting right there on top of it, that we had a stiff neck in the morning. We heard William Tell's Overture played so many times during the silent westerns that we could rat-a-tat right along with the piano--played by the daughter of the Methodist preacher or anyone else with stamina and a little talent. I remember Charlie Chaplin eating his shoelace spaghetti in the Gold Rush, the first movie version of The Ten Commandments,Ben Hur, and The Sign of The Cross. I was terrorized to find cracks between my toes firmly believing I had acquired leprosy as did Ben Hur's mother and sister, until they was diagnosed as a result of athlete's foot. Although there were family activities to furnish "togetherness" or "quality time" as th 1 !Seare now termed, we did not see a lot of Dad at home. From 1912 on, until he was sixty years old or more, he cried sales all over the country in addition to farming and selling Watkin's products. Life insurance and shoes came later. He really enjoyed this work which added a great deal to his income. I have one of his ledgers which shows his commission as being 2% of the gross with the seller setting up and furnishing the clerk. A. C. Searle, an insurance man in Wallowa, often had this job. If it was a forced sale the bank furnished the clerk. A sale of $1,000 gross would produce twenty dollars for Dad, which was not too bad for a day's work at that time but some auctions grossed many thousand of dollars.

Although his family did not often attend his sales, where he entertained with jokes and country humor, until we were older, Ellen tried to help him out at an early age by bidding twenty-five cents in a very loud voice on a pretty dish. To her dismay she was reprimanded before the crowd and never tried to help him out again. I remember him selling a chamber pot to a dignified, stiff-necked gentleman for ten cents when he had not bid. My father knew this man could not object without bringing attention to the article which he was unwilling to do. His favorite story concerned a dairy cow, whose outstanding qualities he had extolled so well that the seller came up behind him and whispered, "Grover, I don't think I will sell her. She is too good a cow."

36 ------Moving On

At farm sales Dad usually started with junk items, then small treasures, on to bigger items, and up to the machinery. One time he sold a set of harness to a farmer who said, "Where are the bridles?" Dad said, "Those come separate." He had an accomplice go to the buyer's team and take off the bridles. After the sale of a few more items, he sold the bridles to the same man who had bought the harness-his own bridles. The man did not discover this until he prepared to start home and found his team was without them. After everyone had a good laugh restitution was made. In those days when entertainment was hard to find, people expected to receive some when they left home, except perhaps at funerals. Even those held some diversion if one's motive was to see which of the relatives mourned the most. Dad knew human nature and how to get people's attention. During Ben Hasting's liquidation hardware sale at Wallowa he brought his talents to play. This was an all-day sale and he was the only auctioneer. When he got to the section things started slow. He was trying to sell expensive, white, bone, English china with blue-patterned, rolled edges. He had three or four plates in his hands and the best bid he could get was ten cents for the bunch. He looked at the woman who bid and said, "Do you want these plates for ten cents?" She nodded and he said, "Well, there you are!" and threw them to the floor smashing them to bits. One of the expert liquidators said to the other, "You had better get over there, Johnson has gone crazy!" Of course he paid for the plates. The bidder must have been indignant but Dad got the crowd's attention and emphasized the fact that if they were valued so little they might as well be broken. He kne~, instinctively just how far he could go, and very rarely did anyone get mad. He worked his little charades in such a way that if anyone did object they would be the one to show up in a poor light. That sale was in the early 1920's and the economy was still good. My mother paid fifty dollars for an oak buffet and a round oak table which could be let out to seat twelve. I am in possession of the table-my pride and . As we became older, we girls pressed Dad's good suit for the occasion, or washed the wire string of round tin cups he furnished for the sale. The Grange, or some other organization, usually furnished the lunch and it was handy to have one hundred or more tin cups available . My brother Tom remembers going to some auctions before he started to school. His job was to keep track of the tin cups, collect them, and put them back on the wire after the sale. Some cups had the bottom covered with undissolved sugar when I washed them and I was surprised at the waste. I heard years later that my Dad, T.G. or Grover, also came to be called Tin Cup Johnson, in order to distinguish him from the many other Johnsons in the county. It is fortunate that I was spared this knowledge while in my teens; it would have disgraced me forever. As it was, I was proud of my Dad because he could do so many things-many things but mechanic. He was not born to that age. As for fixing things around the house, he was not much good, either, which was a source of tribulation to my mother.

37

------Moving On

Chapter 3

That -was the titne that -was, a titne that -will not cotne again

When I was five years old, Dad bought a farm on Whiskey Creek one- half mile east of Wallowa, which we called the Mitchell place. He was thirty years old and had done well since coming into the country, at seventeen years of age, with fifty cents to his name. The population of Wallowa County was about 12,000, twice what it is seventy years later. Farm prices were good and sawmills were running full steam ahead needing a large labor force. The economy was booming and it was a time of optimism and oppor- tunity. Land was still relatively cheap. A ranch which included farming and pasture land could be had for about thirty dollars an acre and an ambitious man could get ahead. Our place cost a little more than that because it was bottom land and had a large, new house. It needed some finishing but was a lot more com- fortable than the one we left in Lower Valley. It had ten rooms and a bath- tub, but nc running water. Dad put that in later after the well was cased with a huge sted casing and he attached a tank to the cook stove for hot water. In a few years Dad started a commercial dairy and put in a steam boiler which furnished us with hot water when steam was mixed with cold. Although the mixing was tricky and hazardous when there was a full head of steam, we all escaped serious scalding and took the hiss and sputter of escaping steam down in the basement without too much alarm. There was no indoor toilet at the time. I suppose this modern feature was thought of as superfluous by the builders, but the comfort and sanitation would have been of great value to our family which consisted of six children by then and two more who came along soon after. The move was delayed a short time because our mother had just given birth to my brother Thomas, the largest of her nine babies, in the same little house in Lower Valley where I was born. He was also a breech baby and was barely alive after a forceps delivery which damaged an eye and tore him up a little. That long and difficult birth resulted in his lungs being filled with fluid and they did not work right for days. He was born with pneumonia. Mrs. Minnie Oliver, a neighbor and close friend of my mother, attended him day and night for several days. She and another neighbor took turns hold- ing him by the heels so that fluid would drain from his lungs and reaching into his throat and pulling out the phlegm when it would not. Lasting

39 Mo~ngOn------bonds of friendship were formed when the help of another woman meant the difference between life and death for you and your offspring. Mrs. Oliver and Zora were closer than sisters in some ways despite a decided difference in temperament. Outspoken and direct described my mother. Mrs. Oliver was a saintly woman, soft spoken and gentle, cautious in all her utterances. My mother said of her with sincerity and without derision, "She is too good for this world." Ellen was born in Iowa where my mother had gone especially to have her second child after her first child-a boy, had been born dead, but young Doctor Gregory attended my mother during Tom's birth as he had done at that of Dorothy, Joe and me, and later when Maybeth and Grace came along (the little girls as we called them). He dreaded her confinements almost as much as Dad did, who suffered violent digestive upsets and guilt. Doc Jack, so-called by many of his contemporaries, was from the south and brought his southern manners and soft, rich voice with him when he began his first practice in Wallowa when, in my mother's words, "He was just a big-eared kid." He stayed on for three generations keeping up on medical innovations and hiring the best help he could which was often a skilled and dedicated practical nurse. His hospital in Wallowa was no more that a large residence where patients could be closely watched when severely ill but served its purpose well. My sister Dorothy was there with a ruptured appendix when she was eleven years old. Before antibiotics such a condition resulted in death from infection m .:,re often than not but she received skillful care and feels she owes her lLe to Dr. Gregory, as well as that of her daughter Susan, who was also under his care for a ruptured appendix during WW II. Penicillin was just becoming available to civilians and she received the second shot of that antibiotic he ever administered. It worked its miracle and she lived. But he was not able to save all such cases. His cook at the hospital, Miss Baker, died in the hospital of blood poisoning and Lovetta Hamilton, a talented, popular, high school student with a beautiful singing voice, died of a ruptured appendix. In the early days of house calls Dr. Gregory drove around in his nice buggy, tying his horse to a post, and walking with long, deliberate steps into the house toting his black bag which was not so little. That bag and the cultivated brain between those big ears held all that was available to doctor his patient. If the snow was too deep for a buggy or the distance was short enough to make walking feasible, he walked. He was a familiar sight climbing over snowdrifts on his rounds. When the roads were good he drove good, serviceable automobiles. Much doctoring was done by telephone. People called, he diagnosed and someone went for medicine but when he came to call he brought medicine with him and left it. Quinine and calomel powders were used for almost every disease. I can still taste the bitter medicine which he brought folded up in little white packets. As his

40 ------Moving On reputation grew he made calls all over the county, even to the far reaches out in Bartlett and Flora. We had no sooner got moved and hardly settled, up on the new place on Whiskey Creek, when Mom came down with pneumonia and we had to get a housekeeper. Dad was very busy because it was April and time to farm. He was not handy around the house but had been forced to take over during the savage influenza epidemic which raged just after WWI. He brought the disease home from one of his trips and Mom nursed him through it, then all the rest of us came down at once. We were quarantined. Dad was stuck in the house with four small children and a sick wife and became our nurse, as well as chief cook and bottle washer. We were all very ill and Ellen thought sure she was going to die. This must have been a miserable chore for him because he was clumsy at such things as cooking and nursing-not without the desire, but awkward. Planting time waits for no man; he had to get the crop in there on his new farm; therefore we had to get someone to care for my mother. Grandmother Florence Johnson, or Ma as we called her at her own insistence, came to help. She was not well and could not stay long, therefore it was necessary to find another nurse and housekeeper. This woman had just had a son murdered in a fracas at the Wallowa gymnasium and sat by my mother's bedside cheering her up with accounts of his death. Her biscuits "were not fit for a dog to eat," and she did not wash the silverware clean. These conditions were intolerable to my mother who arose to set her house to order. About that time her brother was mustered out of the army- WW I ha6 just ended-and came to visit. It was not long before we had a house full of relatives visiting him and my mother ended back in bed. She must have really been ill because she never in her long life let anything "get her down" for long. Her motto was, "Get your mind above the matter." Even paramount to that was, "Get some gumption." Mom tried to instill some "backbone" in all of us and none of us dared leave home without it.

When the next spring came there was energy, time and money to finish up what the builders had not. The outside of the house was painted a nice soft blue-grey, a color it retained for sixty-five years. The well casing was installed so that we might pump water. Inside, the walls of some of the bedrooms and front room were kalsomined with a forerunner of the water- based paint of today which was essentially a tinted whitewash which needed to be renewed yearly to look nice. Dorothy and Mildred's room was papered in floral paper. Ellen and I got the upstairs front, dormer bedroom which was done in pink. Beaverboard was used for walling up rooms. This hard pasteboard-like material was finished in different colors and was left in its original state in halls and closets. The upstairs hall was a long stretch of dark maroon.

41 MowngOn------

A leather couch and chair were purchased for the front room and a mission-oak library table and rocker. Mom had always wanted a big woven rag rug and had been saving rags for years from our old clothes and those of friends and neighbors. These were torn into strips, the strips sewed together and wound into balls and stored in sacks which were often hung from the rafters in a shed so the mice could not get at them. A family of two sisters and a brother, out towards Diamond Prairie, the Fairchilds, had a large loom and were skilled in weaving. They also had a spinning wheel which had belonged to their mother, and Cora sheared her own sheep, spun the wool and wove bedspreads. We had enough rags for a nine by twelve foot rug for the middle of the front room where it reposed until Congoleum rugs came in at which time Ellen and I got the rag rug for our room.

Wicker furniture was all the rage for verandas. Some was ordered for our front porch and was used in the house when an occasion demanded it. I was sent to the depot with the little wagon for a big potted fern which my mother had ordered from the catalog. With that for an accent, our front room looked almost like a picture in the Ladies Home Companion.

There was plenty of water for ir- rigation on the place and Dad farmed intensively, irrigating judiciously and well. One morning we woke up to a peculiar sight. The field back of the house was aflame with red. We rushed out to see what was going on and found hundreds of red fish, as this species of salmon was called locally, dying and flipping their last all over our field. They had come up from the ocean to spawn, getting into the irri- gation ditches from the Wallowa River and when the water was turned off at our headgate the night before the fish had been left stranded. We got all the Dad at the Mitchell place containers we could find on the place and fished with our hands most of the morning. Eels had been stranded as well and were mixed up with the salmon but we left them where they were wriggling. We ate fish and gave it away; we canned it and ate some more; none of it was wasted. That was a time when the Lord provided us fishes in plenty. I think screen on the headgates on irrigation ditches were installed shortly after that which pre- vented any more such spectaculars. Eels were a common sight in the rivers in those years and long strings of them festooned timbers of the structure on

42 ------Moving On each side of the millrace where it ent~ed and left the flour mill. They posi- tioned themselves by the powerful suction of their mouths and no one knew how long one could hold on.

Dad was a good farmer. He just loved to see things grow, talking about the height of the barley and the bloom on the potatoes. He gloried in it! Besides his eighty acres of good bottom land on which he kept a large herd of dairy cows, he ran a commercial dairy and raised certified seed potatoes and rented wheat and hay land from an older neighbor, Clinton Mumford. Mrs. Mumford's father had been one of the Osborne children who escaped mas- sacre at the Whitman Mission in 184 7 by hiding under the floor and fleeing down the Walla Walla river under the cover of darkness. She was a gracious, kindly woman and I often thought of how different the world would have been if her father had been murdered in the fracas and Mrs. Margaret Mum- ford had not existed.

The Mumford place consisted of 420 acres. The top hill country was ~'.~·heatland and pasture and the the bottom land was good hay land with a place for some cows. Most years the wheat crop was not too great but the hay crop was always good. Indians must have camped there along the Wal- lowa River for generations. My father plowed up dart or spear points down by the river shaped like those found in Gypsum Cave, Nevada-a very old ice age type which are now in my possession. Mammoth bones have been found in the valley. Ancient man followed large Pleistocene animals down from Asia during the last ice age. Perhaps these weapons like others found in parts of the northwest are of that period. We had not much time for intro- spection at our place. Things were really hopping. We all had chores and worked hard. Despite the fact that I was allergic to a lot of things (I did not learn about allergies until much later) and had blackout spells of asthma, I thought I worked harder than anyone. There was always one or two regular men to cook and wash for, because it was the custom of the times to do so for any of your hired help. Sisters Maybeth and Grace came along soon after Tom so our household· consisted of twelve or more. There were harvest hands to cook for in the summer and lots of company. As soon as we were big enough we all helped with ranch work. Dorothy and Ellen went into the field and helped shock hay and grain. Later I did the same and most of us had our tum driving the derrick horse at haying time. When haying was finished the grain was ready.

Grain was cut with the binding machine and put in shocks to dry and await threshing time. Shockers piled the bundles in tee-pee shaped shocks which was difficult work for kids; the first bundles of a shock had to be leaned at just the right angle to support the shock and they kept falling down if not braced right; they needed to be upright so the grain would dry. Horse-drawn combines were in use by some of the big grain growers out in the north end-a better grain country than the valley but we did not have

43 Mo~ngOn------

access to one. We used horse-drawn binders which took a driver and a man to sharpen sickles and trouble-shoot if possible. Dad contracted with outfits who did custom threshing at which time the grain bundles were pitched on wagons from the shocks and hauled to the threshing machine; there they were pitched onto the revolving belt of that machine where the grain was separated from the straw. Crews consisted of the separator man, who ran the steam engine, pitchers, wagon drivers and a sack sewer.

Threshing was done in early fall up in the hill country and we did not always get to go up and watch the operation. It was sometimes late Septem- ber or early October before the outfit could get to our grain in the valley. The Meek brothers and the Gastins ran threshing outfits around our area. When they came down from the Leap or Whiskey Creek country they blew mighty blasts on the steam whistle as they rounded the curve at the ceme- tery to let us know they would soon be at our place. The boys and I rushed out to meet the machine when we heard that, which might be way after dark on a cold frosty night. Autumn days are crisp and nights are cold in Wallowa Valley. The separator pulled the machine which was followed by the water wagon, bundle wagons and grain wagon-a grand parade. Dad had a big pile of wood ready for getting up and maintaining the head of steam so work could start early the next day. The crew always had to be fed no matter what time they came in be- cause they had left the last job before mealtime. Thrashing crews were noto- rious eaters. Like machines, men needed fuel commensurate to the energy expended. However, it seemed to us that others ate just because it was there. Growing, active children consumed a lot more real food than kids need now but there were practically no fat kids in the country. We worked it off. Harvest hands ate so much that some became legends. To say of a group, "That bunch eats like a threshing crew," meant something in those days. Women tried to keep up with the reputation of neighbors or perhaps outdo them. This meant having a meal ready when it was needed. The crew could go to bed at once but the cooks had to clean up and get things ready for a big breakfast before sunrise. It was good to have your cooking appreciated but sometimes things went too far. At one ranch a hired hand looked down at his huge pile of corn cobs and chicken bones after a meal and remarked. "Gee, it looks like a chicken died around here." The woman of the house retorted tartly, "Yes, and it looks like it killed itself eating corn!" Joe and Tom and I, and the little girls, hated to miss the drama of threshing to go to school, staying home if there was any possibility of us being needed. There was much noise and clatter. Bundle wagons were coming and going, with one or more wait- ing while the driver of another was pitching onto the revolving belt of the machine. Grain ran down a pipe from the hopper where it was sacked and tied by the sacker. He worked so fast our eyes could hardly see exactly how he did it. Occasionally a sacker was stabbed with his own needle but he

44 ------Moving On could cut off the flow of the grain while sewing and tieing. There was little danger of the hopper overflowing because the amount of grain was regulated by the number of bundles pitched into the machine. The straw was piled and used for bedding for animals. Dad had his pile blown on the windward side of a row of hog sheds, thus provided a nice warm wintering place, as well as giving any animal who found shelter there a little roughage to chew on. He was never reduced to feeding straw to animals in hard times as some men were. The worst he could say of livestock mismanagement was that a man fed his animals on straw. Driving derrick horse in haying time was considered kid's work and we older children all had our turn at it. Joe was small for his age and Tom was younger but they served their time. It was a dead serious job fraught with responsibility and I for one, was afraid of it. Despite being indispensable a derrick "boy" was low man on the totem pole. He was usually given an old horse to handle which was often spoiled and thought he knew more than the kid-sometimes he did. The driver's hours were long. Sleep might over- take him in mid-afternoon but he must be ever alert to the stacker who wanted the net-full or fork-full (both were used to hold a load for transporta- tion to barn or stack) of hay on just the right spot on the stack. He was also at the immediate command of the loader who pulled the trip-rope to release the hay. When the load was being hauled up through the pulleys the driver had to be ever alert to the cry "Trip 'er" because the horse was going away from the stack and the driver had his back to the action. My husband said, "I started driving derrick at eight, and when that old horse pulled and the tugs tightened, the single-tree came up just about even with my eyes." At the cry from the stacker, the derrick boy cried, "Whoa" to stop the horse. (A veteran horse often stopped at the cry "Trip 'er.") The driver then had to unhook the chain and let it snake in to the stack while he backed his horse or turned the horse around and drove him back to repeat the action. Most horses stood placidly while the "boy" unhooked the cable but there were some that were in a hurry to get back to the stack and would not stand still. I was afraid of getting my finger caught in the hook that attached to the singletree and preferred to back a horse. Dorothy drove old Prince on the derrick. He was our special pet horse who had once been driven on the Watkin's wagon while young and sleek and prancing. Her last load in July 1926 was when Prince just kept going at the cry of "Whoa". The hay fork and all came right through the end of the barn. She said, "I unhooked him and jumped astraddle, and we took off for home. That ended my career in the hay fields and I am sure that old horse knew it was our last time to haul up a fork of hay." When Doug who was very deaf, came to work for us he drove derrick, also. He did not always hear the call of "trip er" and stop the horse at just the right time. One day a young man was on the derrick when Dad got his hand caught in the pulley which just kept going chewing up that hand as it went,

45 MowngOn------shredding flesh until the derrick man heard Dad's cries. It was lucky that Doug was not driving that day. He would not have heard Dad who might have lost a hand.

Field work might be strenuous but there were minutes between loads and stacking that we might rest and we could trade off with someone else and be the water boy. But preparing meals took perpetual motion. They had to be ready at 6 A.M. 12 noon and 6 P.M.-sharp! These monumental tasks went on for several weeks in the summer and into fall as haying merged with the harvest of grain. So we cooked, learning how to do it well from neces- sity and tradition. My Dad did not suffer poor food gladly. His mother and wife were outstanding cooks and he avoided food which had been mutilated by a bad cook if he could. Sometimes wives of the field workers came to visit while their husband was employed and they helped. Almost every summer Dad's Aunt Lucina (Siny) Varner, daughter of Luther and Lovisa, came to help. She was a widow and had worked in restaurants and was quick as a whiz at preparing vegetables. By her own admission she was five feet tall and five feet around, which did not slow her down any. Sweat ran off her in streams as she bustled around visiting cheerfully all the while. When the sweat ran off her forehead into the bread she was kneading, we hid behind the door and giggled; someone put our thoughts into words, "The bread won't need any salt after she get through". Pies for harvest crews were a challenge and took more time than other . I can remember making six pies for dinner when I was fourteen, and Millie often made them. But Dorothy was the real pie maker having learned at age seven, when she had to stand on an apple box to roll the crust. It was to her advantage because she made her living making pies several times during the depression. We recognized her as chief cook and bowed to her advice. At that time there was not the myriad of choices for we have today. We might make cornstarch pudding if pressed for time and sometimes made tapioca pudding, from that old hard-as-a-rock tapioca which took hours to cook in a double boiler, but not often. Any self-respect- ing rancher's wife made pies for the noon meal and cake for supper, and we girls often made them to free our mother for other duties. Cake was made for supper at the same time pies were baked and usually accompanied by applesauce or other fruit in season along with pitchers of cream. I can re- member picking two gallons of strawberries for supper and being told that would not be enough! We cooked huge roasts of beef, roasting ears in the wash boiler, and made cabbage slaw, or wilted lettuce by the dishpan, along with huge kettles of potatoes and string beans. All of these vegetables were grown on the place. They were prepared and cooked carefully. Mildred got in on that. She was three years older than me-my friend and confidant but very differ- ent. Being rather small for her age and delicate, she did not do ranch work but she did do housework which meant washing lots of dishes, and helping

46 ------Moving On

with the washing. Setting the table for such a large crowd was a serious job and took a lot of time and thought. Clearing the table meant scraping, rins- ing, and stacking dishes to be washed and we were taught to scald the dishes after rinsing if time and space permitted. When there were more than fif- teen people to feed at harvest time we often washed dishes in the back yard in tubs and skipped the scalding. One summer, right in the middle of all our frenzied activity, one of my Dad's cousins came out west with her three daughters and stayed all summer despite the fact that my mother did not suffer inactivity in herself or others gladly. Being an "invalid," this lady retired to her "chamber" and rested after every meal and all the time in between meals. We even washed the clothes she and her offspring wore. She lived to well past ninety. She kept saying she would stay until her welcome wore out. Well, it did but she was still treated as a guest. This incident was an exception. My father reveled in the big crowds during harvest and liked to have people gathered around him on Sundays and holidays. My mother enjoyed company, going about meal preparation with a little humming whistle, if she was not stressed by other duties.

With all his other activities Dad fell into a rather singular job which gave us all more work to do at home because it took him away for several days at a time. He had joined the Lostine Grange as soon as he came to Oregon, being one of its charter members. He later helped organize the Wallowa Grange and was its first master as well as county Pomona Grange Master. Through this organization the Wallowa County Marketing Associa- tion was formed. Farmers conceived the idea so that they might ship their hogs to Portland and get a little higher price for them than was offered lo- cally. He raised a lot of hogs himself and when some ranchers from the north end wanted him to buy their hogs and ship with his he did not think he had the capital to go into that business himself. A better way to do it would be through an organization. Northenders from the Troy and Eden country, among them being the Knights, Borks and DeJeans, often drove their hogs out to Wallowa, about forty miles the way they were trailed, and left them at our place to be held until the train came in for loading. We were about a mile from the depot. Dad's job was to get them down to the train on Saturday morning when it came in for loading. Sometimes the owners stayed overnight at our place and helped out but usually they were anxious to get back home after that drive of several days. Dad used Tom and Joe as herders and keeping that string of hogs together was a tough job for two kids not yet in their teens. Someone asked, "How am I going to tell if I get the right money for my own hogs?" Dad devised a system and it was carefully explained and faith- fully adhered to. The shippers for each shipment chose a mark to be put on the hog's shoulders with clippers. One man might have one stripe across,

47 Moving On------another two stripes, and on up to four stripes. Others would be one across, and one lengthwise, etc. The mark was recorded on a ticket when the hogs were weighed. Dad kept the records and accompanied the carloads of hogs to the commission houses who bought them and helped sort and identify them at the Union Stockyards. He enjoyed all this except the responsibility of carrying the money home. It was paid out in the form of currency-no checks-and a lot of it was in hard cash. It is hard to imagine a large company doing business in this method. Perhaps it was requested by the ranchers who knew cash was more dependable than a check. One night he got off the streetcar down on Burnside with his leather sack full of money. As he turned the corner to go up Broadway to the Imperial Hotel where he always stayed, he noticed a man following him. A short distance later a second man started following and a little later a third man joined the pack. Dad got right out in the middle of the street with cars coming at him with their horns blasting away. A cop soon hailed him and asked what in the world he was doing. Dad said, "I'm looking for you. You are just the guy I'm wanting to see." He got an escort back to the hotel. A lot of hogs were raised at our place and they were fed in good part by flour until the supply ran out. Yes, wheat flour! The Island City Milling and Mercantile Co. established business very early in the valley. In fact, it was not until a millrace was diverted from the Wallowa River, a mill set up and a store opened that the city of Wallowa amounted to much. During WWI the mill had a government contract and did very well. After the armistice the Wallowa Roller Mills, as the business was now called, was stuck with a ton or two of flour which sat around for quite awhile; it collected moisture and caked up in the sacks. For some reason I have not been able to ascertain, it was called Red Dog Flour. Dad bought this for a song, soaked it and fed it to his hogs. The flour manufactured during the Z0's and 30's was called White Rose. Many a sack was bleached and used for curtains, dish towels and the proverbial female bloomers. I was never disgraced by having the name White Rose emblazoned on the seat of my pants but was humiliated when the elastic broke on my black-sateen bloomers and one leg stayed at ankle- length all day at school before I could rush home through town trying all the while to hold up my bloomer leg. During the Depression the flour mill was in bad shape financially. At that time quite a number of men pledged to bring in their wheat to keep it going. They were paid in cash or traded for flour. A certain percentage was charged for dockage for chaff and smutty wheat, as well as for the expense of milling. One percent or less was really good and five percent was not exces- sive. I have the ledger for the Wallowa Roller Mills in 1933-34. As I read the names I have visual images of these ranchers who brought in wheat from Flora, Paradise, Leap, Joseph, Enterprise and even Imnaha. Most of them are gone but I remember the appearance and personality of many of them.

48 ------Mo~ngOn

Jess Kiddle, the miller for many years, was a whiz at figuring in his head, and used to win mental arithmetic contests down at the pool hall. My brother Tom beat him a few times but no others he can recall. Hershel McGinnis was also a miller there and Bob Freels who was operator in the early 1940's when it burned.

Wallowa Roller Mills c. 1910

On top of everything else, Dad decided to start a commercial dairy and deliver the milk in Wallowa. Up to this time we all had worked frantically in the summer but had some time to relax in the winter. We now learned to work frantically all year long. Wallowa County had always been dairy country. With a short growing season, cool summers and long winters and plenty of moisture, it was more adapted to forage and pasture than other crops which may be damaged by a frost which can occur there at any month of the year and usually does. Be- fore the advent of commercial creameries, cream was skimmed by hand from milk set in a cool place so it would rise then made into butter, usually in a dasher churn; the buttermilk was well worked out and it was finally salted down in one or two pound rolls. The finished butter was then kept as cool as possible until it could be taken to market in a more populated center sometimes fifty to 100 miles away. Young men would take a herd of cows to the high mountains during the summer, milk them and make butter to sell, and share the proceeds with the owners of the cows in the fall. Grant Johnson at Flora told me he did this during the 1880's. It was a lonesome time for him but he made some money. Most families kept cows and made butter. Stores bought local butter and a housewife who was known to turn out a well-worked product could easily dispose of her surplus. If she brought dirty or rancid butter to trade she got rid of it to the same storekeeper only once if he valued his reputation. As population increased along with better

49 MoringOn------transportation during the logging boom and after WWI, there was more demand at home. Most farmers milked cows for extra income, and the need of some organized way of marketing dairy products arose. A minor misfortune helped convince Dad that he should go into dairy- ing. One year he tried raising head lettuce to be shipped to Portland on the train. Others in the state had done well and his hopes were high. He planted and tended several acres with care-of course most of the rest of us got in on the thinning and weeding- only to have the bottom drop out of the mar- ket. We ate an awful lot of lettuce one summer and so did everyone else close by because we sold it for five cents a head, or gave it away, before feed- ing what was left to hogs and cattle. His was the first and last attempt at raising lettuce commercially in the county. Personal activities now took a backseat to our dairy which tied us down, taught us responsibility, and dominated our lives. Our place was well adapted for pasture. There was room for a Grade A milkroom in the base- ment, and there was a growing source of labor: Us. Dad invested in some purebred Holstein cows for milk and Jerseys for cream, renovated the barn with stanchions enough to accommodate twenty head at a time, partitioned the basement into milkroom and storage areas, and started in. Consequently, to better market his surplus cream, he later became one of the prime movers in a dairy co-op. He hated margarine because it com- peted with dairy products and had nothing good to say of people who sold cream to the creamery and then turned around and bought margarine just to save a penny or two. He caught some in our house only once which Dorothy had bought to follow a recipe for chocolate cake. She was always a sticker for following the recipe right down to the last grain of salt. I guess that is why she is such an outstanding cook. Dad seized Dorothy's marga- rine and threw it far, far over the fence. The irony of this gesture was that Dad did not like thick cream and other dairy products, and would not eat whipped cream of which we had an abundance, scraping all of it off any food that was served him. One day at school in the fourth grade, it was announced that we were to see a movie. A movie at school? Unheard of! We were herded over to the high school gymnasium which stood on the spot the grade school now oc- cupies in such a frenzy that one girl with blue lips and nails due to a bad heart, fainted. (She died a few months later.) All other grades were there and after many false stops and starts by the projectionist, who came along with the movie, we viewed natives of some island, stomping vegetation in large vats, with bare feet and legs. We could clearly see sores on some of the legs, and the captions also told us they were there. Some sort of vegetable oil from which margarine was to made was being extracted. Horrors! I vowed never to touch the stuff. Mission accomplished for a time-I later backslid. The first and only movie I saw in grade school was a propaganda film put out by the American Dairy Council. so ------MowngOn

Nez Perce Indians from Lapwai and other areas still came into the val- ley via Flora, Troy and Whiskey Creek as they had done when Joseph's band was at home in the Wallowa country only thirty some years before and for unknown generations before that. As soon as we saw their dust we yelled, "The Indians are coming; the Indians are coming!" My brothers and I rushed so we might hang onto the front gate peeping through the slats, as they swept by in their buggies or best riding horses. They were losing no time in reaching old-time camping places, one of which was down at the end of the Mumford field by the river where camas flowers still popped up in time for Memorial day. We called them "flags," and picked them to decorate our relatives' graves in the nearby Wallowa cemetery where Straight Edge and his wife Lovisa were buried, along with Pa and Ma, and the baby brother we had never known. Another traditional camping spot to which they were welcome was down by the Ben Curtis place in Lower Valley. Women wore long dresses and shawls or Pendleton blankets, with their hair covered with kerchiefs. Men wore moccasin~., bright shirts, braids, and tall, uncreased, black hats. We were filled with tert or when they glanced our way, lifted their arms and whacked down with a scalping motion-their rapid pace unchanging. Much later I learned these Indians had never made it a practice of scalping. No Indian had ever killed a white man in our valley, and they were as "civilized" are we were, or perhaps more so at that time, when our mother kept calling us a bunch of wild Indians! One memorable day my brother Joe and I rode up to the Americus McAlexan- der place on the hayrack with Dad to visit this old gentleman who was one of the early settlers in the valley. His place was on the old Indian Town land at the forks of the Lostine and Wallowa rivers. I don't remember the stories he told us about those days but his white whiskers wobbled when he talked. He escorted us down in the field to see something special. A fence of peeled limbs enclosed two graves; one was that of Tuekakas-Old Joseph. Mr. McAlexander was proud that he had taken care of the graves. In September of 1926 Old Joseph's remains were moved to the foot of Wallowa Lake where a monument and small park are now located. That is, all except the skull which was missing. Mr. Horner, a Wallowa County historian who helped move what was left of the old Wild Indians, Joe and Winona chief, has affirmed that Mr. McAlexander and his brother-in-law, who was a dentist,

S1 MowngOn------removed the skull in 1886. It was displayed in the dentist's office in Baker, Oregon. Some say that the Indians fooled the white men and moved the bones of another Indian up to the lake.

We (iid not get to see the colorful trek of the Nez Perce when those Indian bones were moved by travois twenty-five miles up to the lake. After the grain was harvested that year my Dad felt prosperous and decided to buy a new Chevy touring car and go back to Iowa to see our relatives. The problem of seating ten in a car built for six was solved by making jump-seats to fit in the back for Joe and Tom. We four older girls occupied the regular seat in varying states of discomfort, until we decided we would have more room if we put the boys in the big leather seat and let two larger people occupy the jump seat. I bumped along many hundreds of miles on one of those jumpers. Dad was chewing tobacco in those days and Dorothy and Ellen complained bitterly when sprayed by his spitting during their turn to sit in the jump seat. He devised a plan to prevent that by wiring a tomato can to the steering wheel between the spokes, and spitting when it was in the right position. We knew Dad was going to spit when the car wobbled a little. Maybeth sat in the front between Mom and Dad and Grace, who was fifteen months old, sat on Mom's lap. A big heavy trailer, made to order by a local blacksmith, held a tent, cooking supplies, bedding and a trunk with all our "good" clothes. Everyone but Dad and the babies, wore knickers and long, harlequin-plaid, stockings. (My father did not allow his daughters to go without stockings, an edict I later got around by removing my stockings on the way to town, and putting them back on on the way home.) My mother had recently bobbed her hair for the first time and the rest of us females also wore short hair, with spit curls over our ears, when we had time for the added touch. We all wore cloche hats. Some were of colored felt but mine was yellow georgette which did not do much for my sports sweater, but the hat would be needed to go with my dress-up clothes which were safe in the trunk. Hats would crush in there. I solved the problem as did Mrs. Bennett and Mrs. Arcane when they were choosing what to bring out of Death Valley into the land of the living; I wore it. Later, when Dorothy's green hat flew out of the car as we were making time on the good road east of Boise, Dad did not even stop for it; he had to"keep er rollin" on the smooth stretches." Mom said, "Grover, you must be soft in the head." and let it go at that. Turning back to Dorothy, Dad said, "Don't worry your head over it," and Dorothy knew she would get a new one. Besides gumption and backbone, Mom talked about heads a lot.

52 ------MowngOn

She "dinned into our heads" such maxims as "Make your head save your feet", and "Don't let it go to your head", or "Don't get the big head". We drove through the dirt main street of Wallowa just as the church bells were ringing one Sunday morning in July, making it clear to Payette that night where we camped in a friend's yard and were nearly eaten up by mosquitos. While helping Dad light the pump-up gas campstove for the first time I spilled gasoline all over my wool knickers and smelled of it for several days until it evaporated. Our first trial at pitching that big tent and rolling out beds for all of us took awhile, but after a night or two the tasks became routine, because we were in a hurry to get the job done and explore our surroundings. Idaho was full of surprises. The unfamiliar smell of sage made us think we were in a foreign land. Here we were in the midst of the desert but there were luscious fields of alfalfa, fruit orchards, and wonderful gardens with rows and rows of celery and corn. We were made aware of what irrigation could do for arid country, having thought it needed rain to be green. There were big irrigation water canals out there in the desert! Ellen was the recorder for the trip and says, "The roads were mostly gravel, until we hit the Lincoln Highway, and many flat tires gave us a chance for breathing and stretching, usually out in the desert someplace, where I took pictures with my camera I won for selling enough Henry Field's garden seeds, and we could enjoy the cactus in bloom." Dad stopped at school yards or places with a little shade if he could for us to eat our lunches of cinnamon rolls, , bananas, bread and buns, apples, candy, and lots of honey which we must have put on bread. We liked sweets believing they were good for you-gave you energy. Ice cream cones for all of us came to $.45 but Dad must have foregone the pleasure. At five cents apiece that would have been fifty cents. What a diet-but that was what Dad could "rustle up" in a hurry. We had never heard of cholesterol. Hamburgers for all-sixty cents. Yes, they were only six cents apiece. Supper and breakfast were cooked in camp over a gas stove. The and onions were really good. We must have brought staples from home for those meals because Ellen had no expense account for them.

Dad was in a hurry to get back to "Ioway" and usually avoided anything that would have led to adventure off the beaten path, which went through all the little hamlets; New Plymouth, Buhl, American Falls, McCammon, Montpelier and Regina. At Sunnyside a sign said: "Speed limit 100 miles an hour, Fords do your best!" We saw our first cranes and pelicans as we rolled along the Snake River. All across Idaho and through Wyoming Dad kept pointing out that we were now on the Old which Ezra Meeker had travelled by ox team,

53 Moving On------automobile and-just that year-by airplane. The road was just terrible in some spots and on smooth stretches was apt to be paved with dead jackrabbits. Dad soon quit trying to dodge them as they zigged and zagged across the road in front of us. The car vapor-locked going over the pass in the Rockies and Dad blew it out with a tire pump. When we came to extra steep places we back-seaters learned just when to hop out and push the Chevy, taking care not to fall and be mashed by the trailer when Dad gunned up the last steep pitch. The highest elevation was on top of Sherman grade at 8,835 feet. Along there somewhere we were straining along in third gear or low-(In those days gears were called high, intermediate and low.)-just hoping we could make it up over the top, when a driver passed us in a hurry and took off a hub cap. A new one costs ten cents when we got to Cheyenne. Frontier Days was going full blast and we got in lots of traffic. The city was draped in flags and bunting. We saw at least seven airplanes and two trains and some Indians dressed like real ones. When we voiced a desire to see the sights Dad said, "It's gonna be hard enough to find my way out of this town. Now I don't want to hear another peep out of you." We stopped at tourist camps for the night if possible, at about fifty cents a night. Some were even free. The Maggie and Jiggs parks must have been a campground chain even at that early date. We camped in one going and coming. If places were too dirty we just went on and camped in someone's field. In Soda Springs when it was raining like the dickens, sleeping quarters were found in a boarding house. Dad rustled up cinnamon rolls and Hershey bars for supper, (What else was there?) and we headed out early so we could stop about ten miles out of town and cook our breakfast. On the hill out of Hot Springs the car wouldn't pull. Dad got two dollars from Ellen who was keeper of the cash, took Tom and Joe and went after oil. When he got back and put in the oil all six of us big kids got out and pushed and got the car up that hill. Then it hailed and rained and we had to walk up the steep grade out of Montpelier Canyon. The car slid off the road and we put on the side curtains and chains. The roads were terrible and muddy out of Cokeville but Ellen did not record us using chains or side curtains any other time. We came to a topless Ford turned upside down in a ditch on the Green River out of Sage. Dust was settling around a woman who sat wringing her hands saying, "Herb skidded her. He skidded her, he did!" This family had two kids and when Dad found out they were "broke," gave them some money and the fresh doughnuts we had just bought for lunch (I thought that was carrying magnanimity a little too far) and went back to town and told some of the city fathers there was someone up the road that needed their help. The next day we drove a long stretch, much longer than our

54 ------MowngOn usual stint of 160 to 200 miles a day, to reach some cousins, the Peters, in Nebraska on the South Platte River It was late at night when we rolled in, dead tired and cross. We were served some fish, fresh caught from the river, and distributed around in the house and barn; theirs was also a large family. Swimming in the muddy Platte the next day was mighty refreshing to our travel-worn bodies, but sleep came slowly that night. Accustomed to the crisp, cool summer nights of Wallowa Valley, we were surprised that midwestern nights were hot. The heat continued. In eastern Nebraska we saw our first swimming pool. Towns advertised themselves as Nebraska's beauty spots. Cozard was the "Largest alfalfa shipping point in the world," and we believed them. At Plattesmouth we ferried across the wide Missouri on the Dolly Jane-cost fifty cents. It was still hot. Ellen says, "When we finally got to Iowa after ten days of travel, it was so hot I could not sleep upstairs because of the heat and the thunder and lightning of summer thunderstorms, therefore I went down and slept on the front porch where I got chiggers all over." Grandpa and Grandma Burgett had rented out and moved to the small village of Oakley where he ran a coal yard. He was a quiet man and tended his peach orchard in the chicken yard, which was smelly with chicken droppings and rotten peaches. There was a big, old general store in Oakley with interesting merchandise, some dating back to the last century. Grandpa spent much time at the horseshoe pit beside the store, jumping up and down in glee when he made a ringer. For some reason, Grandma spent an awful lot of time calling for him to get home. I never could understand why-he was having so much fun. Maybe that was why. Our uncles and Dad and the boys would go into the country and bring back a trailer load of watermelons which they would drop on the ground to bust; we were then allowed to eat only the sweet, juicy centers and the rest went to the chickens and the pigs. This seemed a wild extravagance to us who came from a cool country where melons could not be grown. Before too much time had passed someone had to get a stout stick and ream the red clay from between the spokes of the car wheels or it would dry and be harder to dig out. Some of us were bribed to do the job-"If you dig out the clay now, I will save you the biggest watermelon heart." We children were parcelled out among relatives to pare the crowd down to a manageable size at Grandma and Grandpa Burgett's house. Every few days we were switched around to another Uncle's or Aunt's place and had to get adjusted to a new set of strangers. To even the score, they also were not exactly familiar with us and our folkways. Grandma Burgett had blackberry pie and fried chicken for breakfast which I thought was overdoing it a little bit; on the other hand, when I was forced to eat oatmeal for breakfast I acquired such antipathy toward that food that a spoonful makes me gag to this day.

55 MowngOn------

At the Iowa State Fair where I was snubbed by a daintily-costumed ballet dancer about my age and awed by the Revolutionary War done by fireworks, we were herded up the steep steps of the capitol dome to the very top to view the flat country for miles around. Then we were collected and counted for the long, dusty trip back home. We came back through the same little cities and burgs we had travelled through coming out. Those of us who were able to see only the sights on one side of the road while going, were now able to take in the scene from the other side on the way west. I remember the detours which were commonplace, especially in Wyoming where a lot of road building was going on. On one rough stretch the trailer came loose and Dad went into a field and found some haywire and wired it back on till we could get to the next town. We stopped in lots of towns to have tires fixed; those rutted and gravel roads were hard on them. The rubber was inferior to that of today and they bore a heavy weight. Although tubes could be patched and used again after a puncture only, a blowout usually meant buying both tube and tire which we did at least twice at a cost of about fourteen dollars per tire and five dollars per inner tube. Tire repair was from fifty cents to one dollar and twenty cents. Ellen's records showed that we travelled a total of 4,830 miles, including running around in Iowa. Gas was from twenty cents to thirty-six cents a gallon, the latter being the price up on the continental divide. Oil was high in comparison-thirty-five cents a quart. Dad ran off the top of the tank, purchasing gas frequently at four to five gallons at a time. Evidently he took no chance on running out in those days when gas stations were few and far between. It took us ten days to come home because the new car needed some overhauling in Wyoming. A lot of that trip had been in low gear, grinding over mountains and plowing through mud with a heavy load. The total expenses for the trip east came to $86.14, and for returning home $100.08. Car expenses were more than food and the cost of a couple of new tires can be added to the total. Of course we had camped out which usually cost fifty cents a night. This was in tourist parks, some with kitchens where we could cook. If we rented cabins we rolled out our own bedding on the mattress provided, but most of the time we put up the tent at night and rolled our beds on the ground. Our parents' generation took food enough on trips to last awhile and always packed food for travel on the train. It is hard to explain this quaint custom to the fast food generation, but there were almost no places to eat between towns and many places in town still held to the old way of serving food only at designated hours. Besides that, taking our meals at restaurants would have been out of the question for ten people-too expensive. There was also the matter of looking presentable. My mother would not have

56 ------MowngOn taken a bunch of kids, all dirty and travel-mussed, to eat in a restaurant without much scrubbing and combing. At least we escaped that. Dad did treat the family to a noon dinner at Baker coming home. It was only 100 miles to Wallowa and he must have decided he still had money enough to get us home. I was not quite ready for the situation at home. It was late in September when we got back and I discovered that A and B reading groups had been abolished at school; the A's being promoted on to the next grade and the B's being retained. I was of the last group. In those days before counselors, psychologists, P.T.A. and letters to parents, this was shock, but not questioned; the school knew best. I was accustomed to handling situations like this on my own and it did not occur to me to expect parental concern. Here I was having to repeat the fifth grade, where I discovered I was the biggest girl. It took me a week to get over it but by then I discovered being the biggest had its advantages and the fifth grade was sure easy. There were other , also; main street had been paved in our absence. Our new car was all worn out, so Dad traded it for a new Chevy sedan, and we kids had the prestige of being far-flung travellers.

Our large house had a full basement which was warm and cozy in those long Oregon winters. One-half of it was the milk room where we also did the washing. My mother boiled the white things and sometimes the greasier work clothes. That took awhile and with all the bedding for six or more beds, wash day was an all-day affair. There were several loads of work clothes, but we females washed our underclothes, stockings, and "good dresses 11 by hand. We big kids took turns at pushing the handle that agitated the clothes until we got an electric machine. That big Thor washing machine was really a wonder. We found out just how wonderful when It died of overwork during the depression and there was no money for a replacement. We washed on the board and learned the humility of labor when this happened. Sometime later when my brother Joe and I were in college, my mother washed on the board for other people to get a few extra dollars for the family. My mother did not allow smoking in her house but the basement was the male haven. The big wood stove was kept fired up in the winter to keep food and the water pipes from freezing, making a cozy den in the evening for friends and family. The Runnings lived over near the Wallowa River and Doug, who came for dinner and stayed fourteen years, had known Hans, Swan and Sam in Nevada. There were plenty of apples on hand and Limburger cheese was allowed down there but not upstairs because of its distinctive aroma. The coffee pot was usually on for company, as well as

57 Moving On------other liquid refreshments which we girls were not supposed to know about. Doug's friend, Sam Kendall, who lived in the Promise country, had an orchard and a few cows. In a letter he wrote Doug he says, "I don't make cider any more. I've got me a nice little still going.,, You had to be careful with your liquor. We kids found a jug or two in the haymow and once, in all innocence, lugged home one we found in an irrigation ditch. Although we had to surrender it at the time, that jug is now in my possession. The 1920's was a time of plenty. There was the dairy and farming and auction sales and some selling of insurance to bring in money. My father bought more land and mortgaged his eighty acres for part of the payment. The way things were going, the mortgage would be paid off in no time. We were all busy except in the evening when it seemed that our life was mostly centered around that basement. Even then, we might spend time sorting out the best Netted Gem potatoes to be cut for seed later in the spring-an activity that dad had to class under the head of fun to get us going but one for which he willingly paid us at the rate of ten cents a three-gallon bucket to get the job done. He preferred raising Netted Gems, which were a white- meated, firm , with little threads making a sort of a net pattern on the skins-the forerunner of the Idaho Russet. They later became very popular for . Dad always raised them in his small patches after he quit farm- ing saying, "Nothing will ever suit me better than a Netted Gem.,, Besides the dairy room in which there were the separator, cooler, steam box for bottles, three sinks and steam tables, there were large bins for vege- tables and seed potato storage. Much of the potato crop was sold at digging time but several tons were bulked to be sorted and sold later. I learned some interesting things by hiding on top of the potatoes in one bin, and listening to the crew as they stored potatoes in the other. That "man talk" laced with unfamiliar sexual terms filled me with curiosity and horror. It was several days before I would let a handsome, blonde, eighteen- year-old Frenchman come close enough to practice his halting English. He and his father were newly arrived from France and had found employment with my father. Long shelves built under the basement steps which led down from the kitchen, held home-canned food and boxes of apples, which usually came from the Walla Walla country. Our winter wood was hauled in from the Cox place and also stored in that basement after the harvest was over. Most winters were very cold and it took a lot of wood to keep three stoves and a fireplace going, especially when it was necessary to have fires night and day. Dad still had his timber land in the North Woods where he and Doug cut it early in the fall, waiting until the snow came so that it could be transported down home by sled pulled by Maggie and Maude our

58 ------MowngOn matched roan work team. One winter when the mercury dropped to forty below, travellers built fires in washtubs and set them in their sleds to keep their hands warm and give some slight warmth to other parts of their body. The breath from men and animals was expelled in a cloud and froze to the faces and bodies of the men and the heads of the horses. Animals needed shelter at those times. There were good mangers for the horses on one side of the diary barn. On the other side Dad enclosed a section for an ice house behind the part he used for a garage. Refrigerators were not used much until the late 20's, therefore many people had ice boxes of the wooden oak type lined with zinc, the kind that is highly prized by Americana collectors today. Ice could be bought down at the Wallowa Creamery by the Wallowa River bridge run by Dick Maxwell and Ray Johnson just east of Main Street. Some years it was cut at Jerry's pond up Bear Creek where Jerry Maxwell who had a slaughterhouse for his butcher shop, had a pond. When the ice was two or three feet thick, it was sawed into square chunks with an ice saw, hefted into sleds by ice tongs, and hauled into the creamery. Dad, as well as other men around the country, cut ice for the Wallowa Creamery. He always filled our icehouse at the same time. One year I stood on the Wallowa River bridge and saw men cut ice just up the river, when it was completely frozen over, and haul it to our icehouse in the barn. Ray and Dick made very rich ice cream for sale using a commercial mix in addition to cream. There was always some left over at the time the con- tainers were packed to put in the freezing room and Dick shared it with passers by or hangers on. If I passed when it was freezing, I loitered until the batch was finished. Ray was dark and short; Dick tall and gangly. Although he never married, Dick liked the ladies and kids and I became his special friend. His distinguishing feature was his one eye. He sometimes wore a patch over his empty eye socket, sometimes not. At first I was horror stricken by the sight; as years went by I hardly noticed. This creamery closed in 1931 during the Depression and the Wallowa County Co-Op started up soon after. Dick and Ray turned over their opera- tion on faith with no money down and a contract only. Their trust was warranted. This business was a big success until meeting all those govern- ment regulations became too expensive and farmers got tired of being mar- ried to cows. Trucks picked up cream fromJoseph and Enterprise and eight people were employed. The plant soon turned out lots of good butter and ice cream. The latest equipment and methods were used and some of the crew were sent down to to butter making school. Fred Himelwright who had also been an Oregon State Representative and active in the Grange, was the president for many years. Herman Plass and Jake Silver became managers. The biggest innovation was the installa- tion of frozen food lockers. We rented one to keep fresh meat in. There

59 Mo~ngOn------would not have been nearly enough room for frozen vegetables for our family. Being able to keep meat for months by just cutting and wrapping it, and sticking it in a little slatted cage in the big freezer was wonder enough to us. Farmers said the three prettiest girls in the county were working for them and I thought they were correct. May Moffit Roop, Edna Renfrow Hunter and Roberta Johnson Bird worked in . Farmers depended on their cream checks for a living and, along with other duties, these women got them out on time. With such sweet and pleasant office girls it was a pleasure for members to drop in and visit and many of the 200 and more farmer members did so. Roberta had walked five miles both ways to high school from Lower Valley, graduated with honors at age sixteen, and married Max Bird, otherwise known as Whitey. With such a surname, the Bird boys were sure to be given appropriate bird names; Dick or Dicky Bird, Robin Bird, Jay Bird and Whitey. The last two who had been star athletes in high school also worked at the creamery.

In the time before electric refrigeration was much in use we preserved meat by canning, salting down and curing as well as by smoking. Dad killed four or five hogs every fall and after the scalding and scraping was done outside, they were kept hanging in the barn, where they usually froze to some extent before they were brought into the basement to be cut up. Clean lumber was laid on top of saw horses in the basement and the hogs cut up on those. A commercial cure or salt and saltpeter was rubbed on hams, shoulders and bacon. These pieces were smoked in an outside smoke house with a wood such as alder or apple, which gave off a fragrant smoke as it was kept burning slowly for several days. They were then put in sacks and hung high in the barn so that mice, cats, or dogs could not get at them. Other pieces were kept cool and eaten fresh. Pork chops were eaten fresh and fried down and put in crocks and covered with lard. Ribs and backbones were eaten with sauerkraut and noodles or dumplings and shared with the neighbors. Rendering lard took time and care. The leaf, or gut lard, was the best and whitest. It was cut and rendered separately and kept for special cooking. The side fat was ground so that it might fry, or try, out better. All care was taken to see that the big pans of sizzling lard were done enough to cook out all the grease, but not hot enough to scorch and brown or catch fire. Liquid contents of the rendering pan were strained into clean crocks and pails and the residue in the bottom run through the lard press to get all the fat. New-rendered lard meant lots of maple bars and doughnuts. These crackling could be used for seasoning or soap making. We did not make souse from cracklings at home, but I have made it since.

60 ------Moving On

Some of the skin was fried up for snacking if someone had time. My parents ate a lot of animal fat all their lives, and did not have heart trouble or high cholesterol; if they did, they didn't know it. As is now suspected, that disease may depend as much on heredity as diet. Nothing was wasted from snout to tail; the feet were scraped very clean, tiny hooves chopped off, discarded, and all the feet put in a big pot and simmered slowly until very tender. They were then pickled in salt and vinegar water-not too much vinegar-and were mild and delicate, not to be compared with the sour, salty commercial product. Heads were made into head cheese; teeth, eyes and the inside ears were taken out, the head washed and washed-soaked in salt water-and washed some more, and then simmered until the meat fell off the bone; the meat was then cooled, chopped, and the broth heated and mixed with spices and poured over the meat. The whole thing was weighted down until it became firm enough for slicing. (Not being a purist I put in a little chili powder when I make my own.) I learned how to clean a head after it was sawed in half by a man. To chop the teeth out cleanly and completely with an axe takes daring. If someone had time, the bladders were cleaned and blown up for younger children to play with. Ma Johnson's ancestry was Pennsylvania Dutch-or German. Her German name, Mueller, had been Americanized to Miller. When I read Michener's account of the Zendt brothers' food preparation in Centennial I knew exactly what they were talking about. And there was always the dairy operation. We six older children all did our share during our commercial dairy years. Ellen milked cows during its beginning and later graduated to keeping books and driving the milk delivery truck. She says: My life for four years, outside of school, practice, and games, was milking cows, washing bottles, and delivering the milk, with the help of brother Joe. Dad found out, when I was sixteen, by his watchful eye while on the haystack putting up hay at the Mumford place, that I was a good driver. I had taken the car and driveri up the road toward the cemetery, and returned without a casualty. He decided I was a good enough driver to put on the milk truck. I got a driver's permit and that was my job until I graduated. I usually milked seven cows after breakfast, hurriedly took a tub bath, and ran a mile right through town to school. As I passed Rinker's Store he always remarked, 'It's ten minutes to nine, there goes Ellen.' The frosting on the cake was the morning I was kicked. Dad always kept many cats around the barn to get the mice, but they also had their share of warm milk. One cold morning old pussy could not wait for her share, so she tried to hurry things up by curling her tail around Old Scary Cow's neck, who retaliated by exploding in all directions. Pussy

61 Mo~ngOn------

and I went in opposite directions. Dad picked me up and carried me to the house. Mom said, "Is she Dead?" Dad answered, "No, she'll be O.K. when you get the milk washed off." "Milk?" cried Mom, "I never before saw brown milk." "Well, as a matter of fact, she did land in the gutter," Dad replied. I was badly bruised on the thighs, where I was kicked, and my pants were torn clear through. I made a decision right then and there; 'after graduation, I am going to college and change my way of life.' Dad sold the Old Scary Cow and bought a milking machine. I believe my ar- thritic hands are a souvenir of those days.

Ellen kept books for the dairy operation which took up a lot of her time because some customers paid by the month. Thirty days delivery of one quart a day brought a check for three dollars and there were a lot of three dollar checks. Some bills were not paid on time so that required extra billing which took more time and effort on her part. Stamps were only two cents but the time it took for extra work was the consideration, not the money. Daily sales were paid for with the money in a milk or cream bottle set by the door. At one time during the operation we delivered morning and evening. The night deliveries could be finishing up as late as ten P.M. at back doors, where bedroom lights might be on and strange cars parked. Joe remembers Dad cautioning him and Ellen again, "Hear nothing, see nothing, say noth- ing." Joe ran the milk to the door, and collected the bottles and money. He was not very old and small for his age, but developed into a real sprinter. His legs ached every night. Sometimes Odus Bales, the truck driver, took pity on him and brought him home, finishing the delivery himself. Joe could en- dure the leg aches. There was a more immediate threat. "The bane of my life was the dogs," he wrote. "They barked and growled and attacked me. The little feisty dog at Dr. Gregory's house would sneak around the corner and grab me without saying a word. I resorted to carrying an empty milk bottle to defend myself against that dog and several others. One morning I looked around the house, when he didn't show up to get me, and there he laid-all stiff. I was glad! That took care of that." More dead dogs were discovered on his route that morning, when the authorities counted twenty-seven or more. Dr. Thomas our local veterinar- ian who was smart and efficient when not "hopped up" (drug users were called hop heads) said it was strychnine and was on for the poi- soner who was never apprehended. Fortunately, no children got hold of poison bait. People who had the restaurant down by the butcher shop, had German Shepherds or police dogs as we called them and they got to running loose. Pretty soon other large dogs joined them and they began running in packs, killing sheep and chasing cows. One of our neighbors shot all the dogs that came around his place, shooting through the corral fence at dogs running across the field.

62 ------Moring On

Joe related another incident which is indicative of the mores of the time. "One hot August day Ellen went bare legged into Baird's store for a package of gum after their milk was delivered. We did that a couple of times a week to reward ourselves. Some men in front of the store said, 'How can that Johnson girl be so brazen as to come to town with bare legs?' I heard them and thought it was funny they could think that way. She was only trying to keep cool." It took the reality of the Depression and WW II to brush away such inconsequential opinions of what was good and proper. My career as a dairy maid started at age twelve. I was large and rambunctious for my age. Consequently the barn seemed the right place for me, where I brushed the cows before they were milked, washed their ud- ders, stripped the cows after the milking machine, and hand-milked problem cows. I wore bib overalls over a dress and a "dairy i cap" to cover my head when I nestled it in a cow's flank while milking. My worst worry was smelling like the cow barn while at school. After helping get the milk to the house where it could be cooled at once, I fin- ished up there in the basement. Dorothy and Millie worked there also, helping cool and bottle the milk with the bottling ma- chine and washing bottles and milking appa- ratus. There were the cooler, separator, milk cans and buckets to wash and the cement Milkmaid, Tid (Winona) floor to hose down. Hoses and other parts of the milking machine were then soaked in an antiseptic solution. When Dorothy and Mildred had served their apprenticeship, I began sticking with any job that had to be done from the time the cows came into the barn until the floor was hosed. I don't remember admiring sunrise or sunset during those years because I was always in the milkroom or barn at those times. My two older sisters did a tremendous amount of dish washing, clothes washing and housework, but other than helping with cooking at harvest time, keeping my own room, and doing personal laundry, I was usually spared routine household chores. Some cows needed to be hobbled while being milked because they were kickers. One huge Holstein kicked like a mule with both feet at once. When she was successful in kicking off her hobbles, she swung in all direc- tions kicking me into the gutter more than once. The gutters were hosed down after milking but landing in one during milking was an experience I hated to repeat.

63 Mo~ngOn------

Our chore man Doug who sometimes hosed the gutters, must have made a vow, or had a binding agreement with Dad because he never milked a cow-never. He cleaned the barn and fed special rations but that was as far as his involvement with those animals went. Horses were another matter. He took good care of our teams, currying and wiping down and being atten- tive to feeding.

Most farms of any size had a chore man in those days to take care split- ting wood, caring for work horses and cleaning barns, doing maintenance work at harvest time, irrigating pastures and helping with a garden. Douglas Iles needed a home and we needed him. He stood our large rambunctious family because he was almost completely deaf when he came and in later years he seemed to feel he had nowhere else to go. At fifty-eight he looked like Teddy Roosevelt, with steel-rimmed glasses, sandy-red hair and a short, stocky frame. He came to visit our neighbors one summer when the copper mines shut down in Nevada due to a labor dispute and worked for my father. When he went back to McGill and found he had lost his job, he came back to our place again. Raised on an Iowa farm, he had gone to Alaska during the gold rush just before the turn of the century. He must have made a strike or two because he had money to buy mining stock when he moved down to the Tonopah-Goldfield rush with his friend Sam Kendall, a relative of Tom Kendall, a big promoter there. He became active in the miners' union, being one of the charter mem- bers at McGill, and kept in touch with friends of those days, receiving letters from mining towns still active in the 20's: Wallace, Idaho; Benson and Jer- ome, Arizona; Anaconda, Montana; Juneau, Alaska. In 1920 wages were three dollars and ten cents a day and board forty dollars a month at Benson. That was hardly big money but Doug's friends sent him small sums toward payment of what they had borrowed in former years, and apologized for not sending more. Doug came to Oregon with a few very expensive clothes. He was mar- ried for a time to a madam of a "house" in the vicinity of McGill, or perhaps Anaconda. My brother told me that the male gossip was that she had kicked him out but not before she had presented him with a gold pocket watch. He was a mill man in the mining operation, being so good at it that he always had a good job but his hearing loss, which the noise in the mill caused or made worse, was a handicap. I have a letter written in 1900, from a mine owner in Cuba, in which he hired Doug as the general manager of the El Cobre concentration plant there at a salary of $200 a month to be paid in gold. He never talked about his past so I don't know if he went or not. He got up at five A.Mand went to bed at eight P.M. and did not stay in the house much, therefore, I missed out on any stories he might have related. He did seem to like us kids and saw that we had a gift of the best candy the town could provide at Christmas time.

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Doug really appreciated three good meals a day; having suffered the usual fare in mining camps may have contributed to his enjoyment of what was provided at our place. He loved fresh doughnuts and when Joe found a realistic looking rubber my sister placed it on top of a plate full she had just made. Sure enough, Doug finished in time to get the first dough- nut, bit down on it, looked perplexed, and then laughed along with the rest of us. He said carrots were horse feed and refused to eat them. One day he was eating a second piece of pie when my mother said, "Doug, you don't like carrots, do you?" "No, I don't", he answered. "Well, you have been eating them ever since you started in on that pie. It's made of carrots." His face turned beet red as only a redhead's can and he stomped away from the table but he never refused carrot pie after that. It was one of Mom's specialties, made in lieu of pumpkin pie. Due to his hearing loss he never did get my nickname right. My father had called me Tiddly-Winks when I was a baby because I blinked my eyes so much. Others shortened it to Tiddle and then to Tid. Doug always called me Kiddle. Large families always seemed to savor nicknames in those days, maybe they still do. Ours was no exception. Ellen was Tubby, Dorothy was Dort, Mildred was Millie, and Maybeth was Fatso. Grace and Tom and Joe were called just that perhaps because they were already short- ened. When I met my husband, he immediately gave me a more dignified short name: Nona. Doug's special delight was raising a fine garden, which he did-two acres of it. He worked from sunup to sundown. That garden fascinated dry land farmers who had no hope of raising such a fine one and passed by on their way to town from Dry Creek, Whiskey Creek, and Leap. Many of them benefitted by it. Ed Bell who came by often, said that if there was a weed left in that garden, Doug would have it cornered by sunup. We kids did our share of planting and thinning and one year when the potato bugs were on a rampage, we were paid so much a tomato can for collecting them. We could shut our eyes at night and see rivers of potato bugs floating by. Dad took cabbage over to Milton and Walla Walla and sold it for cash or traded it for peaches, pears, or prunes. Prunes would travel better and keep a little longer and my mother had a way of canning them that made them as tasty to us as the less durable peaches, therefore we got more of them. He made a deal with the Mejonnier Packing Company ... "Now, there was a man that, when he told you something, you could depend on it." He

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Douglas Iles, about 30 years Mrs. Douglas Iles would bring back fruit and many watermelon to sell around town, as well as saving melons for feasts with friends and relatives. We would cut them in the basement on the cement floor with a drain and did not have to be careful of juice splattering all over. Dad was an advocate of whole hog or none! We sold some cabbage in Wallowa and made sauerkraut and sold it also. People would come to the house for it and we would carry it to town for customers. Whoever carried the kraut got to keep the cash. One year we made four or five fifty gallon wooden barrels of it. It took awhile, and many arms to push that cabbage on the cutter, and then, when it was all pounded down the barrel was only half full, it took that much longer to fill it. We always made at least one barrel of kraut and maybe several ten gallon crocks. When the weather warmed and my mother thought it might not keep, she canned it in half gallon jars, the size she used for most of her canning. That kraut was the main source of vitamin C in our diet in the wintertime. If oranges were available we might get a few but only if we were sick. Dad also sold beef around town. When we had the dairy we always had a surplus of Jersey steers. He would fatten out three or four of them, butcher them and hang the carcasses in the barn till they cooled and then hang them in the back of the milk delivery wagon and drive around the streets. If any- one wanted meat they came out and he cut and weighed it. Prices were from ten to twenty cents a pound. That was an accepted practice at that time. Of course, if anyone tried that in this day and age, he would end up in jail.

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When Dad was elected to the state legislature in 1928, things became even more hectic around our place. As fitted Dad's position, Doug gave him his gold, pocket watch and chain, which had been a present from his wife. Dad bought a new hat and suit, gave instructions for running the outfit when he was in Salem, and took my sister, Ellen, along as his secretary. Her salary was ten dollars a day and his was five. She did secretarial work for two other representatives while at Salem, also named Johnson, and although they were given ten dollars a day for a secretary they paid her with boxes of candy! Being the first born, she was in the habit of doing and managing and pleasing. When she went to Portland to enroll at Benche-Walker business college she had a nice little nest egg saved from incidental daily sales on the milk route-300 silver dimes. These were stored in a candy box and packed in her trunk. Her clothing shed dimes for some time after that because the box broke enroute. Politics has changed little since 1928 as illustrated by quotes from newspapers of that day. Issues are now more numerous and complex but were very similar to those 60 years ago.

Wallowa Chieftain, May 1928:

The political drama in Wallowa county, that had been moving along in sixes and sevens for several weeks assumed greater tensity and excite- ment the first of the weeks when filings came thick and fast for joint rep- resentative of Union and Wallowa counties. T. G. Johnson, farmer and dairyman of Wallowa and identified with farming interests of this county for more than 25 years Sunday yielded to pressure that had been brought to bear on him from prominent and sub- stantial citizens of both Union and Wallowa counties and mailed his fil- ing to the secretary of state. In fact a delegation came over from Union county and insisted that Mr. Johnson be drafted. "If the people want to elect me," he declares, "I will go down to Salem and work for the interests of Union and Wallowa counties. I am not con- trolled by any clique or faction. I have grown up here and the people know me for what I am." After the election the The Sun reported this: Now to come down to the local result that surpassed in interest even the state contest, we have the success of T.G. Johnson in seeking the Re- publican nomination for joint representative of Union and Wallowa counties. Mr. Johnson, a dirt farmer, taxpayer and resident of this com- munity for the last 25 years, was given an extraordinary vote both at home and elsewhere in spite of his inability to get out and do any cam- paigning and in spite of the aggressive and persistent fight made against

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him by a small group. He won an almost three-to-one victory, a victory in which The Sun felt that in this election, more than in any other, there was a real issue involved and it spoke its mind freely and candidly, hon- estly and sincerely. In so doing it offended a small group of the Wallowa commercial club, and a resolution was adopted by them bitterly de- nouncing the paper and declaring that "public sentiment is very outspo- ken in resentment" of the policy of The Sun. The three-to-one vote indi- cates quite decisively whether this group or The Sun expressed public sentiment .... Dad co-sponsored and saw passed his most desired legislation, the state income tax. The farm bloc felt this was a more equitable way of raising money than a sales tax which would hit the poor harder. To this day, Oregon does not have a sales tax. Dad agonized over that piece of legislation. He told me that on the night before the vote, he was in his office late when the janitor came in and said, "Mr. Johnson, I don't think your bill is going to pass. I just heard Mr ... say he was voting against." Well, Dad had the prom- ise of Mr .... and needed that vote. The next day when the vote was called, he went over to Mr .... stood right in front of him, looked him in the eye, until he gave his "Aye"-the deciding one. Another bill he sponsored and saw passed into law was one that made poultry stealing a penitentiary offense. (Don't laugh! That law might still be on the statutes.) Chicken stealing parties were all the rage around the coun- try at that time. Groups of older young-people would organize a raid and if successful take the chickens to an isolated house or clearing far into the country to prepare and eat them. This was often reinforced by moonshine and a general "wild party"-the kind that is now just called a party. Al- though the chickens were sometimes old and tough and not cleaned well, and not really done enough to be appetizing, it was considered a great ad- venture by the "in" group. Nowadays, when prisons are so full of drug of- fenders, we may scorn such a law, wondering how it could ever have been taken seriously. But what might be viewed as only a lark would have been a calamity to a lone woman or old couple who might depend on the eggs from a flock of chickens for a good part of their grocery money. Voters of Oregon had already voted to establish La Grande Normal School and Dad pushed for immediate construction. He was in favor of free textbooks because he felt it was an undue hardship for parents of large fami- lies to buy them. (What a stigma it was for a child to come to school without the required books. If he did not have them he was not to be admitted, but the state law said he must come to school until the eighth grade was com- pleted or he had reached the age of sixteen-therein lay the dilemma.) Al- though personally in favor of the Wallowa Park bill, Dad made an extensive fight against it and it was voted down by a large majority. This was because of the wish of many of his constituents, prominent in the county, who opposed it. (Some things do not change; it seems that your wishes hold more weight if you are "prominent.")

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When charged by his opponent during the next election with not act- ing in the interests of the people, he felt his opponent was working on the emotions of the people when he used tax reduction as a part of his platform. He pointed out that the state of Oregon was heavily bonded for many years and costs of running the state had to be maintained. He saw no possibility of tax reduction on any grand scale. He said, "At the end of the session the Oregon Voter criticized me for 'bellowing' in in the House and of being sus- picious to detect bad legislation. After all they had to admit that I would not line up with the big interests. I can quote individual instances where I re- fused the offer." That gives you an idea. I can just hear him bellow on the floor of the House. Being an auctioneer before the time of microphones gave him a lot of practice in that. He ran for county sheriff at the beginning of the depres- sion but was defeated. That ended his public career, unless you count a decade on the school board. In those days, men with large families were often thought to be able to serve the best. That may have been true. It would have been an unusual wealthy, childless man who would take the best interests of children to heart.

The dairy operation ran as I have described, with the help of one or another young man who did most of the heavy work. He ran the milking machine, kept track of milk production, and drove the delivery truck after sister Ellen went to Portland to business school. John George was one of them. A large, handsome man, he was always cutting up and playing jokes on people. He sang Bye, Bye, Blackbird and other current favorites to me and the cows while the milking was going on-and married my sister Dorothy.

Representative Grover Johnson Ellen Johnson, secretary Salem, Oregon 1929

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Spencer Trump came to our house to recuperate from an appendicitis operation. He made us older girls beautiful, beaded necklaces in the Indian motif while laid up. Spencer was raised in Promise where settlers had come in around the turn of the century from West Virginia; a people who were more or less unified by blood and a common heritage. They brought their handicrafts, their make-do and know-how with them and it seemed like Spencer could do anything. It still seems that way. I can still see him as a youth with his rosy cheeks and thick, black hair, clad in the striped bib over- alls. In a year or two he and Mildred were married. About that time I began having spells of chills and fever, muscle aches and general fatigue. It was years before it was suggested that I had Undulant Fever, or Brucellosis, which I had caught from our cows. Joe tested positive when he was in the service but I was not tested until more than twenty years after. No drugs were effective until sophisticated types of antibiotics became available. I began to get better when I took them for other ailments. How many of our customers were affected I don't know, but there must have been some. When you were sick in those times you did not hope for an immedi- ate diagnosis; I read that this disease becomes chronic if it does not kill you right away and after twenty or thirty years wears itself out. When the disease and its affects became known, Dad began testing for Bangs Disease at the same time as the required Tuberculosis test he did for dairy cows; he lost several out of our forty-some milking cows. He pushed for legislation for mandatory testing of all cows in the county so the disease might not be spread from ranch cattle to milking cows which would endan- ger more humans. Many ranchers running beef cattle objected strongly at the expense and inconvenience but were forced to comply. There is rarely a case of this disease found in the state at the present time.

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Chapter 4 Of fun and foibles

Ours was a tight community, one of common interests and kinship. Many people were related either by blood or marriage and we felt safe in our own little world. Everyone knew everybody else, was genuinely interested in everyone's welfare, and was always ready with a helping hand. There was a genuine solicitude for others and a natural curiosity to inquire about other people's health and welfare. This Yankee trait of being interested in one's neighbors is sometimes construed as nosiness by newcomers in the county, who soon learn that it stems from simple goodheartedness and concern for other humans. People watched over their own and the offspring of others. The Grange and Oddfellow lodge provided entertainment but social life for most people we knew, centered almost entirely around home, church and school activities. This was due partly because of isolation-the valley being completely surrounded by mountains with only one good road in and out-and also because early settlers had brought their customs and religious convictions into the country with them. There was plenty of religious diversity and much churchgoing because it was expected that a "good person" went to church and revival meetings were held frequently. One of our bachelor neighbors-a simple, good soul and a periodic drunk- would get religion after each bout with the bottle. There was so much proselytizing among denominations to get him in their fold that he finally became confused and in desperation put a notice in the local paper to this affect "I, John Doe, am not now a member of any church in town, and don't intend to be!" It was almost impossible to pass through our country. When strangers came in from La Grande they went back the same way unless they rode a horse over the mountains or braved the trail-roads out at the north end of the county with its deep canyons and and high ridges shaped by the many tributaries of the Snake and Grande Ronde Rivers. The Wallowa Mountains were a formidable barrier to the south; Hell's Canyon of the Snake River blocked entrance from the east and still does. Although a passenger train came in and out daily, visitors were highly visible and easily kept in mind by telephone or word of mouth. To this day I meet people who were educated in Oregon who have no clear idea where Wallowa County is. Perhaps because we were tucked up there in the far northeastern county of Oregon ignored by some other inhabitants of our own state, we kept well informed on outside events and appreciated what was new and available all the more.

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Mom had had music lessons when she was a girl and, although we had the Edison phonograph to listen to, she wanted us to be able to play our own music. When most of us were quite small we got a second-hand, oak pump organ-with two small mirrors above little shelves for kerosene lamps. My mother played valiantly while we sang Bringing in the Sheaves and Silent Night. I heard the word sheaves as cheese and loved that song because I glorified food. We usually had homemade cottage cheese but I could envision the yellow kind being carried on trays in a great procession. I wondered what little Leepees looked like sleeping in heaven and not until I was able to read "sleep in heavenly peace" did I realize and correct my error. (Say it yourself, you can't tell the difference!) Mom bought a piano which she thought would be easier for us to play and arranged music lessons for us four big girls. I don't ever remember Ellen playing; Dorothy says four years of lessons were wasted on her. I had to be dragged in from play, all hot and sweaty, to suffer under Gussie Powell's exasperated tutelage. I got through melodies of some simple tunes, reading the numbers meant for the fingering above the notes, but never learned the base numbers or notes. Millie, however, stayed right in there for years and years, learning to play at home and at church, for funerals, cantatas, and solos, through trials and tears and finally to triumph. Her three daughters benefitted from her interest in the piano and learned to play very well. Maybeth later took lessons which Dad paid for willingly, but does not profess to be a musician. Tom is the one with more natural talent. He often sat down and pounded out chords and tunes and later took up the accordion. We always said he "got it" from Dad's side of the family. His brother Charlie had a beautiful singing voice and played an instrument or two. Boyd, who was a gay blade, came to visit and made that piano talk. I don't remember what songs he played, just the sound and the rhythm. Mom did not approve of him very much, but he would not be in the house long until he had her charmed and she was laughing and blushing like a school girl.

The latest movies were shown in town and this was one way we kept in contact with world events and the latest fads in dress and manners. We were quick to have our hair cut, even Mildred of the long blonde curls. I wore a dutch bob from the first, that style being well suited to a tomboy. Dorothy had thick, long, red, curls. One morning on the first day of school she was crying because she was having that "mop" combed to be twisted into long curls and it hurt. Dad came in and said, "Well, we can't go through another nine months of that." He tossed fifty cents in Dorothy's lap and said, "Don't come home with it." her long hair, as well as the fifty cents. Charlie Fisher who gave Dorothy her first haircut had a barber shop where one could get a shave and a bath. (Doug went there

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every Saturday night for the works following a custom from his mining town days.) Mr. Vaught was also a barber. In later years his wife got lost around town and did funny things,like putting food in the warming oven to cook. As I look back I believe she must have had Alzheimers disease which had not been "discovered" yet. In those days it was said "She has lost her mind," which amounts to the same thing I guess. For reasons I never understood, Dad never liked movies. He did capitulate and take only me to see Tom Mix when I was in the fourth grade and all the rest of the kids were going; I threw the only tantrum that ever worked, because I could not live without seeing that show. Tom Mix wore a tall, white hat and stuffed his pants in very high cowboy boots. He rescued the heroine from Indians, fire, and a flood while riding his white horse, sweeping her up from all dangers with speed and flair. Of course he won her in the end and that was as it should have been. However, the last scene was of him standing by a lonesome grave for some reason, with bowed head and hat over heart. I was sobbing when Dad came up front to pick me up. He said, "If I had known you were going to do that, I would not have brought you." I think he spent the time in the pool hall and could not appreciate my grief. I was in the in group at school the next day. In a way it was worth it. My mother certainly did not approve of all the movies she had heard about but with little time to attend her information was not up-to-date. If it had been, she may not have allowed us to see those we did. As it was, my financial independence coincided with my fascination with picture shows. When the dairy was in fully swing and my duties mounted, my mother took one dollar out of her baking-powder-can-bank every day and paid me. This was mine to spend and I did-well, if not wisely. Before talkies we had sound movies. Airplanes roared in Wings,the first movie to win an academy award. We heard the sound of the air and ground battles. I did not relate much to Richard Arlen and Buddy Rogers who were both in love with Clara Bow, the IT girl, but she was everything I could ever hope to be and set the pattern for my preferred style of cupid's bow lips, arched eyebrows and bold circles of rouge. My girl friends and I copied her makeup and mannerisms much to the distaste of our parents and teachers. Charlie Fisher ran the show by this time and we sometimes escaped church after attending Christian Endeavor on Sunday night, just to go down and look at the movie posters in the front of the showhouse. We did not call it theater; the common name being picture show. During depression time we rarely had the twenty-five cents admission but out of compassion, or exasperation because we persisted on hanging out, Charlie usually told us to just come in and see the show.

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Joe, Tom, and I were interested in action and we ran together exploring the area around home. Whiskey Creek was right at our back door and when we had free time in the summer, we utilized it. It had run whiskey for a short time only, in the very early days of settlement, when a delegation of irate citizens had dumped into it the entire whisky supply of a bunch of "traders" who had brought it in to sell to the Indians. A warm branch ran into the main creek and that was a gathering place for many sucker fish at certain times of the year. We liked to go up and pitchfork them, or flip them out of the water with our hands. When free of suckers this spot made a good swimming pool and that is where Joe, Tom and I learned to swim. We went on our own and dog- paddled until we could swim; no one was much concerned about us except Dorothy who called from the back porch, "Come back, come back, you will drown!" Dorothy never learned to swim. Tom thanked me from his air base in England during WW II after he had been downed in the North Sea after a bombing raid, writing, "I sure was thankful you taught me to swim in Whiskey Creek when I was a kid." Grace and Maybeth followed the boys and me up to the creek, and spent a lot of time constructing a dressing room for changing. They did not have real swimming suits, but had seen a picture of a dressing room at the beach and decided that was a must for them-a private place for changing. First, they dug a nice little hole in the bank, scavenged sticks and slats to make a framework in front of it, and covered it with pasteboard boxes and old blankets. They spent more time playing house than they spent in the water. That was kid stuff to Joe, Tom and me, who soon graduated over to Wallowa River into which Whiskey Creek ran. This was a swift river and it was possible to go a great distance down it toward the bridge by just riding the current. Boulders were hazardous but after we waded out the route, we knew just how to avoid them. The Running brothers lived close by and shared a good hole which we improved by rolling the big rocks up on the side. It was even possible to dive from the bank. All this activity enticed town kids, mostly boys, and it was not long before I stopped swimming there-the boys were going in nude. I regretted this situation because some of my girl friends had been coming up and swimming with me, but had not done so since the males took over. We could walk through town and swim up Bear Creek but the pool there was not much better and it was quite a distance to walk and get back in time for milking. One day several of us girls collected on the corner where the Hendersons lived at that time and decided the situation could no longer be tolerated. I will take responsibility for our actions because some of these elderly ladies may not now wish to admit participation. We walked up to the creek and kept going. We were observed. Modest boys hurriedly

74 ------Moving On clothed themselves. Some of the older boys got up on the bank and ran back and forth believing this would deter our course. We kept on. We got within shouting distance and the boys yelled what they would do to us if we kept coming. We kept on. The ranks on the bank thinned. More boys dived into the river. When we got up to the bank all the boys were in the river. We sat above them and they stayed in the water-not without threats and innuendos, but they stayed. The sun got lower in the sky. Just when I feared I would have to leave for the cow barn without a resolution to the problem, a truce was arranged. We would share the pool; boys would no longer swim in the nude if girls were around. We girls had learned our first lesson in dealing with the enemy. Be sure you are right, forge ahead and never back down!

We had not expected the sight that greeted us at the creek one day. It was not time for the usual train, but a train was stopped there-a real circus train with signs on the sides. It did not have enough power to pull up the 1,000 feet rise from Wallowa to Enterprise. They finally got a helper engine but in the meantime we got an eyeful even though we were not allowed to get too close. The neighborhood kids rushed over and gawked with us. Brother Joe relates: "The roustabouts were unshaven and swore, the women smoked, and some of them looked shady. They did unload some horses and mules and elephants to give them drinks at the river. We could see the cats in their cages because the sides were rolled up to give them air. Oh! Yes, dogs-lots of dogs. They fed people in the dining car, too! I remember that most of the rolling stock was of wooden type construction, even the sleepers and dining car." In those days before TV, going to a circus meant something. We just had to see that three-ring circus. That is what it said right on the side of the car: Three Rings! For some reason we did not have a car running at this time, or maybe we needed a bigger one for all of us, so Dad hired a man who ran a sort of a taxi service to take us up to Enterprise the next day. Three Rings! We were hardly able to keep up with the action in one. All the kids in the county must have been there. We did not know anyone from places other than Wallowa, so that was a revelation. There were a lot of people in the country! They kept announcing the Wild West show to be performed right after the circus and I knew I had to see the GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. Well, we were up there eighteen miles from home and might not have another such chance in a lifetime. We stayed. A lot of cowboys on horses came out and galloped around. A lot of Indians came out and galloped around. A lot of soldiers galloped in behind the Indians. There was knife throwing. I don't think there was a wagon train to ambush but a lot of guns began going off and the Indians left, the soldiers left, the cowboys rode out. The show was over before anything had really

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started. The riders rode wildly but somehow I had expected more to be going on in the wild west. No one else complained. We got home rather late that night, tired and cranky and the chores yet to do. But it was worth it. Our horizons had broadened and we had something to talk about for a long time. Most teenagers roamed the country at will. There was a hard core of good, public spirited people in the country. Most of them were above average and some of them had excellent backgrounds. Kids knew right from wrong. If someone engaged in behavior too overt, he was often reprimanded by any adult handy as could be expected, and usually straightened up. There was a place or two off limits close to town. One was on the way to school. When Millie was sponsoring me on my first day in the first grade, she had walked on the road across Wallowa River bridge instead of the sidewalk. There was a small house on the left side of the road by the river. She said, "We are not supposed to walk in front of that place. That is a bad house." When I walked home by myself I trod blithely on the wooden walk across the bridge, down the ramp and on to the sidewalk in front of the house. It looked like any other place to me except that there were sometimes a lot of cars around. A time or two I saw a black sedan pull out driven by Mr. Sigmund. It had curtains on the windows and a vase with flowers on the inside. The three ladies inside wore very nice satin or silk dresses and had very black or very red hair. I had never seen such colors before. When I mentioned all this at home someone said, "I guess Old Sig was taking his girls for a ride." I thought they were funny looking girls. As I grew older I learned that moonshine was delivered there in cream cans by a prominent citizen of the county. Of course it had to be in glass containers or jugs inside the cans because moonshine could not be left in contact with metal for long or it would poison the consumer, but a ten gallon can could hold several other containers. I saw this man drive into Sig's place a time or two. This industry was just part of the times for thirteen years. It kept a lot of people employed as makers and dispensers of the product and apprehenders on the other hand. Moonshiners were no real threat in our country; they just became such a common topic of conversation that I got tired of hearing about them. Some good stories about moonshiners evading the law are still told around the country and one concerns a mule. A little white mule was known to trot into Wallowa all by himself and head down a back alley right behind Rolley Rochester's livery barn, packing two kegs of moonshine. No one seemed to know who loaded the mule for his trip down Little Bear and around the side of Green Hill into town. George Rogers the state policeman tried long and hard to find out, following him when he headed back for the hills with his load of groceries

76 ------Moving On which had miraculously replaced the moonshine. George got very frustrated as the years went by and the little white mule was seen idling around town before heading back to the hills. He tried following the mule, but he never led him anywhere-just circled around and kept looking over his shoulder, so to speak; it was if he knew what George was after. The mule won, he was never arrested or even impounded for his crime. Despite such an illicit activity carried on steadily for so long, we roamed far and wide in our free time, seldom accompanied by an adult. Sunday afternoon was our own to ride horses or hike as far as we could go and get back in time for the milking. Those cows forced us to be responsible. We would hike in groups far into the hills along country roads. On one occasion Joe and I discovered a log cabin way back in the timber on the ridge above the Sherod place. It was papered with 1916-17 newspapers. Dad said someone had hid out there during WW I to escape the draft.

Train leaving Wallowa depot with men for the draft. When tired of hiking we would often accept a ride to take us farther. We were without fear until the Hickman case of kidnapping and came to our attention and we found out why girls were sometimes kidnapped-thus ended our age of innocence. This despicable character had kidnapped, raped and murdered a twelve year old girl and was captured close to home over around Pendelton. Warnings from teachers and parents not to accept rides from men made such an impression that I would not accept a ride on the half mile walk from home to town, not even with men who were working for my father. Pierce Frazer teased me about it at the supper table after I had refused a ride with him that day, and I failed to see the humor in it.

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One of our safaris nearly led to disaster. Tick Hill just across the field from our house was named because ticks abounded. Why there and not down on the level I don't know but livestock was pestered with them and we were sur-eto collect several when we ventured up there in the spring. We were repeatedly warned against going because the only way my mother could get two ticks from under my arm when I was a very small child, was by cutting them out. But go we did. On one excursion I was a self- proclaimed Indian chief and insisted we climb the hill to look for the enemy. A rock slide started rolling when I was rounding up my band and I slid with it, rolling head over heels a time or two, and landed unconscious at the bottom of the hill. My tribe took turns making a four-hand pack and toted me across the Mumford field and home, wailing, "She is dead, oh, she is dead." My head was a bloody mess, this being the third time I had bashed it . up. When I was four I crawled into the new well casing waiting to be installed at our new place. When it rolled down a slight raise, the rivets that held the sections together bashed up my head as I was bouncing around inside. My curiosity was also my undoing on another occasion when I climbed upon the running gear of the farm wagon when the team was left unattended-the team started up while I had my head down studying the ground below, the front bolster swung back and forth-banging me on the head until my father rescued me. Fortunately, it was not the practice to be spanked for being curious or foolish in our family. Being damaged was lesson enough. This time my mother judiciously doused my cuts and gashes with Zonite, a household favorite at the time-it stung like hell, so must have done a lot of good. I stayed in bed for a week or so to heal a possible broken back and came out of it almost as good as new. A doctor could not have done much more. An X-Ray would have meant a fifty mile trip to La Grande which could have worsened my condition. My mother was not driving a car at the time; she never did after she broke her wrist while trying to crank our Chevy touring car. Most women nursed their own except in extreme cases. Our family had all the communicable diseases prevalent at the time and survived. I have a natural immunity to smallpox having contracted it as a nursing baby at the time my Father had the disease. He almost died; I had two pustules. It is now recognized that mother's milk reinforces the natural immune system. My mother had always known that nursing babies did not "catch things".

In that time of simpler pleasures families savored funny or unusual incidents, tucking them away for retelling. There was always a lot of excitement around our place and I hated to disturb my reading time which was usually between 11 A.M and 4 P.M. during the summer time, to

78 ------Moring On investigate every little fracas. One which I did pay attention to, happened in the middle of the night when there was a disturbance in the henhouse. My mother and father ran out in their nightclothes; my father stabbed the marauder with a pitchfork and he squirted back-with such a good aim that my parent's nightclothes and hair were splattered yellow with skunk oil. My mother laughed her head off to keep from crying. She and Dad had a special perfume so enduring that it clung to them for a week. Later that summer I dried the tears I was shedding over Uncle Tom's Cabin when the family yelled for me to come outside and see the airplane- my first. This single-engine, two-seater landed in our field and took townspeople up for a ride at the unheard of price of three dollars. The offered free rides to any of our family for the use of the field but Dad would not hear of it: "Too dangerous.,, I, for one, was greatly disappointed, thinking we should take advantage of such a bargain as well as enjoy the thrill. We saw the plane later, doing aerobatics at the county fair. My Dad said, "See what you would have gotten yourself in for!"

Because our family was so active in church work my mother entertained the preachers and visiting evangelists with huge feasts, spending several days in preparation. Some of the guests were prodigious eaters and paid the feast its due but one did not, and I was glad. When he saw what a tizzy Mom was in, he ate only bread and milk at that loaded table. This really hurt her feelings, but ended such elaborate preparations for the preacher. When Mildred was sick in bed for several weeks, one young preacher made long visits which tired her out. I thought he should have used better judgement. The same man decided that our church was not preaching the true gospel and established his own street service, persuading some of us girls to sing on the street corner on Saturday night. I decided once was enough and when his consort came out in the afternoon to enlist me for singing, I hid in the haymow with lots of apples, tomatoes and the salt shaker, along with a biography of Lincoln. At chicken feeding time she came out with my mother to find me but I was safe from her blandishments away up there on high, smug with my own brand of religious intolerance.

One significant custom was that of family visiting, especially Sunday dinner. It was a great event to be invited to a neighbor's house after church, where one was feasted and entertained. We all went in a group-none of this "There won't be anyone my age. I will be bored." I don't think the word "bored" had been coined yet. It was not in use around our house. Tired, yes; bored, no. After the feast, parents exchanged recipes, garden seeds and slips and gossip after the table was cleared and the children had washed the dishes. Yes, the children, because dish washing was a kids chore. Then, attired in our Sunday best, we would play games in the front yard, swing and play hide and seek in the barn and ride horses in the fields.

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When worn out we might sing hymns or popular songs around the piano or crank up the Victrola or a Sears portable to play the latest hits. There was always Flinch, Old Maid, or Rook, but no real playing cards were allowed at our house. I avoided becoming a social misfit in more sophisticated settings, when I learned to play Pitch at Pomona Grange after kids from all over the county had washed the dishes and adults were into the degree work. No one changed into everyday clothes for rough stuff because this was Sunday and he was visiting. There was the admonition of "Now don't tear your clothes" or, "Don't act like wild Indians and get your clothes dirty." This was heeded but complying was an impossibility, much to our mother's chagrin. We left for home in the evening loaded down with surplus produce or some of the good food left from dinner and always with new ideas. My mother never let company leave her own house without a small present if she could help it. We exchanged holiday dinners with our cousins, the Bill Johnsons. Our Aunt Laura Johnson had married William Johnson from another clan of Johnsons, and keeping track of relatives was even more of a chore for them than it was for us because they were related to more Johnson families. There were ten children in that family and eight in ours; that meant at least twenty-two people for dinner. Tables at that time could usually seat twelve people when let out to full length therefore the children ate at a second setting of the same table. Yes, that is true! We washed up pots and pans when adults were eating-they did not always hurry either-and ate when they were finished. That custom had its compensations because we could take our time and the grownups might wash some of the dishes while we were eating. Aunt Laura could make the best bread in the world at a time when most women made their own and her baked chicken was always tender and juicy. Lima beans cooked with cream was her specialty and Dorothy, who knows good food if anyone does, could hardly wait to get in the house to see if there was a pot simmering on the back of the stove.

Sunday dinner at our house was always an occasion. It was usually at three P.M. because it took that long to prepare it after church even though some preparation was done the day before. To say that grocery stores did not stock what they do now is an understatement. Green stuff was practically non-existent in the wintertime and what fruit was available was often in bad shape. We grew our own, stored it in the best way possible at that time before refrigerators were in general use. It was better than store bought, anyway. Sugar was not a bad word. It was purchased in 100- pound sacks and in canning time we might have two sacks in the pantry. We ate sweets every day, in many forms. Mom always made fudge on washday to give her energy and we learned to make divinity, pinoche,

80 ------MowngOn peanut and even marshmallows. Special desserts for Sunday dinner were made on Saturday afternoon after housecleaning, hair washing, and hand washing was done. I learned to make a mocha, chocolate cake which took five eggs, two cups of sugar and real coffee in the icing. Before cake mixes came out a good cake took awhile. Butter had to be creamed just right, sugar put in and creamed just right, and eggs put in and creamed just right. We used big spoons and beat the mixture by hand. Too much beating after flour is added develops the gluten and makes the cake tough, therefore we were careful about that. The temperature of the oven had to be gauged by feel because the thermometers on those old wood stoves became all messed up from the oven door banging through the years. Even if the cake came out perfectly we were not out of the woods. Seven minute icing was made like divinity candy and took a lot of beating. Fudge icing must be stirred until it boils, the sides of the pan wiped down so that the sugar will not crystallize, and then simmered until it reaches a soft-ball stage. The skill of recognizing a soft ball of icing after it was dropped in water was not learned in one try. A perfect, smooth icing was delicious, not to be compared with the harsh, overly sweet, imitation found all pre-made on the grocery shelves today. Vitamins had just come into fashion and although we had plenty of kraut and canned tomatoes to furnish vitamin C in the wintertime, Ellen learned more sophisticated ways down in Portland. She introduced us to combination salad in lieu of wilted lettuce for summer consumption. This took special arrangement on individual salad plates and called for mayonnaise instead of cooked salad dressing. We made it ourselves-you know who supervised-with a hand eggbeater, which was long and tiring but worth it. Dad, who reigned at the head of the table, was sure to notice innovations with such comments as, "Is this all they eat down in Portland? We girls learned how to set a table formally and serve correctly in 4-H and Home Economics classes in school but serving courses took a lot of dishes and scurrying around for such a big bunch. It was never our custom; we just practiced on the family. We always had company for dinner on Sunday. Besides friends, relatives, and beaus (old word for boyfriend) there was often an old person without relatives, a widow with little income or someone who was crippled or "funny." My mother showed concern and affection through food. If someone was not able to come to our house, she would send food to them. We kids all made trips to town with good stuff to invalids. When there was no cure for tuberculosis, or consumption as we called it, she sent buckets of strawberries to an old man terminally ill with the disease who lived close to the river. I can still smell the odor there. It may seem strange that disease can be diagnosed by its odor but that is true. Scarlet Fever, which is not around much to be smelled anymore and measles, have their own distinctive smell.

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Christian Endeavor was organized for young people at the Christian Church. This group met before church on Sunday evening and attendance was large, sometimes thirty or forty. There was a certain amount of religious observance but its main value to us was the many social activities to keep us within the fold. Every holiday and special occasion called for a party at which we invited other young people in town. Quiet games were the bottle, gossip, quizzes and such like. From those we branched out into circle games such as Skip to My Lou and MillerBoy. The latter included a few sliding and waltz steps with the opposite sex and taught a certain amount of poise. Boys of the town were enticed by the refreshments and our young preachers of the time were good fellows-"Hale, hearty and well-met." Taffy pulls and waffle feeds were big hits. As soon as electric waffle irons became common, waffles were a popular refreshment. We served strawberry waffles, nut waffles, caramel waffles and chocolate waffles, all with whipped cream for parties. By now you must know who saw that they came out just right. Dorothy fell flat on her face as far as her cooking was concerned, on an important occasion and her damaged ego took awhile to repair itself. We were in a flurry of fund raising to pay for a trip to The Dalles to a Christian Endeavor convention. A waffle supper was organized and tickets sold at twenty-five cents. Bowls of batter awaited a large crowd which seemed to come all at the same time. There was a happening at school and people were in a hurry. We plugged in five waffle irons which got warm but not hot. We waited a respectable time and spooned in the batter. After a reasonable time we lifted lids and saw a pale product. Another lift and the waffles were still puny. Patrons became impatient, cooks became flustered, embarrassed waitresses spent much time in the bathroom arranging their hair. It was announced that waffles would soon be served. Waffles were not served. When the crowd began leaving we offered refund which were scorned in pity; we served the pale product to those left. We had no hopes for perfection in the next batch and served those limp and pale also. Mrs. Harriman the preachers wife, went for aid. (Reverend Harriman was not proficient in practical matters.) One who was came to eat, Bill Pullen, told us that our circuit was overloaded. We pulled the plug on three irons and two got hot. The few remaining customers got nice brown waffles and there was an abundance left for those of us who served. Sleigh rides on Diamond Prairie, down to Lower Valley or up Parsnip Creek or Whiskey Creek gave us an excuse to snuggle up to the opposite sex and several enduring romances started as a result. Boys still courted girls in those days which took a lot of that burden off the girls. We would stop off at a participant's house, where hot cocoa and food would be waiting, to

82 ------Moving On thaw out before the trip back to town. Many people kept teams in those days and made them available to us. They were needed to pull cars out of the mud in the spring and fall and almost all the farming was still done by horses. Parties at homes were well organized with games, music, live entertainment and some projects that took a lot of planning, such as scavenger hunts. Those for Senior Endeavor were big social events. Ellen was hostess at home for a Washington's Birthday party in the early '20s, which included boy friends of several girls. It may have been a church party or a high school party, either way it was a gala affair. Some of the girls wore bobby skirts which were usually red and came up above their knees, below which their stockings were rolled and held up by fancy garters. Their shirts were white and they wore mens' ties and boy-bob hairdos. Dorothy made individual cherry pies, hatchets and cherry trees; those, along with Washington's silhouette, were strung all over the house. There was cherry punch. We little kids were dodging in and out and being shushed from room to room, and I ended up out in the cold on the front porch. There I saw some of the big boys take something out of their hip pocket and pour it in the cherry punch. They shushed me off the porch and I had to run around the house and come in the back way. Our folks came home from someplace about that time and I was sent to bed so I did not see the end of the party. I think Ellen never heard the end of it. Oddfellow socials included families and were not too much different from our Endeavor parties, except that there was a more diverse crowd and the circle games soon turned into waltzes and two-steps and continued all evening. I was allowed to go to the parties but when they began to be called dances and a charge was made, that was a different matter. It seemed it was not how much fun you were having-it was the name of the game. Grange affairs brought a large crowd and early socials were often held in the school gymnasium. On one occasion a skillful caller oriented a grand march during which he contrived intricate patterns of weaving in and out and joining and separating and joining again and I was enthralled. At fourteen I was excited over the box social held in conjunction with this affair. My mother and all we older girls decorated boxes. It was Washington's birthday again and the hatchets and cherries were cut out and dainty food prepared. I made those individual cherry pies, fried chicken, and pimento cheese sandwiches and -confident that whoever bought my box would be impressed. Dad cried the sale and I could not quite make out who had bought my box. But my name was inside so all I had to do was sit and wait until I was claimed as a supper partner by someone nice, I hoped. I sat while couples joined and socialized. I sat in hope and then embarrassment. It did not occur to me to go to my parents for support; I was too independent at the time. I huddled behind the stove, alone in my misery and hunger. When the fun activities started I was still miserable.

83 Moring On------

Not until later did I learn that three boys about my age had pooled their money bought my box, and gone outside and gobbled it up, ignoring the social obligation that went with the purchase. I later forgave their lack of couth but still harbored the feeling that something was wrong with me or they would not have done such a thing. It was still the custom, as of old, when each little spark of learning or talent was utilized in a new community, to hold "literaries" at schoolhouses. Lone Pine School, up toward Leap, did so at the instigation of Grover Meek. This lovable man became paralyzed in youth from an accident on a horse and was confined to a wheelchair. He had cultivated his fertile mind, sold insurance, worked in the city offices at Wallowa, kept up on topics of the day, and was a source of information for many. One year a group of young people walked from Wallowa, collected us at our place, Jesse Bell at the Bell place, others along they way and we made a merry time of the walk to Lone Pine. After listening to recitations, songs, jokes and adding our bit when called upon, we had cake, sandwiches and coffee and walked the 5 or 6 miles home. We did this several times that winter. People drove in cars from Wallowa but did not have room for us as they passed us, singing along on those dark, star-lit nights. Ours was a generation of doers not observers.

Our horny little valley was not immune to the widespread foibles and prejudices of the time. There was an active Klu Klux Klan in the county. Some people with little prestige needed it to assert their patriotism. One night we saw crosses burning on Tick Hill. We never did learn who the clan was after. There were some blacks in the logging settlement at Maxville, about twenty-five miles north the Nibley-Mimnaugh logging town out toward Promise, and not knowing what else to d1), the city had ruled that they should not stay in Wallowa over night. (You thought it only happened in the south!) Our good German baker, Mr. Frick, had already confirmed during WWI that he was an Irishman; there was some labor unrest during the I.W.W. days but as far as we knew there were no Jews or anyone else to be picked on. I forgot to mention bootleggers, but that didn't cut any ice, because a KKK outfit was shown me by a preacher's daughter at the same time she showed me his flask of moonshine. I had wondered why his sermons were such theatrical productions. He was later arrested for bootlegging at another place. Harvest time in those days took a lot of manpower and "labor" sometimes reared its head. At eight o'clock one morning, I was surprised to see about twelve men gathered under the big poplar trees in our front yard instead of in the fields working. One young man, Bill Bell, who had been kind enough to buy my remaining supply of Cloverine salve so that I might win my beautiful colored poster, said, "Grover, we can't live on eight dollars a day, we'll have to have ten! Well, this was an "awful high" wage in those

84 ------MowngOn days. My father went into the house for a drink of water, sputtered around for awhile, and went back and told the men to get back to work. They did, so he must have met their demands. The International Workers of the World, I.W.W.'s, were not popular in the county; the general term for them being I Won't Work!

One evening after several visitors who came to discuss political or church affairs had just pulled out of the tree-lined driveway, we had another visitor. I had just finished the dairy chores in the basement and was heading for the front porch to let off some steam when a tall, young man edged in hesitantly at one side of the action. I went to get Dad because he was the one to deal with a stranger. It turned out this was not really a stranger. This young man in his mid-twenties was Omar the son of Aunt Minnie Rose-just up from Nevada. When asked if he had walked he said, "Well, no, I have a car parked on the road, but I was afraid to come in because there were so many lights on and so much noise, I thought you were having a party or something." He stayed on to work in haying during the summer but was really a cowboy at heart not a hay hand and entertained us in the long summer evenings with rope tricks. He could skip through his "lass rope" not once but for a minute at a time, flip his twirling rope up and over his body, and build a loop that we could run through-a real cowboy. I fell in love with him at once but he became smitten with Dorothy-perhaps it was her cooking, and kept a very large box of chocolates in his bedroll in the barn awaiting a time when he would become bold enough to present it to her. Another evening when relatives came to visit Omar and us, Dad came , in with that candy and passed it around. The grownups laughed when Omar discovered he was eating his special candy but I sympathized with him in his dilemma. Dad's humor could have a cruel cut. Omar went back to the desert and disappeared from our lives. Mom said, "I think he was here hiding out from something. That is why he did not talk. It's a funny thing that he never mentioned anything about what had happened down in Nevada." We thought for years that he had been been murdered or something when he went back down there where things were known to be wild but many years later when an old man, he surfaced in Red Bluff, California. Dad's practical joking rubbed off. We liked to get someone who just could not take it, having learned give and take early in our big family. We might get mad and scream and yell for awhile but were not touchy, not easy to take offense. We had a string of young men as milkers when the dairy

85 Moving On ------was in full swing and there were boy friends and relatives to be practiced on. A young man from the east was working as a milker. He was rather formal and unbending, nice enough, but someone who had a hard time putting up with such a bunch of kids. He liked Mildred because she was ladylike but she did not abstain the night we "fixed" him. He was in town one evening when we all went up to his room in the front of the house. (He had my room and I was put in a second bed in the little girl's room.) We strung string all over his room, from dresser to bed to window to bed to chair, etc., tieing it firmly at each juncture. After taking the slats from under his bed springs, we unscrewed the light bulb from the ceiling light and waited in the big girl's room for his return. He came home at a rather early hour and gained entrance to his room. We heard only soft fumblings, and mutterings for a minute or two. With bated breath we awaited the climax. Crash, Bang! It came-followed by a surprised yell. · Then all was still. We expected him to explode from his room in anger, seeking revenge. When he did not, we crept downstairs as quietly as six kids could. The next morning Odus made no mention of the incident al- though he had slept on the floor all night. He had learned to take it!

86 ------Moving On

Chapter 5

As the twig is bent, the tree's inclined .... Pope

When the national 4-H clubs began through the Agricultural Exten- sion Service, Dad thought they were a wonderful thing for young people. He rounded up some leaders for livestock clubs and helped organize a com- munity fair for the town of Wallowa, especially for 4-H exhibits. An early exhibiting spot was in the area behind Shell's store, about where the Post Office is now. Agricultural and domestic exhibits were sometimes displayed in the gymnasium. A parade was planned one year for which Dad made an ox yoke and he and the boys tried to train a couple of Jersey steers to pull the little wagon. We put hoops on it and someone made a cover but I vaguely remember the outfit coming to a bad end. The most fun was to be had at the rodeo which was held down at the end of Mumford field where the high school boys played ball for some years. There was a grandstand with a wire-mesh front which may have given some spectators a feeling of security-but not me. Cars rimmed the field and enclosed the arena but it seemed to me that those bucking horses were savage monsters intent on destroying the rider and spectators. One big, black did get through the ring of cars and bucked on the outside. Cody Dodson was one of the riders; names of others escape me. I can still visual- ize the cowboy outfit of the time; tall crowned, white hats-Tom Mix style- angora chaps, tall cowboy boots, and sleeve holders on white shirts. (It was decidedly risque for that article to be a lady's fancy garter.) The best-dressed cowboys wore turtle-neck sweaters. Kids chased greased pigs and tried to climb the greased pole. More gentle contests were sack races and three-legged races. I won a prize in the sack race but poor little Joe got all greasy for nothing. I don't think anyone won the pole climbing but a prize was awarded for trying. Dad was great on an award for trying. (In later years he donated a small sum for the "hard luck" prize for child's livestock competition at the Wallowa County Fair every year and was hurt and surprised one year to have the money returned because the committee felt the recipient might feel stigmatized.) Dorothy made the pies for several years for a grand pie-eating contest. Dad told her, "Now make them runny, make them runny." As per order, they were made very runny-chocolate and runny, which had to be slurped and gave a good showing on pie-faced kids. Dad was satisfied.

87 Moving On

Joe and I joined the livestock 4-H Clubs. George Werst was the leader of a stock judging group of which his son Raymond and Joe and I were members. We travelled to farms around the valley and practiced up for the Pacific International in Portland. We had won the county competition and Mr. Werst decided to take us down to Portland. We had never been there and were excited! Cabbage Hill from La Grande to Pendelton took awhile in those days of numerous, tight curves. We stopped at Celilo to watch the Indians fishing at the falls from platforms where the Columbia narrowed and sprayed and foamed over huge rocks and the narrow, divided channels of the river. We stayed all night at tourist cabins in Hood River where we could cook and eat. Mrs. Alma Werst and Mom had sent plenty of food. Tired, we ate and piled in bed. I had always run around with my brothers and was used to hired men so I was comfortable with a crowd of males. We took our time at Crown Point, which is now by-passed by the newer highway, to inspect the country in all directions before we headed down the misty gorge to the big city.

Cots were provided for us in one of the barns. We were rather shy around such a crowd of city kids (in reality they were all country kids like us) but recovered our poise enough next day to do a decent job of judging. That consisted of marking score sheets for several breeds of dairy cows, placing them in order of excellence, and giving oral reasons to the judges. Incredibly, our team placed third and I, the only girl, was high-point man. The next day, Joe and I rode the street car to the Kenworth trucking office where Ellen worked. The trip took so long that we thought we had overshot. We got out before reaching the place and had to walk five more blocks. We did not tell Ellen.

Dorothy organized a cooking club, a canning club and a sewing club, and she was leader of all three. In those early days many people thought 4- H was a waste of time, but each group was sizable, even though the membership of each club consisted mainly of girls who were also members of the other two. Meetings were usually held at our place. We made salads and muffins and cookies, sharing them with the group at refreshment time.

Vegetable canning was done mostly in a hot-water bath after our pressure cooker blew up one Saturday afternoon while Mom was in town. There is some danger of botulism from such vegetables as beans and corn but Mom was afraid to use it after that.

Dorothy had sitting by the stove drying her hair just before this happened, studying for a test. The pressure cooker was full of pork- perhaps filled too full when it blew. (Instructions warn against that.) Fortunately, Dorothy had just stepped over to the sink for a drink of water and escaped the full blast. As it was, enough hot broth and pork fell back on her to scald a large area on here back and shoulders severely. Ellen was

88 ------Mo~ngOn in the other room and came immediately. She used what she found handy on the burns-lard. When Dr. Gregory inspected Dorothy's back, he said, "Good thinking." We started with simple sewing but soon got into dressmaking by necessity. Rules of 4-H call for white uniforms of some sort. We wanted them for our group so the demonstration teams would look nice at the County Fair at Enterprise. This was depression time and there was no money forthcoming from parents. We bleached flour sacks white, dyed some of the material green, and went to work. The armholes of the sleeveless dresses were bound in green, and we made green 4-H emblems for the dress fronts and the head bands. Fair time was near and there was the problem of transportation. We had a car that ran but needed some sprucing up. We had inherited Pa's Model T Ford after he decided he would no longer drive. (Pa had taken Ma down to California on the doctor's advice, when she became ill but her health had not improved. On the contrary, it seemed to have worsened. He had driven down to Corning in the upper end of the Sacramento Valley and camped out for the winter in a tent! I guess he though all of the state was roses and sunshine but it rains much of the winter in that part of the country. Although there are some orange trees growing round and about, the temperature is known to drop to only twenty above zero in the winter. Fortunately it was a mild winter, but poor Ma! That was the winter of her discontent. They had relatives there and she wrote of the "flappers sleeping until noon and then putting on the paint, hopping into flivvers with any man who came along and staying out all night." She died soon after at age fifty-eight.) Ellen was in Portland and none of the rest of us girls had driver's licenses. But I was more brave and brash than Dorothy or Millie and at age fourteen looked eighteen. I decided I could get us to Enterprise and back. We painted the Ford a shiny black, jazzed it up with orange wheels, loaded it up with our projects and all the girls we could wedge in and headed up country. The roads were gravel, and the wind blew our carefully done hair in all directions but all was well until I got almost in front of the garage on main street. There we heard a loud "thump, thump, thump." I made a left turn into the garage and we found a connecting rod was broken. It took eight dollars to fix! In a fit of fright we paid cash using 4-H money which had been so laboriously earned by cake sales, raffle tickets and the sale of dozens of which had proved to be our best selling delicacy. We need not have worried. Dad gave the money back to the club when we got home. We needed better transportation down to the state fair but no one seemed to be able or willing to provide a vehicle. We had gas money but our Dad had worn out his fancy sedan and we had only a truck. We thought of putting bunk beds in it for sleeping on the way down to Portland but it was slow and needed on the place. Most of the other parents

89 Moving On ------had no vehicle of any kind. Sadly, we gave up our dream of going to the fair. We had tried and accomplished. We knew that to do nothing was to be nothing, but that maxim did not apply to us. We had done something and were somebody.

I have not mentioned school until now because there was so much to do outside of school that it was of little significance except when outstanding events or people touched my life. Some of those shaped me for good or ill as they do for all kids in their formative years. Grade school had made little impression on me until the seventh and eighth ·grade. On my very first day in the first grade I strode determinedly down through town with my sister Millie as mentor, my Dutch bob freshly trimmed, wearing my new, seven dollar, broad-brimmed beaver hat with its grosgrain ribbon, clutching my pencil box and tablet and Beacon'sFirst Reader. I did not know what I was getting into, thinking I was all ready for school when I did not know the first thing about it, even the thing you needed to know right off; I did not know my real name! I had answered to the ignominious name of Tiddle up to this time. One of my classmates, Lela Hawkins, who came to my rescue more than once, clued me in at first grade roll call by whispering, "That's you, that's you!" Reading remained something other people did until I was in the third grade. I just could not connect cc-aa-tt, and make it come out cat. Phonics has its place but not before sight reading; that system really confounded me. The sandbox cult had invaded teacher training but I didn't get to go up and stick little paper animals in the sand very much because that was a privilege for excellence, not a right. I do remember the cold-runs into school in the wintertime. No girl wore pants to school in those days. Our legs were kept warm by long underwear which we folded over at the ankle before pulling on our black stockings. I was never very adept at this chore and as a consequence was plagued by lumpy legs. Most of the other girls were afflicted by the same disease which we endured without too much concern until the middle grades. At that stage in life we would rather freeze to death than have lumpy legs, so we refused to wear long underwear and suffered along in cold weather,· happy in our discomfort. The old grammar school building had sinks by the hall fountains where we thawed out our hands when the weather was really bitter. Teachers kept non-learners after school and spanked them-no Special Ed. in those days. It was tiring to stand in line in the schoolyard along with all the other grades, but it was fun to march in to Sousa marches played on the hand cranked, upright Victrola.

90 ------Moving On

Playgrounds were not supervised and although we were at the mercy of bigger kids, we were never severely injured and learned to hold our own. The born leaders devised new games and saw that rules of traditional ones, such as Drop the Handkerchief, Blackman, and Dare Base, were followed. It was good to get out from under the rigid methods imposed in the classroom. After marching in came flag salute and then, "Turn, sit, hold out your hands." Teachers appointed monitors who inspected our hands, teeth, nails, necks, and even behind. our hears, for cleanliness and gave us "marks" on a chart on the wall. Gold stars were given all those who were shiny clean. Visible dirt earned black marks. A great disgrace was to have too many black marks. (Negative psychology, you see. It accented the worst in us.) We could get revenge when we were chosen monitor but I do not remember being one. Whispering was a great crime and never, never, was a classmate allowed to help another. At dismissal time we placed our hands together as if in prayer, put them straight out on our desks top and awaited order, "Stand, turn, pass," before we marched on out of the schoolroom.

They whispered in class. Joner Trump, Pat Maxwell, Virgil Allen, James Eman.

I lived in a sea of squirming ignorance for the first couple of years. Roy Southwick did show me how to make S's by placing a circle on top of another and Glenn McElroy said the words to me under his breath in reading class so that I would not have to stay after school but I spent each day just waiting for escape time. Finally, a kindly teacher took me into the cloakroom on the second floor of the big, white, square grade school building, at recess and spent some time explaining reading to me. Suddenly words made sense! My first library book was about an Indian maiden with my name, Winona, and that made more sense. I can still smell the oiled

91 Moving On ------floors and damp coats in that cloakroom, as well as apples tucked in pockets awaiting lunchtime. Oiling the wood floors made them easier to sweep but it also made them easier to burn which all of them did on a very cold winter night when I was ten years old. That old, burning schoolhouse made a magnificent sight from our upstairs bedroom windows. Dad got the con- tract for cleaning up the site for $250. He was on the school board but there wasn't too much worry about conflict of interest in those days. Joe and Tom helped him haul the debris. They sorted out the metal and found old iron exercise rings which Dad remembered from his Academy days. School was held in churches and lodge halls until another was built and I got through somehow but it wasn't until much later that the world of learning really opened up for me. My first library book came to a bad end but brought a new dimension to my life. I dropped it in the mud on the walk from the schoolhouse down to the library and was sobbing hysterically on my way to see the librarian to confess before I was jailed for my crime. My father came out of the pool hall and comforted me. "How much would that book cost?" I didn't have any idea but Mrs. Pollock, the librarian, looked it up, and said, "That will be twenty cents." My Dad paid and I was a free woman, free to explore the wonders of that tiny reading room, about twenty by thirty feet, there beside the tele- phone office where Mrs. Dale, whose husband was the local dentist, and her two beautiful daughters, Helen and Lillian, held sway, relaying long-dis- tance calls from La Grande on up country; Lostine, Enterprise, Joseph, Imnaha and even way out to the Flora country. (Dr. Dale had a foot-pow- ered drill and was a little timid about pulling teeth, preferring to "treat" them awhile for pain and infection; people could, and did, die of an infected tooth before antibiotics. Delaying the extraction didn't always help; the tooth just hurt a little longer.) After this introduction, I felt safe in libraries. This one must have held several hundred books and I knew I had a job before me if I were to read them all before I would be old enough to leave home. Most of them did not make a lot of sense. To ease tension I started with the National Geographic, whose sepia pictures of the starving Armenians stacked up in death like cordwood, were fascinating, yet revolting. Mrs. Pollock, who was the Methodists Minister's wife as well as city librarian, steered me to something she thought more suitable, the Little Elsie series. This golden-haired heroine was like no child I had ever bumped into. She luxuriated on a southern plantation before the Civil War, attended by her own "servants." But Little Elsie did not fool me. It did not take me long to find out that these were really slaves. Her training to be a great lady re- quired such long hours of practice at the piano that she fainted from fatigue and she was not allowed to eat hot bread, because it contributed to some- thing, I can't remember what. She prepared for a picnic all by her little self

92 ------Moving On by having Mammy pack dainty victuals, just so, in huge hampers which were hoisted up to carriages by happy, contented servants, who competed to fulfill her every whim. No mention of who prepared the food; I knew it was not her. The experiences of this magical creature were about as far removed from mine as those of Barbara Hutton, the poor little rich girl of my time, who was pictured in the Denver Post yellow sheet almost every Sunday. Elsie made me sick. I moved over to the next shelf. I don't think Mrs. Pollock had read all those books herself because I fooled her. She let me check out a new novel about a young, female missionary in China. I never did psych out just how she was at the mercy of the Chinese boatmen who had abducted her while they were floating down the Yangtze, with her in a narcotic stupor. (I had to look abducted up and was rather disappoinf.:edat its meaning.) It was then I learned that Chinese poppies have some sort of magical properties. When I opened a pod of one growing in Mom's little garden, where she grew all the different kinds of flowers possible, I did not like the smell. Thank God I did not eat the contents.

Wallowa School 6th Grade 1927 Bottom: Wilda Mc Kenzie, Jasamine Trump, Thelma Rambo, Gladys Bowen, Max Bird Row 2: Hattie Roop, Bertha Clark, Pauline_, Marjory Hetrick, Viola Lamb, Albert Sannar, Charolotte Armon. Row 3: Freed Bales, ? (behind), Lois Silver, Victor Allen, Lela Hawkins, Max McKenzie, Mildred Johnston, Roy Southwick Row 4: Mable Henderson, Lucille Moore, Hollis Tulley, Pauline Henderson, Lincoln Phieffer, __ Henderson, Albert Trump Top : Hugh Hayes, Emerson Vest, (fhe Author), Estes Thompson, Nellie Petel, Louis Lann

93 Moving On------

Somehow I made it to the seventh grade where being a head taller than most of the other girls students set me apart and I perpetuated my reputation of being bossy and telling classmates the answers which I looked up in the back of the book. The practice was forbidden, but why were they there? Some of the girls wore boy-bobs, a style now in vogue sixty years later and our dresses came slightly above our cotton-clad knees. Tan, lisle stockings were kept up by garter belts and got splattered with mud in bad weather. When a hole appeared in the heel, I just chucked that stocking back in the back of my closet and I bought a new pair for twenty-five cents. I was in the money, remember? This practice ended soon enough when we fell on hard times. The stockings were dug out, washed, and patched. I pulled those patched heels down into my shoes if I could, not being convinced that patches were more honorable than holes. High school girls wore galoshes with colored, felt lining in the wintertime and we copied them-red was favored. The style was to leave them unbuckled and turn down the tops. This practice created a nice swishing, tinkling sound as the buckles and cloth rubbed together as well as playing havoc with the silk stockings my older sisters wore. It was hard on cotton also and not much could be done to salvage stockings ripped by those buckles. On the school picnic in the spring, we found a good swimming hole and most of us stripped to our underclothes and went swimming. I, for one, was accustomed to swimming in the same spot as boys and had no thought that we were doing anything out of the ordinary. The teacher watched placidly from the bank but deigned not to come near the water at the invitation of some of the boys. As far as I know there were no repercussions. Jr. High students are more sophisticated in these times and would know. The next year a few of my classmates had attained a sensible size and I was not such a misfit. Teachers' courses did not include psychology and lucky was the teenager who had a teacher with an innate sense of how it felt to be finding oneself. Ruth Hayes, my eighth grade teacher, was a straightforward, unmarried, career teacher, who bided no nonsense, without trying to change our adolescent natures. In my squeezed-in position in the middle of a large family I learned to cope by either retreating from a situation and hiding out with a book or, if I could not do that, I acted out for attention-at least I would be noticed. I was not long in her class before it dawned on me that being noticed is not enough. I had to perform. She taught us all that common sense is the proper beginning for the ascent toward wisdom. As is usual at that time of life we girls were generally bigger than the boys and able to beat them in sports. What inspired them to compete with us in baseball and volleyball was not the hope of winning, I can't remember that happening, and it was not our femininity because we were decidedly

94 ------Moving On raucous and unfeminine most of the time. When we came in a little late, from a noon game the superintendent was wont to kick us down the hall (I saw this happen a time or two.) but Miss Hayes never looked up from the book she was reading when we came in all hot, grubby and sweaty. That made us feel worse than a kick; we were not worth notice. This teacher prepared us for state examinations and we had to pass to get out of the eighth grade. I can still see her at the blackboard, wearing sensible clothes with her maroon hair pulled back in a bun, explaining why the acquisition of the Philippines had been an act of imperialism on the part of the U.S. We had not heard much about communists at that time so no one called her one. She taught arithmetic by rote and we did learn the four basic processes plus a good smattering of Algebra. "Story" problems were her specialty. They taught us to reason and there were ten of them on the examination. This reality colored our study habits that whole year but I never remember taking work home because school kept until four o'clock which gave us plenty of time to study. Miss Hayes could be tart and outspoken if need be. When one of her brightest pupils repeatedly challenged her opinions she got tired of it and told him, "Freed, if someone threw you in the river, you would float upstream." We all thought that served him right because he was a lot smarter that the rest of us and we knew it. When Cal Conley, the county school superintendent, came on his annual visit Miss Hayes was unruffled. Some of our classmates scrunched down in their seats so that they might not be called upon to answer his purposely hard questions but there were plenty who could. We did not want to let that teacher down! Because Dad was on the school board for many years, some teachers may have tried harder with me. Miss Hayes tried hard with all of us and she stayed on and on before she was elected county school superintendent in 1936. But some teachers were fired. If one did not produce or displeased the board in some way, she or he was not hired for the next year-no teachers' tenure in those days. And then there was high school. One male teacher hired as a coach and as an afterthought it seemed to me, as a history teacher, may have felt he was immune to firing. He would assign a chapter of world history, come in the next day, prop his feet up on his desk and say, "Now we will have a point-time test. In ten minutes time you are to write out as many points as you can on the subject." We scribbled furiously, exchanged papers and counted up the points made by a classmate, thus relieving the teacher from that onerous chore. That was fun for a time but became boring and downright aggravating in the long run when a classmate who had never read the chapter might write such "points" as: Napoleon was a man; Napoleon had dark hair; Napoleon had blue eyes; Napoleon had two feet- and then got a better grade than someone with such an observation as, "Napoleon was a great leader but due to his ambition led his country to ruin."

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Miss Goodnough came the next year and made history live, with lectures, charts and maps to be filled out and enlivened with color, frequent small quizzes for which we were well prepared, and suggestions for novels to be read on the subject. What a blessing! I would that every child could have such a thorough and inspiring teacher for history. As someone has said, "We can better understand the now if we know what has gone on before us." · Vanessa Esther Boughter was another teacher who put her heart into it. She taught English and literature, trying to reduce our provincialism by introducing us, as best she could, to Shakespeare and the classics. She became discouraged at times at our lack of background and downright wounded when Julius Caesar looked Brutus straight in the eye during the murder scene in a play adapted from our reading and cried, "You brute!" which didn't follow the script no matter how appropriate to the deed. Miss Boughter also taught music and coached an operetta every year. Being a high-strung type she tapped her baton and cried "No, No, No" often but got results. One show of temperament resulted from the "gum episode." My brother Joe, who was smaller than most other boys of his age during high school, was a good boy and cute, doted on by his teachers and admired by classmates. He just seemed to do no wrong. He and Willy Eddleman reveled in pranks but they were not always the ones who suffered the consequences. One year in the spring they discovered a gallon of cider in the church basement, which was left over from a party. Tasting it, they decided it was no longer just cider and should be shared at operetta practice. A few of the chosen cast were treated to the beverage backstage with the expected results. All was well until Vanessa noticed some of the cast chewing gum which was a real crime in her eyes. She screamed, "Out with the gum, out with the gum." Hollis Tulley thought he would really oblige and put it far, far away. He climbed up the tall ladder used to unhook and fasten scenery and deposited his on the ceiling. At this unexpected maneuver, the rest of the cast dissolved in a sea of mirth and Vanessa called off practice. Some writ of assurance that we would behave must have been signed and secured. We produced the play. Our chorus was called on to sing at funerals, attendance at the service of anyone in the community being traditional. We accepted death with sorrow but resignation, singing at services of classmates because that was what was done. The death of young people occurred more often from illness in those years. We sang at Lovita Hamilton's funeral and several others. All the athletic coaches are vivid in my memory. Ellen played basketball all four years of high school. Her coach had her playing guard on the boys team which really paid off because the girls won all their games. The girls travelled right along with the boys to out-of-town games, their games always being scheduled to be played first. They were rough. Ellen

96 ------MowngOn never got fouled out for all those years for bloodying all the forwards' noses on those teams, and she wonders why. The only wound she received was a sprained ankle on our own gym floor. Dad would not let her go on trips unless she rode in the coach's car. She says, "I was in awe of that guy but surely did not like him. 11 Many others felt the same way. His son was in my class and was punished at home by having his hand held over an open flame. Some of the high school boys disliked him so much for his cruel and overbearing ways that, to get even, they sneaked a bunch of hens into his office one night and the resulting mess made them feel real good and all the more so when he had no luck in finding out who did it. In those days, the main qualification of a superintendent was that he keep order and discipline. Dorothy also played basketball, although she was slightly handicapped from birth by one leg which always grew, but stayed smaller and shorter than the other. My mother discovered this when she was a month or two old, while she was bathing her. She wrapped Dorothy in a blanket, piled her and Ellen into the Chevy, cranked it up and made fast time up to see Dr. Gregory, who could not predict, but only hope, that the small leg would keep growing. It did, but always behind the other. He always seemed to take a special interest in her development. Not knowing she had a handicap, Dorothy played basketball along with the rest of them. Ilah Couch, as the other guard, was her sidekick. They wore full, blue serge bloomers and white middy blouses, along with ankle-laced tennis shoes which were in style for many years after that. Mildred did not play athletics. She was mysteriously ill and often fainted at home. After a time or two, Mom covered her and let her lie until she came to rather than shock her with cold water and such. She had to take iron pills and eat raw liver for anemia and just to be sure, Mom made her take Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound which made her feel good and did not hurt her any as it was only sixteen per cent alcohol. Agatha Marvin, the second grade teacher, coached girls athletics for many years. She was really interested in her charges and stressed good sportsmanship for which Wallowa had not always been noted if one can believe old newspaper accounts. She was tall and red-headed and wore dark, serge bloomers to her knees which did not hinder her rapid pace as she loped from school back to her home with ease after ball practice-holding her whistle in one hand so that it would not flop up and down as she ran. How grieved I was to learn of her tragic death by suicide several years later! Oren Campbell, the superintendent, coached the girls after Agatha. He took care of his charges and coached us well but I don't remember working so hard under him. I was not the tallest girl on the team, but played jump center. We did not run the whole floor in those days and our position was more specialized. I liked that position the best because

97 MowngOn ------although my job was to get that ball to the forwards, I was not responsible for making points. Sevilla Maxwell did make points, and was a wonderful forward-tall, lanky and aggressive. But the boys teams seemed to get the most acclaim and try as we could we were not deemed as important.

By this time our athletic suits had changed a little in style; we still wore laced, ankle tennis shoes but our shorts by now were black cotton-with elastic in the legs, but short for all that; more daring members of our team pulled theirs up to their groin! We wore orange, wool jerseys and I, for one, wore nothing underneath to hinder my jumping. For a decade or two, girls in Oregon were not playing interscholastic sports but during the 30's we were still going strong and played Lostine, Joseph, Imbler, Elgin, North Powder, and fought Enterprise. Getting out of the county over Minam Hill was an adventure in the wintertime. There were no school buses and parents who had a closed car that was still running volunteered to transport the teams and I believe bought the gas themselves. Boys and girls usually went in separate cars. What heaters these cars had were inadequate so we bundled up in heavy sweaters, coats, caps, gloves and overshoes, with lap robes tucked around us. We were crowded in and by the time we got to Imbler or North Powder, we were numb. But the play was the thing and we were fighters. Those games really prepared us for something in life, I'm not sure what. After the boys game we stopped for a small treat before heading back over those frozen roads. No matter what time we got home, milking time came for me at the same time the next morning.

For both boy's and girl's teams, Enterprise was the traditional enemy. Despite pleas for fair play and good sportsmanship, contests were fought bitterly and none more so than the boys' football game, the last game of the season. It got so bad that one time in the early '20s Enterprise refused to play Wallowa in football because of their poor sportsmanship.

For this all-important event, the host town built huge piles of boxes, timbers, paper, and tires in an open area, some distance from town, to be fired at the big rally the night before the game. The other team tried, with much stealth and effort, to sneak to the pile and fire it off early. I don't know if this ever happened at Wallowa or not but suspect it had because that pile was guarded zealously every night until the official firing. One of our big rallies was held close to our place at the end of Mumford's field, just across the Wallowa River bridge, not far from the football field. The blaze was colossal and accompanied by organized cheers, dancing and screams-a regular pagan ritual. After it subsided somewhat we joined hands and serpentined up the road and through any stores in town that happened to be open. In this way I got to see the inside of the pool hall otherwise forbidden to females. It was really not much. This writhing horde must have struck terror into the hearts of the town merchants who suffered this wild frenzy through their stores for business reasons.

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At McKenzie's drug store we swooped in one door and out the other, around glass cases full of bottles, fine crystal and jewelry-screaming our heads off all the while. What would have happened to the stock in trade if the chain of grasped hands would have broken can be imagined for our speed was such that if the tail end come loose we would surely have whipped into glass and treasure causing havoc. Kenneth McKenzie would stand frozen in space until we passed on up the street to Bairds and beyond. The most hardy participants still serpentined until we all arrived at the gym for more cheers and speeches. School spirit was at its peak. The game next day was more of the same. By this time, most of us who had rallied around the fire were so hoarse that the cheering was left to others. Attired in our best winter coats-October and November can be frigid in Wallowa-with chrysanthemums on the lapels (We had not leafed through College Humor for nothing), we girls could be noticed to best advantage hovering as close to a wounded player as allowed showing our distress and sympathy. And there were many wounds in those days when helmets were about the only thing that gave players protection from the brutality of the game. Knee pads and shoulder pads were provided but were of minimal size and protection. Then, as now, football players were revered and idolized. The first time the Cougars won state championship there was joy and rejoicing in Wallowa town. The picture of the champs, the team of 1924, was hung in the halls of the high school and is still cherished. Even more exciting were basketball tournaments. Girls did not play in tournaments, but we jumped at the chance to go along and cheer. We could meet boys from other schools.! These encounters usually resulted in a brief exchange of letters before drifting off to be just memories. Distances were too great to carry on real courtships. When tournaments were held in La Grande a group of us girls usually managed to pool resources enough to buy a four-dollar room at either the Sacajawea Hotel or the Grande Ronde. Alas, both have been razed for more lucrative business but we had our time of luxury and knew what it was. There were elevators and big bathrooms which were in almost constant use for all the bathing, and hair washing, and fixing up necessary for looking our best to carry out our role of cheering our team to victory. Four girls in a room produced a territory problem which we solved in part by drawing straws for the bathtub if no one volunteered. We must have taken extra blankets for that. If you have ever slept in a bathtub, you will know why. We thought we did a lot of shopping also, but with no money for it, it must have been by window. Each of us had about a dollar for food for two days but at the current prices we did not suffer. Overnight stays for music tournaments were handled the same way. Because Miss Boughter wanted us fresh for the contest and our voices at our best we were more subdued, usually chaperoned by a mother who had driven us out to the affair.

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While Dad was on the school board, six of us graduated from high school and he handed out diplomas to most of us. Ellen was wearing higher heels than usual for her occasion and nearly fell at his feet when he presented hers. Dorothy was president of her graduating class and had to make a speech. She wrote, "What saved me was Mom's gold hat. I stepped out in front and with everyone staring at me down there in front in the gym I froze-forgot everything. I suppose I did not stand there too long while I looked frantically around, until I saw Mom's gold hat nodding back and forth. Everything came rushing back and I got through my lines." During hard times the school district was heavily in debt but by the time my father went off the school board it was debt free. Teachers taught for minimal wages and were glad to be employed. They were paid in warrants-paper that said the warrant would be worth so much when the district had it-and this led to the practice of teachers selling their warrants at a discount for cash to someone who had money. A few merchants around town bought them and also the bank but I don't think they made much money. They had to hold them too long. One Home Economics teacher wore two dresses all year-two and only two. They were the same style but different color and she alternated them, two days by two days. She was putting a brother through college. This was the teacher who taught us to make over clothes so skillfully that no one would know and I will always bless her for that. The first time we saw Dad cry was when he received word that a dear friend of his who also served on the school board had committed suicide because of some financial trouble. He left off his jokes and blarney for quite a while after that. There was no discussion of this affair around our house and I did not know the particulars until twenty years later but it was a sad and gloomy time and Dad never got over it. With such a large family my mother was so busy at home that she attended few school functions. I was usually in the yearly class play and the Ag. Club play as a character actress-playing the old maid, or widow, or some eccentric-never the heroine, a role requiring daintier, more gentle females. This was time consuming and with chores and play practice and practice for ball games. State law did not require physical education as part of school curriculum but those who were interested stayed after school and practiced in hopes of making the team. I was tired most of the time but kept up all my activities. My mother encouraged such participation in all her children, recognizing the value of doing. She was plenty busy keeping school clothes in order for younger children. We girls did that ourselves when we reached the age of fourteen or fifteen and made our own. When a costume my mother had made for me for a music festival did not suit me she said, "From now on you make your own." I did. This sort of reality discipline was practiced in our family and was effective. People did not rush out and buy a

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lot of school clothes for kids in the fall. They planned all summer for them, waited for the child to grow in the summer, and made clothes at home, if possible. Boys pants were an exception; they were usually bought The three basics, food, clothing and shelter, came first and helping provide them left my mother little time for recreation.

With most of us in school at one time, dinners at noon at home could be rather simple, but having something on hand for five or six lunches could be a problem, especially when our bread was mostly made at home. There had to be fruit and dessert. Mom made the bread and other baked goods but we all helped to make lunches. Just the packaging for that many lunches was a chore. Paper bags were not handed out by merchants in the prodigious amounts they are today. As we grew older we did not like to carry a lunch pail therefore we wrapped sandwiches in waxed paper and wrapped the whole lunch in newspaper tying it with a string. There was no school cafeteria, unless the Home Economics department decided to provide lunch as part of their learning experience. A toasted tuna sandwich was available at the drug store for fifteen cents and two maple bars could be bought for a nickel at Frick's . We sometimes indulged in this luxury until the bottom fell out of everything. The bakery was on the edge of the school grounds right behind the Christian Church and a popular place at noon. Mr Frick did the baking and delivered bread. One could set a clock by him when he walked down to the grocery stores in town, holding his basket of fresh-baked loaves on his shoulder, his cigar smoke trailing behind.

Mrs. Frick kept shop. If too many kids congregated in front of her door, she would come out and sweep them away with her broom so that real customers might enter. One year at Easter time I found a younger friend of mine, who was slightly lame from polio, a disease that was sure to kill or disable children every year, outside the bakery, crying. She had bought a paper mache rabbit at Frick's only to discover that it did not hold Easter eggs as promised. I marched boldly into the bakery with rabbit in hand and Oleta in tow and said. "You told her this rabbit had Easter eggs inside and it does not." Mrs. Frick said, "Why don't you attend to your own business, Johnson?" (As I have indicated, we Johnson girls were all lumped under that name. It was. only through special achievement or overt action that we acquired individual identity.) She did fill the rabbit, however, and I learned another lesson. Some wrongs my be righted if you have the fortitude to take action. A little expansion on the theme may better illustrate the challenge of being just another Johnson girl. There were Johnsons in all parts of the country in bunches, or tribes, so to speak. At times a group was called a

101 Moving On ------family and when need be individuals were pinpointed, but mostly they were called that bunch, or that tribe, or outfit, such as, "What bunch of Johnsons does she belong to?" When meeting a "new" Johnson girl, the usual question asked was, "Whose girl are you?" or sometimes, "Which Johnson's girl are you?" We were then forced to answer, "I am Bill's girl", or "Grover's girl", or whoever. Our mothers were rarely mentioned in identi- fying us. After all, that would have only led to more confusion; the ques- tion would have been, whose wife is she? There were the Flora Johnsons, Grant and Frank, and two bunches of Johnsons in the Imnaha area, Jack and Johnny, who had been there a long time, and brothers Max and Oakley, who were grandsons of Jack, the first settler on the Imnaha, as well as grandsons of the first Lower Valley Johnsons, Joseph and Fanny. In Enterprise there was the car salesman, Kenneth, who had a brother, Ray, in the creamery in Wallowa. There was Ole Johnson and his family who lived just east of our town, and "Soapy" Johnson in Wallowa, who ran a laundry and later the first school buses around Wallowa. Ed Johnson came in later and ran the pool hall. I may have missed a few who had ordinary sized families or no children at all. We will now get down to the meat of the thing. Lower Valley was the stomping ground for most of the Johnsons. Joseph F. came in early, in the 1870's, from the Willamette Valley. His wife, Fanny, was of one of the pioneer Applegates who came into Oregon with one of the earliest wagon trains into Oregon. Some of the boys of their large family stayed in the county. Two of them, Arthur and Ernest, remained in Lower Valley where they raised their families. Sons of Ernest still reside there. The largest Johnson family, around Wallowa, was that of Jack and Dollie Johnson, not related to the Jack of Imnaha. Perhaps more descendants of this couple than any other Johnsons are still in the county, the matriarch of the clan being called "Ma Doll" by her grandchildren. This family consisted of three girls and seven boys, one of whom married a Johnson from another tribe-ours. The first of our tribe, Luther Samuel, came in some time before the turn of the century, when he was past middle age, and died in 1906. His son Tom, or T.K. was really the patriarch of our bunch, because my generation remembers him. Luther Samuel's descendants alone now number into the hundreds-a granddaughter had ten children and a grandson had eight, and at least one great-grandson had eight. There have been seven generations since his time. You can see why we Johnson girls yearned for identity. It got so that when I was asked, "Which Johnson girl are you?" I would answer, "If you don't know, I won't tell you." With that unladylike statement I at least gained notoriety. Maybe St. Peter will have all us straightened out. Few mortals can do it.

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Chapter 6

Making do

I don't remember hearing of anything called the stock market crash but our life gradually began to change at home. All at once Dad stopped the milk route and sold off a lot of his cows at auction. I did not go to the barn where the sale was held but stood on the porch and listened. My mother cried when cows imported from the Jersey Islands at a cost of $400 to $500 sold for thirty and forty. The milking equipment left piece by piece. We still had tens cows to milk, but we did that by hand. When Dad was not around I milked seven or eight night and morning and Joe milked two or three. I was big and strong and a fast milker; Joe was a lot smaller. We sold cream down at Wallowa Creamery for cash money, and I began to notice that we sometimes did not have butter on the table. We were told to use both sides of our paper at school. A Big Chief tablet cost five cents and we furnished our own school supplies. We had to save our waxed paper from lunches to use again and again. When we no longer bought waxed paper I would rather go without lunch that just tie a sandwich up in a newspaper. Our clothes began to be patched, handed down and made over. I was lucky or unlucky in the clothes department according to the way you look at it. By age twelve I was bigger than Dorothy or Millie and their clothes could not be handed down to me. When I thought of wearing Dorothy's green wool skirt to school one morn- ing when she was not around, I found out it was too small. I never did wear hand-me downs, just made-overs. Dad had bought 80 acres of good bottom land joining the farm a few years earlier, and had mortgaged our place in part payment. It came to pass that the man who held the loan had died and his son, who had inherited the paper, was pushing for back payments. Dad did not talk business to us, therefore we went blithely on unaware of our parent's worries. We only heard bits and snatches, not piecing it all together until we were older. Bowman Hicks Lumber Company, which followed Nibley- Mimnaugh as the biggest lumber operation for years, closed down. This outfit had employed hundreds of men in its sawmill and logging camps and running trains into the north woods for logs. It just absolutely closed down everything. By 1930 it had nothing doing at all. The first chance for it to salvage something out of the defunct operation was to sell the steel rails of the railroad tracks which was done after trucks were developed so that they were just as efficient as the old Shay steam locomotive which had gone out

103 MowngOn ------over the railroad lines. The tracks were sold to the Japanese in 1934 and that steel was made into weapons which the Japanese used to shoot at some of the very men who tore them up. Banks were failing all over the country. The bank in Wallowa closed its doors and my mother lost her meager savings. When it opened up again as the Stockgrowers and Farmers National bank a year or so later she was in it one day in 1933 when it was robbed. Two desperate men, Jesse D. (Slim) Paul, who was an escaped killer from Kentucky, and James (Shorty) Duchene, escaped from Kansas, got the money and vanished in thin air. They must have been unacquainted with the rugged country they headed into or they would not have gone that way. Maybe they thought they could hole up and hide out for awhile. They headed down to the where a resident, Cliff McGinnis, found them travelling by foot. A story in the Wallowa County Chieftain said, "McGinnis, fearless and courageous, trained his rifle on the men as he forded the river astride his saddle horse while the men stood on the other side with their hands in the air. McGinnis then forced the robbers to cross the waist deep river to his home where his mother held a gun on them while he called the sheriff and recovered the stolen $2,408 cash, $1,500 in securities, and $15,000 in bonds that were stashed up the canyon." I cannot help but think that Romanza McGinnis was the brave one to hold them off with a gun while her son hunted for the loot. Did he tie them up? She was getting on in years at this time but resourceful, having learned self-sufficiency in West Virginia and by living for thirty-three years out in that rugged area so far from town. Cliff was considered so good at this prisoner business that he soon became a guard down at the state penitentiary in Salem. When the robbers were brought back to town, Mom achieved some notoriety by being called in to identify them. This was her duty but she felt sorry for them in a way. They seemed sorta down and out and didn't really act like desperate customers. People were going bankrupt all over the country and although Dad was crying auctions, prices were so low that they did not bring in much. We were still pretty well off compared to some of the mill workers who had no place to raise a garden and no animals for meat and milk. Where they moved is a mystery. There seemed to be just no place where jobs could be found. 1931 was the worst year. After two years of being jobless, many felt that all hope was gone and at least 20,000 people committed suicide in the . A national disgrace was enacted in Washington D.C. when shacks of WWI veterans, who had camped on the Potomac demanding some kind of aid for their war service, were set afire and inhabitants chased out. We heard of the great dust storms sweeping over the midwest and devastating farms. There was much publicity about the "Okies" who were

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overrunning California in hopes of getting agricultural jobs and of their ill treatment in some areas. One large family of ten or so walked and hitched rides on freight trains from , ending up in Wallowa where, true to custom, they were given all the aid possible. Farm products were worth very little. More than one rancher shipped animals to market in Portland only to find the shipping charges were more than the price the animals brought! However, with the big mill shut down there was still a little demand for lumber. In 1930 Dad and his younger brothers, Boyd and Jasper, went into the logging business. They all hauled. Boyd and Jasper had Model A trucks, and Dad had a blacksmith, Joe Rounsavel, fix up his 1928 Chevy, four-cylinder, truck to use for heavy loads. They build an iron skid to put in front of the trailer wheel, fastened a chain around the tongue just the right distance, so that when the wheel rolled up on it the chain tightened and it acted as a skid. This invention worked as a brake coming down the steep hill we called the Bakke Hill. It failed only one time when Dad rolled off the bank up Whiskey Creek and hurt his back for the first time. He did not stay down long. He was only forty-four years old, still had seven children at home to support and could not quit. We surprised each other that Christmas with the usual homemade gifts, each one trying to be the last one to hide them in the branches of the Christmas tree, all the better to surprise the others. As always on Christmas Eve, there was much tiptoeing down the stairs and hiding behind doors before the last of us settled down late at night. There was no money for bought presents but Ellen, who was married and working in Portland at the time, sent inexpensive gifts for us all. Mom sat at the table a long time after we opened them with Grace on her lap and cried. Grace was not happy with Ellen's marriage. When the latter wrote home that she and Frank Alander had gone over to Vancouver to stand up at a friend's wedding and decided to make the affair a double one, she was aggrieved. She knew there would be no more boxes of candy showing up at our place from Ellen's boyfriends. A young man coming to our place meant candy to her and she consumed all the chocolates she could without discrimination. Even the consequences of devouring a whole package of Ex-Lax before she was old enough to read the label did not cure her of that habit. We participated at the Christmas program at the Christian Church on Christmas Eve as usual. For three weeks we had been practicing after school, which caused us to walk home in the early twilight of those short, crisp winter days, our way lit by the splendor of the evening star, Venus. I knew it must be Bethlehem's star. Indian blankets were dug out for Joe and Tom as the shepherds and an old curtain made a satisfactory robe for me as a wise man. Millie played the piano and the little girls said their pieces. The

105 MowngOn ------tree was tall, and despite hard times, everyone, even the grownups, received a net bag containing an orange, nuts and hard candy. Before trailing up- stairs to wrap our gifts we sat around eating our oranges and rehashing the evening. Through the years, that was always a time of coming together for us-Christmas Eve after the program at the church. Our cousins, the Bill and Laura Johnson family, came up from Lower Valley in the sled for Christmas dinner. Dad dug deep and found a dollar or two to add to Doug's donation of most of what remained of his bank account. After Christmas dinner he brought in a tub, set it in front of the fireplace, and filled it full of nuts and candy. Whole hog or none, that was Dad! That was almost too much and we were amazed at this excess. About three o'clock the team was hooked to the sled, and we took a turn around Whiskey Creek and Parsnip Creek. Small sleds were hooked on behind, the riders being cautioned to stay out from under the big one. It was dark when we got home to the rest of Christmas dinner and the real fun time. During Christmas week we had no bedtime. Several cousins stayed over and we played games most of the night, stuffing ourselves to repletion, arguing and having a revel. This was the one time of year that seemed to be meant just for us. We needed only to do regular chores and the orgy went on for several days until the novelty wore off. Someone might lose an argument over rules and take his cards to his room so others could not play any more, but seldom did he stay isolated up there for long with all that fun going on down below. Dad's brothers, of whom he was the boss that winter, gave him a huge box for a present. It held another box in the first one, and another and another until the last one which held a big, smooth rock. With his usual aplomb, Dad said, "Thank you boys, that is just what I've been needing and looking for." He immediately placed it for a weight on the sauerkraut barrel and it served that position for many years, moving where we moved. It was christened and if the Kraut Rock had been misplaced in the fall when the kraut was made there was much hue and cry until it was found.

Logging operations were moved out to the Cox place which had good timber. Teams were used in the woods for skidding. The Running brothers who were Norwegian and real lumberjacks, were hired for felling. Sam had been working in the gold country around Juneau, Alaska, but the depression had taken care of that. An older friend, "Tootie" Willett, cooked for the crew. Dad sent out an order for groceries which Mom filled from her own supplies, putting them in gunnysacks and sending them out by Joe and Tom on old Prince. That faithful horse was thirty years old, and that fifteen miles with such a load must have been a real chore for him.

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Dad always had a lot of canned tomatoes on hand and they ate rice at camp almost every day. Everyone bought a lot of canned tomatoes in those days. They were considered a staple. Tootie cooked a lot of spotted dog which is what Dad called rice and raisins; it went pretty good with canned milk and sugar. Tootie's specialty was sourdough bread, biscuits, and hot cakes. He mixed up his next day's batch from the starter and set it to rise overnight in a warm place. When Joe and Tom arrived at camp with supplies one day, they found things a little out of whack. Swan Running, whose job was felling logs, was mighty put out. Upon retiring, he had placed his expensive, leather boots at the edge of the table close to the stove. The next morning they were full of Tootie's sour dough! Swan was plumb mad and inconvenienced. Tootie was offended because of uncomplimentary comments about his sour dough and had "acted up." Dad thought it was almighty funny but had to make peace in camp so the work would go on. Dad came home wearing his big, buffalo-hide coat with deer meat for supper and Mom fried up a large pan of it in her usual way which was to pound it thoroughly, then roll it in flour and fry it. I think she even did T- bone steak this way. It was tender and never hard and dry and other mid- western cooks used the same method. I don't think we had ever heard of broiled meat in those days. Jim Lee, a Chinaman, who had come out of the gold camps in the Idaho mountains and ran a restaurant in Wallowa in the 1920's and early '30's did not roll in flour. He cooked meat like a heathen, right on top of his cast iron cookstove, but he also served noodles in bug juice. We firmly believed Dad's story after trying some he brought home to us in a tin pail-noodles in soy sauce. Ethnic cooking was not part of our life and times. After we finished our meal Dad said, "How did you like the deer meat?" We had liked it a lot. "Here is the hoof," he said, and produced a big . I did not think eating bear was too gruesome but others in the family were quite put out. {I have heard that the Nez Perce would not eat bear due to its habit of consuming human, dead or alive, when he felt like meat.)

We ate more chicken those years than anything. At first Mom hatched her own chickens in an electric incubator which she kept in the basement. She had a snug brooder house built for them which was kept out behind her little flower garden. It was built on skids and could be moved over the pasture so that the chicks could be let out to green feed as they grew older. She later sent away for baby chicks and had good success with raising 300 to 500 hundred at a time using an electric light under a big metal reflector to keep them warm. They were fed commercial chick feed and potassium permanganate was kept in their water to kill germs. Dorothy always liked to care for the chickens and set old hens on eggs to hatch. She relates an incident concerning her career in the chicken business:

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"It never bothered me to kill a young fryer until the first ones I raised on my own. When I tried to chop off the head, I raised the ax up and my arms froze in mid-air. They would not come down. My sis, Winona, happened to be out at the woodpile getting a load of wood and came to the rescue. She took the axe from me, sat me down on a block of wood until I unglued, and killed the chicken. It was a while before I could do that again, but finally regained me killer instinct, and have beheaded thousands since that time."

Like many kids his age, Joe got into the trapping business. It was a way to make a few cents. He could not say a fast buck because skins brought only fifteen to twenty-five cents in Denver where he sent his first pelts. Joe wrote: I trapped a couple of winters, but not very enthusiastically. There was, and still is, a warm branch running into Whisky Creek, which never froze over so it was a perfect place for muskrats and Mallard ducks to winter. Art Johnson and Art Running worked hard at trapping. They had enthusiasm, but did little better than I did. We saw an occasional beaver in Wallowa river but none in Whiskey creek, because they need deeper water with willows for food and building dams and lodges. I was proudest of the ducks and pheasants I trapped. I sank a pan with grain it in the bottom of the warm branch, and set a Victor trap on the grain. The ducks dove for the grain and trap caught them around the neck and killed them at once. The trap was anchored to a chunk of wood, so it had some give. Simple and effective. For pheasants we just found their runways in the snow along the banks of the warm branch and put a trap there. Illegal? I guess so. Meat? Yes. I shaped 1"x12" boards into "V" shapes to stretch the skins on. We later sold our hides to Shorty J. who worked out of La Grande for Blue Mountain Junk-later called Blue Mountain Hide and Wool. He paid twenty-five to fifty cents a hide. Dad did not like for me to skin muskrats in the basement when it was cold, and Mom didn't like the mess of it all but they didn't make me stop as long as I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

Many teen-aged boys trapped to have some cash money during that time. My cousin Walter Johnson, whose mother and father were both Johnsons, one of a family of ten children and a self-made man any way you look at it, wrote just before he died: "If I had any money to spend when I was in high school in Wallowa it was because I had just sold a muskrat skin or two and felt flush. That was just about the only way we had of getting any money of our own in the wintertime." We were usually encouraged to do anything we thought we were big enough to do if it did not inconvenience others too much. We did not say we could not do something because we didn't know how; we knew we had

108 ------MowngOn better learn how! Tom said, "Our folks could not give us much when we were growing up but without us realizing it at the time they gave us the greatest gift of all-freedom; freedom to experience and try and do." In our own way we all turned out to be doers.

At the age of ten, Tom decided he would go into the rabbit business and make some money. He started with a Chinchilla doe, which he got from the trade of a muskrat trap or skin to the Running brothers who were into the rabbit business "big" for the furs and meat. He added a buck and another doe from Bob Marshall down by the river. The buck was a big, white New Zealand Giant, with giant ears, feet and tail. He brought a blue ribbon at the community fair in 1930. The story of Tom's rabbits and how they grew is best told in his words: I never was much of a money maker in my early life. Seems I always bought high and sold low. I also traded some banty hens to Bob Marshall for a pair of New Zealand Reds, and was in the business. I botched up some pens but in no time I had more rabbits than pens and hutches. Dad was not using the hot beds where he had started cabbage plants in his sauerkraut days. To a kid like me they looked like a good place to put rabbits but they burrowed under the same day I put them in and got into the cow barn. I got pieces of shingle and pounded them around the frame which held them for awhile. My herd kept growing. Mom's little brooder house was empty and seemed like a better place; she gave me permission to use it until she needed it again. I set some nail kegs against the wall. When I ran out of them, I went to apple boxes; I reinforced them and cut holes in the end and stacked one on another. Those does could jump way up high and get in the top ones and not hurt their babies. Rabbits kept coming from some place. I ran out of nesting boxes and mothers were having babies against the wall on the floor. That house was mighty full of rabbits. We were eating rabbits but not fast enough. Mom said one day, 'Tom, I'm getting 500 baby chicks and will need that house on Saturday the such and such. That place has to be cleaned and if the rabbits are not out, I will just have to turn them out.' No coddling here, we learned that ifwe took on a job, it was ours and that was it. No one else was going to step in and straighten up something we had started and could not handle. I was trying to find other places for those rabbits, and build hutches, but the job was bigger than anyone knew. Come Saturday, Mom was as good as her word. Then there were rabbits all over the place, in the barn and sheds and under trees. The dogs chased them and they hid deeper, even the cats chased them. They were all colors

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and spotted, and they were everywhere. I let word out at school that I had rabbits for sale for one dollar a gunnysack. The first weekend a few boys came up for a sack full and next weekend business was so slack that I lowered the price to four bits a sack full, but there were few takers. Seems like no one was interested in going into the rabbit business. I decided to go into the meat business. We had a rabbit kill every day for a few days. Joe was the expert and I was learning. We butchered all we could catch and hung them on the clothesline; I sold a few down at the cafe but sales were nothing colossal. By this time the family was not eating much rabbit. Garden planting time came. Doug could not tolerate rabbits in his garden. In the morning I could hear the shotgun peppering away as Doug eradicated rabbits. What he did with them I don't know. They got cagey and hid out from that shotgun-went farther up country. We were surprising rabbits two years later, ones that had been successful in avoiding that shotgun. By the end of 1932 we had just about got them.

We knew things were not going well financially. A man kept coming by and Tom was out by the barn when he heard Dad say, "No, I borrowed the money from your Dad. I never worked for you, and I'm not going to work for you now." Dad and Mom held a confer- ence on the back porch and I heard him say. "No, this place is not mine any more, and I have begun to hate it. I can't just rent it and stay here. That would not bring it back." The fatal day came: March 1, 1933. The son of the original lender had foreclosed, and we were leaving our home at the Mitchell place and going over across the river to rent the Asher place up on the hill Getting by at the Asher place: Grace, Maybeth, Tom, Joe, Winona, above the Enterprise highway Mildred, Dorothy, Ellen just a mile out of Wallowa. The

110 ------Moring On men had been hauling over farming stuff for a month or so. Mom had been over and scrubbed out the house with lye water and it was ready for our furniture when the last load arrived in the truck late on a winter afternoon. We rushed to set up all the beds that we would be needing soon. The house was older, not in good repair, arranged inconveniently. There were plenty of bedrooms, however and mine was upstairs with clean, flowered wallpa- per and a view of the country. Looking across the river to the home we had just left brought a pang. But we all became too busy to do much looking. Garrett Asher had made it plain that Joe was not to take along hogs of any kind. The former renter had had hogs all over the place and Asher hated hogs. Joe, however had a sow for a Future Farmers of America project, FFA. He just had to take her. He made a place on a lean-to chicken coop and hid her away. Garrett discovered her and did not say any more when he found out she was Joe's project. Joe did well in FFAand later became a doctor of Agronomy and made agriculture a career. The farming land was mostly on top and there was hay to put up in the summer. There was pasture land across the highway and there were ten cows to milk. We did not expect much. Like so many others, we were just trying to get by. Tom and Joe spent most of the summer helping the Ashers fix the fences that had not been kept up in years and years. They re-fenced everything on the place, back up on the flat to the south on the farmland and down on the bottom. Tom worked all summer right along with them for a great big thank you! He says, "I was their gopher. It was Tommy, go for this, and Tommy, go for that." Ruby Asher said, "My, isn't that Tommy a nice boy. I sure wish we had a boy like that." Garrett answered, "Humph, should have thought of that about twenty years ago." I don't know if moving the manure pile was in the rental agreement or not, but whether or no, it was moved and the manure spread on the top fields. The tall, red barn was on the side hill and the manure had been tossed out to tumble and settle down the hill until it reached to the bottom fence along the road. Joe and Tom were in on that job, so I will let Tom tell it: We only had one team, old Maude and Date, whose harness was all worn out and wired together. Garret had a little spindly, roan mare and a little black horse, both real old. They only weighed about 1,500 lbs. apiece. He bought a new set of harness for them and we started to work on the first day of April hauling manure from that pile. Joe and I started every evening after school to help Dad and Doug, who were using two four-wheel horse spreaders, and we would load one while Dad drove the four horses up the hill to the farmland up on top. We got 136 spreader loads off that pile. I remember it well, because we kept track. As we got farther down the hill toward the highway we had to pitch the manure back up, because there was no way to get a spreader down there. One would pitch up to a pile and the other

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would pitch on up to another pile. We had about 3 transfer piles. We could hardly get down to the last three feet; someone decided it would be all right to just leave that there. When we got the farming done in the fall Dad went back to selling Watkin's products. We sold old Maude to some horse trader for five or ten dollars but he would not even give a price on old Date, because he was too old and poor. We decided the most humane thing to do was to assign him to the hereafter. I went with Doug up to the point of the hill behind the Willett place to hold onto the halter rope while Doug shot him with a twelve gauge shotgun, right between the eyes. In the process of his kicking, he rolled over and down the hill into some brush. For years afterward I would stop there as I passed on the road, climb up the hill and hold communion with old Date's skeleton.

I helped in the haying that summer but my allergies got so bad I had to stop. For a good part of the summer I herded the milk cows on the low pasture along the highway, because the fences were in disrepair. I felt a little self-conscious when cars had to slow down to get through my herd when I was forced up onto the highway because of the river below. When the fences got fixed I needed only to take them to pasture in the morning and get them in the evening. When hay stacking time came there was a hired crew to help. We wracked our brain to come up with something special to cook for that event and had to resort to chicken again-old hens, which we had to boil. To compensate, we made dumplings to go along with them. Ellen and Frank came for a visit in his coupe with a rumble seat. We wanted to do something special and felt Frank should see the lake. The Lake, remember? We didn't have a car and the truck was hardly running; transportation was a problem. We solved it by resurrecting a two-wheeled trailer-It may have been the one from our Iowa trip and hooking it on Frank's car. Some of us rode inside the coupe (we said "coop"), and some in the rumble seat, and all the rest in the trailer. We did not even attract much attention as we wheeled through Lostine, Enterprise and Joseph. In that time of make-do, we were apt to see almost anything on the road. People were accustomed to makeshifts, or reverting back to team and wagon when necessary. Even though Frank drove slowly, the trailer people were a little shook up by the time we got back. It was a day to remember, however: It had been some time since we had picnicked there. Again there was a good garden, almost as good as the one over at the Mitchell place. We tried celery, and it was excellent. The hillside orchard did well. For some reason fruit trees do better on a hillside, perhaps because

112 ------Mo~ngOn the sun can touch more sides better, or the drainage is better, or the fact that the cold settles in the valleys at night keeps it warmer on a hillside. There was a wooden cider press on the place and we made much good cider, especially from the crisp, white-meated snow apples. We had enough to sell a barrel at Halloween for parties and to take a barrel with us when we left the next year. We canned applesauce and made apple butter, as well as giv- ing apples away and selling a few. Those apples were all the fruit we had that year. We could take a Biblical adage to heart: "The Lord will provide", or perhaps another, "God helps those who helps themselves." Dorothy had been down in Portland working but was home that sum- mer and despite difficulties, decided to go into the chicken business again. There was usually a market in town for good fryers and she cleaned hers so well-with a light suds bath, a light scrub with a brush and many rinse, that her chickens sold quickly. This year it was a little harder for her to get started. She will tell about that:

That spring I harnessed old Maude to a single tree and went down across the road to the field next to the river, where there was what was left of an old shed and drug that up to the back yard piece by piece or as many pieces as I could manage at a time and built me a small chicken house. I was told I would not be able to do it but determined and stubborn I was, and kept at it through tears, cuts, hammered fingers and all the rest. I still had some money from my first stint of working at Portland so I sent for 100 Plymouth Rock chickens and started them out on the back porch under boxes and an old tub with an electric light run down through the top. One Friday night everyone but Joe and me had gone to something at school. He could not leave because his sow was having piglets. It started to rain and it poured; every old roof on that place leaked, all the sheds and the barn. To keep the pigs and baby chicks from drowning we built a fire in the cook stove and put the chicks in boxes to dry out and keep warm. Joe kept bringing in little squirming pigs from the hog house as soon as they were born and dried them off with whatever I could find for him. Then we would wrap them in old blankets and put them behind the stove. He just kept on, running the distance from barn to house in that downpour with a pig, thinking after each one that it was the last. After about fifteen, he brought in two more, saying 'I wish that old rip would stop having these things.' He was one cold, wet tired young lad. When the rest of the family got home they did not quite appreciate the steam and the odor and noise of all those chicks and squealing, hungry, newborn pigs filling up the kitchen. Everyone went to bed, leaving us to keep a fire going in the stove and rotating critters most of the night. I was sure glad to see the sun the next morning.

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Dorothy had good success with her chickens and Mom had raised a few turkeys, bringing some over with us from the other place. One big Tom was saved for Thanksgiving. He ran on the hillside most of the summer and was put up to fatten shortly before time to eat him. Much time was spent in plucking and cleaning him; we took turns. We found that he was too big for any roaster we had. I don't remember how he was cooked but when he was tasted before serving he was found to taste just like devil weed on which he had been feeding all summer! This was a real disappointment. I think we all picked at him a little but he was almost inedible. Doug, who expected something special, was all put out and we had to make do with whatever else was on the table which was not very much.

I don't think anyone else took time out that summer of 1933 but I had a vacation. My cousin, Ruth, and I decided to go huckleberrying out on her Dad's cow camp in the North Woods. Her family spent most of the summer out there just running wild and having all kinds of fun and I had always wanted to do that. This time there would be just the two of us. I had never had a trip like that and as I look back, I realize it made a hardship on others who had to do my chores but I just had to go. Ruth came up for me with an extra horse and we took what supplies we thought we would need for a few days.

We settled in at camp, in a big round meadow where there was a rather new, house, good beds and a good spring of cold water. Every morning we headed to the berry patch and picking was good, so much so that we hated to leave. One day I met a bear almost face to face, who was enjoying those huckleberries as much as I did and was as scared of me as I was surprised at him.

We decided to explore the country and rode old Stotki, named for an Indian who was a good doctor, successful in using herbs and Indian remedies in pioneer days and very friendly to early white settlers. The other horse was a big bay. We rode far into the woods, sliding down logging skid roads and had a glorious time until it was time to head back. We could not find the way! Ruth knew the country but it was cloudy and looked like rain and the tall timber obscured our view. The horses snorted and shook their heads and headed their own way. Imagine our surprise to come out on a settlement! It was Maxville, abandoned and unoccupied except for Bob Baggett, the black caretaker. He gave us a cold drink of water and a bite to eat and asked us to spend the night-there were many houses still in good repair there at that time-but we were not sure about that, being a little afraid. I don't know why. Bob was a friend of people round and about and it would have been sensible. (When I saw Maxville forty years later, there was nothing left of that once bustling logging town except one crumbling log building and a little rubble.)

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Back at camp we were running out of food. Huckleberries and sugar and flour made biscuits and jam,.but that was all we had and we were becoming sated on sweets, therefore we headed down the hill with buckets brimming much satisfied with our adventure. As we headed into the valley everything suddenly became dark; chickens began to crow and it became quite cool. I had not known there was to be a total eclipse that day in the summer of 1933. It was the most total I have even seen. The sun was completely in the shadow of the moon except for the slight glow around the edge of the umbra.

We still had some cows to milk. Joe, Tom and I had that job. We were only about a mile from school and we were always running. We ran to school, ran home to milk in the evening, and ran back for a ball game or play practice at night. Of course there was no school bus and it was all my Dad could do to keep the old truck wired up to use for anything. Few kids had cars and those were usually in bad shape. Canvas was hand-sewn on cloth tops when they became torn and no one bothered with paint much; it cost money. It was not unusual for high school students to walk five miles to school. Everyone seemed to be in the same boat, there just was not much money around. People conserved and did without. Main street was largely unlit when we ran through it to some school function but people kept their one luxury, the radio, if they could. I could tell time by the sound of the programs as I sped up the street. Amos and Andy came on at the same time every night. If it was over, I knew It was past eight o'clock, and I was late. That winter a Toby Show came to town. Named after a successful comedian, this was a group of starving actors who were trying the village circuit out of want and desperation. A young man asked me to see the show which was performing in the the gymnasium-my first formal date. We were surprised to be part of an audience of five. At fifty cents a head you can see that the gate receipts were hardly adequate to feed the four worn and dispirited actors and take them on to the next town. The show was a comedy but after the first cackle I laughed no more because no one else Grover and Zora Johnson did. I hoped they had a bigger crowd in at the Asher place, 1933 Enterprise where they showed next.

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When we moved to town in January 1934, during my senior year of high school, we took along the barrel of left-over cider which we put outside by the woodshed. My brothers seemed to know what time and freezing weather would do to cider. I found out next spring when they passed around bottles of that cider mixed with cherry juice at the annual alumni dance, calling it cherry punch. No liquor was allowed at those affairs but that was a lively dance. I was something of a wallflower because I had no steady boyfriend. Furthermore, we girls were not generally allowed to go to dances so I was not a good dancer. With my brothers and the boys who were there without a date, I had a good time. A popular dance was the side walk. I'm sure it had another name but that describes it. After turning a corner, the couple swung apart and just walked down the hall in time to the music, a far cry from the jungle dances of this generation.

Being so close to school enabled us to walk home for lunch which made an added chore for Mom, but she was always ready. She baked her own bread and traded cream for a five pound brick of cheese at the Mutual Creamery. I don't know why we were taking our cream there instead of to the Creamery Co-op which Dad had been so anxious to see started. Maybe it was because Spencer Trump, Mildred's steady boy friend, was working there for his uncle John Thompson and they needed the trade. They got a lot of cream from the Troy country which came in on the stage, it being too far out for the Co-op to go to pick it up. We ate a lot of toasted cheese sandwiches and beans and drank a lot of milk, which was a pretty good diet anyway you look at it. We had applesauce canned the summer before and a lot of root vegetables. We had never eaten many beans before because they were not one of my Dad's favorite foods. That winter he was away a lot trying to sell insurance and Watkins products and we ate beans.

We tiptoed quietly around when Maybeth got pneumonia and almost died. Mrs. Elmer Biggs, a skilled nurse, came and watched over her until she passed the crisis. She kept the sickroom all neat and quiet, like a hospital, and we respected that. Maybeth's labored breathing could be heard in the kitchen and dining room and my mother would often stop what she was doing and listen to see if she could still hear that sound which meant Maybeth was still alive. It was a long time before she could collect her wobbly legs and be her old, happy carefree self again-a close call.

All at once Mom surprised us by having a boarder for breakfast. Ansten Anstenson was a young Norwegian who had come to live with his uncle, Mr. Bakke, a few years before. He could ski down to town from their place on Whisky Creek in nothing flat, making a pleasing picture with his dark hair and rosy cheeks. It did not take him long to learn English, although his Aunt in all her time in the country did not learn very much. She always said, "I ask Bakke," or "Bakke do it," and that was that. She

116 ------Moving On called Ansten "Skoon"; the neighbor boys took it up and called him that also. Ansten surprised townspeople by setting up a booth at Shell's Store where he offered for sale some very pleasing cream cheese of his own making. Wallowa wasn't ready for something as exotic as that cheese and I don't think he sold much.

Mrs. Bakke died of cancer in middle age and her husband had an auction and went back to Norway. My mother purchased an item from her bridal chest, a tatted doily two feet in diameter which I now own and remember her by. She was childless and I wonder if there is now anyone else to remember her.

Ansten stayed on, and worked down at the mill. He asked Mom if she would fix him a hot breakfast when he got into town and she did that for awhile. There he would be, all happy and polite, sitting at the table when I came in, charming Mom with his good manners and gratitude. I did not realize it at the time but he was seeking a wife and thought there might be a prospect around our place. When I went to school in La Grande the next year, he came out there and worked in the sawmill. We saw many shows together and he was a good companion, always clean and smelling good, and wearing good clothes. When he asked me to marry him and go with him back to Norway I was tempted. He had enough money to buy a dairy farm and start up for himself. That was the deciding factor. I had had enough of cows and, although I knew he would make a good husband, I did not want to go a cold country so far away where there was already trouble and fighting. The Moon is Down, which told of the communist infiltration there, came out a little later, and that made me glad of my decision. I saw Ansten around La Grande several times that winter, usually with several college girls on his arms. I hope he found a good wife.

Graduation time in Wallowa is lilac time. Those luscious flowers made beautiful, fragrant decorations when combined with creamy syringa, commonly called mock orange, which we picked by the arm load in the canyons to decorate the gymnasium and church for the special month of May. The winter of 1934 had been what was called "open", so unusual in this area of frigid winters that it has left a lasting impression on anyone who lived there at the time. There was no snow and it was warm enough for groups to picnic in the canyon down by the water fountain in January, where we could sit on green grass and stay up late by a big bonfire roasting marshmallows and real wieners-the kind we bought at the butcher shop which were linked together in strings, all fat and juicy.

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Three occasions were necessary to "launch our class of twenty-two graduates on the sea of the future;" class night, baccalaureate and graduation night when we received our diplomas. We rounded up a car or two and spent some time down in the canyon where the mock orange was lush and abundant, loading the stage for all three affairs with all the lilacs and syringa we had time and energy to bring in. They perfumed the whole gym and all of the Presbyterian Church. This was the most elegant of the three churches which are within hollering distance of each other on the west end of main street and although it is now the Methodist church, it is still used at graduation time. Several boys from our class had already enlisted in the Civilian Conservation Corps better known as the CCC, which gave them a chance to make some money even though it was only thirty dollars a month. Therefore, our group was rather small, eighteen or so. Somehow, money was found for a new dress, suit and shoes for me, most of which I really could have done without because we also rented caps and gowns but that was still the age of tradition.

Dad had gone back to selling Watkins products and insurance. We had a good garden spot and the boys herded the cows along the roadsides for most of their feed. Doug cleaned the barn and worked in the small garden but there was really not too much for him to do. He had to share a room with the boys because we only had five bedrooms. One of our great- aunts came for an extended visit as she often did. She was especially nice to Doug, as was her way, but he shied away from her. He might have thought she was invading his territory. We thought nothing of the fact that Doug asked how long she planned to stay. He had often asked me to check out westerns for him to read from our local library, but of late he had been unable to see to read much. He did not complain but as I look back I believe he had a cataract or may only have needed his glasses changed. He had never gone with our family on any outings over the years preferring to stay home and do the chores and visit a friend or two. All at once, this summer, he told Dad he would like to see Wallowa Lake. Dad took him up to see it, his first and only view. On the way back they stopped in Enterprise where I was doing housework for a family. I was surprised but Doug had wanted to stop and see me. The next morning when he went to do the milking, Joe found the cows outside the barn with the door shut, which was unusual. When he opened the door there was Doug on the floor with his brains in the gutter! He had put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. My Dad had been unable to pay him for some time, and he must have felt that he was going blind and was a burden. He left an envelope partially addressed to his ninety-year-old sister in Iowa who had always written that there was still a home for him there on the family farm. His pride may have kept him from going back.

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Dad had the local undertaker put him back together, dye his hair back to its original, red color, got a nice casket, and shipped him back to Iowa to his sister, along with most of the pictures of his mining days, which I cherished. We could not afford all this but it was a matter of principle to my Dad. Having principle directed his life. The worst he could say of a man was that he had none. Mildred and Spencer Trump were married that spring in a beautifully simple ceremony after Sunday evening church. Her Sunday School class of teenage girls held up flowered wands and made an arch through which they marched to the altar. There was no money for a more elaborate wedding. No one we knew had had a big wedding for several years, not even down in the big city. They went up to Enterprise to live where Spencer was to work for Creight Burnside on Alder Slope. Dorothy and John George were married and living over in Boise valley and I was working away from home at times. During my time there, I was involved in my own self-centered life, paying little attention to activities of my Spencer and Mildred Trump younger brothers and sisters. However, on "Old Stone Face" it was an exciting time for Tom who was up Parsnip Creek, c. 1933 just fourteen, and finding out that he could get credit for doing what men were doing and get paid for it. He had not wanted to move to town but found there was a whole new world down there in Wallowa. I will let him tell about this special year of 1934 in his own words:

I remember the day we moved to the Waddell place which was on the old highway, close to the big mill site. It was on Saturday the fourth day of]anuary in 1934. That was an open dry winter. There never seemed to be any snow on the ground. The place was about three acres with a nice house, which suited our needs and the rent was cheap, about ten dollars a month. I can't remember just how much. Mr. Waddell was the station agent at the railroad and had raised silver foxes, also. We were able to keep hogs for FFA. Joe and I both had projects. We needed a barn because we took our cows of course. Cecil Chrisman, our neighbor, let us use his little red barn for little or nothing because he did not use it. He even paid the electricity which was hooked on his meter.

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The sheep trains came in that spring, bringing sheep from winter pasture on the desert to summer pasture in higher country. They gave those four long blasts on the whistle early in the morning, and I knew that meant they were ready to unload, and out of bed I would fly and down to the train. They would usually put me in one of those upper decks, because there is not as much space in the upper one for a man. The train crew would stay right there and go from car to car. There were usually twenty-some cars, more or less. Maybe one owner had three or four bands. They came in from Echo and Heppner and that country, and I remember such fellows as Barney Donahue and Barney Doherty, and Pete Slavin, all Irishmen, who I helped at that time. Slavin was big and tall. After the train was loaded, one of them would take me uptown and get me breakfast-boy, the works, ham and eggs and fried potatoes and milk and toast. It cost thirty-five cents, but I was always hungry, so I filled up. Then he would give me a silver dollar; that would be my pay for the day's work. I could still make it in time for school most mornings.

Of course living along the railroad there made for many adventures. This is when I got acquainted with Sport McBath and Bud Jones. We would go down by the old mill, which was not running at the time. It did not start up again until three or four years after that. Everything was there, but it was all closed down and silent. This was the year they picked up the steel along the Bowman Hicks railroad tracks out in the north end and were hauling it in. I was always hanging around down there to see what was happening. They loaded the rails on flat cars, using a skid loader that they drug along on top, just like they had used to load and haul logs, only it would not take as many rails to make a load. Leonard Ferguson was working at hooking onto the rails. One day I saw him take ahold of a bar to turn it and he did not get it quite over; it flopped back and caved the whole side of his face in. He had to be taken clear to La Grande to a doctor at the old Grande Ronde Hospital.

Dad rented the railroad land for pasture, just north of the track, between the stockyard and the Wallowa River. There was ten acres at a total rental of ten dollars a year. There was an irrigation ditch for it, but the trouble was the water got so low that we could not get water out in the ditch, so that pasture did not last long-dried up. At that time we were milking seven cows. We started out in 1932 with the T.B. and Bangs disease testing program and lost several out of the forty-some milking cows we had at that time. We had to have another test at the Asher place before we moved to town and lost some more. That was real bad luck for us, because we counted on those cows for a lot of our living. Our cream check was about all we had to buy groceries. There were two brothers who lived in a little shack, back in the pines behind our house. There was no unemployment insurance and no Social Security, and how those two old men made it in those

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hard times it is hard to say. Bert would come over every evening after milk, saying it was for his cats, but we knew it made up a big part of their diet. One evening Mom said to me, "Tom, are you giving Bert whole milk?" Of course it had never occurred to me that that would make any different to anyone. I said, "Why, sure." She said, "Well, we just can't afford that. That is why the cream check is getting so low." (It ran around two dollars a shot and we had a can to sell once, or maybe twice, a week.) You are going to have to give him skim milk. It will be plenty good enough." I hated to tell Bert that, but I did. It didn't matter to him; he would bring his Karo syrup bucket or his ten pound lard pail over for that milk, no matter. He was my friend. He knew when it was milking time, where the cows were kept, and all about those cows as well as I did. When the railroad pasture go short one little Jersey cow learned how to squirm through that barbed-wire fence and head toward the mill race, between the depot and town. There was lots of grass along the mill race. I tried various kinds of yokes on that cow, trying to hold her back from getting through the fence, but none of them ever did work. When that little cow got out, Bert would put her back. Sometimes she would be gone at milking time, and pretty soon here he would come; he had found her. One time he went after her and she was the city pound at Johnny Mac's corral where stray animals were impounded, there by the river and the old mill race. Tad Mccrae was marshal, and he had the little cow shut up there. Bert just opened the gate and let her out and was driving her home. He ran into Tad, who was in his old Dodge pickup, that he drove around town, down where the old Miller hotel used to be and Tad said, 'What are you doing with that cow? I had her locked up in Johnny Mac's corral.' Bert said, "That is Tommy Johnson's cow and there ain't nobody locking up Tommy Johnson's cow. I'm taking her home for him to milk." Tad said, 'Well, I guess that is all right. You go right ahead.' The pasture was all dried up and we did not have a lick of good hay for those cows. For grain ration, they got plain old mill run from the flour mill. By golly, if we were going to milk those cows, they had to have feed, and we had to milk those cows. There was quite a bit of grass on the northwest corner of town, so that is where the herding began, and I'm the guy who did nearly all of that herding. When I was home it was always my job. Doug might have an occasion to do it and Joe also, when I was not around.

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There was really not much herding. Those cows herded you, and you just went along with them. When they got their belly full, they 7 , 0Uld shade up. About three o'clock they would always get up and start wandering again. I learned that there would be a couple of hours that I would not have to be right with them. That is when I got to be a good buddy with Sport McBath. He would hang around me and the cows. Bud Jones teamed up with us. He was a little more worldly, and thought he should teach Sport how to smoke while we were resting under the trees at noon. He brought out a package of cigarettes, lit one and handed it to Sport, saying, 'Now, take a big drag!' Sport took a real big one. 'Cough, Cough; chocked Sport. '1 don't think I want to learn.' 'Oh, you are doing fine', said Bud. 'Here, you just need to practice. You will soon get the hang of it.' Sport took another drag and Sport kept coaching him. He was doing pretty well until his head began turning and his stomach began churning. "Gosh", he said, "I'm sick! I want to go home." 'Oh, you can't go home right now, Sport', warned his pupil, 'Your mother will kill you.' 'I don't care', moaned Sport, 'I'm gonna die anyway, and I want to die at home!'

Every day Mom would give me a dime as sort a pay or compensation for that job. Sport would generally have that amount in his pocket, so every day we would head for town at noon. For twenty cents we could get a half pound bar of Homestead chocolate, or Nestles or Hershey, or for variation we would get a little can of shrimp and some crackers or a can of olives. They were around fourteen cents a can, so that messed up our twenty cents. A small loaf of bread was less than a dime, and frankfurters were about two for a nickel, so for twenty cents we could get four of them and some bread and we had a feast. That is how our noon meal was taken care of every day. When I herded toward home, Doug always had the mill run for ration in the mangers in the little red barn. One side held five or six cows. I was up at Creight Burnside's place on Alder Slope the morning Doug ended his life, or I might have been the one who found him. Late that afternoon Dad showed up at Creight's. We were supposed to wo!k in the hay until it was finished. Well, here was Dad, and I could not figure out why. Al Running, who was a friend of Doug's, was with Dad, and he was the one who told me about Doug. A week or so before, Doug had asked me to look in his trunk with him. He had all

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his old mining stock there. He said, 'If I had just part of what I spent on that I would be a rich man, I would not have to worry about anything.' He was in a troubled state of mind. I sensed that, but with a big house full of kids and everyone pushing to keep things afloat, no one had much time to consider any individual's problems, and we didn't notice Doug's trouble. He knew it was hard times for mom and dad and everyone else. There were many hobos along the railroad track and they came by our place to find something to eat. Mom never refused them. One Saturday a bunch came in on the train and we had a string of four or five in a row. Mom used up all the extra food she had, and even cooked up some from scratch. She made biscuits and cooked up some more potatoes. Everyone offered to work for something to eat, but after the first one or two, there was not much more wood to be split. Finally, she said, 'Where are all those fellers coming from?' I had got acquainted with the hobos over in their jungle by our pasture, east of the river down there by the railroad, and was a little bit wise to some of their ways. I said, 'Let's go outside and take a look around.' We found their chalk mark on the fence post by the front gate and proceeded to take a brush and brush it off-eliminating the handout sign. The first fellow who had luck always left a sign for others. They never came more than one at a time. These men were nice to a kid and they were all decent people, most of them clean. Some got water from the river and washed their clothes every day. They generally had a bar of soap in their pack and a change of socks or underwear and maybe an extra shirt-not much, just so they could handle their packs easy when they were getting off a car of the train. One of them taught me my first lessons in gambling and it has stayed with me ever since. He showed me the shell game. After letting me find a pea or two under the walnut shell, he socked it to me and let me try it again and again. I ended up by losing everything I had loose, but my belt. When I began to protest, he returned everything to me and then spent some time showing me how he held the pea between his thumb and second finger. He said, 'Now, there is no way anyone can beat this, if a man is good at handling the pea.' I always remembered that lesson from that time on. I certainly never bet on a shell game and very few other games. I thank God many times over that I did not turn into a compulsive gambler.

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Chapter 7

On InY ow-n

My three older sisters were married by this time. There was no need of me at home, and I felt I had to make some money. A stint at a local restau- rant provided not much more than one meal a day; tipping was not a wide- spread custom in our area at the time. Somehow I had to get ahead. After I did housework for a ranch family for the summer for a dollar a day, I kept house for two widowers in Enterprise, one of whom had two children age nine and eleven. I did all the housework, cooking, washing and ironing and sometimes milked the cow. I loved the girls and the men were nice. I could not complain except for the low wages of seventeen dollars a month. My cooking left a lot to be desired but there was not much money allotted for food, so I could use that for an excuse. Some substance in the surround- ings really affected my allergies and I had "spells" that almost incapacitated me. When September of the next year came I had saved fifty dollars and decided that education was the answer to my poverty. I bought a new pair of shoes, made over a skirt and two blouses and headed for La Grande to college which had finally been built by the state after some pushing by citi- zens of eastern Oregon. I settled on it because it was closer and cheaper than any I knew. Joe had received a Union Pacific scholarship because of his Future Farmers work in high school and went down to Corvallis the same year, 1935. He joined a no-fraternity coperative which students had organ- ized to share expenses. They were proud not to be classed a social frat house and did a lot of practical good for poor students who needed a cheap place to live. There were no dormitories at Eastern Oregon Normal School. I first shared two rooms over a mom and pop grocery store up on the hill a few blocks from the college with with Agnes Lively. We cooked by kerosene and the smell of our clothes soon let the world know. A hall bathroom was shared with three other "apartments". Total rental price was nine dollars a month. With tuition at seventeen dollars and fifty cents a quarter, we did not eat much, our mainstay being a hamburger dish we called Hungarian goulash. It was pretty good when we had the corn, tomatoes and onions to put in with our hamburger. I had to find some kind of work. Helping in the cafeteria at noon gave me lunch but I needed cash. It came in the form of National Youth Authority, or NYA, one of Roosevelt's programs, for which I was paid fifteen dollars a month to help the teachers. I learned a lot

125 Mo~ngOn ------by helping a music teacher and the director of teachers' training, but don't think they benefitted much. My health was poor and when I had a spell I had to stay in bed until it passed. Agnes and I were good friends but she had a steady boy friend in La Grande at that time and I did not, lacking the time and energy. We went right on through the summer terms so that we might be able to teach in two years, which gave us the equivalent three years of college.

When Agnes went out to teach ahead of me, I moved into a large boarding house where I roomed with my cousin Ruth Johnson. Fifteen or more girls meant a lot of excitement. We cooked and ate in the basement and had the run of the house. The housemother dyed her hair pink and, at what seemed an advanced age to us girls, liked to dance and be one of us. She kept her husband busy keeping the place up. We had no idea he was suffering, either mentally or physically, but after a break I came back to learn that he had shot and killed himself. Our housemother grieved because he had made a mess on her patio.

When we students from Wallowa County had time to go home we went on the train which was a diesel by that time and had a distinctive honk for a whistle; this gave it its name, the Galloping Goose. It was an interesting trip through the Grande Ronde and Wallowa river canyons but a slow one. The bus was faster but I don't remember going home on it very often. A bunch of us usually started out walking from La Grande and someone from the valley would be sure to come along and pick us up. Most travel on that road, highway eighty-two, was for business or commercial reasons and someone in our bunch could identify most of it. We never had to walk farther than Island City. Drivers knew us, also. If they had business in Cove, or Indian Valley, or Elgin, we just went along and waited until it was finished. We girls always walked in twos or threes and still felt safe in our own little world. We usually made that fifty miles home in two or three hours.

Joe and I traded dollar bills back and forth when we were completely broke, but neither of us had any stuffed away for the big expenses of books and tutition. As a last resort (I hated going in debt), I borrowed five hundred dollars interest free from the Wallowa Womens' Club that last year. This freed me from worry and I could enjoy school more. Some of my family came out to the Evensong ceremony which is held on the winding steps of the main building every year at graduation time. Kathleen Conklin from Wallowa and I were chosen, along with others, as princesses for that affair. The criteria for I have forgotten. I wore a peach-colored Grecian gown, the symbolism of which I can no longer recall. The ceremony, which was held just at dusk with candles, marching, and music on the grand steps of the main building, was beautiful and impressive and is still a tradition of the college.

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I already had a job teaching down on the Oregon desert some distance from Baker. All teachers going into an area, where spotted fever was preva- lent, had their tick shots, which made my arm so sore I could not compete in our athletic tournament. It took little time to pack my meager belongings and head for home on the Galloping Goose. I soon met a man who changed my plans, and thus my life.

Joe Hopkins had just been hired as Superintendent of Schools out at Flora and he still needed a teacher for the upper grades there. School started in less than a week and he needed an immediate answer. It did not take me long to make a decision. Jamieson, down in the east central part of the state where I had planned to teach, was a long way from the nearest town and I Winona Johnson at Evensong had no car. A former teacher said that Ceremony Eastern Oregon the rancher's wife who boarded the Normal, teachers was not noted for her La Grande, 1937 cleanliness. The salary would have been the same, eighty-five dollars a month, but there was another consideration. I had had time to become engaged to a railroad man fourteen years older than I was while he was stationed in La Grande. His home was in Portland but he often worked at La Grande and I thought Flora might be closer for him to visit. We planned to be married after my first year of teaching by which time I would have paid off my debt to the Womens' Club. I called and got out of my contract at Jamieson, my Dad took me to Flora to meet the school board and I was hired. Halsey Holloway, one of the members, asked if I planned to stay in the community on weekends or rush out to brighter lights. I thought that was none of his business, but answered, "I have no car so will be here most of the time."

I could not envision staying any length of time. In 1937 the place was already a ghost town. From a thriving community of two stores, two hotels, three churches, post office, a millinery shop, a bank, a barbershop and newspaper, the village was reduced to eight families and a combination store and Post Office. Most of my pupils came from the surrounding coun- tryside. Social life was visiting, attending Grange functions, and what ex- citement one could stir up. Joe Hopkins and his wife Lola, who also taught

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in the high school, became my good friends and gave me a lot of support. They lived in the sturdy, old, bank building which housed several mothers and their school-aged children through the years when they moved in for the winter from the ranch to be close to school. I boarded with Grant and Artie Johnson, two older people whose families had pioneered in the area.,for twenty-five dollars a month. Their large, nice home had a newly installed bathroom which I mention because there was hardly another in the community. That came in handy that winter when I acquired the itch at school when some of my pupils had it. This uncomfortable affliction is caused by a species of mite that burrows into the epidermis and it is hard to get rid of. The old-fashioned remedy of a mixture of sulphur and lard rubbed in thoroughly each evening after a hot bath, was effective but only in conjunction with clean, boiled pajamas and fresh sheets every night. At that time there was no running water at the large, handsome schoolhouse. Drinking water was carried by the janitor and there were two double outhouses out back, one on each side of the schoolhouse. I taught fifteen pupils in grades five through eight and tried new methods of progressive teaching I had learned at La Grande. The head of teacher training there had taught at Columbia Teachers College and was imbued with John Dewey's philosophy of education-so much so, that she said that if she ever visited our classrooms and found a page by page assignment written on the board she would have us fired! I soon realized that learning only what you wanted to did not fit in with a multi-grade curriculum, and my pupils were to be given county examinations. I reverted to old-time methods of "sit in your seat, be quiet and study what you are assigned." My teachers' training teacher never got that far into the back country. A group of us older young people decided to put on a play just for fun. Practice was held in the schoolhouse which had a big auditorium and a stage. We had a lot of fun while practicing Aaron Slick from Punkin Creek. Lynn and Gerville Ward rode horseback from Buford Ridge, Halsey and Hazel Holloway drove up from the Star district, Kermit and Wayne Wilson came from Paradise. Merritt Holloway rode the five miles up from Plumb Nearly, Brady Botts and one or two others came from around Flora. The audience was kind, and we had broken the tedium of a long winter.

Most teachers in the surrounding rural area had gone to La Grande to school at the time I had and we saw each other frequently. I walked down to Troy one weekend and up the hill to Bartlett to visit Margaret Duff who was teaching there. Ercel and Mary Richman took us down to Troy to the dance. Those dances were held were large affairs, bringing in people from

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the surrounding areas of Eden, Lost Prairie, Lightle Flat, Bartlett, and Powwatka. The adventurous came from Wallowa, Enterprise, and Lostine, braving a treacherous, narrow grade anyway they came, down into the relative sunbelt of Troy whose elevation is only 1,800 feet. One time after a trip into Bartlett Dad had commented; "Those people out in the North End are so extravagant that they make their roads three inches wider than a car." They must have seemed just that wide to a friend of mine who came out from Wallowa, over the Powwatka grade, to see me at a Troy dance. He arrived at eleven P.M., only half believing what he had endured on that rainy night, over rutted potholes and a slippery road twisting down the point of the hill to the Grande Ronde far below. If it had been daylight he might have died of fright. His nerves were further shattered after driving up the old Flora grade which climbed another point coming out of the canyon. He delivered me at the Johnsons in Flora and I never saw him again.

The huge dance hall was a renovated blacksmith shop. There was a raised platform in the middle of the hall for the music which was called the bandstand. We always said someone "furnished the music" There was an amazing amount of talent in the country. Many families had someone who cold play the guitar, violin and piano among them being; Martin, Schuman, Bott, Keisicker, Botts (different family than Bott), Walls, Redman, Fleenors and Wilson. Dancers had plenty of room to whirl around the bandstand; we did so with abandon, flying, twirling and dipping-none of this standing in one place wiggling our shoulders and hips. Early in the morning a young man was apt to climb up the the huge rafters, flap his wings and cry "cockle-doodle-do just for the sheer joy of it. No one curtailed his fun. Almost everyone brought all their children and it was as a small child that many of my friends learned to dance, there at Troy. Most fathers danced with their small daughters and showed them the ropes. Small boys danced with grandmas and no one laughed at the couple. Babies were put to sleep in several back seats taken from old cars which were conveniently turned so the rear end would provide protection from exuberant dancers and others who were not too steady on their feet. There was competition for those baby nests. Feeling that your child was safe from harm and in a spot where he could be watched as you danced by left you free to enjoy yourself more. (All three of our sons slumbered peacefully through those all-night dances in those old car seats at the dance hall while their young parents waltzed, fox- trotted and did their own individual flea hop to the Beer Barrel Polka.) Mrs. Lottie Richman ran the dances, engaging local musicians and serving lunch at midnight. Tickets for the men cost one dollar and ladies were free. The floor manager who "called" the dances got his ticket and supper free. You could best pick a partner if you knew the dance would be a

129 Moving On ------waltz, two-step, fox trot or a quadrille. I can still see Charlie Egert from way over on Cougar Mountain in Washington, come out on the floor with his bald head shining and announcing, "Get your partners for the supper dance." There was a certain protocol to be followed: Ladies only asked a man to dance on ladies choice; a gentleman was expected to dance the first and last dances with his wife or girlfriend as well as buy her supper and dance the first dance after supper with her. If a man asked an unattached girl to have supper with him, she knew she was being "pinned," so to speak. If he went further and asked to take her home, she knew she was branded because this might mean a trip of forty or fifty miles before he could get back to his home. I have known young men who rode horseback from Flora-escorted a girl back to her home who had ridden down from Eden to the Troy dance with her good clothes in a flour sack on her saddle-and then rode back up to Flora without sleep. If he was in favor with her parents, he might be asked to stay the night. If not, he was in for a long, cold ride home unless he stopped at - some rancher's place along the way. There was not much use for lawmen there in the outback. I never knew a sheriff being called just because there was going to be a dance. If things got a little rowdy outside the hall someone always managed to prevent an outright riot. Families might have it in for each other and pick a fight but public opinion kept the bigger bunch tamed a little. The word got out if you took unfair advantage and you were not too popular after that. I guess it amounted to fighting fair. In later years, when Troy Days became huge affairs, participants were more prone to let it all hang out.

I had a visit from my fiance in November, and he said, "I'm going to get you out of here, this is no place for you." He thought Flora was the end of the world. I did not think he belonged there, either. After he left I did a lot of thinking and came to a conclusion that marriage counselors now espouse. For a compatible marriage, couples should think alike. I bundled up my engagement ring in a sweater which I had borrowed from him and mailed it to him-not once, but twice. Beside that, I had met someone else. One of my students kept telling me that her big brother was coming home from working in the harvest over in the Lewiston area. My "room" was having a wiener roast at Halloween time when he showed up. I wasn't interested at first, however, he had good horses because his father bred and raised good ones. They were always on hand when there was a dance or party and that was a real plus at a time when the roads were so bad that the only method of transportation was by horseback.

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Merritt Holloway owes his life to a good horse. In the winter of 1924 there were epidemics of both measles and scarlet fever in the country and most children were down with one or the other. Merritt had both. He took the measles first and then came down with scarlet fever. He also had what they called putrid sore throat which was an accompaniment of scarlet fever. There happened to a doctor in Flora at that time who stayed about a year and boarded at the hotel which was run by Mrs. Henry Finley. When Merritt's condition worsened, the doctor called out to La Grande for a serum to be sent to Enterprise on the Merritt Holloway at train. It was a hard winter and the Plumb Nearly c.1933 roads were bad. Automobiles were not going through. A horse could beat a sled, therefore it was decided that Halsey, Merritt's sixteen-year-old brother, a wild and fearless rider, would be the one to ride out for the medicine. Merritt was in a coma and the doctor said he would be dead before morning if he was not given the serum. This was his only chance. The horse that could make it was a seven-year-old semi-outlaw who had never been really tamed. Once he was caught and a telephone call af- firmed the medicine was in Enterprise and another rider was heading out with it on the north highway, Halsey mounted and lost no time in heading south, not sparing that wild, strong horse. He met the other rider about ten miles out of town with the medicine, turned around and rode home, a round trip of sixty miles in record time, arriving at two A.M. Dr. Stroud in- jected the serum and Merritt is alive to this day. He had a case of rheumatic fever and was in bed for twenty-one days and had to learn to walk again. His heart was damaged enough to need a pacemaker in his later years but he is alive and is in debt to several people; a doctor who knew about this mys- tery serum, Halsey who was just the boy to get it back in time, the rider who headed out from Enterprise in the dead of winter, and a mother who told me she stayed by him night and day until he was out of danger. Sadly, the horse who figured most prominently, died soon after-choked at the end of a rope when he fell down a steep hill on which he was tied to a tree. I could not ride very well but through good tutelage was able to cover a lot of country. One winter trip was from Plumb Nearly-the Holloway ranch, so called because it was "Plumb out of town and Nearly out of the country" -over Bear Canyon to Lost Prairie, down the trail to Troy and up

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the grade to Eden. On one cold trek I wore long underwear, slacks, a snow- suit and chaps. I had to be helped on my horse but kept warm. With all this horsing around, there was bound to be romance. Merritt and I planned marriage in the spring. He contracted a fence job and saved some money and I had paid back my debt and saved a little. How I man- aged on seventy dollars for clothes and spending money during that school term I don't know, but I did. School was out the twenty-first of May. We packed our few belongings in Merritt's 1927 Buick touring car, counted our cash, which came to $150 and headed for Idaho. That state required no blood test for a marriage license which would have cost money besides it was more glamorous to go out of the county.

There was no north road from Enterprise to Lewiston in those days except the Shumaker grade named for Chet Shumaker who settled there on the Deer Creek in 1880 and worked over what had been an Indian trail into a road of sorts before the turn of the century. A ferry got travellers across the Grande Ronde before a bridge was built. Indians had camped there for centuries in a grove of trees. It is good fruit country and Shumaker set out 2,000 trees and grape vines and raised melons. People came from miles around for his produce. North Enders trailed cattle and even hogs over that route. It wasn't much of a road but it was all there was In June, 1906 the Wallowa County Chie"{tain reported: A sad accident occurred on the Shoemaker grade last Thursday where road boss Groff and a crew of men were blasting out a new grade. Groff was blown to pieces and two others killed and another man badly wounded. The bridge went out in high water in 1948 and no one goes that way anymore. At the time we tried it) It was the only way out north and was travelled regularily even though the grade rivalled all others for steepness and sharp switchbacks-well remembered by anyone who negotiated them. When a curve was too sharp to go around in one try, it was necessary to back up a little and start again. One could only pray and hope that his brakes and ability to shift gears quickly would endure. We almost didn't make it. The Buick did not have enough power to pull the last few feet of that hill unas- sisted. Someone had to get out and push, and that someone was me. Thus began a family joke.

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Chapter 8

In -which -we try it out there in the big-world

We chose a "church" wedding in lieu of a Justice of the Peace. Some- how it seemed more binding even though it was only in the parsonage with two witnesses. On May 23, 1938 Merritt's brother Lowell, came from Pom- eroy, Washington, where he was working and "stood up" with us. I col- lected a bouquet of roses from Wilma De Lore's garden in Clarkston to pin on my bosom, Merritt had a new navy blue suit from Montgomery Ward and my wedding band from the same source cost five dollars. That narrow band wore thin after twenty-five years and was replaced by a much wider one. I made my wedding dress of peach net over peach satin, with a tur- quoise velvet belt, and tiny bows of velvet at the neck and sleeves. Some- where in our many later moves this artifact was lost. If some reader has run across it in some old house, it can be further identified by a mended tear across the bodice caused when an ironing board collapsed. The blue suit ended its years in the far reaches of the Colorado River canyon country, worn to advantage by Segandy Yazzy Begay, our eighty-year-old Navajo friend, to whom Merritt gave it when we ended an adventure there in 1952. (Segandy was handsome in that outfit with his long white hair doubled into a knot at the back of his head, his tall, black hat perched on his looped hair and strings of turquoise beads swinging in his ears. Winters are cold on the Colorado Plateau. I would like to think that suit helped keep him warm in his declining years.) The minister had no set fee for marriages but used a wily technique to get what the traffic would bear. After the ceremony when Merritt asked how much he owed, his answer was, "How much is she worth?" That left Merritt in a real quandary. I can't remember if I was worth three dollars or five. The preacher was kind enough to predict that our children would be well formed; our physiques, of blocky on one hand and tall and slender on the other, would combine to produce physically balanced offspring. We hoped he was right. Couples expected to have children in those days; planned parenthood may have been the goal of many, but was rarely achieved. Lowell took us out for our wedding dinner of our favorite dish, oysters, and we rounded out the day at a beer garden to celebrate where we ran into acquaintances who helped us.

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We stayed at the Raymond Hotel. Northenders, as people living in that part of Wallowa County were called, sometimes stayed there when in Lewiston, as well as using the lobby as a meeting place while spending a day in town. "Meet you at the Raymond," meant that was where you would be when it was time for the long trip home. It was built to last, way back 'in the gold rush days of Idaho. It had lasted and seemed grand enough to us. While checking the Buick touring car with side curtains and wooden- spoked wheels to see how many quarts of oil it would need this time, Merritt discovered that his wool mackinaw had been stolen. It was coming summer and we were headed south for Boise and warmer climes. Therefore, this was aggravating but of no immediate worry.

We planned to travel around that summer and see what we could of the world, first heading south on highway ninety-five. The creepy-crawly route down the old Whitebird grade from Grangeville took awhile but held no terrors for us after those roads that led to Troy. It took us through the battlefield where only fifty years before sixty Nez Perce warriors had soundly defeated the whites in the first battle of that war. A few years later an old, blind Indian, a warrior survivor and tribal historian, tried to to tell me that story when I was sitting in the Raymond in Lewiston waiting for my ride home. Alas, I was self-occupied and a little embarrassed by sitting in conversation with him, and now loath my youthful disdain. We hadn't thought much about the shape of our tires until one went flat. Without an adequate spare, Merritt had to hitchhike into New Meadows for another and I found he was a mortal man after all, with all his attending frustrations. We were wiser and poorer when we reached my sister's house in the big city of Boise. Gas, lodging, tires, and food had taken a bite out of our cash. It had been necessary to fill up with oil each time we bought gas, a warning that that car was too expensive for us to drive. We stopped in Boise to visit John and Dorothy; she was just home from the hospital with a new baby daughter, Susan George. I fell right into the routine of baby care and cooking. John was working hard and liked good food and Dorothy had been giving him the best. I tried to follow her example. Merritt headed out in the Buick to look for work. His first trip was to Silver City, Idaho, once a booming mining town. In 1938 there was still one mine in operation and there was a bar and a few people in residence waiting for the good times to come again. Further on the country was so barren and the road so poor that even he, who was accustomed to bad roads, turned back. Fortunately he got a job on a ranch out of Meridian, Idaho and came and took me out to the rodeo there, where he was entered in the bareback riding.

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He rode one day and got day money of three dollars. The next day he bucked off but he had not lost anything and we had a joyous time hobnob- bing with rodeo cowboys and their women. Like us, they were mostly ranch-bred-there being no rodeo colleges at that time-and the most fun was hanging out with others with the same lifestyle as your own. Put down in Times Square we would have been terrorized but very few natives of New York City would have fit in with our crowd that day. No one had to get in a pickup or plane and make another rodeo performance that night, therefore, we collected at the only place in town where we could eat, drink, and dance and have a party. A cowboy or two tried to shine a little too brightly and there were threats of a fight, but brags soon wore thin and we settled down to serious dancing. It was a time when we were responsible only to our- selves, a time to be young and gay and foolish and we took it. Back in Boise we got all dressed up and had our wedding picture taken. My nose was distorted in the proof from which we ordered two dozen pic- tures. In our naivete we though that there was no alternative. Some of our distant progeny will think I had a very big nose. The next day I got all dressed up, looking pretty good, and applied for a wait- ress job in a place down- town. The boss took one look at me and said he never hired "chippies". I didn't know what he meant right then but when I did I wanted to go back and slap his face and am still mad because I didn't. That inci- dent discouraged me. It seemed like a good idea to head toward the west with what money we had and try for jobs along the way. I had friends around Payette where fruit-packing houses would be operating at this time; we went that way, found their place in the country, and lost no time that afternoon in spot- ting a packing shed that was Merritt and Winona Holloway doing cherries. Their May 23, 1938, Lewiston, Idaho method of hiring was to line

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up all applicants and pick the youngest and strongest looking; we fit both categories. I packed cher_riesand Merritt carried boxes to and from some- where. The best to be found for a midnight lunch at the corner grocery was sweet rolls and grapefruit juice. We ate and drank while perched up on the loading ramp. It gave us queasy stomachs for the rest of the night. No mat- ter, we had gas money, a dollar and eighty cents for me, and a little more for Merritt. He had an uncle around Baker, Oregon, so we headed that way. His aunt was making do with practically nothing out on a place furnished by her husband's employer, but she was gracious and cheerful despite cooking for her own large family and a big crew of hay hands for nothing except having the food furnished. Her job came with her husband's which was often the case in those days when the "hired" ranch woman worked with- out pay. We were accustomed to the cool summers of Wallowa County and although most of us slept in beds out under the huge poplar trees, the place seemed unbearably hot. We went to town on Saturday night and Merritt found out that the Rouse ranch down on the Burnt River was needing hay hands. We borrowed three dollars for gas money and headed south. Mr. Rouse, an Irish gentleman, was running a large cow and hay ranch and his niece from Ireland was managing the domestic end of the opera- tion. His nephews, whose father was deceased, were partners with their uncle. I cooked for twelve men or so, pumping water and carrying it in, and washing all the dishes and clothes for the owners. My wage was one dollar a day and Merritt, who drove a team on a buck rake, got three. It was a horse-drawn operation. Horses pulled the mowing machine, the buck rakes and the stacker-called an overshot. Buck rakes in front of the teams brought the hay to the stacker on big, flat prongs of the forks. A derrick horse pulled the rope which ran through a pulley out from the stack so that the load was pulled up backwards onto the stack. The stacker who placed and packed the hay which this overshot stacker flipped up, had to be adroit and strong. Native hay was cut on the meadows for winter cow feed and the haying operation took a month or more. The place had its own ice house and one day when Kate was gone the men suggested I make ice cream. I don't know who snitched on me, maybe I just told her myself which was a mistake; her duty was to provide adequate food and to her that did not include catering to expensive tastes. When she returned to the ranch she said, "Those men don't tell me what to cook around here!" I learned who was boss. Operations moved up country five miles or so and I did all the cooking up at that place. Three Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, boys from the Bronx were in the crew and they scraped a whole platter of bacon onto their plates before others were served, as well as doing the same with another luxury, sliced tomatoes. I could, and did, slice more tomatoes for the others but I had to ration the bacon. My boss came up and curtailed serving sliced

136 ------MowngOn tomatoes and I learned to place individual servings of bacon on plates be- fore the men came in to eat. Maybe the boys from the Bronx were accus- tomed to pigging out at the CCC camp, but I suspect they had always lacked consideration for others. No ranch hands I had seen before acted the way they did, and their conduct colored my thinking for a long time. All that hay affected my allergies. I had to get up at four o'clock and rush all day and I was having dizzy, fatigue spells. Life was made bearable by one talented hand we called Pinky, who kept us roaring with his non- sense, stories and advice. He and Merritt and I went swimming in the reser- voir one Sunday afternoon. Water covered the road bed and old grade which we did not realize was there until Merritt stepped off it and sank many feet into deep water. He had been raised far from any river and could not swim. After his head came up twice, allowing him opportunity to yell for help, I remembered that this was so and swam out to rescue him. He wrapped his arms and legs around me and was about to take us both down before I grabbed a big handful of hair, pushed him away from me, and towed him out by the hair of his head. Pinky related that episode, with variations, for the rest of the summer. He had chosen to work away from town because he couldn'ts leave liquor alone. When we went to Baker, he gave me all his money with in- structions not to let him have any of it no matter what. He got the money out of my purse without my knowledge, got really boozed up, and had to be rounded up for the trip home. He died an alcoholic death a few years later. This was before alcoholism was considered a real disease and AA was organ- ized. An alcoholic was thought to have a character defect and it was hoped religion or a good woman would be the answer to his problem. Having a heart broken by a woman was an excuse for excessive drinking. It was con- venient and safe to blame the problem on some woman. Pinky never blamed anyone else. He just said he was a drunk. When haying was over, we headed back toward Wallowa County with a few dollars in our pocket and no immediate threat of starvation. I had been offered a contract to teach in Flora another year but had accepted one teaching the lower grades at District No.1 in Lower Valley, the school I had visited with my sisters as a small child. Our Buick had had its expected demise and we had spent fifty dollars on a 1930 Essex sedan with Nevada license plates. Although it was only eight years old, the Nevada sun had faded and bleached its exterior until the original blue was visible only in patches. While Merritt was away from the car, I had to explain to a cop that we planned to get new license as soon as we got home; our other car was an old wreck and we had bought this one to get us there. I was really tempted to let that smart-aleck have it when he said, "What do you call this one?" But I remembered something about a law prohibiting hitting an officer of the law in time to put on my fake smile and giggle, a technique by which my generation of females had learned to operate in a man's world.

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Chapter 9

Soineone told us that if we kept at it, everything would coine out O.K.

The depression was almost over, at least in "our neck of the woods"- one of my mother's expressions. Wallowa in 1938, if not booming, was humming. Logging trucks were hauling from all the surrounding country into J. Herbert Bate's mill which was positioned below the town at the con- fluence of Bear creek and Wallowa river. Except for six silent years in the midst of the depression, the whine of the saws in that spot had been going on more or less continuously since the 1920's when Nibley Mimnaugh had built the first large mill complex . Because of the availability of much good timber in Wallowa County, it has been sawmill country since early settlement and each area had one or more small mills. There was some transportation of lumber even before 1900. A descendant of Dr. Mason, who lived in the Arko area between Flora and Troy before there was a Flora, told me that her grandmother hauled planed lumber from Wallowa for the floors of her new house there. Mr. Forstad, who had been a millwright at Perry over in the Blue Mountains, came into Wallowa with Nibley-Mimnaugh and started a mill out in the northwest part of Diamond Prairie close to where Rogge mill is at the present time. The railroad had just come in, and the lumber industry started in earnest. At that time the virgin lumber was cut from the long, high ridge just behind Diamond Prairie. Fifty years later when the trees were being harvested again from that same ridge, my mother looked over at the operation and said, "I remember when they cut the trees off those hills the first time. I had just come to Oregon, and had never seen lumbering before. I didn't think big trees would ever grow back up there again, but they have, and here I have lived to see them cut a second time." My brother, Tom K. Johnson, worked in Wallowa mills for several years before WW II and later after he had served in the war as tail gunner on a bomber over Europe-out of England. He was sent home with a medical discharge while the war was still raging. His firsthand experiences will be of interest to many: After the Depression, they did not steam up the Wallowa mill again until 1936 when Bowman Hicks started with Ward Evans as mill manager and Newton Ashby as the timber manager. Newton always liked being out in the woods and liked the timber part of it so well.

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Bowman Hicks soon sold out to J. Herbert Bates from Georgia. Some of the old timers said they did not know what they were doing, but they made a modern and large producing mill out of it before labor troubles closed it down in the early sixties. They dismantled it then, and Wallowa lost a fantastic industry when that mill went. But that mill was a good part of my life for several years, just like it was for most of the men in Wallowa. I went to work there the first part of September, 1938, just out of high school, and was put on the planer that planed all the thick shop and select lumber. That may have been when part of my hearing started to go, when I had to work all day long in the maws of that thing and go home and hear it growling in my head all night. I worked there three and a half years. In 1939 Bowman Hicks closed their La Grande plant and many of their men transferred and moved into Wallowa. They started expand- ing operations there at the planer plant, putting in one or two new planers within the next several months. The business started increas- ing because of the demand for shipping crates for shipping supplies overseas before we got into the war-to England and Russia, mainly. I got transferred to loading cars where I stayed for awhile. Pete Cramer was my partner and we set a record that I think was never beaten for loading cars. He loaded out 90,000 board feet of S-4-S, 2xlx12's, which were 16 feet long, into three box cars putting 30,000 feet to a car, and we did it in seven and a half hours, which included stickering the cars inside and taping and sealing the cars on the out- side. I think a lot of people remember that. In 1940 the was expanding its operations due to the war in Europe and called for more train men. Several boys from Wallowa went out to La Grande and applied, including me. Sev- eral of them were successful but Doc Bouvy, who was our family doc- tor, turned me down because of my crooked eye (this eye had been damaged by forceps at birth) and bad hearing, saying, "You would not be safe to be on the crew." I stayed on at the mill. In 1940 overtime was made a law, and we put in six days a week and ten hours a day. Wow, we were rolling in dough! I worked there again as dogger in the summer of '45 ·with Johnny Steel as sawyer and Glenn Hescock as ratchet setter, some time after I came home from the war. The Moore Lumber Co. started a little mill on the mill race up by town, and it ran for a good many years. Charlie Smith ran it-the same Charlie Smith who was sawyer for Dad out on the Cox place. There was a steam boiler for power and Bill Eddleman tended that. When they started cutting, Charlie was the sawyer and Stiffy and Bob Smith were the carriage men. Stiffy was the ratchet setter and Bob was dogger. I worked there in 1942 and ran the little bulldog which carried the green lumber out to the yard for piling. It was piled by Bob

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Dougherty and Bill Bell. These guys were being paid by the thousand board feet, and they really piled green lumber. Ray Smith later was the superintendent there.

Sawdust and cinders were an aggravation to housewives in Wallowa, who prided themselves on a clean house and white washing. However, we did not need a clock for most of the day. Everyone in town told time by the mill whistles which blew a short wake-up blast at 6 A.M., a shrill loud blast at starting time, again at 12 and 1:00 and a short toot at 4 P.M. Shrill sud- den blasts at unexpected hours meant an accident or other emergency, and people flew to the telephone to find out who was hurt, or killed, such occur- rences being not uncommon.

Our first home was in an upstairs apartment above Millie and Spencer Trump's house which was between the millrace and Wallowa River right next to the Moore Mill where Spencer worked for some years filing the big saws. We got more than our share of cinders and sawdust. The house was a sturdy one having been built by a Swiss cabinet maker who had included some special touches upon which Spencer improved. It had a built-in bathtub in a bedroom which served as a couch until the lid was raised. Our apartment had a front kitchen and a long double room behind with two windows in the end. Millie and Spencer were overly kind to us, furnishing us with a table and chairs and other odds and end for housekeeping, treating us as part of the family. Two requisites for any home were purchased-a bed and a stove. The metal bed with a baked- brown finish and a painted urn on the headboard came from Montgomery Ward. It now rests down in the populous Los Angeles area-considered a collectable. We splurged and bought a wonderful enamelled, cream and black Monarch cook stove for $100 on the installment plan. That was a month's wages for me but we knew it would last forever. I know not where it now rests its smooth, black surface which I kept looking like new by rub- bing it with the waxed bread wrappers of the time. I hope someone cher- ishes it as I did. · My father was raising potatoes on a small acreage-Netted Gems again- the kind he had raised for certified seed on the Mitchell place; the kind that suited him best. Merritt helped him harvest them and worked on a ranch in Middle Valley. When he went out to Flora to help his brother Halsey get in wood for the Flora school which was warmed by a large wood-burn- ing furnace and steam radiators, he heard that the Estes place in Troy was for rent.

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Dale Estes, who was part Indian, was one of the first settlers in that country. Another early settler considered Mr. Estes one of the finest men he ever knew. A rather grand home for that part of the country had replaced an earlier log cabin, the remains of which were still standing beside it. One hundred and sixty acres along the Grande Ronde River below Troy, com- bined with a grazing permit, had provided for his family. Maybe we could get a start there. There was a grave just above the house, that of the first settler in the country. Gad Hapwood was a sort of a mountain man who trapped and ran some horses. He squatted there by the river and one winter when the snow was so deep that it covered the na- tive grass, he made a wooden shovel to shovel off some of the snow so that the horses could feed. When he died there, alone on the place, his body was found by strangers and buried. Meanwhile, out at Wallowa, I rode the five miles down to Lower Valley with Hattie Fisher the principal, meeting her every morning by the cement bridge that was built over a diversion of the Wallowa River. (At that time, a WW I cannon stood in a small triangle close to the highway. It is gone now. Was it sent away to help the war effort in WW II?) The first job Estes Place, 1939 Joan Holloway upon reaching school was building a In rear: cabin of Gad Hapwood fire in the furnace in the basement of this handsome, brick school house which had replaced the shabby, one- room building my sisters had attended some twenty years previously. Only six or seven were enrolled in the lower grades, which included Jack Bechtel, Lorena Kennison, Carmen Armon, and Paul and Keith Fleshman. Events in Europe were coming to a head and it was around Mrs. Fisher's car radio at noon, September 3, 1938, that we heard Hitler had invaded Poland and knew the world was not really safe for democracy after all. That event, which was the beginning of WW II, brought on a state of anxiety for us all that was to continue for seven more years. A personal event occurred at that time also; I discovered that I was pregnant. I expected delivery in May and planned to resign my position before that time; it not being the custom to teach while obviously pregnant. But we needed some money to get started down at Troy and I continued

142 ------Moving On teaching a while longer. I will mention preparations for a new baby in my time as a comparison to the here and now. I planned the most inexpensive layette possible and whittled the cost down to ten dollars by making my own flannel diapers-disposable ones were unknown at the time-as well as three flannel nightgowns and belly bands. The latter were thought to be absolutely indispensable until a baby's navel was healed or he was in danger of developing a hernia. I bought baby oil, receiving blankets, safety pins and talcum powder. My mother and sister Millie made a baby quilt and mattress for a big baby basket which was conveniently placed on a rolling stand that Spencer Trump, who has always been at the ready to innovate surprises for friends and family, built for me. That bassinette setup was the first bed for three of our babies and was used by two more after mine outgrew it. Seven months passed slowly. Snow was deep in March when I was ready to go down to our home in Troy with Ed Thompson who ran the mail stage on that route for many years. We travelled through mud and slush in a pickup until noon, at which time we transferred to a team and sled at the Prince place in Powwatka where we were provided with a very good dinner. I don't remember paying for it, and hope it was included in the fare of three dollars. The day was crisp and clear, one of those sunny, winter days warm enough to go in shirt sleeves in the middle of the day. Snow was melting up there on the ridge and while gliding along in the sled we were showered by big wet globs of the stuff when the huge evergreens lost their load. Snow turned to mud when we started down the hill. We transferred to another pickup and slipped and slid down the Powwatka grade, arriving in Troy much spattered and muddy after an all-day trip of about thirty-five miles.

This trip may have taken a long time but there was a road and I travelled in comparative comfort. When the first settler brought his wife and family into the area in 1898, they had to make it down to the river without one. William and Emma Wilson came to Troy from Iowa with four little boys to take up a homestead on the east side of the river. Emma kept a diary of parts of thf trip when they came by wagon through the mining country around Baker, Oregon. The Minam hill was the most rocky she had sever seen. "I thought the little boys would be bounced out of the wagon." They covered ground quickly; in one day they came across Cricket Flat, down Minam hill, up the Wallowa River canyon, and on up to a camping place east of Wallowa which she described as a small place. The early road went northeast from there to Sled Springs which was their next camping spot. She was anxious to see her mother who lived at Paradise with a man called "Cayuse."

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After locating a homestead at Troy, William came back to Paradise to move his family. Before the switchback road was worked out the route was straight down the point of the hill. Emma says, " The horses just slid down the hill. The men attached a tree to the back of the wagon to act as a brake, but I walked and carried the baby and led the next one." The other two little boys, the second eldest being Forrest, slid and scrambled right behind her. Troy is a natural crossroads center at a little open spot where the Wenaha joins the Grande Ronde river. Because of the rugged terrain surrounding it and two swift rivers to be crossed, it was the last area in the country to be settled. William built a log cabin on his farm on the flat behind the present schoolhouse and began farming. He soon saw an opportunity to make some extra money. Early travellers had to swim their horses across the Grande Ronde; the river was too deep for vehicles to ford except in low water and driving across took careful picking and good judgement. By 1901 he was running a ferry across the river unless a freeze- up or extremely high water prevented operation. This was a blessing to settlers of Eden, Bartlett and Grouse-a safer method of crossing, making easier to get supplies. A bridge was built in 1909 just around the curve, upriver from the ferry location. This was cause for much rejoicing; crossing the river could now be done more safely and no toll was charged.

Ferry across the Grande Ronde River

Fishermen from miles around enjoyed camping there, and the bridge became a favorite fishing spot; all you had to do was sit on your chair and drop your hook. It was also convenient for other purposes. One year during floodtime Fred Day jumped off the bridge and his body was never found. Presumably, he committed suicide.

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Celebrating the new bridge 1910

William proved up on his homestead in 1904, and later went back to Iowa. His son, Forest and wife Dora, bought the place and lived there with their sons Max and Delmer. Delmer and Joan Wilson later acquired the place and lived there with their family while running it in conjunction with their holdings on Lightle Flat.

Levi, the father of William also homesteaded at Troy, and during high water ran the basket ferry which ran on a cable across the Wenaha River there-just above where it joins the Grande Ronde. In low water it could be forded. The basket which was a large, sturdy box was run by manpower aided by gravity. It was hung on pulleys to the wire cable which was hung on each side of the river as near level as possible. A passenger climbed with his load up a ladder on a big pine tree where the cable was anchored on one side of the river; this called for more than one trip if his load was large. He unhooked the chain that held the basket and "Whee ...... ;" he got a good ride to the bottom of the swing before he had to hand-to-hand himself up onto the support on other side. The trick was to get his hand back quickly so it would not get caught in the rear pulley when the basket started rolling. A settler or two mangled a hand before learning the trick.

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The Silvers brothers came down from Grouse Flat and started a flour mill, which livened up the village. A dam, above the flour mill on the Wenaha, assured a steady flow of water for the waterwheel which furnished the power to grind the grain. The flume water went on into town by ditch and was used for irrigation. Early residents prided themselves on good gardens, and were able to grow a wider variety of produce than up on the flats or out in Wallowa Valley. One year the dam went out _ accidentally, and Cable and basket at Troy, everyone had to cut back on Wenaha River to Eden settlement irrigation and their gardens suffered. In the 1920's fish eggs were gathered at Troy for the hatchery at Enterprise. Fish traps were set in the Grande Ronde River; the salmon were caught and eggs taken into egg troughs. Charley Skaggs was in charge of that and he was helped by the Isaacs family of Indians who camped up the Grande Ronde by the Ira Martin place. Their ancestors had camped there around Troy since way back in time. Mrs. Clark was teacher there; several families lived in "town" at that time and people moved down from surrounding benches to send their children to school if there was none in their district. "Bus" Redman rode down from Lightle Flat, The Estes kids came up from downriver. The Ables family had children in school and the Davis children were there because their father, who worked for the Forest Service, was stationed there.

I arrived at a later time but the village had not changed much. True, the flour mill had not been operating for fourteen years but the community was alive and well. It was warm and balmy when I arrived that March day into that small community of tidy homes and well-kept gardens which is about two thousand feet lower than Wallowa and Merritt was putting in a crop with a borrowed team. A Cayuse mare that came with the place was in foal by a blooded stallion-her first colt. The term Cayuse was given to any native horse that "just happened". Another term was a "catch colt" which was also used for a child that came along without a father. Many of these horses were strong

146 ------Moving On and durable animals, developing stamina through generations of running on that rugged mountainous terrain. She might have proved to be a good mother if her own mother, one of the team Merritt was using, had not taken over as soon as that little buckskin filly dropped. This frustrated female absolutely refused to let her own daughter have anything to do with her own offspring-fighting her away at all times. The result was that the colt would not suck her own mother, imprinting with and following her grandmother, trying for milk where there was none. I took her in hand, feeding her straight cow's milk from a pan because she refused a nipple. Her owner gave us the colt which I named for her color, Ginger. When I went out to the valley for the birth of my first baby six weeks later, Merritt continued the feedings and she thrived on cow's milk. This animal was our pride and mainstay in the equine department on our many moves around seven western states. She threw three diverse and outstanding colts; a Palomino filly, an Appaloosa stallion and a Thoroughbred filly. All our four children learned to ride on her, as well as several grandchildren. She was tireless on steep trails and good at cow work-cutting and roping. Ginger was the only horse I have ever felt completely comfortable and safe riding. She died in northern California at the home of our son Tipton, at the age of thirty-nine, still being ridden by children until a short time before she died. We felt as if we had lost one of the family.

I enjoyed that spring of 1939, there among the flowering locust and lilacs. The house was on the spot where the Fish and Game headquarters was built later, after this comfortable old house was razed-there by the Grande Ronde river about a mile below Troy. It was quite complete with running water and a bathtub, high-ceiling rooms and bay windows in the front of a room we never used because we had no furniture for it. I had a prolonged period of quiet and rest for the first time since my apple-tomato- haymow-reading time in my teens. We discovered a Singer sewing machine in an upstairs room-patent 1867-and bought it from the Estes estate for five dollars. This treadle machine, like Ginger, served its purpose well through many moves, during which time I sewed most of the family dress clothes and patched piles of Levis, although I had to wind the one bobbin by hand. (I never could find another old bobbin that would fit it.) It was traded in on a new electric model twenty years later. A salesman later told me that the company "just dumped those old things" and I regretted parting with that collectable. Merritt bought a pickup from Ed Thompson which had seen many miles over some of the toughest roads in the country on the Wallowa, Troy, Bartlett mail route. We must have thought that the experience had made it a good rig. One cold night he drained the radiator but did not realize that the block should be drained also. It froze and cracked. A neighbor fixed it by boring holes in the block and patching it with a gasket behind the plate.

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People practiced a lot of make-do when living far from town in those days. In early May that truck made it out to Wallowa where I went to await my baby. In times of early settlement females sometimes had only a midwife or relatives to help because there was little alternative. I had been told of a primitive operation on a young woman up in Bartlett, who had labored long in childbirth attended by neighbors and relatives because the roads were impassable and no doctor could get in. When it was ascertained that the child was dead attendants literally cut the child to pieces and brought it out bit by bit to relieve her suffering. She lived and miraculously gave birth to three other children. Better roads and automobiles relieved a lot of anxiety connected with childbirth; most women went to town ahead of time to have their children in those days. I had a long wait. It was not until June fifth that Tipton Merritt made his appearance in the top storey of the old stone hospital that had been the county High School, way up on the hill above Enterprise. He is still doing things by his own time. To illustrate changes in obstetrical practices since that time, I will mention that I was in the hospital from Friday evening until Sunday morning with no anesthetic until the time of delivery when I was given a few puffs of ether. Merritt, who was in the delivery room with me said, "It is nothing for you to have a baby!" Our money was again almost gone because the doctor charged fifty dollars and the hospital bill was another fifty. After I spent three days in the hospital, Millie kindly asked me to come to their place again until my ten days in bed was up; this was considered necessary and proper after childbirth. I think there was some belief that we would never get our shape back if we did not do this and we needed that much time to regain our strength. It did give a mother a nice chance to rest, and be waited on and all the mothers I knew did it. War and the resulting shortage of doctors, nurses and hospital beds changed all that, and for the better. Mothers now do not lose muscle tone by staying inactive too long; the current custom of getting up as soon as possible works out better for everyone. I wa~ up and washing my hair before those mandatory ten days, and caring for Tipton who was an extraordinarily good and happy baby. He was named for his paternal grandfather, John Tipton, and his father, Merritt. His eighteen month-old cousin, Zora Belle Trump, danced around his basket singing, "Oh, the little honey precious," and all the nursery rhymes. However, he might have died if Mildred had not noticed that he had not wet a diaper in several hours after we came home from the hospital. Spencer went to the city pharmacy, got some spirits of niter-the same used for horses with urinary trouble-diluted it to what he thought was the correct proportions for a three-day infant, and it worked. Tipton spouted a copious stream of orange-brown which confirmed our suspicions. That kid had not urinated since birth!

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We received word that Merritt's grandfather, George Halsey Lightle, had died at a private nursing home in Enterprise,_a place where he could be close to a doctor. Merritt was remorseful because he had not taken Tipton for him to see when we came from the hospital. They had batched together at the Plumb Nearly the winter before we were married and George had spent most of the time reminiscing-looking back on his long and colorful life, as old men are prone to do at the close of their lives. Merritt, with other things on his mind, had paid scant attention to this old man whose narrations might be interrupted by a chore, such as feeding the cows, only to be picked up again on the exact word where he had left off when his audience returned. He talked in his own style of shorthand, combining two words such as "says I," to "si." "I said, sez I, that I'm going down and get that horse this afternoon." came out, "Si, I'm going down and get that horse this afternooa." In his last winter this old man related the story of his life, which would make fascinating reading had it been preserved as he told it. I include here what remains of his story.

George's family had come by covered wagon into the Carson valley of Nevada in 1859, when he was a year old, with a group of emigrants of German extraction who settled there after the Mormon exodus. After the Donner tragedy in 184 7, travelers avoided their long and difficult route over the Sierras. A shorter route, named the Kingsbury Grade, was worked out from the floor of Carson valley, starting from a favorite camping spot on the emigrant trail to California, up the steep eastern slope to the southern end of Bigler Lake as Tahoe was called at the time, continuing on to Placerville and Sacramento. Mormons George Lightle and second wife at were the first to settle Troy, Oregon C, 1912 permanently at the foot of the

149 Mo~ngOn ------grade and established a trading post for emigrants at a spot they called Genoa-the first settlement in what is now the state of Nevada. By 1851 there was considerable traffic both ways through the mountains due to gold being discovered near Dayton, Nevada, over 350 Mormon families sold their properties in the valley sometimes at a scandalously low price. A new breed of settlers came into the valley-mostly farmers and mostly Germans. Their descendants live in Carson valley to this day and architecture still reflects German stability. (Some of these high-fronted, notched, "Dutch- front" buildings can still be seen in the cities of Minden and Gardnerville, Nevada.)

The Pony Express route ran across the mountains from this spot where later the telegraph lines ran; the city became the county seat of Carson County and traffic was heavy when the Comstock at Virginia City opened up. A great amount of timber was freighted down the grade for use in the vast mines there.

These factors created a busy thriving city with two stores, two hotels, twenty-eight houses, a telegraph office, four sawmills, and two grist mills. The Territorial Enterprise still had its office there the year the Lightles arrived. The area had good agricultural land, even though it was a little cool in the summer for all crops, being best suited for hay and pasture land. Peter and Anna Lightle with their infant son George settled there, along with other relatives and other Germans and never lost their German accent. Peter was a land speculator and gentleman farmer, buying and selling all over the valley and riding around in his buggy to inspect his farms. Years later in the courthouse at Minden, Nevada, his great-grandson Merritt and I, spent several hours looking up records of land he bought and sold. We tired before was complete.

When George was twenty, he bought a quarter section of land for $1,000 and paid for it in gold coin. In 1960 it was owned by a cattle company; the tree-shaded headquarters was pointed out to us by the county recorder. Some of the Lightles had an irrigation ditch which carried water out of the mountains. When a lumber company contested their right because they needed the water to shoot trees down to the floor of the valley by a flume-this method being faster and cheaper than freighting it- a fight ensued. An 1871 Nevada Supreme Court ruling defended riparian rights to streams which resulted from this controversy.

When George was sixteen and big for his age, he had a job as hostler at the stage station. One day a driver came in with the mumps and was feeling too miserable to go on. He said, "Kid, do you think you could get this thing over the hill?" George thought he could, and did, driving up Kingsbury Grade to Lake Tahoe and beyond for several years.

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He met his future wife, Emma Montgomery, on one of these trips. When asked to have a drink at a stop, he said, "No, I have to get this little rose over the hill." Emma said, "Yes, and if you drink that stuff, you will have a rose on the end of your nose." He never was much of a drinker. Virginia City, Nevada was close to Genoa, and for a considerable time was the busiest place in the west. George drove "many a load of bullion" from that city when he was young.

He visited the city of San Francisco for the first time while hardly out his teens. His adventure there is one story Merritt did listen to. The waterfront down in the southern part of the city was where the action was, had been called the Barbary coast in the early days because of the lawless activities carried on there. George was standing there on a street corner gawking at the sights when a pretty girl passed and dropped her handkerchief. George picked it up and hurried after her saying, "Is this your handkerchief, Mam?" "Oh, that is my favorite one, thank you. You are so kind!" answered the lady. "Why, my door is right around the corner. Won't you come in?" He would! The room was pretty fancy. It was easy to get cozy, and after a little nip he asked for a little kiss. When he asked for more, the lady was coy. "I'm not an easy woman. You'll have to take off your clothes and catch me first." He did: She did. My, how she could run-bounding over chair and sofa, jumping over trunks and boxes-finally landing on the bed where he caught her! The next day he could not wait to get back. He was rushing up a back street toward her room, when he ran into a man calling, "Right this way folks, see 1:hegreatest show on earth-only a dollar!" George paid his dollar and looked in the peep hole in the wall .. To his amazement and chagrin he saw the same girl in the same room. A different man was trying to catch her!

But Carson Valley was cold in the winter and the growing season was short. The winter of 1882 was a severe one with much snow and cold. A warming spell loosened the snow pack which rumbled down a canyon into the town. The avalanche killed eight people and destroyed several buildings. This may have been a factor in George's long ride which occurred that same year. Looking for a better location he headed north on

151 Moving On horseback, riding clear up to Sandpoint, Idaho and beyond, up to the Canadian line, looking for a place that struck his fancy. It had to be warm enough to raise most crops. The Walla Walla, Washington country was the best he had seen with some of the deepest glaciated soil in the world and a long growing season. Peter Lightle and family moved up from Genoa and they all bought ranch land. Peter continued his practice of buying, supervising and renting land to others. George had a good ranch but, perhaps because some land was still open to settlement, he went over into the Grande Ronde country of Oregon in 1893 homesteading 160 acres between present-day Troy and Flora and buying 320 acres of prime farmland adjacent to it. With the help of one other man he brought in a herd of white-faced cattle up the Tucannon, over the top and down the Wenaha River, and across the Grande Ronde River to Lightle Flat-as the area where he settled was later called. Ninety years later his great-grandson and great-great-grandson, Ted Holloway and his son Merritt Alan, made that trip from the Wenaha to Walla Walla by mule back when the latter was seven years old. A Mexican cowboy, Henry Ortega, helped George on that cattle drive. They stopped up on top of the Blue Mountains at a habitation for supper. The place didn't look very clean, but they had been camping out and were ready for a home-cooked meal. What they got was huckleberries and carelessly prepared venison on which long, black hair was visible. The next day at noon George complained of being hungry and Henry replied, "Well, say, I'm not; when my stomach growls I just take hold of the end of the hair I swallered, jerk it up and down and stir up them huckleberries, and that fixes me right up." This man was known as an expert horseman. Merritt's Aunt Sus related an example. "One day a bunch of us were riding down to the breaks of Courtney Creek to have a picnic. Henry was riding next to a woman who was carrying a baby. He said, 'Let me carry that baby.' She knew he was a good rider so handed over her child. He was riding a colt and it began acting up and bucking. Henry just laid that baby over on a ledge as he was riding by and rode that bucking horse to a standstill." A snowbank is the best place to toss a baby when your horse starts acting up but when there is no snowbank a rocky ledge might have to do! George planted a large orchard of 260 trees there on the big flat just above Troy which furnished fruit to people for miles around. He hired a large crew in crop time and his wife Emma was going night and day to feed the crowd. Her daughter told me that they carried a mid-morning snack to men in the fields as was the German custom and threw buckets of water on the hard-packed earth of the yard shaded by large locust and black walnut trees to create a cool spot in the hot caldron of noontime. George loved to talk and the men who worked for him only needed to ask him a question if they wanted a rest. That would be the beginning of a long story, because all of his stories were long.

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His daughter, Nettie, had her own horse and buggy when a teenager and used it to travel by herself over the countryside as she chose. She and John Holloway had both attended Arko school.

Wallowa Chieftain Nov. 15, 1906 Married At the Presbyterian Parsonage Monday afternoon Miss Nettie M. Lightle and Mr. John T. Holloway were united in marriage, Rev. H.S. Templeton officiating. Both young people are of Lost Prairie Country, the bride being the charming eighteen year old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Lightle pioneer residents of that section and known and re- spected all over the county. The groom is a sturdy young farmer of Lost Prairie and holds the respect and esteem of all who know him. He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Wm Holloway who have been residents of the north end of the county for many years and who are known quite well throughout Wallowa County. The newly wedded couple will make their home in Lost Prairie and they have the best wishes of their many friends in which the Chieftain joins heartily.

Heat down on the Grande Ronde brings me back to the day we took Tipton down home to Troy. It was hot and in my ignorance I kept him swaddled in blankets. That night he had a fit of colic, drawing his legs up to his stomach and screaming his head off-his one and only spell. I nursed him and when he needed supplemental feeding at the age of two months, he refused a rubber nipple and drank from a cup. His good appetite was evident at this early date when he gobbled up a whole jar of baby food at the first try. At two months he had four teeth which led me to believe he had been overdue at birth. Merritt had patches of hay along the Grande Ronde and was soon busy cutting it and storing it in the big barn which was just across the road from the house. I Wedding picture, opened up the big house at night and John and Nettie Holloway closed it tight in the daytime, thus

153 Moving On------keeping it cool and livable until afternoon; one August day the temperature rose to 117 degrees. I put Tipton under a big walnut tree, turned on the sprinkler close to him, and sat with him to take in the cool. Another day I had a roaring fire in the Monarch for hours, canning peaches and tomatoes. The flue caught fire, and when sparks landed on the dried moss on the roof we had an emergency! Merritt was not far from the house. Our water pressure was poor be- cause the spring was not flowing much that late in the season but he grabbed the hose, climbed on the roof, and watered the fire. One of Merritt's younger sisters, Genevieve, was visiting at the time and she carried buckets of water upstairs and into the attic, dousing the fire from under- neath. While the smoke was rolling, I grabbed Tipton's bassinette by the handle and dragged him-bouncing, out under the tree so that he would be safe. I rang central at Troy-that one, long, continuous ring being enough to alert a considerable number of people to our emergency. Five longs was the usual emergency ring. Help came at once from up in Troy and little damage was done. That is the only time any of our many homes ever caught fire.

It was the custom at the time to listen in on any conversations on the line and I knew the news would soon get around. This custom had its ad- vantages and was tolerated with good nature. If "rubbering" became too much of an impediment to personal conversation we asked, "Will you please get off the line?" We knew when people got off by the click of the receivers being hung up. We now take the telephone for granted. Maybe it was no more important to our lives then, but in that time before all the forms of electronic transmission we have today, the telephone was also our social center. Besides enabling us to get help and conduct business without a trip over those primitive roads, it was a great comfort to be able to make human contact when we were lonesome, to visit over the phone, especially when we were mudded or snowed in. It made life a lot more pleasant, as well as more convenient. Telephones came into towns in the county by 1909 and by 1914 indi- viduals were seeking ways of getting them to their own homes. Small pri- vate telephone companies soon had lines strung all over the North End on poles and trees to almost anyone who wanted a phone. Ten percent of the households in the U.S. were hooked up by that time but I would wager that the percentage was much greater out in the North End of Wallowa County. Shares were sold in a company which would provide service to residents of a certain geographical locality and yearly dues were assessed. The dues were six dollars per year in those days for the Three Ridge Telephone Co. out of Flora. Lines were kept in order by volunteers. If your phone went out you just walked the line, found the trouble, and fixed it yourself. Some few pa- trons called the president of the company and expected him to fix the line

154 ------Moving On which he usually did without pay. Storms and deep snow were especially disrupting and after those occurrences it might take a while to find all the trouble. Power was furnished in each home or business by two, big dry-cell batteries. If you switched off the telephone when it was not in use, a pair of batteries would last about six months. The by-laws of the Three Ridge Co. made no mention of upkeep but it did list rules which are indicative of the era: No person was to use the tele- phone more than five minutes at a time; Personal conversations had to make way for business calls. Non-members were to pay a fee often cents for the use of the line and if the call went through central to the outside the fee was twenty-five cents. Payment was by the honor system. You dropped the fee off at the central office the next time you were up in Flora or down at Troy. Article VIII stated: No person shall use the line for entertaining with music at any time until after office hours and any person playing said music shall have some one hold the receiver of his phone so they can tell if any one wants the line for business messages or the doctor and if they do they shall give them the immediate use of the line. It was to everyone's benefit to keep the system working and about the only fly in the ointment was when a visiting session by someone (most of- ten a woman, of course, if you believe what the men said) was interrupted by another who wanted the line for the same reason. A temporary "falling out" might result. The centrals down at Troy or up at Flora were underpaid and some- times overworked. They were always women, often with small children and the usual household chores, and were tied to the telephone twenty-four hours a day. Dora Wilson was a long-time operator at Troy. Mable Bott came after her. True, the office was closed in the evening and had a set time for opening in the morning but if something pressing occurred the shrill continuous ring of the distress signal brought the lady flying to the phone. If the message came through weakly, everyone might be asked to hang up so that participants might hear and no one took offense. A deaf person trying to use the telephone also presented a problem. Centrai might have to repeat and ask others on the line, who were closer to the one who had trouble hearing, to repeat again. Old Doc Blake, a rough old cob who practiced both at Troy and Flora and was very deaf, was diffi- cult. He would become angry because, "That damned fool won't talk so I can hear him!" In such cases both the central at Flora and the one in Troy might have to repeat and the chances of the message becoming scrambled was real. Doc Blake could take no chances because a life might depend on getting things right. It might take a half hour or more for him to get things

155 Moving On ------straight. In addition to being deaf he was pithy and ribald. People hated to ask him intimate questions within hearing distance of others. The story goes that when a lady asked for advice on family planning he said, "My advice to you is to sleep with both feet in a two gallon crock." He liked to tell that a few days later the lady came back to him and said ,"Oh, doctor, can't I sleep with each foot in a gallon crock?"

Using the telephone was a unified activity, calling for cooperation. Everyone on the line was apt to pick up the phone and "rubber" at such a time. Who could resist and furthermore if an emergency was occurring close to your place you might be able to help. There were times you truly wanted to give classified information on the telephone but there was just no way it could be kept private. One time when the sheriff was after a young man with a warrant for his arrest in a suit, a friend called and said, "You'd better get out of the country. The sheriff is on his way." Everyone listening knew why that was. The man the sheriff was after was close to the Washington line, and escaped.

In 1939 the U.S. was not in a fighting war but we were getting prepared. Help was scarce and teachers, especially in isolated places, were hard to find. Pressure was put on me to teach at Troy. Arvilla Fordice who lived close to the little white schoolhouse under the bluff where the Wenaha River flows into the Grande Ronde promised to keep Tipton. I signed a contract, although he was only three months old. I drove the pickup up to town with him in a nice, long bread box on the seat beside me. He was happy with Arvilla and I walked the short distance over to her house to nurse him at noon. That was before state law called for playground supervision, and my pupils went home for lunch or ate on the schoolhouse porch and roamed around the village. I had eight pupils in four or five grades and they were fun to teach. Troy was a good place for water birds in those days. We made a bird map of the area and every morning put a different colored dot on the spot for each kind of bird we had seen. There were pelicans, swans, cranes, ducks, warblers; bluejays and robins were numerous. A water ouzel dipped and sang just outside our window and a pileated woodpecker was sure to drop down from a fir tree on Eden hill at recess, screaming its long, descending cry as it lit in another pine to watch the action. There were the usual school plays, parties and spelling bees. Mrs. Agnes Burns, a widow from Portland who had once taught there, gave us frequent advice on the way they did it in Portland. She was kindly and helpful but just never seemed to realize that we didn't care how they did it in Portland, the lifestyle in that city not being much use to us in Troy. She

156 ------Mo~ngOn was our neighbor at the Estes Place, having married W. W. Burns in Portland many years before and moved into his new house on the river. He was an educated man, and a local historian, much in demand as a speaker for such occasions as 4th of July and Memorial Day at which time he used such big words that his audience was astounded and confounded-thus keeping up his reputation. We were amazed at the abounding energy Agnes displayed at what we thought was a rather advanced age. After the death of her husband until she was past seventy years of age, she walked up the grades to Eden, Bartlett and Flora to attend to business,or go to church or socials. W.W., or Billy, as he was most often called, said, "Before I was married I could live on twenty cents a day; after my marriage I could live on much less." Their diet was frugal but eminently healthful, consisting of whole grain cereals and home-grown vegetables; one we now recognize as the best. Agnes lived to be almost one hundred years old and Billy may have done so also had he not wrecked his Model T and died as the result of his injuries at almost ninety. Neighbors who came to sit up with the body, which was still the custom in those days in some parts of the country, were not surprised when Agnes darned a pair of stockings that night so that Billy might be buried frugally and decently-as he had lived. Townspeople in 1939 included the Morrisons at the Post Office and general store, Jimmie and Agnes Fordice who ran another store for Arthur Knight, Lottie and Fred Richman at the hotel, Walt and Ida Teel-down from Eden and building a new house-Mr. and Mrs. Fayette Wilson and several bachelors. Forest (Frosty) and Dora Wilson lived across the big river at their ranch headquarters. Everyone had a good vegetable garden and a lovely flower garden. Mrs. Morrison was a tiny lady who wore dainty, feminine dresses. Her living quarters in the general store looked like a doll house. Even the outhouse was papered and painted-a thing of beauty.

We at the schoolhouse always checked on the passing traffic from our strategic location, there where the roads met. When the roads were good, the rumble of a car or truck coming over either river bridge-the Wenaha or Grande Ronde-alerted us before we saw the vehicle. When they were muddy and bad or snow was deep enough on top to hinder traffic, there would be days with no travel at all except perhaps, a horseback rider. One rotund, rosy-cheeked bachelor, Johnny Scott, kept as neat a place as any in this special, little, garden spot on the Grande Ronde where neat yards and well tended flowers were the rule. He fished a lot and was apt to pass his surplus around to those that didn't. The Fenton brothers had moved down from Eden, so called because a family named Adam lived there in the early days, and were town characters. In a time before Social Security, they were hard pressed for money. Erkie was crippled from childhood, but

157 Moving On ------mended clocks and worked with leather, as did Merle who also did odd jobs. They managed to live on what they made. Their house was a treasure trove of antiques, some of which they sold to a dealer from Lewiston for a frac- tion of their worth. At their death, what was left went to a friend in town. Theirs was a favored spot for young men riding down to the dance at Troy because they found a warm, convenient place to change their clothes and tie their horses, and were made welcome, especially if they had something to drink in the pocket of their chaps. Merle was often out of tobacco and had a way of cupping his hand around his pipe, when he filled it from a visitor's sack so that more than a few crumbs fell down the sides of the pipe into his hand. So that he might keep his pride, no one ever mentioned that to his face.

Easter dinner picnic was a big event in those years and still is, al- though the old, weathered schoolhouse nestled so picturesquely by the Wenaha is gone-with a pile of gravel in its place the last time I viewed it. The picnic is held at the new schoolhouse across the Grande Ronde River. People came from miles around and from the "outside" because it was, and still is, homecoming.

One year another lean and lank bachelor who was rumored to be from the Polish or some European aristocracy, came from his neat, little plot across the road for dinner. He raised an excellent garden and spent most of his time in it not mixing with the townspeople too much. At the dinner he made up for his lack of home-cooked luxuries, piling his plate again and again before going out on the porch and dropping dead. It was thought practical to distribute his starter garden plants among the assemblage. I suppose the county buried him; he is gone and I find no one who remem- bers his name.

Merritt took the job of carrying the mail to Bartlett that winter, up on the flat above Troy, using hack or sled when the roads were impassable for a pickup. Ed Thompson who had the government contract paid him $100 a month and we boarded :E.dand his horses the three nights a week it was necessary for him to stay at Troy. Merritt borrowed a team of blacks, Bob and Bourbon, from his father and made up another of a mule and a grey mare which he got from his brother Marvin. He went up as far as the Friddles place in a hack and when the snow got deeper, usually changed there to a sled and a fresh team before going on up to the Bartlett store and Post Office. He stayed in a four-room house called the Neal place which was old and in need of repair but was able to make do with only the cookstove. Althoagh there was lots of snow, the winter was not a severely cold one. He went up on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and came back on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. This left me to do the chores at home and milk the cow. On weekends I fixed him a pot of baked beans, which served the dual purpose of foot-warmer and stomach-warmer.

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The river froze over in spots up in the higher country that winter. When the thaw came in the spring huge chunks of ice floated down the river with much snapping and crackling and often wedged and piled high in hollows along the river banks-a new sight to me. When our year's lease was up on the Estes place it was sold. Therefore, we moved into Troy in a little green house next to Morrison's store, built by the Silvers when they had a flour mill there years before. There was a small barn on the place and Merritt continued his trips to Bartlett until the roads became good enough for pickups. At this time he traded with Raymond Moore for a big, white gelding. He was eleven years old and had not had a rope on him since he was castrated. Merritt called him Cougar because that is the way he moved and was proud that he was able to break him to ride, where other men had been afraid to try. Cougar was to feature in one of my adventures the next year.

In the summer of 1940 Merritt got a job at the sawmill in Wallowa pulling lumber from the yard into the shed, so we moved back to the apart- ment at the Trumps. I had signed a contract to teach at Troy again in the fall but had the whole summer to rest. I was confined more than I liked however. Zora Belle had had chicken pox that spring but had been without pustules for some time when we moved back in. Within three weeks Tipton erupted with big bumps. I took him to a new young doctor who called the county health nurse to look at his big bumps. She visited us at home and said, "There is no doubt in my mind that this child has smallpox." Al- though there had been no cases in the county for some years, we were quar- antined for six weeks in the heat of the summer. Dad did not take this edict seriously and came to check on us occa- sionally. He had seen cases of smallpox and knew. Furthermore, he had had a particularity severe case of the disease during WW I and knew he was immune. Mom was in Iowa with her mother Ellen who was ill and Dad and Maybeth and Grace were raising a garden, canning vegetables and going huckleberrying. The worst part about being in quarantine was that I missed out on those trips. On one trip, in Hunter's pasture out toward Promise, they had picked twenty-five gallons, along with help from a friend or two. Dad was hard on clothes and Mom was concerned that his overalls would not be kept in repair while she was away. Dad wrote to assure her, "You hadn't ought to think about my overalls. Millie patched me a pair on the knees and yesterday the seat split out while I was picking huckleberries. We never seen them so good." How was that to set her mind to rest? When the inoculation clinic came to town I took Tipton to be vacci- nated for smallpox and it "took," proving that he had not had the disease. The doctor had the grace to blush when I showed him Tipton's vaccination scab. That did not ease my chagrin at being shut up in the heat during the middle of summer and missing out on huckleberrying.

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In the fall the sawmill reduced the crew and an Imnaha cowman approached Merritt on a partnership deal. If he worked through the winter feeding and caring for two hundred steers the rancher would buy another bunch with the profits; Merritt would feed them and the two would then share the profits. This sounded good so he loaded ranch supplies into a new, secondhand, International, four-speed pickup which he had bought in Pomeroy, Washington, with money from his mail carrying job, drove it down to Kelsey Simmon's place at end of the road and packed down to the mouth of Thorn Creek. Headquarters were there in a four-room forest ranger's cabin. The agreement was that if the rancher could use the pickup for heavy loads, his wife would leave her coupe at the end of the road for trips into town. I went back to Troy to teach, boarding at the hotel. Half of my salary went for baby care and board for both Tipton and me. The road down the Grande Ronde river to Anatone was just being completed and the road crew also boarded in Troy during the week, which added some variety to life in that little community. Mrs. Richman, who ran the hotel, liked to play Pedro or High Five and we did this often. It was not said that Fred, her husband ran it, because he always seemed to defer to her. She had a very nice girl named Mary from Lewiston who needed a foster home, helping her with the hotel work and caring for Tipton, and we became good friends. Mary also carried drinking water to the schoolhouse and filled the ceramic cooler every day, built the fire and did the janitor work. She received five dollars a month for that which gave her a little spending money. One day Ray Knight who was one of the road crew said that the road would soon be passable for traffic and he wanted to be the first one over it. He asked, "Would you like to go, too?" Of course I would! We got up a party which included Mrs. Richman, her daughter Arvilla Fordice and Mary to go Lewiston to the show. As soon as school was dismissed we headed down the river in Ray's sedan. The thrill of being first over the road buoyed us up for some time but when we slipped and slid on grades a considerable distance above the river and made our own detours around big rocks, which had fallen into the road after the rain loosened them, we lost some of our enthusiasm. The roadbed was soft and unpacked in the newly bulldozed portions, and it was necessary to use chains. It was almost eight o'clock when we drove into Lewiston, a little late for first show, but we saw what we could of it and took time for supper afterward. We arrived home in the early morning hours next day, considerably worn by our adventure but enjoying the fame of being the first to drive over the new road. That Christmas Merritt came out from The River and we spent it in Wallowa. (We designated most of the drainage of country close to the Snake River as "The River" to differentiate from smaller and lesser

160 ------Moring On

11 waterways, and called all the surrounding country the "breaks • The breaks of the Snake was all the rough country that drained or broke into the river.) I decided to rent a one-room cabin in Troy, close to the schoolhouse so I could have more privacy. Merritt moved a housekeeping outfit down for me before going back down to The River. Mrs. Barnes whose husband was the government trapper lived in part of the old Silver's flour mill and came over to my house to care for Tipton. I became good friends with Ida Teel and she taught me how to make dandelion tonic for spring doldrums. I had thought the leaves were used but she cleaned and boiled the roots for the base of the beverage. We both felt livelier after that. Years later I received this reply when I asked her how it was made: Haven't made any for some time but maybe you can find some old moonshiner that still remembers. Get plants in spring-roots or whole plants (of course wash) and boil, strain juice-will be dark-will try to tell you for a quart-a cake of yeast-sugar-I think quite a bit-2 cups maybe more-set in warm place-best in Calif. sun perhaps? I may not have it exactly right but something on that order. Sample it and don't go out on the street until you find out.

School enrollment was small; Bill Gowey, Jimmy Barnes, Delbert Fordice, Bernard Carper and Arlene Richman. We had the usual school socials and during a taffy pull I learned that germs do not usually attack an otherwise healthy child. One of the town bachelors pulled his taffy with hands that became whiter and whiter as the taffy became darker and darker. Imagine my horror when I discovered Tipton happily gobbling up some of Merle's dark- gray taffy! Troy School 1941- Jimmie Barnes, Arlene Richman, Delbert Fordice, Bill Gowey and Bernard Carper

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Travel up the new grade from Troy through Flora to Enterprise is commonplace now for some afternoon shopping at any time of year. In those days we thought carefully before making that trip over the old road which switchbacked up the point above the Wilson place. One occasion called for throwing all care to the winds. Gone With the Wind was making its premiere showing in Enterprise! Most people in our village had read the book avidly; the adventurous were determined to see the movie. Arvilla Fordice, Faye Richman and I hired Florian Dejean to drive us out to see this original, four-hour version. We started right after school let out but made that sixty mile trip, over the roads of the time, just in time for the start of the movie. The climb up the point out of the Grande Ronde switchbacked over the steepest of the four grades leading up from the river. Horizontal ruts, which we called washboards, had to to be bucked-up in dry weather, with a shudder ...shudder ...shudder. If you had compound gear in your rig the going was probable. Without it it was not always possible. The old grade is largely forgotten now but none who travelled it can forget. The roads were slick when it rained and it rained on that trip. We hit gravel roads just out of Flora but there was no pavement until we reached Enterprise. The movie was worth the trip of course-I have been enamored of Clark Gable forever since-but by the time we had enjoyed the added adventure of eating out it was past midnight. The long trip home was relieved by reliving the movie which had been even better than we anticipated and unlike most historical movies, then or now, followed the book. I did most of my teaching while dozing the next day .

Merritt had no telephone down on The River but someone brought him word that his Aunt Susan Nicoson had died on Valentine's Day; he was coming out for the funeral and wanted me to come up from Troy and meet him. The Holloway boys had often stayed with this Aunt and helped her with chores because she was a widow and had no children. After his family moved down to Plumb Nearly, Merritt had stayed with her for extended periods when he went to high school and was very fond of her.

Born in 1868, she went into Kansas when it was new and raw with her parents. When she was sixteen she drove a team of mules across the plains at the time her parents came west in covered wagons. When she first laid eyes on Louis Conn Nicoson somewhere in Colorado-he was in another group also headed west-she said, "I'm going to marry that man." She did, calling him Petty and doting on him as long as he lived and afterward- grieving. Frugal and plain, qualities inherent in people who called themselves Quakers from which stock she came, she had the conviction of her prejudices having no tolerance for religions other than the Campbellites. Although never a mother she was often called on to midwife. We have an American Gothic mantle clock circa 1847 which she purchased for three dollars secondhand in Summerville, Oregon, at the time of her

162 ------MowngOn marriage, that village being an important crossroads and trading center in northeastern Oregon at that time. Although I was only slightly acquainted with this quaint old lady who wore clothes of the last century and thought I did not know how to care for my infant, I knew I would make the effort to go to her funeral to see Merritt and take his son so that he might see him. The roads were muddy this February as was usual at that time of year, with snow on top; horseback was the only way. The horse that could make it was Cougar, the thirteen-year- old outlaw which Merritt had tamed the year before. His brother Marvin was using him while Merritt was down on The River. I had ridden him but was afraid of him because he would not stand for me to get on. Once mounted, however, I knew there was a superb horse under me. It was decided. Marvin brought Cougar down from Eden and helped me on, handing up Tipton all bundled up in his snowsuit. He had seen a lot of horses in his twenty months and was ready and raring to go. So was Cougar,and he made it up the steep, trail to the Lightle Flat hardly stopping for a blow. As we progressed along the flat the snow became deeper and a cold wind came up with dark clouds from the west which meant more snow. I knew we could make those remaining ten miles before the storm broke but had not anticipated a fence and gate! I got off, put Tipton on the big, wide gate post cautioning him to sit still and finally got that wire gate pulled tight and hooked. Those easily constructed, hard to handle, wire gates have always been an abomination in my eyes but it had been drilled into me since childhood that you closed a gate you found closed and left it the same way you found it. (fhat is one thing the westerns have right. It might be worth your life to leave a gate open which you had found closed.) But, I could not get back on that horse! I would think I had him all positioned but when I tried to swing into the saddle, he snorted, shied, and lunged away. The field held no rocks on which to stand and my tears and frustration alarmed Cougar as well as Tipton, who kept saying, "What I do now, Nona?"

All I could answer was, "Sit still, don't fall, sit still, son!11 I remember struggling with that horse for a long time but the fear I felt was so real, the experience so traumatic, that I have no recollection of how I got on him and collected that child from the post. If I had been trampled or injured it might have been the death of that baby from cold or injury-so far from other people, away up there in the coming storm. I did not ride the same horse back. We borrowed Beauty, a gentle, black mare from Halsey's wife Hazel and Merritt rode Cougar to see me safely back to Troy. We came down on a beautiful Sunday evening, and saw one of the sights of all time. Five planets were positioned in the western sky like a chain of beads; Venus, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and Uranus. The last one was dim but I knew what it was because we had been studying astronomy at

163 Moving On ------school and anticipating this event. Because Troy was in a hole, so to speak, we could not have seen this phenomenon from there. Bernard Carper was able to see it from Eden. It will not occur again for many, many years. (Is it 300?)

Ed. Thompson the stage driver, came over to the schoolhouse with a message. "Your Dad has had an accident, maybe you should go out with me tomorrow." "What kind of an accident? How bad is it?" I was concerned, but not unduly so. Our family was tough. Dad had had other accidents. "He fell off a warehouse roof," Ed admitted, and he is all smashed to pieces." I think if you want to see him alive, you had better go." The ride out the next day seemed an eternity. After reaching Wallowa, there was still fifty miles to La Grande where Dad was in the hospital. Tom took me over and I got the story. Dad and Challis Allen had a contract to tar the roof of the Grain Growers' warehouse and he told Tom, " I simply tarred myself in. There I was, up on that roof with all that tar above me and below me. When I put a foot on it to see if I could get down, I did! There was nowhere to go but down." He fell off at the end of a railroad tie and went over a rail which broke him all up. He was loaded into Dr. Merrill's 1939 Dodge in a sitting position which could have killed him at any time during the trip to La Grande. There they turned and twisted him on the X-Ray table without a painkiller of any kind. Tom stood it just so long until he yelled. "What in the hell do you think you are handling-a sack of wheat?" They were a little easier on him after that. After he was medicated and put into a body cast and a leg cast, Tom thought he should go home and spread the news of his condition. Dad roused enough to give the message in typical Grover fashion. "Just tell the boys I'm O.K. I only have five broken ribs, a broken leg, a broken pelvis and a broken back. Outside of that I'm doing fine!"

I was surprised when Merritt showed up for the Easter picnic. He had spent most of the winter feeding those steers hay because the rims had been so wet on the Imnaha that they were too slick and dangerous to graze,

164 Moving On especially on the south side which thawed early. Humans and animals have been known to slip to their deaths while negotiating them. His "partner" had had a conference with Merritt and told him that at the price of steers that year, he just could not buy any and come out on the deal, therefore the partnership was not in effect. Merritt was waiting for that; sometime before one of the neighbors had clued him in to this rancher's mode of operation which was to hire a man to work for the winter without wages with the promise of a partnership in the spring when they would buy more steers to fatten and sell on the shares. Always, when spring came he informed his "partner" that it would be too risky to buy steers; the price was too high. Merritt said. "Fine, I'll be leaving tonight if I can borrow that black mare to ride out. Of course I'll expect my wages." When asked what he expected in the way of such things, he asked for what ranch managers were getting in the country at the time, considerably more than the price of cowboys. The rancher sputtered, "I never heard of such a thing. I can't do that, it wasn't in the agreement," etc. etc. When Merritt stood his ground, firmly and with some spark of belligerence, his "partner" gave in. His wife almost had apoplexy when she wrote out the check. That was the end of their "partnership" deals with hungry cowboys. The next summer this man was hit on the head by a swinging hay boom while he was stacking and knocked dead. I had just made a shrimp salad and two lemon meringue pies for the Easter picnic at Troy when we were visited by another rancher who wanted us to work for him as a husband-wife team down on anothere tributary of the Snake River. We wanted to be together so accepted. Merritt drove the International down the new river road to Anatone and then took off across country to the Snake river over a seldom travelled road which he thought was the roughest and steepest he had yet encountered. When he came to move us in May we decided to go around by Wallowa, Walla Walla, and Lewiston and then up the Snake. It must have been to pick up some household belongings in Wallowa because the distance was two hundred and fifty miles versus about eighty out by the river road which was still primitive but passable. It was raining when we went over Tollgate toward Walla Walla and we got stuck in the mud,with all our possessions, on the west side of the Blue Mountains. Martin Wilkening, the husband of my cousin Bonnie who lived in Milton Freewater, rescued us and pulled the truck out the next day. This was not a well-travelled road at the time and it was lonesome waiting in the dark on that hill with only a baby to keep me company. It seemed a long time before Merritt could get down into town and come back with help. I have since learned to take such adversity philosophically.

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It was hot down on this ranch and there was a lot of work to do. Haying was in full swing and there was the crew to cook for as well as a large family. It was hard to get up at five and work all day at high speed without a rest. With three meals to cook, dishes to wash, garden stuff to pick, as well as large washings, I could never find adequate time to spend with Tipton who was at the roaming stage. The kitchen was built up above a storage place making it necessary to run up and down steep steps many times a day. When I discovered I was pregnant I went through the discomfort most women feel at that time. In a month or two we were assigned a house of our own a short distance from the main ranch and loaned a milk cow. One of the most frustrating days of my life was spent in the brush along the river bottom trying to get that cow out of the shade and up to our corral. I quit about noon when the temperature was well over one hundred and took Tipton who was "helping" me over to a big house at the site of Rogersburg ferry to get a drink of water and cool off. The proprietor could not have understood the extent of my need and gratitude. After a cold lunch of big steaks of Snake River sturgeon I was rested and cooled down enough to browse through an extensive library of good books collected there by someone with educated taste. I borrowed several which helped eased my lonesome days. One was a biography of Queen Elizabeth I whose "supposed" love affairs seemed considerable for a Virgin Queen. We could see no future there except working for wages. Merritt was receiving ninety dollars a month and I had worked for my board. Merritt got a job in Lewiston renovating fences and corrals at the rodeo grounds as well as keeping care of horses stabled there by businessmen of the town. We first lived in a one-room shack close to the grounds with no water piped inside and an outside toilet. There was plenty of produce to be had for very little and I budgeted a dollar a day for food. This seems unreal to those who now spend fifty to one hundred dollars for a dinner but we ate well. We were happy to leave our slum dwelling and move to Clarkston where we got a nice house rent free for caring for the grounds around the larger house in front of the property. Things were going along nicely; I was feeling better and Merritt had his own horse, Reno, at the fairgrounds. It was nearing rodeo time when a flu epidemic hit and Merritt came down with the disease. He was very sick for several days but when he was able to be up for a short time he insisted in going out to the fairgrounds to see how Reno was being cared for. The upshot was that he took a "backset" and was really ill. He had planned to ride Reno in the rodeo parade and the grand entry at the fairgrounds but when he realized this was impossible, he insisted that I take his place. I had ridden just enough to exemplify the old adage, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." I made a dashing figure in my twelve

166 ------MowngOn dollar, cream-colored, cowboy boots with gold butterfly inserts, a hat that was too big and stirrups that were too long. Reno laid flat-out when circling in that grand entry and I was terrified, realizing I just had to keep my seat due to my condition. Merritt was getting no better. Walt Teel from Troy visited and suggested we see another doctor. This was done and the diagnosis was severe kidney infection-possibly Bright's disease which was often the result of kidney infection before the advent of antibiotics. We were in a quandary. Merritt could not work but after a time was able to look after Tipton and take naps at the same time he did. Although more than four months pregnant, I was not noticeably so. I answered an ad for a waitress in a beer garden called The Stables just out of Lewiston. I could ride to work with the musicians who lived in our area. There were several other girls working there and we were given our nights wages, a dollar and eighty-five cents, when we arrived. I soon learned to compete for customers by rushing to the door when they showed, steering them to my table. Beer was ten cents a glass and we made change from the money in our pocket; if we made a mistake it was our loss or gain. Very few people ordered food and I don't remember many tips. The place was crowded and noisy, especially on weekends. I did not have time to worry about Tipton or Merritt until the latter showed up one evening and said I was not to work in such a place any more. It meant the difference between eating and going hungry so I continued for a time. Sometime later I read in the paper that the proprietors had been arrested for running a house of prostitution there! Things took a turn for the better when Merritt's brother Halsey showed up one day.

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Chapter 10

We fought hard on the hotne front, and sotne got battle fatigue

Lightle Place, 1960

Halsey had been leasing his grandfather George Lightle's wheat ranch on Lightle Flat between Troy and Flora-called Lower Lost Prairie by some. He and his wife Hazel were buying the store at Imnaha. If we could get the bank's O.K., he would just turn over his lease to us, and we could take over the wheat ranch with no money changing hands.

Of course we jumped at the chance. This place had rich soil composed of deep alluvial deposits left by glaciers in the carving-out time. Periodic layers of volcanic ash blowing east from the erupting volcanoes of the Cascade mountains had increased its fertility. Visitors from Wallowa Valley who had thought civilization ended there have been known to remark when seeing the abundance of cultivated land on the benches above the Grande Ronde, "Why, this is good country. I never knew there was so much farm land out here."

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The Lightle place at that time consisted of two hundred forty acres of prime farm land, some grazing land, and considerable rental land. There was a good new barn, some outbuildings, two springs, a shallow well and an old but livable house built in the last century. This unpainted two-story residence had three rooms and a lean-to kitchen downstairs and two rooms upstairs. George had run the place as a diversified farm. When he became too old to run it, he had rented it out and it was used as a grain and hog operation. Remnants of the old orchard planted long ago by George, a real farmer, were still there and we enjoyed the fruit it produced. It was time for planting fall grain to take advantage of winter moisture when we moved in with our scant household goods, but Merritt did take time to install a sink and turn a kitchen window horizontally over it so that I might look out over a spectacular view; the point of Powwatka, Eden bench and the Blue Mountains, Bartlett, Grouse Flat, and Mount Misery, and on to the north, Cougar Mountain. He also trimmed the long- neglected black walnut trees in the front yard so I might see in that direction. We got a fifteen gallon hot water tank in Enterprise, cut off the top, and fashioned a lid. Water was pumped at the well by the back porch and poured into the tank which was hooked up by coils to the Monarch range. I had no running water but enjoyed the luxury of hot water. It made washing on the board less of a chore. In his bachelor days Merritt had traded a saddle for a 6-volt, dry-cell radio. Reception was good from Spokane and Salt Lake. One Sunday morning in December I was making French onion soup from a recipe I heard on that radio-no Lipton's dehydrated in those days-when the program was interrupted by the news that the Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor! I remember sitting down in shock, thinking, 'this will change our lives; many of our young men will go to war and some will be killed. Hitler and Tojo might be vict0rious, and where would we be then? The war might come to our mainland ... ' We said "Japs" with no compunction hardly needing all the propaganda of the time to hate them. They had changed our lives suddenly and drastically. Later, when American Japanese were interned, we saw nothing amiss with that action firmly believing they were a menace. It was not until we learned stories of individuals and became acquainted with real people of that origin that our attitude modified. Everyone I know who was an adult on that day remembers what he was doing when he heard the news. It was as if time stood still for a while. We knew Merritt would never have to fight because of a crooked right arm which resulted when he broke it after being catapulted off a bed at the age of five. Besides that he was a farmer and they received "points" according to the volume of their production. It was not long before most of our male, able-bodied relatives and friends, as well as some females, were in the service. Merritt's brother Lowell was in the Army up in Alaska. My

170 ------Moving On brother Joe enlisted in the marines and after officers' training school at Quantico, Virginia, was sent with the 4th Marines to the Pacific theatre. My brother Tom had been born cross-eyed at birth and was deaf to a certain degree. The story of how he got into the Air Force despite these handicaps may not have been unique but I think it is interesting enough to be included here, and for those who do not remember the time it provides a bit of real history: I had been turned down with a classification of 4-F in the original registration of the draft. I worked at the mill, and the first of January, 1942 decided to go to school. I just hit the ground in Corvallis for college in February when I received notice that I was reclassified as 1-A! It seemed that the three kind old gentlemen on the draft board thought that if you could go to college, you could fight. Maybe they were right. While waiting to be called up, Bob Dougherty and I dropped out of school and worked on the construction of Camp Adair there at Corvallis. After two and a half weeks out there digging foundation holes for the stakes I got my draft notice and went from Wallowa County with the biggest contingent of men up to that time, thirty-fix. That wild bunch went rampant on the train. I was turned down and bummed around down at Portland until General Hershey sent a directive that the selective service would take 1-B volunteers, which I had been reclassified. 1-Bwas a limited service on volunteer basis only. You could run a truck, or bake bread or haul garbage or things like that. I volunteered, the first in that classification from the county. In that group was Bernard McElroy-that was a fine man. He ended up in the infantry in North Africa and I guess you know where I went. I went with that second bunch, probably the only guy from our county that went with two draft contingents. We went to Spokane and then went to Pendleton. We were not let out of the car except to eat. They had armed M.P.'s guarding us at the end of each car. They said, 'You Wallowa County boys ain't leaving this car!' I ended up at Ft. Douglas, , and took the tests and then to Camp Kern where I got a call that I was to go to aircraft mechanic school. When I said goodbye to Faye Bright and Dee Gaston,, who were in that bunch from Wallowa County, we all had tears in our eyes. They were both past forty and both had worked for Dad when I was a kid. I went to a civilian school which was under contract to the government for six months, right next to what is now L.A. International Airport at Inglewood, California. After eight or nine weeks at Lockheed specialized mechanics school, some of us were "volunteered" out of there-sent to Santa Monica to the train station in Los Angeles on the old Pacific Electric street car. After six days and five nights, we ended up at Tampa, Florida. We were met with army buses andhauled into Ft. Meyer#Florida and out to an airfield twelve

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miles east called Buckingham Army Airfield, where I went to gunnery school. Well, by that time it looked like we were headed into the tunnel someplace, so I got serious about this thing and decided I was going to learn all I could about gunnery, and I did. As a result they wanted to keep me and another fellow there as instructors for a squadron. We had twenty-four hours to decide and we decided to turn it down. Well, I ended up across the Atlantic, and was lucky enough to get home. The other fellow ended up lost over off the coast of Norway on his thirteenth raid. They called us out on Monday and gave us our wings and a rank of buck sergeant, and put us on a train and sent us up the Atlantic seaboard in suntans. We got up to Maine to find three feet of snow on the ground and our heavy clothes back in the car. We were assigned alphabetically to B-17 Bombers and transported across-with a five-man ferry command crew on each plane-three enlisted men for replacement gunners as cargo along with the other things. About a dozen planes took off together. We got to Goose Bay Labrador and had supercharger trouble on the number two engine, which took five or six days to repair. Some pre-flight tests were made and we were held back another two or three days. Our plane finally took off by its lonesome. We got to Greenland and landed going uphill on the airfield; that takes some doing! After two or three hours we finally took off alone again and ran mto more fog. We flew down under it. I was riding in the nose of that damn thing right above the water! We stayed two or three days right across from Reykjavik, Iceland, and then flew to Scotland and to Bobbington Airfield in England. I flew five missions as tail gunner, and came home on a wing and a prayer and was downed in the North Sea enough times that they finally caught up with me. Thank God I was grounded and sent to the hospital in Oxford for two or three weeks. A boat took us out to the Queen Elizabeth that looked to me like the biggest thing in the world. It opened just above the water and we hopped in. I could not believe we were going to make it until we got back. It took us five days of zigzagging all the way to the Grand Banks outside of New York, where the escort boats came into sight, to keep the German subs from lining us up to their torpedoes. There were all kinds of boats and tugs around, but of course the Queen Elizabeth was the biggest thing in the New York harbor. They put us on another ferry and sent us into Staten Island. I spent one long weekend in New York City where I met up with John George, who was stationed on Long Island at the time. After I spent some time in the Riley General Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, where I had Thanksgiving dinner, I went before the review board where I was given a medical discharge for the poor hearing and crooked eye which I had started out with. This was January 11, 1944.

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When I got back to Wallowa I just kinda bummed around. All my friends were gone into the service, and the only men were those on deferment, old men and kids in high school. There were jobs everywhere. I waited until April when I went with the shearing crew up the Snake River clear to the end of the run. I went back to Red Fir shearing place where I worked for Joe McClaran. After that I went to work driving log truck out of Elgin until I became unhappy with my boss. Mr. Ashby offered me a job in the office at the mill. Like a fool I· refused, but I finally got back in college January 2, 1945, just three years after I had tried it the first time.

When it came time for the birth of our second baby, Tipton and I went out and stayed with the Trumps for a time. I went up to Enterprise to the home of Mrs. Lyons who kept "confinement" cases as childbirth was called at the time. Merritt was called and brought in a butchered veal for sale which helped defray medical expense which was only thirty dollars for the doctor-his charge for a second baby-and about the same for Mrs. Lyons. I was anxious to get back to the ranch and did so when our second son was about a week old. We thought Teddy Joe was a cute name for a baby but were about to put Theodore Joe and Tom Johnson on leave Joseph on the birth certificate, when Los Angles 1942 Dr. Kettle heard about the "Teddy Joe". He fumed and sputtered and said, "That is no name for a grown man." I became stubborn as is my wont when told what to do. Therefore, Teddy Joe has been Ted's official name since February 7, 1942. We had planned for a daughter. His grandmothers had made some dainty, embroidered baby dresses and Teddy was such a dainty, pretty thing, that I was guilty of following the old custom by putting those dresses to use. That was the first and least of many experiences he survived, and made us another fine son whose several kinds of strength belie the fact that he, like many males before him, wore dresses as a baby. A true story would not be complete without mention of one of the trials of a pioneer homemaker which still afflicted the unwary before the

173 Moving On ------time of D.D.T. When spring came, so did the bedbugs. A saying was prevalent at the time that, like the itch, it was no disgrace to get them; the disgrace was in keeping them. One morning Teddy stood up in his crib with big red bumps all over. At first I thought he had the measles and called Mable Martin who was central up at Flora for information. (Her grandfather, Dr. Mason, was one of the pioneers of Arko.) Anyone who ran the telephone office usually had much pertinent information on current happenings and could be counted on for help. Besides that, Mable was a friend of the family, had raised a large family and was wise in all practical matters. Her advice was, "Look for bedbugs.,, Sure enough, I found them. I got on the phone for more advice, which was "Dip a feather in kerosene and then run it through every crack in the house. Take your mattresses out in the sun and do them the same way.,, Melva Evans from Flora was helping me at the time and we spent several days waging war on bedbugs taking one room at a time. We dismantled bedsteads, washed the bedding, kerosene-feathered all the cracks in the old rough-lumber walls and around the baseboards, brushed the mattresses which we had lugged out on what grass we had in the yard, feather-kerosened them, and kept turning and airing them all day. We found enough correct-sized cans for our purpose and got them under the bed legs-partially filling them with kerosene. It was hot and we could leave the windows wide open night and day thus escaping asphyxiation. Fortunately, there was little smoking in the house at the Winona and Merritt Holloway, time or we might have gone up in a Ted and Tipton magnificent blaze. We were not Lightle Place 1942 smoking much in those years because servicemen had priority on tailor-made cigarettes, tobacco cost money and it took time to roll your own. No one said it was bad for our health. In fact, advertisements assured us that smoking was the way to glamour and beauty. The bank was "running us.,, So much was allocated for operation of the place, and crop money from grain and hogs was paid directly to the bank until the loan was paid. Due to this arrangement we had little extra money. One thing I did not stint on was food because I had not been raised that way. Men's work clothes had to be bought but I used the backs of Levis

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for little kid's overalls. The cloth there on the legs remains strong after other parts are worn out. Two pair of Levis made one pair of child's pants. I retrieved suspenders from men's worn, bib overalls, using the elastic and fasteners for suspenders on the kid's pants. We traded a steer to Halsey for a rather new Montgomery Ward gas- powered, wringer washing machine which really lightened my work load. This wonder of efficiency moved with us several times in the west before I gave it away in a fit of generosity, fourteen years later. I really appreciated it for heavy work clothes which I never learned to do well by hand. With water at the doorstep and hot water in the kitchen when the tank was filled, wash day was easier for me than for some. We had bought a large Servel kerosene refrigerator from Halsey and Hazel which could double as a freezer if we turned it to maximum cold. What luxury to keep our food cool and make our own ice cream! This was some years before Rural Electrification and all the resulting labor saving devices which have relieved ranch women of much drudgery. The Lightle place was a little too much for Merritt to run alone. When his brother Roy graduated from high school he came to help and became our partner. Joan, his thirteen-year-old sister, also came to live with us. She was a tremendous help to me. We had men to cook for in harvest time and I raised a big garden and canned. Clara Redman was my only woman neighbor on the flat and she shared ranch-living hints with me-a knowledgeable source of information because she had been raised there. She was a hard worker and a good manager on the the large ranch where she was born, the Renfrow place, which she and her husband Harry were renting She and Nettie Lightle had been girls and schoolmates together there on the flat. We traded work and equipment with the Redmans during those hard, war years, a practice followed all over the country. Our well was shallow and sometimes went dry in the summer. There was no irrigation water for a garden but I raised good tomatoes and cucumbers by digging a hole by the plant, positioning a No.10 can-in which I had punched small holes next to the plant-filling it about three times a week with water carried from our well. When daylight-saving time was instigated it did not save us labor or time. It was meant to extend our work day, and did; the men stayed in the fields longer and I could work in the garden until ten o'clock in those long summer, twilight evenings of the north country. A sixteen-hour workday was not unusual for all of us. Several bachelors lived on the flat and one or more of them often showed up at mealtime. I enjoyed most of them and was glad of the diversion. George, however, hung over my every action for an hour or so before a meal relating his life's experience in short, nasal bursts which I

175 Movi.ngOn ------could rarely understand. Nothing, not even being sprinkled liberally by baby Teddy while he was bending over him to give me advice on baby care, discouraged George from keeping me company in the kitchen. Having been in the navy, he had consumed his share of beans and was not fond of them. If he smelled them cooking he did not stay for a meal. It was the custom of the country to invite anyone who dropped by at mealtime to eat. I would extend an invitation to him but later when I discovered his one food phobia, was guilty of putting on a pot of beans when I saw him riding up the hill. Hospitality, I believe, derived from expediency as much as from generosity and courtesy. If you accommodated all comers they were obligated-in all fairness and decency-to accommodate you if you were in need of food and lodging in their area. This was a convenient and civilized custom in isolated places without public hotels or restaurants. "Are you going to stay all night?" meant, "I'll fix a bed for you." This was done without thinking anyone might be imposing. There was a saying over in Promise in the early days when one had only a small house and wanted to ask someone to stay the night. "If you will stay over we can make a John Finley." This meant beds on pallets on the floor; the Finleys had a large room where community dances were sometimes held. The story is that John and his wife would bed down in the middle; the females would string their beds in a row beside her and the men would place theirs out from John. Propriety and hospitality were both served without a lot of fuss. "Are you staying for dinner?" was an invitation, meaning "You are welcome to do so, and if you are I'll just set another place." I really should have ignored the custom when I was visited on a wet, muddy morning by a young, self-ordained circuit rider. He rode over from Eden and stopped for a late breakfast or early lunch on his way up the hill. He ate the special meal I fixed for him with gusto, looked around at the muddy kitchen floor and unwashed dishes, commenting, "You know, Nona, cleanliness is next to Godliness." I was thinking some decidedly ungodly thoughts as I sat down with a baby crying for his breakfast watching that clean and Godly man swing his handsome self gracefully into the saddle and ride away. About this time "Papa" John Holloway came over with a handmade dresser which had belonged to his sister, "Aunt Sus". It was very old and must have dated back to a very early time but I did not realize that then. In it I found many papers of Merritt's grandfather William Holloway. Among the papers, in quaint handwriting, was an account of Pleasant Holloway who was born when George Washington was still alive and was Merritt's great-grandfather. Through the years I have collected accounts of these people and through efforts of several other researchers, along with books and records about the Quakers, have written their story, They Came on the Shield. A brief account here may be of interest to history-minded people.

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i_,

Holloway House, Crosswicks New Jersey, early 18th century.

The first Holloways of our branch into the New World were Quakers. Actually, the ancestors of the first Mrs. Holloway were James and Anne Murfin Pharo whose daughter Mary was born in the the Quaker colony of New Jersey in 1681 and married John, the first Holloway of our line in America, twenty-five years later. The Pharos came to the Jersey Colony on the ship Shield in December of 1677. As they tacked up the Delaware River someone on board looked over at the place where Philadelphia was later established and remarked, "That would be a fine site for a town." Leaving the mother country was not easy for these people but they just would not conform to rules of church and state. They were middle-class and heavily taxed to support wars, the Church of England and the extravagant lifestyle of the royalty of which they disapproved. Because of their refusal to pay these taxes they were jailed and otherwise abused. These "plain people" hated titles, pomp, and bowing to their "betters," or anyone else for that matter. When they got a chance to buy shares in land on each side of the Delaware River in America they took it. Their stubborn nonconformity had been a great problem to King Charles II. In fact, one James Holloway, a weaver, had even been in on a plot to murder the king, because he was giving preference to French goods by letting them come into England without tariff. This cost James his life but because he told all about the two plans for murdering the king he was only hanged and spared the worse fate of being drawn and quartered. A

177 Moving On ------description of this process will enable us to understand why James decided to tell all. It entailed having the victim's intestines pulled out slowly in front of his eyes; each arm and leg was tied to a horse, each animal was started at the same time and the quartering was done. A variation of this procedure was to tie these appendages to a rack which was wound up tightly enough to pull them from the body. Charles was so glad to see the last of these "lawless and unprincipled people," as he called the Quakers that he gave a boatload of them his blessing when they were leaving for America. The Pharo party arrived in winter. An unexpected cold spell came in the night and they walked over the frozen river finding shelter in huts along the riverbanks and in wigwams among hospitable Indians who shared their food with them. James built a very substantial home which along with three Holloway houses still stands in New Jersey. (Lands around these houses are now under farm preservation so that they may not be developed for housing.) John Holloway came from England about 1700 and married Mary Pharo in 1706, when he was twenty. A year earlier she had been cautioned against marrying out of the faith and had been "dealt with." John must have met the requirements. He died young and gave his son George, age five, to a brother of Mary to raise. The man who raised George, James Pharo, never married; he inherited the bulk of his father's considerable estate and was well able to care for George Holloway. George married Ruth Wood in 1731 at "Friends Meeting with thirty-nine witness." When he was in his mid-sixties this couple left New Jersey and went down to the Quaker colony of Hopewell, Virginia not far from Williamsburg. A year or two later his son Isaac and family were there. Isaac's third son, William, fought in the Revolutionary War perhaps with some persuasion. The Quakers at Hopewell who were resisting the war were fined, imprisoned, or taken from their homes and later forced to march with muskets tied to their persons until they got to George Washington's camp where they were released-"thus being persuaded to fight." William, born in 1754, served as a private and was pensioned. The "fighting Quakers" were taken back into the faith after the war due to the circumstances of their "enlistment." In 1812 William moved into the Ohio valley. This is the area where Virginia war veterans were rewarded with bounty lands. As did others of my childrens' ancestors, William moved into Indiana a few years after that. Pleasant, the fourth child of this William, was born in Virginia in 1795. He was seventeen when he moved into the Ohio valley with his father and mother Sara, in 1821. He married Samarcia Stanley-one record

178 ------MowngOn says Stanz. The Stanleys were Quakers, but Pleasant was "kicked out" of the Quaker church "for marrying out" which presents one of those little mysteries we run into when we have only scant old records to go on. He bought some land in Iowa and sold it in 185 7 the same year that my ancestor William Burgett moved into the state. Pleasant ended up in Kansas where he is buried. As a matter of comparison for the high cost of dying in these times, the doctor bill for his last illness, from April 19 to May 2, 1875, was fifteen dollars. This was for three home visits, one of them at night, and two prescriptions. Because Pleasant's last child, William, was the last of thirteen children, and William's last child, John, was the last of eleven children, there were only four generations between 1795 and 1908 when John's first child, Halsey Peter Pleasant, was born in this branch of the family. The William, who was Merritt's grandfather, fought for the Union in the Civil War. He volunteered in Indiana, and we have a story or two of his war experiences. They are here incorporated in a general story of his last and probably his only battle, Chickamauga.

If a Northern victory had been possible at Chickamauga, the war might have stopped then and there, before Christmas 1863 as was the hope of the Union. Chattanooga, was the gateway to Georgia and the Deep South, an important transportation center. Its capture would have been a severe blow to the south. Large forces had gathered and activity began early in September1863 among the vine and brush-choked ravines and wooded ridges along the Chickamauga river, whose Indian name, "River of Death," portended what was to come. Long before the bloody fighting they had given it that name when so many of their people died of the smallpox epidemic after the white man came. When the main thrust of came it was described as probably the single most devastating battlefield offensive of the war. There was confusion and desperate fighting, much of it face-to-face and hand-to- hand. Lack of water made for terrible suffering on both sides. The river was behind the southern lines and could be reached in long walks but no large containers were available. There were only canteens which were entirely inadequate. There was a pond of stagnant water behind northern lines which soon got the name of "Bloody Pond" from the blood shed into it by wounded men who had dragged themselves there to drink of the foul stuff. Most accounts mention the terrific sound of the battle which carried men forward or filled them with terror-not just the sound of rifle and artillery but the noise men make in battle when they are crowded close together in fear, anger, and pain.

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The northern army was made up mostly of farm boys from Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, , , and Indiana. William had volunteered from Indiana and this state suffered the highest percentage of casualties of any of these states-more in this one battle than all the American losses in the Spanish-American war. The Swedes from Minnesota were nicknamed "the Vikings" because of their fierce fighting but some felt the Indiana boys outdid them. Despite such fighting men, the call to retreat had to be made before the Yankees were all killed or captured. This is when the rebel yells so infuriated the sad and dispirited northerners. This distinctive battle cry had been heard for days but not in this intensity. When orders for retreat were given one captain bounded through the trees with his hand to his rear yelling, "Oh my God, only think of it, I am shot in the hind end!" It turned out he was only creased but William Holloway was not so lucky. The 101st Indiana, William's regiment, was the last to leave the field but he was not with them. He had been shot in the thigh and was lying half-conscious among other casualties when he heard the ambulance drivers say, "That's all we have room for. Let's be heading in." He knew he would not last long if left in the field and begged to be taken aboard the vehicle which was an ordinary farm hay wagon. Somehow he was wedged in among the other wounded and got to the field hospital which was a tent among some trees. He was safe there because the southern forces were unable to pursue and wipe out the Yankees. They were "done in, entirely used up," and were absolutely unable to fight any more. A fire broke out in the dry grass and timber after the retreating northerners set fire to their works and he was spared a horrible death by burning which was the fate of some of the wounded on both sides. William, or Bill as he was called by his brothers and sisters, received $100 cash bounty for being wounded and a monthly pension of six dollars. But he suffered from his wounds the rest of his life. In later years while living at Arko, Oregon he hoped to increase his pension and collected affidavits from his neighbors that he was unable to work but failed to send them to the claims department so nothing came of the effort.

Back home William married Samantha Mary Arbaugh and took up a homestead in Indiana in 1867. Her people came from Germany, also to escape religious persecution. They were Protestants who were called Palantines. We have a brief description of Baltzer who landed in Philadelphia in 1748, a brother of Samantha's ancestor Lorentz, who came in 1744: "He was a handsome, sensible, strong man, who at about the age of nineteen or twenty years, left for a foreign country. When he left he wore a leather belt about his waist filled with money." It was noted that

180 ------Moving On perhaps it is the story of the belt filled with money that has been a factor in keeping the account alive through the generation. We wish we knew more. After living in Kansas for a good many years, William and some of his . family went into the Indian Territory (Oklahoma) for a year before coming to Oregon in 1884-85 by covered wagon accompanied by Charles Schuman and his son Oren. In Colorado they were joined by the Nicoson family from Missouri. Susan Holloway (Aunt Sus) age sixteen, drove a team all the way and met her future husband Conn Nicoson on the continental divide. This group wintered at Summerville, Oregon, an early crossroads settlement at the foot of the Blue Mountains where the road from Walla Walla came into the Grande Ronde Valley. Before there was a settlement at Flora the they came in to have a look, travelling by the way of Wallowa, Whiskey Creek and Leap. They liked what they saw and picked their locations in 1887 in what was later to be called Arko. William's youngest child, John Tipton, was five years old at the time. He married a neighbor girl Nettie Lightle and this couple had fourteen children of whom Merritt is the sixth. Twelve of them lived to adulthood.

Samantha Arbaugh Holloway and William Holloway, at Flora, c, 1910 (William with medal of the Grand Army of the Republic, Civil War veterans organization)

181 MowngOn ------

WWII and war work had drained the work pool at home which included teachers. September came and no teacher had been found for District No. 10, Arko. I considered myself drafted. After several urgent calls from Charles Schuman, chairman of the school board, ( son of Oren Shuman who had come into the area with the Holloways) I decided I would give it a try. Our busy harvest time was over; perhaps with the help of a hired girl and Merritt's sister Joan, I could manage.

Arko, as a community, came into being before Flora and must have had a subscription school before the district was organized in 1888 and records began to be kept. Grace Wilson Conley, for many years the grand old lady of Wallowa County, related some of its story to me while in residence at the Wallowa County Nursing Home. As a young girl while still Grace Wilson, she had come over from her home in Paradise to Arko and taught school there. Families contributed private money for a teacher. She boarded around with families in the area which was often the custom. She told of staying with William and Samantha Holloway whose sons John Tipton and William Bargdall were of school age and of the kind treatment she received. (Samantha lost four children in their infancy and was very solicitous of those she had left at home. According to family legend she rose in the middle of the night on one occasion, made a fire and cooked biscuits for a small son who awoke crying that he was hungry.)

Pioneer families whose children and descendants had kept the school going from the time of settlement in the late 1880's to 1943 were the Schumans, Nicosons, Martins, Holloways, Fleets, Nedrows, Bakers, Botts, Olivers, Masons, the Renfrows and Yeagers. Descendants of these long-time residents had the old-fashioned, courtly manners that came with them- addressing each other affectionately as, for example, Cousin Julia, Aunt Sarry, Aunt Kiz, Uncle Wes, and Uncle John.

A log schoolhouse was built on Leonard Oliver's place-they had come in with the Reeds shortly after the Schumans, Holloways, and Nicosons. Planed boards brought from Enterprise added some class and comfort even if the roof was of hand-hewn shakes with no ceiling. True to tradition, school teachers married locals. Almira Stanley, first teacher in the organized Arko district, married George Cannon of Lost Prairie; Flossie Williams from Troy, who taught on Lightle Flat, married Dale Renfrow in 1913. Ora Schmalhorst married Charles Schuman and they raised a large family on the original Schuman place. Marvin Wiggins who taught at Arko in 1939 married their daughter, Alta.

In 1896 when the frame schoolhouse was built at its present location, the community had a post office, a justice of peace and a resident doctor. Every little whoop and holler held a homesite. If families did not have large amounts of land on which to make a living, they just lived on what th~·

182 ------Moving On made. One hundred years has brought great change. In 1989 most of the property is held by one descendant of first settlers: Vandon Martin and his wife Noma. The Fleet place is owned by the Hawkins family but they are the only residents I know of in Arko, an area where one hundred or more people once lived. The Vandon Martins live near Enterprise and in an hour or so they are able to commute to their farm land that once belonged to the Schumans, Holloways, Martins and Nicosons. At the time these people settled the country a trip to town and back took two days, and was not undertaken lightly. In 1942 my pupils were all related by blood or marriage and all descendants of first settlers. Gas was rationed, so Joan and I rode horseback to school as did Vandon Martin and Roy Shelton; the others walked. Although it was hard to leave my children with a young woman all day, I enjoyed the trip up Yaeger canyon to the tiny, weathered schoolhouse on the side of the hill. Red sumac accented golden aspen and dark pines in the canyon. After tying our horses in the pines by the shed, our first duty was to build a fire in the big barrel stove in the middle of the room Then I changed into a dress. At that time no woman wore pants to teach in-that is, until the Wallowa County School Superintendent paid us a visit. Ruth Hayes, superintendent at the time, had been my eighth grade teacher and anyone she ever taught will attest that she was the best. Now was her time to quiz pupils but she kindly gave a few suggestions, among them advice that she did not think it necessary for me to change from riding pants to dress for teaching at that school and left with her driver to check on the Lost Prairie school. She never did learn to drive a car. In 1942, eighth graders had only to take county achievement tests and were spared state examinations. The result has been sloppy teaching by some teachers, which has resulted in the achievement tests being reinstated in most states and state examinations in many. Equipment in that school was sparse by today's standards, and the budget probably did not exceed fifteen hundred dollars a year-$100 a month for teacher's salary being the big expense. We had one shelf of books, some dating back in the 19th century. I did the best I could by sending to the county and state libraries for supplemental reading material. A contract was given the lowest bidder to supply wood for the stove and by the time school started the shed was full of pine chunks of convenient burning size. We carried enough for several days in the ante-room. This cloakroom also had hooks for coats and bridles, a bench for lunch pails and the ironware, ceramic water cooler. We were on a hill away from a spring, therefore water was carried in five gallon milk cans by the Schumans dropping it by or my husband when he came by in the pickup. We gave lip service to sanitation having a wash basin and towels but it was impossible to be strict in practice. We did not worry about contagion until a young man roared up in his Buick one fall day saying he was sent as a health

183 Mo~ngOn ------officer to warn of an eminent polio epidemic: "Be ready to close school at any time ... " A case or two had been reported in the county and because Salk vaccine was still thirteen years in the future we had cause for alarm. Fortunately, the epidemic never came. I felt free to thumbtack anything on those drab, board walls, and added a touch of class by running up multi-colored curtains on my treadle sewing machine from net material costing nine cents a yard. On the slightly elevated platform, the original teacher's desk held my books and a hand bell, which now rests in the Wallowa Co. Museum. A whole hour at noontime gave the boys plenty of time to run free and wild. That bell always brought them in. After a few days of school Joan, the only girl student, chose to remain inside during recess. At age fourteen, she took a lot of chasing and teasing from those boys who were vying for her attention. She now looks back on that year fondly despite the harassment she felt she received. As the war worsened and the winter deepened we spent more and more time in current events sessions around that big stove in the morning. We all had relatives and friends fighting on both fronts. After listening to the radio in the evening (all the big, six-volt, dry batteries that supplied power were kept charged at all times), we discussed each battle. Leo Schuman, the youngest pupil, was well informed. We knew what outfit our boys were in and followed their movements in both theaters of the war, pinpointing spots on a big wall map. We learned a lot of geography that winter.

Arko Schoolhouse, 1988 Emily, Ned, and Robin Fairchild

184 ------Moring On

The day before Thanksgiving we enacted the Courtshipof MilesStandish on the raised platform. Joe was John Alden. Priscilla, of course, was our only female student. Joan uttered those energizing words, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" and the play was over. In the fading November light we rode down the canyon into a soft, thick snowfall enveloping a silent world. Loud snorts from our sidestepping horses alerted us. It took some persuasion to get them to jump the small stream. We could have expected that from Reno, who was hot-blooded and spirited but not from Ginger-gentle as a kitten. There, on the other side of the creek were cougar tracks the size of saucers and so fresh that they contained no new-fallen snow. The menfolk at home scorned our story but we knew the truth and cherished our adventure.

Our Christmas program was rather special. Some young folks came including Delmer Wilson who had volunteered and was ready to leave for the war. When Joan sang There'sa Star SpangledBanner Waving Somewhere, he fell in love with her right then and there. In three years they were married. Delmer, Harold Redman, and Dofna and Everett Martin played musical instruments and we danced for awhile. There was an Oregon law against dancing in a schoolhouse-somehow we did not remember it.

It was getting harder and harder to leave Teddy Joe and Tipton in care of a busy young woman. Teddy, especially, was not getting enough attention and was plagued by rashes, colds and hyperactivity, which confounded me at the time but which were later diagnosed as allergies. I left the family washing until the weekend at which time all us females could pitch in but that gave me little time for rest. After christmas I found it increasingly more difficult to teach and run a home and I was ill much of the time. I resigned my teaching job in February and the widow Mrs. Burns of Troy was recruited for the job.

Agnes finished the term, attired in a sensible dark dress and using techniques in vogue in Portland forty years before. During the week, she boarded with Mrs. Sara Schuman (Aunt Sary), a widow. Unless the weather prevented it she walked down the hill to her home in Troy every Friday and back on Sunday, healthier and stronger for it. She taught a second year there, the last year that school was held. Arko district consolidated with Flora in 1947 and Flora School was later consolidated with Enterprise. All books and equipment from Flora school were sold at auction some years ago and the building itself is now advertised for sale. When It is gone-a grand structure, on the top storey of which one had a commanding 360-degree of the surrounding country-this little ghost town will no longer seem so much like home to the many Northenders who received their education there.

185 Moving On ------

The rain came at the right time and we had good crops every year. Our first harvest was spring barley which went over sixty bushels to the acre. We had bought a No.10 Caterpillar tractor and a side-hill Holt combine-trading manpower at harvest time with our neighbors, the Redmans. A combining operation took a cat skinner, header puncher, sack sewer and at least two men to pick up sacks, as well as a truck driver. At Flora School, 1974 that time there were no bulk rigs in the country that we knew of. Mexican nationals were available for farm work by request through the county agent and we hired three of them at combining time the next summer. They were lifesavers for farmers at a time when there was just no other labor available on the home front. We were intrigued by their singing and enjoyed their courteous, soft-

Combining on the Lightle Place, 1942 Harry Redman, Roy Holloway, Merritt Holloway, Harold Redman, Mexican Braceros

186 ------Moving On spoken manner. They were intrigued by some of the strange food we served, including Jello which we considered a special treat in that time of sugar rationing, but they scorned the quivering red dish of "Haylo". I promised to write to one young man who was a teacher in Mexico. When his letter came I could make out only the greeting, "Most Gracious Senora" but dutifully wrote back in English which he must have been unable to read because our correspondence stopped there. And then there were hogs! Twelve red Duroc brood sows were always kept on the place for breeding; that made for more than 200 little pigs running around at a time. Grain was hauled from the granary down to the feeder pen by the lower spring and was pounded up by an old-fashioned hammer mill. A previous renter had installed a self-feeder. One hundred feeder pigs were fattened at a time. They were sorted out weekly and when they reached 200 lbs. we marketed them in Enterprise. If the men were busy with farming, it fell my lot to haul out a load in the pickup; ten hogs made a ton and we tried to have that many to make up a full load. Of course tires were rationed and although farmers were allowed enough to carry on operations, ours were often very thin and I lived in fear of having a flat or blowout on that long haul of fifty-five miles with the truck full of pigs in back and small children in the cab. A load made for more traction getting up the steep grade just back of the ranch, but the ten- mile stretch up to Flora was usually muddy at hog hauling time. After getting stuck and slipping off the road, Merritt went to the county and it was agreed that they would furnish gravel for the worse spots if farmers along the way would furnish the labor. That was done and the trip up to the better road at Flora was quicker and easier. We delivered to the shipping co-op and took the check from the previous load to the bank on the same trip. We thought ifwe could receive fifteen cents a pound for those hogs we could make it. The last load we took out hit it! We had paid off the mortgage a time or two before this good fortune but immediately got another for operation costs. To make a little extra money the men broke horses for horse traders or ranchers out in the valley. Those hogs were both our livelihood and the bane of our lives. I sent to a poultry outfit in Missouri for one or two hundred roosters every spring, brooding them under a tin watering trough where a hole was dug and a kerosene lantern or lamp placed for heat. When they got big enough to run they spread out in the fields and gleaned wheat after combining was finished, coming back to the brooder at night. If you have never eaten a wheat-fed fryer, you don't know what real chicken should taste like! Joan and I had fed a baby pig by hand and she thought she was one of the family. We thought this was cute until Lulubelle grew up and got big enough to be a nuisance. In her weanling stage she haunted the panel

187 Moving On ------fence by the yard and when I counted my fryers one night I had my suspicions. When I took time to watch her, they were confirmed. She patrolled the fence scooping up stray chickens as they wriggled through under the panels, their legs dangling from her jaws as she chomped. Lulubelle graduated to the fattening pen ahead of her class. Another weanling was kicked in the head by a horse when the men were gone. I butchered her out and roasted her whole for company. I was afraid to leave small children in the yard for fear hogs would break in while ranging in the surrounding fields and devour them. These critters brought clouds of flies and in the age before D.D.T. we had no adequate method of control. Imagine my horror when Tipton passed a large roundworm one day after his nap. I had read him the story of the prodigal son not long before and he admitted to trying out what the profligate had longed to do after he had dissipated his inheritance; he had eaten in the trough of ground grain with the hogs! His inquiring mind almost led to disaster one day in January 1944. The old house had a through cupboard used in both the regular kitchen and the old lean-to. A cubbyhole between wall and cupboard held guns. Someone had leaned a 30-30 rifle there after its use and when Tipton was exploring he found it. I was scrubbing the floor on my hands and knees in the kitchen, which was separated from the other room by the cupboard doors-I was too awkward in my third pregnancy to stoop-when the whole house shook with a mighty blast. I staggered around to the lean-to and discovered Tipton still clutching the wobbling gun with surprise and terror. He had only wanted to see if it was loaded! A large hole gaped in the floor only inches from where I had been squatting in the other room. If the gun had been pointed three inches higher, I would not be writing this and Tom Holloway would not have been born June 24, 1944. The theory that it was always best to keep a gun loaded so that others would know that and respect it went out the window as soon as the men came in for dinner. Teddy and Tipton were cared for by Millie Trump in Wallowa and Peggy Holloway over in Eden when I went out to have ou·. third son. They came up to the hospital on the hill in Enterprise with Merritt when he came to take me home. When I leaned over the balcony and saw them sitting so clean, neat, and expectant down there by the door, I rushed to them immediately leaving Thomas behind. A Tipton and Bambi nurse remedied the situation at once. at Lightle Place

188 ------MowngOn

Dorothy George was living in my parents' house in Wallowa, while my father was guarding a railroad tunnel at Reith during the War and her husband John was in the Sea Bees. I stayed with her a few days before returning to the ranch where a busy summer awaited. Tom was a contented baby and would stay happy for extended periods of time while I planted and cared for a big garden. Merritt and Roy went over to Dufur, Oregon where their father John Holloway, was also guarding a railroad tunnel and brought back a big load of prime peaches for canning. The orchard on the Lightle place, planted so long ago, still produced apples, pears, some cherries, but no peaches. Everyone who was able had big gardens. Available patches in the downtown of some cities were planted to victory gardens and my goal was to can 1,000 quarts of fruits and vegetables that year so that I could just rest and open up jars all winter. (I reached my goal but was so ill the next winter that about all I was able to do was open jars.) Merritt's mother who had been raised on th~t place came and helped at harvest time. She was an experienced gardener and gave me good advice as well as patching many old, grain sacks on my treadle machine out under the walnut trees. New sacks were not to be had at any price that year because of the war. She surprised me one morning with a dress she had made for me without a pattern. Having sewn for twelve children, she was the most adept person at that art I ever knew. She shared her secret for sweet mustard pickles and dill pickles as well as sandwich spread and vegetable soup. The last two were made from the last vegetables left in the garden when the frost came in the fall. We utilized everything we raised. A frost did not come until late in the season after which I pulled all the vines still holding green and semi-green tomatoes and hung them in a darkened upstairs room. They ripened and we had flavorful tomatoes until the first of December. There were only a few men to cook for in late harvest of that year. Joan took a few days to visit her sister Mable down at Troy where she was telephone operator at the old switchboard that had been in use for so many years, taking Tommy with her so that I could accomplish more on the ranch. Imagine our surprise when a pickup drove down the lane the next day. Tommy was all bundled up and clammy to the touch with his eyes rolling back in his head, smelling strongly of kerosene. He had crawled to a spot on the back porch where kerosene was kept, tipped the bottle, and drank or inhaled-or a combination of both-enough of the stuff to send him into shock. It was so far to the doctor that he could be as well cared for at home. I kept him warm and rocked him, worrying over him. By morning he was chirpy and almost as good as new. If he had died as an infant, we would not have known of his scholarly potential and we would not have visited him in some of those interesting places where his occupation as a historian has taken him.

189 Moving On ------

It was necessary to settle the Lightle estate. We either had to be the highest bidders on the property or move off. We were not, and we did. In the fall of 1944 Dad came out and cried a farm auction sale for us. It was time to move on. We leased several plots of farmland and pasture down on the river in Washington and started into the cattle business down on the Grande Ronde.

190 ------Moring On

Chapter 11

There w-ere other things in other places

Merritt and Winona Holloway View of Grande Ronde, 1945 with Tipton, Tom, Ted

The owner of this place eighteen miles below Troy down on the Grande Ronde was "outside" working, and his wife was teaching school in Idaho. We lived at his lower place in a small house up against a rocky hill. It was dusty and dry that fall, the sumacs were sear and red. Grass was all dried up. Canyon walls rimmed up from the river which lay in the shade very early in the day at that time of year. But spring comes early at that low elevation and green showed on alfalfa patches in March when Merritt planted grain along with the pasture on hill plots. There was a good garden spot two miles upriver where a small creek ran into the Grande Ronde and a Model A Ford truck on the place that could get us through the mud. Early the next spring we planted a garden there where it could be irrigated and raised luscious melons and tomatoes without much effort.

We got a loan to add to our nestegg and bought some good range cows only to have several of them die of shipping fever, or hemorrhagic septicemia. This is prevented now by vaccination but at that time it was not a general practice to do so. Feed was dry in the canyon in the fall and rain on dry feed released a chemical which is said to contribute to the disease. This was a real blow to us right from the start.

191 Moving On ------

We put up hay on the flats on each side of the river: The south side was in Oregon; the north side in Washington. Bill Fieser from Wallowa owned the place across the partially completed Rattlesnake bridge where the Oasis Cafe now stands. We rented his place and because there was a good building close to the river which we did not use, we had dances there that summer just for the fun of it. Musicians were whoever happened to come who could play an instrument: Ivan and Maxine Botts, Gorman Garret, Harold Redman, Delmer Wilson and Harold Kuhn. Dale and Cordelia Beach and Harold and Goldie Kuhn rode horseback down from Paradise; Willard and Lela Fordice came from upriver. Leila and Fred Botts, Carroll and Jeanette Boggan, and Everett and Eunice Boggan came from Anatone way. Wayne and Vivian Nedrow drove down from Lost Prairie. We put babies on the screened porch and someone brought ice down from Anatone, enough to fill a tub for iced drinks. We took food for supper and most people stayed for breakfast of bacon and eggs cooked on the kitchen stove and did not start home until late the next day. The way to Anatone was up the Rattlesnake grade, a pretty good road in the summer, but treacherous when icy-slick. The name comes from its sinuous, twisting route down the point of the hill not from the rattlesnakes which abound in its lower reaches. A little sorrel horse which Merritt was breaking to make a few extra dollars, slipped on the ice with him and bunged up his knee. The torn cartilage had to be repaired and when I drove the grade alone that winter to see him in the hospital I slipped completely off the road on the ice; fortunately it was on the hill side and not the canyon side. That operation took $300 of our small hoard which put us in the red on the horsebreaking deals. Because of its location in the canyon, the sun did not shine on the house for several weeks in the winter. All three boys came down with colds and coughs. Tom got an ear infection and the doctor insisted he be put in the hospital where he could be given penicillin shots at regular intervals. They said it was best for me not to be with him; they could handle him better. I still thought doctors knew best. When we got Tom home from the hospital he may have been cured of infection but he had acquired a phobia against all people in white, even barbers in Ted 2 years, Ginger 4 years aprons. The only way he could tell us about his trauma in the hospital was to lie on the floor and scream

192 ------MowngOn and kick and cry and howl. Fortunately I had enough intuition to know what he was "talking" about. What a horrible thing to do to a child! One spring morning Ginger pranced proudly down the lane with a wobbly-kneed colt following her. Ted rushed to the upstairs window and was ecstatic. (He was our boy who stood at the window and cried to ride Ginger when he was only a year old. He did.) "What shall we name her, son?" Merritt asked. "I don't know," answered Teddy, "Buckskin Wabbit, I guess." And so she got her name Rabbit and a good horse she turned out to be, intelligent and gentle like her mother, strong and durable. Her sire was Twain Bodmer's re-mount stud. These horses were owned by the government and loaned to ranchers to upgrade horse herds whose offspring were usually deemed good enough to be sold back for army use. Good horses were a must in that rugged country. At that time they provided the only method of winter transportation for those people who lived where there were only summer roads, unless it was shanks mare-walking. When these primitive roads were snowed in or muddy, the only way out was by horseback. Grace and Eddie Garrett as well as other neighbors up on Buford Ridge still depended on horses to get them "outside" in those times. Everyone rode because of necessity and most people were expert riders. Some women even planned to ride out to meet better transportation on a good dependable horse, over those steep mountain trails, when almost due to have their babies. I never heard of anyone being caught in labor on a steep hillside but there were those who did not start in time. Marvin and Peggy Holloway lived down on the Grande Ronde before the time of the river road. She had planned to ride out to the top to meet transportation to get her to Enterprise for the birth of their second child, but did not start in time. Like others of her generation, she possessed a government pamphlet on childbirth and child care which was much in vogue·at the time. Definite rules were laid down: the baby was to be fed by the clock no matter how much he cried; bathing and play time was to be strictly by the clock; solid food and anything touched by mortal hands was to be absolutely sterile, boiled until all germs were killed-beasts which might bring sudden death to the child. No wonder young mothers were often nervous wrecks! This book was of some comfort to Marvin while he officiated at the birth. Peggy read procedures to him; he split lots of wood and boiled the proverbial boiler full of water because he had heard one needed to do that- just in case. He was able to keep calm enough to welcome his son Bill and tie the umbilical chord before Mrs. Teel arrived slightly frostbitten from a long horseback ride in the dead of winter.

193 Moving On ------

She had received a telephone call from Marvin at and had started at once. Because there was no road down the river, the only way from their place in Eden at that time had been down to Troy, across Bartlett to the Harlan Green place, and then down the trail to the Grande Ronde River. She needed more care than the mother and baby when she arrived; they were doing just fine. The war was still raging and labor was mighty scarce; Ranchers were trading work and helping each other. Merritt rode up to the flat just back of us to help a neighbor with his harvest. Onnel came in from Anatone way and packed supplies up the hill, three miles or so, to his Dad's place where he did all the farming while his brothers were t in the service. His chickens laid lots of eggs in the spring which he shared carrying a dozen or so several miles when he ~- WG lked down the hill. He did Peggy and Marvin Holloway with Virginia Below: La Doris and Bill not have the time or skill for cooking; I made him angelfood cakes in a large, granite pan in the middle of which I stuck a water glass before pouring in the batter. We established a symbiotic relationship. · As I got more eggs Onnel got more cake. He was stuck for days at a time all alone up there on the hillside ranch and I was stuck down on the river at a time when there was little travel due to the war and war shortages. We were both hungry for companionship and enjoyed each others company. Water had to be hauled from a ~pring a mile or two from his house and he conserved it by saving his dishwater on the back of the stove in which he did his few dishes for several days at a time. Being the soul of hospitality he wa:; anxious to feed anyone who helped him on his place thus presenting a problem for Merritt when he was there at mealtime. Should he say he was not hungry or eat on plates still sticky with breakfast syrup or should he wash them in that dishwater on the stove? He ate, but how he resolved that dilemma I will leave to your imagination. In that far-out spot we had the best school transportation ever. Willard Fordice drove the school bus from his ranch up the river over the Rattlesnake Grade to Anatone right by our place. Joan was staying with us and going to high school and Tipton was in the first grade. His brothers had been his only companions up on Lightle flat. Now he could play with

19,4_ ------MowngOn more kids than he had thought were in the whole world. A daily chore was getting his teacher's mail at the post office and he had the distinction of taking the news of Presidents Roosevelt's death back to his teacher one April morning in 1945. Late one fall afternoon we heard the whining roar of a big plane flying close over our heads. We were not under a regular flying route; this was unusual. The plane was lost. People up in Eden heard the whine and a crash! Everyone flew to the telephone and traded observations. Eden bench is higher than our place on the river; it was cloudy and the plane simply flew right into the hill. All the neighborhood men went searching and Bill Knight an inveterate outdoorsman, one who lived to be well past 100 years of age, found the lone survivor walking-he knew not where. He had disobeyed orders and parachuted out just before the crash. There was some nonsense about a courtmartial but nothing came of it. Volunteers helped collect what could be found of the victims and placed them in mummy bags, packing them out on horses. Equipment and supplies was not collected except by locals. Marvin Holloway helped and he found a parachute-unopened of course. Peggy and I, wore white nylon blouses made from it for a summer or two. This was the first nylon fabric I had come across and I thought of those poor mangled men each time I wore it. The loss of a life had been my gain but wearing that blouse paid tribute to the dead in a way. The present bridge down there across the Grande Ronde was built before the war started and was completed except for two small details which made all the difference: the approaches had not been built! However Erman Beck, a former rancher there on the Oregon side, had constructed about two dozen wooden steps for foot traffic for his own use on that side, and had constructed a walkway on the Washington side before his untimely death in a tractor roll-over there on a steep hillside. (Such an accident occurred to another rancher a little farther down a few years later. Anyone who farms these steep plots, in places that look more like a landscape in China than in our country, is aware of that possibility.) Large animals could be herded across the river except in flood time, but smaller stuff was not so easy to swim across. Merritt hit upon the plan of getting anything with feet across that bridge when he needed them on the other side to take advantage of hay and pasture. The yearlings would come to the drop, look cautiously around, and then descend the steps carefully while we stood anxiously behind monitoring their progress. Ginger got down those steps easily and neatly but a wild horse would not. Merritt was breaking a big strong horse for a rancher over in Pomeroy, Washington and needed him on the other side but because he did not want

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to take a chance on crippling him on the steps, decided to cross him on the water. It was in the spring, and the river was running swift and full-a little too much to ride him and swim him across. A plan was devised: Merritt would spook him out into the river, and I would run across the bridge above pulling his halter rope, keeping him coming and guiding him across. If that horse was crippled we would have to pay for it. No one was thinking of what might happen to me. That turned out to be a long halter rope. All we had on the place was tied together and attached to the horse's halter. Merritt him into the water and I started running across the bridge playing out loops of rope as I ran. When the horse reached the middle the current caught him; he went downstream fast and I was pulled up to the cement railing of the bridge. I would gladly have let go of the rope and let that animal go but I couldn't! A halter was fastened on the end of the last piece and as I was ;erked to the railing my right foot and leg had gone through it. There I was, held tight, with the weight of that horse who was being carried downriver by the swift current, sawing on my leg! It was large and muscular but I knew it would not be long before I was mangled by that rope. One thing Merritt has always insists on carrying as part of his everyday equipment, is a good pocket knife. On this day that habit saved my leg, if not my life. At my first scream he came bounding along the bridge and soon had the knife pried under the taunt rope and had it cut. The horse was not fn good shape either having been under water long enough to swallow a lot of water. He drifted downstream to the Oregon side and lay awhile, heaving and snorting-recuperating. My leg was black and blue and sore for a long time; I still have it but am a lot more respectful of a rope. And then there were the snakes! Merritt and Tipton with the help of a neighbor boy trailed our small herd of cows up Bear Canyon, a tributary of the big river, to Plumb Nearly Nettie Holloway and friend to take advantage of the at Plumb Nearly, 1940

196 ------Moring On pasture there and put up hay. They packed their supplies on a mule which just followed along without needing to be led. While resting by a spring Merritt woke up to find a rattlesnake just leaving his mid-section. He hit out with his hand and felt the prickle of a snake bite. He just knew he had been bit until he realized he had jabbed into a barbed-wire fence. The crew killed three rattlers that day. They were saddened when they camped in the empty house at the ranch. The family had moved out and the place was for sale. Mice were making merry and rattlesnakes abounded. This canyon country is home to the small, red, canyon rattler and our paths crossed often. While I was taking a nap with Tommy near our garden one hot day, a rattlesnake slithered away to one of those mysterious places snakes go, right above our heads. Rattlers gave warnings to horsebackers from banks above trails and roads; and in haying time a rattlesnake could be found under almost every shock of hay down on the flats. We collected the rattles in hatbands and in jars. We saw snakes slithering in our dreams. Tommy got in the act. He was exploring the fenced yard while still in the crawling stage. One morning I saw him chasing something, scooting rapidly along with stiffly bent knees in a bear-crawl. When promoted to investigate, I found a small rattler running for his life to the rock wall behind the house. He reached it safely! I watched Tommy's activities more closely after that and kept an eye on the rock wall-a preferred spot for snakes to hole up. Our neighbor's daughter, six-year-old Zana Botts, was bitten by a snake on the walk to their house. Canyon people there still watch for rattlers, killing them where they can. It is snake country and always will be.

And then Merritt got his greetings from the Army! He no longer had enough production points to be deemed necessary on the homefront and went with one of the last contingents of draftees from Wallowa County. The trip was down to Portland on a train with "square wheels." At least that was how it seemed to him. He thought the bunch was as wild an outfit as ever left the county but then every bunch had that reputation. There was always drinking and joking and ribaldry-a last fling before the sentencing. A man died of acute alcohol poisoning on one trip. On another a young man who had been our neighbor up on Lightle Flat passed out during the drunken spree. Someone hit upon a practical joke to top them all when he pulled down the pants of his pal and used shoe polish to blacken those parts of a man's anatomy which are made prominent when he must bend over and grab his knees during the physical examination. When the time came to do this down in Portland the decoree followed directions blissfully ignorant of what had gone on before. The startled doctor thought he had run onto some rare and malignant disease exclusive to our neck of the woods. When he discovered its cause, he laughed so hard he nearly had apoplexy.

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Merritt was home safe but exhausted in a short time. His crooked right arm had never hurt him for work but looked like a real bad one to the doctors down there. Classification 4-F. The group had been fed after examination and herded back on that train at once. Supposedly, sleep was to come on the train but no one got much of that either way. He was glad to be back in the canyon. My brother Joe was back from the Pacific war zone soon after that and came down to the river to visit us. He was intact but worn, having been in the Fourth Marine Division which saw action on Saipan, Tinian, the ..farshalls and Iwo Jima. A Marine combat war correspondent got hold of some of his adventures on Saipan and wrote of one of them, which was widely publicized. Because it gives a glimpse of an almost forgotten time except by those who lived through it I will include it here:

We were down at a marine corps amphibian tractor base, watching the amtracs go by, when we stumbled across one of the Pacific war's shyest heroes ..... he· is credited with the evacuation of 566 wounded marines from Saipan's bloody beaches during the first two days of battle there. Between times, he rode his tractor over three Japanese machine gun nests, wiping them out. Pointed out as a hero by his men and other officers, he talked slowly at first, then swiftly and clearly, his words picturing an unusual panorama of combat. Neglecting to mention the savage Jap mortar and artillery fire to which he and his men were subjected Lt. Johnson related: "We carried the first and succeeding waves of marines into "Blue Beach" number 2. We weren't in the water 10 minutes before the Japs shot off our radio antenna. Next, our periscope went out. The driver was completely blind. We had to look up over the sides of the tractor and direct him by hand signals. 'We made nine trips in and out D-morning, carrying troops as far as 1,000 yards inland. About 1 o'clock in the afternoon, the first aid clearing station was having trouble getting the wounded out to hospital ships. The beach was glutted with dead and dying." Lt. Johnson left the comparative safety of his armored tractor, took over the job of directing evacuation of the wounded. He ordered his own tractors to pick up wounded wherever they were found, commandeered other tractors and ordered them to do the same. "I don't know how many we evacuated. Many of the wounded were picked up at the front lines and taken directly out to ships. But I do know that we sent 280 wounded through the clearing station on the beach that afternoon. On the second day, we took out 286 more."

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Johnson was under constant Jap machine gun and sniper fire. " While I was on the tractor the first morning, my machine gunners got two Jap machine gun nests. We rode them down. One nest, we found about 800 yards inland along a railroad track. The other was on the beach. The next morning I was in the tractor at the aid station when a Jap machine gunner only 200 yards away opened up on us. He was dug in and apparently laid low until he decided we were his traget. We squared around, drove directly forward, firing our own machine guns. Then we threw hand grenades at him.,, Johnson kept his tractors busy throughout the first two nights, evacuating more wounded. Often his tractors were fired on by American patrol craft which had been alerted to prevent the Japs from bringing over reinforcements from nearby Tinian. Asked if he was supposed to operate in the darkness, the officer replied: "The book says you don't, but the wounded had to be moved. We were lucky, some of the tractors were shot to hell.,,

Joe told us that he was almost court marshalled for running tractors at night, but they decided to give him a medal and let it go at that. It was hard to get the Japanese on the Island to surrender. Joe had a tale about that:

The soldiers and civilians had been loaded to the gills with propaganda about the Marine devils and were afraid to surrender to us. Some prisoners said they were told that a U.S. Marine had to kill his mother and father before he could get into the Corps. When they were trapped on the north end of the island, a lot of them went out the back door. They'd jump off the cliff, swim out and drown, or use hand grenades on themselves, or line up for an officer to chop off heads. Families would gather around a land mine, then the head of the house would ceremoniously push the pin. The Marines were ineffective in stopping such nonsense.

Joe got jungle rot and an intestinal parasite which invaded him for several years until discovered, as well as a considerable amount of shaking up emotionally. He had brought some tracer bullets down to use for hunting and a five- man group went up on the mountain where elk abounded. During the winter I could look out the kitchen window and see thirty or forty in a bunch slowly winding down the switchbacks on the hillside trail as they came down to eat ranchers' hay along the river. Those tracer bullets made beautiful paths when shot, everyone got his elk and a gay time was had- the first one for Joe after all those grim war years.

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Merritt's brothers, Halsey and Roy Holloway, came to visit after Christmas. Merritt was laid up with his bad knee therefore he stayed with the boys and Joan and I drove up to Troy on a frozen road on top of which a thin scattering of sleet produced a ball bearing effect as we neared the Oregon line. I think the matter of putting on chains had been discussed back at the ranch and we had decided they were not necessary. We rolled and slid safely up and down hills, on top of rims overlooking the Grande Ronde, until reaching the Willard Fordice place where we glided across the road quietly and smoothly, plopping right side up in their field. We borrowed their roadster, drove up to Troy and collected Halsey and Roy who had ridden horseback down from Flora because the roads were impassable for cars. A friend, Delmer Wilson, who lived in Troy came with them. (He was home safe from the war having been in on the allied landing of the continent of Europe and the triumphant march into Paris.) It did not take us long to realize that his visit centered around Joan, not just us. When we arrived back at the Fordice place, the men pulled our car back on the road, packed in their duffle and saddles which had overwhelmed the roadster and we proceeded home safely. Such adversities were expected on mountain roads in those days and were met with fortitude, although our judgement may have been faulty at times. Halsey and Roy had been cowboying down Nevada way and were full of stories of buckaroos and long desert cattle drives, a free and romantic life. Those stories fired our imagination. The war was over and men were coming back to their little ranches on the river; the places we had been renting there would no longer be available to us. There was no ranch left for us to inherit. It was time to be moving on!

We thought about Nevada a lot that winter and I read all I could find on Tonopah, Goldfield and Death Valley. In the spring, when it was time to move on, we had decided that was the country we wanted to see first. Merritt went to Spokane and bought what he thought would be a suitable trailer to pull behind our 1937 Chevrolet sedan. It was homemade and looked a little big for that car to pull but it would sleep us adequately, which was the first consideration. I cleaned it up and painted it inside and out. We stored my cherished cookstove and other household furniture with a neighbor and left our ranching days in the northwest forever. Merritt got the reputation at this time for moving so much that a bother-in-law indelicately likened him to a poop in a hot frying pan. In all fairness, I should set the record straight. After we had tried a place and found that it was not really the place I wanted to spend forever, I welcomed and encouraged a move. Money is not everything. Our "poor" children have attended many schools in many places and time has proved that the

200 ------Mo~ngOn best education may not always be received by staying in one place but by new experiences and learning about the country you are living in. If home is stable the moves are all to the good. We had not worked out such a philosophy when we left our home country, and we did have moments of regret-the first one came when we found the new trailer swayed all over the road pulling the car with it. We were forced to stop in Pend1eton to trade for another-a factory-built Silver Streak with the bottom half a maroon color which just matched our Chevy. a also needed cleaning before we moved on. This job was done at Merritt's father's apartment house in Pendelton where he had moved after selling Plumb Nearly. When we re-packed our belongings and headed south once again in that spring of 1946, we thought we were leaving no bridges behind us. The war was over, we had a little money and no debts, there was a whole new world out there, and we felt we had enough experience to tackle about anything. If we could have forseen what the future held we may not have been brave enough to leave home country to find out. But we were young, thirty-one and twenty-nine years of age. With three little boys so dear to our hearts right along with us, we were heading down into real cow country-to new experiences and a new life. Who knew what was awaiting us?

Chevy with Silver Streak trailer, 1946 Tipton, Ted, Tom on car with Winona and Merritt

The End

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Acknowledgeillents and Sources

1) I have drawn heavily on the remembrances of my brothers and sisters of our life together in Wallowa, Oregon. I am much in debt to Ellen Alander for sharing the log she kept of our memorable trip to Iowa in 1926, for her memories on the dairy and as Dad's secretary in Salem. I thank Dorothy George for her memories of Grandma Florence Johnson, our work in the first 4-H clubs in Wallowa, and her trials of cooking and working at home in Wallowa. Joe Johnson shared tales of our work and fun at home and school and brought back memories of forgotten pranks. Tom Johnson shared gleanings from old newspapers and his keen recollections have been invaluable. I have included some of my brothers' stories in their own words for they are better told that way. Maybeth Wilson and Grace Moores have also contributed to the story and I thank them. And memories of our dear sister Millie came often as we thought of our time together. 2) I have included stories of the Johnson family acquired first hand from Thomas Grover, my father; Thomas Kingsberry Johnson, my grandfather; and Zora Burgett Johnson, my mother. 3) The late RossJohnson, an avid collector of Wallowa County lore, sent me stories years ago about Luther Samuel Johnson (Straight Edge) and Old Tom (T.K.)Johnson, my grandfather, as told by other pioneers in the country. 4) Roberta Bird, a Johnson cousin, shared stories and genealogy of our branch and others, as did Nina Colcord also a cousin. I thank other friends and relatives for sharing stories of the North End: Iris Faye Couch, Dora Wilson, Joan Edwards, Peggy Holloway, Otis Shumaker and Gertrude Budd. 5) The love letters of Zora Blanche Burgett and Thomas Grover, 1905- 1907, survive in the possession of my brother Thomas Keith Johnson and have provided valuable insights and information. 6) I received much information on the Burgetts from Gussie G. Burgett of Morgantown, Indiana, which included the wills of our Hodgkin ancestors and testimony of Revolutionary War Service from Samuel Hodgkin which is in the National Archives. Earl Burgett of Florida, now deceased, worked for years on the Burgetts and sent me all his research. (See The BurgettStory, Winona J. Holloway, 1983).

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7) Many others have researched the Holloway story. James L. Holloway, Santa Clara, California. has shared his extensive findings. His task was made easier by the meticulous records kept by the Quakers. Mrs. Doris Holloway Sleath of Nipomo, California, was kind enough to send me her research on this family that goes "way back" as well as pictures of the Pharo house and first Holloway houses in America which are still standing in New Jersey. 9) Judy Holloway, daughter-in-law, of Lansing N.Y. copied at the rare book collection of Olin Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. The Free and Voluntary Confession and Narrative of fames Holloway as addressed to his Majesty.-Written with his own hand, and Delivered by Himself to Mr. Secretary Jenkins ,at the time of his Execution for High- Treason at Tybum, April 30, 1684. 10) I owe special thanks to my son, Dr. Thomas Halsey Holloway, who encouraged me to write this story, for his help in editing, suggestions on content and format. Without his help it would not have been done. Little did I know, when he was chasing rattlesnakes in his crawling days down on the Grande Ronde, that he would grow up with such skills. 11) To my friend Dian Mawby, for saving me from some of my punctuation. 12) See my booklet on the Holloway family, They Came On the Shield, Winona]. Holloway, 1986, as well as my Burgett booklet, 1984. 13) Lightle family history comes from family stories, some old newspaper clippings without names and dates, the County Recorder's office at Minden, Nevada, and stories from neighbors and friends in the North End. 14) Gerrit..... A Dutchman in Oregon, Toni Rysdam-Shore, a distant relative, has included information about the ancestors of Samantha Arbaugh Holloway in her definitive work on her family. 15) The Wallowa Sun contains reports on the campaign and election of Thomas Grover Johnson to the Oregon State Legislature. 16) The Wallowa County Chieftain, 1933, includes an account of the robbery of the Stockgrowers and Farmers National Bank in Wallowa. The Chieftain was also the source of other "pieces" of note. 17) American Heritage, April 1989; "The Revolutionary Village," by Chrisopher Weeks. 18) Frontier Times, March 1975; "The Celebrity and the Mud Wagon," by John and Mildred Frizzell.

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19) Wallowa County Chieftain, special edition, 1987 Centennial issue. 20) Carving the North End Wilderness: Flora, by F. Lorlene Beddow, which I have used a sort of a bible for checking on our family stories as well as spelling and dates. Thank you Lorlene for very valuable work. 21) The History of Wallowa County Oregon, by the Wallowa County Museum Board, 1983. This I have used for checking dates and spelling of family names. 22) Westward Expansion, by Ray Allen Billington, (New York; Macmillan, 1949) for confirming events of national scope. 23) Information on the battle of Chickamauga comes from the narrations of William Holloway who was there. Other information came from Chickamauga, Bloody Battle in the West, by Glenn Tucker, (Indianapolis and New York; Bobbs-Merrill, 1961), and Civil War Battles, by Curt Johnson and Mark McLaughlin, (New York; Fairfax Press, 1977).

Dates here may differ slightly from other records and recollections. After checking all sources, I have used those that seem to me to be the most correct.

Winona J. Holloway Live Oak, California October 30, 1989

205 FAMILYTREE of Winona Blanche Johnson Holloway and Merritt Louis Holloway showing most ancestors, siblings and offspring mentioned in text

Thomas Holloway, Eng Garrety ... James Pharo, Eng I Anne Murfin -...... William Hodgkins 1735, NC Simon Burgett 1720, VA '-... John Holloway 1686, Eng Elizabeth ... 1740(?) Sara Salt Mary Pharo 1681 , NJ I I I Samuel Hodgkins 1757, PA Valentine Burgett 1745, VA George Holloway c.1709, NJ (?) /3.M,hab(?) Ruth Wood I Isaac Holloway 1735, NJ Aaron Burgett 1782, VA Mary Haines Elizebeth Hodgkins 1784( ?) Samue1 Luther Johnson 1834, OH I 1 . Elizabeth Mosburg 1836 WilliaJ Holloway 1754, NJ William Burgett 181 2, OH I 2. Lovisa Cole Horton Sarah (Sally) Stanley 1768 HannahLeach 1814, KV I I Pleasant Holloway 1795, VA Josiah Burgett 1856, IN Thomas K. Johnson 1856, IA Samaria Stanley 1795 Ellen Malone 1865, I A Florence Miller (Mueller) 1866, I A / I I William Holloway 1840, IN Zora Blanche Burgett Thomas Grover Johnson Samantha Arbaugh 1840 1887, IA V 1886, IA George Lightle 1859, IN Ellen Florence 1909 Emma Montgomery 1853 Dorothy Mae 1911 Mildred Pauline 1913 John Holloway 1882, KS/ Winona Blanche 191 5 vighlle 1888, ,,. Joe Bonner 191 7 Thomas Keith 1920 Lily Maybeth 1922 Halsey Peter 1908 Theozora Grace 1924 John Marvin 1909 Lowell Winfred 1912 Lola May 1913 Mary Emma 1915 1------Merritt Louis 1917 Gertrude Claudelia 1919 Tipton Merritt 1939, OR Mable Josephine 1921 Teddy Joe 1942, OR William Roy 1924 Thomas Halsey 1944, OR Genevieve Inez 1927 Winona Joan 1955, NV Freda Joan 1929 Charlotte Vaughn 1933

206 Wallowa County, Oregon and Environs

N Wash ngton eWalla Walla + I d 8 h 0 State line County line "'-- R;ver r-- Road

OWB

Mountains KEY 1. Lower Valley 12. Bartlett 2. D;amond Pr ar;e 13. Powwatka 3. M;tchell Place 14. Ughtle Place 4. M;ddle Valley 15. Arko 5. Alder Slope 16. Lost Pra;r;e 6. Marr Flat 17. Plumb Nearly 7. Thorn Creek 18. Buford R;dge Approximate sea le : 8. Sm;th Mounta;n 19. Place on the River 9. Maxvme 20. Paradise 1om;1es 10. Prom;se 21. Schumaker Grade 11. Eden

207 Winona Holloway

There is a corner of the world that abounds in mysterious places: commu- nities with names like Enterprise, Wallowa and Joseph; the Grande Ronde and Snake rivers; tiny places like Flora, Troy, and Eden. Moving On brings northeastern Oregon to life, mostly by filling it with the sorts of inhabi- tants that only a true story can provide. By some standards, this is local, or even family, history. Predictably, Non(}Holloway makes it into much more than that-into something that Ivan Doig, William Kittredge, Wallace Stegner, or Mary Hallock Foote would recognize and salute. This is no account of adversity, of "front,ier existence," nor is it a catalogue of friends and relations. Instead, it's abou fp eople and the places and lives they make. That makes it unconventional autobiography, but the finest reading. Paul Starrs Cultural Geography Universify of California at Berkeley

What is so special about being raised in Wallowa, Oregon in the 1920's and '30's? Most of us who lived ·through those times in this chosen place probably haven't thought much about it. Poignant personal history here reminds us of the "Good Old Days" with a thoughtful, factual work that is more than just a family chronical. Through the eyes of a survivor, she manages to show us that somehow, where (and who) we come from are the important molds in casting character. This is real "hands on" history, written with a flair for realizing the importance of preserving oral recollection. It serves its purpose admirably well.

If you like the brief essays of True West or Frontier Times you will love Mov- > ing On. Winona often told me she could write better stories than those and she has proven the point! Let yourself be carried back to an era when the real frontier was only a generation away, and young wills and characters were forged by the necessity of shared toil for the good of family, and in some cases the whole community. With insight and a passion for the fun side of the facts, this is work you won't lay aside once started.