I A 13.2: R 63/2x/v.3 I Rcollections: People and the Forest Oral History Interviews Volume III: From the "Upper Rogue" to the "Dead Indian Plateau" Rogue River National Medford, Oregon 1990 I--_ 1 -4, i t=>- Recollections: People and the Forest Oral History Interviews Volume III: From the "Upper Rogue" to the "Dead Indian Plateau" Rogue River National Forest Medford, Oregon 1990 11111111138 11111 3 5138 00406402 5 PREFACE This collection of oral history interviews is the third volume in the Rogue River National Forest's series, "Recollections: People and the Forest." Within a single cover are gathered eight interviews with people who lived -- and helped make -- the history of southwestern Oregon during the early decades of the twentieth century. The geographic focus of these interviews is the eastern portion of Jackson County (and adjacent parts of Klamath County), in particular the section of the Rogue River National Forest situated in the Cascade Range -- from the Prospect/Crater Lake region on the north to the "Dead Indian Plateau" area on the south. (Reminiscences about Medford and Ashland are also given in some of the interviews.) These interviews concentrate on the time period from the turn-of-the-century until World War Two, with some discussion of the post-War years as well. Homesteading, railroad logging, life during Prohibition and the Great Depression (including Jackson County's famous "Good Government Congress" episode), early-day Forest Service activites; these are just a few of the topics that are covered. Some of the interviews were conducted by Forest Service historian Jeff LaLande in the early to mid-1980s. Others, done under Forest Service contract by oral historian/anthropologist Anne Chambers of Winthrop Associates, date from the summer of 1989. Additional oral histories will be gathered during the 1990s. This will be done as part of the Forest Service's commitment to protect and share the historical heritage of the Rogue River National Forest. CONTENTS ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS WITH: Frances Pearson Jack Hollenbeak Marcel Sandoz Bill and Zelda Edmondson John Henshaw Herb and Zella Wright Agnes Jones R.A. (Arch) Work FRANCES PEARSON Frances Pearson was born in Prospect, Oregon, in 1885. She grew up in the area and later taught school in that community for over forty years. She speaks of her family's annual trips to Huckleberry Mountain, her visits to Crater Lake, and many other recollec- tions of people and places in the Prospect Ranger District. Mrs. Pear- son was interviewed in April 1981 at her residence in 'Madison House,, at which time she continued to be an alert and thorough historian of the Up- per Rogue River country. Mrs. Pearson died in 1984. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH FRANCES PEARSON April, 1981 Jeff LaLande: Mrs. Pearson, could you briefly talk about the founding of Prospect, perhaps quoting from your history article [written by Frances Pearson]? Frances Pearson: Yes. "Two gentlemen from Jacksonville, Slosson and Beeson, built a sawmill near what is now Prospect in eighteen-and seventy-three. Before that, there was only the Chauncey Nye family living in the area. The Slosson and Beeson sawmill burned. The next milling venture was that of Captain H.P. Deskins. The post office records show that Deskins established a post office named Deskins on July 5, 1882. He was the first postmaster in Deskins; and his wife, Mary, sold his property to Squire S. Aikens (my father) on October 22, 1883. Mr. Aiken became the postmaster, and he changed the name to Prospect on November 9, 1889." JL So your father, Squire S. Aiken, came to Jacksonville in what year? 1882? Yes.. .and then it was very soon after that.. .a year or two... that he bought the (Deskins] mill? FP Yes, he was interested in the timber, and in the land at the "Red Blanket Ranch" [a large, open area just east of Prospect, good grazing country]. He and-his brother [Fred] bought all that country around Red Blanket. JL And you were born there, at Deskins [now Prospect], in 1885. FP Yes, I was born during a siege of scarlet fever in the County...and I contracted the disease when I was three weeks old. I nearly died of it. With the-good care of my father and mother, I survived and was a healthy child after that. JH You went to school in Prospect? FP Oh yes. When I was six years old, I went to school the first time. Would you like to know how they taught use then? All right. They had what they called the "big chart," up on a frame. And the first part, the child learned the A-B-C's. Took me a week or two to learn my A-B-C's. Then, when I'd learned those, there'd be a nice picture with words and some short sentences. One sentence like "Run, boy, run," 'See the cat," and so on like that. And, as we progressed and turned over that page of the chart, it was a little more advanced. By the time we got through the whole chart, there were stories being told. And then you'd get your 1 "first reader." The next step was the "first reader," a book. But, I don't know as I had one, since we had only three months of school that time. It was the second term for me when I had my "first reader." There were five "readers" in all. They didn't speak of what grade you were in, but what "reader" you were in. They passed a law in Oregon that they would have an eighth-grade examination, and I was the first child to take an eighth-grade examination in Prospect. And later on, when I was teaching, I graduated the first eighth-grade class from Prospect. I was sixteen and I taught at Prospect that one summer. I had two students. I have pictures of them with their diplomas in their hands. JL What about the years you were in Oakland [Californial, going to high school? FP Yes, well, that was a problem. After I finished the eighth-grade, my mother had died in 1902. My father didn't know what to do because I was very interested in education. Mrs. McCully in Jacksonville was a friend of ours, and also a friend of the poet Joaquin Miller [the "Poet of the Sierras," a well-known literary figure in Oregon and California during the late nineteenth century]. One summer, she happened to stop at our house to see my father. She'd though of a plan of how I might go down to the Miller home in California. She'd known the Millers a long time.. .in Eugene. She said Mrs. Miller, the mother of Joaquin Miller, was a very old lady, and I could be a sort of "companion" for her, and go to high school there. It's rather interesting how I first met Mr. Miller. There was a group of very prominent men.. .some governors, senators, newspapermen.. .and Mr. Miller was with them. They were in covered wagons on their way to Crater Lake. They stopped at noon at the old Rogue River bridge, which was about a quarter-of-a-mile below Prospect. Well, of course, Mrs. McCully had already laid the plan out for me. So, I told my brother to get on his horse and take a note down there... find Joaquin Miller and give it to him. In the note, I told Mr. Miller to please stop and see me as he came by [on the way to Crater Lake]. And sure enough, Mr. Miller came to the house and came up on the porch and said, "Well, little girl, what did you want to see me about?" I said, "I've got to go to school this winter and I want to go down to your home and go to school." "Oh," he said, "I don't know about that. You know I'll have to talk to mother first." But, when he got to Ashland, on his way back, he had seen Mrs. McCully and she'd told him what a fine little girl I was. And I went to the Miller home [in Oakland], was a companion to Mrs. Miller and went to school that year. I was so homesick by the next year that I came back to Prospect. I stayed in Prospect most of the rest of my life, teaching. I later took some classes at the old Normal School in Ashland, at the Agricultural College [now Oregon State University] in 1911 and 1912, and at the University [of California] at Berkeley. I never graduated from any college, but I took the State examinations, passed and became a teacher. The certificate entitled me to be a teacher or superintendent in any school in the State of Oregon. I taught mostly at Prospect. I did teach out by what's now White City; it was called "Agate" in those days. I taught four years there, as superintendent of a two-room high school. I also taught way up on Green 2 Springs Mountain, at Pinehurst School, one winter. And also at Laurelhurst, then called "Leeds." That was near the Lost Creek Dam they just built. The rest of my teaching was at Prospect. I must have taught there for over forty years.... JL I'd like to hear some stories, some of your recollections of the early days at Huckleberry Mountain. FP Yes, all right. The trips to Huckleberry Mountain were a gay event for us.