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| Volume XL, Number 4 & XLI, Number 1 Winter 2005 & Spring 2006 |
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| Growing Up in Oysterville |
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| Volume XL, Number 4 & XLI, Number 1 Winter 2005 & Spring 2006 |
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| Growing Up in Oysterville |
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| The
Sou'wester |
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| ISSN #0038-4984
Copyright, 2006, by the Pacific County Historical Society. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the Society's Editorial Board. The Sou'wester is a quarterly publication of the Pacific
County Historical Society and Museum. The Pacific County Historical
Society is a non-profit 501(C)(3) organization in South Bend, Washington.
In addition to the Sou'wester, the Society publishes a quarterly newsletter for its members and operates the Pacific County Historical Society Museum in South Bend, Washington.
-Sydney Stevens, Guest Editor
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Charles Fitzpatrick Photo, 1939 From the Espy Archives |
The Oysterville School District operated from 1863
until 1957. The building pictured here was the third school in Oysterville
and was built in 1907 after the previous building burned. Students
pictured are, from left to right: Memi Sherwood, Ramona Gove, Helen Martin,
Betty Sherwood, Patsy Dalton, Shirley Whitwell, Dick “Red” Robertson, Donald
Robertson, Gary Whitwell.
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| The
Sou'wester Winter, 2005 & Spring, 2006 Issue
Growing Up in Oysterville |
Since that time, the numbers of children in Oysterville have continued to diminish until now there are none at all. At least, there are no children living in the old village on a permanent basis. Nowadays, the laughter of children and the thwack of a bat hitting a ball are heard only when we residents have our grandchildren visiting. The village has gradually evolved from a community of working-class families to a retirement and vacation community for the middle-aged and elderly. Those of us who have kept our connection with Oysterville often talk about “the golden days” of our childhoods and of how life was different then – a sure sign that we are getting old! We treasure the memories of a seemingly idyllic period of time – a time when we could wander and explore the woods and shore without adult supervision; a time when we made our own adventures, settled our own differences, and learned the value of hard work. And, we have come to the realization that we need to document some of our nostalgia for, already, our numbers and our collective memories are diminishing. We are hopeful that this issue will prompt others to write stories of their own – not only those who had the good fortune to grow up in Oysterville, but those who spent their childhoods in other communities of Pacific County. We are sure that this issue of the Sou’wester warrants a sequel or two! Sydney Stevens, Guest Editor
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By Anne Cannon Nixon |
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| Between the First and Second World Wars, after Oysterville had changed from the vital county seat to a small farming community, the Heckes Inn became an enticement for people to visit. It was run by my four great aunts and two of their husbands. Many guests came from Seattle and Portland, but according to the ledgers, some traveled from foreign countries, lured by Duncan Hines’ reports of the fabulous meals and friendliness in a quaint seaside town. These women were superb hostesses and business women, but to us kids, simply loving, old-fashioned relatives. | |
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| The four Caulfield sisters and
one brother were born in the United States in the mid-1800s, children of
Irish immigrants who were forced from Scotland into Ireland, where the
potato famine would propel them even farther. After traveling to
Ohio, they settled in Bemidji, Minnesota. Full of Irish fairy tales,
the Aunts told about throwing a bucket of water into the winter air and
watching it come down as ice, suggesting how they felt about life there.
At the turn of the century they came West when the youngest daughter married,
making the honeymoon trip to Grants Pass, Oregon, an affair of the entire
family. That began a lifetime tradition of living together and a
few years later they moved en masse to Portland.
Aunt Rye, born Ella (or Eleanor) Caulfield, came into the world in 1858, and was the oldest child of Robert and Margaret. She was the shortest, spunkiest, and only one who never married. My generation, her great nieces and nephews, heard tell from our parents who adored these aunts, that she became the best cook in the entire county when they lived in Minnesota. And another was that, because of her superior traits, her father found one reason or another to fend off suitors, intending to keep his talented daughter home to care for him in his later years. As we grew up we believed both. |
| William was known to us only
in reminiscences for he died in 1915 at age 54, and most often we heard
his name as there arose a question about some date in a story. The
adult stopped, looking befuddled, and wondered aloud, “Now when was that?
Did that happen before or after Aunt Rye cut off Uncle Will’s little finger?”
Tales about Uncle Will, himself, were few, and having never known him,
maybe we cared less about what he was like and did. In the past 30 years
someone discovered reading material from a gospel mission with his name
inside the pamphlet’s front cover. What did that mean? No one
knew or would tell. Uncle Will remains our mysterious relative, loved
and forever protected by his sisters and our parents.
Next, after Will, came Evelyn in 1863, known by everyone as Aunt Ev. She was a quiet, unassuming lady who was large boned and tallest of the sisters by a few inches. Each of the others possessed a certain flair or spark, but her calm, gentle nature seemed more dominant. For six short months Aunt Ev was married to a man named Lindberg while the family lived in Minnesota. He died when his appendix ruptured – not an uncommon occurrence in those days. She may have been naturally retiring and undemonstrative, or perhaps the loss of her love changed her. I remember Aunt Ev as a loving aunt with a big, warm, lap. Aunt Nanny, named Edna, was born in 1869, and most agreed she was the “boss of the family.” She seemed always busy with paper work, bustling about, tending to hotel business. Brown hair and darker complexion made her stand out among her sisters as well as piercing brown eyes encircled in horn-rimmed glasses. Her figure was lithe and quick and she seemed to miss nothing, but not as a vindictive woman, just as an agile organizer and a do-er. Shortly after she married John Heckes, his Minnesota doctor warned that John’s heart was weak and he needed shielding from worry and labor. With that, the four sisters took on the family work and John became the gardener, enabling him to outlive most of them. John and Edna were a striking couple, he being a tall, broad-shouldered man, slow and quiet, beside his shorter wife of such distinctive features and verve. When we were growing up, Uncle John’s Oysterville garden produced all the vegetables for the boarders and kept him busy, but he seemed to enjoy us coming through the little low gate to see him, pulling carrots that we wiped on our pant legs and thumbing sweet, crunchy peas from their pods. His cats, Snubby Nose and Tippy Toes, followed him everywhere and often lay dozing, camouflaged among his cabbages and radishes, partially aware of a mouse or mole’s existence nearby. The youngest (who would eventually become my grandmother), Ann, came along in 1874, and was the only artistic one. It was her wedding to Louis Kemmer that began the family trek to Oregon. She was fairer, like her two sisters, Aunt Ev and Aunt Rye, and pulled her long hair back into a bun as they all did, though each had her own special “do” with pompadours, whirled buns high or low, and combs and hairpins holding wisps that strayed. Ann was particularly thoughtful, it was said. She painted on canvas and china, but her family contributions were most important – painting and wallpapering boarders’ rooms each spring, usually in pastel florals. I remember one bedroom of green and white stripes, but that was unusual. She was an accomplished cake decorator, possibly the one who baked all cakes, and her delicate roses and leaves were in pastel colors, of course. |
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different times. The first one was called “The Gladstone.” The second they named “405 Clay,” and while it may have been the actual address, I’m not sure it was. About 1918 they became interested in the peninsula’s cranberry bogs and bought a house in Oysterville near Willapa Bay, evidently planning a new direction for the family. Aunt Nanny and Uncle John’s younger son, Glen, was the first to arrive and brought one of his aunts to keep house, but soon cranberries were forgotten when he became interested in oystering. |
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| The John Crellin house they
purchased faced the bay with the back to Territory Road like the others
of that day. They made many repairs and, as the entire family settled
there, a Portland friend, whose young son needed fresh country air, asked
to visit as summer guests. From that innocent request, the Heckes
Inn developed and became a well-known establishment.
To enlarge, they began adding on and changing existing rooms – a kitchen, dining rooms, family quarters, laundry shed, and a higher water tower. The first of those additions were a kitchen to accommodate summer boarders and living quarters for themselves. For those they gathered used lumber and windows from the long–abandoned Stevens hotel across the south lane. Eventually, though, that wasn’t enough, so their new building which they dubbed the “Annex” became bedrooms for guests and from then on the back porch became a kitchen and the old kitchen, a new dining room. |
Photo from the Anne Nixon collection
Ann and Louis Kemmer, the author’s grandparents, pictured in Oysterville
in the early 1930s. Theirs was “The Greenman House” which accommodated
additional guests for the Heckes Inn. |
Helen Heckes told me stories
about the folks’ final enlargements.
“My grandparents and father came one summer to help Glen build an enclosed sun porch along the north and east sides of the house. Ballast stones, dumped overboard in front of the house by San Francisco sailing ships that came for Willapa Bay oysters, were hauled up to build a huge, beautiful fireplace. It warmed that long, and often damp, L-shaped sun porch which was mostly made up of small paned windows.” Her second story, equally interesting, was about Ann and Lou’s “Greenman House,” north the equivalent of a block or so. It was merged with the vacant White Swan Hotel beside it. Oddly Ann’s was forever referred to as “The Greenman House,” never “The Kemmer Home” or “Ann and Lou’s.” “One day I was busy when someone came running up the road and told me to come quick if I wanted to see the last nails driven in,” Helen told me. “I threw aside what I was doing and hurried to the Greenman House. Men were adding the final board to join that old hotel to your grandmother’s house,” she told me. “It gave them seven more rooms for our boarders. Then, finally, they bought two small cottages next door to that house for the boarders with families.” As we continued talking about her early days in Oysterville, Helen said, “Aunt Ann did all the painting and wallpapering and one day she promised, ‘I’ll buy you a pretty dress if you’ll help me.’ Well, I loved her sweet disposition, and said I’d love to.” Helen’s happiness in reminiscing was obvious all those years later. “The men moved saw horses and long boards for us, and hauled paint cans and wallpaper paste we made from flour and water – whatever Aunt Ann instructed. She and I worked from room to room till she was satisfied and all was ready for our summer people. “Then she bought me the prettiest dress. It was just lovely. I told her I didn’t need it, that I’d loved working with her. ‘No, I want you to have it,’ she insisted.” The sweet aroma of wallpaper paste drying comes to mind when I think of those upper bedrooms in Grandma’s house. I loved the charming nature of their unusual home, now gone, but which stood on the S.W. corner of the intersection which has Oysterville’s only stop sign. |
Photo from the Anne Nixon collection
Aunt Rye with cousins Judy Heckes and Jimmy Kemmer at the Oysterville
Beach Approach about 1940. |
“You’ve married into a big family and I’m giving you a few bottles so you can begin a collection,” Ann told her. “It will help you establish your own identity.” Over the years beautiful bottles filled the sun porch windows on long shelves, engulfing the big room in an aura of warm color. Morning light sent the blue, green, red and gold of hundreds of bottles into the east end of the kitchen as the house’s windows faced each other in an unusual twist of add-on rooms. The most famous sister was Aunt Rye whose pies may have propelled “The Heckes Inn” to the pages of Duncan Hines. On a marble slab before the long stretch of west kitchen windows, she prepared her fabulous desserts. Being barely five feet tall, she worked standing on a stool built for her, scooping flour and sugar from bins that tipped out beneath the counter. Ann’s youngest boy, Bob, often sat on the counter to watch. Guests’ favorites became lace cookies, booze cake, biscuits, sour cream pie, and pies heaped full of fresh fruit. The boarders often picked wild blackberries in the lanes and along the road for her. The gnarly winter pear trees bore small fruit, just the right size for one of the Aunts to pickle for a relish, with a whole clove at the bottom end and the stem left on top. They were one of many favorites, but Aunt Rye’s expertise was desserts and they topped everything. “Today I have apples and berries,” she might say temptingly. “Now which do you want?” After a loud chorus from us Aunt Rye would interrupt. With a cute, knowing chuckle and with eyes sparkling, she’d declare we’d get both, as if it were a novel idea. Ours were half-size pies and scraps of dough with cinnamon and sugar or for topping with homemade jelly. Ellie, Glen called her. “Now Ellie,” her strapping nephew teased, giving his minute aunt a gentle poke as she jumped back. None of the others had Aunt Rye’s cuteness. She mixed up a glass of “sody water” for her sour stomach every evening at the sink just inside the back door – the one used to soak and wash pots and pans. Someone filled a three-sided ceramic “pig” with hot water for her; then she was off to the room she shared with Aunt Ev and the little cot just inside the door. It was always heaped high with homemade quilts, her body becoming a small mound under them all. Her sister’s narrow bed, separated by a night stand, stood along the far wall with a window at the foot overlooking the grassy side yard, apple trees, outdoor toilet, and boardwalk leading to it and the laundry. Their room had no closet, but merely hooks behind the door. |
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aprons nearly covering their long, belted cotton dresses. They chose
fabric with prints so small it camouflaged spills or stains, and sewed
them up on the old treadle Singer in the kitchen. Who the seamstress
was I don’t know, or maybe each made her own. Thick cotton hose covered
their legs summer and winter and all wore heavy black shoes with sturdy
heels.
Each sister had her specialty and they had a lot to do, serving breakfast and dinner all summer seven days a week, with extras for weekend suppers. Uncle John’s lush garden stretched 50 feet back from the back porch to the road, and almost double that along the boardwalk north toward the garage. To the south he cultivated about 50 feet each way. For fertilizing his sandy soil he kept a rain barrel full of water and added chicken manure from the barnyard across the street. That’s the way they were remembered by everyone, and I never heard an argument or unkind word between any of them. The yeasty aroma as Grandma slipped Parker House rolls from the oven at her Greenman House was mouth watering and I suspect she baked most of the bread there, too. From a child’s point of view, all appeared casual but they must have had a semblance of organization to prepare food for fifty or more each day. Flour often lay scattered about the far west end of the kitchen, on cheeks and foreheads, handles of tea cups, drawer pulls and aprons. Patting an apron might produce great white clouds. Aunt Nanny cooked the meat and fish and it was Glen’s responsibility to have whatever she needed ready each day. We kids were herded away when he carried immense roasts or whole fish from the stove as they spit juice from pans that just fit the oversized ovens. With a knife he or Uncle John had honed on the grinder in the yard, Glen carved like a maestro, sopping up liquid with pieces of bread. He’d grin and wink at anyone watching. Boarders dug their 36-clam limits for the folks to fry which meant the fire was stoked high and every available iron skillet sizzled with golden clams. Often it was oysters for dinner – raw cocktails in little V-shaped glasses, fried or baked in shells. We kids loved it all, but our favorite was when guests went crabbing. As a cauldron of boiling water lay in wait, the side yard beneath the apple trees became a sea of undulating orange backs as boarders returned and laid their crabs out on the grass. This square piece of yard was edged on the west by the high garden fence, on top of which we kids crawled armed with clods of dirt. From that vantage point we threw our dirt pellets at the crabs, screaming with laughter as they raised claws and legs (at us, we thought) and climbed over one another. Even the youngest who couldn’t climb up tossed his clods through the wooden lattice work. At dinner time, platters of fresh seafood, balanced on the outstretched arms of young waitresses, passed through the swinging doors from the kitchen into dining rooms beyond. The girls placed them on oval oak tables where boarders waited with gigantic appetites, ready for another platter as they emptied the first. One man told me, “When I picked up my girlfriend after work there at the Heckes place, she was usually an hour late. Those old ladies cracked the whip.” The girls had numerous jobs, beginning the morning emptying slop bucket/chamber pots in the bedrooms after making beds and filling lamps with kerosene, for there was neither indoor plumbing nor electricity. Dishes and pans needed washing after dinner, too. Waitressing was only part of their job. |
Photo from the Anne Nixon collection
On the porch of the Heckes Inn in the early 1940s – Aunts Ann, Rye and
Nanny with cousins Nancy and Anne Cannon, Peter and Judy Heckes |
The garden was not the only
outdoor chore, either. Flowers on each dining table and in the entrance
hall and sun porch were important to the Aunts. My favorites were
deep maroon dahlias, little white buttons on long stems, columbine and
snapdragon. Each summer clumps of ruby peonies sprang from the ground
to become big, dramatic blooms. Nasturtiums gave off a neon sheet
of color near the back porch and along the north-south lattice fences.
Across the road, cows gravitated to the barn at milking time, as did cats
and kids. When Uncle John pulled his stool close to the rear of a
cow, we sat along with the kitties as near as he’d allow, waiting for squirts
of warm milk, tit to mouth. Buckets full of still warm milk were
carried to the separator and finally ended up on the north end of the back
porch. It was in that cooling area the Aunts came for delightfully
rich milk, or, wrinkling thick mantles of golden cream, ladling out what
they needed for coffee and desserts. Souring was no problem because
pancakes, biscuits and sour cream pie were great favorites.
Sneaking to the barnyard at butchering time we saw another preparation for meals. By the time the activity we weren’t to watch was happening, an animal was already hanging from wooden beams. It took cousins, uncles and neighbors most of the day to butcher several heifers and hogs, and then they hauled the meat to the Locker in Ocean Park for storage. The family’s working relationship in Oysterville lasted from the mid-1920s to just before World War II when the Aunts were becoming ill and some went to Portland for “doctoring.” They lovingly took care of each other. In that very small town of farmers, fishermen and oystermen each one worked with and depended upon his neighbor in old-fashioned ways. To those passing by on their daily trip to the post office, we always waved from the kitchen windows, and as they waved back they often lifted the wire off the gate to come in for coffee. The Aunts and their family had transformed an ailing house into a vital, loving home that people from all over the world came to enjoy. For years after their death and remodeling of the house, people stopped to tell the family what a wonderful time they’d had there as summer boarders. |
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By Tommy Olson Mr. Espy was the leader of the village of Oysterville during my youth. He and his kin have been here in Oysterville since the village was established in 1854. My father came from Norway, was a Veteran of WWI and received his citizenship after his discharge in 1919. He was quite strict and insisted my brother and I address our elders as “Mr., Mrs., or Miss.” Other children called Mr. Espy “Harry.” |
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Photo from the Espy Archives
“Mr. Espy” – Harry A. Espy lived in Oysterville his entire life, from
1876 until 1959, with the exception of a few, brief years when he was away
at school. This photograph was taken about 1920. |
My first real acquaintance with
Mr. Espy was when I was nine years old in 1933. We lived on 63 acres
on South Skating Lake Road. Dad had a need for more acreage for our
cattle. He took me with him to a meeting with Mr. Espy who acknowledged
my presence. Mr. Espy was a very fair man and suggested to my dad
to rent the property by the number of animals rather than by the acre.
That was way better all the way around and we wound up renting the land
south of Oysterville to the old Saunders Road.
The summer of 1935 Mr. Espy was the spokesman for the Olson family with Dr. Bard, a minister from the Midwest.* At this meeting my father rented the Bard Heim Dairy and the bay acreage north of Oysterville. At this time Dad had 85 cattle and 3 horses. Mr. Espy smoothed the way as he spoke very good English and dad had a very strong accent. Mr. Espy was a very important person in my life. In May 1939 I made the National Honor Society. At that time I was a student at Ilwaco High School. To my amazement, Mr. Espy met me at the Oysterville Post Office and wanted to talk to me. Quite an experience for a 15-year-old boy. Mr. Espy congratulated me on this honor. Then he became very fatherly. He said, “Tom, get all the schooling you can. Knowledge is something you cannot lose.” He must have been a prophet. My first year in college all the boys had to be in ROTC. We all were called into the military at the same time. After 3½ years in the Air Corps I was honorably discharged. I still remembered what Mr. Espy told me – get an education. It was there for all veterans, the GI Bill. What a deal! Keep passing grades, get $110 a month plus tuition and books. Mr. Espy was quite right; the government taught me to fly, paid for many degrees, a real full college education. To this day I often wonder if Mr. Espy expected this largess for all soldiers who were willing to take the time for a successful career. Mr. Harry Espy – GOD SPEED – we will meet again on cloud 9. * Editor’s Note: Harry Espy served as Justice of the Peace from 1902 until well into the 1940s. It may have been in that capacity, in addition to his characteristic neighborliness, that he represented the Olson family in their negotiations with Dr. Bard. |
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By Ann “Memi” Sherwood Anderson Oysterville is timeless… When I step back into that little village, the nostalgia overwhelms me. How lucky we were to live there! In April, 1934, my grandparents, Earl and Myrtle Biggs, along with their 17-year-old son, Harry, left Joplin, Missouri in their Model T Ford pick-up, traveling to the Golden State of California hoping to find work in the orchards and fields. Their life’s possessions were in that pick-up and they, along with other escapees of the Dust Bowl, had many hardships along the way. |
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Photo from Ann Anderson’s collection
“Our Wedding Picture” – This picture of Ed and Millie Sherwood with
Betty and Memi was taken the day Ed and Millie were married, “the day we
became the Sherwood Family and started out our life together in Oysterville,”
says Memi. |
After long days of flat tires
and broken axles, they made their beds on the ground. To avoid the
tall mountains of the Rockies, they drove south to El Paso, Texas, and
followed the Southern Route through New Mexico and Arizona, entering California’s
Imperial Valley. The heat was unbearable so they headed north to
Oregon and settled in the Willamette Valley where they found work in the
strawberry fields.
When the strawberries were finished, they traveled from job to job picking cherries, green beans, raspberries and other crops and, while doing so, lived in a tent until they finally found a farm to rent and Grandpa could raise his own crops. In Missouri they left behind a large family including a son, Mike Redell and his wife, Bea, and their children, Lucky, Dorothy and Barbara (Bitty); a daughter Fern Whitwell, her husband, Chig, and children, Shirlie, Gary, and Donnie; and a daughter Millie Wagoner, her husband, Neal, and daughters, Betty and Memi. Postcards and letters flew back and forth and before long the rest of the family, including good friends, Gene and Irene Dalton and daughters Peggy and Patsy, joined them in Oregon. As time went by, some of Grandma’s sisters moved West, bringing with them their own families. Her sister, Lucy, was married to Grandpa’s brother, Glen Biggs, making all their children double-cousins. We were a very large and close family. While in Oregon, my mother and father, Millie and Neal Wagoner, were divorced and he moved back to Missouri. In the meantime, Mike and Harry explored the Long Beach Peninsula because they heard of work in the oyster business. Millie took a trip to see them and met Edwin Sherwood and, before we knew it, Betty and I had a new father, a new last name, and a home in Oysterville. Betty was 10 years old and I was just 5. Ed and his two sisters, Marie and Edna, and brother, Randy, came from Philadelphia. They had been orphaned very young and after growing up decided to move West. Edna went to California and Ed, Randy, and Marie moved to Oysterville and worked in the oysters. Marie married Carl Andrews who owned the garage and was the son of Minnie and Bert, who owned the grocery store. |
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From just before they left Missouri, my Grandma Myrtle kept a daily diary of brief entries. This diary continued in Oysterville and the following is a sample of Oysterville life amidst the dark days of World War II:
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Photo from Ann Anderson’s collection
Workers at the Sherwood Cannery Opening House are (from left to right):
Ed Sherwood, Millie Sherwood, Randy Sherwood, Harry Biggs, Clark Taylor
and Pat Patterson. The building was later sold to Ted Holway and
Glen Heckes. |
We shared a house with Marie and Carl Andrews and children, Vernon and Alberta. Sliding doors separated the two halves. I remember being glad because we had the kitchen on our side. Later, the Andrews family moved to the house by the garage and we had our entire home to ourselves. That is, until the cannery was built and gradually encroached and enveloped the house. Once again, the sliding doors were closed and we used that part of the living room for labeling cans of smoked oysters and to store empty containers. Ed put a bathroom into our house. The height of luxury! After years of bathing in a tin tub, we finally had a shiny white porcelain bathtub and the tiles around it were blue with little white stars. My cousins, Bitty Redell and Nita Stone, and I luxuriated in the carnation-scented bubble bath, filled our mouths with soapy water and squirted at the stars. The bathroom was also called the ‘pout’ room. As it was being built, I was sent there many times to sit among the lumber and nails and think how naughty I had been. I was there quite a lot. After the bathroom was completed, it was still called the pout room. I stayed with Grandma and Grandpa on many nights. They had a wind-up Victrola, just like the one at school, and Grandpa played cowboy music while Grandma worked on her quilts. A bowl of red apples sat on the table at all times and Grandpa peeled them with his pocket knife and shared the slices with us. Oh, the sweet and juicy crunchiness of those apples! All this was done by the light of kerosene lamps. Some nights Grandpa played his violin. “Beautiful Dreamer” was Grandma’s favorite song and at her funeral Eddie, with his beautiful baritone voice, sang it to her one last time. The Redells lived at Bard Heim for awhile and I was so happy to have my cousin Bitty near by. At her house we indulged in mustard and horseradish sandwiches on lovely homemade white bread and listened to her brother, Lucky, play his guitar and sing. He could do an amazing rendition of Wabash Cannonball! Since they were right across the road, I could stay all night without worrying that my mother might miss me. The Bard Heim had a field of wild mustard growing clear to the bay. One day, while walking through the field, Bitty told me the facts of life and I sat right down among the yellow mustard blooms and refused to believe her. Thank goodness I grew up and discovered she was not quite accurate, although she had the right idea! |
Photo from Ann Anderson’s collection
Ed and Memi Sherwood plowing their Victory Garden during World War II. |
I remember feeling very safe and secure during the war years. Our parents spoke in hushed tones, trying not to frighten us. It was exciting to see how much scrap metal and how many newspapers we could collect for the War Effort. I even donated my long blonde hair and was told it would be used for bomb sights and other precision instruments. We had such a strong feeling of patriotism and did not mind the sacrifices we made. We learned to appreciate every treat that came our way. It was for our parents to figure out the complicated ration stamp books and worry about tires and gas and groceries. During this time, Minnie and Bert sold their store to the Wright family. They were fascinating because they had TWO sets of twin boys in addition to an older son, Gene, who was in the Navy, a little girl, Trula, and ….Mr. Wright was a real cowboy!! When the store received their small allotment of candy bars, Keith or Kenneth or Gary or Jerry would call us and we would run to the store and choose one candy bar for each member of our family. I spent many hours weeding our large Victory garden (under protest) and I remember my mother’s pride as each jar of newly canned fruit or vegetables glistened on her pantry shelves. She put pears from our tree (which still stands) into jars and colored some of them red and some green for Christmas. She carefully saved a bit of sugar here and a bit of sugar there until she had enough to surprise us with a plate of fudge, usually penuche or chocolate filled with puffed wheat cereal to make it go farther. As a special treat, we would go to Long Beach or Ilwaco to see a movie, driving the back road with dim lights so we wouldn’t give our position away to the enemy! One foggy night Betty sat on the fender, arms waving, giving Eddie signals so we wouldn’t go into the ditch. We had been to Long Beach to see “Dracula” and, scaredy-cat that I was, I kept my light on all night, staring at the keyhole waiting for the vampire to come through it as mist and turn into a bat who would then suck my life-blood away. A total blackout was put into effect after war was declared. No light was allowed to peek through our windows at night so they were covered with black tar paper. Clark Taylor was put in charge of checking all the houses every night making sure we were all obeying the rules. He lived across the street from us, so we had to be extra careful. Minnie and Bert and Carl Andrews were Air Wardens. They wore tin hats and had buckets of sand at hand, presumably to put out fires if we were attacked. My uncle, Harry Biggs, was named Chief Evacuator and he laughed at that because he said he would be the first one to evacuate if the Japanese landed on our |
Photo from Ann Anderson’s collection
The “soldiers” Grandma Biggs refers to in her diary were stationed at
Leadbetter Point. Women of Oysterville, feeling sorry for these young
men so far from home, often took treats to them. |
I remember feeling very safe and secure during the war years. Our parents spoke in hushed tones, trying not to frighten us. It was exciting to see how much scrap metal and how many newspapers we could collect for the War Effort. I even donated my long blonde hair and was told it would be used for bomb sights and other precision instruments. We had such a strong feeling of patriotism and did not mind the sacrifices we made. We learned to appreciate every treat that came our way. It was for our parents to figure out the complicated ration stamp books and worry about tires and gas and groceries. During this time, Minnie and Bert sold their store to the Wright family. They were fascinating because they had TWO sets of twin boys in addition to an older son, Gene, who was in the Navy, a little girl, Trula, and ….Mr. Wright was a real cowboy!! When the store received their small allotment of candy bars, Keith or Kenneth or Gary or Jerry would call us and we would run to the store and choose one candy bar for each member of our family. I spent many hours weeding our large Victory garden (under protest) and I remember my mother’s pride as each jar of newly canned fruit or vegetables glistened on her pantry shelves. She put pears from our tree (which still stands) into jars and colored some of them red and some green for Christmas. She carefully saved a bit of sugar here and a bit of sugar there until she had enough to surprise us with a plate of fudge, usually penuche or chocolate filled with puffed wheat cereal to make it go farther. |
Photo from Ann Anderson’s collection
“Say Bacon” – Every time Memi gave her horse, Ruby, a treat of bacon,
Ruby “smiled.” Circa 1947. |
As a special treat, we would
go to Long Beach or Ilwaco to see a movie, driving the back road with dim
lights so we wouldn’t give our position away to the enemy! One foggy
night Betty sat on the fender, arms waving, giving Eddie signals so we
wouldn’t go into the ditch. We had been to Long Beach to see “Dracula”
and, scaredy-cat that I was, I kept my light on all night, staring at the
keyhole waiting for the vampire to come through it as mist and turn into
a bat who would then suck my life-blood away.
A total blackout was put into effect after war was declared. No light was allowed to peek through our windows at night so they were covered with black tar paper. Clark Taylor was put in charge of checking all the houses every night making sure we were all obeying the rules. He lived across the street from us, so we had to be extra careful. Minnie and Bert and Carl Andrews were Air Wardens. They wore tin hats and had buckets of sand at hand, presumably to put out fires if we were attacked. My uncle, Harry Biggs, was named Chief Evacuator and he laughed at that because he said he would be the first one to evacuate if the Japanese landed on our shores! The rationing included cigarettes and so the smokers, including my Uncle Harry, had to buy cheap tobacco and roll their own. I remember a little machine he bought that held the cigarette papers and he poured maple-smelling tobacco into it and used a little crank that rolled it into a cigarette. My Grandpa Biggs, however, was quite deft at rolling them by hand. He held the paper in one hand, poured the tobacco in with the other, rolled it up, licked the edges to seal it and twisted the ends. He then smoked it down so close his mustache had a permanent yellow singe. The war ended and life went on. Mom got tired of ‘living in the cannery’ and we moved to Nahcotta. In the summer of 1949 our cannery burned to the ground and we moved to Aberdeen and started a new cannery and new life on Grays Harbor. The Redells moved to Ocean Park, Harry and Iva to Ocosta, and the Whitwells to Tacoma. Ed’s family moved also. Randy and family left for Eureka, California and Marie and Carl moved to Klipsan Beach and then to South Bend. We all grew up, married and had children of our own and here we are, many years later, remembering our families and friends and the days when we were Oysterville Kids. |
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By Bud Goulter (as told to Ann Anderson) Growing up in Oysterville in the thirties and forties was a lot of fun, but also a lot of hard work. My friend, Floyd Gove, and I dug clams commercially, chopped down alder trees, peeled bark, picked cranberries and were willing to do any job that came our way. The alder trees were chopped down with axes and cut into stove-sized pieces for Tommy Nelson who was experimenting with smoked oysters in his cannery down by the church. That was hard work for a young boy and I am surprised I still have toes left. Later, as we got older, Floyd and I were allowed to help smoke the oysters. |
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Photo from Bud Goulter’s collection
Teacher Ernestine Little with the 1937-1938 classes at Oysterville School.
Front Row from left: Helen Martin, Patsy Dalton, Ramona Gove, Donald
Martin, Bud Goulter. Back Row: Ernestine Little, Peggy Dalton, Gudrun
Olson, Floyd Gove, Philip Olson. |
Floyd and I were also the first
ones to invent Cran-Apple. Take a bite of a juicy pippin apple and
toss in a few raw cranberries, chew them together, and you will see what
I mean.
When I was in the first grade we lived at the Cottle place, 2 miles north of the Oysterville approach, on the beach, and I walked to school. My teacher was Mrs. Royce and she had two daughters. Joan was in the first grade, along with me, and her other daughter, whose name I can’t remember, was in the third. They lived in the teacher’s cottage down by the Community Hall that Mr. Stoner built. Around 1969, I was visiting Carl Andrews in South Bend and he left me drinking coffee while he ran down the street for a minute. He brought a woman back with him and said “You two know each other.” She turned out to be Joan Royce from the Oysterville school days and she was married to a minister and living in South Bend. Mrs. Royce left and my next teacher was Charlotte Osborne who taught for three years. Dad was on the school board and he felt real lucky that Mrs. Osborne came to Oysterville to teach. Helen Heckes and Mrs. Marshall were substitute teachers when they were needed. Ernestine Little was next, for just one year, and she was followed by Mrs. Bame (who didn’t like me). A bunch of us boys got together to play, Floyd Gove, Tommy and Philip Olson, Red Robertson, George and Donald Martin, to name a few. We just hung around, threw rocks and got into innocent mischief. Well, not always innocent, I guess. One time we loaded a homemade pipe gun, (made out of plumbing pipe) with gravel and a firecracker and shot it at the Sherwood house. Ed came storming out and we all ran away. He was so mad! We were afraid he’d kill us if he caught us! One of the boys (who shall be nameless) pounded a piece of cedar wood into the keyhole at school and the teacher couldn’t get in. She had to get Mr. Stoner who took the door down by the hinges. At least it delayed school for an hour and a half. |
Photo from Ann Anderson’s collection
Mark and Katherine Bame in 1939. Mrs. Bame taught in Oysterville
from 1939 to 1943 and again from 1945 to 1951. |
I remember a couple things I
did that weren’t nice but I didn’t really mean to do them and I felt bad
about it. One time a bunch of us were playing Annie Over at the play
shed at school. Mr. Stoner spearheaded the building of the play shed
so we could play outside at recess even if the rain was pouring down.
There was a knot hole that was aimed just so and if you peeked into it
at a certain angle you could see the other team and which direction they
were going to run. We all pledged not to cheat and one day, one of
the boys on my team said he saw someone peeking. I picked up a handful
of sand and threw it at the hole and just then Gudrun Olson bent down to
peek. We ran for Mrs. Heckes and she rushed over and worked on Gudrun
for a long time, trying to wash out the sand. I was really scared
and felt bad because I worried that she would lose her eye. Thank
goodness she didn’t. I really liked Gudrun even though I was punished
by the teacher for throwing the sand.
Another time, a bunch of guys were gathered and I was riding my bike to catch up with them. Across the street I saw Betty Sherwood, Patsy Dalton, Peggy Dalton and, I think, Gudrun Olson was there too, and Memi Sherwood darted right out in front of me to cross the street to be with them and I hit her with my bike. I felt bad. I didn’t mean to do it but the girls ran me down and jumped on me! Memi asked me recently if I was still mad at her for causing the accident and I said “No.” (What else could I say?) I remember when the school first got electric lights. It was 1935 and up until then, if it was a dark and stormy day, the light was dim and we would have to go over to the window to read. With three electric lights hanging from the ceiling on each side, we could stay at our desks to read even if it was a dark day. Growing up here was fun and I must really have liked it because after spending a few years away, in the army and as a logger in California, I returned to Oysterville where I plan to spend the rest of my days.
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By Gary Whitwell One thing that happened at school that is a favorite memory of mine: We had practiced for a Christmas play. For my part I had to stand up and hold a long cotton sock and recite a story, something about Santa, etc. The night we went to school to do the play for our folks, things had been switched. Dad stood up and did my part. I think all the parents took their kids parts. All I remember is Dad standing up in his bib overalls, in front of everyone, holding up that sock and reciting my part. I can’t imagine how they ever got Dad to do it. |
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Photo from Ann Anderson’s collection
Gary Whitwell with Nita Stone and Memi Sherwood who remembers “When
we were kids, Gary always said that he was going to marry Nita, even though
they were cousins.” |
I remember a camp-out trip with
Vernon Andrews, my best buddy, on Skating Lake. Vernon stuck the
big knife we had into a block of wood, his hand slid down and he cut his
little finger really bad. I wrapped it with something to stop the
bleeding and we headed for Mom so she could fix it up. I thought
Vernon was going to pass out as he had turned snow white and was very unstable
on his feet.
Another time, Vernon and I went to the beach to look for treasures. We found an old flat-bottom square rowboat. It was in bad shape. We wanted to get it to the lake and fix it up. We went to Vernon’s dad, Carl, and begged and pleaded with him to haul it for us. He gave in after awhile. Then Vernon and I went out to the bay where they had been caulking and tarring seams on barges. There were a lot of chips, drops and scraps of tar and we collected enough to patch the seams in our boat. When finished, we were as proud of that boat as if it were new. Of course, it still leaked like a sieve but we didn’t care. We had a lot of fun with it. I wonder if there are any remnants of that old boat along the shoreline of Grandpa’s lake? I also remember Dick and Don Robertson and me doing some fun and crazy things like hiking to the beach to fish. We would get up on the old shipwreck Solano and wait until the water came in enough for fishing. Then we would have to stay until the tide went out enough to get back off. Some days we were stuck out there a long time. Mom never knew about those trips and it was probably a good thing. I remember learning to ride a bicycle on the oyster shell road in front of Memi’s house. What a thrill! We always found things to do. I look back on the Oysterville days as the best childhood days of my life. |
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By Vernon Andrews When I lived in Oysterville, my best friend was Gary Whitwell. We did a lot of fun/crazy things together. We went camping on occasion and one somber day in November we decided to spend Friday night camping at the south end of Skating Lake. Neither of us owned a tent and Gary didn’t have a sleeping bag. I had Dad’s sleeping bag that zipped open to make a pretty comfortable blanket and was relatively water-resistant. Gary put his blanket on the ground about 20 feet from the edge of the lake and I spread the sleeping bag over it. We used the flap to make a small tent over our heads. Putting our clothes under the foot of the bed, we had a good night’s sleep until the early dawn. I halfway woke up and was enjoying the warm bed until I moved and instantly got cold. I stopped moving and soon was warm again. This was repeated several times until I was awake enough to wonder why it got cold when I moved. I looked out from the tent flap and was surprised to see that we were sleeping in the lake! It had rained hard all night and the lake had risen a few inches – enough to engulf us along with the shoreline. |
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| I woke Gary up and we fished
our soggy clothes out of the water. We ran around in our underwear
gathering dry squaw wood from the trees to make a fire so we could dry
our clothes. During the drying process I burned my socks. When
the clothes had dried to the damp stage we got dressed and trudged over
to Gary’s place and finished drying by the stove. Gary’s mother,
Fern, made us breakfast and all was right with the world. By the
next day I was almost dead from the flu.
Another time we were playing around the dock during a really nasty, windy day. There were really big white-caps on the water and we thought it would be fun to “borrow” a row boat to ride the waves. We noticed that the biggest waves were out in the channel and rowed out there. The waves were big enough to break over the boat so we took turns rowing while the other one bailed. It was great fun until my uncle, Ed Sherwood, came along on the dredge and saw us. He pulled along side and really started giving us what-for and ordered us to tie up behind the dredge and get on board. I guess he was really scared and we should have been, but we thought he was just spoiling our fun. |
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Photo from Ann Anderson’s collection
Vernon and Alberta “Sissy” Andrews, 1938. |
Whenever I think of Oysterville
days, Gary always comes to mind as the one friend who was like me in interests
and temperament. Not long after the war* started
we became fans of the radio program, “Your FBI in Peace and War.”
We decided to form our own club – Junior FBI. Grandpa Biggs had an
old unused chicken house that we spent a few days cleaning out and fitting
out with furniture to make our clubhouse. We went all over Oysterville
and Nahcotta recording “suspicious” license plates.
I’ve never forgotten those days. * World War II |
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Charles Fitzpatrick Photo
The steeple of the Oysterville Church was boarded up in the 1940s to
help keep rain water from leaking into the vestibule and Sunday school
room. No longer used on a regular basis by the Baptists, both Sunday
school and regular services were offered by Reverend Harold Dixon of the
Ocean Park Methodist church. |
By Ann “Memi” Sherwood Anderson A few years ago, my husband, Bob, and I were on a European bus tour and we met a nice couple from Idaho. One evening during dinner we were telling stories back and forth about ourselves and I mentioned that I lived in Oysterville when I was a young girl. In unison they said, “We’ve been to Oysterville!” They couldn’t believe I had lived there and I couldn’t believe they had been there. They were delighted to hear I had gone to the ‘sweet little school’ and the ‘sweet little church’. After all, we were in Lucerne, Switzerland, eating fondue and listening to Swiss yodelers, far away from Oysterville, Washington. It came up in conversation a lot after that. I lived in Oysterville in the late thirties and early forties and there’s so much I remember. When I am doing my spring planting, I always think of Oysterville and the flowers. Mr. Stoner’s garden of calla lilies, Grandpa Biggs’ fields of daffodils and poppies and my Grandma Biggs’ ramblin’ roses, fragrant sweet peas, the little faces on pansies, the funny strawflowers and the honeysuckle cascading over the porch roof. Those are the flowers you will find in my flower beds every year in Westport. |
Photo from Ann Anderson’s collection
Grandma and Grandpa Biggs in their poppy garden on Skating Lake Road. |
Remember the visits from the
Watkins man? He carried that lovely suitcase full of spices, vanilla,
and other flavorings. I loved cinnamon the most and sprinkled it
into my hand and walked around licking it. My sister Betty got so
tired of watching me she told me it would dry up my blood and I’d die.
I couldn’t give up cinnamon so I just kept on licking, wondering how long
it would take.
It seems I was always sick at Christmas with one childhood disease or another. I suffered through whooping cough and pneumonia, along with the measles, mumps and chicken pox. One week before my 7th birthday, I was given a new dress early and was so excited because it was white with red tulips down the front. It was the most beautiful dress I had ever seen. I was then taken to the hospital in Ilwaco to have my tonsils out. What a surprise that was! I put up a big fuss, but it did no good. Out came the tonsils, but the following week, on my birthday, I was given new roller skates as compensation. I remember Reverend Dixon coming on Sundays riding his motor scooter from Ocean Park, coattails flying, to do the service at church. He reminded me of Ichabod Crane and we all know what happened to him!! He rather frightened me, so I sat quietly so I wouldn’t be noticed. I had a dream. A witch dream. I was to have it over and over again. In it, I had just left school at dusk and a witch, complete with black cape, black pointed hat, wart on her nose – a regular “Wizard of Oz” witch – began to chase me. I ran up the road, past the blackberry bushes, trying to scream but my throat was paralyzed with fear. I made it to our back fence, clambered over it, and my mother came out onto the porch and saved me. She was holding a blue dish in one hand and a yellow one in the other and that’s when I realized I dreamed in color. |
| My first birthday cake, that
I can remember, was made by Irene Dalton when I was 6 years old.
It had white fluffy frosting and colored sprinkles all over. I had
never seen sprinkles before and was fascinated. Irene is also remembered
for her big platters of baking powder biscuits and her red huckleberry
pies. She is also the one who put my hair up in rags so that I could
have ringlets.
Christmas meant a stack of books to read, a doll, paper dolls, and a ring in the toe of my stocking. One year I was given a new winter coat and I jumped the slough in it and missed and fell into the murky water. A bath took care of me, but the coat was never the same again. The sweetness and kindness of the ladies in town comes to mind. Virginia Holway, Helen Heckes, Gladys Goulter, and Lucille Freshley in particular. Lucille was a special friend of my mother’s and I remember sitting beside them as they drank coffee, trying to absorb their adult talk. I got into trouble because of it and came home one evening to be met by my mother with a switch, which she smartly smacked on the backs of my legs. I had told someone that she was expecting a baby and the word traveled fast and right back to her. It wasn’t true! Summertime meant kids coming to Oysterville to visit their relatives. Mostly, I remember Sydney Little, the Cannon girls, Jane McAndie and Bobby Wachsmuth. A few years ago, I was visiting a friend in Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle and I stepped into the hallway so the doctors could have a private moment with her. The lady in the bed across the hall was smiling and I said “Hello” and she answered and I wandered into her room and soon we were chatting like old friends. Guess where she used to go in the summer? Oysterville! She is related to the Holways. All roads don’t lead to Rome; they lead to Oysterville!! |
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Photo from Ann Anderson’s collection
Visiting at teacher Mrs. Bames’ home on the bay were Memi (in front)
and Patsy Dalton, unknown woman, Betty Sherwood, Peggy Dalton, Mildred
Martin, and Carol Bilodeau. |
Do you remember the mystery
of ‘The Man in the Yellow slicker?’ He walked around Oysterville
at night wearing nothing but a yellow slicker with a hood. An early
day flasher, I presume. I was never allowed in on the details, but
I remember everyone giggling about it and my mother wrote a humorous article
for the Chinook Observer. I wish I had a copy of it. It was
tucked away on a back page because it was rather risqué for those
days.
Larry Freshley’s memories of Mrs. Bame and being invited to her home with the other children, reminded me of the wonderful times we had there, too. I will never forget her homemade peppermint ice cream with the little bits of butter in it. She was a kind lady, a wonderful teacher, and truly loved all her Oysterville kids. For awhile, Ida and George Worley and their little girl, Margaret, lived in Oysterville. Ida was my mother’s double cousin and also the aunt of Ron Biggs. One day, George killed a little baby bear and decided to cook it for dinner and invite friends over. Of course, he had to fortify himself with whatever was at hand and by the time dinner was served, George was quite a bit intoxicated. He proudly carried in the platter bearing the little bear, put it on the table and began to cry. He sat down and put his head in his hands and sobbed and sobbed. Everyone got up and went home. This was told to me by Marie Andrews who attended this strange dinner. One of my Grandpa Biggs’ many jobs while back in Missouri was making candy. I remember his fondant and fudge and divinity, but best of all, I remember the taffy. We’d go to his house on Skating Lake Road and he cooked the taffy and let us each have our own little plateful to pull. We didn’t always think about washing our hands first, or not very well, and the taffy began to turn a little gray, but it tasted just as good. The molasses taffy was my favorite. One time it was very hot in the house, so I went outside in the cool evening air to pull and my taffy turned to sugar right in my hands. I ate it anyway. |
Photo from Ann Anderson’s collection
Millie Sherwood and Irene Dalton, 1940. |
The following are excerpts from
one of Millie Sherwood’s (my Mom) poems called “What is Love?” written
while living in Oysterville:
THE BABY
THE SMALL GIRL
THE SMALL BOY
THE WIFE
THE HUSBAND
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By Sydney Little Stevens I’ve always considered Oysterville “home,” although I didn’t begin to live here full-time until I was well into my forties. The Little Family to which I belonged (our name was “Little” plus there were only three of us, as I was an only child) moved four or five times during my childhood, mostly to communities within the San Francisco Bay Area. The constant in our lives was Oysterville. Oysterville was where my mother had grown up, where my grandparents, the H. A. Espys lived, and where I spent every summer vacation and most Christmases from 1938 through the 1950s. Changes occurred in other aspects of my life but, seemingly, never in Oysterville. Year after year I looked forward to the adventures that awaited me in the woods, on the bay, and in the little village itself. I was never disappointed. |
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Photo from Sydney Stevens’ Collection
Gudrun Olson takes a group of Oysterville children for an outing to
the bay in 1939. Pictured left to right are Peter Heckes, Anne Cannon,
Johnny Holway, Ruthie Holway, Gudrun, Sydney Little, and Nancy Cannon. |
We traveled to Oysterville by
car or, during World War II, when car travel virtually stopped because
of rationed gasoline and rubber for tires, we went by train if we could
get a ticket. In those years the military had priority and the trains
were very crowded, especially at Christmas time. But no matter what
our method of transportation, I’m sure we were only minutes into the journey
before I would anxiously ask, “Are we almost to Oysterville?” It
became one of those ‘family sayings’ on trips to almost anywhere.
By the time I came along, it was where Papa kept his desk and did his paper work, where Granny sat by the woodstove to write her ongoing correspondence to her children, and it was where I spent rainy afternoons listening to the stories they told about their own childhoods and my mother’s childhood. And, on the inside of the nursery door that led to the hallway was where Papa had me “stand up tall, girlie” while he made a mark to show how much I’d grown since the last summer. The marks were there well into my adulthood and I remember showing them to my son when he was taller than the first times Papa had measured me. Then one year someone painted the woodwork and the marks disappeared! I think of them with the same longing that I think of my Storybook Dolls and my collection of autographed photos of the movie stars. They, too, “disappeared” in some fit of cleaning out or, perhaps, during one of our moves. |
Photo from Sydney Stevens’ collection
Hay stacks were still a common sight in the ‘30s and ‘40s in Oysterville
and many families still had cows and a horse or two. Sydney, a ‘city
girl’ except during her Oysterville visits, found country living an unending
adventure. |
Once it was established that
I had made good progress in the Vertical Inches Department, I was free
to “go out and play” until dinner time. Invariably, I headed across
the lane to Johnny and Ruthie’s. They were the oldest of the Holway
kids, Johnny just a week younger than I and Ruthie several years behind
us. They, along with Peter and Judy Heckes, who lived a block north,
were my best friends in the summer. As I remember back over sixty
years and more, we spent every waking hour down at the bay – at least on
sunny days. And, in my mind, almost every day was sunny.
The bay provided endless entertainment. When the tide was out we would slide barefoot on the thick green algae (“moss” we called it) that covered the tideflats. The fun was to see how long a “slide” you could make in one running lunge. Tiring of that game, we often turned over the rocks that were piled nearby. I don’t know if we realized that they were rocks from California brought up in the 1800s as ballast on the oyster schooners. Judy and Peter probably did, for the fireplace on the sun porch at their house had been fashioned from those ballast rocks by their father, Glen. Our interest in them, however, was in upending them to see what lived underneath. We also spent countless hours wading and sitting in the warm, shallow water of the bay. I can’t remember that we ever really swam. Even at high tide, it took a long time to wade out to water that was deep enough for our splashy attempts at dog-paddling. We also built sand castles, of course, but even more fun was to dig tunnels. We would start our digging by facing each other about a foot apart, then dig straight down to elbow depth and then start tunneling toward one another. How we would giggle when we finally felt the other person’s fingers! The final event in the tunneling process was to watch the tide come high enough to fill in the holes and quickly erase all signs of our industrious activity. Another infinitely entertaining activity was building things out of oyster boxes. They were the wooden boxes that Japanese oyster seed was shipped in and there was always an ample supply of them in the field in front of Holways’. Oyster boxes had a zillion uses. They could be stacked like giant building blocks to make walls and rooms and houses; they could serve as tables, chairs, bookcases; but they were best utilized in building forts. |
Photo from Sydney Stevens’ collection
Looking for sand dollars and other treasures was a favorite pastime
on the beach. On the back of this photo, Sydney’s father wrote, “August
8, 1942.” |
Sometimes we cooperated on one
gigantic fort which was more like a maze. At other times we had a
girls’ fort (no boys allowed!) and a boys’ fort (same rules!). The
fun, of course, was to sneak over and wreck “theirs” when “they” were doing
something else. It was during the fort years – I was probably eight
and nine – that I became smitten with Bobby Wachsmuth, another summer visitor.
Each year I would look forward to playing with him, but alas! He
was several years older and soon outgrew our fort-building, a phenomena
I could not imagine.
Another memory of the Heckes place was their bathroom. Unlike the bathroom at Granny and Papa’s or the bathroom at the Holway house, theirs was outside. Oh, there was plumbing all right. But you had to go out in the rain or cold to get to it. Which reminds me of another funny thing. Although our outhouse was still standing (which was very convenient during the frequent power outages that came with winter storms), we’d had an inside toilet since electricity had arrived in Oysterville in the mid-thirties. But my grandfather always wore his hat when he went into the bathroom. I remember my mother asking him, “Papa, why do you put your hat even though you don’t need to go outside any more?” “Well, girlie,” he chuckled, “I can still feel that cold wind whistling around my neck!” The telephone was another fascinating item of country living. For years we still had a crank telephone in Oysterville and the H.A. Espy’s ring was a short, a long and a short. Because there was only one line in town, you could answer your phone even when you were visiting a neighbor. If a family was waiting for news that might be of interest to the rest of the village, any number of subscribers might pick up their receivers and listen in. The more listeners there were, the fainter the voices were on the line, and even after the system was updated to automatic dial in 1950, our family members retained their habit of shouting to be heard when talking on the telephone. |
| Seldom were the days that there
was “no one to play with.” But if that did happen, Papa would have
me help him in the garden. We’d pick peas or beans or pull up carrots,
sometimes brushing the dirt off of one on the seat of our overalls and
eating it right there on the spot. Never was a carrot so delicious!
Now and then he and I would go walking and he’d show me the best spots for picking berries or he’d take me to the “S” curve and point out Upper Town where the Indians lived when he was a boy. Or we’d take an apple to Countess, the old work horse that lived in the field beyond Holways’ house. He’d lift me up on her broad back, my short little legs sticking straight out to the sides and he would walk us around the field talking to horse and me together. |
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| By the time I was nine or ten,
Granny was beginning to lose her sight and so our roles reversed.
It was my turn to read to her. She was a wonderful listener and seldom
interrupted the story, but then remembered every detail so we could discuss
it afterwards. Later, she would get “talking books” from the Library
of Congress and we listened together to the works of such authors as Thomas
B. Costain, Lloyd C. Douglas, Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
When the blackberries began to ripen, all of us kids would grab our berry buckets and head for favorite picking spots, always with firm resolve to fill the buckets before we ate any – broken no doubt in the first five minutes. When we had picked all the berries within easy reach, we’d scour the fields for old planks to lean up against the brambles – precarious scaffoldings we climbed fearlessly toward the ever elusive “best” berries. I can’t remember that any of us ever fell into the middle of those giant briar bushes, but I can’t imagine why not. As soon as our buckets were full, we would dash to the “S” curve at the south end of town to Lou Mitchell’s place, for she was the “berry lady.” She would carefully pour our buckets into her crates of little berry boxes and pay us ten cents for each full box. But better than the money, was the visit with henna-haired, whiskey-voiced Lou. We called her “Klondike Kate” for she had lived in Alaska for many years and had wild tales to tell about her adventures there. She kept us spellbound with her tales of grizzlies and glaciers, mushers and miners. Besides her berry business, Lou made oyster shell lamps, one of which hung from her porch with a red light bulb in it. Occasionally, when she had a “gentleman caller,” she would shoo us home. Years later, when the proverbial penny dropped, I asked my mom why all our parents let us spend so much time at Klondike Kate’s. “Why not?” was my mother’s astonished reply. “She couldn’t have been nicer to you kids!” Another of the Oysterville’s ‘characters’ was Jimmy Anderson. He lived alone – with about a dozen cats – just south of town in a little shack by the bay. It was said that he played the violin and that it was a Stradivarius. On summer evenings when it was light late and we could play outside after dinner, we would ride our bikes down to Jimmy’s and hang around the woods outside his place to see if we could hear him playing. We never did. The women of the Oysterville Community Club worried about Jimmy, especially in the winter when it was cold. One Christmas they collected some money and got him a new slicker and a warm, wool blanket. Weeks went by but, on his daily walks to the store to get a ‘fresh’ can of milk, Jimmy still was wearing his soggy, threadbare overcoat. Finally, Helen Heckes had Glen go over to see why Jimmy wasn’t wearing the slicker. “Oh, you tell Mrs. Heckes that I’m getting a lot of good out of my slicker,” Jimmy told Glen. “I have it wrapped around my new blanket so it won’t get wet when the roof leaks.” |
Photo from Sydney Stevens’ collection
High and dry on the bay shore are Danny Kemmer, Freddie Espy, Joey Espy,
Mona Espy (in striped shirt with face hidden), Jimmy Kemmer, Sydney Little,
Anne Cannon, Judy Heckes, Nancy Cannon. Circa 1945. |
Johnny and I waited for the school bus on the steps of the church, just across from Granny and Papa’s house. It was the only year of my entire schooling that I had the bus riding adventure and it was quite enjoyable as long as bus driver Shorty Wright was at the wheel. Occasionally, however, he was absent and his son Gene drove. Somehow on those days one or another set of the Wright twins – Keith and Kenneth or Jerry (who we called ‘Jelly’) and Gary – would manage to sit behind me. They were merciless teases and I can still remember how they would yank at my long curly hair, especially when it was captured into two tempting braids. Gene ‘conveniently’ never noticed. That year I shared my beloved grandparents with my younger cousins, the Espy girls who were here for the year from New York. Twins, Freddy and Mona, and Joey and Cassy Espy were living in our great-grandfather’s house a few blocks to the north of Granny and Papa’s. I remember being a bit envious that Mona and Freddy, the only two who were school age, got to begin first grade at the Oysterville School – no school bus for them. However, I also remember that Mona got ringworm in her hair and had to have her head shaved and the hairs tweezed out of the ringworms every few days. We all felt so sorry for her having to go to school wearing a bandana on her head. |
| During the fall,
my mother and grandmother had been making arrangements for the celebration
of Granny and Papa’s Golden Wedding Celebration in late November.
I remember it as the highlight of the year. Relatives came from all
over the United States and, because it was a long trip for many of them,
they stayed for several weeks. The culmination of the festivities
was a big dinner at the Moby Dick Hotel in Nahcotta and I, as the oldest
granddaughter, was seated on my grandmother’s left which I felt was a place
of honor.
Actually, I think of that entire year as being “the time of relatives.” Perhaps it was due to the anniversary celebration that there seemed to be so many great aunts and great uncles, second cousins, first cousins coming and going. However, I suspect it had to do more with being in Oysterville during the winter and being forced inside because of the weather more than I had ever before experienced. I found that all the old people sat around and drank strong, black tea or coffee and talked. And talked and talked. Mostly about the “early days.” And, oh how I loved to listen to their stories! I have no doubt that my own interest in Oysterville’s history began right there in the library, snuggled up to the fire, listening to all the tales of what happened so long ago. It’s hard to believe that I am old enough to carry on the tradition! |
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By Larry Freshley When persuaded to tell my grandsons stories of Oysterville, I almost always tell them of my six years at Oysterville School. At times it’s almost surrealistic to look back on those days. I entered the first grade in Oysterville at 5½ years of age and well into the start of the 1943-1944 school year. |
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