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| Volume XLIII, Numbers 2 & 3 Summer & Fall 2007 |
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Growing up on the Long Beach Peninsula. |
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| Volume XLIII, Numbers 2 & 3 Summer & Fall 2007 |
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Growing up on the Long Beach Peninsula. |
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| The
Sou'wester |
| ISSN #0038-4984
Copyright, 2007, 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,
located 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.
Speaking of issues, in my zeal to get publications out I have gotten the numbering and issue classification wrong. While this may not be particularly significant to most of us, it drives librarians all over the country crazy and I am sorry about that. The only way to fix this error is to acknowledge it here and move on. Doug Allen’s two issues, about the railroads between Lewis County and South Bend, and Raymond’s early history have been very well received by our patrons and Museum visitors. Our membership has increased dramatically since the release of the last three issues. Author Sydney Stevens is no stranger to PCHS publications. This is the second large Sou’wester she has edited in the past year and she has contributed to our publications for years. She is an accomplished author and her latest work, Dear Medora, Child of Oysterville’s Early Years is a great story wrapped in a beautiful publication. A hearty thanks to Sydney for all of her work assembling the story and photos for this issue. She is, indeed, a woman of patience and has been most tolerant of my slow work. The real star of this issue is, of course, Virginia Williams Jones, whose tales and photos come to life in these pages. It’s a great story of such interesting times and the Society is most grateful for her willingness to share her life with us. Steve Rogers, PCHS president
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“I think any of you who are descended from these old ‘trees’ should know what traits you have inherited and, perhaps unwittingly, passed on to your children…” (Mention of a 165 MPH Hurricane on Page 21.) Part Two – Growing Up at the Western Edge….…………………Page 24 “But the isolation was the best part of growing up on the peninsula during my childhood. We were dependent solely upon ourselves to make a good life which we did with gusto!” Appendix – Games………………………………...………………Page 44 “Post Office was the ‘wildest, raciest’ game we played when we were kids between 1925 and 1930.” |
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Virginia Williams Jones—2007 |
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| On the cover: Virginia’s mother, Eliza, holds baby Virginia as her father, Walter, reads to brother Bronk. Sister Bitzy is standing. From the Virginia Williams Jones’ collection. |
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“I can ‘interview’ you via email,”I suggested. “I’ll be down at the beach in a week or two,” Virginia replied. “I’ll bring some notes and we can go from there.”Her ‘notes’ consisted of a mammoth shopping bag filled with documents, pages of longhand and typewritten information, photo albums – a veritable treasure trove of information about the Williams family of Ilwaco and Virginia’s memories of life there during the first third of the last century. Included, also, was a large, three-ring binder fully three inches thick, organized into chapters and titled “Gin’s Tonic.” “I thought you’d like to take a look at this,” she laughed. “It’s more than you bargained for but you might find some of it useful.”Useful indeed! “Gin’s Tonic” proved to be a memoir written by Virginia for her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren – a history of the family and an account of her growing-up years in Ilwaco. It was full of humor and pathos and was detailed beyond my expectations – far more than an article in the North Beach Girls series could encompass. And, so, this issue of the Sou’wester was conceived. I would like to add a bit of personal comment to these remarks. Virginia, whom I have always known as “Ginger”* is what we call in our family, “a shirttail relative.” Her brother, Bronk, married my mother’s first cousin, Barbara Espy. So, in a way, Ginger and I are related. But that is not a notable situation in our neck of the woods! As my grandfather Harry Espy said (with a chuckle) on the occasion of his niece Barbara’s engagement to Bronk – “You know, don’t you, that you are not marrying just a ‘boy from the Peninsula’ – you are marrying the entire Peninsula!”Indeed, the Williams family seem to be related to a great number of folks in the Ilwaco area, on the Peninsula, in Pacific County, and beyond. Many of the readers of the Sou’wester may be relatives – shirttail or otherwise – but, related or not, I know they will find “Gin’s Tonic’ a fascinating account of one of our ‘first’ families as remembered by Ilwaco’s fourth-generation descendent Virginia Williams Jones. Sydney Stevens, Guest Editor
Additional information on the Williams / Whealdon families may be found in a number of past issues of The Sou’wester, including:
* Virginia says, “I’ve always been able to tell how people know me by what they call me. My mother and sister called me ‘Virginia’ so people I met through them called me that, too. Bronk called me ‘Ginger’ as did his friends and in-laws, and my father called me ‘Gin.’ It always made it easy for me to associate people.” |
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Our Family Tree The Williams/Whealdon Branches. Grandpa Williams (Lewis Daniel or “L.D.” as everyone but family called him) was a fine, strong man – very moral – knew right from wrong and lived right as far as he could see what was right. He was born in Wales in 1853, the youngest of a large family. His father, David Williams was a thatcher and farm laborer. He also discharged cargo at Cwmtydu Beach. A ship would bring limestone in large blocks or rocks which had to be brought up to the deck, then ‘discharged’ to the beach and, in turn, stones from the beach were loaded onto the ship for ballast. The limestone blocks were taken by wheelbarrow to kilns on the beach and baked into lime powder which farmers collected by horse and cart to spread on their fields to sweeten, or neutralize, the soil. Grandpa’s family were members of the Nonconformist Chapel, Capel-Y-Wig (chapel amongst the trees), known as a Welsh Congregational Church and owned by the members who paid a stipend to the minister. In the graveyard by the church are all of Grandpa’s ancestors which is quite a genealogy in itself. In 1985, Kathy01 and I went to Wales and visited Grandpa’s family who still live there. Jon Jones (his grandmother was Grandpa’s niece) took us to the site of the old house, Aberdauddur. The house was built at the confluence of two rivers, the Aber and the Daubbur; hence, the name. Only the stone ruins were left when we were there. In Grandpa’s day the local stream ran behind the house undercutting the foundations of the old one-room home. The house was so damp that they had to spread ox blood on the dirt floors to keep the moisture down and had painted the chair and table leg tips with tar to preserve them. Eight children were raised in that house! We were told that the course of the stream was later changed so that it now runs in front of the house making the house site, geographically, in a different parish. |
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| Their furniture consisted of
a grandfather chair, grandmother chair, table, rough bench, dresser, a
linen press with drawers and doors, one bed for the parents, a home-made
ladder of sticks which the children climbed to sleep upstairs on rebel
beds with mattresses made of canvas and straw. The roof was thatched
with gorse on the inside which scratched the children daily/nightly.
Grandpa was about eight when his brothers took him to Cymtydu beach and dug a hole to put him in to keep him in one place while they ran off to play. They jumped around to pack down the sand, breaking Grandpa’s hip which resulted in one leg being shorter than the other. During his recuperation from the fracture, he contracted osteomyelitis, a running sore on his shin bone. Though his mother kept him in bed for nearly a year trying to heal it – said Lewis had caught a cold in his leg – he suffered from the affliction for the rest of his long life! In his book, Johnny Stories, Uncle Jack (L.D.’s youngest son, John G. Williams) said this about Grandpa: “My father’s family was rather poor, and when the boys got to be a certain age they went to sea. The family lived right near the sea in Wales. In the old days of sailing ships, lots of ships vanished, and two of his brothers had become sea captains and were drowned. So his mother didn’t want Lewis to be a sailor, and they shipped my father off to this country. It was 1870 that he came over here when he was 17.”02 |
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After he and Nana married, he left the hotel business and bought John Hoffman’s Feed Store which he later expanded to include general merchandise and groceries. It was on the east side of Main Street in Ilwaco. My father, Walter, began working in the store in 1892 when he was 13 years old. Grandpa carried people ‘on the books,’ especially when there was a poor fishing season. He later sent Dad to business college to become a bookkeeper. Grandpa was a penurious man (Uncle Jack objected to my using that term – said his father was “thrifty.”) Even during the Second World War in the 40s (he died in 1943) he gave his grandchildren each a $1 bill for Christmas and we were pleased to get it, although I must admit we thought it could have been more. He could have loosened up to make it $2.00! Grandpa loved and believed in work. He ran the grocery store for 25 years, was county commissioner for 11 years, served as mayor of Ilwaco, as postmaster, and as pilot commissioner. He was a pillar in the community and a respected leader. He arose every morning by 5 a.m. to begin his day. He built a fire in the kitchen stove, got out his Wearever aluminum pan and put together his rolled oats to cook slowly. Then he went to the back porch, slipped his feet into his old lace-up high-top black shoes and, with one finger, slipped the laces over the eyelets in a rather haphazard manner. It was hard for him to lean over to do a good job because of his stiff leg. After hoeing and pulling weeds in the garden, he would return to the back porch to shave with a pan of warm water from the teakettle. He would stir up a good lather in his shaving mug and knock off his whiskers with a straightedge razor which he honed fairly often on the leather strop he had hung up under his mirror. He always wore sideburns and did a pretty good job of trimming them. Grandpa never owned a toothbrush in his life. He would take a little salt on his index finger and rub it on his teeth and rinse his mouth. When he was 82 he got false teeth. I still don’t know why. Anyway, they sat in a jar of water quite a lot. He wore them for appearances only. In his garden he grew the usual: corn, potatoes, peas, carrots, beets, string beans, and onions. But he was also big on cabbage and curly kale. It was awful! He often fed it to the cows when we balked! He had a few gooseberry bushes as well as strawberries and currants which were delicious. He had a small orchard behind the house with a few cherries, pears and bellflower apples which were good. Dad added artichokes at Bitzy’s request and they were very good, too. And quite a sensation on the peninsula! He liked three square meals a day – good plain food. He was very healthy – probably because he was so health-conscious in his eating. He had a ‘mineral water’ crock with a spigot that sat on the side table in the kitchen. I think it was zinc lined. He drank this water daily. He made his own buttermilk with Bulgarian buttermilk cultures that looked like white hominy that had turned gray. Periodically he would wash them, put them in his old brown crock and pour fresh sweet milk over them and leave them to ripen. Since this was before the days of refrigeration (we didn’t even have ice), it was room temperature. Godawful stuff, but he and Nana liked it. Once, Mama threw out Grandpa’s cultures. She thought they were spoiled cauliflower. Boy, was he disgusted – used his favorite expression, “Dang it!” Grandpa always had a cow so we had pans of milk standing in the pantry. Every day we spooned off the cream, skimming it off the big flat pan of milk as it rose to the top. Nana made cottage cheese on the back of the wood stove in an enameled dishpan and then let it drain in a flour sack. It was very good! Grandpa was a purposeful, serious, rather dour man. He went through life as a “heavy,” “no foolishness” man. However, every now and then he would light up a cigar on Sunday evening and play a game of 500 with family and friends. On his lighter side, he used to tell about the man who said in his late years that he loved his new bride so much he could just eat her up and late in life said he wished he had while he had the appetite! He had several witty things he would come up with, but he was not always prone to see the funny side of things first. |
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Grandpa was an emotional man, gruff with a big bark. His loudest protestations could be instantly curbed by a few quiet words from Nana. She would let him rant and rave and bellow around until she got tired of it and then, “Lewis, that’s enough.”That took care of it. He shut right up and looked subdued. He was short on compliments; it seemed to hurt him to give one whether earned or not. After Nana died, we moved into their house to live with Grandpa and take care of him which was my dying Grandmother’s request of my mother. Mother had had a hysterectomy a few years before and Dad bought her a davenport for the living room for her to rest on. It was covered with black cloth that had a small pink rose in it – very pretty – and Mama loved it. Well, Grandpa was doctoring his leg one night with mercurochrome and spilled it on the davenport – a big mess. You know how he apologized to Mama? He yelled at her, “I never liked the dang thing anyway!”Very comforting. But I think an even better insight into Grandpa’s “graciousness/never admit you’re wrong” attitude is this story: There was one bathroom in the house, added on after the original house was built. It was on the north end between the kitchen and the bedroom downstairs. But for nocturnal elimination when “nature called” we had a chamber pot kept in the upstairs hall. It was convenient for everyone from the four bedrooms. It was a large white enameled metal pail with a lid that gave away the user as it clanged. Grandpa’s stiff leg made it hard for him to use the pot. One night he knocked it over and everything ran down between the painted floor boards through the walls into the built-in bookcase in the living room. The wallpaper was put on cheese cloth over rough boards so it really soaked up the mess. The wallpaper turned brown, smelled bad, but eventually dried out. When Mama saw what had happened, she cried, “How will we clean it up? How will we get the smell out?”(The windows and outside door of the living room had been painted shut for years.) All Grandpa said was, “That dang thing!”I can’t recall his ever giving a full apology for anything. He just couldn’t bring himself to say he was sorry. Grandpa was a life-long Republican – always made his mark at the top of the ballot for the Republican candidates. He felt any Republican was better than any Democrat. He served as Pacific County Commissioner for eleven years. Grandpa had a voice that carried like a bugle. He was an articulate, eloquent, oratorical speaker and could speak at a moment’s notice on any subject. This skill served him well in his job as county commissioner and, when he gave the address at the Pioneer Picnics in Bay Center each summer, he could move the crowd to tears. |
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There were no schools in Ilwaco in Nana’s day. I think her mother must have "home schooled” all of her children. In later years in an interview with Fred B. Lockley, a reporter from Portland, Nana said: “I did not go to school until I was 14 years old. I started to school to Professor William Byron Daniels at Oysterville in 1868…My next school I attended was at Astoria…”Basically, though, Nana was self-taught and she never stopped learning. Nana was very traditional and proper! She was a very complex person – a very strong character with many talents – an extremely inquiring mind, and an understanding of people with empathy. She ‘managed’ her husband and children – the power behind the throne, as it were. There was nothing soft about her. Today we would say she was good at ‘interpersonal’ relationships with people she cared for or liked but never bothered with people she didn’t like. She was a very cultured lady. She knew Shakespeare backwards and forwards and could quote it by the hour. She had a big library edition of Webster’s dictionary and was always looking up spelling, pronunciation and definition of words. I can remember her arguing with my mother on the pronunciation of “acclimate.” Mama said the accent was on the first syllable, Nana said the second. So they looked it up and Nana was right – with her dictionary. But Mama wouldn’t accept that. She said the book was entirely too old! Nana was a great reader. She subscribed to the “Atlantic Monthly,” “Saturday Evening Post,” and “National Geographic” – no silly women’s magazines in her house. She read them all cover to cover. She had a keen sense of humor. When her temper flared to the extreme, she would say in a firm voice, “Oh sugar tit!”which made my mother gasp at Nana’s coarse, common, crude expression. She loved a good, clean joke and got it quickly and then would have to explain it to Grandpa. |
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| Nana was an oil painter.
Aunt Elaine’s mother, Mrs. King, was her teacher. She always had
her easel set up in the living room so she could paint whenever the mood
struck her. The room always smelled of turpentine. She was
a very nice painter. Her few paintings are scattered through the
family.
I can’t imagine Nana doing anything very physical in the 1920s, even though she was only in her early 60s. She paid Bitzy or me fifty cents to vacuum and dust the house on Saturday, even though we did a poor job with an old vacuum which was one of the first electric types. She was satisfied with anything we did to stir up the dust. Flowers were a great joy to Nana. She had a flower bed alongside the front walk to the steps of the house. She favored St. Brigid anemones which were lovely – deep purple, red, or white with black centers. The most prolific flowers in her border garden were scillias – a blue bellflower little plant which is described in the dictionary as an “old world” plant. That figures! Also, along the lane was a row of huge cedar trees. |
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Nana wrote poetry and prose. She called her poetry “doggerel.” One of her poems was about the “Old House on the Hill” which was her parents’ home on the hill above them. She loved to make rhymes and write metered lines. She loved classical music. (Grandpa’s music was in the old Welsh tradition of hymns. His favorite hymn was “The Church in the Wildwood” so he could sing the bass – “Oh come, come, come to the church in the wildwood”etc. He also loved “Men of Harlech.”) It is interesting to think about where, in this isolated community, Nana acquired her love of classical music. Grandpa bought her a blue wicker windup phonograph – cabinet style on four tall legs, for her parlor. If you were lucky, she would let you wind up the Victrola with the crank – but be careful to not wind too tight! She would play some of her favorite records like Fritz Kreisler and his violin; the Irish tenor, John McCormick; or the wonderful tenor, Enrico Caruso; or the great soprano, Galli Curci. One of Nana’s favorites was also the humor of Harry Lauder, the Scotsman, singing “You Can’t Get ‘em Up in the Morning” which Grandpa also liked. When they bought their first radio, we all gathered on Sunday evening to hear “Amos and Andy” and the news, especially with commentator H.V. Kaltenborn. She was a life-long Republican but never voiced her opinion – unless it came into morality! She was very straight laced and a member of the WCTU and wore their pin which Uncle Jack wore after she died. She was founder of the Mentor Study Club, active member of the Presbyterian Ladies Aid, and attended church every Sunday. She was very fond of the Chinook Indians and respected them. Nana wasn’t much interested in cooking so kept it to a minimum but it satisfied Grandpa. She made excellent cracked wheat bread; she called it her Graham bread. She rounded it in loaves which she would let us cut when it was hot and put fresh butter on, then sprinkle with white sugar. Yummy! She fried apples using bacon grease from the old crock in the warming oven of the wood burning kitchen stove. (Every time you fried bacon, you poured the grease into this crock.) She liked sauerkraut and would often slice apples in it if it was too sour.
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| She made preserved pears.
She would cover them with sugar and let them caramelize on the back of
the kitchen stove for days; then she canned them. Once my father
was there for lunch (he walked from the grocery store up to Nana’s to have
lunch with her every day), and asked Nana if they could have some of her
preserved pears on their hot bead. She never denied Walter anything
so he went to the attic and brought back a jar which he opened. He
told Nana they were not as sweet as usual and not too good. Well,
after she sat down and tasted them, she announced they were spoiled peaches!
They didn’t eat any more and no one was sick. It was a wonder she
didn’t give someone botulism or food poisoning, but it never happened.
One day a man came in from Bear River to call on Nana and asked if she would cook a cleaned muskrat if he brought it to her. He was trying to raise muskrats for the commercial market – fur and food. So for Sunday dinner, instead of having the proverbial chicken, Nana cut up and cooked the muskrat. Grandpa always served the meals and he kept stirring through the meat and gravy. Well, they ate for awhile and he asked, “Liza, where are the wings?”Then she told him what they were eating. Funny, but he didn’t appreciate it and they didn’t have muskrat again! Dad said it tasted kind of like chicken, but drier! Nana had a flock of chickens in a chicken yard across the lane. I can only recall leghorns and black Minorcas. It was exciting to go with her to gather eggs. She had some glass eggs which she used for decoys to get the chickens to lay. They were so pretty – clear milk glass. I always wished I could keep one. She always had a dog – never a cat. She had a white pit bull, Vip, but the dog I thought was the worst was Mac who was a mix of German shepherd and airedale—mostly airedale. He had a nasty disposition – hated everyone but Nana, and bit everyone he could. I was scared to death of him. My dad was terribly afraid of dogs. If we went to someone’s house where there was a dog, he would have Mama go in first to be sure the dog was tied up. But it is even harder to imagine her or Grandpa using the chamber pail in the upstairs hall at night. The only water in the house was in the back in the kitchen, bathroom basin, and tub. So everyone used the chamber pail at night. When the U.S. Senator Jones’ visit was anticipated, Grandpa decided to add a toilet on the outside of the bathroom for the auspicious occasion. It was a special toilet room with a pull-chain toilet which had the water tank over head. After the Senator left it was discovered that he never used the toilet – didn’t want to dirty it up – so had always gone to the outhouse! |
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| Nana always looked conservatively
dressed – the ‘grand dignified dame.’ If she was going tothe Ladies
Aid or some social event in the afternoon,
it was fun to go with her to her bedroom and watch her get ready. She wore a full corset, black hosiery (she had very large legs with thick ankles and was very self conscious of them), black lace-up shoes, a conservative dress and always a band of black velvet around her neck. She thought an old woman’s neck was like a chicken’s – scrawny and unattractive – so she usually wore the black velvet band with her gold pin on the front. Her jewelry was limited pretty much to jet beads, brooches and pins. She had two gold pins for her neck bands. Since Bitzy and I were the only granddaughters, each of us got one of the pins. I can’t recall her ever wearing earrings or bracelets. In later years she wore a wristwatch but much preferred her gold breast-pin watch. Uncle Jack gave it to me. She had very thin hair so kept a coal oil lamp on her dresser which held her wooden-handled curling iron. She would frizz up her hair with the iron, then pin on at least two switches of false hair, then cover the whole thing with a fine hair net to hold it in place. It turned into a very regal no nonsense hairdo. Nana loved to ‘doctor’ people – both preventive and with her cure-all medicines. One of her favorites was “Beef, Iron and Wine” tonic which she thought everyone should take every day. I might add that she had no problem filling her sons up with tablespoons of that tonic – especially during prohibition! Along those lines, Dad said that Great Grandfather Whealdon cleared the phlegm/catarrh from his throat every morning with a swig of whisky – for medicinal purposes only, of course. He rode his old white horse to town every week to get his demijohn of whisky – rationed himself. |
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| Nana was big on rhubarb in the
spring – another good tonic. She was a pushover for any new medicine
on the market but was also very innovative. If you had a cold coming
on in your chest, you got the hot turpentine and lard rubbed on your chest
with a wool flannel square on top. She heated the turpentine and
lard in a little pan in the fireplace, then ‘slapped’ it on you.
If that didn’t work, was she made a mustard plaster and slapped it on your
chest. I don’t know the proportions but I think it was pure Coleman’s
mustard mixed with a little water to make a paste, then spread on a cloth.
She only left it on for a few minutes because it turned your skin bright
red and burned if you left it on too long. But it was considered
a real winner to ‘draw out’ impurities in chest inflammation.
If anyone showed any sign of constipation (which Nana thought was universal to all people), she immediately gave you one or two Phenolax tablets. They were pink but tasted kind of like wintergreen – terrible! If they didn’t work the next day, castor oil was in order and that was ghastly stuff – took it by the tablespoonful – yuck! You literally held your nose to swallow it. Jack said he and Walt had contests to see who could urinate the farthest out of their upstairs window. Jack said Walt always had too much beer aboard so it was no contest. But one night Nell and Krummie were necking (“spooning” it was called in those days) in the hammock below. Well, Dad let fly, Nell screamed and Grandpa roared his loudest in the morning. There was hell to pay, Jack said! But Grandpa said Nell was so silly for Krummie she was like “a sick kitten against a hot brick.” Dad was born at least 50 years too soon – was ahead of the times. He was a visionary -- like putting the money for Mama’s engagement ring into the “horse heaven” country in arid eastern Washington. He had great faith that some day there would be water brought in for irrigation. Well it happened after he gave up on it and let it go for taxes. Dad always said some day there would be a bridge across the Columbia River and everyone laughed, “Oh that’s one of Walt’s pipe dreams!” |
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| Dad always told me there had
been more changes and innovations, in his lifetime than in any other age.
He lived with Keith and the children and me for 14 years after Mama died
so we had every day to visit and “talk things over.” He was a wonderful
man and I loved him dearly! He told me about how he saw the invention
of radio, automobiles, wireless, phonographs, plastic, etc. He always
looked on the bright side of life – with him the cup was always half full.
No matter how bad things were in the Depression years, he kept a positive
attitude. If he took a trip to try to make some money, when he came
to start his report to Mama, he always started with, “The darndest thing
happened…” and go on with some humorous story before he gave her the bad
news.
Uncle Jack told me that Nana always thought my father’s goiter was brought on by too much hard work in the grocery store as a young man, although both Lew and Nell had goiters also. Nana bought a steel or iron bathtub about five feet in circumference with a coal oil burner under it to heat the water, thus making steam. Nana had Dad sit in this contraption. When he was about 20, they sent him to Riverside, California, for a year for his health. When Dad and Mama were married, before they had any children, they went to the Mayo Brothers Clinic in Rochester, New York, taking Lew along since he had a goiter, too. Both men had their goiters operated on that winter. About twenty years later, Dad had a second goiter operation in Portland by Dr. Tom Joyce of the Portland Clinc who had been an intern at Mayo’s when Dad was there. At the second operation they removed one and one-eighth pounds of goiter and he went from a size 18 shirt neck collar to a 14! |
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| Dad was also a heavy cigarette
smoker. When he was in his late teens his mother promised him a gold
watch if he would stop smoking for a year. He agreed and quit.
As soon as the year was up, Nana gave him the lovely gold watch.
He promptly started smoking again!
During the Depression, he ‘rolled his own’ with Prince Albert brown papers that came in a little packet. He filled the paper with tobacco from the can, rolled it into a cigarette, ran his tongue along the edge, popped it in his mouth and enjoyed inhaling every puff. At least it cut down on the number of cigarettes he smoked because of the time it took to roll his own instead of lighting up the ‘tailor-made’ cigarettes. One day he was writing some letters sitting at the dining room table and smoking as usual. He always flicked the match in the air and put it in his pocket to save time. Mama came in from the kitchen and said, “What’s burning?” Well, with that, Dad jumped up, banging on his side, putting out the fire in his pocket. Mama had to replace the pocket! Dad really had a hot seat! Dad smoked to the tune of two packs a day or more until he was 66 years old when he developed pneumonia which resulted in a spot on his lung. After a month in bed, it cleared up but he never smoked again and died at 77. But, he said he never smelled a cigarette that he didn’t want one! Dad was always a very handsome man – had a fine regal bearing with style. He was bald in his late 30s so I don’t remember his having any hair. He loved nice clothes and was always very well groomed. He wore wing-tipped shoes most of the year. He taught us to shine our shoes with paste polish and rub them and rub them. (We got one pair of solid oxford shoes – Armshaws – every year. They were sturdy and took a good shine which also helped to waterproof them.) |
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Both Dad and Mama played the piano. Dan even composed some ditties he would play upon request, but he never got into the heavy classical. Dad accompanied Mama when she sang. I still have all of their music which is very nostalgic: “When Winter Comes,” “I Hear You Calling,” “Oh, Promise Me,” “The Rosary,” “Smiles,” “My Ain Folk”, “Who is Sylvia,” “Roses of Piccardy,” and Dad’s favorite “Love’s Old Sweet Song” – to name a few. They saw to it that we all had piano lessons. Bronk wouldn’t practice so they let him quit after Mama gave up nagging him. Years later Bronk said, “Mom, why didn’t you make me stay with it?” Our music teacher came from Portland once a week. Every year in the spring we had a recital in which Bitzy and I played. We all groaned and complained and then were fearful we might forget as we had to memorize our piece. Before the evening was over, Dad always would send a note to our teacher, Bernice Simmons Sisson, (formerly of Ilwaco) requesting her to honor us with a solo! She loved it and really played beautifully so she inspired everyone. It was a big night in town. Dad was a great letter writer. He had a beautiful ‘hand’. Bitzy took after him with her lovely penmanship. I took after Mama with my old backhand (but it’s legible.) |
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| After the bank crashed (the
bankers, Pop and Myron Sinclair, father and son, went to the penitentiary
in Walla Walla but that didn’t return people’s money), Dad met a man from
Sweden who made pottery in Astoria. He didn’t have a market so Dad
became his agent/salesman. He traveled up and down the coast but
couldn’t unload it so he ended up putting it in Doupe’s store for the public
to buy. At least Dad got it off his hands. Mama converted some
to lamps, painting them and making shades. They made inexpensive
Christmas presents that year! I still have the base of mine.
The night Mama died in 1943 (she was only 56 and as they went to bed for the night, she said “oh, my head” and was gone) Dad and I sat by the fireplace all night talking. He said, “It’s just like somebody turned out a light – the light has just gone out of my life.”I loved having Dad with me every day in our home. He and Keith got along very well (Keith always called him “boss” but we all knew who the real boss was) which made it nice for me. We never in fourteen years ever had dissension! Dad was there all day so whenever anything went wrong he would set me straight with the remark, “Well, what the hell does it amount to anyway?”and that leveled the playing field and put things in perspective! |
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Grandpa Olsen – Bernt In 1896 he had a chance to come west to try to refloat a ship (the Potrimpos I think) that had run aground on the North Beach Peninsula. He and Grandmother’s son Hans, who had been his first mate, came on the train from Brooklyn to Portland. Well, he didn’t succeed with the ship, but he did get a job with the Star Shipping Line which took fishermen to Alaska each spring and brought them back as late as possible each fall. So he sent for Grandmother and the girls and they came by train to live in Portland. One year, when Grandpa Olsen had captained the Nordkap to Alaska, they were too late leaving so were frozen in Kotzebue Sound for the winter. This was before the days of radio, TV, electricity, dehydrated foods, etc. Grandmother’s son-in-law, Uncle Charlie, was along and he found a job delivering mail in the area so helped out with the food situation. Grandpa Olsen said later that Charlie saved their lives! Charlie’s brother, Theodore, had also gone with them and he decided to try his hand panning for gold. He brought home a few nuggets but was ready to return with the ship in the spring as soon as they could get out. |
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Grandmother Olsen was first married to Captain Ole Langfeldt Boye. Grandpa Olsen and Captain Boye were friends from Norway, both sailing brigantines. The way I heard the story, as told to me by my father, was this: The two captains’ ships were in the same harbor so they started drinking. They were old friends who never touched the bottle while at sea but made up for it when they were in port. Boye bet Olsen he could climb the mast. Well, he fell to the deck and was killed. Grandpa Olsen went back to Norway to break the news to Mrs. Boye. They fell in love, he courted her, and they were married. Grandmother put her children6 in boarding school and set out on the ship to live with Grandpa. Mama was born on Nye Torve in Stavanger, Norway, on August 16, 1886. |
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Many are the times I heard Dad yell downstairs from his warm bed, “For God’s sake, woman, stop that foolishness and come to bed!”– all to no avail. Mama would always get out the tide table because she predicted the storm would abate at the change of tide – whatever that had to do with it. It was impossible to believe that she had lived aboard a three-masted brigantine with her father, Captain Bernt Olsen, and her mother in attendance from the time she was born, on and off again until she was six years of age! It is interesting how proud they were. Whenever they mentioned Uncle Hans, they would add, “He went to the same academy in Norway as the Crown Prince.”I have Mama’s birthday book in which she recorded where she was on each birthday her first 22 years. It says a lot about her early life. |
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During her recuperation, a big event happened. One afternoon the sky turned a strange yellow. The wind blew harder and harder until it became a hurricane and broke the anemometer at North Head. Some people said it broke at 165 mph. The wind blew out the west window in the living room. Dad crawled home from the grocery store downtown. He immediately threw water on the fires. Then Joe Bendle came looking for his daughter, Norma, our playmate. He helped Dad put the piano bench up in the window and cover it with rugs to plug the hole. Next day we assessed the damage. Our big old fir tree in the backyard was torn out of the ground, roots and all, and laid down to the north (the heavy winds and storms always came in off the ocean from the southwest.) A couple of houses came off their foundations and a fellow’s chickens blew from Ilwaco to Long Beach. No one reported personal injuries. While Mama was laid up, she sat on a needle on the couch. Some way a few had been dropped there out of their package. Some time later Mama complained of an aching hip. After several weeks, a black boil appeared. Dad took the tweezers to it and pulled the needle out of her hip! She had immediate relief! |
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| At the height of the Depression, Mama had a bright idea. She would take us to pick cranberries to make a little money. The growers paid 25 cents a bushel and that was a lot of cranberries. In those days they marked off rows. Cranberries have very tough vines and grow in sandy bogs. The vines are about ten inches deep. You worked your fingers through the vines to retrieve the berries, kneeling all the time, inching forward. The vines tore your cuticle so first thing you did was wrap your fingers with black bicycle tape. The berries were only picked once so you had to ‘pick clean.’ | |||
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| The first night when we returned
home from a back breaking day, Mama’s back hurt so bad she had Dad go to
the drug store and get a bottle of Sloan’s liniment. Dad proceeded
to give her a back rub but – big mistake! – he poured a lot on his hand
and slapped it on the small of her back. Unfortunately it ran down
the crease of her buttocks! Amid much screaming they ran a bathtub
of warm water and she soaked for some time. There was hell to pay
that night! The good/bad result was we didn’t have to pick cranberries
again and Mama almost used up our small profit in bicycle tape and liniment.
We did go with our friends occasionally after that but I was never good
at it. My goal was two bushels – 50 cents – but I didn’t always make
it.
Mama was very talented, had a very pretty soprano voice. Before she was married, she took voice lessons. Uncle Hans encouraged her; he took her to the opera and introduced her to the arts. She also studied drawing, took painting lessons, as well as piano lessons. One winter Dad and Mama took all three of us kids to Portland to have our tonsils and adenoids out. Mama also had hers out with a local anesthetic. She said later that she would rather have had a baby than go through that. Something happened in her surgery and she was never able to sing again. She said her throat closed up when she tried to sing. That was a shame! After high school she apprenticed herself to a tailor to learn sewing/tailoring. The seamstress she studied with was a very good professional tailor. This was in the days of a woman in corsets with metal or bone stays, lacings, floor-length silk dresses, etc. She told about one lady coming in for a ‘fitting’ in her good corset. The next fitting, she appeared in her old, second-best corset so the dress wouldn’t fit. Mrs. Ramsey, the tailor, told Mama to rip it out and refit it. Mama said it was one of the hardest lessons she ever learned. But, as a result of this work, she could look at a dress in an exclusive shop and then go home and copy it. She was very artistic and creative with lots of style. She constantly made over clothes for herself, Bitzy and me. We were always beautifully dressed in remade castoffs, all through the depression. Mama could ‘make something out of nothing.’ Gert Shultz Thornton was utterly amazed when I told her this – she thought we were very wealthy to have such gorgeous clothes. |
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Growing Up at theWestern Edge What Ilwaco Was Really Like There was no “way west” of us! In the 20s there were only two roads into (or out of) town. If you were driving in from the ferry (which came across the Columbia River from Astoria) you passed the cemetery. If you came in from the north by the plank road from South Bend, you passed the mortuary. As we used to say, “They’ve got you comin’ or goin’.” The majority of the people – about three fourths of the town – were Finnish. First generation from Finland. They were my parents’ generation. There were about 30 kids in each class at school. For several years Gaynell Inman, Rosalie Tigard, Violet Christiansen, Louise Hanselman, Ted Shultz, Billy O’Meara, Bill Marchant and I were the only non-Finnish kids. We went through all 12 grades together. There was one Finnish boy Arnold Harju, who was with us all the way through, too. We eight were all together at our 50th reunion and many at the 60th. These nets were then dipped in a big vat of molten tar to make them durable and waterproof. They were laid out on the grass to dry or on racks at the canneries in the winter before fishing season started. (We kids liked to grab a hunk of tar to chew.) When the piling were driven perpendicular to shore by the pile driver, the nets were pretty much below water, even at low tide. The “lead” was a straight line of piling about 300 feet out from the shore. The limit to go out was 800 feet because of boat traffic. The fish followed the lead which, as it infers, led them into various so-called “rooms” of the trap, the first being the “spiller” then the “heart” and finally the “pot”. One side of the pot was called the “apron” which could be lifted and the fish were pulled out with a gaff hook. Dad’s first traps were in Baker’s Bay near Ft. Canby. He would row his boat out to “lift” his traps at low tide, row the fish to the cannery and sell them there. Bronk usually went with him although he was always seasick in a boat if it was the least bit choppy or rough – until he was on an aircraft carrier during the war. That cured him of seasickness. Dad’s second venture into fish traps was just east of the Ft. Columbia tunnel. Some of the piling from the traps can still be seen at both of these locations. But Dad’s big dream was to have fish traps alongside the north jetty at the mouth of the Columbia River using the jetty to act as a lead. Everyone thought he was crazy. He had to get a fish permit from the state, get a deep-sea diver, and get a pile driver to sink the piling out in that deep rough water. Well, he did it! I can still remember seeing the diver coming to the surface in his full suit with metal headdress and hoses. Dad did get a lot of fish, but the water was so rough in the winter storms that the piling had to be replaced often and it was very expensive to maintain. After awhile he sold the traps east of Fort Columbia for $10,000 to Charlie Andersen, a wealthy trapper in Chinook. That was a lot of money in those days. Just a few weeks later, all fixed gear in the state of Washington was outlawed! 8 Twice the Peninsula Cranberry Cooperative growers hired Dad to brokerage their crop in San Francisco so we went to California – once in 1920 when I was 5 and again in 1925 when I was in fifth grade. The first time we rented an apartment in Piedmont, and the second time we rented a house across the street from the school in Oakland. That time Bronk and I were “chosen” by our classes to go to a tuberculosis sanatorium. What an experience for two kids from Ilwaco! All patients slept on sleeping porches for fresh air and were kept in bed all the time. TB was called “consumption” in those days and was life-threatening. Bronk and I reported back to our classrooms and never forgot that experience. |
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| Dad and Mama took us out for
lunch in Oakland and to the matinee of “No, No Nanette,” the stage play.
Exciting. I can still remember the gal sitting on the fellow’s knee
singing “Tea for Two.” Since Mama had taken voice lessons as a young
lady and Dad played the piano, this was considered a satisfying “cultural
event.” Another outing was the big Christmas pageant at Lake Merritt.
Bitzy was a “candle” in the program!
We also went to a Welsh Eisteddfod which is a gathering of Welsh musicians and dancers. They announced that Brongwyn Williams was going to play the piano and Bronk went into a wild blue spasm. He whispered in his loudest whisper to Mama, “I don’t know how to play the piano!” What a surprise to him to find that other people shared his name – and a relief, too! Even in California, Mama, Bitzy, and I were beautifully dressed. Mama would go window-shopping in San Francisco and then come home and make us the same things she had seen. We had embroidered dresses, smocked dresses, silk hats with wired brims – all very stylish “get ups.” At home in Ilwaco Mama accepted “hand-medowns” from anyone. Then she would rip them up, wash the material, and cut out new clothes for us so you wouldn’t even know where they came from. She had great style. She was the envy of women who could sew fine seams but didn’t get the flair or style. That was a gift. Uncle Rees sang bass in the Ilwaco Presbyterian choir all his life. He loved to sing whenever three or more people got together (typical Welshman.) He and Grandpa (both loud) led the “Oh, come, come, come” at church whenever Grandpa requested “The Church in the Wildwood.” One of the biggest pluses towards the arts came in the late 20s when Dr. Winford G. Sargent arrived. He came from Paris where he had lived for a few years doing his medical intern work. He studied voice while there and loved to sing, especially arias from the operas he had seen in Paris – most especially “La Boehme.” (Dad said that he was well trained but had no voice.) I took piano lessons from him and, as he was in demand to perform all over the peninsula, I accompanied him. (He also tried to teach me French but got disgusted with me that I couldn’t stick my lips out far enough!) “Doc” was great fun. He introduced me to Balzac and the French classics. My mother was a big reader and insisted we read all the classics possible – David Copperfield, Vanity Fair, The Forsythe Saga, Anna Karenina – so she approved my further reading under his tutelage. Doc was also an avid bridge player so he ate at our house two or three nights a week and we played bridge with the folks. |
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| In 1929 the ladies of the peninsula
formed a study club which they named “The Mentor Club.” Nana, Mama,
Aunt Marg, and Aunt Julia were charter members. Mentor Club is still
active, is purely for study, and has held to the limited number of 16 members
through the years. I felt very privileged to be a guest at their
70th reunion in 1999 as a daughter, granddaughter and niece of the above-mentioned
charter members. I presented them with Mama’s “paper” on the Iliad
which she wrote when she was president in 1934. They still follow
the traditional format – the hostess serves lunch but no dessert and then
in the middle of the afternoon candy and nuts are passed around for a treat.
Very nice!
Another wonderful addition to our childhood was knowing Joe and Marian Knowles. Joe was the “Nature Man” who, on a dare, went into the Maine woods with nothing but a knife and survived, painting pictures on the bark of trees, killing animals to dress himself and eat. When he came out he went on the stage, traveling the country to tell his experiences. Then the war broke out and no one was interested in hearing his story. But he did write a book, which I have, called Alone in the Wilderness. |
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| Joe and Marian came to the beach
and stayed. He was a very good artist from New England originally
an oil painter and then went into dry point etchings. Marian was
a good etcher too. Joe’s murals are in the Monticello Hotel in Longview
and are probably worth more today than the hotel!
The height of season success was to beat Astoria. One year on a fine day in November they came to Ilwaco for the big annual game. Our field was at the east end of town just below yellow bluff (where the clay soil permitted us to roll and dry dough babes which became our marbles.) It had rained hard for several days and the field was a muddy mess. Bronk weighed in at about 130 pounds, if that. The Astoria center facing him was well over 200 pounds. Mama decided this was the game she would attend to finally see her hero, Bronkie, perform. There were no bleachers. We all vied for frontroom standing position. Mama took one look at the Astoria center and started to cry, “That boy will kill Bronkie…” As you might guess, no one was going to get killed sliding in the mud. However an unfortunate thing happened. As the boys lined up, the two centers collided head on and both were knocked out. Dad took a screaming Mama home and shortly the game continued with the same players, but to this day I can’t remember who won. There were no athletic programs for girls. However, Dad became PTA president one year and somehow they dredged up enough money for some metal playground equipment – rings, bars and swings. Also, we learned to roller skate on the only cement walk in town which was around the school building. Our skates had to be adjusted in length, then the grippers had to be adjusted to fit our shoes – all tightened with a key that was crucial to the fit. If you lost your key, you were in big trouble. |
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| In 1932 the Kiwanis Club, (Uncle
Rees and Dad were charter members) gave a prize for the best boy and best
girl golfers in the high school. Dad was a charter member of the
Tor-Wood-Lea golf course just north of Long Beach. He took us there
to play wearing his cap, plus-fours and carrying his bag which held a driver,
spoon, midiron, mashie and putter. We never heard of the numbered
clubs used today.
Bronk and I entered the contest. The boys played 18 holes and Bronk won. The girls played 9 holes and, as it was kind of rainy and we were tired, we agreed to call it quits. I won. On Monday night at Kiwanis Club, Bronk and I went to collect our prizes. Our scores were very close (nobody blabbed about the girls’ nine holes compared to the boys’ eighteen) so we received lovely gift certificates from Doupé Brothers’ store. We both got slip-on sweaters and Bronk wore his proudly but I can still remember the electric blue of mine. It “shocked” me at every wearing and made me sort of ashamed to have taken it with such a poor performance. We thought the classy sport to play was tennis. The only court on the peninsula was at Long Beach. We needed racquets so Annie Hawkins came to our rescue and gave us Robert’s and Charlotte’s old racquets. (They had long since gone off to college.) We lobbed a few balls with friends but were not inclined to run, pursue, or move very fast, so the games weren’t too tiring. Two balls were all we ever needed for several years of play. Balls were balls – dead or alive. Now swimming was something else. Here we lived in the southwest corner of the State of Washington at the mouth of the Columbia River on Baker’s Bay on the south, Pacific Ocean beach 30 miles long on the west, Shoalwater Bay on the east of the peninsula with rivers all over the place of every size. So it was only natural we would be great swimmers. Wrong! On Baker’s Bay, as you went from Ilwaco to Ft. Canby, there were two beaches called China Beach – a girls’ beach and a boys’ beach. This was because of changing our clothes. Well, these beaches were very close to the big salmon canneries of Ilwaco where they cleaned fish, then scraped and hosed all fish heads and entrails off the deck into the bay. 9 |
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| When we went swimming, some
kids had canvas water wings they blew up and tied on. These kept
them afloat but to really learn to swim you had to be held up, work your
legs and move your arms in a strong dog paddle. One day Catherine
Herrold was helping me learn. She thought I had the idea down pat
so she let go. My eyes were wide open as I sank to the bottom.
All I could see was fish heads and cans. To this day I am a poor
swimmer, still expecting fish heads and cans to show up! It was not
a good start.
One sport we all loved was target practice with the .22 rifle or BB gun. When Dad had saved enough cans he would take us to Black Lake down the lane behind Grandpa’s house and we would shoot at the cans bobbing in the water. It was great sport. We had only one gun so we all took turns. Mama didn’t ever go with us as she was sure we were going out to kill ourselves. Every year she bought a new corset, always keeping the last one for “next best” to wear around the house every day, saving the new one for dressing up. Then she went out in the backyard and threw the oldest corset on Dad’s burn pile where, now and again, he would burn up the trash. Well, he saw the old corset there, hid it under his coat, took it in the house, and later wrapped it up for Christmas. He had given Mama some long–stemmed roses in a wonderful box from the florist in Astoria and she had been so thrilled she had saved the box. At the Christmas Eve party up at Nana’s she was so excited when the beautiful florist box was handed to her that she blushed and said, “Oh, Walter, you shouldn’t have.” Indeed she was right. When she opened the box and saw her old corset she could have killed him on the spot. Such mortification!! |
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| Speaking of corsets reminds
me of the time Mama made herself a reducing girdle during the Depression.
This was a very unique thing. You took an old inner tube, slit it
open, measured around your belly, then overlapped it and vulcanized it
with tire glue which Dad used to mend flat tires. It was about 16
or 18 inches wide from top to bottom. Over it she wore a net garment
she had made with straps over her shoulders and garters to hold up her
stockings. The idea was that the heat generated under the inner tube
would make you lose weight.
Well, one time Dad and Mama were in Portland and Mama was shopping at Meier and Frank’s. (There was only the one big downtown store in those days owned by Julius Meier and Aaron Frank.) In the center of the main floor they had tables of all the sales merchandise. Mama always went nuts if there was a chance to get a bargain – especially yardage or clothes. So she dove right in and pawed through everything when all of a sudden she had an asthma attack and couldn’t get her breath. These attacks came on with excitement every now and then. She decided she needed to go over to Dr. Tracy Parker, the naturepath who helped all the family when they were ailing. His office was only a block away so in she went, and he asked her to take off her clothes and put on a gown so he could give her a “treatment.” She was so overheated from her exertions at the sales tables that she was actually steaming under the inner tube girdle. She got it part way up over her arms and couldn’t get it either way – up or down – so she had to call for Dr. Parker to come to her aid. He wrestled it off and was very interested in it as he was an old bachelor who lived with his overweight mother. Needless to say, Mama really needed a treatment after that embarrassment on top of her wheezing sale experience. But back to Christmas – one year Aunt Elizabeth sent us a box of presents from Los Angeles which was the place where all the glamour of the world was collected. Her gifts were always clever, even though not terribly expensive. This particular year, Dad’s present was a bottle of “toilet water” (cologne.) He opened the bottle, smelled it and immediately realized that this bottle contained whiskey (remember it was during Prohibition). Good old Lizzie! He stood up with the bottle and drained it dry, then announced to all what it was. Good Old Lizzy had really come through! The following year she sent him another bottle of toilet water. Rees grabbed it out of Dad’s hands and said, “No you don’t, Walt, I get the first drink this year.” Guess what? It really was lavender toilet water and boy did Rees gag and spit for quite awhile. |
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| Mama always wished she had a
diamond ring. One Christmas Dad went to the jeweler (Ekstrom) in
Astoria and got a very nice velvet ring box. Then he went to the
five-and-ten-cents store and purchased a beautiful “diamond” ring in a
Tiffany setting. He wrapped it up from him but when Mama opened the
package, the whole thing backfired. She thought it was the real thing
in the lovely box and she was so “touched and pleased” she thanked him
and thanked him. Finally, Dad had to explain to her that it was a
joke – a phony! Bad news! But Mama took it in stride; she did
have a great sense of humor. She remained content with her gold wedding
band.
During the Second World War when Bronk was out in the Pacific on the aircraft carrier Saratoga and they had just been in a terrible battle, he received a Christmas package from home. He said he handled it all just fine until he came to the box of old junk – phonies – Dad had put together for him: rusty razor blades, old false teeth, box of Ex Lax, etc. Then Bronk said he broke down and cried with loneliness realizing how much he missed all of his family. We never did get very many presents. Nana always had a present for everyone. Mama and Dad were so broke that we received only one gift from each of them. Usually it was something useful like a new dress. One year Mama had gone to Portland and purchased dresses from Meier and Frank for Bitzy and me. They were beautiful – I can still see mine – heavy rust colored silk with a smocked yoke neck and long sleeves – very dressy! We were thrilled to have something “store-bought.” Ilwaco had a telephone company owned and operated by Andy Howerton. The office manager who kept the books and ran the switchboard was Jennie Sankela Meyers. Ray Howerton was head of “services” (the lineman) and general all-around handyman. Myrtle Whealdon was the night operator. When I graduated from high school in 1933 it was the middle of the Depression. We had no money so I had no way of getting out of Ilwaco. I made the best of it by taking classes at the high school and being the “relief” operator at the telephone company for times when Jennie needed to work on the books or Myrtle needed a night off. Whenever I was there at night (the switchboard office closed at 10 p.m.), Andy sat in the office with me in case anyone of an unseemly nature should come in. It was great fun with the headphones and plugs. It was all manual – even the ringing. A number would click and I would plug into it and ask, “Number please?” which they proceeded to give me. Then I would take the opposing plug and put it into that number to connect them. The phones were nearly all on party lines so everyone had a different combination of rings. Nana was a long and a short on her line. We were three shorts in Seaview and my friend Adeline was two shorts on the same line so we could ring each other without going through the switchboard. |
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| One day Jennie called to ask
me to come down and man the boards while she worked on the books.
Imagine the shock when a call came in from Long Beach that Charlie Stauhaul
was flying down the beach and had crashed and was killed! Emergency!
Jennie took over – got all the help she could by telling people to hang
up their phones so she could call all fire and rescue volunteers.
How sad that day was for all of us.
An even sadder day was when a Chinook cousin, Berwyn Williams’ wife, Marian, and baby were out on the beach one day when a plane was coming in for a landing. She thought it was going to hit her sister’s baby or hers, so she ran to grab up the baby and ran right into the propeller and was killed. As a result, airplanes on the beach were outlawed. Out on the east side of Ilwaco near the Wallicut River there was a field that Ted Shultz and his dad cleared to prepare a landing field. One summer a plane came in to take people for rides at $5.00 each which was a lot of money. Bitzy got friendly with one of the promoters, so she got a free ride, but I was scared to death and wouldn’t have gone if they paid me. Bitzy was more adventuresome. However, she didn’t care about driving the car like Bronk and I did. During the time that Grandpa Williams was county commissioner, he received a county car – a blue Ford coupe with a V8 engine! Grandpa had never learned to drive so when the road superintendent, Ed Heckard, couldn’t drive him, Bronk and I fought over which of us would do it. It was a great car and loads of fun – far too much power for Grandpa or us but we loved it. We would skid around corners on the gravel roads and Grandpa would yell, “Slow her down!” His favorite remark was about the boys who wrapped themselves around a telephone pole in their car while speeding, “Can’t get to hell fast enough – got to go in a limousine!” |
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The tracks had been raised on a dike-type berm and there was a ditch between them and the house. The ditch was filled with water most of the year. In the winter we would wait for it to freeze so we could run and skate on the ice. No ice skates, though, as it never was very thick. There were many times this ditch got us in trouble. We had a big old round wash tub we would make into a boat but invariably it would dump us out in a foot or more of water. When Dad had to get false teeth – pyorrhea being the cause according to Dr. Kinney – his beautiful teeth were pulled in several sittings and then the gums were allowed to shrink before impressions could be taken and the false teeth made. Every week Dad would walk down to see if Doc was ready to take the impressions. This was during the Depression and Doc was too poor to buy the material to make the teeth so Dad waited a whole year. One day the ditch was frozen and Dad walked the track to Kinneys’ and then across their little bridge to their gate. As he started on the planks of the bridge, he felt himself sliding on ice so he headed for the gate which he hit hard enough to knock it off its hinges, whirled around, and landed down in the ditch with the gate on top of him. He didn’t get his teeth that day either! Finally the day came and, as you would suspect, perfect little gray pearls in dark red gutta-percha – but at least he could get off the mashed potatoes and soup diet! Mama wanted a flower garden alongside the garage so she could plant nasturtiums. While Dad was out spading, he had a coughing spasm, coughed his teeth out, and they fell into the hole he was digging. He dug down, found them, rinsed them off and popped them back into his mouth. After that, every time he coughed he would grab out his teeth so they wouldn’t fall out. They were a terrible fit! It was most embarrassing to my mother because she was very proud and proper. Wherever they were, it didn’t matter; if Dad had to cough, out came the teeth. Several years later he did get better teeth which stayed in. Alec Samuels, like Dad, had been waiting months for Doc to finish his teeth and his wife, Ruel, was getting really impatient. Alec was working on the rock crusher with Ed Woods and Ed had just gotten a replacement set of false teeth, so Alec asked Ed to borrow his old set, even though his appointment with Dr. Kinney was scheduled for the very next day. He took Ed’s teeth and put them in his mouth but he had to hold them in – kept his thumb on the upper plate as he walked in the house. Finally Ruel said, “What’s the matter, Alec, do you have to hold the teeth in?” Alec let go and the teeth fell on the floor! Ruel was so mad, she didn’t come up for air for another half hour – until Alec explained the situation or she would have gone to kill the dentist! |
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DISHES: Down the sides of the fire box in the kitchen stove were coils that contained water that went into the big boiler beside the stove. This boiler was heavy metal, about 20 inches in diameter and eight feet tall. You could run your hand down its side to determine if the water was hot enough or if there was enough to wash dishes or take a bath. There was always hot water after cooking dinner so we did the dishes right away. Bitzy insisted on washing, Bronk cleared the table and put things away, while I was the wiper. Of course, there was a lot of griping about our having to do this terrible chore and a lot of dishtowel snapping at people’s legs – especially when the towel was very wet and really snapped and stung! Also, there was lots of throwing things back at the dishwasher because they “weren’t clean” and a great deal of arguing over who was being imposed on the worst. Hard to imagine that my mother and father could have been enjoying themselves in the living room directing and listening to such child slave labor! One night we were griping more than usual so Dad went out to the poplar trees in the front yard, cut a switch and swished and snapped it on our legs. Well, we screamed bloody murder to give him satisfaction that he had made his point. Then we did the job. That is the strongest physical correction Dad ever gave us. WASHING/IRONING CLOTHES: My mother loved to entertain and she could not do it casually. There was no such thing as informal dining with company coming. It meant a real Irish linen table cloth with a ‘silent’ cloth under it, dinner napkins, silver, crystal, Haviland china, and lots of work before and after. The cloth and napkins needed to be washed. She boiled the napkins on the stove, then they were dried – it was no easy task in that climate to dry clothes – sprinkled, and ultimately ironed. Before electricity, we used sad irons which were kept on the stove. There were two irons so we alternated and kept them on the part of the stove where the temperature was right. These irons got very hot in your hands even though you had good padded ‘lifters.’ I remember when Nana got a new sad iron that had a lamp-on wood handle. That was a modern “hot” item. When Mama got her first electric iron, it was a sensation. Of course, it had no temperature control, just OFF or ON, so many things were scorched if you weren’t careful to turn it off when it overheated. |
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| In the 1920s Dad got Mama a
Maytag washing machine with outlet hose and wringer. She kept it
on the back porch (which was enclosed) and on wash day we rolled it into
the kitchen and connected the hose to fill it from the kitchen sink tap.
Then we started the first “batch” with white things – linens and sheets.
One tub of water was used for all batches, no matter how many you did that day. There was no timer so you just turned the lever to “on” and it started the gyrator. We used Fels Naptha bar soap which we chipped/shaved in with a knife. After they had agitated for about 15 minutes or so, we would stop the lever and feed the things carefully through the two hard rubber wringer rollers. Invariably, we would try to hurry up the job and the rollers would get jammed and we would have to reverse the wringers or spring them apart, straighten things out, then continue. The clothes went into a pan in the sink to be rinsed and wrung by hand. Then, always using the same soapy water, we did a “next darker batch” until we finally got down to the darkest things with the blackest water. It usually ended with Mama finding a rug that needed washing. After rinsing and wringing we carried the clothes out in a big wicker basket to the back yard to the clothes lines and hung them to dry. With the best luck they would dry in a day. In summer sometimes it rained the same day so we would take them into the wooden dryer rack which was in the kitchen tied to the ceiling by pulleys and rope. This contraption was let down, things were folded over the wood dowels, then it was raised to the ceiling for final drying. Dad put up lines in the woodshed/garage later. Sometimes clothes would hang for days before they were dry enough to bring in. Dad wore white dress shirts with detachable stiff starched collars and French cuffs. We made our own starch with Linit which looked like cornstarch. You mixed it with a little cold water, then quickly stirred in boiling water until it turned clear. Everything that was starched had to be dried, sprinkled, rolled up and then ironed. If you didn’t iron fairly promptly (within a day or two) the clothes would mildew so you started all over again. Of course, we didn’t change all of our clothes every day. My father wore his white shirt for two or three days. We changed our underwear two or three times a week. Blouses, skirts, sweaters were washed after several wearings – only as needed. BEDS: We changed beds once a week. In the winter when it was hard to get things dry, we would put the top sheet on the bottom (there was no such thing as fitted sheets) and thus having only one sheet from each bed to wash. The sheets in winter were cotton flannel so took even longer to dry. We had hand-tied comforters on the beds. They were pure wool – no synthetics then. Bedspreads were either hand-crocheted or knitted or were washable white cotton spreads. All bedding was either wool or cotton. Bedsprings were flat open wire coils in a wood frame that sat on boards inside the bedframe. If we were lucky, we had feather beds to sleep on. The feathers helped. My grandparents’ bed was wonderfully lumpy. We “plumped” it up when we made the bed – smoothed it out as best we could. Our bedrooms were not heated so were clammy cold in winter unless you left the door open from the stairwell to warm up the upstairs once in awhile. Nana had a grey crockery “pig” with a cork which she filled with hot water and put in the bed to warm it. Pretty bad news if the cork came loose! |
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Bronk liked to cook better than Bitzy and I did. His big highlight was angel food cakes from scratch. They were the kind you had to beat with an old hand beater/whip while laboriously adding the sugar by the tablespoonful, then bake in the wood stove at just the right temperature. He was a sensation at this! Mama cooked bear whenever someone shot one and gave her the meat. It was especially good if it had been feeding on berries. The grease was rich so mama liked that; it made good pastry. One night we were all out at Honeyman’s ranch when the call came, “Come quick to Bub Baker’s. The boys shot a bear.” Well, we all hustled into the car and, sure enough, Alan and Bub had been hunting and came home with a bear which they were dressing out. Honeymans had a duck blind so we often went to their house in the fall for duck dinner. Mrs. Honeyman 10 (Carlotta) would pull big baking sheets out of the woodstove oven. Everyone had his/her own teal duck (she tucked in an onion before baking) or widgeon which were bigger but not as plentiful. Delicious! With them she usually served Pan Dowdy which was almost a coffee cake. The ducks still had the shot in them so it behooved you to watch out – or swallow them which was a dumb thing to do. Ted Shultz told me he had an emergency appendectomy in Astoria when he was about nine. They found his appendix full of buckshot! |
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| We had a bakery and two butcher
shops in Ilwaco. The bakery featured cakes and doughnuts and desserts
rather than bread which our mothers made at home. The butcher shops
made their own wienies. When you dropped in to say “hello” (which
we often did) they would give you a wienie and you ate it right then and
there. They were big and fat and well seasoned – a big treat!
If we called in at Dad’s grocery store, he would give us a nickel to go to Parmi Bradford’s ice cream parlor and buy an ice cream cone – another big treat. His ice cream was made with real cream! I think the most exotic thing they madewere ice cream sodas and sundaes. I still can taste the marshmallow topping! The only other time we ever had ice cream was in the summer when we churned it with fresh fruit. The ice cream maker had a metal container with a paddle in it. This was where you put the cream and fruit with sugar. Then you clamped on the lid, packed ice (I don’t know where we got the ice – it was way before we had refrigeration) with rock salt around the container and then cranked and cranked. It was hard work and we took turns but, oh boy, was it worth it – very good and rich! I especially remember the fresh peach as my favorite. OYSTERS: Small native Olympia oysters, about the size of a quarter, were all we had until Japanese spat were introduced and cultivated in the 1930s. For fifty cents Dad would get a quart of shucked oysters and Mama would make oyster loaf with crackers, egg, milk, and bake it. Another favorite was oysters on the half-shell with delicious sauce made with Snider’s catsup (Dad said if a restaurant didn’t have Snider’s it was a second-rate place), Lea and Perrin’s Worcestershire sauce, etc. CRAB: Dungeness crabs were the only kind we had but, of course, they are the best! At Seaview we lived about two blocks from the ocean which, at that time, came up in winter storms to the houses on the sand ridge. One morning Bronk and I took a gunnysack to the beach and brought home 27 crabs from the crab holes right out in front of the house. Dad used to say, “When the tide is out, the table is set.” Clams, crabs, fish – all seafood was there in great quantity and free for the taking. There were no seasons to restrict us in those days. But we never abused our privilege – we ate all we took. RAZOR CLAMS: These were prolific all along the 30 miles of the ocean beach. They were six to eight inches long and wonderful. Everyone hated to clean clams. It was tedious work so there was much griping but everyone was at the table for the eating. Mama dipped them first in flour, then in beaten egg, then rolled them in bread or cracker crumbs and fried them in hot grease to a golden brown – only turned them once – and we ate them as fast as she cooked them! They were so tender you could cut them with your fork – even the necks. Mama made clam chowder with bacon, onion, potatoes and milk, too, but mostly she would fry them whole. We had no refrigeration of any kind – didn’t get our first ice box until about the time I finished high school – but on the outside wall of the pantry we had a “cooler”– a screened cupboard to let the air circulate. This is where all the ‘perishable’ food was kept. We always ate whatever seafood we had within 24 hours. FISH: We had wonderful fish. When Dad had the fishtraps he would bring home salmon – Chinooks, silver sides, steelhead, blueback – and occasionally shad or sturgeon. He filleted the shad as they were very boney, then laid the roe in the filets, wrapped and tied them up, and Mama baked them. Delicious! Mama also made sturgeon chowder in which she combined big chunks of white sturgeon with potatoes and onions and a little milk. In season, when a whole salmon was baked, the leftover salmon was pickled in vinegar, onion, and pickling spices and would keep for several days – a marvelous treat! Once in awhile Mama would poach salmon or fry salmon steaks but they were usually baked. In the fall my father would salt salmon. He had a large crock in which salmon bellies were layered with rock salt to preserve them. When you wanted one for dinner that winter, you ‘freshened’ it by changing the water repeatedly to get rid of the salt. It was steamed and served with potatoes. |
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| EGGS: Also in the fall my mother
packed eggs in a big crock and covered them with ‘water glass’ (whatever
that was.) She used these for cooking all winter.
FRUITS AND VEGETABLES: Mama canned fruit in a water bath in a copper kettle and also canned beets and string beans out of the garden but we were never once sick. We loved to open a quart of beets and eat them cold with home-made mayonnaise! SANDWICHES: We took our lunch to school every day. Mostly our sandwiches were good home-made jelly and real butter or homemade pickles, and sometimes good fish Mama made (salmon combined with ketchup, onion, etc.) that was delicious. We even liked butter and ketchup (Snider’s!) sandwiches. This was before the days of peanut butter. After school we’d have a sandwich and maybe a glass of milk. BEVERAGES: There were no hot drinks unless there was a fire in the stove and the teakettle was hot and there were no cold drinks other than milk from the cooler. However, each summer we made batches of root beer which was great. I remember the time Mama didn’t have enough jars for canning her blackberry juice so she used our idle root beer bottles. Well, they blew up in the closet where she had stored them. We had washed the bottles in soapy water but obviously didn’t get all the yeast out of the bottoms. Anyway, when the bottles blew up, they really blew – sounded like an army and looked like bodies had spattered blood all over the ceiling and walls. What a mess! We always drank Hills Brothers brand of coffee – the only kind Dad thought good. When Keith and I were married one of our big decisions after our honeymoon was what brand of coffee we would drink. His family always used MJB – so you can guess what brand we drank! BAKING: As I have said before, Nana made delicious graham bread. Mama, more sophisticated in her baking, made all kinds of bread – white bread with potato water, limpa rye, sukarbred with dried fruits, citron and cardamom, – but her prizes were Parker House rolls. She also baked every type of dessert from puddings and cookies to angel cake, while Nana pretty much limited herself to pies. All of the ladies in town tried to “outdo” each other with their recipes. Mama recalled one woman who would gladly give out her recipes but always left out a secret ingredient so they never were as good when other people baked them. One of Mamas best desserts was her Norwegian orange cake. An orange was precious in Norway in those days!
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Mama used Pond’s cold cream and vanishing cream with white rice powder which she patted on her face with a little puff. She used a little rouge ointment under it and on her lips. This was before there was such a thing as lipstick. Mama was a very good artist so she did a good job with her cosmetics – never too much. I remember when antiperspirant creams came on the market. Many people who perspired had huge discolored wet rings on their dresses all the time – not only unsightly but smelled bad. When Mum (which was a brand name) came out, Mama got a jar for us. It stopped the perspiration. Of course, only women and girls used it. Men preferred to sweat and thought that showed their manliness. Mum would have made them look like sissies. Their sweaters smelled pretty “high.” We had a bath once a week in the old clawfooted tub. Usually it was Saturday night before dinner. Having a bath meant going to the big cast iron hot water tank by the stove in the kitchen and feeling if there was enough hot water. If not, you stoked up the stove to get a good hot fire. There was a bathtub that was built onto the house at Grandpa’s. It was a very big tub and the water had a long way to go so it was always tepid when the water hit the tub. In Seaview it was better as the water just had to go straight up through the floor to the tub overhead. Often we shared bath water or took baths together. Herb Krumbein and I had to share baths when we were little. Our mothers were good friends and thought it much easier to put us both in the same tub than make two chores out of it. So while our mothers were getting dinner, Herbie and I sluiced ourselves down. Then they would let us wrap up in towels and shiver by the kitchen stove for awhile as we dressed in clean clothes. You only had a few inches of bath water, anyway, as it had to go around the family. I can’t remember ever having more than six inches of water in the tub at the most. The rest of the week we washed off in the basin; we called it “taking a spit bath.”
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Both my mother and Nana wore corsets with metal hooks, laces up the back, full length with garters for the lisle hosiery. Then “Real Silk” (trade name) hosiery hit the market in Ilwaco. We had two pairs a year and they lasted that long. We mended our hosiery if we got a run. We had a little hook that we could pick up the stitches and sew the run at the top to keep it from going down again. We mended/darned holes, too. Nana and Mama had “everyday,” “afternoon,” and “dress-up” outfits. They wore full length cover-up aprons for housework and cooking. These had deep pockets and were usually gray or blue plain cotton material. Of course, when they entertained they had embroidered organdy aprons – very fancy. Mama was from the Norwegian thought on cooking – you “outdid” others in ideas and richness. Butter and eggs must be used in cakes and cookies. Nothing was ever too rich or too sweet. But very tasty! We either cooked with real butter or pure lard. Crisco and Snowdrift were quite revolutionary alternatives in the shortening line and when they came on the market took some getting used to. When Bronk was in high school he was a good student (salutatorian with Cliff Heckard) and very active – into everything the school had to offer. Since he had exhausted all of the academic classes to the point that he was bored and had a free period during the day, the principal thought it expedient for him to fill up that time period with ‘Manual Training’ (Wood Shop) taught by Johnny Person who was also the football coach. After Bronk had ruined several boards, Johnny told him that if he ruined one more board he would be making toothpicks the rest of the year! When the year was over, he brought home his great achievement which was a holder for the broom. Mama made a great fuss over his prowess as a carpenter. Bronk nailed it up on the back porch, put the broom in it, and the broom promptly fell right through and onto the floor. That ended his woodworking career. When Bronk was about twelve, Dad called Mama from South Bend to have Bronk drive us over to get him. It was 39 miles, running plank road in places, gravel in others, muddy in others. Before we started out (and Mama was very unsure that this was a good idea) Bronk told her he wouldn’t do it unless Bitzy and I sat in the back and kept still – no advice from the girls! So we promised. Poor Bronk, with Mama in the front seat of the old Model T, grabbing the side of the car and the seat and constantly ohing and ahing and moaning. But we made it! Bronk was so tired from his ordeal he slept all the way home! |
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| Later, Dad taught Bitzy and
me. I was twelve. After that Bronk and I fought over who got
to drive. Dad would arbitrate, deciding according to distance, traffic,
and road conditions. We always took a ride on Sunday afternoon.
The order of the day was breakfast, Sunday school, church, dinner at noon
and then a ride. Dad always thought a car could go wherever a person
could walk, so lots of times he would just strike out across country to
chart a new course.
One Sunday afternoon Dad piled us all in the car to teach Mama to drive. Twice he stopped on country roads like up the Bear River and she took over. He wanted her to practice going in reverse so she could turn around, but each time she ran into a fence or ditch. It made her so nervous she gave it up. Mama never did learn to drive. Once when Dad, Bronk and I were in Portland, Dad decided to go home along the north bank of the Columbia and pioneer a trail. It was before the highway was built on the Washington side of the river between Longview and Naselle, but Dad had heard about all the logging roads over the K-M Hill, as well as dike roads west of Longview, through the little town of Skamokawa and through the Grays River and Deep River villages. He was quite an adventurer and it was great fun. Some of the roads and trestles had long since been left to rot but they were plenty strong for a car. Dad walked over the questionable trestles and bridges before he drove the car on them. That was a great day. We made it all the way! Dad never quit talking about the feasibility of a road on the Washington side of the river. He knew what he was talking about! |
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| Many were the times Dad would
have to patch a tire. It wasn’t easy but he did it right on the spot.
Then he pumped it up with a pump that you put both feet on, pumped the
handle up and down with the tube into the tire valve. He actually
patched the inner tube – not the tire. I can remember how he would
spit on his mended patch or hold it under water to see if it leaked before
he used his tire iron to put it back in the casing.
We were very isolated in Ilwaco and Seaview. There were two ways out of the area: drive through South Bend, Raymond, Aberdeen, Montesano to Centralia-Chehalis where you could go north or south on Highway 99; or take the ferry (which had a daylight schedule) from Megler to Astoria, depending on the storms. We took the ferry. The ferry ran from about 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. depending on the weather. If it was too stormy to land, it just didn’t run. In good weather it took about a half hour. There was a snack bar on the boat where the cook made lunches, pies, coffee, etc. so it was a good place to kill time while crossing. It could get very rough and really roll. Captain Fritz Elfing was a 300+ pound Swede. He was a good seaman with a hearty laugh and was as strong as a bull. If one of the cars wasn’t over to the rail where he exactly wanted it, he would lift up the rear end and set it there! He was good at getting around the sand bars, especially Desdemona Sands which shows up at low tide west of where the bridge is now soon after you head north from Astoria. There were no dams on the Columbia River so the water came down river full force and the sand bars shifted every winter in the storms. There was a train from Astoria to Portland but it took all day and was fairly expensive. I can never remember taking the train until I was an adult. Dad always drove when we went to Portland. We usually took the early morning ferry, drove on the Oregon side of the river through Clatskanie, Rainer and St. Helens. That was the only highway to Portland from Astoria in those days and took about four hours. There were no rest stops so Dad would stop when the ‘need’ called and we’d ‘hit the brush.’ I can only remember being in Seattle once until I was an adult. Mama was a State Republican Committee woman and the State Convention was in Bellingham. I think it was 1931. Dad drove Mama and me. We spent the first night in a hotel in Seattle. Quite exciting! On the way home we arrived at Bear River hill about sunset and it was icy. The car started sliding and Mama started screaming so Dad had us get out and walk over the hill while he drove the car. It was so icy Mama and I clung to each other and walked in the ditch alongside the road while Dad drove behind us with the lights on and one wheel in the ditch. Much to Mama’s surprise we made it and lived to tell about it. Death and maiming were foiled again! |
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Oysterville was where Sydney’s mother had grown up, where her grandparents, the H. A. Espys lived, and where she spent every summer vacation and most Christmases from 1938 through the 1950s. Changes occurred in other aspects of her life but, seemingly, never in Oysterville. Year after year she looked forward to the adventures that awaited her in the woods, on the bay, and in the little village itself. She was never disappointed. Sydney and her husband, Nyel, live in the H.A. Espy family home across from the Historic Oysterville Church. They participate actively in the local community and Sydney devotes much of her time to researching and documenting the history and folklore of the area. “It’s a family legacy,”says Sydney whose great-grandfather, R. H. Espy was one of the first white settlers in the area and co-founded Oysterville in 1854. “I grew up listening to the old-timers tell about the early days and as the years have passed, I find myself repeating the same wonderful tales.”Sydney has been a regular contributor to Pacific County Historical Society publications for years. Many a Sou’wester has her name attached, including her most recent, “Growing Up in Oysterville”. In addition to several books about life and times on the Long Beach Peninsula, she has authored a series of children’s books. Her most recent book Dear Medora, Child of Oysterville’s Forgotten Years published by WSU Press in June 2007, has received excellent reviews and critical acclaim. For more information, visit Sydney’s website: www.SydneyOfOysterville.com. |
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Sou’wester Pacific County Historical Society PO Box P South Bend, WA 98586 Thanks for Support your Pacific County Historical Society |
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