

I offer thanks to my
friends,
relatives, and ancestors whose strength of purpose
led me to my own. A
special
thanks to my co-author,
Rev. Marilyn A. Riedel,
for her deep love and dedication to me and this project.
Without her tireless
effort and selfless interest,
this liberating history
of Oregon would never have been written.
![]()
Chapter 59: Hodges Family West
A man whose life has been spent largely
in
the wilds of the West recounts perils of the days when Texas Rangers
kept
the border of the Lone Star state in order.
George A. Hodges has lived in the Yaquina
Bay country for the past 38 years. When I interviewed him recently he
said:
I was born in Texas, May 28, 1852. My
father,
Amos Hodges, was born in Clorset, England. My mother, whose birthname
was
Nancy Dunlap, was born in Tipperary, Ireland.
My father for many years was a member of
the Texas Rangers. The Texas Rangers were not very popular with horse
thieves
and cattle rustlers. The result was that father was ambushed and got a
charge of buckshot in his back. He had followed a bunch of horse
thieves,
who claimed to be members of William Clarke Quantrill's (1837-1865)
band,
clear up into southwestern Kansas. This crippled him so he had to
resign
from the rangers, after 16 years of service.
After father was able to travel, though
still weak, we went to Colorado. In the summer of 1864, we crossed the
plains to Oregon.
My mother's uncle, Lige Hutchison, had a
brick house on Washington Street, in Portland. We stayed with him for a
while when we first came here. Later, we lived on the Canyon Road,
after
which we moved to Milwaukie. Dad went to work for Lish Kellogg in his
water
power sawmill near Milwaukie, but his back bothered him a good deal, as
the doctor had never taken the buckshot out of his lungs. He died the
spring
we came here.
My mother took in washing, sewed, cooked,
did nursing, and did anything else she could to support [herself and]
her
four children.
I went to school at Milwaukie. Some time
drop in and see my brother, Will. He lives in a stone house at the end
of the Alberta car line. He can tell you about our early days and the
hard
times we had after Dad's death.
I got a job working in the furniture factory
at Willsburg, owned by Bob Donnelly, Tom Beard and Ira Powers. These
three
men worked at making furniture, and they employed two workmen—Mr.
Atchison
and myself.
Ira Powers was a big man, physically and
mentally. He was jovial, good-natured, a good workman and a good
businessman.
He came to Portland and started a furniture factory. His son is running
it now.
Later I landed a job carrying mail from
the depot to the post office at Milwaukie. Jan Ross kept the post
office
at the time.
While I was working in Milwaukie, I lived
in a two-room house on Seth Luelling's place. Uncle Seth was a fine man.
I got married when I was 21. We had two
children, both of them dead now.
About two years before I was married, when
I was about 19 years old, Mother asked me to go back to Texas to see if
I could realize anything from the property we had left at Salado. I
couldn't
seem to get a line on our property, so I got a job as a "cattle
puncher."
In those days most of the cattle in Texas were long-horns. I have seen
a "cow brute" with a six-foot spread of horns. Those blue-roan,
long-horn
steers were as wild as deer. They were savage, too. A man couldn't
afford
to take any chances afoot where they were around. In fact, you had to
have
a good horse and know how to handle [it] if you worked with the
long-horns
and expected to get back to the chuck wagon for your next meal.
I lacked a little for being 20 when I ran
across a bunch of my father's old friends, who got me to go with them
to
round up a band of Comanche. I wanted to show them I was a chip off the
old black and was not afraid of anything. I spurred my horse through
some
buffalo wallows, up to the crest of a little land wave, where I showed
up against the moonlight. The men warned me that the Indians might be
there,
but I wanted to see for myself. Just as I showed up against the
skyline,
plain as day, it seemed as if the whole country was a sheet of fire in
front of me, and I sent down and out for the count. That's all I knew
till
next morning, when my father's old friends came back, after routing the
Indians, and pulled me from under my horse. The horse was dead, the
horn
of the saddle had punched a hole in my groin, my hip was broken, and I
looked like I was a total loss. They took me to San Antone, where I
spent
the next three months in the hospital, drinking whiskey a good deal of
the time to deaden the pain.
With two or three other young chaps I bought
a bunch of mules at $4.00 a piece and we drove them on up through New
Mexico,
Arizona and California to Eugene, Oregon, where we sold them for $90 a
piece. The two other young chaps with me were "Mustang" Bill and John
Younger,
a cousin of famous outlaws, Bob and Cole Younger (1844-1916).
John Younger was one of the whitest [sic]
men I have met. He had a soft, Southern drawl, a great sense of humor,
and he didn’t seem to know what fear was. I remember some years later,
here in Oregon, when Egbert Foster shot himself, they wanted someone to
fork a horse up [sic] and go in a hurry to Oregon City, to get Doc
Applewhite.
Younger was on his horse almost as soon as they asked him to go, and he
burned the road up to Oregon City, for he could travel, when he wanted
to. He routed Do Applewhite out and told him Egbert Foster was badly
wounded
and needed a doctor right away. Doc Applewhite said he couldn’t come
till
next morning. He had lost so much sleep that he had to sleep till
morning.
Younger pulled out his .45, pointed it as Doc Applewhite's head, and
said
in his slow, soft drawl: "I reckon you're ready to go, aren't you Doc?"
Doc Applewhite took a good long look at Younger and then at the .45 and
said he guessed, after all, he was ready to go.
George Hodges Marries Levina Sager
After I came back to Oregon, I worked on
the [Puget] Sound and at various places in the Willamette Valley, as a
carpenter. I could always get work, as I was a good mechanic, and was
steady,
and by what that I mean I was no boozer. I always turned up for work on
Monday morning. After my first wife "quit" me, I married Levina Sager
(1884).
The last time I heard from my first wife she was living with her fifth
spouse.
My wife and I have had a good-sized family
of children. Our nine boys are scattered pretty well all over the West.
They never were much at going to school, but, like their father, and
grandfather,
they are outdoorsmen. We also have one [living] daughter.
When I moved into the Big Elk country, on
Yaquina Bay, our nearest neighbor was 11 miles away. I packed my wife
and
babies in on pack horses. There are plenty of salmon, trout and deer
over
in that country. For years, I had run a logging camp on the Big Elk.
Hodges Discovers Bull Run Water
In this second and final installment of
his
story, Hodges reviews local history relating to the original act of
bringing
Bull Run water into Portland.
The man that brought the first Bull Run
River water to Portland is George Hodges, who lives on the Big Elk
River,
about 11 miles above Elk City, in the Yaquina Bay district. In telling
me about it recently, he said:
I was trapping for a man named Du Bois, a
fur dresser of Portland. A man named A. B. Cunningham came to Portland
and, after sizing up the situation here, he said Portland was destined
to be a big city, and that our water supply was inadequate. He asked Du
Bois, my employer, if he knew anyone who was familiar with the country
who could locate an adequate water supply for a city of half a million.
In those days that sounded like crazy talk. Du Bois said to him,
"George
Hodges, a young fellow who is trapping for me up the Bull Run country,
knows that country thoroughly. I suggest you get in touch with him and
tell him what you want." Cunningham and a man named C. B. Talbot sent
me
when I came into town with my firs, and asked me where there was an
abundant
supply of water. I told them in my opinion, the Bull Run water was as
good
as there was, so they hired me to go up to the headwaters of the Bull
Run
and bring out a five-gallon demijohn of the water for analysis. This
was
in February, and the snow up around the headwaters of the Bull Run was
pretty heavy. I went up there, filled my demijohn with water, sealed
it,
and brought it back.
Up to then Portland had a rather inadequate
water service. Stephen Coffin, Robert Penland and Jacob Cline had put
in
the first water system, along about 1857. They built a dam in a canyon
west of 7th Street and got their water from Carruthers Creek. They used
fir logs, bored by hand, as pipes. Along about the beginning of the
Civil
War, Coffin and his partners sold out to H. C. Leonard and John Green,
who shipped in from California a lot of new pipes made of redwood logs.
They got their water from Carruthers Creek and Black Creek. Along in
the
late 1860s they put in a pumping station on the river, at the foot of
Lincoln
Street, and also built reservoirs at 4th and Market and at 7th and
Lincoln.
In the 1880s they put in a pumping station at Palatine Hill.
Along about the time that I brought that
demijohn of water out for A. B. Cunningham and C. B. Talbot, who was a
civil engineer, the owners of the different private water companies
became
very much alarmed, for they saw that if the Bull Run water was used
they
would have to go out of business. One of the principal sources of water
supply at that time was the Hawthorne Springs, in East Portland.
Another
possible water supply for Portland was Crystal Springs, on the Ladd
ranch;
also, a group of men were interested in having Sucker Lake, near
Oswego,
used. Others wanted the water brought from Johnson Creek, while still
others
believed it should be brought from the Clackamas River. When [Bill and
Holly] McGuire, who had the water system at the Asylum Springs, or
Hawthorne
Springs as they later called it, learned that I had been up to Bull Run
[they] got in touch with me and hired me to go with [them] to file
notices
of water rights on every trickle of water between Bull Run and the
Sandy
River. We traveled on a raft and it took us 20 days to tie up the water
rights and to put up a notice at every little trickle of water. That
tied
up proceedings for a while.
Cunningham and Talbot hired a surveyor to
make a survey of the country between Bull Run and Portland. The owner
of
one of the other water companies hired myself and two or three others
to
go with him on his crew, with instructions to keep him drunk as long as
he was out. When he got back to town he didn’t know whether he had made
the trip afoot or on horseback, and nobody could make anything of his
notes,
so that delayed the game a little longer. Finally, Hollister, and Bill
and Holly McGuire, who ran the East Portland waterworks at Asylum
Springs,
had to give up the matter as a bad job. After the city had analyzed the
water I brought out from Bull Run they spent several months taking a
record
of the flow of water, and being satisfied that the water was of good
quality
and sufficient quantity, they bought from Cunningham and Talbot their
rights
and began work on bringing the water to Portland. They put in a
pipeline
312 miles long, that cost nearly $3,000,000. They bought the
distributing
main, amounting to over 300 miles, so that the total cost of buying the
old water system up to about the first of 1910 was over $5,000,000.
Obituary Notice for George A. Hodges
December 11, 1926, Oregon City, Oregon: George A. Hodges, 74, died this morning at St. Vincent's Hospital in Portland, following ten weeks illness. Mr. Hodges formerly resided at Clackamas County. Surviving him are his widow, Levina Hodges, and the following children: James A., Walter, Clyde and Patrick of Elk City, Oregon; George A., Mort and Allen, Portland; and William, Marshfield, Oregon; Giles of California and a number of relatives in Clackamas County. The funeral services are to be held at Mountain View Cemetery, Tuesday morning at 11am. Internment will be in the family lot.
Allen Hodges Remembers the Family Mills 1977
Allen Hodges at Salado 1977
Photo
Courtesy of M.
Constance Guardino III
The author had this conversation with her uncle-in-law, Allen Hodges, while walking up and down hillsides and through thick brush—tape recorder in hand—as he remembered the family sawmilling operations. It was April 10, 1977, Easter Sunday, and Hodges was pregnant with her second child, Hilary:
Connie: What do you remember about
sawmills
in the Big Elk Valley?
Allen: There was never an actual sawmill
on Drift Creek in the early pays other than Dad's, to my recollection.
There was a shingle mill at the old Bohanan place. It was a water
powered
mill with a 32 foot waterwheel. They had to haul it up over the old
Drift
Creek mountain road and down to Gopher Creek.
Connie: Did George Hodges build a sawmill
at Salado during the years you lived there?
Allen: The Camp Creek mill site was about
200 yards east of Salado. The water for the mill came out of Camp
Creek.
We had a ditch dug around it instead of a flume. I've often wondered,
Connie,
if the mark of the old ditch is still here.
At the time Dad had a mill here, this
hillside
was all in fern, just as it was before the old "Indian burn," and
that's
why there weren't any trees here. I was a grown man before there was
ever
any timber here. You can see that if you put that ditch in a waterwheel
that it would generate considerable power.
Connie: It looks like it's running pretty
swift all right. Was it running this swift years ago?
Allen: In those days—100 years ago—when
the hillsides were covered with fern, they had more water running off
than
we do today.
Connie: You said the waterwheel that dipped
into this creek was 32 feet in diameter. Do you recall what it looked
like?
Allen: The waterwheel was 16 feet on each
side which made it 32 feet across the center. It was two feet wide, one
foot deep in each bucket with a six inch board. In other words, when
the
water came pouring over the wheel, it hit the boards instead of just
sliding.
The weight of the water on the wheel brought it up to speed. The
spindle this waterwheel was made of was two feet thick. The two by
fours
that were needed for the construction of the waterwheel over at the
Forked
Horn Creek mill were cut at the old Camp Creek mill.
Connie: You said this mill didn't have a
flume—just a ditch dug around it. Did the Forked Horn Creek mill have a
flume?
Allen: There was a flume with a divider
in it that came into the Forked Horn Creek mill. There was a lever
inside
the mill that you could pull, and it would trip across and shoot the
water,
and that would stop it from coming into the wheel itself. Then you
could
pull the lever the other way, and close the gate and it would come down
and run through the wheel.
Connie: When did you dad build the Forked
Horn Creek Mill?
Allen: That was when I was three or four
years old—around 1905.
The Mill at Elk City 1905-1908
Connie: Around 1905? Isn't that when the
Elk City Sawmill was constructed?
Allen: Yes. Dad put in the Elk City mill
around 1905 or 1906.
That spring and winter the big flood came,
which was the first flood there is record of that ever happened in this
area of the country. As I recall, we had another bad one about 15 years
ago (1962).
About the time of the flood, we were awfully
in debt. Dad was a very honest man. He made many mistakes, but when he
made one, he satisfied.
Connie: Was he able to hang onto the mill?
Allen: No. He sold the mill to Bill Ennis
because he had to in order to come out financially.
Then he bought what is now the Dell Hodges
place, eight miles east of Elk City, where you live now.
Connie: Did he put in another sawmill on
the Big Elk?
Allen: Naturally, as soon as we moved in,
Dad put up the old J. I. Case steam engine and built a mill across the
river. All of that mill was made of wooden pulleys. All we had was
shafting
material. We didn't even have material for bearings, which at that time
were made out of hard wood.
Boiler at Bump's Grade 1910

Boiler Bay on the Oregon Coast
Photo Courtesy of Julie
Hendricks
In 1910 or 1912, Dad put in the big
boiler,
and that came in by freight to Elk City. We went down there and loaded
it on a wagon. This side of Bump's Grade, where we made the turn, the
road
caved in and the boiler upset and rolled down into the brush.
Connie: It must have weighed a ton. Were
you able to retrieve it?
Allen: That was a center crack steam engine,
and it was big; it was rated at 20-horse power. It took us a week or
ten
days to get it back up and loaded. Anyway, we finally got it home.
Connie: Once you got it home, how'd you
set it up?
Allen: We made a rock furnace that fit in.
That's what we called a return flue. We opened the doors and fired it
right
down into the firebox. That fire went underneath the boiler and up over
the back end, through the flue, and up the smoke stack.
The log haul on the old J. I. Case engine
was called a bullwheel. It was a shaft with a fiber pulley on it. There
was a big wooden wheel about fix feet across; it was a drum that turned.
Connie: What was the drum for?
Allen: This was the cable that pulled the
logs up the chute into the mill at Elk City.
The one in front of Dell Hodges' place was
made on the same principle, only we put a boom across the river and cut
our logs when they came up. Also, we had a deck there.
Connie: Were the Hodges still logging with
bullteams then?
Allen: Then, all the timber was logged by
our bullteam, Ted and Nig. Part of the timber was logged and brought up
above the sawmill and rolled over the bank into the river. We ran the
sawmill
pretty much in the summertime when the weather was good, and we logged
in the wintertime when the weather was bad—and had a skidding good time!
Feagles Creek Mill
Connie: Were there any sawmills in the
Harlan
area?
Leonard: A fellow by the name of John Miller
built a water-powered mill and damned up Feagles Creek. That was the
first
sawmill that was ever built in this country.
Connie: Was Miller a logger?
Leonard: Old man Miller was a carpenter
by trade. The wheel He built there was 28 feet high. He didn't
understand
why he didn't get much power out of the wheel, but he had it rigged all
wrong; he had the gear right on the outside of the wheel, instead of
having
it down close to the axle. He was always short of power because of this
error in design. He knew the carpenter end of things, but he just
didn't
understand power. He had water—and wheel enough that he could really
have
had a good sawmill—had he not always been short of power because of
this
backwards construction.
Connie: Was that a commercial operation?
Leonard: They cut a lot of lumber at the
Miller mill, but the operation was all local. People around here used
it.
Some of the lumber was sold, and sometimes Miller worked out trade
arrangements
with local folks in the Harlan area. He made a living at it, though.
Connie: If someone like Miller—or
Hodges—puts
in a sawmill—at his expense—just so his neighbors can use it, what kind
of a financial proposition is that?
Leonard: A lot of people in the area put
in their own logs, and Miller charged them so much a thousand board
feet
to saw it up. He made money by offering a service for a small fee.
Connie: Did the Grants put in their own
logs?
Leonard: We put in most of our own logs,
and Miller sawed them into lumber for us—for a fee—just as he did for
so
many others in the area.
Hodges Family West
Connie: Tell me what you recall about
your
father, George A. Hodges.
Allen: My father was one of the first
settlers
in the Big Elk Valley.
He was born in Salado, Texas, and migrated
to Oregon in 1884 with his father, Amos Hodges, his mother, Nancy
Dunlap,
and three brothers, including my uncle Will.
Grandpa Hodges was wounded during the Civil
War from a buckshot wound in the back. He died three years after the
injury.
Connie: What do you remember about your
mother's family?
My Mother, Levina Sager, was English, Irish
and Black Dutch.
The Sager family was originally from Des
Moines, Iowa, where they were farmers. The migrated West and settled
down
by Gold Hill—between Grants Pass and Medford—in Southern Oregon.
When the Indian war was going on at Gold
Hill—where the Rogue makes a bend near the dam—there's a rock up
there—Table
Rock, I think—and the Indians had a camp on that flat. They'd come down
through the rocks and rob the settlers, and then they'd go back up in
the
hills and guard the pass in the rocks and kill the squatters with bows
and arrows.
Connie: If the Sagers were living in
Southern
Oregon, how did your parents meet?
Allen: No doubt the Sager family moved north
in order for Mother to meet Dad, but I don't recall hearing the details.
Connie: Your father must have been a big
man, considering all the hunting and trapping he did.
Allen: No, Dad was a little man with a
mustache;
he only weighed 130 pounds.
Connie: Did he have a chance to go to school?
Allen: No, he never sent to school; he was
self-educated.
Connie: George Hodges spent his boyhood
in Texas. Besides cattle punching, did he have any other work
experience
before moving West?
Allen: Before moving to Oregon he had
experience
on a whaling vessel just before the Civil War.
Connie: When did he start working for the
furniture factory in Oregon City?
Allen: When he was 16, he went to work in
the furniture factory in Oregon City. He worked there until the flood
of
1890.
Connie: What did you do after The flood?
Allen: After the flood, he worked at various
places in the Willamette Valley, and then moved to Philomath. That was
as far as the road went.
Spout Creek 1890
Spout Creek School
Photo Courtesy of Evelyn
Payne Parry
Connie: How did he end up in the Big Elk
Valley?
Allen: From Philomath he moved to Spout
Creek with the thought he was going to die. He wasn't supposed to live
more than a year with the ulcer he developed working at the furniture
factory.
He packed over the mountain and down into
Spout Creek alone, and made a cabin there; I remember the cabin.
The road between Philomath and Spout Creek
came up over the north side of Marys Peak. It came out towards the
sawmill
and down towards the Alsea country, and then up over the hill. Then it
went up over the end of Mary's Peak and down into Little Elk country.
Connie: Alone? Didn't he have a family by
then?
Allen: Yes, but he wintered at the Spout
Creek cabin. It wasn't until the following spring that he went back to
Philomath and picked up my mother and my brothers, Jim (1885-?) and
Dell
(1887-?), who were about five and three at the time.
Connie: Was Spout Creek your family's first
contact point with Lincoln County?
Allen: Yes. That was the first place they
lived in Lincoln County.
Connie: Were Jim and Dell born in Philomath?
Allen: No, Jim and Dell were both born in
a log cabin on Cougar Mountain at the foot of Mount Hood.
From Spout Creek we moved to Salado, which
Dad named after his hometown in Texas.
Salado
Covered Bridge at Salado, Oregon
Salado settlement was located some 12
miles
up the Big Elk from Elk City. The post office was established April 18,
1891, with George A. Hodges serving as first postmaster. Hodges managed
the post office with his Spouse, Levina Sager, and carried the mail
between
Elk City and Harlan three times a week. Hodges named the post office
and
community for his former home, Salado, Texas.
Salado is a Spanish word meaning "salty"
or "saline," or a "plain encrusted with salt." Salt, along with sulfur,
helium, asphalt, graphite, bromine, natural gas, cement and clay, give
Texas first place in mineral production.
The City of Grand Saline northeast of Salado
grew from a primitive salt works established in 1845, and is not the
site
of one of the largest salt plants in the nation. The salt dome under
the
city is about 1.5 miles across and some 16,000 feet thick; it could
supply
the world's need for salt for 20,000 years.
In Western Texas, the small community of
Salt Flat grew near extensive surface salt deposits left by
intermittent
lakes in Hudspeth County just west of the Guadalupe Mountains. The area
was the focus of a bloody dispute known as the Salt Wars of the 1860s
and
1870s. Before the dispute reached a confused, tragic end, it had
involved
both Mexican and US citizens, political parties, legislators, mob
action,
army troops and Texas Rangers. Murder, assassination and revenge
killings
took place on both sides.
A charming Bell County village on I-35 south
of Temple in Central Texas, Salado dates from the state's early days.
Situated
south of Stillhouse Hollow Lake, the town grew around the Sterling C.
Robertson
home and plantation, and was incorporated in 1867.
Named for Salado Creek, the town prospered
with the founding of Salado College in 1860, and was prominent on the
Chisholm
Trail. The first farmer's Grange in Texas was established in 1873. But
when bypassed by the railroad, the late 19th Century's ultimate
transportation
mode, the college closed and the town dwindled to the status of an
isolated
village.
Tree-shaded Salado Creek, which was Texas'
first designated natural landmark, was the site of an Indian campground
long before recorded history. Since Main Street was part of the
Chisholm
Trail, ruts from wagon wheels still appear in the bedrock of the creek
just north Pace Park.
The visitor’s register at the Stagecoach
Inn, a prominent site on the Chisholm Trail in the 19th Century, reads
like a frontier Who's Who: George A. Custer (1839-1876), Robert E. Lee
(1807-1870), Sam Houston (1793-1863), Jesse James (1847-1882) and
Shanghai
Pierce were among the celebrated guests. Formerly known as Shady Villa
Inn, the primary old frame structure is today restored as a notable
restaurant,
surrounded by a modern motor inn.
Salado Post Office Burned Down 1907
On April 23, 1907, the Salado Post Office
burned to the ground, and it was not until March 27, 1911 that it was
re-established.
At this time George and Levina's son, Jim, started carrying the route
as
a free agent. In 1912 the government let a contract for the job for the
first time, and Jim won the job. On July 31, 1944, the Salado office
closed
to Elk City.
Jim Hodges carried the mail in this area
continuously for 45 years, except for two four-year contract periods
when
William Clark outbid him on one occasion, and Andrew Bristlin underbid
him another. Jim's son, Henry, did most of the carrying in the later
years
of his tenure.
The route was probably one of the shortest
and smallest in Lincoln County. In the 1950s, it served 13 families,
and
at no time, ever went over 20 boxes. It was 12 miles in length and was
carried twice a week.
On May 31, 1956, the Post Office Department
opened bids for a new mail route to serve the Elk City-Harlan areas in
Lincoln County.
Under the new proposal, the route would
be carried every day. And instead of starting at Elk City and going up
the river only 12 miles, it would start at Blodgett and serve
Nashville,
Eddyville, Elk City and Harlan, serving approximately 210 boxes.
Halfway House for the Big Elk Valley


Connie: With the post office in your
home,
Salado must have really been a busy place.
Allen: Salado was a halfway house for
everybody
that lived in the area. The sheriff would come through here from Drift
Creek and go to Elk City and get a load of supplies and come back here
and then go home the next day. So folks went upriver to here—the
halfway
point—then to Elk City, and then back here and then home.
Connie: How did you get back and forth when
the river was swollen? The Hodges homestead was on the far side of the
Big Elk.
Allen: Right straight across the Big Elk
is where, in 1893, Dad made the wire foot bridge with a tripod on each
side. The wire went over the top of it. Then he put sticks across it
and
wide boards that were nailed down. It was a swinging bridge of sorts.
Connie: It doesn't sound like it was what
I’d call "child friendly."
Allen: It was definitely not the kind of
bridge for small kids. I used to get my pants really tanned when I got
caught crossing it. So I would sneak across it and hide in the lumber
pile.
That was my thrill in life so see my father and brothers at the sawmill
pull the lever and stop the wheels and then push it and the wheels
would
start again.
Connie: Did you ever get hurt sneaking
across
the wire bridge?
Allen: I remember one time I did.
The goat shed was right across on that hill
there. Because the hill is steep, it was made to conform to the shape.
It didn't come up too far from the ground. In fact, it was really just
a shed roof.
Anyway. Right about that time—when a wind
storm came—it caught that shed and turned it upside down right on the
hillside.
At the time the storm started, I was across
the river, and when I came across the end of the bridge, it threw me
off
the bridge and over into the creek!
My brother, Giles
(1897-1957), and I would
crawl up in the bridge with a bunch of rocks and Scott Winfield's
(1824-1886)
widow would drive her cattle up across the bridge and they'd pasture at
the railroad track. When she’d drive them home at night, Giles and I
would
get up in the bridge and throw rocks at her cattle.
Connie: I bet you and Giles got into a lot
of trouble for that one!
Nora Lowanza
Hodges-- 1st Wife of Giles Benjamin Hodges
Giles Benjamin HODGES was born May 1899 in Oregon and died March 15, 1957 in Veterans Hospital - Spokane, Spokane County, Washington. He married 1st Nora Lowanza DOWNING (Pictured Above). She was born September 9, 1898 in Woodstock, McHenry County, Illinois and died April 1, 1982 in Fairview, Buncombe County, North Carolina, daughter of Morton Elias DOWNING and Effie Eslie WORDEN. He married 2nd Minnie (Unknown Maiden Name) HODGES . Children of Giles Benjamin HODGES and Nora Lowanza DOWNING: Giles Benjamin HODGES Jr. was born August 21, 1929 in Tampa, Hillsborough County, Florida and died December 17, 1986 in Bunnell, Flagler County, Florida. Vina Eslie HODGES was born August 22, 1931 in Tampa, Hillsborough County, Florida and died February 28, 2004 in Odessa, Ector County, Taxas. John Mort HODGES was born March 5, 1935 in Tampa, Hillsborough County, Florida.Vera Jane HODGES was born September 24, 1932 in Tampa, Hillsborough County, Florida.
March 15, 1957: HODGES, Giles Benjamin - His home, W310 3d Ave. Husband of Minnie Hodges at the home. Father of Vinia Richardson in Arkansas, Martha Brewer, Walla Walla, WA. Brother of Mrs. Ethel Griffith of Redwoord City, Calif.; James, George and Dell Hodges all of Elk City, OR. Clyde Hodges of Toledo, OR. William Hodges, Coos Bay, OR.; Allen Hodges, Vale , OR. Funeral services, Mon., March 18 at 12 noon in the GOTHIC CHAPEL OF HAZEN & JAEGER FUNERAL HOME, N1306 MONROE ST. Rev. Clifford I. Cecil officiating. Burial services, Fairmount Memorial Park cemetery.
On July 1, 2006, Alexandrea Lynn
Griswold Clancy wrote: "GILES BENJAMIN HODGES (GEORGE
ADELBERT, AMOS) was born 24 Apr 1897 in Big Elk, Lincoln, Oregon,
United States of America, and died 15 Mar 1957 in Spokane, Spokane,
Washington, United States of America. He married (1) SYLVIA ROSE
COWLES 14 Sep 1920 in Redding, Shasta, California, United States of
America, daughter of JAMES COWLES and MARTHA ENGLAND. She was
born 01 Mar 1903 in Muskogee, Oklahoma, United States of America, and
died 05 Jan 1983 in Walla Walla, Walla Walla, Washington, United States
of America.
Giles Benjamin Hodges
married Sylvia 11 months after he got out of the
military Army, they had two girls.
ALICE MAE HODGES, b. 02 Jul 1921,
Grass Valley, Nevada, California; d. 30 Jul 1973, Yakima, Yakima,
Washington.
MARTHA LAVINIA HODGES, b. 15 May
1923, Elk City, Lincoln, Oregon; d. 22 Jun 1992, Walla Walla, Walla
Walla, Washington.
Obituary:
March 15, 1957: HODGES, Giles
Benjamin - His home, W310 3d Ave. Husband of Minnie Hodges at the home.
Father of Vinia Richardson in Arkansas, Martha Brewer, Walla Walla, WA.
Brother of Mrs. Ethel Griffith of Redwoord City, Calif.; James, George
and Dell Hodges all of Elk City, OR. Clyde Hodges of Toledo, OR.
William Hodges, Coos Bay, OR.; Allen Hodges, Vale , OR. Funeral
services, Mon., March 18 at 12 noon in the GOTHIC CHAPEL OF HAZEN &
JAEGER FUNERAL HOME, N1306 MONROE ST. Rev. Clifford I. Cecil
officiating. Burial services, Fairmount Memorial Park cemetery."
Allen: We did that for days
before that
"old widow woman" finally caught up with us and told mother about it.
After
that, we didn't throw rocks at her cows anymore.
Connie: Was that first bridge at Salado
just a temporary thing?
Allen: It was "built for stout" and it was
some 32 years, 1924 or 1925, before the county came in and put new
pilings
under it. The covered bridge over the Big Elk crossed the road on Drift
Creek, and stood next to the Grace and Guy Lantz field.
Connie: You said Jim and Dell were born
on Cougar Mountain. Were you born at Salado?
Allen: The house I was born in 1901 was
an old log cabin. It was located at that junk car area near Qualitree™
on the road side of the river. And, as I said, the sawmill was located
across the river.
The redwood tree Uncle Jim brought back
from California was off to the side of the house.
The apple orchard, which was to the right
of the cabin, was planted about this time.
The older boys took the finger I cut off
with an axe and put it in a bottle and buried it under an apple tree.
So
that "pinkie" finger is the first part of me that's been buried!
Connie: Jim Parks said he—and later an old
Dutchman named George Bieloh—rented this place from your folks for a
while.
Allen: There was another house that stood
on this site that was rented out while we lived at Elk City, and at the
time we moved up to the Dell Hodges site.
Connie: What happened to it?
Allen: It burned down.
Building Bridges

Onnie
Ramsdell
Ramsdell Bridge 1924
Connie: It sounds as though George Hodges
was quite an engineer, considering he built several sawmills in his
lifetime.
Did he use that natural gift in other ways too?
Allen: Not only was Dad the first
homesteader
in this area, he also located and engineered all of this county!
Connie: What was an example of his
engineering
skills?
Allen: Dad constructed old wooden bridges
up until 1916. He constructed this bridge here at Salado, and he made
the
bridge on the Upper Big Elk—the Dave Ramsdell bridge—and the bridge
across
the Yaquina at Elk City. The Salado and Ramsdell bridges both had
trestles.
There was a bridge at Drift Creek, too,
before I was born. I don't know whether or not Dad built that one.
There
was never a ford there, that I remember, although Jim Parks speaks of
one.
Connie: Did he have any competition?
Allen: There was a man in Chitwood by the
name of Ralph Pepin who also built bridges.
Summertime an' the Livin' ain't Easy
Connie: How did people earn a living in
those
days?
Allen: There was no work for wages in the
bygone days. You raised a garden with everything you needed to eat, or
you didn't eat. It was that simple. The only paid work there was at the
Hodges' sawmill, and it was mostly a "help yourself" public
arrangement.
There was very little money available.
Connie: Then how did the sawmill generate
money?
Allen: For instance, when a raft was run
down the river—and arrived at where it was going—then money changed
hands.
But as far as the younger children knowing anything about where our
parents
got money, we just never did.
Connie: Wasn't chittem another cash crop
for folks in the valley?
Allen: Oh yes. Like everyone else around
here, we peeled cascara bark and sold that. We ran Angora goats and
sold
the mohair. Those were the sources of cash income that I know of for
sure.
And then there was market hunting and timber locating.
Hodges & Thompson Go Market Hunting
Connie: Market hunting? What's that all
about?
Allen: In 1897, Frank Thompson (?-1928)308
and Dad went hunting for the railroad coming in from the south. They
hunted
deer and elk and kept the crew well supplied with meat.
Connie: How did they get the meat to its
destination?
Allen: At that time, they packed the meat
out on horses over that mountain trail I told you about and took it to
Philomath. When the train came in, they turned the meat over to the
conductor
who acted as a salesman for them; they took it to the valley and sold
it,
and then brought Dad and Thompson back the money.
Connie: How long did George and Frank do
market hunting?
Allen: They did this until the Game
Commission
came in and put in a law that one could only hunt for six months out of
the year. So Dad gave that up and started in as a timber locator, as he
already knew the country well from market hunting.
Connie: What was involved in timber locating?
Allen: When people came into the valley
he showed them all the country so they could pick out whatever site
they
wanted. Actually, there was no charge for this service.
Connie: Then why did he do it?
Allen: It was just good community relations.
But Dad's boat building ability was a profitable source of income.
The Launch Ethel 1910-1935
Connie: When did he start making boats?
Allen: Dad built the launch, Ethel—named
after my sister, Ethel Violet (1906-?)—in the workshop over at the Dell
Hodges mill site between 1911 and 1912, the year it made its first run.
Connie: How big was the Ethel?
Allen: The Ethel was a full cabin launch.
It was 22 feet long and seven feet wide, and carried ten to 12
passengers.
It had a four-horse Miamias engine with a make and break ignition. This
was the first two-cycle gasoline motor that came into the area in those
days. There was a rod that went up the side and hit the igniter and
caused
a spark. The motor ran off a battery.
Connie: Where did the Hodges get gasoline
for the Ethel?
Allen: We bought our gasoline for the Ethel
in Toledo. There weren’t gas stations as we know them today, but there
were places where a person could go and buy gasoline.
Connie: Did the Ethel run year round?
Allen: Every year between 1911 and 1915
or so—during the summertime—my brother Jim would bring the Ethel up to
the mouth of Bear Creek and run it in on the gravel pit next to the
bank.
Connie: Was the Ethel a recreational launch
used exclusively by the Hodges family?
Allen: No. Some friends and employers by
brother Dell worked for up in Harlan had two girls. These people would
travel to Bear Creek with a team, and we'd travel from our place—as
well
as several other interested people—and we'd all load on the barge and
we'd
go down and across on South Beach. There was nothing there at that
time,
but that was our week-long summer vacation!
...Like A Duck!
Connie: What did the Ethel look like?
Allen: The Ethel was made like a duck—a
sharp front end and a fan tail behind. It was a round bottomed boat and
was seven feet around the middle.
Connie: How did your dad go about
constructing
the Ethel?
Allen: When Dad constructed the Ethel, he
set up the keel. Then he made a form cut out of one inch lumber every
three
feet, starting back at the stern right on forward to the bow of the
boat.
There were four of those forms that went in there. Then he put ribs in.
Those ribs were an inch and a half by two inches. They went down and
fastened
on the keel—which is the main timber piece in a boat, extending from
stern
to stern at the bottom and supporting the whole frame—and up a-round
the
side. Those ribs were 16 inches apart.
Connie: How did he get the ribs to curve
and bend into shape?
Allen: Dad made a steambox to bend the ribs
into shape. It was a good 12 inches inside and ten to 12 feet long.
There
was a steam pipe from the water that ran into the box. He put whatever
he wanted to bend in the box and steamed it until the wood got really
soft.
When wood was steamed under pressure that way, it would get soft and
pliable
so a person could bend it and do anything he wanted with it. Because
there
was already the temporary frame inside of it, he set the ribs and bent
them in place.
Connie: What happened after the ribs were
sufficiently bent?
Allen: Dad put a false stripping on the
outside until he could put the planking on it. The planking was
anywhere
from four to six inches wide. It took a couple of days to put one board
on and fit it in. He caulked the seams first, and then used pitch to
seal
the seams. The pitch had to be heated to a certain temperature. When it
set a while, it hardened.
Connie: It sounds like the planking was
a long, tedious process.
Allen: It took six to eight months to build
the boat. We started late in the summer. Dell and I both helped Dad
with
the boat. Jim was married at the time and wasn't living at home. Mort
and
Walter had both left home. Giles was home a good deal, but I don’t
recall
him working on the Ethel. Clyde (1907-?), who was the baby, was too
small
to be of any help.
Connie: After the planking went up, what
happened next?
Allen: When Dad got the side of the boat
up to the top, he finished it up with a little deck rail around the
outside
of it so you could move from one end of the boat to the other on the
outside
by holding onto the railing.
Connie: You mentioned the recreational use
of the Ethel. I'm surprised the family didn't have any commercial use
for
it.
Allen: We did put it to commercial use.
The Ethel was a passenger boat that made daily runs between 1910 and
1935
on the Yaquina from Elk City, the railroad terminus and head of
navigation,
to Newport. It was these commercial runs that earned money for Dad and
the family.
The Hodges Move to Coos Bay 1920

Coos Bay Bridge
Connie: You talked about running a still
in Coos Bay. When did the family move there?
Allen: We worked in the mills and logged
until about 1920, then the family moved to Coos Bay where we continued
logging.
The old Coos Bay Wagon Road went over
through
Lookingglass Valley and down into Sumner and into Coos Bay eventually.
We bought a big float house with six
bedrooms.
We had it up by Millington, which is a few miles south of Coos Bay, on
Isthmus Slough. That is where our little sister Alice fell off of the
gangplank
and drowned.
Girl Drowns in Isthmus Inlet 1920
Jan. 21, Marshfield: Alice Hodges,
four-year-old
daughter of Mr. and Ms. George A. Hodges, who reside in a float house
on
Isthmus Inlet, opposite the Oregon Export Company Mill, was found in
the
water of the inlet at noon today. As near as could be learned, she had
been in the water about an hour. Doctors were in this afternoon working
on the child, but there was practically no hope for reviving her as she
had been in the water too long.
It is supposed that the little girl fell
into the stream while playing. She was seen by Fred McCrea, one of the
employees of the mill, who got the body out. The child was taken home
and
physicians called and everything possible was done to revive the child,
but at last reports without avail.
Later that afternoon the efforts to revive
the child were given up as hopeless. The little girl is the youngest of
the family. Besides her mother and father there is one sister and nine
brothers, most of whom are grown. One brother recently returned home
from
Russia where he was in the army and was wounded. Several of the
brothers
are living elsewhere, and the funeral will not be arranged until they
are
heard from.
The family came to Coos Bay eight months
ago from Lincoln County.
My Life in the Big Elk Valley
My father, George A. Hodges, was one of
the
first settlers in Big Elk Valley. He was born in Salado, Texas as in
1852,
and came to Oregon in 1864 with his father and mother and three
brothers.
My grandfather, Amos Hodges, passed away the following year. My
grandmother,
Nancy Dunlap, worked at whatever she could find to keep the family
together
until they were old enough to make their own way.
When Dad was about 16, He went to work in
the furniture factory in Oregon City. He worked there until the big
flood
of 1890. After that he worked at various places in the Willamette
Valley.
He was trapping furs when a man named Cunningham came to Portland,
checking
the water supply. This man asked DuBois if he knew anyone who knew the
country and the water sources. DuBois recommended George Hodges. Dad
went
to the Bull Run area and brought out a five gallon jug of water for
samples
and testing. It was satisfactory, so the present water supply was put
in
from the Bull Run watershed.
In about 1897, he went hunting for the
railroad
coming in from the South. He would keep the railroad supplied with
meat.
He did this until the Game Commission came in and put in a law, that
one
could only hunt for six months out of the year. So he gave that up and
started in as a timber locator, as he knew the country from hunting. He
went into the Big Elk country and built a cabin and stayed there for
about
a year..., then he went down on the river and homesteaded on 20 acres
and
spent about a year in the cabin. Then he went down on the river and
homesteaded
on 20 acres as that was better access to all the surrounding country.
This
was about the time they changed the game law, and he went timber
locating.
When people came in he would take them out and show them the country,
and
they could pick what they wanted. There was no charge for his services.
There was a shingle mill on Drift Creek.
He made a mill about 200 yards east of Salado (12 miles east of Elk
City).
It was called Camp Horn mill. In 1898 the Forked Horn Creek Mill at
Salado
was in operation. They cut lumber for the new squatters, and also
lumber
for the Abbey Hotel in Newport. This lumber was rafted to Newport. Two
of those lumber rafts were launched from the Dell Hodges mill site
(eight
miles east of Elk City).
These mills were built in the late 1800s.
That was before I was born. I was born in 1901.
Dad and Mother established a post office
at Salado. They named it after Salado, Texas where He formerly lived.
We went to Elk City and Dad put in a mill
there, which later was hit by a flood. After the flood, Dad sold the
mill
land went... upriver and built at the Dell Hodges site.
When I was two years old, I wanted to be
like the big boys (by this time there were eight boys in the family),
so
I sneaked one of their cutting axes. When I was discovered I ran with
it
and the brothers came running after me. I fell and cut two fingers off
my left hand. Dad sewed one back on, but my little finger got lost.
Later, it was found, and the older boys
put it in a bottle and buried it under an apple tree. Then, when I was
six, just starting to school, my brother, Walter, and I were taking
care
of the stock. We were breaking a young team of oxen, when they broke
and
ran. My leg went through the wheel on the cart and broke... All the
logging
was done with horses and bull teams in those days. Dad set my leg, and
you could never tell it had been broken. We had no doctors in the
valley
in those days, so Dad took care of us boys himself. I might add He did
a good job taking care of the nine boys and two girls in the family.
Dad and mother established the first mail
route out of Salado in 1891, and my brother Jim started carrying the
mail
between Salado and Elk City three times a week. It was one of the
shortest
and smallest routes in Lincoln County; it was 12 miles long, and served
13 families, and never over 20 boxes. Jim ran this route for nearly 45
years.
Dad built the launch Ethel in the shop over
the Dell Hodges mill site between 1911 and 1912, and it made its first
run around 1912. It was 22 feet long and seven feet wide, and carried
ten
to 12 passengers. It was a four-horse Miamias engine with a make and
break
ignition. It made two trips a week between Elk City and Newport.
We worked in the mills and logged until
about 1920, then moved to Coos Bay, where we continued logging. Later
on
when Dad took sick and went into the hospital in Portland, I left Coos
Bay and went to Portland and worked to help pay the hospital bill.
Eventually,
I went to work in the Kaiser-Swan Island Shipyards as a ship fitter,
where
I worked for seven years.
From there my wife and I moved to Vale,
where I worked as an automobile mechanic for 15 years. I drifted around
for a while, coming to Scotts Mills, and finally ended up in Molalla
where
I now live.
Chapter 60: Parks Family West
This Parks family history was compiled by
Lillian "Lilly Ann" Parks Adams (1880-?), youngest child of Clarissa
Marrs and Hurston Parks, at Capitola, California, 1949-50, when she was
70 years old. She was born July 12, 1880, in Wayne County, West
Virginia,
which borders Kentucky and Ohio.
The following accounts and stories are to
the best of her knowledge as a four-year-old child, and from family
retellings:
Robert Park(s), my great-grandfather, and
his two brothers came to America from England in the early 1800s. He
married
an Irish woman whose name was Hardick. Among his children was Charles
R.
Parks (1820-1911), my grandfather, who married Margaret J. Buskirk
(?-1927).
Their children were Joe, Hester Ann, Hurston (my father), Leander
(1853-1935),
Mehalie, Harvey and Nancy.
Grandpa Parks served four nears in the
Confederate
army, but was given leave to return home because of Grandma’s sickness.
She died, leaving him alone to provide as best he could for his
children.
He returned to his regiment, leaving a young woman named Cosby Lewis in
charge of his motherless children. Charles and Cosby eventually became
husband and wife.
Years went by. The children grew up and
went their separate ways. Hurston married Clarissa and lived with his
family
in a small house set in the hilly portion of the farm my grandfather
owned.
Clarissa Marrs
Clarissa Marrs was born in Kentucky, and
was reputed to be quite pretty. She had blue eyes, dark hair, small
hands
and feet, and was well built. Mother was a sturdy girl and did a lot of
hard work in her lifetime. In addition to her labors, she became the
mother
of seven children: William, La Verna, who was always called "Verna,"
Charles,
Oscar (1875-1902), Paris, Lilly Ann and John.
After a time, Grandpa Parks sold his farm
to my dad, and moved with the rest of the family to Arkansas.
The old family home was a marvel of
architectural
planning. It had two floors. In order to reach the upper floor, one had
to climb a ladder propped against the outside of the house. When the
children
grew older, they used to store nuts up there.
Once when I was four or five years old,
I climbed that ladder. Some of the older children had gone up there,
and
I wanted to see what they were doing up there that was so interesting.
I didn't actually get off the ladder; I just looked through the open
doorway.
Sure enough, there was a lively walnut cracking party going on! I
carefully
eased myself down to the ground floor unnoticed.
There were three rooms in the house arranged
in a row. A door connected the first two floors, but in order to reach
the third room, one had to go outside.
The family occupied the first two rooms.
Dad and Mother and the baby John slept in the livingroom, while a
couple
of beds in the bedroom served for the rest of the family.
The third room was used as a storage room.
Mother had her loom in that room. In the summertime she did the weaving
for the family.
Dad kept a small flock of sheep which grazed
over the hilly portions of the farm. From these sheep, he obtained the
means to clothe the family, as well as provide the woolly blankets
which
wrapped up chilly toes through the long cold winter nights.
In addition to weaving blankets, Mother
wove the material to make pants and coats for the male members of the
family.
She wove Linsey-Woolsey for dresses for herself and her two daughters,
La Verna and Lilly Ann, and spun the yarn to knit socks and stockings
for
the entire family.
Mother did most of her knitting while
sitting
before the open fireplace. Her knitting needles kept up a constant
clicking.
Occasionally she would drop a stitch, but soon her expert fingers had
the
wayward stitch back on the needle.
There were times when Mother helped with
the summer work in the fields in addition to tending the kitchen
garden.
She canned the various vegetables in their respective seasons.
The kitchen was located about 50 feet from
the rest of the house. It had a cook stove on which Mother prepared
meals,
later to be carried into the livingroom where the family ate.
"When the snow was on the ground," I asked
Mother years later, "how did you manage to fix breakfast?"
My questions brought back memories for her.
"Why Pa had to shovel a path to the kitchen!" she chuckled.
The well was in a handy spot, about 40 feet
from the kitchen. One had to draw the cool, clear water up with a rope
and bucket.
As for that other "convenience," we didn't
have one! Why didn't we have a privy? I don’t exactly know, but I'm
sure
my family knew there were such things. To use an old Southern
expression,
I think they were simply too "dilatory" to fix themselves one. I never
saw a single "unseemly" demonstration from any member of the family.
When
their "call" came, they just vanished. I don't know where they went. As
for me, I disappeared behind the nearest building!
Dad kept several strands of bees on the
farm. They were a safe distance from the house, but close enough to
keep
a watch on them.
The summer after John was born, a swarm
of bees attracted Mother's attention. She quickly placed a chair across
the open doorway to keep the baby from following her, and went to see
what
she could do with the buzzing renegades. She told me to watch him.
Suddenly,
I saw him shoving the chair aside. He edged himself between the chair
and
the door jam, and was on his way outside. There were several steps in
front
of the door, and I quickly realized the baby's danger. I ran to him,
clasped
my arms around his middle, and held on with all the strength my
four-year-old
muscles could muster. Of course, this made John mad, and he began
kicking
and screaming with all his might. I soon realized that I couldn't hold
him, so I added my frantic cries to his.
"Ma! Ma!,” I hollered at the top of my lungs
in hope that she would hear me.
Mother heard the hubbub and came running.
She scooped up the screaming baby in her arms. "Everything is going to
be all right, Lilly Ann" she comforted. There was a worried look on her
face when she sat down to quiet his fear.
It sure felt good to see him in Mother's
arms, but in my excitement I forgot to ask her whether or not she got
the
bees back in the hive.
Whooping Cough Claims John
John died that summer. All of us children
had whooping cough, and it proved too much for baby John to overcome.
We
buried him one sunny day.
While I stood close to the open grave beside
mother, I suddenly heard a voice. "What a beautiful place to lay him,"
the messenger said. I raised my head and took a good look at my
surroundings.
I saw how green the grass was on the sunny hillside which gently sloped
downward to where a row of small trees grew. "A creek probably runs
there,"
I thought. It was a pretty place, indeed.
I didn’t worry about the baby, but I missed
him. I know Mother did too. I recall her taking me down for a long walk
around the farm. We walked down toward the lower meadow (in the
vicinity
of the grave site) and alongside the small creek where mint grew. I
stopped
for a few moments to gather some wintergreen, of which I am very fond.
We paused for a while under the big walnut tree.
The farm was composed of several acres.
There was quite a lot of meadow. Dad cultivated a number of acres. His
livestock consisted of cattle, horses, hogs, and sheep. He bought the
cattle
from the surrounding areas and later sold them at a profit.
Mother kept a flock of chickens and several
geese. She used the goose down to make pillows and featherbeds.
There were hilly acres where the sheep
grazed.
Portions of this hilly land were covered with nut bearing trees such as
walnut, hickory and chestnut.
Some wild fruits grew on the hillsides.
There was a variety of wild grape called possum grape. This grape was
not
favored much because of its extremely sour taste. The possum grapes
were
small and jet black and grew to a good height, twining their tendrils
among
the branches of the tall trees. A venturesome swing could be made by
cutting
the vine off at the base of the growth.
One day, the older children took me with
them when they went on one of their small nutting expeditions and I saw
brother Oscar—then a small lad but as spunky as a squirrel—clamp
himself
onto one of those grapevines and take off. He swung out over a small
ravine,
but came back after a while.
The Blacksmith Shop
From the house the road extended a
distance
of several hundred feet. One could see Dad's blacksmith shop which
stood
between the road and a small river called The Big Hurricane.
There was a fork to the river called The
Little Hurricane. These rivers, which probably aren’t marked on any
map,
are located in Wayne County, West Virginia, not far from the Kentucky
border.
Hurston Parks did general blacksmithing
for himself and neighbors.
One day, while he was busy in the shop,
I wandered in. One look around told me I had come to the wrong place.
Dad
had a visitor who I didn't recognize, but that wasn't the cause of my
alarm.
I had hardly gotten inside when I saw him step up to the forge and
hastily
return to the anvil with a red-hot piece of metal. Up until this time,
he had it safely clamped between a pair of tongs, but now he laid the
piece
of iron down on the anvil and reached for the hammer. It was then that
I realized my danger.
Like a scared rabbit, I darted for cover.
I peeked out from behind my hiding place and watched the fireworks.
When
the hammer hit the red-hot metal, the sparks flew in every direction.
It wasn’t until the display of sparks was
over that the two men thought about me and my safety. They looked
around
the shop and spotted me peering out from behind my safe hiding place.
Both
Dad and the stranger laughed self-consciously with relief.
"How did she know to get out of the way
of the sparks?," Dad wondered outloud. The stranger looked puzzled.
"Beats
me," he said.
I must conclude that at the age of four
I had my first—and last—experience in my father's blacksmith shop. The
flying sparks frightened me so much that I didn't go back again.
Dad raised a lot of corn to feed his
livestock.
In the autumn he also took some of the corn to the gristmill and had it
ground for home use. While at the gristmill, he bought a barrel of
flour.
With these staples, Mother made biscuits for breakfast and cornbread
for
the other two meals.
Making Sorghum Molasses
In West Virginia, Dad raised sugar cane
to
make sorghum molasses, which all the children loved to eat.
One year, I served as a helpful hand in
this most delectable job.
When the cane was ready to be cut, Dad had
an experienced molasses maker bring his equipment to our farm and made
molasses with the aid of family members.
There were plenty of jobs to do. The machine
was set up some distance from the house. When I arrived on the job,
everything
was well underway. Before I had a chance to look around, a man
positioned
me at the end of the pan and handed me a little paddle.
The cooking pan was divided into sections.
As the molasses thickened, it was moved along from one section to
another.
It was my job to move the syrup along. While I did so, I ate some of
the
delicious sweet stuff and looked around.
Everyone was busy doing something. A little
way off, the cane mill was busy grinding out the juice. Dad was in
charge
of this operation. Others were busy carrying the juice to the cooking
pan.
My sister Verna helped him with this chore.
During the summer, the Hurricane River was
full of deep pools which served as swimming holes for the older
children.
One time Verna nearly drowned, but brother Bill luckily pulled her out
in time. As a rule, Bill made his home with Mother's parents because
they
badly needed his help. But at that vital moment in my sister’s life he
was living at home with the family.
The river was teeming with a variety of
fish which the older children could catch. There were catfish, perch,
and
several others.
Coal Miner's Daughter
There was a coal mine on the far side of
the river. I believe Dad owned it. In the summertime, He would go there
and get the family's supply of coal for the winter, as our livingroom
was
heated by a coal-burning grate.
One time he took me along with him to get
coal. I looked around, but I didn't go inside the mine. I didn't like
underground
places then, and I have never gotten over that feeling.
From some long-forgotten source, I heard
that June beetles made a sweet sound while flying around. I loved
music,
and the method to acquire this living music box was to fasten a long
thread
to one of the bug's hind legs.
Now, June beetles are about half an inch
across and three quarters of an inch long. The ones in the South are
dark
green on the back side and have an armor-like covering over their
undersides.
They feed on fennel and are harmless.
One day, I chased down a June beetle and
brought it in. It was hard to hold. That bug clawed me with its sharp
toes
and rooted with its sharp nose. But I held on for dear life and
persuaded
Mother to tie a thread on its hind leg. She wasn't too anxious to
oblige
me, but finally the job was accomplished and I took my musical bug
outside
to test it out.
The ground around the house was level, so
I chose a spot where I could turn my bug loose. It gladly took off, and
I ran after it, holding on tight to the thread. The bug made a pleasing
sound that was music to my ears. The sound that June beetle made—along
with the Jew's harp and harmonica—was the one source of music my young
ears had ever heard.
Soon the bug grew tired and sat down. I
realized the thread might hamper its movements, so I waited while it
rested.
Still anxious to hear more music, I urged it to fly. As quick as
lightening,
the bug took off with me pounding along behind it. I was thoroughly
enjoying
the performance until the thread slipped off. With mixed emotions, I
watched
my "music box" disappear in the distance.
I felt bad over my loss and set about
repairing
it. I found another June beetle, but somehow I didn’t like this one
quite
as well as the first one. Just the same, I hurried into the house to
have
Mother tie a thread on its leg. This time Mother openly expressed her
dislike
for such activities. Nevertheless, with strong urging on my part, she
tied
the thread once again. I took the new June beetle outside and let it
fly
as I had the old one, but the knot in the thread was too loose and
slipped
off. This bug also flew away, heading due north. It didn’t slacken its
speed for even a moment.
Wintertime
In the wintertime, the older children
went
ice skating on the river. The winters were severe and the water froze
to
a considerable depth.
One day, the older children bundled me up
and took me down to the river with them. I stood there on the ice and
watched
my brothers chop a hole through the thick ice. Perhaps they hoped to
make
a frigid fishing hole? More likely they chopped that hole in the ice
just
for fun.
The wet winter weather made deep erosions
along the side of the hill where the sheep grazed facing the house.
In the spring and summer, the little lambs
gamboled merrily back and forth across these ravines.
The summer I was five years old, marauding
dogs raided our sheep one night. Mother awakened and heard the strange
sounds. The sheep were frantically running in circles around the hill.
As they passed the nearest point to the house which was about 400 feet
away, Mother could hear them panting. Perhaps they were too tired to
bleat.
Maybe it just wasn’t the sheep's nature to cry out in distress.
Nevertheless,
Mother was sure their panting meant something was wrong. She awakened
Dad
who immediately went to the sheep’s rescue. The marauding dogs paid for
their roving with their lives. Dad was an expert and didn't spare even
one culprit.
When daylight came, Dad started out on
horseback
to visit homes for miles around and enlisted the help of our neighbors.
He stopped at each house, explained the purpose of his mission, and
asked
to see each household's dog. Nobody objected. Dad examined each dog's
mouth.
Wool between the dog's teeth was a sure indication that the beast had
been
raiding sheep; it was the animal's death warrant.
Before each excursion, Dad always expressed
his regrets. But there was nothing anyone could say on behalf of their
blood thirsty animals. Sheep killing dogs could not be tolerated.
One dog ran and hid under the bed and had
to be dragged out. It was almost as though he understood his pitiful
fate.
At home, a dog ran through our yard. A
neighbor
captured him and shut him up in Dad's blacksmith shop. When Dad came
home,
he took the dog out and carried out its death sentence.
That afternoon, Mother and I walked along
the rail fence which enclosed the sheep run. We found wounded sheep
lying
in the corners of the fence with helpless expressions on their faces.
Mother
did what she could in the way of first aid, but many sheep died from
the
raid.
Lilly Ann Starts School
The summer I was six, I started school.
The
older children and I attended a one room schoolhouse located on the
edge
of the farm, easy walking distance from our house. The young
schoolmaster
lifted our budding aspirations. He handed me a slate and in no time at
all, I learned to write the alphabet.
I had always been in the habit of going
with Mother whenever she went to call on the neighbors. One day, she
made
the mistake of passing by the schoolhouse during recess. I knew she was
on her way to visit Ms. Thompson, an elderly widow. I wanted to visit
Ms.
Thompson also, so I begged to go along. But the schoolmaster was equal
to the occasion.
"Come on, Lilly Ann," he beckoned. "We'll
go down to the creek and draw pictures on the rocks."
This adventurous idea appealed to my young
brain more than visiting the elderly did, so hand in hand the
schoolmaster
and I started towards the creek.
The creek was close to the schoolhouse,
and the river was low. There were many large rocks, and after a short
search
we found some small soft rocks he used like chalk to draw on the larger
ones. There we stayed until Mother was safely out of sight.
The Parks Move to Arkansas
The following spring our entire
family—with
the exception of brother William Marrs—moved to Arkansas. He stayed
with
Mother’s parents and took care of them in their old age.
That last night at our old place we divided
up and stayed with the neighbors. Mother and I stayed with Ms.
Thompson.
Dad and the rest of the family found overnight accommodations too.
The next morning, we met at a designated
place. From there we were taken to Catlettsburg, Kentucky where we were
to catch a boat down the Ohio River to Cincinnati.
The boat was late in arriving, so we ate
our lunch under a covered portion of the wharf. Mother had fixed us a
big
breakfast before we left home.
After lunch, brother Oscar was very sick.
He had always been subject to severe spells of colic. Mother made a
pallet
for him on the floor and did what she could to make him comfortable.
Since
it was obvious that I couldn't do anything helpful, I wandered out onto
the wharf until I found an interesting spot.
By that time, the boat had arrived and was
unloading and taking on freight. Some "colored" stevedores were very
busy
moving great bales of cargo back and forth. I watched their activities
with great interest. A nice looking colored man picked me up and sat me
on a bale of freight so I could watch and at the same time remain safe
from harm. But my contented stay was of short duration. Sister Verna
appeared
on the scene. She abruptly hauled me down from my perch, and without
taking
time to explain why, hurried me along the wharf in the direction I had
come. It seems the boat was about ready to start, and the family wanted
to go on board. We found seats on the deck of the boat and in the stern.
Lindsey-Woolsey
The entire family looked straight from
the
country, I suppose. Where we lived, calico, shawls and sunbonnets were
the style for warm weather, and Linsey-Woolsey was worn during the
winter.
There was a six-year-old girl on the boat
who decided she didn't like what we were wearing, considering she was
dressed
in the latest fashions. We hadn't been on board long before she
strolled
over to where we were. She stood there looking us over for a while.
Then—in
order to show her utter disdain for us—she opened her mouth as wide as
she could and stuck out her tongue! Nobody said a word. When she had
walked
the length of us, she turned around and started back to give us still
another
going over. That was entirely too much. She stopped in front of my
brother
Paris and stared at him. He looked at her for a short moment, and then
promptly poked a grubby forefinger down her throat. That very same
forefinger
had helped dig out numerous rabbits and had never been clean-looking at
best. You should have seen that snobbish little girl sputter and gag!
When
she’d regained her composure, she let out a vigorous howl and started
running
for her mother.
Of course the family was enjoying the turn
of events in face of such a hateful situation. Even though I knew the
little
girl deserved exactly what she got, one look at Paris's grubby
forefinger
made me feel sorry for her.
With mixed emotions, I cautiously trailed
along after the rude little girl. She shared a stateroom with her
mother
just around the corner from where we were sitting. Howling loudly, she
ran into the room. I stopped short a distance from the door and peered
in.
Her mother, the young woman in the
stateroom,
was pretty and well dressed. She didn't seem at all excited to see her
daughter in tears. She patiently listened to the tale of what had just
happened and calmly looked around. When she saw me peeking around the
corner
into her room, she handed me a banana and said, "Now run along, dear."
The words were spoken kindly, so I took the banana and walked back to
where
the family was located. I suspect the girl's mother had everything
under
control. She wasn't seen again the entire trip!
Train Out of Cincinnati
We had to wait quite a long time for a
train
out of Cincinnati. Finally it came, and we went aboard.
I hadn’t been on this train long before
I developed a bad case of motion sickness. Mother had me hang my head
out
an open window. What I did to the side of the coach didn’t help its
looks
any!
On this journey south we had to change
trains.
That night we slept in an empty boxcar standing in the freight yard.
There
was the noise of trains coming and going and switching tracks back and
forth all night long. Nobody slept much, but we did manage to get a
little
rest as Mother had fixed us a place to lie down.
The next day, we arrived at our destination
in Arkansas. We were met at the depot by Grandpa Parks and taken to his
farm to live for a while.
The farm wasn’t as good as the one Grandpa
had in West Virginia. It was large, but very rocky and hard to
cultivate
even with a hoe. Grandpa raised corn and other small crops.
Queen Victoria
Now my grandparents, Cosby Lewis and
Charles
Parks, were all alone. All of their children were married, with the
exception
of my Uncle Harvey. Uncle Leander had been married several years and
had
five children. His wife, Aunt Queen Victoria (1856-1896), was a small,
red haired woman. She was very quick with her movements. When Aunt
Victoria
walked, her head bobbed back and forth as though it had trouble keeping
up with the rest of her.
Uncle Leander and Aunt Victoria's first
child was my cousin, Mary. Then came Joseph, William, Harriet, who was
called "Hattie," and baby James H. (1887-?) who was called "Jimmy."
As a rule, the Parks men were tall,
averaging
six feet in height. But Uncle Harvey was very tall; he was probably six
feet four inches tall.
My uncles Harvey and Leander were
uneducated,
as was Grandpa Charles. The rest of the family was more or less
"educated;"
they could read and write a little.
In those days and in the Appalachian section
of the country, it was difficult to get an education. Everyone had to
work
hard in order to live. And then too, there were some parents who just
didn't
care whether or not their children went to school. To them, a formal
education
just wasn't important.
Through the spring and summer months, Dad
and the family helped Grandpa Charles put in the crops. Mother and
Grandma
Cosby ran the house which wasn't very large or very fine. It was a
crude
building with riven (split) board siding, but everyone seemed happy and
went cheerfully about their respective tasks.
That summer, Mother and Grandma Cosby found
time to make quilts. They hung the quilting frames in a small
outbuilding
close to the house. Since I was too small to help with the quilting
bee,
I amused myself as best I could.
A path led from the house to the small
building
where my mother and grandmother were quilting, and then along the side
to where the door was located. We used that path often.
Little Red Hen of Salvation
One day, somebody—I don't recall just
who—saw
a hen coming along the path that led from the house to the small
outbuilding.
She stopped short and looked under a loose board which was lying close
to the path. The hen took one good look and then clucked and squawked a
warning and left on the run. The observer knew there must be something
under the board and went to investigate. There was a big copperhead
snake
coiled under the board! Although snakes were seen in that section of
Arkansas,
they weren't that plentiful. Needless to say, this one dispatched in a
hurry. To our dying day, we'll have to thank that little hen for that
potentially
life-saving warning.
One day Mother and I went to visit a cousin
for whom I had been partially named; her name was Ann. She seemed to
like
me, and before we left, she took us out to the backyard and said, "Now
I want to give you a chicken, Lilly Ann. You can have any one you want."
"I'll take that rooster," I said, pointing
to a fine one. "I like to hear the soft, funny little noises roosters
make
when they are patted on the back." From that moment on, cousin Ann and
I were the best of friends.
The Parks Migrate West
Plans were underway for the Parks family
to migrate West. Oregon was their ultimate destination. But nothing was
done to activate this plan until rather late in the season.
When the time finally arrived, my
grandparents,
Cosby and Charles Parks; my parents, Clarissa and Hurston Parks, and
their
six children (William, La Verna, Charles, Oscar, Paris and Lilly Ann);
my Aunt, Nancy Parks and her spouse, John Watkins, started out in three
covered wagons for the distant West.
Grandpa's near neighbors, the Baleys, and
their five children, Nancy, who was called "Nanny" like my
Aunt, Alice, Lucy, Molly and Thomas, decided to
go along with us, making four wagons in our caravan headed West.
Some of the men had good teams, but some
of them didn't. Dad had a strong pair of mules named Bill and Jen. They
were willing workers and faithful to their task at hand.
The wagon owners drove their own teams.
The rest of the adults—and those who could—walked. It wasn't difficult
to keep up with the wagons. The ones who walked were usually way ahead
of the wagons and had to wait for them to catch up.
This route took them through Missouri,
Kansas,
Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington and then into Oregon. It was a long,
hard undertaking, but the folds who did it were used to hardship and
privation.
They had always lived simply and hardily. Their wants were few, and
their
needs were cut to the barest necessities of life.
The Parks family originated from three
nations:
England, Scotland and Ireland. The characteristics of these three
nationalities
would be need before their long, dangerous journey was over, and it was
dangerous.
To begin with, they should have started
their migration earlier in the year. Even though they sold their farms,
they wanted to harvest their crops before leaving. For a time, the
handicap
of startling late in the autumn didn't show up.
The Ol' Gray Mare Just Ain't What She Used To Be
Uncle Leander's team wasn't very good. He
had an old gray more and one day she decided she had gone through
enough.
The old nag stopped dead still in the middle of the trail. She refused
to move an inch. At first, mild measures were used to encourage her to
move, followed by something a little stronger. These gentler tactics
having
failed, the men tied a rope around her long gray neck and put so much
pressure
on it that it literally broke! Finally, they built a fire under her.
The
last measure was guaranteed to move the balkiest beast. Later on when
the
opportunity presented itself, uncle Leander did a little "horse
tradin'."
One time the caravan made camp early and
selected the best site available which had wood and water and other
necessary
conveniences. There was a considerable amount of green stuff growing
near
the campsite, and the womenfolk mistook this herb for one they had been
used to cooking as "greens." Not one person in the family recognized
the
difference, and soon every family had a good mess of greens cooked up.
Our family ate heartily of the tasty greens.
After the had been cleared away, Mother
began getting me ready for bed. I slept in the big covered wagon along
with Dad and Mother. The rest of the family slept in a tent. But before
Mother got me settled down for the night, I announced that I was sick
and
would have to "up chuck." No sooner had Mother taken care of my needs
than
she had to succumb herself.
Mother and I were lucky to get rid of the
greens so soon, as they didn't have time to do their mischief on us!
Others
in the party weren't quite so lucky; those nasty greens worked both
ways!
Fortunately, we had made camp where there
were plenty of bushes and young undergrowth. Those bushes played a very
important role that night. From the looks of things, more people were
in
the bushes than in their beds. Since everyone was more or less modest,
each person wanted his or her own bush. If a person picked out a likely
looking bush and started for the rear side of it, he was sure to hear
receding
footsteps leaving the opposite side. The entire episode was nothing
short
of terrible. Uncle Harvey said he thought he would die. After that, the
women were more careful about what they cooked.
Lost in Strawberry Valley
Days became weeks, and weeks became
months.
Still the old covered wagons—looking tired and worn now—crept onward
towards
Oregon.
No doubt the travelers became weary and
discouraged,
but nobody every complained. Occasionally we laid over for a day of
rest
and a chance to wash and change our clothes.
The Baley family dropped out of the caravan
somewhere in the Midwest and finally located in Idaho.
More time went by and winter was close at
hand. Some snow lay on the ground, making travel difficult. But the
Parks'
wagon train moved onward.
Finally, we reached Pueblo, Colorado and
camped for the night. Snow still lay heavily on the ground. The men
built
large campfires. The light from the fires shone bright all around,
making
the snow glisten. The tired Women fed their hungry families and hustled
the younger children off to bed. It was cold and everyone could feel
the
chill in their bones. The children were cross. I heard baby cousin
Jimmy
crying about the time I was hustled into the wagon and put to bed.
Before
I had quite gotten into the wagon, I suddenly became aware of visitors
in camp. They were standing around the campfire talking to our menfolk.
I was too far away from them to know what they were saying, but I
sensed
they were there for an important purpose; their mannerisms and gestures
told me so. But it wasn't until years later that I learned the true
nature
of those men's visit while talking to Mother about times past. We were
camped near a fort and those men were soldiers. They questioned our
menfolk
as to where they were going. When they found out, they advised against
any further travel.
"Don't try it, men; you'll be snowed in
for sure," said one solder. "Just look around you all these women and
children,"
said another soldier. "What will you do?" He observed that the first
soldier's
words didn't have sufficient clout.
The place under discussion was a wide strip
of land laying between Pueblo, Colorado on Arkansas River and Herber
City,
Utah on Provo River about 30 miles south of Salt Lake City. In the
summertime,
that strip of land was lush and green, and the Mormons used it for
grazing
cattle. But in the wintertime, it was just a wide, white wilderness. No
trails. Just the sky above and a few small cottonwood trees growing
along
a hidden creek.
But our menfolk didn't heed the soldiers'
advise. The next morning, after they had their morning meal, the
hitched
up their teams. Once again, the old wagons rolled along snow-covered
trails,
carrying innocent victims into the worst experience of their
lives—lives
they no doubt would have lost, had it not been for the friendly,
hospitable
Mormon people.
Dad stopped the team and set me outside
the wagon in the snow to do what I had to do. At that moment, Uncle
Leander
stopped his wagon behind ours and started talking to my father. My
uncle
was so soft-spoken that it was difficult to hear him at best, but I
heard
Dad's reply clearly. He told Uncle Leander that the trail was covered
with
snow and that he didn't know which way to go from there; we were lost!
By this time, I was ready to get back in
the wagon, so Dad lifted me in and climbed back in himself. He drove
for
a short distance and stopped again. The menfolk decided to make camp
for
the night.
The caravan of covered wagons was lost in
Strawberry Valley, Utah. It was the most terrible time the Parks family
ever had to face migrating West.
It was some time before I learned that
Grandpa
Charles's team had given out completely. It was a young mare—one he
highly
prized. One horse alone couldn't pull the wagon, so it was left behind.
Two wagons weren't enough for everyone, so some said they would stay
with
the abandoned wagon and wait for what Grandma Cosby felt was a doubtful
rescue. My grandparents, Aunt Nanny and uncle John, and some others,
stayed
behind with the wagon. Years later, Grandma Cosby said that when she
saw
those two wagons pull out, she never expected to see them again.
But now the two wagons—loaded with human
freight—had gone as far as they could. They camped on a wind-swept
hill.
The menfolk made big campfires. Everyone gathered around to deep warm
with
the exception of the Smaller children who stayed in the wagons. There
was
no panic; each person was doing the best he or she could. The women
were
used to cooking under every kind of condition, and prepared everyone
something
to eat before going to bed.
It was horribly cold. I was already in the
wagon when Mother came to fix the beds. While she was doing this, we
heard
a loud, "Ma, what ya doin' in there all this time?" It was Aunt
Victoria's
son, William. He was standing by the fire which hardly warmed him on
one
side, waiting for his mother to fix his bed in the wagon.
The next morning, Dad and all the rest of
the menfolk—including my brothers—started out with the hope that they
could
reach civilization. The women and children were left behind in the
camp.
Mother refused to be left behind. The first thing I knew, she was
trying
to put a pair of pants on me. I objected to wearing boys’ clothing, so
we compromised by putting them on under my dress. Thus prepared, Mother
and I started out. We walked in the path the menfolk had made earlier.
Fortunately, it wasn’t snowing, and the snow wasn’t terribly deep to
begin
with. Mother walked in front, but she walked too fast for me, and I got
behind. She turned and called me to "Hurry up, Lilly Ann!" and then—not
waiting for me to catch up with her—she walked on. I kept trying to
keep
up with her, but great lumps of hard snow had formed on the heels of my
shoes, throwing me down as fast as I could get up. By this time, Mother
was quite a distance ahead of me, and I was frightened of loosing track
of her. I saw her stop and look back. She called to me to come on, but
she was too far away for me to tell her what the trouble was—that I
couldn’t
keep up with her because of the snow balling on my shoes—so I continued
to struggle along as best I could.
We trudged along in this tedious manner
until we reached a small building which turned out to be a small
sawmill.
Mother disappeared inside. When I caught up with her, I entered also,
and
stood clumsily on my two ice-numbed feet. Those "ice cubes" on the ends
of my legs didn't seem to belong to me at all, although I don't think
they
were frozen solid.
I stopped near the door and saw Mother
talking
to a couple of young men about our desperate situation. One of them
spotted
me and sat me down on a long seat built against the wall. I didn't say
anything. He was a stranger, and I was too cold and exhausted to speak.
I hadn't sat there very long before I heard
sleigh bells! That was a good sign that help was on the way. There was
no sweeter music on earth (next to June Beetles!) than the sound of
those
sleigh bells that day. When I think of them now, my eyes mist over with
tears and a fullness fills my throat; they were literally the bells of
salvation.
Respite in Heber City
A well-dressed young man entered the
sawmill.
He got me and my mother into the sleigh, bundled us up in warm robes,
and
headed for Heber City where he made his home.
On the way we passed other sleighs going
in the opposite direction. They had some of our menfolk along, and were
on their way to rescue the stranded segment of our party.
The latter day saints had good sleighs and
fine horses. Under the family's guidance, they quickly went to the
rescue
of the marooned Parks family members farther back in Strawberry Valley
who were just sitting there in the snow waiting for whatever fate had
in
store for them. Knowing the wonderful impression they had made on me, I
wondered how the rest of my kin would feel and react to the music of
those
heavenly sleigh bells and the sight of those caring Latter Day Saints.
The man who rescued me and my mother took
us to his home where we were welcomed by his family. Later on, the rest
of the Parks family joined us there. We stayed for two weeks. All the
other
members of the expedition were given care and located in homes of their
own for the rest of the winter.
The Mormons who took us in had a large,
lovely home, and appeared to be moderately well off. One could see the
look of prosperity nearly everywhere all over the city. Well dressed
people
drove around in their smooth running sleighs, with a couple of sleek,
well
fed horses at the front. Tinkling bells filled the air with sweet
music,
giving the whole thing a heavenly air.
They had a daughter about my age and a
younger
boy. We children played together. I recall one incident in particular
while
I was in Heber City. I was in the playroom with the two Mormon children
and had just discovered some beautiful buttons which were on a doll's
dress.
I admired the buttons, and fearing it would be taken away from me, I
put
the doll dress behind my back. Oscar saw me, and his face took on a
decided
stern expression. "Don't take those buttons," my brother scolded me. I
didn't reply. The situation was tense, to say the least. The owner of
the
dress—and the buttons—saw what was happening and said in a calm voice,
"Let her have the buttons if she wants them."
Oscar ignored me, and didn't say anything
more. But somehow those buttons had lost their attractions. I hadn’t
meant
to take them for my own. In fact, I think I learned right then and
there
that one could take things that didn't belong to him. I laid down that
doll dress and went on about other activities, but I never forgot that
lesson.
Later, we moved into a log house. It had
three or four rooms, and was sparsely furnished. It was obvious even to
me that the place was cheaply built. But we had enough to get along
with,
so we were right in our natural element.
We didn't see any of our fellow travelers
until spring.
One afternoon, a couple of Mormon elders
called on Dad. They sat down in the livingroom to talk. Earlier that
day,
I had been given a little piece of gum. I chewed on it for a while,
then
"parked" it and couldn't remember where I put it. I hunted around the
kitchen
for a while, then wandered into the livingroom thinking maybe I had put
it somewhere in there. Not finding it, I wandered from room to room. I
felt I had to find that gum, for it was doubtful when I would get
another
piece.
While I wandered in and out of the
livingroom,
now and then I caught a low spoken word from one of the men. Actually,
no one said much, so I didn't hear much. But the elders were so well
dressed
and prosperous looking, I felt certain they were on business, and I
wondered
what that "business" might be. Later on, Mother told me the elders had
extended an invitation for us to stay on in Heber City. But Dad
explained
our situation in a satisfactory manner—that we wanted to settle in
Oregon.
Incidentally, I never did find that piece of gum, and finally decided
that
I must have swallowed it.
A young doctor and his wife and family lived
on one side of us. One day, Mother went to visit, and she took me
along.
They were nice, sociable people, and had a daughter about my age. The
girl
brought out a doll and showed it to me. It was a store-bought doll, I
knew,
because it was still dressed in a short chemise. Dolls came dressed
that
way in those days.
That doll was the prettiest thing I had
ever seen. It was about 12 inches tall, was blue-eyed, pink cheeked,
and
blond haired. That type of doll was called a "wax" doll.
The girl offered to let me hold it. I took
it in my arms and cast a wishful look at Mother. She smiled a little
and
shook her head "No!" I took this gesture to mean that I couldn’t have a
doll like this one. Before long, Mother and I went home. I didn't
mention
the wax doll, and neither did she. I knew I couldn't have one, and that
was that.
Plural Wives
On the other side of our house lived a plural wife. In 1887, Plural wives were legal and common, but every man did not live "plurally." The woman told Mother she was "willing" to "let" her husband marry another woman. She seemed to think it would be very convenient for her to have someone at home to leave her children with when she wanted to go some place. Perhaps she had a point. This plural wife was living in a house just like the one we were living in, and she had several children.
Ann Eliza Young: Wife Number 19
If polygamy shocked the rank and file of
Mormons when they first heard of it, it positively outraged their
gentile
neighbors. Throughout the West women were scarce and much of the
antagonism
for the Mormons after they reached Utah undoubtedly arose from the
basic
resentment of womanless frontier men confronted with a system in which
one man had several wives.
The question then remains as to how women
were lured into polygamy when the frontier offered so many single or
widowed
men. The answer lies at least partially in an ingenious system of
supply
and distribution that was a by-product of the Mormon's continuing
recruitment
of new followers. Ceaselessly the Mormon elders sent missionaries out
into
the world to seek new converts for "the gathering of Zion." Cannily,
they
fastened on England as a principle target just at the time when the
Industrial
Revolution had uprooted thousands upon thousands of English people from
rural and village life. To the dispossessed and impoverished lower
classes
now thrust into the horrors of mid-19th Century factory and sweat shop,
the message of salvation brought by the Mormons must have appeared to
be
a duel one: eternal bliss in heaven and a much-improved material
existence
in faraway Utah.
People from the British Isles—among them
thousands of young women cut adrift from their rural families—enlisted
in the new religion. Once proselytized, the converts were carefully
herded
by a chain of missionaries over the ocean by ship, past the temptations
of the East Coast cities, and then across the wide empty plains and
mountains
to the desert fastness of Utah. Many young British women did not know
what
lay ahead of them. When they reached Salt Lake it was literally too
late
to turn back or to resist. Friendless and poor in a desert land, they
were
in a real sense trapped. To many an impoverished woman in the
wilderness,
polygamy must have seemed the lesser of evils...
Ann Eliza Young, Brigham Young's Wife Number
19, wrote that her mother confided that polygamy "was the most hateful
thing in the world to her, and she dreaded and abhorred it, but she was
afraid least she be found fighting against the Lord." Religious
devotion—blind
and submissive—was what basically drew women into subjecting themselves
to a condition that was for most of them heartbreaking.
One day, shortly after I held the
beautiful
wax doll, I was playing with a small girl from this home next door,
when
I was stricken with a terrible pain in my left side. We were playing in
our front yard, so I stopped what I was doing and went into the house.
My mind went blank for some time. The next thing I remember—the
following
morning—Mother and the doctor's wife were standing by the side of the
bed
discussing me. I was terribly sick, but I still managed to listen to
their
conversation.
It seemed the doctor had been called in
and had ordered me to be wrapped in a wet, hot blanket and sweated. But
apparently I had objected to this treatment unless I was given a wax
doll!
"Yes," I heard Mother say, "she said that was her price." Mother had to
smile a little, and the doctor’s wife laughed. Then she said, "She can
have the doll; I will get it for her." Then she turned tome. "Now Lilly
Ann, you let them sweat you," she said, "and I'll see that you get a
wax
doll. I can't do it right now; I'll have to wait until my little girl
comes
home from school. Then I'll send her down town to get you a doll just
like
hers."
I didn’t express my gratitude; I was just
too sick. I don't even recall bargaining over the doll. But I did want
it and sort of sensed that things were working my way. I was thoroughly
sweated, and the wax doll came just as it had been promised. They laid
it on the right side of my bed, where by turning my eyes just a little,
I could gaze upon its sweet loveliness. Later on, when the doctor came
in he said quite jovially, "Well, Lilly Ann, I see one member of the
family
is all right!"
Mother and my sister Verna both had had
the same ailment, although their cases were lighter than mine. The
disease
was known as mountain fever.
After a while, I was up and around the
house,
but I was still feeling like a ghastly wraith of my former self. I
walked
around with my precious doll clamped tight against my thin stomach; I
just
couldn't get enough of her beauty.
One day, disaster struck my small world.
I discovered that my doll's face was dirty! I hunted up a small cloth
and
proceeded to gently wash her face. I has utterly amazed to see the pink
in her cheeks begin to fade from the water. I took a long, long look,
then
let out a howl one could hear a block away. I couldn't be consoled; I
cried
and cried over the damage I had done to my most precious possession.
Since
I had not harmed her badly, I finally decided I would have to make the
best of it, and I did just that. However, I can assure you, I never
washed
her face ever again.
A Clash of Cultures
Spring came, and gain the old covered
wagons
rolled along the prairie on their way Westward.
As we moved farther Westward, Indians became
a familiar sight, riding along the trail single file on their spotted
ponies.
Everyone was pretty much in awe of them at first, but after seeing so
many,
we finally became accustomed to their presence. They were friendly
enough,
to be sure, and for that we were thankful.
One day while a long line of them filed
by our wagons, a squaw, seeing Oscar was barefooted, stopped long
enough
to ask where his "mocks" were!
Sometimes it was moving day for the tribe.
It appeared as though an entire tribe would come riding by, with now
and
then a travois trailing along behind.
One Saturday evening we camped close to
a small river, and also to an Indian Reservation. The next day, some of
them paid us a call. There were four of them, and all were dressed in
their
Sunday best. The braves nobly walked around the camp looking at
everything.
There wasn't much of a conversation, considering the language barrier.
Everyone around the camp tried to look pleasant and just sort of smile
a tense situation away.
Mother and I sat down on a small log which
laid right in camp. Verna was, no doubt, with some of the girls her own
age. Dad stayed close to our wagon. I could see he was straining to
look
as hospitable as possible. I thought he was succeeding quite well, and
so was Mother, considering how afraid I knew she was of those unknown
strangers.
I didn't feel too good about them myself.
A young squaw, well wrapped up in a blanket,
came and sat down on the ground close to us. Mother and I smiled at
her,
but she didn't pay much attention to us. She just sat there and
stoically
looked the other way.
While Mother and I were trying to look as
pleasant as possible, the blanket on the squaw's back moved aside a
little,
and a small, black-eyed mite peeked out, much to our surprise.
One of the braves was wearing a beautiful
feather headdress. About this time, he walked over to a small tree
standing
on the river bank and leaned against it. It was a fit subject for an
artist's
brush as he stood there casually looking the place over, yet appearing
to see nobody. While he was doing this, I was giving him some of my
attention.
He was tall, and had an attractive blanket around his shoulders. The
blanket
came well down to his legs, but did not conceal the white buckskin
pants
he wore. The whole eagle feather headdress framed his black hair and
dark,
stoic face. A pair of leather moccasins completed his attire.
Our way lay across arid deserts where there
was just an occasional well. Here, travelers must stock up with enough
water to last until the next stop. Five gallon cans were used to
transport
water. They used the square kind, and ever wagon had two or three
strapped
to its side.
Dad had his quota, and also some old guns.
These latter were more for moral support. He just hoped that anyone
seeing
his guns—with an evil intent in mind—would get an eyeful of heavy
armament.
For the most part, they weren’t any good. However, Dad did have three
guns
that really would shoot. The other wagons were more or less equipped in
the same manner. In those days, just about every man was called upon to
shoot a gun some time or other in his life. Just the same, I don't
recall
much shooting during the journey West. Folks were too intent on getting
to their destination.
And Not a Drop to Drink
There was a time we ran out of water
while
crossing a desert. Mother held a cup to my lips with a little yellow,
brackish
looking water in the bottom of it. I took a good look at the water and
turned my head aside. Then Mother told me, "Lilly Ann, you'd better
drink
this; this is all the water there is."
Out of water. Even I knew what that meant.
We were crossing a desert. What would that mean to us? I wondered how
long
we had been out of water. Apparently for some time, as Mother was now
offering
me that last bit she had. No doubt she had saved it for me. Mother, now
with an anxious look, offered the brackish sludge again. This time I
firmly
refused; I didn’t want the water. I hadn't even asked for it, but
Mother—knowing
this was the last little bit—wanted me to have it anyway. When I
refused
the second time, she said, "All right, daughter, if you don't want it,
I'll drink it." I watched her swallow it; she looked like she needed it
badly.
The next day—about midday—we reached a well
of good water, and I sensed the relief it brought to everyone. A small,
clean stream paralleled the trail for a while before we reached the
well.
The water looked tempting, but everyone had gained intimate knowledge
the
past few months of its drinking qualities.
However, the need was great, so someone
took a container and brought some of it back to be tested. They had
visions
of making a pot of delectable coffee out of it. But that water was so
heavy
with alkali that it probably would have borne up an egg!
Our lack of water may have caused
considerable
suffering, but nobody complained. I rejoiced when we had at last
reached
cool, clear water farther down the trail.
Parks Arrive in Washington
Grandpa Charles had a brother living in
the
state of Washington. His name was Ballard Parks. We stayed at his home
for several months. Our family—and Grandpa's—lived in the house. Uncle
Leander and his family, along with Uncle Harvey, located farther back
in
the faming country. I didn’t see them all summer. Uncle Bal, as we
called
him, had farming property farther back in the interior. They were busy
planting and harvesting crops. They took my sister Verna along with
them
to cook meals for them.
Uncle Bal was a widower and had two grown
daughters, Mary and Lottie. Both women married brothers by the name of
Palmer. Mary, the oldest, lived on a farm in the Willamette Valley.
They
were also hop growers. Lottie and her husband, Henry Palmer, lived on a
ranch about four miles above Elk City.

Uncle Bal’s home in Eastern Washington was
a large, two-story frame house, painted white. It was set well back
from
the very turbulent Snake River.
The surroundings were rugged—the mighty
Snake on one side and a series of hills on the other. A road wound in
and
out among the hills, dipping down to make a turn near the house.
Frequently
great herds of cattle could be seen passing along the road, either
going
to a new grazing ground or market.
Down the river a short distance from the
house was a large warehouse. Riverboats stopped there. The Snake River
was a very difficult river to navigate; boats simply struggled up it.
We
used to watch them coming and going.
Sometimes passengers came there to take
the boat. Perhaps the boat stopped by a prearranged date, or maybe it
was
coaxed in or flagged. I don't recall.
What Do Chinese Boys Eat?
One day my brother Paris discovered a young Chinese boy was in the warehouse waiting for the boat, and told the news at home. Grandma Cosby and Mother wondered if he was hungry. They were aware he didn't have any way of getting food. After wondering for a while what Chinese people ate, they fixed him a bowl of bread and milk and sent Paris and me down to the warehouse with it. When we arrived, Paris called to him, and told him what we had for him to eat. The boy was grateful and thanked us profusely.
Woman Doctor in the Wilderness
Then there was the time a middle-aged
woman
stayed the night with us. I remember her well. That evening, the
children
were playing hide-and-seek down on the sand. We had some unusual
company
that evening. The menfolk had come home from the wheat fields, and
brought
the women along. I was just about to make it to home base—which was a
rather
large log with rough bark on it—when my hand came down with such force
that I struck my left wrist on the rough bark. I cried out loud and was
taken home. When the woman guest saw me, she came and took hold of my
wrist
and said, "Lilly Ann, I'm a doctor. Let me examine your wrist." She
examined
the sore wrist and thought one of the bones might be fractured, so she
ordered it bound up. I wore the bandage for a short time and the wrist
was all right once again.
It seems that uncle Bal had an enemy. Dad
kept a large dog to guard the place, and one day he found it dead on
the
sand. Right after that, Grandma Cosby found a paper bag containing
candy
sitting on the fencepost. It had been placed near the road, supposedly
with the thought in mind that some of us children would find it.
Grandma
brought the candy into the house and set it on the table. Before she
had
a chance to explain how she came by the candy, Uncle Bal, who happened
to be home, picked up a piece of the candy and popped it into his
mouth.
Grandma's cry of warning caused him to take it out in a hurry. She
explained
the situation to him. Later on, he felt the effects of the poisoned
candy
slightly.
Elk City or Bust!
In the late autumn when the harvesting
was
over with, the travelers once again got together and the wagons began
rolling
over the rocky trails on the way to the Oregon Coast. The Parks family
planned to locate near Elk City.
At that time, the wagon trails were new
and rough. It was the rainy season, which made traveling unpleasant and
treacherous. The folks planned to stop a while at the home of Lottie
and
Henry Palmer, and luckily everyone arrived safely.
It was the latter part of December 1888,
when we arrived at our final destination. It had taken us about two
years—counting
the stopovers—to make the journey Westward.
Lottie and Henry, and their three daughters,
lived on a homestead. Nellie Palmer was born some time after we arrived.
The