By Jean Griffith and Mac Kerns

Jean:  By just a few minutes, Tom Lorance Kerns was the youngest of the seven children of James Wesley Kerns and Lora Cooley Kerns.  His next older sibling was his twin, Margaret Olive (Peggy).  The children were from eldest to youngest John, Josephine (Jo), Katherine (Kate), Albert (Bert), Jack, Peggy and Tom.  Peggy and Tom were 14 years younger than John.

Tom's grandchildren have all heard—and some even believed—that he "only got through the second grade at Gay Creek School" where his older sisters Jo and Kate were at times his teachers.  While it's true his older sisters were his teachers, it is not true that his education ended in the second grade.  He graduated from college with a degree in agricultural engineering technology.

In an age when the best education for many ended with the eighth grade or earlier, James and Lora Kerns believed in higher education.  Since the sparsely settled Wyoming ranch country near Parkman was not a good place to get that schooling, they sought out other places to educate their kids.  During at least one year when Tom & Peggy were in the middle school grades the family resided in Spokane where the children went to good schools.

When Tom and Peggy were high school freshmen, they boarded in Sheridan, which proved to be unsatisfactory, and—since James needed a lower elevation for his health—the twins and their parents moved to Eugene, Oregon, where Bert was attending the University of Oregon.  (James had heart trouble, now called congestive heart failure.  He died in 1933…)

The McCornack family resided near Eugene, and their eldest son, Rod, became friends with Tom.  Ellen writes:  Dad was apparently a very shy, robust boy and Mother was the one who had to make the first move as far as dating.  (I wonder if Dad even dated anyone else).  Dad once told me how he first met Mom.  His eyes twinkled as he recalled the story.  He had been boarding with Uncle Rod McCornack at college, but then apparently made other living arrangements.

One day Dad went to visit his old roommate at Grandmother and Grandfather McCornack's house.  Grandmother Bernice let him in and they talked, since Rod was not there.  Then Janet came back from a horseback ride.  There in the kitchen, she hopped up on the counter and swung her legs as they all visited.  (Dad's eyes really twinkled as he envisioned this "cute little gal.")  Later Mom called Dad and asked him to a sorority dance.  I thought girls asking boys out for a date was unheard of back then, but if Mother hadn't made the first move, no move may have been made.

Tom Lorance Kerns and Janet Bernice McCornack were married on Sept. 5, 1931.  Tim says that Uncle Andy McCornack told him our mother didn't tell her parents until the morning of the wedding.  Joyce says she heard that both our Grandmother Bernice McCornack and Grandfather Jim Kerns had said "no wedding," but these two were not to be denied.

The newlyweds went off to Oregon State Agricultural College (now Oregon State University) in Corvallis where Tom began his senior year.  This was during the Great Depression when many were jobless, and few had adequate money to live on, let alone any to spare.  The young couple had—according to Janet—exactly $500 in assets, quite a tidy sum in those days.

Janet also enrolled as a student, but dropped out after the fall quarter because a child was on the way.  She then assisted Tom, and her brother Rod with studies, especially when it came to writing and English.  The expected baby arrived in a small maternity home on the campus on July 15, 1932.  They named her Jean Bernice.

Tom qualified for an agricultural engineering degree in the spring of 1932 but he did not collect his college diploma until 1942 because he didn't need it to farm or ranch, nor did he have an extra $10 to pay for it at the time.

In the fall of 1932, six weeks after Jean was born, the family moved to Parkman, Wyoming, near the Kerns Gay Creek Ranch.  They lived in what Janet called a "squaw man's" cabin which was quite primitive.  What a culture shock that must have been for her!  The McCornack home in Eugene, Oregon, was only three miles from town (now a part of the city) and had all the modern conveniences.

Janet washed flannel diapers by hand (no disposables in those days), cooked and heated the house with a wood stove, and used an outside toilet.  Kerosene lamps and lanterns chased the dark away.  They went to town every few days for the mail.

The family lived in Wyoming four years, part of that time in the Kerns ranch house, which also lacked modern conveniences.  This was the home where Tom spent most of his childhood.

During their time in Wyoming another child was born.  Tom McCornack Kerns arrived October 31, 1934, in Sheridan.  Janet said they almost lost him during his first winter to what she believed was pneumonia.  They agonized over what to do for their tiny, sick baby, not an easy decision because the weather was well below zero, cars did not have heaters then, available medicines were sparse, (antibiotics had not been discovered), and available medical help was in Sheridan, quite a distance away.  They kept Mac home, warm and well cared for, and prayed he'd get better.  It must have been the right decision.  He's an active senior citizen today.  (2005)….

Transportation and Communication

We "elders" recall when the family had one car, and used it maybe once a week to get groceries.  Going to town was an event and was referred to as "a trip to town."  As such, it was planned in detail.

James:  Up until the time that I was a teenager living in the yellow house up the hill, our telephone was an old crank model that hung on the wall of the kitchen.  Our number was 5.  Our ring was one long.  We were on a party line.  Each household on the line had a distinctive ring.  You turned the crank to make one long ring to reach us.  Two shorts was someone else.  A long, a short, and a long was a third house.  To reach someone beyond our party line, you had to go through "Central."  "Central" was the operator who sat at the phone company down at Haines and plugged wires into the appropriate terminals to connect you with your desired party.  Right up until his death, Dad always referred to the operator as "Central."

Jean:  The negatives of party phone lines are pretty obvious:  someone might be on the line when you needed it desperately, conversations could never be considered private, and the switchboard was not open at night.  But there were positives in that system.  In a real emergency you could interrupt to tell others help was needed; central served as dispatcher to alert neighbors that someone had a problem; and at night when the switchboard was closed you could get help by ringing others on your line.

To contact someone far away, you wrote a letter—either by hand or on a manual typewriter like our mother, Janet, had.  You could also send a telegram, though I don't recall we ever did so.  Janet always wrote letters on her little portable Royal typewriter.  That was, at the time, the best possible office equipment, and Dad gave each of us a portable typewriter for high school graduation…

Radio was the state-of-the-art technology in the 1930s when Mac and Jean were born, and even into the 40s when Tim and James arrived.  We could listen to the news, music, and some favorite programs.  When television made its debut in the 1950s people began arranging living rooms like home theaters.

Electricity, Money and Credit

Much of rural America had electric power, usually put in by co-operatives financed through federal grants and loans.  Even so, electricity in country homes in the 1930s and 40s was not the necessity it is today.  Power was used for lights, radios, irons, and water pumps.

Later came electric washing machines and refrigerators which made women's work so much easier.  Food preservation was also much different without refrigeration.

What was lacking for many rural folks was extra cash.  Frugality was an art, a necessary skill, and our mother, Janet, was a master at "making do or doing without," carefully mending and caring for what we had.  The housewife who had a treadle sewing machine (which was run by foot-power, not electricity) considered herself fortunate indeed.

Rural folks always had a garden back then, also a milk cow, chickens, and often pigs, so there wasn't much hunger on the farm, even during the Depression.  Trading extra produce was a common practice.  Extra eggs and milk and cream were exchanged at the grocery store for staples like flour, sugar, and spices.

The Great Depression began with the crash of the stock market in the fall of 1929 and colored the way people lived and did business throughout the 1930s and beyond.  Adults who went through those years were "savers," never throwing anything useable away because they might need it later.  World War II began to change the way people lived and handled money, but the "modern" way of doing business and getting goods and services did not start to evolve until the 1950s when the war was over and the economy improved.

As kids in the 30s and 40s, Mac and I never received an allowance.  (I'm sure this was true for Tim, James, and Ellen, too).  When we were old enough to help with the work—and that was pretty young—we were paid for our labors.  We'd get a check at the end of the summer which was to be used for school clothes and supplies.

I remember having my own checking account by the time I entered high school.  Also, Dad would pay us by getting something we needed, like the horse, Silver, he got for me when I was 12.  For a few years we raised 4-H steers, and our profits were banked.  We were encouraged to save part of our pay towards college.

In those days the only things put on credit were land, the annual operating budget for a farm or ranch, and accounts at feed or equipment stores.  The mortgage on the land was long-term (30 years), held by the Federal Land Bank.  The Production Credit Association loaned the annual operating budget which included living expenses.  This budget was to be paid off every year after harvest.  Those were—I believe—the only means of credit Tom and Janet ever used.

The Move to Haines

We left Wyoming when I (Jean) was four, so I have only a few memories of that time.  I do have some recollection of the lay-out of the ranch house, and I remember seeing Mother bucked off a horse in the yard as she prepared to ride to Wyola, Montana, to pick up the mail.  The folks said I was on a horse with Mom when I was only six weeks old while the folks helped with the fall cattle round up.  They said I began riding alone at four.

After four years in Wyoming, we four (Tom, Janet, Jean, and Mac) went to Eugene to visit Grandfather McCornack and Bernice.  (She never allowed us to call her Grandmother).  Mother said we only went to visit, probably to show her folks their toddler grandson, Mac.  For some reason, they took nearly everything with them on the trip, and we never returned to Wyoming to live.

One essential Mom brought along to Eugene was her treadle Singer sewing machine.  Powered by a foot treadle, these machines did not need electricity.  While in Wyoming Mom got lots of mileage out of that machine, both mending and sewing.

But what I most vividly remember about that sewing machine is that she took only the head to Oregon.  The cabinet and the foot treadle stayed behind in Wyoming, probably because of limited room in their vehicle.  Mother devised a way to use the machine without the treadle.

She made a two-by-four frame to fit around the head, stained the frame, and set it on a table where the mechanism was free to work.  She added a handle to the fly wheel which she could turn with her right hand to power the machine.  She used it for many years.  Dad may have helped her set it up, but I think Mom did it all herself.  She loved to build things from scraps of lumber.  Eventually, she bought an electric Kenmore machine.  I was in awe at the way she could mend holes in the skinny legs of blue jeans on a sewing machine without even slitting the leg seam.

The folks chose a new home near Lorane, Oregon, not far from Eugene.  It was "cut-over" land, which still had stumps from logging, yet was suitable for farming.  I was in first grade there, though I remember almost nothing about it.  We'd had little contact with other folks on the Wyoming ranch, so I caught nearly every childhood disease that year, bringing everything home to share with Mac.  Since I was sick and out of school about a third of the year, there was some question as to whether I should stay in first grade another year.  The illnesses I had included:

• Whooping cough (vaccine for it was not yet invented)—six weeks out of school.
• Measles (no vaccine yet available)—two weeks out of school.
• Chicken Pox (no vaccine)—two weeks out of school.
• German measles (no vaccine)—several days out of school.
• Probably flu and a cold or two.

Only two childhood diseases missed me, and I've not had them to this day:  scarlet

fever and the mumps.

The wet climate in the Willamette Valley didn't agree with Dad.  He developed severe hay fever and asthma, so the folks decided to find a drier area.  This was in 1939 when many farms and ranches were being "sold for taxes" as a result of the Depression.

Mac:  Either in the fall of 1938 or the spring of 1939 Dad made a trip to Eastern Oregon to see what land was available.  He went to the Federal Land Bank office (now Farm Credit Services) in La Grande where he was given a list of available farms.  One farm he considered was south of La Grande on the Union highway near Hot Lake.  After sifting through the list of available land he decided on an 80-acre place west of Haines (the N1/2NE1/4 Sec. 2, T.8S., R.38E., WM).  The folks sold the Lorane place, cows, and equipment to Uncle Terry McCornack and prepared to move to Haines.

Jean:  My memory is slightly different from Mac's as to how the Haines farm was chosen.  I recall Mother saying that Dad had chosen the Union County property before they moved, and—later, without ever seeing the Haines place—changed his mind because soil maps indicated much better land.  The Pollys, who lived on what I often refer to as the home place, were mystified that anyone would buy it sight-unseen.

Mac:  They had a 1935 Ford pickup with a bed about 5 1/2 by 4 feet.  Dad built a four-wheeled wagon out of running gear from an Essex car.  He built a nice box for it about 12 feet long by 3 1/2 feet with sides about two feet high, and Mother painted it red.

About April 1939, they loaded everything they could into the pickup and trailer along with Jean, almost seven years old, and Mac, who would turn five at Halloween.  They traveled over the Cascade Mountains via either the Mackenzie or South Santiam Pass which were all gravel, spending one night on the road at either Sisters or Prineville, and got to Haines the next day.

This was the first time Mom, Jean, and I got to see the new place.  There was a big, old, two-story house with rotten floors, an add-on kitchen with a hand pump, a sink that drained to a year-round irrigation ditch about 50 feet from the back door, an outhouse across the ditch, a smoke house, an old barn, a good cement-wood cellar, a good granary, and a cement silo.  There was no other plumbing and no electricity.

Jean:  This farm, four miles west of Haines, was known as the Polly place.  (Now called the Semingson place, and now owned by Tim who purchased it in 2002).  This 80-acre farm had good, deep soil on the south side of the year-round ditch, but somewhat rocky ground on the north side next to the county road.  (Yes, we picked up lots of rocks).  The two-story farmhouse had been there a good long while.  Its rock "foundation" had failed and—as Mac noted above—the floors were rotting.

Mac:  The folks had very little in the way of furniture.  In fact, I don't remember any furniture in the pickup and trailer.  Shortly after getting to Haines, I remember Mom  buying a round oak table and a "Majestic" wood kitchen range. Mom loved that range and moved it to three kitchens.  Unfortunately, in 1962 Tim and Dad were moving it down from the old house to the new "block" house where James now lives.  It was very heavy and fell off the plank and broke as they were loading it.  Mom never forgave them for that accident!

Jean:  The "old house" (also referred to as the yellow house) was a bit up the hill and southwest of the "block" house.  It was later moved down to the Savely place and is now part of the Tim and Jan Kerns home.

Farming in the 1940s

Mac:  Shortly after moving to Haines, Dad bought a team of black horses, Pat and Jack.  He put a long tongue in the trailer he'd built to move to Haines making it a horse-drawn wagon.  He bought a horse mower and a dump rake and was set to farm.

The team was the horse power used that first summer.  Our folks then bought one of the first modern tractors—a Ford Ferguson with a three-point hitch and rubber tires.  They also bought a two-bottom 14" plow, disc, digger or cultivator, and a mowing machine for the tractor.

Dad built a buck rake which was one of the first power bucks in the valley.  During the summer the neighbors liked us to use that buck rake since it could make the long hauls much faster than the horse buck rakes.  When stacking hay, there would be two or three horse buck rakes and the one tractor buck rake driven by Jean or me making the long hauls from the corners of the field.

In those days haying was a neighborhood affair with four to six neighbors getting together to make up a crew.  First about four horse mowers would pull into a field along with a foot powered circular sickle sharpener and operator.  They would cut that field and move to the next.  A day or two later one or two horse-drawn dump rakes would windrow the hay.  Then, with the team straddling the windrow, they would "bunch" the hay into shocks ready for the buck rakes to sweep them up and take them to the stack.  The stacking usually required three buck rakes, a derrick cart and team, a fork tender, and two people stacking.  That meant about five teams of horses and at least eight men.

Jean:  Of course the way we hayed kept pace with technology.  When baling hay became the thing the folks got a wire-tie baler which—if I recall correctly—required someone to hand-tie each bale.  This was, I think, Mother's job.  And bales had to be picked up by hand.

Cooking and Feeding Farm Crews

     Mac:  The custom was to feed workers a big noon meal on the farm where they were working.  Mom often cooked a full noon meal for a crew of 12 to 14 people.

Without refrigeration meat spoiled readily in summer, so Mom always raised a bunch of chicks to feed the family and hay crew.  They were our main meat supply every summer.

When Mom had to cook for the big crews, Dad would kill and pluck at least three chickens before going to the field.  Then Mom would singe, cut up, and fry the chickens.  (Jean:  Chicken has never since tasted as good as those fresh, home-raised ones she fried!  Singeing is done by passing the plucked bird over a burning paper bag.  This burned off the little hairs that plucking did not remove.  Mom never used newspaper to singe as newsprint ink blackened the bird).  Mom gathered and prepared the rest of the meal from the garden except for dry beans.

Dry beans were bought at the store, sifted for rocks and sand, and soaked overnight, then cooked the next morning on the wood range to be served as baked beans at noon.  A full meal also meant dessert, usually cake or pie.  Summer yellow transparent apples made the most delicious pie!

Wash Day

Until the late 1940s washing clothes was an all-day job.  When we moved to Haines, Mom brought her "wringer washer" with her which Dad had gotten for her in Wyoming.  She was one of the few women who had one.  A small gasoline motor powered it, and a foot pedal crank started it.  On a cold morning, I can remember Mother pushing the pedal down, letting it return, and repeating the process until she finally coaxed the little motor to run.

Wash day began by putting two wash tubs on the wood stove and filling them with a bucket carried from the hand pump.  After the water got hot, she transferred part of the water by bucket to fill the washing machine, or if Dad was available, she asked him to carry the tubs outside and put them on two benches by the washing machine.  (The benches were Mom's design and she built them).

The first load of clothes went into the machine with soap shaved off a bar of yellow (Fels Naptha) "washing soap."  After the clothes were agitated an adequate time, Mother fished them out of the hot wash water with her "wash stick."  (The stick also had other uses as noted below).  She ran the clothes through the wringer into a tub of rinse water.

The first load was always white, and clothes were sorted by color with the dirtiest work denims coming last.  The second load would go into the machine, and while it was washing Mom would swing the wringer around, fish the clothes out of the first rinse with the wash stick, and run them through the wringer into the second rinse.  The second rinse contained bluing to make white things whiter.  From the second tub, clothes went through the wringer a final time into a basket, box or another tub, and carried to the clothesline.

The clothesline was usually five lines strung between two posts about 50 feet apart.  Each piece was individually hung on the line by clothespins.  When dry, Mother would take them off the line and fold each piece, except the shirts.  Shirts got ironed.  If a rainstorm came, everyone was drafted to "get the clothes off the line" and inside.

Mother even hung clothes on the line in cold weather, too.  Frozen things will dry, it just takes longer.  In really wet weather, things were hung in an unused upstairs room in the old house.

Clothespins resided in a clothespin bag, which was hung from the line, and Mother returned the pins to the bag as clothes were taken down.  (Jean:  Some women left pins on the line all the time, but Mother never did; they got dirty and weathered if left out constantly).

After everything was washed and double-rinsed—usually about six tubs full—the washing machine and two rinse tubs had to be emptied.  Sometimes Dad was available to help with this, and other times Mom did it by herself.  I remember she built a pipeline to the creek out of tin cans with both ends cut out and laid end to end.  I can't remember whether she bailed or siphoned the water out of the tubs.

Washing clothes was a "production" then and you did not set up to do only a few pieces.  Mother also had a "wash board" to do miscellaneous pieces.

Before she had a washing machine, Mother did all the laundry by hand on that wash board, which she highly valued.  There were no laundromats in those days, so you either did your own laundry, or if well-to-do, hired someone to do it for you.  Since washing clothes was such a chore you can understand why Monday became wash day.  And since shirts, dresses, and many other things had to be ironed to look nice, then it followed that Tuesday was the day to iron, and Wednesday the day to mend.

Mac:  Now, about the other uses for Mom's wash stick:  The wash stick was a

1" x 1" x 30" piece of wood which doubled as a disciplinary tool.  I can well remember Mom saying, "Do you want me to get my wash stick!"  She would use it, too.  The grand kids remember it very well, too.  (Jean:  they may have even more vivid memories of the "little red broom" which replaced the wash stick in later years).

Dad, the Builder

Jean:  Dad was a builder.  He built the barn on the Polly place, also a machine shed and new house.  Two more houses came later:  the "block" house where James lives, and the log cabin at the top of the hill where he and Mother retired.

Of course the barn came first because as the saying goes:  "A house never built a barn, but a barn can/will build a house."  I believe Dad made his own plans for all these structures, including the blueprints.  Construction methods were primitive by today's standards, and nearly everything was done by hand, and by Dad, Mom, or local craftsmen.  Fork lifts to set materials in place, pre-mixed cement hauled to the site, and roof trusses were not available.  Most other information on the buildings comes from Mac.  His engineer's mind and attention to detail absolutely astound me.

Dad had an active, inventive mind, and he loved a challenge.  He was always ready to try new things in farming, building, etc.  I believe that's why he used so many methods of building.  His "engineer's" mind caused him to be constantly "figuring."  He always had a stack of farming magazines and newspapers next to his chair.  And—intermixed in the stack—were envelopes and slips of paper on which he figured.  I believe his father, James Wesley Kerns, was also a "figurer."

Some of us think Dad had a learning disability which made reading difficult.  I don't think he ever read just for fun, but he did read subjects which interested him.  He would have Mother read contracts and such to him, as he had excellent comprehension of what he heard.  But math was his forte (strong point).  He had almost an instinctive knowledge of things mathematical.

Building the New Barn

Mac:  The buildings on the Haines farm were mostly in poor shape.  So the folks pulled down the barn and salvaged the lumber to use in a new barn.  Construction on the barn started in 1940.  That barn stands today on the "Semingson place"—also called the home, or Polly place.  The 8-foot bottom story has 8-inch concrete walls, and the cement was mixed with a small gas-powered mixer in four cubic batches.  We kids went with Dad to Rock Creek or Willow Creek in the 1935 Ford pickup, shovel on a half yard of sand and gravel and haul it to the barn site to use in the concrete.  Dry cement mix came from Haines.

The concrete walls were formed using 2X4s and shiplap with each half of the barn formed at once.  A long ramp led to the top of the wall forms with a walkway alongside.  Cement was mixed, dumped into an iron-tired wheelbarrow, wheeled to the top of the wall and emptied into the form.  Head-sized rocks were then dropped into the wet concrete and old cable was used for reinforcement.  When one half of the barn was done, the forms, ramp, and walkway were moved to the other half and the process repeated.

Floors were concrete with gutters, stanchion grooves, and slots for the manger.  For awhile, Dad hired a man to do the floor finishing, but not liking the job he did, Dad recruited Mother as the finisher.

When the cement walls were finished, posts and beams were erected for the haymow floor.  After the floor joists were in place, the shiplap from the concrete forms was used for the haymow floor.

Studs for the haymow walls were the ones used in forming the concrete.  The sub siding was boards from the old barn, installed at a 45-degree angle for stability.  This was the only siding the barn had for 25 years until the folks sold the place and the new owner put regular siding on the building.

The roof was a hip roof with very steep sides up to the break in pitch.  The roof itself was purloins and cedar shingles.  The barn was originally designed and built as a dairy barn and used as such for two or three years.  The barn then became a hog farrowing  house, then a potato cellar, back to a livestock barn, and now Tim's crew uses it for a calving barn.

Jean:  Dad milked 15 to 17 head of cows by hand, twice a day in that barn.  Mother recalled that he would get up at four each morning for the first milking and sit on the side of the bed gathering strength to face the long day ahead.  He never did use a milking machine, possibly because we never had electricity when he milked cows.

Mac:  In those days we had no pesticides and flies in the barn were uncontrollable.  I remember the rim on the bucket would be black with flies and with flies falling into the milk.  They were later strained out before the milk was dumped into the 10-gallon milk can.

Filling the Barn with Hay

Mac:  After Dad built the new barn, we filled the loft with hay several times.  It was equipped with a fork which started with a load of hay at the front of the barn.  The fork was lifted vertically by a derrick horse pulling a rope.  At the top of the barn the fork engaged a carriage on a track which extended the length of the barn loft.  The fork tender had a trip rope he pulled to dump the hay anywhere along the track.  After the hay dumped, the derrick horse would back up while the fork tender pulled the carriage and fork back to the stop where the fork and pulley would disengage from the carriage and drop to the hay below for the next load.

This operation resulted in two interesting happenings.  One was when the carriage stop got loose.  It was about 30 feet from the ground and overhung the end of the barn about five feet.  There was no way to easily reach it for repair.  Cousin John Kerns was helping us that summer, (he was about 14) and he volunteered to ride the fork up almost to the carriage and tighten the stop.  Since he was light enough not to stress the equipment, he was allowed to try, and was successful.  So we continued to fill the barn.

Another time Dad, Jean, and I were putting hay in the barn.  Jean and I were about 13 and 11 and neither of us could make the derrick horse back up.  So Dad tied a hay hook to the carriage rope.  When the hay was dumped one of us would unhook the hay hook from the single tree and keep it tight as the carriage and fork returned to the starting point, allowing the fork to drop gently.  The other led the horse back.  It was Jean's turn to keep the rope tight and my turn to lead the horse.  Dad pulled the carriage back to the stop the stopped it there while he straightened the hay pile.  The rope was slack so Jean held the hook down by her hip and relaxed.  Dad jerked the rope, the fork dropped from the carriage, and the point of the hook went into the side of Jean's hip and out the other side.  Though she was hooked, she let the fork down easy and then was able to unhook herself.  That time haying stopped while Jean was taken to the doctor, fixed up, and given a tetanus shot.

Getting Electricity

The farm was near the base of Eastern Oregon Power and Light Company's reservoir hill.  The reservoir on top of the hill was at the discharge end of an open flume and where the water entered a pipeline to drop about a quarter mile to the pelton wheel to turn the generators.

At that time the flume-tender lived in a house at the reservoir and there was always a light above (his) house.  Prior to getting electricity we could always see this light, but our only light was by kerosene lamps and lanterns, and our only other energy sources were small gasoline engines, our own arms, or horsepower.  All domestic water was pumped by hand, and all hot water had to be heated as needed on the wood stove.  Mother washed clothes with the gasoline-powered, wringer washer.

We brought kerosene home from town in five gallon cans with a potato plugging the pouring spout.  Mother always filled the lamps and lanterns before dark because it was unsafe to pour kerosene with the chance of spills when the only source of light was fueled by kerosene.  She said many people got badly burned by fueling their lamps after dark.

Prior to our getting electricity Dad wired the old house using Romex type cable.  He surface-wired the whole house so all wire was visible, as were all boxes for outlets and lights.  I think only two rooms had an outlet, but all rooms had a ceiling light with a pull-chain switch.  I remember following the wire from room to room and wondering where the electricity went when the wire dead-ended at a box.

It was in 1941 when I was almost seven and my sister was nine, we got electricity.  During the first part of September the crew came to install the single-phase line the 1/8th mile from the road to our house.  They had no power tools, so all work was by hand, and stringing wire required climbing the poles.  The soil where the line had to run was very rocky, and digging holes was hard and slow.  The crew worked several hours on the last hole.  When they were about done, Dad went over, with me tagging along, and asked how they were coming.  They told us to look down the hole.  As I remember the hole was about six feet deep with a big rock in the very bottom with all the material excavated from around it, so it was loose.  The smallest person in the crew went head first into the hole and was able to get a rope around the rock, and they lifted him out by the ankles.  They set the pole, and we had electricity before dark.

Jean and I were fascinated.  We could get light much brighter than any we had ever had in that house by just pulling a string!  We ran from room to room turning lights on and off.  When it got dark, we were delighted to go into a dark room and turn around in circles with our arms out feeling for the string to turn on the light.  After getting electric lights, we still had to find our way into our bedrooms in the dark, but once there we could feel around, find the string, and have light.

Dad soon ran lines to the barn and wired it for lights.  He ran the electrical wire in metal conduit with lights and light switches on the ceiling.  He started running the wire from the back end of the circuit, and when he went from the first box to the switch the wire was short.  I remember him splicing it in the conduit and saying, "I'm not supposed to do this but I don't think the inspector is going to pull it out to check."  Yes, there were electrical inspectors in those days, and yes, the system is still as he wired it and still working.

Several months after getting lights, one of our great aunts who lived in Portland gave us a radio.  After this acquisition, the big event of the day for my sister and me was listening to the "Lone Ranger."

After lights and the radio, the next electrical appliance was an electric toaster.  No more making toast all at once in the oven of the wood stove.  We could make it as needed and eat it before it cooled.  Other electrical appliances we now take for granted were slower in coming.

Jean:  Ironing was a never-ending chore as there was no wash-and-wear.  Nearly everything had to be ironed.  So, I think one of the first things Mom got was an electric iron.  What a blessing!  No more heating sadirons on the wood stove!  I suspect the onset of World War II that December was the major factor in slow acquisition of more appliances.  Civilian needs had to wait until the war ended in 1945.  Also, our folks did not want to invest any more money in the old house.

Mac:  An electric pump for domestic water didn't come until 1948 after a good well was drilled.  After the war we finally got an electric washing machine and refrigerator.  A freezer didn't come until the early 1950s.

Jean:  For years we rented a frozen food locker at the Haines meat market, just like nearly everyone we knew.  This way we had good fresh meat year round.  A trip to Haines usually meant a raid on our frozen meat supply.

Mac:  Electricity for other than the house and barn lights was much slower in coming.  In the very late 1940s, Dad, a neighbor, and I installed a pump in a well hoping to irrigate.  The well was hand-dug and probably less than 30 feet deep.  The pump was powered by a single-phase, five-horse motor, which was about two feet in diameter.  The neighbor said the system would work much better on three-phase power which we didn't have and didn't get until the mid 1960s.

With three-phase 480 volt power available, farmers began to convert from flood irrigation and open ditches to more efficient pipe line transmission and sprinklers.  This has revolutionized farming, increasing water use efficiency and extending the productive growing season.  Last summer (2003) the operation I am connected with operated 15 pumps with a total of 1100 horsepower.  Less than 50 years ago there were none.  Electric power has done more to improve our standard of living, increase each individual's productivity, and increase our industrial efficiency than any single item before or after its introduction.

Jean:  In that old original house, our water came from a well dug beneath the kitchen.  Whenever we needed water, we used a hand pump which was installed at the sink.  One day the pump didn't work and Mom asked Dad to look at it.  When he took the pump off the pipe, he was eyeball to eyeball with a water snake.

Dad hated snakes.  He'd killed his share of rattlers in Wyoming, but something about being up close and personal with that water snake was too much.  He backed off and hollered, "Janet, come get this thing."  Mom removed the snake, Dad restored the pump, and the water came back up the pipe when we needed it.

When Dad milked those 17 cows, we sold cream to the creamery, so the milk had to be separated.  Our cream separator was hand cranked, and had about a hundred parts which had to be washed after each use.  Mother cleaned that thing twice a day, a very time-consuming chore with only a hand water pump.

The cream truck came twice a week, so we kept the cream fresh and cold by setting the 10-gallon cream can in the creek to keep it cool.  (In winter we used the root cellar to store it).  When the truck was due, a couple of cream cans would be hauled out near the mail box on the country road in a little red wagon.

The "bathroom" was an outhouse on the other side of the creek.  We heated bath water on the wood stove and bathed in the kitchen in a galvanized wash tub.  In those days people always took at least a Saturday night bath.  When we got a modern bathroom, Mom regarded it as a luxury, having spent so many years without one.

In the winter we lived in the kitchen by the wood stove.  Yes, we had stoves in the dining room and in the living room, but we conserved wood by living in the kitchen.  Bedrooms were cold, so on chilly winter nights we took hot, wrapped bricks to bed to keep our feet warm.  Our little electric radio was in the dining room, and Mac and I faithfully listened to the Lone Ranger.  "Hi Ho Silver, Away!"  The reception was poor, so the program would fade in and out, but we'd get the gist of the story.  We also listened to Red Rider.

World War II

On Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, our ears were glued to the radio as we tried to absorb the horrible news.  The USA had been at peace ever since World War I.  Even though Hitler was on the march through Europe, killing Jews, and conquering neighboring countries, we felt safe here on the far side of the Atlantic Ocean.  We never imagined an attack coming from the other side of the Pacific.  In those days our ocean shores had seemed to be excellent barriers against invaders.

We weren't in any way prepared to defend the country, but every man and woman was ready to do what they could.  Men of all ages volunteered to enter the military services, and industry geared up for war.  Women, who had always spent their time at home as wives and mothers, went to work making airplanes and tanks and trucks.  Dad was in his 30s with a wife and two kids.  Like other men, he volunteered, but was not taken because he was a farmer and farming was an essential industry.

Many things were rationed.  People received coupon books entitling them to buy things like gasoline, tires, shoes, butter, sugar, and meat.  Mostly, the rationing didn't have much effect on us on the farm since we produced many rationed food items and were entitled to gas to run tractors and such.

But shoes!  I've always had a fancy for shoes and—a growing girl—I often needed bigger ones.  When a pair was about worn out, I'd show Mom (trying my best to appear unhappy that mine were wearing out).  But Mom could tell I was delighted with the idea that I had to have a new pair.  Most probably us kids used not only our own coupons, but also the folk's since their feet weren't growing.

Rationed sugar meant that fruit—usually canned with sugar—was canned in water.  Grandmother Bernice did a lot of canning and we were the beneficiaries of her efforts.  I remember many jars of fruit which needed to be sweetened before we ate them.

During the war troop trains came through Haines taking soldiers to the east or west coasts.  They would wave to people in town and whistle at any girls they saw.  Passenger trains stopped regularly in Haines into the 1950s.  I went by train to Portland when about 13 to visit Great Aunt Mamie and Great Uncle A. L. Campbell.  In the fall of 1950 I also traveled by train via Portland to Oakland, California, to attend Stanford University.  Passenger trains carried mail which was picked up and dropped off at each stop.  The mail car had postal employees who sorted the mail en route.

Enterprise, a Short Sojourn

As indicated earlier, Dad finished college in 1932 but did not get a diploma until 1942 when—anticipating a job teaching—he sent for his diploma at Oregon State Agricultural College (OSAC).  He was hired to teach vocational agriculture at Enterprise, Oregon.  Mac indicated he believes Dad turned to teaching because "things weren't going as well as expected" on the farm.  Jean believes that Dad was restless and wanted to feel he was doing his part in the war by teaching.  Good teachers were in short supply since many went into the military.  Women who would have taught went to work in defense plants, both to support the war effort and to make better money.

The folks rented the farm along with the milk cows to Jim Tibbs and we four moved to Enterprise, living in town for the first time.

Mac:  I remember being happy to move to town that summer.  We could go swimming and to the movies.  There would be so much to do!  It turned out not to be the case.  We had no livestock, no room to roam and our only play area was a yard we couldn't even dig in.

One major change for Jean and I occurred when we moved to Enterprise.  Prior to that time we always called our parents Tom and Janet.  When Dad became a school teacher, they didn't think this was appropriate so we were retrained to call them Mom and Dad, or Mother and Father.

Jean:  We used their first names because of Bernice, our grandmother McCornack.  She was Bernice (pronounced burn'-iss), not Grandmother.  She also claimed the title, Mother, was hers, so calling the folks by their first names had kept the peace.

Mac:  The folks rented an old house on the creek until they could find something better, which they did after a short time.  We moved to a stucco house just north of the school.  Dad just walked across the street and he was at work.

Back on the Farm Without Dad

Jean:  The four of us weren't together in Enterprise very long.  Mac says that he and Mom and Jean moved back to Haines around the last of October.  This was because our renter left, and there were some pretty hard feelings at the time.  I remember seeing and hearing Dad's discussion with him.  That was the only time I saw Dad so angry that he could hardly contain himself.

Mac:  Our only transportation was a 1941 Plymouth club coupe which Dad needed to get back and forth to Enterprise so he could continue to teach.  He would come home on weekends when he could.

Our transportation at home consisted of walking about a mile to Rock Creek School, and the 1939 Ford Ferguson tractor which Mom used to get around.  Its top speed was 12 miles per hour, and she would drive it to school for PTA meetings and to Haines for groceries or other necessities.  In those days merchants put goods into cardboard boxes, so Mom tied her purchases to the top of the tractor draw bar.  (Jean:  I recall she also used a gunny sack to carry things, and sometimes she had the mail carrier bring out a few items).

Dad came home on Thanksgiving vacation, and there was no snow.  On Thanksgiving day it snowed two feet.  After the storm started, Dad would frequently go out and measure the depth, and I remember both he and Mother being appalled at the amount of snow.

Mom had to feed loose hay to the cows every day, pitching it from a hay wagon.  Dad would come home most weekends to reload the wagon with hay purchased from a neighbor on the 80 acres just east of our 80.  The folks bought half a stack of loose hay.  We cut the stack in half with a hay knife.

Sometime about Thanksgiving 12 Durock Jersey sows arrived at the farm.  Mom had to feed these pigs twice a day carrying the feed in buckets to feeders in the middle of the pig pen.  Pigs love their food, and are very smart, so Mom used all kinds of tricks to keep from getting mobbed.  (Jean:  Falling down among a bunch of pigs was not a good idea, as it could have proved fatal).  She started out setting the buckets on posts, then running back and forth across the pen.  When the pigs were out of position she would run over and grab a bucket, run to the feed trough, and quickly dump it.  After the first bucket the pigs were all eating, so the rest was easy.

Soon the post trick ceased to work, so she started putting a feed bucket on each of the four corner posts.  In less than a week, a sow would be standing in each corner waiting to see which corner she started with.  I don't know what she did then, but the pigs still got fed.  She must have been relieved and pleased when Dad terminated his teaching career at Christmas and returned to help on the farm.

Cattle

Mac:  Dad and Mom almost always had some cattle.  Right after moving to Haines, Dad built a squeeze chute to facilitate branding and handling of bigger cattle.  The chute was very necessary since Mother insisted no cattle got turned out until branded.

The crowd alley was built so one side was the east side of the granary.  The chute consisted of four big posts at each corner with the west side of the chute in a fixed position with pipe inset into the horizontal members to make the side of the cow accessible.  The east side was hinged at the bottom and had an attached "A" frame that extended well above the side.  A rope ran from the top of the "A" frame out to a block and down to a pole hinged on one end with a rope positioned so you had leverage.

When a cow was almost through the chute, you pulled down on the pole and trapped her between the two sides of the chute.  Neither Jean nor I were big enough to hold the pole down by ourselves, so we would double-team it while Dad did the branding or other work.

Jean:  Once when Tim was a toddler, we were working cattle through the chute.  My job was to take care of him in the lot between the chute and the machine shed.  This was the area into which the cows were released.

As Dad finished with a cow, he yelled, "Get out of the way!  This one is mad!"  Since Tim and I were where she would come out, I grabbed him and frantically looked for escape.  Fortunately, there was a pickup-bed trailer in the lot where I plopped Tim.  The cow chased me around the trailer a couple of times and then escaped to an open field.  That was my first experience with a really angry cow.

Mac:  One spring, the folks bought 50 or 60 heifers and got Uncle Rod McCornack (who was a veterinarian) to come and spay them.  Dad then fed them out.  For several years, Dad also bought steers and fed them out.  He did this at least one year in partnership with Uncle Terry McCornack.  I remember one year in the late 1940s when Dad had about 50 head of steers.  When they were ready for market, we drove them to the stockyards in Haines and sold them to Ed Coles, who then shipped them to Portland on the train.  Dad was very excited because he got top of the market, which was twenty-five cents a pound.

About 1950, Dad and Mom had about 400 head of mother cows.  When they started calving in the spring, the first dozen calves lived about three days and died.  The problem was diagnosed as "white muscle disease."  No one knew the cause or cure so Dad sold the bunch and they went out of the cow business for several years until Oregon State College figured out that white muscle disease was caused by a deficiency of selenium.  A 3cc dose of selenium into the newborn calf solved the problem and they went back into the cow business.

White muscle disease appeared to be worse on our place than at any of the neighbors.  In fact, some people's herds didn't have any at all.  The folks surmised it was probably caused by use of commercial fertilizers.

In the late 1940s, commercial fertilizers were developed and available.  Dad figured that every dollar spent on fertilizer brought back at least two dollars in increased yield.  In a matter of one or two years he more than doubled the hay yields.  It was surmised that the increased yield decreased the selenium in the soil and also in the hay.  After the folks went back in the cow business, they had some bad problems with calf scours and also copper deficiency, but that was after I was associated with the operation.

When We First Grew Potatoes

Jean:  Though Dad was born a rancher with a love of the ranching life, he was always trying something new to make a living.  When I was about 12 he decided to try potatoes, so taking me along one early spring evening he drove to Wingville in our Plymouth coupe to see about getting seed from Rohners.

In those days Highway 30 was the only black-topped road, country roads were mostly gravel, and some routes were—in dry weather—just dirt tracks.  That early spring evening, the route we chose to go home was a far-from-dry dirt track.  In the headlights, Dad thought the road looked okay, but we soon realized it was filled with deep, muddy ruts and we were thoroughly stuck.

We walked for several miles in the dark to get home, and next day Dad hitched the team to our wagon to go pull the car out of the mud.  Mom had to stay home with baby Tim, so—because I could not handle the team—I was elected to drive the car home.  Did I ever feel grown up!

Cars in those days had a three-speed steering wheel shift; there was no such thing as automatic shift.  Dad put the shift in second gear and told me to drive it home with strict instructions that I not attempt to drive across the narrow culvert into our place.  Feeling confident, I disobeyed and knocked the left shock off when I missed the culvert on that side.  I began to feel considerably less grown up…

The first year we raised three and a half acres of potatoes, a very labor-intensive crop in the 1940s.  Besides preparing the field for the crop, we had to hand-cut the seed.  This was accomplished by inserting a sharp butcher knife upwards through a board which we sat in front of to quarter the spuds into a bucket.  Then they had to be treated with formaldehyde.  The planter was a one-row affair pulled by the Ford tractor.  This required a driver (Mac or Jean), and Dad on the planter, inserting the seed.

Just before the potatoes broke through the ground, Dad harrowed the field to kill new weeds.  Then as soon as the potatoes were a couple of inches high, Dad cultivated with the tractor, carefully moving enough dirt to the edge of the plants to cover as many weeds as possible.  Then, later on, we all got the opportunity to wield a hoe as more weeds popped up.

Potato bugs, ugh!  That first year, when the larva began to appear, Dad gave each of us tin cans containing some kerosene.  We hand picked those slimy things off the underside of the leaves of each plant and dropped them into the can.  For later crops, I think he first shook dust on the plants as he walked through, and then even later, must have used the tractor to dust for bugs.  We also had to walk through the patch to pull diseased plants, though I believe Dad did this himself.  Water came from the ditch and was run between the rows, so we had to be sure the rows were laid out so water would flow all the way to the end.

To allow the skins to set, we waited to dig the potatoes until about ten days after a killing frost.  During potato harvest it was understood that Mac and I would take turns staying out of school to help.  (Mac recalls actually being delighted when it was his turn to go to school!)  Our job was to drive the Ford tractor while Dad handled the one-row potato digger.  We started before the pickers were due so that we would have an open row for each of them when they arrived.

Potato pickers wore a belt with an 18-inch board hanging across the front.  On either end of the board were hooks to hold a gunnysack open which was dragged between the picker's legs.  On both hips pickers hooked extra sacks, making them look as if they were wearing long, bustle, skirts.

Bending at the waist, a picker would paw potatoes into the sack as fast as possible until it was about 2/3 full, unhook the bag, stand it upright, grab another bag, and begin again.  A good picker could pick about 200 sacks a day, and was paid by the sack.  We always made sure to dig no more rows than our pickers wanted to pick, as we would have had to pick those rows ourselves.  Two of our best pickers were women.

Another part of the crew loaded the filled sacks onto our truck, hauled them to the cellar, which was the barn Dad built, insulated to protect potatoes from freezing.  They then emptied the sacks into bins and returned to the field for more potatoes.  Of course, all freshly dug potatoes had to get into the cellar the day they were dug, as fall nights are cold enough to freeze them.  Lots and lots of hard, dirty work.

Meanwhile in the house, Mom was geared up to feed the crew dinner at noon.  As I recall she fed about 22 people.

Our folks saw, and used, equipment powered by horses, steam, gasoline, diesel, and electricity.  During their lifetimes, the changes in the way farming and ranching was done were almost more than one could imagine.  And—due to that advance in technology—farms grew from small, 80-acre spreads to hundreds and thousands of acres which one family could handle…

School Days

Jean:  I started the second grade a mile from home at Rock Creek School, after having attended first grade at Lorane.  Dad bought Ribbon, a kid's horse, for me to ride to school.  She was—for the most part—smarter than I was; she also took good care of me.  Every school morning Mom would put her McClellan saddle on Ribbon and get me started toward the gate.  More often than not the high school bus taking students to Haines would be coming by about then, which was Ribbon's cue to run away with me to the east end of the place.  After that little exercise she would be as sweet as could be and we'd go to school where I would tie her in the school's barn.  Once in awhile the "big boys" in the upper grades would have to retie her for me.

At the end of classes I'd go out to the barn, bridle my horse and start for home.  The kids who walked were already well ahead of me on the gravel road, and—using rocks and threats of rocks—they did their best to keep me and my horse from getting by them.  That's when Ribbon took over.  She would take the bit in her teeth and simply run past our tormentors, after which she'd settle down to a decent pace.

The next year when Mac started the first grade we rode double on Ribbon.  That caused quite a bit of fighting because neither of us cared to ride behind.  Later we each had our own mount.

Mac:  The Rock Creek School had two rooms and two teachers for eight grades.  Both rooms were on the main level.  The room for grades one through four had a stage.  A big overhead door about as wide as the building separated it from the "big room" which housed the upper grades.  This door could be lifted to make one big room for school functions.  The building also had a full, daylight basement with rest rooms for boys and girls, and a wood furnace which would take four, four-foot long chunks of wood.  At the start of the school year the wood pile seemed gigantic.  I think the older boys were assigned the duty of firing the furnace.  It didn't have a blower, just convection vents that went to each room.  (Jean:  On a cold day we'd stand over a register and be toasty warm in no time).

The 1942 school year we started in Enterprise, then came back to Rock Creek.  Near the end of that year my original teacher quit, and Mom didn't like the substitute, so she kept me out of school the last six weeks.  Jean, being in the other room with the other teacher, finished the year.  I never got promoted out of the third grade.

Jean:  Mom had good reason to hold Mac out.  The substitute was unstable and not much later ended up in Pendleton at the mental hospital.  Mom expended considerable effort in the summer making sure Mac knew his third grade arithmetic and reading.

Mac:  The '43-'44 school year we both went to Muddy Creek School three miles from home.  This school had three rooms and three teachers for eight grades, and two rooms and two teachers for high school.  All the class rooms and the gym were on the main floor.  The basement had a play area, boys' and girls' locker rooms, kitchen, furnace room, and wood shop.  I finished grade school there, and Jean had one year of high school.

Muddy Creek School also had a horse barn and we rode horses unless the weather was bad, then one of the folks took us in the car.  When we rode horses, it was my job to catch and saddle them while Jean made our lunches.

Jean:  When I was 12, Dad bought a red roan mare for me from Hayward Tibbs.  She was a beautiful animal, but Mrs. Tibbs warned Dad he shouldn't buy that mare for me as she had bucked off a young man, breaking his leg.  Dad ignored her advice, bought the mare, "topped her off," and proceeded to teach me and her how to deal with each other.  I named her Silver, and we got along fine.  She was the horse I rode to Muddy Creek School.  I don't think Dad was ever hurt by a horse until about 1952 when I was an adult.  One day he was topping off a colt for Tim who was a young boy.  The lot where he was riding was filled with machinery.  Dad got bucked off, broke a rib or two, and cut his lip which was somewhat disfigured after that.

Mac and I rode the three miles to the Muddy Creek School where we tied our horses in the school's barn.  In those days girls always wore dresses to school—no jeans, no shorts.  So I'd ride in slacks with my skirt tucked into my saddle bags, then change in the girls' dressing room before going to class.  On cold days when Dad drove us to school, he always picked up the Stephens kids, too.  Evelyne (Stephens) Fisher remembers those days and how Dad would peer through a little space in the nearly frosted-over windshield.

Mac:  I went my freshman year at North Powder and three years to Baker.  Two of the Baker years were at the three-story school on Court Street and the last year at the new school on E Street.  I also played in the first football game played in the Bull Dog Memorial Stadium.

Jean:  I went to three different high schools, though we never moved from the home place.  Muddy Creek, where I was a freshman, had a total student body of only 25, and I studied harder there than at any other time.  When Muddy Creek closed their high school and sent everyone to North Powder the next year, that's where I went as a sophomore.  My junior and senior years were at Baker in the old high school…

Mac:  As an interesting sidelight, Dad, I, Tim, James, Brent, Jerry, Dan, Wes, Jani, and several more of the first cousins all went to the same college, but under three different names.  Dad went to Oregon State Agricultural College (OSAC).  Tim, James, and I went to Oregon State College (OSC).  The first cousins all went to Oregon State University (OSU).

Another note:  while Jean and I rode to school on horseback for several years, we went to two different country grade schools in the area, and attended three different high schools—all while living on or near the home place—Tim, James, and Ellen always rode a bus to school in Haines and Baker.  (No more horse barns).

A Memorable Bus Ride

A memorable weather event happened when Mac was a sophomore and I was a senior at Baker High.  One winter day out-of-town bus students were told to leave fifth period classes because a serious blizzard was blowing.  Things didn't look too bad in town, just a few puffs of snow on the Junior High athletic field.  Since we'd had no really severe weather in our short lives we thought this concern for the weather was more or less a joke, but it ceased to be funny when we got to Haines.  When the bus stopped at the Haines School we country kids were told we'd have to find some place to stay in town.  No bus would attempt to take us home that day.

It happened that Cliff Conrad who lived on the Savely place where Tim and Jan Kerns now live had been to Baker that day and he met the bus in Haines.  Cliff was picking up his kids from the bus, and he needed to get home to take care of his cattle.  He got in touch with Dad (via the crank phone) and they made a plan.

Cliff would drive his big Packard car as far as he could towards home.  Dad would start for Haines with our team and sled to meet us wherever we mired down.  Cliff made it to the George Davidson place—kitty corner from the Rock Creek School.  We went inside where the Davidsons welcomed us and we waited until Dad arrived with the sled loaded with loose hay and piles of extra clothes.  We bundled up, headed out, and made it home.  The team labored hard to get there.  They were hot, even in all that cold and wind.  I don't recall how the Conrads got the rest of the way home.

The First House

Mac:  The next project after the barn was a machine shed of conventional construction, built about 1945.  It is based on a concrete foundation, and has frame walls.  The siding was put on the studs without the diagonal sub-siding which has allowed the building to develop a lean to the north.  This building also has a living area on the west end consisting of one 20 x 20 foot room.  This was to be the family living quarters when a new house was constructed.

When the machine shed was built, at least six inches of concrete foundation showed.  In 2003, no concrete showed on the north side, and dirt was up on the sides from two to six inches.  Where did it come from?

In 1947, after Mom's and Dad's bed fell through the rotten floor of the old house, Mom said, "Enough is enough.  It is time for a new house."  So plans were made to vacate the old house and move into the shop while the new house went up.  Our living arrangements were interesting—a modified camp-out beginning in the spring and lasting until fall.

Mom, Dad, Tim, and baby James slept in the room on the west end of the building.  This was also where Mother cooked on the Monarch stove, and where we ate.  She served meals to hay crews in that room, too.  Jean's bedroom was in the granary, and I constructed a tent with poles and a tarp in the yard near the creek.  After we had the new sleeping areas, everything was moved out of the old house and we began to tear it down salvaging the shiplap from the inside walls, rafters, studs, and other usable materials for the new house.

The bay beside the room in the machine shed had a concrete floor, and in that area next to the "room" Dad installed a new bathtub which would go into the new house.  He piped water to it and surrounded it with canvas for privacy.  There was even hot water piped from the water reservoir in the Monarch stove.  (Jean:  What luxury!  No more crunching up in the galvanized tub).

The new sleeping arrangements lasted about a month.  I went to the hospital for a week to have my appendix removed.  When I got out of the hospital, the chickens had taken over my tent, so I think I ended up sleeping in the open part of the shop.  The mice drove Jean out of the granary, so she ended up just outside the main room beside the bathtub.

The new house was started in the spring and framed by haying season.  It then sat for about a month which allowed all the new material to dry out causing the framing to become shaky.  The shiplap from the old house—installed as subsiding at a 45 degree angle—firmed it back up.

Mom bought metal kitchen cabinets, a sink, and electric range for the new house.  (Jean:  She used those metal cabinets in the "room" before we moved into the new house).  She also had a small trash-burning cook stove in the kitchen for times when the electricity failed.

The stairs were removed from the old house and installed in the new one, though they had to be cut down and didn't quite fit.  The riser on the top step was half the height of the others, and the third step from the bottom was missing.  Tim, who was about three, gathered scraps and nailed them into the hole to fix it.  He used about a dozen pieces which mostly plugged the hole.

We'd been using a new, drilled well in the "room."  It was near the creek and east of the cellar, and 75 to 100 yards from the new house site.  Guy Pritchard and I dug the trench for the water line through rocks and gravel with picks and shovels.  I don't remember how long it took.

This was our first home with central heating.  It had a furnace with an automatic coal stoker.  Every fall we got a five-ton load of coal in the truck, backed the truck up to the house, and shoveled coal into the bin in the furnace room.  Each day Dad filled the stoker with coal, took the clinkers out of the firebox with a set of tongs, and put them into a bucket.  After they cooled, Dad put them on the driveway as gravel.  Some winters it was touch-and-go whether we had enough coal in the bin to last until the snow melted enough to back the truck up to the house.

Dad did all the concrete work, framing, siding, roofing, and interior wall coverings.  He hired the wiring, plumbing, and furnace duct work.  When framing, he'd have all of us working; but there weren't enough hammers.  Mother had her private hammer, which had the handle broken and reinstalled about twice, so it had a short handle.

(Jean:  Mom always guarded her personal tools.  It was an honor to be allowed access to them.  Her rationale made sense, as unguarded tools disappeared never to be found again.  Ellen says Mom kept her tools under her bed and other secret places.  Tim said that if you borrowed tools from Mom and they weren't home by dark, she would get you up to go get them).

The living room had at least one big window facing west towards the mountains.  Mother insisted it be made of small panes not over a foot square so if one was broken it would not be expensive to replace.  She must have been right because James threw a toy gun at Tim, who ducked.  The gun went through the window.  James has always said it was Tim's fault.  If he hadn't ducked the toy wouldn't have broken the window.

House Number Two

The folks started with the original 80-acre Polly place.  Later they bought 60 acres up the hill, across the road, and west of the original 80 (the Colvin place).  They then bought the 160-acre Mountain Place further west up the hill with about a half-mile gap between the two.

 

In 1945, Uncle Andy McCornack (Mother's second brother) got out of the army and bought the 120 acres between.  After a year he decided he didn't want to farm, and sold the place to the folks.  This 120 had an old house surrounded by some sheds.  The folks burned down the sheds, and afterwards Mother carefully removed nails from the ashes so they wouldn't puncture tires.  A few hundred feet down the hill to the southeast was a barn and some other buildings.  That barn is the only original building still on the place where James and Marge Kerns now live.

In 1959 when farming was very marginal, the folks sold the original 80-acre Polly place and moved into the old house on the 120 acres.

The next year they built a new house north and east of the older house where James and Marge Kerns live today.  The walls were red cinder block, and floors were concrete.  It was heated by a big fireplace with raised hearth, supplemented by an oil furnace.  Mother again got metal cabinets.  I think the biggest reason she always got metal cabinets was they were mouse proof!

Jean:  Later, the old house was moved from the 120 to the Savely place where Tim & Jan Kerns live.  The structure was sound, so they built on around it to form the attractive home they have today.

House Number Three

Mac:  About 1971, the folks built the log house on the northeast corner of the 160-acre Mountain Place.  This house was made of logs cut right on the place, skidded to the site, pealed, and dried.  It had a full, daylight, concrete basement with log walls on the main floor.  Neighbor Denver Markle did the log work.  While the upstairs was being completed they lived in the basement.

For some reason those logs were ideal breeding grounds for flies.  When they got troublesome, Dad got out the vacuum cleaner and sucked up live and dead flies.  He also put a shot of fly spray up the vacuum hose which solved the problem for a short while.

Mother Janet always wanted to live as far up the hill as possible, so she had that house built as far up as the power and phone lines would go.  It gave a fantastic view of the valley.  Ellen and Philip Stevenson were married in the living room where they had their picture taken in front of the window with a view of the valley behind them.

Each house was built higher up on the hill than its predecessor.  Uncle Andy McCornack observed that if the folks lived long enough, they'd eventually end up on top of the mountain.

Jean:  Of the five of us, only Tim, James, and Ellen were living with our folks when they moved into the "block" house.  Ellen was the only one at home when the move to the Mountain Place occurred.

Jean married Tom Griffith in March 1953, in the living room of the first house.  Mac and Joyce Cole wed that June in the Methodist Church in Baker.  Our sister Ellen was born a year later.  Also, Ellen is only four months older than Mac's and Joyce's son Brent, and not quite a year older than Tom's and Jean's son Jerry.

Health Issues

Jean:  When I was 16 or 17 Dad had colitis which caused him considerable pain and discomfort.  He was miserable.  The folks had four kids at the time:  James, a year or two old; Tim, four or five; Mac, 14; and me.  I went to Methodist Church camp at Wallowa Lake that summer, and someone had to come pick me up afterwards.  Mom stayed home with those two wiggly little boys, while Dad and Mac came to get me in our new, black 49 Ford.  (You could get any color then, as long as it was black).  On the way home, Dad became so uncomfortable that he stopped, climbed in the back seat, lay down, and told me to drive home.  Only severe pain could have had him trusting an inexperienced driver to that degree!

For the most part, Mother enjoyed good health throughout her life, but she did have significant problems.  She had a painful bout with kidney stones in mid life, and during surgery to remove the stones, she "left" for a short while on the operating table. Apparently this was because she was very sensitive to anesthetic.  Mother coped with abdominal hernias for most of her life, and had the mumps at about age 44 while nursing Ellen.  She lived—uncomplaining—with arthritic pain for years, trying various folk remedies like wearing of a copper bracelet.

In her 60s, very high hypertension was discovered for which—I am sure—she began to take medication.  The hip pain from arthritis finally became so severe that she scheduled surgery at age 71.  So, even though Dad was in the hospital at Baker due to appendicitis, Mother went ahead with hip-replacement surgery in La Grande.  She died of a massive heart attack (two days) following the surgery.

Equipment

Mac:  During Dad and Mom's farming career there was a huge change in equipment.  They spanned a period from animal power to large mechanized equipment.  From no electricity to its constant use.  From the time if you wanted to talk to someone you went to visit them, to phones, and two-way radios.

When they first got to Baker County, they bought a team of horses.  Then they bought a horse drawn mower, rake, and walking plow from Haines Commercial Equipment Company.  They also had a horse drawn wagon, which was the trailer they used to move here.

For the first two years this was all the equipment they had.  The next purchase was a 9N Ford tractor with a plow, digger, or cultivator, mower, and Dad built a buck rake.  I remember the mower was much better than the horse mower, but was a project to put it on the tractor.  You had to widen the wheels, take off the three point arms, and bolt the mower to the tractor frame.  All of this with primitive jacks.  To extend the wheels, we used a long pole under the axle.  One or two years after getting the tractor, they got a five-foot tandem disk.

Prior to world War Two, almost all the grain in the valley was bound with a binder, bundles were shocked in the field and when the custom thrashing machine was available it came to the farm along with five or six bundle wagons, and a thrasher powered by a steam engine.  Bundles were hauled to the thrasher, run through the machine with the straw blown into a pile and the grain sacked in 130 pound bags for home storage or to be hauled to town.

An interesting sidelight was that many people built a framework of post and poles covered with woven wire.  They then had the straw blown on this frame and made a straw shed.  There was at least one of these buildings on the place when the folks first moved there.

About 1946 or 1947, Dad bought a six-foot cut Case combine to pull behind the tractor.  The combine had its own engine, which had hand crank and a manual mechanism to raise and lower the header.  Unfortunately the mechanism wasn't built for a Ford tractor, so the tractor operator couldn't work it from the seat.  Jean or I would drive tractor and Dad would ride on the draw bar and run the header.  This machine handled the grain in bulk and didn't require a sacker.  Making the first round with this machine required driving on uncut grain with resultant damage.  When self propelled combines first came out Dad hired the grain harvested for several years then bought a self propelled Massey Harris twelve-foot cut machine.  No equipment had cabs so the operator sat just above and back of the header in the dust and dirt.  Both Dad and I got hay fever from the grain so neither of us could drive it for very long.

Herbicides weren't available so the fields had a lot of ragweed sticking up above the grain.  You had to wait until a frost killed the weeds before harvest began.  There would still be a lot of green material in the standing grain, which would slug the cylinder and stop the combine.  The operator would then open a door above the cylinder, stick a post or pole through the cylinder as lever, and turn the slug out by hand.

The evolution of haying has been constant with new and bigger equipment.  As now, getting the hay on the ground was a problem.  The horse mowers had five-foot cutter bars.  When tractor mowers came into use, they had six or seven-foot cutter bars.  The next step was a tractor drawn swather that had twelve-foot cutter bars, and on to the 14-16-foot mower swathers we have today.

After Dad got the tractor mower all the hay was still raked with a horse drawn dump rake into windrows, and then with the team straddling the windrow, raked the hay into bunches to be picked up by the buck rake and taken to a loose hay stack.  In about 1949 or 1950, Dad got a side delivery rake and Case baler.

The baler had a four cylinder air-cooled Wisconsin engine.  The baler had a big flywheel.  To start the engine, you stood on the flywheel and gave it a turn, which cranked the engine.  There was a seat on each side of the bale chamber where each time the plunger hit it blew dust on the people doing the tying.  For each bale, a needle went through the bale chamber, the person on the right side of the baler would poke the wires through the needles for the bale about to come out, and the bale just starting.  The person on the left side would tie the wires together for each bale.

We pulled a sled behind the baler, which was one bale wide with a slot down the middle.  A person would stack about 15 bales on the sled then drive a bar into the ground in the slot and slide the bales off the sled into a windrow to later be picked up and hauled to a stack.

Stacking small bales into a stack that will stand up is an art.  They can't be stacked one on top of another for very many tiers or the stack would fall over.  At least every third tier the cracks need to be covered.  I remember Dad drawing patterns for each tier onto paper and then sticking a pin through the stack of paper to make sure each crack was covered.

The next baler was a John Deere that discharged the bales to the side rather than out of the back.  It was also powered with a four cylinder air cooled Wisconsin engine.  It was equipped with an automatic knotted wire tie, and eliminated two people or half the crew.

After using the small bales for several years, they went back to loose hay.  The stacker was a farm hand loader on the back of a modified truck.  The buck rakes were built on the back end of a modified pickup or car.

The modification of this equipment consisted of removing the cab and everything behind the cab, turning the steering, brakes, clutch, and gear shift so the operator faced the back of the vehicle.  The rear axle was turned end for end so the original gears were the opposite of the new gears.  Reverse and forward gears powered this vehicle in the opposite direction.

The progression was from loose hay to bales, back to loose hay, then to bread loaf stacks, then to big round bales and then to the 3 X 4 foot or 4 X 4 X 8 bales now in use.

The evolution of feeding the hay is also interesting.  The first loose hay was removed from the stack with a pitchfork by hand, loaded on a wagon or sled, and pitched off by hand.  The small bales were loaded from the stack by hand, broken on the wagon, and fed by hand.

When they went back to loose hay, they had a tractor with a winch on the back.  Dad built two needles he would drive through the stack and use the needles to thread a cable around the hay, then use the winch to roll a load of hay onto the two-wheeled trailer he used to feed with.  This worked well for loading, but pitching the hay off the wagon was a real job.

The bread loaf stacks had a stack feeder.  This machine would be backed up to a stack, tilted down on the back and a system of chains would pull the stack feeder under the bale and move the stack to the feeder.  A sickle arrangement would cut a slice off the stack and feed it onto the ground beside the feeder.

Feeding the big round bales was much easier.  They were big enough that a tractor loader was needed to move them.  The operator carried the bale to the feed ground with a tractor then putting the front wheel of the tractor against the bale he could roll the bale and hence unroll the hay from the bale.

Dad sold the first Ford Ferguson tractor to Guy Prichard, a neighbor who helped on the farm for several years.  This tractor was replaced with an 8N Ford about 1945.  In 1946 when Uncle Andy quit farming, they bought his 1946 8N Ford, so they had two of them.  Later two NAA Fords were added to the fleet.

 

The 9N Ford had a three-speed transmission.  The others had four-speed transmissions.  Dad added an additional three-speed transmission to the 8N's and NAA's.  Two speeds in the 9N.  These transmissions had standard, low range and high range gears.  This gave 12 forward speeds and three reverses.  At least three of these Fords are still in use by Mom and Dad's descendants.

In the early 1960's they bought a 544 International.  This was a 54 horsepower tractor, twice the power of the Fords.  This tractor is also still in use on Tim's operation.

Seeding the grain was almost always a problem.  The first grain drill was an eight or ten-foot horse drawn with wood and steel wheels.  The tongue was cut off and a clevis added so it could be pulled behind the tractor.  Before use the wheels had to be removed and soaked in the creek so the wood would expand enough to keep the steel rims in place and you hoped to be done seeding before they were dried out, and you needed to repeat the process.

In the late 1940's, they bought a 12-foot International drill with all steel wheels and a grass seed attachment.  This drill finally solved the seeding problems.

Logging

Mac:  During the winter of 1952-53, Dad started logging on the Mountain Place.  He hired local farmers to do most of the work.  Dutch Aldrich was a good hand with horses and was hired with a team to do the skidding.  His brother Lewis, along with Denver Markle and Joe Simmons, did the falling and bucking.  I think Herb Points was hired with his truck to do the hauling.

Chain saws had only been in use two or three years, so were very primitive compared with today's saws but were much better than cross cut saws.

Joe Simmons, probably the greenest logger on the crew, was falling a tree.  The tree tipped backwards and pinched the saw so it couldn't move.  The next little breeze was going to tip it over the saw motor and crush the saw.  Denver grabbed a wrench and took the motor off the bar and salvaged the saw.  After that all sawyers carried a wrench, screwdriver, and wedges.

Part way through the job Dutch bought a new team of horses trained for logging.  The day after the team was delivered Lewis said, "I don't think Dutch got any sleep last night.  He was always going to look at the horses."

Snow was about two feet deep.  The haul road was packed snow and very slick.  The log truck got stuck so Dutch hooked the team to pull it out.  The team was pulling it backwards and the driver still had it in forward gear.  But the truck was going backwards.  It was a funny incident.

Logging was working, so Dad started buying adjacent timberlands.  He got aerial photos and studied them to see where the merchantable timber was.  There was one forty-acre piece that showed good timber belonging to an older lady in Haines.  Dad went to see her and asked what she wanted for it.  She said, "$100.00."  Dad hadn't visited the forty-acres on the ground yet, but he said, "Okay, then I'll pay the back taxes.

Horse logging lasted about a year, and then Dad bought a HD-7 Allis Chalmers cat with a cable dozer and no winch.  He hired another neighbor, Cliff Caldwell, to drive it.  I set chokers behind this cat two summers.  The last summer Dad hired a welder and completely rebuilt the tracks.  They built up all the rollers, front idlers and track rails with welding rod.

In 1955, Dad traded the HD-7 for a new IHC TD-9 and had it outfitted with a winch and a hydraulic dozer.  I drove this one for two years setting my own chokers.

Loading logs on a truck was a problem.  Dad built an A frame about 20 feet high out of logs with about an eight-inch top.  In order to move it, you had to lay it down, drag it to the next landing, and stand it back up.  We didn't have tractor loaders that would lift it, so standing it up was quite a job.  If you could get the top end 8-10 feet up in the air, you could then stand it up with the cat without it sliding backwards.  Most times getting that first 8-10 feet was the problem.

The loading line started out with two "butt hooks" that were hooked into the ends of the log.  A crutch line went from each hook to the main line that went over the top of the block at the peak of the A frame then down to the bottom of the A frame around another block then to the cat or winch tractor.

When loading with a cat the landings had to be selected so the cat path for the main line sloped down hill.  The main line was hooked to the front of the cat so when lifting the log the cat was backing up.  When the log was over the load the hookers using rope attached to each "butt hook" would align the log with the load and when the log was over the crack the cat operator would let the cat roll forward and drop the log into position.  Most of the time the top of the "A" frame wasn't right over the final position of the log so the hookers would get the log swinging so the cat operator could time it right and drop the log into position.

Dad bought a winch that fit on the back of the Ford tractor and fixed it so the front of the tractor could be hooked to a stump with a choker.  The operator stood behind the tractor and operated the clutch with a bar over the clutch, and there was a brake on the winch.  This winch was very strong and on hard pulls would suspend the tractor between the tree stump line and the winch main line.  It also replaced the cat on the loading operation.

The winter of 1955 and 56 we logged a piece of low ground for Lee Savely (the place Tim now has).  The mill was doing the loading and hauling and we were doing the falling, bucking, and skidding.  It was a very cold winter with 20 and 30 degrees below zero at night.  One cold morning when we couldn't get any vehicles to run, I saw trucks going into the logging site, so walked about a mile to where they were loading.  They had gotten the jammer started and loaded two loads of logs, but the trucks spun out and couldn't pull the short hill to the main road.  The cat wouldn't start, so the crew was standing around trying to figure out what to do.  I said, "If someone would take me to Dad's house, I would get the Ford tractor and pull the trucks up the hill."  The crew thought that was a big joke and wouldn't take me.  Dad had been watching the road and not seeing any trucks come out drove the Ford tractor up to the site.  The logging crew decided that since it was there we might as well try.  We hooked the tractor up to a stump and hooked the winch line to the first truck and pulled it up the hill.  The driver of the next truck had been most vocal about what a joke that little Ford tractor was.  He was slow about releasing the trailer brakes, so Dad pulled the truck out from under the load and dumped the whole load in the middle of the road.

There is a story about what Joyce did one night during this very cold winter.  She was pregnant and didn't feel good in the mornings.  She decided to make my meat sandwich the night before and put it in the freezer so she wouldn't have to make it in the morning.  I took the frozen sandwich to work that morning and put it over the campfire.  The men really gave me a hard time because that sandwich didn't thaw.  Needless to say, Joyce didn't do that again.  No one let her forget.

Trucking logs was a problem so Dad wanted his own truck.  He bought a surplus Army Studebaker 6X6 with a Hercules engine, and split Ford rear ends.  He built a single axle log trailer and log bunks for the truck.  After about three month's use the truck was coming down Willow Creek and both rear ends went out.  The truck wouldn't idle without the rear ends.  The motor died, so no brakes, and the outfit was in a runaway mode.  The driver got the truck started again, ignored the clutch, kept his other foot on the brakes, and got stopped.  We replaced the rear ends under a loaded truck and shortly thereafter retired that outfit from logging.

The next truck was a military surplus KB-7 single axle International dump truck.  Dad took the dump box off and put log bunks on the truck, and with a single axle trailer it made a good truck.

Both of these trucks had vacuum brakes that weren't nearly as effective as our modern air brakes.  To keep them cool enough not to melt the operating mechanism, the truck had a water tank on the cab guard.  Hoses ran from this tank to each rear wheel on the truck and each wheel on the trailer.  When the truck got to the bottom of the hill, a cloud of steam would be coming from each wheel.

The brake lines to the front wheels were plugged off, so there were no front wheel brakes.  This made the outfit steerable on slick roads when the other wheel brakes were locked.

The next truck was an L1-70 International tandem axle short logger without a trailer.  Dad was taking a load of logs to La Grande when the transmission went out.  He walked to a farm next to the top of Ladd Canyon, and called home for help.  We still had the Studebaker 6X6, but it didn't have a current license.  Mom had me take the license plate off a pickup and put it on the 6X6.  She then took her pickup and I followed with the 6X6 to where the truck was broken down.  We then pulled the truck to where Dad had used the phone.  The next day Dad and I went to the truck and dropped the big five speed transmission out, somehow loaded it into the back of the pickup, and hauled it to the Haines Commercial Equipment shop where they repaired it.  The shop set it in the back of the pickup with a small crane.  After it was loaded, the shop foreman asked Dad, "How are you going to get this back in the truck?"  Dad said, "Never mind, we will get it in."

Back at the truck, Dad and I manhandled the transmission out of the pickup and somehow got it under the truck.  Dad laid down on his back under the truck and the two of us got the unit up on his chest.  Dad lifted the unit up into place and I put the bolts in.

When not selling logs in the late 1950's, Dad had a small log mill operated by a family from Tennessee that set up in at least two locations on the Mountain Place.  The crew of about ten people was from Tennessee, except for myself, who skidded logs out to where another cat picked them up with an arch and skidded them up to a mile to the mill.  This operation produced a big volume of sawdust and slabs that are all gone today.

Another story about that summer was that by the time Joyce and I went back to Corvallis (I) was talking just like those fellows from Tennessee.

During the logging days Dad and Mom probably purchased approximately 1000 acres of timberland.  In the late 1950's or early 1960's Aunt Peggy wrote Dad needing money to take care of their mother in her declining years.  They sold about 800 acres and sent the money to Peggy.  Tim later bought most of it back in 2002.

Summers and Grandkids

Jean:  In the 1960s when the folks lived in the block house they needed plenty of summer help and invited their older grandsons to come stay each year.  Brent, Jerry, Dan, Wes, and Randy all spent some time at the ranch, and looked forward to being there.  Even our dog Viking—who had a couple of near-fatal run-ins with Chip—seemed to know when we were near the ranch after a long drive from Naches, Washington, where we Griffiths lived at the time.  He'd get all excited and pace back and forth in the car whining.

Mom and Aunt Ellen spent the summer feeding the boys.  Mom also kept their pants mended from the wear they got bucking bales.  This was, of course, during the time the bales were picked up with a slip.  The boys did everything from mowing to baling to stacking.

Randy, being younger, did not go to the ranch as much.  One year, Mother said they were getting concerned visits from state officials about the possibility of overworking young children.  When an inspector came to visit, he observed Randy heading out to the pond with a fishing pole.  It seems this relieved his concern about child labor.

Dad asked his children to handle the service at the mortuary after Mother died in 1982.  James officiated and the rest of us helped.  Tom Griffith has a beautiful tenor voice, and he was asked to sing "In the Garden."  He found he could hardly do it, as it's hard to sing when you are emotional.  Dad did appreciate that service.