Written by: Weltha Jo Goin Johnson

“My Dad’s family, the Goins, came to Oregon in the late 1850s by covered wagon. They first settled east of Jefferson near Green’s Bridge. In about 1898 my grand dad, Alfred Goin, bought the property north of Jefferson that my husband and I live on now. My dad was born on the farm in 1903 and died there in 1993. My children, Kari and Blair, and their families, including Danielle, live on this same property. That’s five generations to have lived on this property. The farm used to go from Danielle’s house all the way to the Jefferson Middle School, but most was sold.

“My dad went to school at Jefferson. So did I, my children and now my grand daughters. My dad walked 3 miles to school and home. Sometimes he rode a horse or drove a buggy on the dirt or mud road, but it was too much trouble to take the horse to livery stable downtown Jefferson in the morning and pick it up after school, plus the horse was ‘barn sour’ and really didn’t want to be taken to school. So my dad just walked or jogged. Our neighbor says he was the original ‘jogger’ way back in 1916.