growth

My Type of Gratitude List, No. 7

August 3, 2023: I am grateful for friends who will drive me places I do NOT want to go, but need to go.

August 4, 2023: I am grateful for washing machines that work.

August 12, 2023: I am grateful for my dog Pearl and her Squirrel Scout friends.

August 17, 2023: I am grateful for lawns, projectors and ping pong tables.

August 18, 2023: I am grateful for cool morning walks through the trees with friends and our four legged friends. I am grateful for a good and a surprising dog who can scale a 4 ft. cement wall without any trouble.

August 20, 2023: I am grateful for an upstairs neighbor who is also a friend. Her kindness includes inviting me to do my laundry at her apartment when mine is broken.

August 21, 2023: I am grateful for smooth paved roads between my dad’s house and my home.

August 25, 2023: I am so grateful for the Willamette River. And the Great Blue Heron that I see there.

August 29, 2023: I am grateful for retirement accounts and potential home loans.

My Type of Gratitude List, No. 6

July 1, 2023: I am grateful for the number one, which does not exist on this typewriter. I use the Roman Numeral. Of course this leaves me so grateful that I am able to improvise.

July 4, 2023: I am grateful for friends who understand my sensitivity to sound as well as Pearl’s special sensitivities. This is a challenging day for us and I am grateful for friends who respect us and understand.

July 5, 2023: I am grateful for language. Also, I am grateful for a certain 2 year old who loves language so much that the words cocoon and raccoon, when said together, makes him laugh.

July 10, 2023: I am grateful for children who tell me what they think. I trust children to be real with me, which means when one tells me I smile ‘like God’ I feel like I’ve been given a gift.

July 12, 2023: I am grateful for walls. Being able to paint on them as a canvas brings me great joy.

July 17, 2023: I am grateful for wood, bicycle spokes, rake tines and railroad tracks, not to mention the trains that ride them. All of these materials and tools make good ingredients for kalimbas (if you know a creative soul who knows how to make them).

July 18, 2023: I am grateful for the ocean and sea life; for the moon that creates the tide; for the sun.

July 21, 2023: I am grateful for toilets. Life would be shitty without them.

July 22, 2023: I am grateful for antibiotics.

July 24, 2023: I am grateful for avocados and those who harvest them.

July 25, 2023: I am grateful for perfect, ripe blueberries.

July 26, 2023: I am grateful for rivers and the water that defines them.

July 27, 2023: I am grateful for tea, and Japanese made glass tea pots that allow me to watch the leaves unfurl.

July 31, 2023: I am grateful for fresh figs, ripe and straight out of my friend’s yard to my door. I have never tasted candy so delicious.

My Type of Gratitude List, No. 5

June 2, 2023: I am grateful that I can walk out my door and find friends to walk with at lunch time. I am also grateful for friends who ‘feed’ me names of other writers like A.R. Ammons and John Steinbeck to learn from. Steinbeck I knew, but never read. Ammons I never knew, but will as soon as I acquire his book, Tape, which was originally written on a roll of adding machine tape, just like this.

June 7, 2023: I am grateful for mornings that I get to wake up and visit Nathaniel. He is a bright spot in my life.

June 8, 2023: I am grateful for my friend Sara — she is creative, kind, smart and loves animals as much as I do. I have learned a lot from her and the friendship we share.

June 10, 2023: I am grateful for change and all the unexpected blessings it may bring.

June 11, 2023: I am grateful for Pearl. She is such a sweet, fuzzy girl with lots of love.

June 12, 2023: I am grateful for my friend Wolfgang who is one of the most kind and considerate people I know.

June 14, 2023: I am grateful for this typewriter — I enjoy using it to record gratitude. Muscle memory lets me remember good days at Western Mennonite School, like using my watch to reflect sunlight toward John Fillmore.

June 15, 2023: I am grateful for fresh peas from the garden, with lemon, ginger and garlic. I am also grateful for the friends who serve them in a cast iron skillet.

June 19, 2023: I am grateful for cool summer mornings. Pearl and I get to walk in a quiet city, before traffic begins to intensify. She sniffs, I watch store deliveries. I am also grateful for Juneteenth. I am inspired by the strength of my black and brown American friends.

June 21, 2023: I am grateful for good memories of growing up on Eicher Road — playing in the creek, picking mint for iced tea, eating summer sausage sandwiches with Dad in the field he was baling that day. Grandma’s house was only a hop, skip and jump away. I loved her house.

June 25, 2023: I am grateful for water color art. Looking at it makes me feel somehow refreshed.

June 26, 2023: I am grateful for garbage service workers who take what we’ve thrown out, allowing us to distance ourselves from our own messes. Also, these important workers could have their hands crushed in the machines they work with. . . like today. May your hand heal swiftly.

Mountain Berries

You didn’t mention

these just-ripe blackberries

when you told me about

this tree-lined trail.

 

Neither the smell of

them warmed by the sun

nor their impossible

color were noted

 

(a color which can

only be described as:

‘August Mountain Blackberries

In the Shade of Evergreens’).

 

Maybe these berries

weren’t here when you hiked

this trail; maybe you didn’t

witness their perfect ripeness,

 

and maybe it’s me

who should be detailing

their succulence to you,

sharing their perfection.

 

But I can’t just now

I think, rolling another

just-ripe berry into my mouth–

these berries remain

 

a secret the bears

and I share between us

in the stillness of (and in

fellowship with) these trees.

HERITAGE JOURNALS: STORIES COLLECTED BY 6TH GRADE STUDENTS OF JAQUI EICHER, 2002

Written by: Wayne Chambers

“These history talk about Dever School District were given at the 100th year celebration on November 5, 1954 at Dever School. The 8 Edward A. Chambers children including your great-great grandfather Elmer and my father Elbert attended Dever School. My sister Marilyn, brother David and I went 8 years to grade school at Dever.

“The Dever community has changed over the years, resulting in too few students for a grade school. The school building was sold in 1983. I hope this history is of interest to you.”

‘The Beginning of School District No. 20, Linn County

My talk given tonight concerns the years 1854 to 1880, the beginning of School District 20, Linn County. Our toastmistress, Mrs. Harnisch, has already mentioned that Syracuse Precinct had earlier schools, one of which was attended by Allie, McClain, and aunt of Mrs. Elizabeth Truax in 1848. It was located on Fenn Butte, afterwards called Zimmerman’s Hill, where Mr. and Mrs. Parker now live. Mrs. Truax has established this as correct, as there is a spring above the house from which Johnny Fenn, the teacher, carried a bucket of water for his school in the Fenn house. There was also a brickyard close by — a pile of brick is still there. In 1865 the minutes mention this brickyard location. This was the first school in Linn County.

There was a District 22 organized by law in November 1854, from which date we celebrate this Centennial. That schoolhouse was situated on the Charlie Cox farm, once part of the donation land claim of an old pioneer, John Weis, who lived where Mr. and Mrs. Drager now live. This school house was a log house with homemade seats and desks. Quills were used as pens and their ink was homemade. The equipment was a stove with pipe, a bucket, wash pan, dipper and dictionary.

The first directors elected were James F. Jones, John T. Crooks and John B. Miller; the clerk was Benjamin F. Redman who was the first teacher. He was also a justice of the peace. Redman lived in a house east of Ardle Edwards’ old house and was clerk and teacher until 1861.

Much honor is due these early pioneers for their perseverance and ability. We are justly proud of them. The first funds received were $52 in April, 1855. Mr. Redman taught in 1855 three months for $33.33 and received part pay of 58. At that time 3 months a year was the time taught. 

When this district was organized, the pioneers built their own school house by subscription, 17.5 square feet, located very nearly in the center of that district. The pioneers built this log school house in one month’s time. 

In 1858 the voters made a union of District 20 with District 22 and thereafter the entire district was called District 20. By this, we see there was a District number 20 already existing. The Weis school house was then sold to Mr. Weis for the sum of $100, with the teacher taking $65 of his money in trade. Perhaps Mr. Weis ad a store at his place. The remainder of the $100 was paid by James F. Jones. District 22 is now near Scio.

From 1858 to 1869 there was a school house on the Allphin claim near the Allphin cemetery which was on the hill behind Mr. Mervin Case’s house. This was a small school house, too small for the number of pupils attending. At different times it was voted upon to divide the district but the motions were lost as were also motions to raise school money by taxation. This old Allphin school house was sold later to Wm. Allphin for $16 when the new Allphin school house was built.

In 1859 the voters began to talk of a new school house and selected a place as near the center of the district as the nature of the ground would permit but it was not until 1868 that the district accepted a site which Wm. Allphin came forward and proposed to give: a site of 2 acres near Fenn’s Butte on the south side of Allphin’s land claim, near the old brickyard. Dayton Simison was appointed to circulate a subscription list to procure money to build the school house, which he did, and raised $558.  In 1869 the new school house was built. It was 36 feet long, 24 feet wide and 12 feet to the eaves. This was the second school house to be called the Allphin School House. In 1879 it was voted to move this Allphin School House  and the move was made in 1885 to the S.T. Jones Place where Mr. and Mrs. Craft live, which is now the E.A. Chambers’ farm. It was then known as the Syracuse School House, and referred to as the Jones School House. This building burned in the summer of 1911. 

To go back to the pioneers of these years to whom we owe so much, we will mention some of the directors of District 20. They were Samuel T. Jones, John McCoy, Absolam Addington, J.J. Davis, John Meeker, Hiram Farlow, James Butcher, Thomas Allphin, John Weis, Elias Johnson, Christopher Farlow, Henry Johnson, John Wilson (for whom Wilson Lake is named), Wm. Hale and David Lewis. Many of these names we recognized by having heard them mentioned by our parents; also some descendants are living in the districts of Dever and Conner. I will mention these descendants now: Mrs. Myrtle Jones Graham and Charles Jones, descendants of S. T. Jones; Mrs. Zelma Davis Harnisch and Mrs. Davis Harnisch, descendants of J.J. Davix; Stacey Meeker Neeley, descendant of John Meeker; Elizabeth Cardwell Truax and Gerald Truax, descendants of E.C. McClain; Rebecca Crooks Hoefer, descendant of John T. Crooks; Dale Wills Harnisch, descendant of Dayton Simison. 

The clerks who served between 1854 to 1880 are also recognized as outstanding men. Their minutes in the record book clearly show their ability. These clerks we honor this night of November 5, 1954 are: Benjamin F. Redman, who served 7 years; E.C. McClain, 1 year; J.J. Davis, 2 years; Horace Farwell, 4 years; Dayton Simison, 7 years. Samuel Crooks, 4 years (elected in 1876). 

Now to honor our teachers. I will mention just a few of the most important: Benjamin F. Redman, the first teacher who taught 4 years; Lydia Miller, 1/2 year; W.L. Coon of Peoria, 3 months; L. Flynn, later an Albany banker, 3 months; J.D. Pruitt of French Prairie near Salem, 3 months; John S. Fenn, 3 months in 1869, 1872, 1873 and 2 terms in 1874; Peter A. Moses, 3 months in 1879; and T. Handord, 3 months in 1880. 

I know this District 200 was a typical frontier district, having their trials, such as lack of money, no roads, great distances to travel, which was done by horseback, and no conveniences. But they had their joys too. They had singing lessons, political rallies and church services. 

We do not know many exciting events of this period but we are told of two murders, two suicides and a big flood — the water being higher that at any time since, measuring 36 feet in Albany in 1861. I thank you for your kind attention. (Rebecca Crooks Hoefer)

 

HERITAGE JOURNALS: STORIES COLLECTED BY 6TH GRADE STUDENTS OF JAQUI EICHER, 2002

Written by: Lynn and Claudia Hoefer

“Arriving in the Dever Conner Community on June 3, 1926, the day of my birth, I was just in time to grow up in the Great Depression of 1929. A trip to Albany down an old gravel country road in the Model T Ford car without a top was seldom and an ice cream cone was a real treat. Coming home by Bob Groshong’s house was steep drop off in the road, not a gradual grade as it is now, and my father would try to slow the Model T down with one foot on the brake pedal and one foot on the reverse pedal and would would still gain speed down the hill.

“There are many memories of my early days in Dever Conner such as fishing in Wilson Lake, riding on my father’s old horse-drawn water tanker on a hot afternoon down to Blackdog Landing where river boats landed and brought and loaded much of the things needed in the community. Blackdog Landing reportedly got its name from an old black dog that would lay in the landing and greet the boats when they came in. The tanker was to haul water for spraying pesticides on my father’s hop field and we had to run a pump by hand with a 4 foot wooden handle which we pushed back and forth for about an hour to fill the tanker. Going back to the farm, we would stop in the shade of an old plum tree and let the horses rest while we had our fill of plums.

“I attended Dever School which was heated by a very large wood stove, kept full of wood by one of the boys. This was a privileged job as it broke the monotony of school each time it needed fuel. There was usually only one teacher in the two-room school and 25-30 students in 8 grades and several subjects: recitation, spelling, flash cards. The teacher did it all, and even had time to read for 10 minutes or some other interesting book, which we all looked forward to. Our teacher was also the chief disciplinarian and I remember well one young lady who on more than one occasion would test the teacher’s patience and authority with argument and stubborn rebellion until she would be forced to stay in at noon recess to continue her punishment. Being boys with inquisitive tendencies, the four of us would go around to the back of the school building to an opening in the foundation and crawl there to the underside of the room to listen in order to find out whether she’d give in before she received a good licking. We’d emerge dusty and dirty, brushing our clothes off. I don’t know if the teacher ever got wise to use or not.

“There were only gravel roads then with potholes and muddy water. Walking to school my first two years, later riding a bicycle, was how we got to school, rain or shine. Going was easier than coming home as we were riding into the wind and rain, standing on first one pedal and then the other, barely moving, sometimes even having to get off and push our bikes.

“I never attended school at Conner School. The land was donated by the Conners (relatives of my father) but we had many pie socials and Sunday School meetings in both the Conner School and the Old Dever Store. Sometimes things would get very interesting when some of the older men at the pie-socials would bid some girlfriend’s pie up high, causing much laughter and embarrassment. My mother always taught Sunday School in these old buildings, which were no doubt the forerunners of Dever Conner Church, as we know it now.

“Occasionally the boys who had to devise their own entertainment would gather in our old hop dryers, with its many ramps and catwalks, gather up corn cobs left from the corn shelling (or snow when it would happen to come around) and a real fight would ensue. Sometimes boys several years our seniors would join in and this was alright until they would decide to soak the cobs in water. Corn cobs (and snowballs) soaked in water are murder if you get hit and things would get really rough till everyone was too tired or smashed to continue. Girls were not excluded but I can’t remember of more than one or two joining in.

“Evenings were long and cold in winter: playing checkers or listening to an old Victrola with a Kerosene lamp for light in front of an old fireplace for heat (neither of which adequately served their purpose unless you were up really close.

“Among other memories was sitting between my father’s knees on an old tracklayer tractor, learning to drive down the long rows of hops or sitting with my grandmother on our front porch on a late, hot summer evening, watching sparrow hawks flutter and make their long power dive with an airplane-like sound.

“We had an old horse-drawn wagon which I will never forget for when we took it out on the gravel road the old steel rims on the wooden wheels would vibrate until it seemed your head and teeth were not a part of you and you would stand on your tiptoes to soften the beating.

“Old Dever Store and the railroad stop where Dever Conner Road crosses the railroad were not in use since I can remember but the buildings were still there. Now they are completely gone. Morningstar Grange Hall (the land for it was donated by my wife’s ancestor) was the site for many functions of the neighborhood. Grange meeting, Saturday night dances, fairs, etc.

“As times improved, cars got better and gas could be afforded. We would get someone to take us to town in Albany and when the district could not afford a bus, neighbors would chip in and fund some old school bus or an old truck. Eventually paved roads came and modern cars too. Dever Conner today is a thriving farm community with all the modern things.

“Maybe of no interest to anybody but ourselves, I married a city girl, Claudia Hannon, whose grandparents lived next door to my grandparents in the Conner community in the late 1890s. Coincidence or not, we still live on some of the original property and love Dever Conner,”

HERITAGE JOURNALS: STORIES COLLECTED BY 6TH GRADE STUDENTS OF JAQUI EICHER, 2002

Written by: Doris Davis Harnisch

“My grandparents James and Rose Davis were past owners of a donation land claim. Other places were part of this. Walt and I bought part of the Harnisch Farm and built a house in 1948 about a block from Conner School. WE have one or two ancestors buried in the old cemetery on the Bond Farm.

“My earliest memory of Conner School was when I was in the 3rd grade. We had a horse and buggy for transportation for about 2 years. I remember my sister and I sitting on a box in front of my parents who were on the seat. How nice our old used car was when we got it.

“When we finished the 8th grade we did a county test at school to get our diploma. Conner School was one room for all grades. Later the old building was used for a gym. A two-room school was built. Our daughter Janice attended school there for 3 years. It was then that Conner District consolidated with Jefferson. The old building burnt down. The old building was finally sold and used as homes for families. The first years of our marriage we didn’t have electricity. We farmed with horses and finally bought a tractor. We raised a small acreage of sugar beets for seed. We cut them early in the morning so seed wouldn’t shatter. We had help picking up cut ones, laying them back before the mower came around again. Another crop was flax. That didn’t last long. We hired it pulled and had help around the field cutting out any weeds. It was in bundles.

“What a change in farming now! During the war years we raised lots of cannery crops: corn, squash, table beet, dill and mint for oil, sugar beet seed. WE hired help to get out weeds by hand weeding. We did not use any sprays in those days.

“One day we were working in our carrots when Walt called out, “Hit the dirt!” What a sight to see us all flat on the ground. We looked up and saw a large swarm of bees passing over. We had lots of laughs over this.

“I spent many days in the field with the help. We appreciated the good help of the Pisheck family.”

HERITAGE JOURNALS: STORIES COLLECTED BY 6TH GRADE STUDENTS OF JAQUI EICHER, 2002

Written by: Marion Pesheck True

“I, Marion Pesheck True, moved to this very house I live in now, in 1937. Four of us kids went to Conner School that fall. Older kids went to high school in Albany and a younger sister was still at home.

“Conner School was a one room school with 30 kids, all grades, and one teacher. I was in 4th grade when I started at Conner School. The school I had gone to in North Dakota taught us to read by sight, not by phonics. So as I listened to the teacher teaching phonics to the first and second grades, I learned them too. That is one good thing about one-room learning. We had a softball team at school and would walk as a group to Dever School about 2 miles away to play their team. I even earned a letter C for my part in the team.

“My family lived 3/4 of a mile from Conner School and we walked in all kinds of weather. We even picked tomatoes (we raised them as a cannery crop) before going to school in the morning and again when we got home from school.

“The one-room school house got too crowded when more kids came to school and another teacher was hired. A curtain was strung across the middle of the school, making 2 rooms; one the lower grades and one the upper grades. The 7th and 8th grades were bused to Albany. The year I went to school in the 7th grade, 1941, they built a 2-room school for 8 grades. So I was an 8th grader in the new school. I was glad to be in the country school that year instead of going to town school.

“In 1942 I graduated from Conner School (8th grade). Also, George Atchison, Verle Lamb, Raymond Gwinnette and Lloyd Lovejoy. My two younger sisters graduated from 8th grade and went to Albany High School. In 1958 my cousin, Carroll Larabee’s daughter Kathy Larrabee Kennedy was to start first grade in Conner school. The school board chose to consolidate Conner School with Jefferson School. So since then this area is in the Jefferson School District. Kathy and her siblings graduated from Jefferson as did Perry Davis, David Harnisch and his sisters, and Bill Case and his sons and daughters.

“Now I am back in the farm house where I lived when my family first moved to Oregon. Perry Davis is still my neighbor as is David Harnisch, Dee Chambers, Bill Case and Lynn Hoefer.

“After the school consolidated with Jefferson, the building was sold and made into a home. It has changed owners several times. The outside is the same, but the inside is very nice and there is an inside stairway to a balcony for a bedroom.

“The tall fir tree that grew in the yard has been cut down before it fell. That was a land mark because it was so old.”

HERITAGE JOURNALS: STORIES COLLECTED BY 6TH GRADE STUDENTS OF JAQUI EICHER, 2002

Written for: Danielle Johnson

“There used to be several small community schools in the Jefferson area that were attended by neighborhood children. Most were one or two room school houses with a bell tower. These were gradually closed down in the 1940s and ’50s, but were attended by several of your relatives.

“Not, however, by your great grandfather, Varion Goin, who attended school in Jefferson. He rode his pony to elementary school, stabling it nearby during the day. By the time he was in high school, cars were being seen in the area. Varion’s father Alfred, bought one of the first cars in the neighborhood, but he didn’t like to drive it. So by the time Varion was 15 years old, he was driving the car to school.

“Varion had some health problems that caused him to not attend for a couple of years during high school. He returned and graduated in 1925, I think, where he liked to say he was second in his class. There were only two of them, which was a small graduating class, even for the time.

“Varion’s first three children: Veva, Bonnie, and Vernon, went to elementary at the Looney Butte School which was converted to a house. You probably know which building it is.

“Your grandfather Ace attended a small school south of Salem. If I remember right, it was part of the Salem District, but he lived on the boundary and was able to choose. He went to high school in Jefferson. You’d better ask him to correct my mistakes.

“Jim McManus was raised in Talbot. Local children went to their first three grades (no kindergarten in those days) at Talbot School, a one room school located where the Talbot Fire Station is now. After three years they transferred to a Sydney school for grades 4 through 6. It was located where the Kuzma family now lives. After 6th grade, they rode the bus to Jefferson for the rest of their schooling. By 7th grade, of course, girls and boys were pretty interested in each other (ok, mostly the girls were interested), so the ‘new’ students from Talbot were highly anticipated. They would be known to Jefferson kids and known of by others. There was much checking out of the opposite sex, and of the competition.

“My siblings went to Jefferson Grade School, which is where I expected to go. But it turned out my class was too large for one room, too small for two, so they bused 13 of us to the Conner School every day. Conner took local Dever-Conner students in grades 1-3 but the year I was there, there were only one third grader and three or four second graders. Most of my Jefferson classmates spent a year at the Conner School in first, second or third grade. The school was closed after my third grade.”

HERITAGE JOURNALS: STORIES COLLECTED BY 6TH GRADE STUDENTS OF JAQUI EICHER, 2002

Written by: Jerry Cox Nicholson, great-great-great grand daughter of Jesse and Ruby Bond Looney

“Jesse Looney was born near Knoxville, Tennessee and spent his youth and early manhood in the South. He was a first cousin of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States.

“Jesse Looney inherited land and many slaves as his heritage. Slavery was one of the local conditions under which he was reared, but early in life he espoused the idea of human freedom and decided to leave the land of his birth and its tradition of human slavery. He sought a place where he could rear his family under better influences. Jesse, with his wife and six children, joined a wagon train made up of many families. With Dr. Marcus Whitman as their captain and guide, they headed for the Oregon Country. They started on May 22, 1843 from Independence, Missouri and arrived in October of that year in what is now called Jefferson, Oregon.

“Jesse Looney showed his good business judgement in fitting out his family wagons. There were three. One was built like a boat, with a tight bottom, so as to ford the streams without getting the contents wet. One was called ‘fiddle’ because of its peculiar construction. In these wagons they had packed everything they could think of that they would need in the new country.

“Jesse and his wife Ruby Bond Looney chose for their donation claim a beautiful location about twelve miles south of Salem, known later as ‘Looney Butte’. The Looney cemetery is only 1/4 mile from this home and Jesse Looney (1802-1869) and his wife Ruby Bond Looney (1808-1900) are both buried there.

“Jesse Looney packed the wagons for their new home in Oregon Country. A jar of apple seeds was a dream for their new land. Jesse developed one of the largest orchards in the new country. When the apple trees all came to bearing, folks came all the way from California to get apples.

“The old Jefferson Institute which was located near where the present elementary school now stands was in operation from 1857-1899. The first enrollment was 89 pupils. Courses were taught from the elementary level up to the equivalent of two years of college.”