A Beautiful Day In Someone Else's Neighborhood

Last weekend my friend H. and I visited Oregon City. I mean, really visited. I've passed through O.C. (population 37,400) hundreds of times in my life. I've run a monthly kids' program there for nearly 2 years. But I've never dedicated an entire afternoon to just exploring the town. 

The day we chose to visit turned out to be beautiful, and I came bearing a list of places we could potentially check out.

Our first stop was the Straight Pioneer Cemetery (13014 Clackamas River Drive). Google maps took us in circles (and other shapes) before we finally found it. It's tiny, rustic, and tucked away off the beaten path. 

I'm assuming the Straights died after trying to caulk their wagon and float it.

Rest in what? We'll never know.

We found these cool bulbous things stuck to some oak leaves...

Next stop: Oregon City Antiques (1702 Washington St). We'd never been there, despite having visited about 20 other antique shops in the area. We've even passed through Oregon City to get to other antique shops (hello, Aurora!), but somehow managed to not realize this one even existed.

It was huge. And it had a basement, which was also huge.

Some highlights...

Mac Tonight, baby!

After spending at least an hour poking around the place (and buying a couple of things, let's be honest) we headed to Coin Corner & Hobbies (215 7th Street), which had been recommended by @BooneBuilds on Instagram. 

This place was also amazing. I'd never been in a store that had such a distinct devotion to toys from the 70s-00s. Barbies, LEGO, Micro Machines, Playskool, trains, Matchbox cars, Little People... and on and on...

I'd forgotten these existed...

Yeahhhh... those were seriously weird.

Next we took a little walk around the downtown area, grabbing a drink at Black Ink Coffee (503 Main St.), which shares a location with White Rabbit Books & Gifts, a cute little shop that I'd like to revisit.

Then we got back in the car and took a drive up the hill to about 4th and Madison. We proceeded to walk around this neighborhood. Lots of houses/yards were decorated for Halloween. Some yards were still works-in-progress.

We also checked out some of the historic homes...

And of course we admired some neighborhood cats....

Alas, we soon had to call it a day, but we definitely want to make a return visit! We have a shortlist of places we'd like to go on a future trip, including the Oregon City Municipal Elevator, St. John the Apostle Cemetery, and SuperThrift.

We'd also like to revisit the historic neighborhoods closer to Christmastime to see what kind of decor the residents will put up for that holiday.

So... maybe we'll be back soon!

 

The Corona Chronicles: Chapter 4 (Super Retro Oldtimey Historical Edition!)

As promised in my last post, I have something special to share with you today.

A while ago I went through a phase in which reading about disasters -- floods, fires, boats sinking, etc. -- felt oddly comforting. During that time, I read about the flu epidemic of 1918-20 (aka the Spanish Flu). A few months later, while transcribing some personal accounts my great-grandmother had written, I was drawn in to one particular part of her life story, one that I may have glossed over during previous readings: her own experience of contracting the flu in 1918.

In the fall of that year, my great-grandparents and their (then) five children lived in Denver, Colorado. They resided in the Globeville neighborhood, which at the time was known (and sometimes scorned) for its high population of Eastern-European immigrants. 

Elizabeth, my great-grandmother, had been born shortly after her parents arrived in the United States from Russia. (They were Germans living in Russia... interesting story, there.) Peter, my great-grandfather, was a teenager when his family made the same trip, and he later wrote about his long journey from Russia to America. Elizabeth and Peter married in 1908. They lost their first son, Adam, when he was a baby. By the time 1918 rolled around, they had five children: twins Anna and Marie (b. 1911), William (1913), Paul (1915), and Sam (1917).

In her memoirs, Elizabeth wrote:

That fall the flu epidemic broke out ... and believe me I really was sick. Then the children, one after another took down with it, all but Anna, nearly seven years, and Paul, 2 years old. Of course, I kept getting up and trying to tend to them, so I caught pneumonia. By that time [my husband] was down too, so they took me to the hospital.

Anna used to make tea, and fed the sick tea and graham crackers for a week. One time a visiting nurse brought some barley soup to us. It tasted heavenly.

My great-grandfather begged his in-laws to come and help take care of the family, but they were afraid of catching the virus, so they didn't come. This refusal was something my great-grandmother remembered for years to come. Two people did come: her sister (who soon took ill herself) and her father. Her father remained asymptomatic and was a great help to the family. However, he did have one shortcoming...

There was one thing my father could not do and that was the washing. There were stacks of bedding ... and he couldn't find anyone that could do the washing. Mr. Walker was a laundry man; he told my father to put the clothes out on the front porch and he would pick them up. But the laundry issued orders that they could not pick them up, so they laid there on the porch for a couple weeks. Finally my father took them in again. He would try to wash a little for the baby, Sam, and he would go to town and buy pillowcases and sheets and night clothes; so by the time I got well, we had stacks of bedding.

Finally, her father ran into an old friend at the store one day, and this friend agreed to do the washing. The family would thereafter leave the needing-to-be-laundered items on the porch and this friend would come and collect them. She ended up doing the family's laundry for three months while my great-grandmother recuperated.

Another neighbor, a Mrs. Kern, also showed kindness during the ordeal. Elizabeth wrote: She used to come to the door every morning to see if there was anything she could get. Several times she had my father get a chicken and she cooked it so we could have the broth.

By the time Elizabeth returned from the hospital, she had lost her hair, and her youngest son didn't recognize her.

Despite the kindnesses shown by her father, sister, Mr. Walker, Mrs. Kern, the unnamed laundress, and even the visiting nurse, Elizabeth still felt that many people had abandoned the family. She seemed to think that despite the health risk, neighbors and friends should have been less frightened about getting ill and more concerned with helping the sick. According to one account, it was precisely this attitude that may have contributed to the unusually high number of cases in Globeville. Many German immigrants that lived in this neighborhood felt bound, perhaps by their culture and familial bonds, to help one another. Perhaps because of this, Globeville, along with another neighborhood, Little Italy, received a prolonged closure order even after the closure orders for the rest of Denver were lifted. But it's clear from Elizabeth's account that not everyone in the neighborhood was keen on exposing themselves to this potentially deadly illness, not even to help a sick family member or neighbor. She never forgot who helped her, and who did not.

During the first world war, Elizabeth had joined a sewing club organized by the Red Cross. They kept up the club even after the war. During the flu epidemic, Elizabeth wrote, ...some of the doctors in Denver had a meeting about the sickness, trying to find out what to do for it. One doctor that had never tended a patient in Globeville mentioned something about the foreigners there being so dirty that was the reason there were so many sicknesses. Mrs. Campbell [the wife of a local judge, and fellow member of the sewing club] told him he better take that statement back. She said she had been in a good many homes and that their floors were scrubbed cleaner than most American peoples tables. She said they were clean enough to eat off them. A doctor by the name of Taylor who was the smelter doctor for a good many years and had a good many patients there told him he agreed with her, and he had better apologize. This doctor asked [Mrs. Campbell] why she was so concerned about these people, so she told him that she knew these people and loved them and as long as she would be able, she would visit these people and do all she could for them. She became a very close friend of mine and our family.

I find this portion of my great-grandmother's memoirs interesting, because it reminds me that my family was once scorned just for being "foreign." Two, three, even four generations later, we call ourselves "American," and some members act quite privileged. I have heard certain members of my family look down upon other cultures/immigrants. It's such a shame that so many people continue to fear/scorn/push away people from other places. But you are one of them!

Anyway, more about the Flu. My great-grandmother also wrote: There were so many people dead at that time in Denver that they could not dig graves fast enough, so they laid them in trenches, until it was all over, then put them in graves.

My great-grandmother doesn't mention any of her relatives or friends dying from the flu during that time.

Elizabeth went on to have seven more children. One of those children was my grandmother.

1939 Yearbook Photo Subjects Are Up To Something

It's yearbook photo time again!

Yes, kids, this is it! You've worked hard. You've gotten the grades. You've completed the extracurricular activities. Now you're mere months away from graduating!

So smile, won't you? You have a lot to be proud of!

Uh oh. Phyllis, what's on your mind?

Phyllis: "Nothing. I'm just tired."

Why are you tired, Phyl?

Phyllis: "I was up late last night. Doing homework."

And by 'homework', you mean...?

Phyllis: "I WAS HELPING TO ROB A BANK, OKAY? Ugh, leave me alone."

Okay, okay... so maybe Phyllis was a perfect angel in high school. But something tells me there was something else going behind those hazel eyes. Something a bit more sinister.

In fact, a lot of these students' expressions have me curious... and a little afraid.  So I'm going to do what any normal person with an overactive imagination would do... 

I'm going to surmise some crimes for them.

Because I'm totally normal.

But were they?

Name: Wilma Tyler

Accused Of:  Running up a huge tab at the soda fountain and never paying a dime.

😈

Name: Leonard Geare

Accused of: Posing as a high school student, but actually being old.

Verdict: Innocent. He just looked old. Movies and TV shows of the 80s and 90s would justify him at last.

😇

Name: Frank M. Hubert

Accused Of: Sneaking onto campus after hours to use the Linotype machine to print his underground newspaper, the GeeGolly Gazette, circulation: 14.

😈

Name: William Hughes-Pippin

Accused Of: Spiking the punch at every single school dance, even after he graduated.

😈

Name: Doris Atkinson

Accused Of:  Shenanigans involving chewing gum and slide projectors.

😈

Name: Robert Luff

Accused Of:  Placing a garter snake in Mr. Lerner's desk drawer and laughing maniacally while Mr. Lerner screamed.

😈

Name: Walter Jameson

Accused Of:  "Liberating" 30 frogs from the bio lab.

😈

Name: Judith Dernwell

Accused Of:  Abundant truancy.

Note: Irving Perkins down at the local bowling alley has confirmed that Judith was there a lot.

😈

Name: Elizabeth Trunkett

Accused Of:  Served as the getaway driver for numerous robberies and heists.

Note: Not only was she guilty, but she was actually the mastermind behind the schemes as well.

😈

Name: Juliet Dougal

Accused Of: Embezzlement of the Sophomore Class treasury money.

Note: Juliet vanished shortly after this picture was taken.

😈

Name: Dirk Pruitt

Accused Of: Involvement in the disappearance of beloved Janitor Mr. Hemsworth.

Oh, sorry, I meant the disappearance of Mr. Hemsworth's mop and broom.

😈

Name: George T. Johnson

Crime: Taking the "class clown" shtick just too, too far.

😈

Name: Leona Paulington

Accused Of:  Finding a lost wallet and not turning it in.

Note: She openly admitted to spending the wallet's $1.22 at the local automat. "It was enough to buy me an entire lunch and then some," she would later tell her grandchildren. "You could get a lot more bang for your buck in those days. Lord, but I miss automats."

😈

Name: Tom "The Bomb" Bachman

Crime: Forcing freshmen to turn over their milk money, so that he, in turn, could buy enough milk to quench his insatiable thirst.

Verdict: Guilty. The milk mustache did him in.

😈

Name: Horace Williams

Crime: Stealing from the church offering plate.

Verdict: Not guilty. He wasn't in church that day. He was parked up on The Hill with Norma Lamont.

😇

Name: Dena Joraldi

Crime: Hot-wiring the principal's car and driving it to Reno.

Note: She maintains it was her twin sister whodunnit, and that she has an alibi for the night of the 15th. "Wait, which night was the car even stolen? I mean, what car? I don't know what you're talking about."

😈

Name: Burt Hopkins

Accused Of: Licking library books

Verdict: Guilty of that and so much more.

😈

Name: Katherine O'Shea

Accused Of:  Deliberately flooding the girls' locker room.

Verdict: It wasn't deliberate.

😇

Name: Louisa Dunning

Crime: Too innocent to be accused of anything, Louisa still regularly practiced her mug shot, just in case.

Verdict: Boring.

😇

Name: Elton Quagmire

Accused Of:  Stabbing a fellow classmate with a compass, and not the kind of compass that tells directions; no, the pointy kind.

Note: "My sweetie Eltiekins would never," responded his grandmother, Helen A. Quagmire. "He's as innocent as a dove and wouldn't hurt a fly!"

😈

Name: Nancy Caldwell

Accused Of: Poisoning Principal Snard

Verdict: Motive? Yes. Evidence? No.

😈

Name: Ralph Wertz

Accused Of:  Starting the Great Lower Bedford Fire of 1939.

Verdict: Guilty... and yet... legendary.

😈👊

Name: John Vickers

Crime: Pouring tomato soup in the band's tubas.

Note: "I play the tuba -- why would I want to ruin my own tuba?" he protested, as his stomach growled ominously.

😈

Name: Janet Elmira Stevens

Crime: In progress

Right now.

BEHIND YOU.

😱

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note: The photos here came from a Portland, Oregon-area yearbook dated 1939/1940. Names, as well as crimes, are fictionalized. My apologies if one of these photos is of your grandfather.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------