Soap Creek Neighborhood

Bob Zybach: Did you move to Soap Creek Valley at that point?

Lorna Grabe: We first lived in town for a couple of months.

Bob Zybach: Corvallis?

Lorna Grabe: Yeah, in Corvallis.

Bob Zybach: Then you moved here?

Lorna Grabe: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: This location?

Lorna Grabe: Right.

Bob Zybach: Built this house at that time?

Lorna Grabe: No, this house was here; it was eight years old. It was built by the Hollisters.

Bob Zybach: Hollisters ... that's the same ones that are your neighbors now?

Lorna Grabe: Right, they moved next door.

Bob Zybach: Can you describe this valley at that time in general?

Lorna Grabe: There were probably twelve, approximately ten or twelve families living in the valley. We knew everybody that lived here and by name. And families knew each other because when they would have big snows or something, you know, you'd have to help each other out ... to get out of the snow drift and other things. There were no houses on Sulphur Springs Road up from where Soap Creek meets Sulphur Springs Road. Going

Lorna Grabe: up the hill there weren't any houses up there. There was just Ed Hollister at the corner, and then going down Sulphur Springs Road, Erma Lee Featherston lived down at that end and Dick Nordahl's parents -- I think it was Dwayne Nordahl -- and then coming up this way

Lorna Grabe: There weren't any houses on Moss Rock Road and Moss Rock Road didn't exist then, but there was a path through there. The only house there on that road was at the other end ... It was Barb and Dick Foster, that house there. And then coming this way, Yates' house was there, and then Jack Dolan and then the old red house was there, and Bessie and Dick Nordahl lived in that, and then our house, and then Hollisters built their house; and then going down the road, Rices ... there wasn't any other houses between here and Rices which are on the corner of Writsman and Soap Creek. There were none of those houses up in there on Writsman, none of them and then going down the road, Woodcocks' house was lived in by somebody by the name of Pool, and Shirley Deardorff. I forgot Doc Schell was there, and then there was somebody in College Farm, I don't know who it was, and then somebody in that old house, and then no one else until you get clear down to the corner. So like an end to our family.

Bob Zybach: What did most of the families do for a living?

Lorna Grabe: A few of them farmed, like Doc Schell and Hollisters, and Deardorffs had a few animals, but most of the people were