B. APPENDIX B: SCHOOL DAY MEMORIES

APPENDIX B: SCHOOL DAY MEMORIES

Maxine Dickey: Unfortunately, Don died of liver cancer before he saw the transcript of the interview with Bob Zybach. I had told him that Bob said the tape from the Care Center, in spite of the interruptions and background noises, had been better than Bob dared hope, and that Bob was pleased with it. Don told many people that he really enjoyed doing the interview and visiting with Neil Vanderburg after so many years. He was looking forward to seeing the book. I think Don felt pleased to have been able to contribute information to a worthwhile project. He had many contacts with Oregon State University during the years - helping out with rodent control problems, attending reunions and get-togethers with a number of life-long friends that had graduated with him in 1942. He even taught occasional classes in Rodent Control for Professor Lee Kuhn of the Fish & Game Department. Don and Lee were batching together at the time Don and I got married, and they remained best friends all these years.

Maxine Dickey: I remember the first time I met Don. It was in 1938 when I went to apply for teacher at the Berry Creek School. His father was a member of the school board and his mother was the clerk. His younger brother, Kenneth, was checking out the prospective school-marm, but Don was in the dining room studying. At the time he was attending Oregon State.

Maxine Dickey: Berry Creek was a typical one-room school with desks of assorted sizes and a huge wood- burning stove. In 1938 there were 14 pupils, scattered among eight grades: Dolores, Lloyd and Herbert Beck; Mildred Goodin; Donald Lewis; Mabel, Mary Jane, Melvin and Morris McCoy; Emil, Emma May and Henry Parker; Billy and Ruth Vanderburg. There were at least 10 McCoy children, all of whose first names began with "M". In 1939-40 only 10 children were enrolled: the three Becks, Don Lewis, the four McCoys, Billy Ennis and Wilfred Ray, who lived with Forrest and Mabel Tandy. I boarded with the Tandys and their daughter, Edith, who was in high school. High school students attended Corvallis High School. The bus driver was an Oregon State student who boarded at Vanderburgs. A non-denominational Sunday School met at the school house on Sunday morning, taught by Mrs. Dickey, Mrs. Vanderburg and others, with an occasional visiting preacher.

Maxine Dickey: As I look back more than fifty years to those early days of teaching, I am surprised at all the things we did. We put on programs several times a year to which the whole community came. I remember especially the first year at Berry Creek we did a marionette show of "Jack and the Beanstalk." With the help of some of the mothers, especially Mrs. Vanderburg, we made and dressed the marionettes. Children of all grade levels participated, made the stage and scenery, learned to manage the strings on the puppets, made up the script and talked for the characters. A wild cucumber vine made a wonderful beanstalk, and a fresh one was always available, growing on the school ground.

Maxine Dickey: We published a school newspaper, carried on a great correspondence with one of my best friends who had moved to Baltimore, Maryland. She sent us many pictures and other things that kept a bulletin board full. In the spring we played baseball games with surrounding schools.

Maxine Dickey: Of course there were a few hazards, such as a frozen water pump, getting poison oak from carrying in wood from the woodshed, oiling the schoolhouse floor, and I might add, an unexpected visit from the County School Superintendent at least once a year. The good old days when parents didn't come to school to tell you how to teach!

Maxine Dickey: In the fall of 1940 the Berry Creek School closed because there weren't enough students. Those remaining were transported to the Tampico School, a few miles to the south. Don's brother, Ken, hauled them all in the Dickey car. I moved into Airlie to teach the upper grades (5 through 8). This was a two-story school with two high school rooms upstairs and two grade school rooms below. I taught there for two years, 1940-42, when this area became part of Camp Adair. Don and I were married in March, 1942, the second year I was at Airlie. The next year the remaining students were transported to Monmouth. Wow! The second school to close its doors after I taught there! Sounds as if my contribution to the war effort was to close the schools.

Maxine Dickey: In 1940, Clifford Stocker was the Airlie High School principal. He loved to argue, especially with the professors at Oregon State. He didn't really care which side of an argument he was on and often shifted sides in the middle. Antoinette Lambert from Salem taught the other high school room. She married Arthur Bose, who had gone to high school at Airlie with Don and Ken Dickey. The primary teacher was Mattie Swann, who had taught many years at Airlie. She had never married and had a lovely home at Lewisville. The next year, I was the only teacher who was not a Senior Citizen.

Maxine Dickey: By this time I had acquired a Model A Ford for transportation. All the teachers but Miss Swann boarded at the big McKibben house at the west edge of town. Several years ago at the annual Airlie Picnic, some of the high school boys of that time (now grandfathers) told me they used to stick a potato on the exhaust pipe of my Model A before I started home after school. I remember refereeing and keeping score for the high school girls' volley-ball games with visiting schools. I guess the most vivid memory I have of teaching at Airlie is the day the schoolhouse was on fire. When he went to stoke the furnace, the high school boy who was the janitor discovered a fire in the basement under the primary room. There being no fire department to call, after alerting the principal, he ran the two blocks to Weinert's Store for help. While we were getting the children out of the building (for a fire-drill, they thought), a bucket brigade of men appeared. They pumped water, by hand of course, from the well, passed the buckets along the line, and put out the fire. Life was often exciting, even in Airlie. The large McKibben family still consider me a member of their family.

Maxine Dickey: I spent one more year teaching in the Benton County schools during the early days of World War II. This was at the Mountain View School at Lewisburg on the highway between Corvallis and Monmouth. This school is now part of the Corvallis School District. I was principal and taught grades 5 through 8. Mrs. Gertrude Gragg taught primary grades. There were four rooms in the school and a covered playshed. As I remember, we had 16 to 20 students each. At this time Don was expecting to be drafted into the Army. Camp Adair was being constructed, his family had sold their farm on Berry Creek to the government and bought another farm near Wren. Don and I were renting a tiny house, really a converted chicken- house, from John and Lucille Milbrath on Philomath Road in Corvallis. The house was cute and comfortable with a wood stove for both cooking and heating. This stove was most appreciated during the storm of 1942-43 when we had no electricity for a number of days.

Maxine Dickey: Both families used it for cooking. John Milbrath was a plant pathologist at Oregon State and was largely responsible for the Rose Gardens at Avery Park. Don was working for the Oregon State Game Commission doing research on pheasant damage to farm crops. Early in 1943, I think it was February, Don was sent to Jackson County by the Fish and Wildlife Service to do Rodent Control on Camp White, which was being constructed near Medford. I stayed in Corvallis until my school term was finished in May. Don rode the bus all night Friday and back on Sunday to come home every two weeks.

Maxine Dickey: One of my worst problems during this time was my Model A and a dead battery many mornings. It was five miles to school, a bit far for hiking. Johnny Milbrath would get me started and I'd leave the car at the service station across the highway from school to have the battery recharged. Can you believe it was several weeks before they finally discovered there was a crack in the battery? Rationing was a fact of life. I got extra gas for driving to school. Meat and sugar rations were adequate. We could give coffee and cigarette coupons to friends or relatives since we did not smoke and I don't like coffee. We did not suffer. Everyone shared. There were no protest marches against the War. People did what was needed to help. Don's older brother, Leland, enlisted in the Army. Don was never taken because of his leg, and Ken was left to run the farm for his mother. My two brothers were in the Navy. People worried about their relatives in military service, wrote to them regularly, and did what was necessary at home.

Maxine Dickey: Don and I were married 48-1/2 years when he died. If we had it to do over, neither of us would have changed our minds. We didn't agree on everything. We often voted differently, had different hobbies and different backgrounds, but we both operated under the same moral and ethical principles and always allowed each other to do his own thing. We also did a lot of things together. We did a good job of raising our three children. We went camping, we participated in Girl Scout and Boy Scout activities and leadership, as well as school and PTA. Don was an excellent father in every way.

Maxine Dickey: After our children were grown, I became interested in genealogy. Don took many trips with me (as long as he could keep his feet or wheels on the ground). Sometimes he urged me to go with others, especially if it required flying. He was very interested in my findings. Even where we lived was a compromise. He was raised on a farm while I was raised in Portland. We ended up on 10 acres at the edge of Eugene where he could do his farm things and I could do my city things. He was an avid hunter and fisherman. He never expected me to go hunting, but we did a lot of fishing together. We accepted each other's friends and they became mutual friends. We were two individuals who loved and respected each other. We were a good team!

Maxine Dickey: Maxine Dickey Eugene, Oregon April 8, 1991