Soap Creek Valley · Monograph #5 · 36 of 46

17. Gold Oak Tree Photograph

17. Gold Oak Tree Photograph of John Jacob & Wilma Rohner — printed pp. 84–85 — recorded September 30, 1990 at Jake Rohner's home, Benton County, Oregon (afternoon). Every printed page has its own permanent link.

Zybach, Bob 1993. John Jacob and Wilma Rohner. Family Farming on Coffin Butte Between World Wars, Benton County, Oregon: 1919-1941. Soap Creek Valley History Project, Monograph #05. Oregon State University Research Forests and College of Forestry, Corvallis, Oregon: 132 pp.

p. 47 = printed page 47 of the original book; the link on each page number is a permanent address you can send to anyone.

Provenance

From: #5 John Jacob & Wilma Rohner
Narrator: John Jacob "Jake" Rohner and Wilma "Willie" Rohner
Recorded: September 30, 1990 · Jake Rohner's home, Benton County, Oregon (afternoon)
Interviewer: Bob Zybach
Printed pages: pp. 84–85
Original: http://www.nwmapsco.com/ZybachB/Oral_Histories/Soap_Creek_Valley/05_Rohner/Zybach_1993.pdf
Accessioned: From Bob Zybach’s upload, 23 August 2026

Part III. Printed session note: "The following transcnpt [transcript] was made from an interview with fake [Jake] and Willie at fake's [Jake's] home, during the afternoon of September 30, 1990. After reviewing the initial transcripts, fake [Jake] and Willie provided written corrections and additions. These com,nents [comments] appear throughout the manuscript enclosed in [brackets] and include the initials of the person that has provided the information." Both narrators present; speakers are marked in the printed text as [JAKE] and [WILMA]. A note "Pause in Recording" appears at p.64.

p. 84

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: teams that played Tampico and Soap Creek and Suver.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] That was after my time.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] That was after your time, that was in the late '30's and '40's, when I was going to school. Boy we thought that was the greatest, man, we'd go play ball. One time one year we got to ride on the.. . instead of riding our bicycles we got to ride on the, what do you call them Jake? Scooters, that went down the railroad track and took the men down the track?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Oh, the section crew you know, had those things they'd pump em by hand.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Yeah, but this one was motorized.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Oh, that was motorized.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] At the time that we come. And they took us, we was gonna ride our bicycles down, and they said they was going to Suver and that we could ride down on their Scoot whatever it was, and some of us rode down on it. Boy that was a thrill. We had cheap thrills back in them days, compared to now!

Bob Zybach: Tobogganing on grass?

17. Gold Oak Tree Photograph

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Yeah. That's just the picture of that gold tree.

Bob Zybach: Well, it's got some stock in there too.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] And the straw stack there and all our brown swiss. I just was always kind of proud of them dumb old cows. I loved them.

Bob Zybach: How many did you have, about?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] We probably, we milked about 20 out there didn't we? One time we had more than the stanchions would hold at one time.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Yes. Well didn't we bring about 20 cows over here?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] I think so.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] And I remember we sold several at the auction.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] But see, in them days, there was just lake, if you could get him out of bed, and boy dad had an awful time with that.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Dad would turn on the radio real loud.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Real loud. Montana Slim.

p. 85

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Montana Slim. And that woke me up.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] That meant milking time. There was just three of us that milked. You and I and dad, wasn't it? And we had to milk them this way so you didn't get to milk 50 60 cows, man you'd peter out before too long, but 20 some was an awful lot to milk.

Bob Zybach: Were there any other families thai had brown swiss?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Well, Uncle Oswald had some, but not as many, a few. There wasn't too many brown Swiss around here. We always had to go quite a ways to get our bulls, didn't we, new bulls. In fact, you guys went down to Ashland or somewhere one year.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] One year we went down to Ashland and stayed with some friends that used to live in Corvallis, over night, and then got up to go back. Another time we went up to Washington, close to the Seattle area.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Yeah, and then we got quite a few there from Meyer, or something, wasn't that, around Beaverton or Portland area, up in there, but there was very few Brown Swiss around here.

Bob Zybach: What was the reason you had them?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Because, I guess because they was home to mom and dad. I mean that's what they had over in Switzerland. They're nice and fat, Dad always said they was easy keepers, they foraged a lot. They could get their own feed.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] They're a sturdy animal. And good milkers, not as much milk as a Holstein, but richer.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Not as much rich as a Jersey. But if they wasn't any good for milk, you had some meat. Where on a Jersey you didn't have no meat.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Yes, an animal if something went wrong with it, like maybe, three fits went bad or something, or it didn't produce very well, you had a lot of beef there to sell. Where with a Jersey you didn't. And weight wise they even beat the Holstein some.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] And they always looked nice and fat, where a Holstein when they milk heavy, they look kind of lean and lanky.

Speaker attribution inferred from typography where the printed page prints only Q and A.

How to cite this item

The first line is the citation as it is printed in the original. Use it when you cite the work itself. Use the second when you cite this page.

As printed: Zybach, Bob 1993. John Jacob and Wilma Rohner. Family Farming on Coffin Butte Between World Wars, Benton County, Oregon: 1919-1941. Soap Creek Valley History Project, Monograph #05. Oregon State University Research Forests and College of Forestry, Corvallis, Oregon: 132 pp.
This page: Rohner 1993. 17. Gold Oak Tree Photograph, pp. 84–85. America's School Trust Library, The Zybach Collection. https://schooltrusts.org/collections/zybach/soap-creek/m05-rohner/17-gold-oak-tree-photograph/ (accessed 2026).
Cite this passage: Rohner 1993, p. 84 — Monograph #05:84
https://schooltrusts.org/collections/zybach/soap-creek/m05-rohner/17-gold-oak-tree-photograph/#p84 Swap 84 for whichever printed page you are quoting: every page number in the margin is its own address.
Permalink: https://schooltrusts.org/collections/zybach/soap-creek/m05-rohner/17-gold-oak-tree-photograph/
Original PDF: http://www.nwmapsco.com/ZybachB/Oral_Histories/Soap_Creek_Valley/05_Rohner/Zybach_1993.pdf

More on citing this collection: How to cite the Zybach Collection.

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