25. Local Blacksmiths

25. Local Blacksmiths

Bob Zybach: How about in Suver now, we were talking about the blacksmith shop before.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] In Suver there was a general store, and fact is there was another store, two stores in Suver in the real early times. A general store and the blacksmith shop. And he was one of the very best welders, the old blacksmith style welding, no acetylene, he did the old style hammering together. And he could do a wonderful job, a neat job, and so all our people around our area took their work to Suver. And when I was a boy he was my idol. I was going to be the blacksmith.

Bob Zybach: Now this was Mr. Oglesby?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Mr. Oglesby, yes. And they called him Tessie, I really don't know what his first name was. I believe it was T.P. Oglesby. And so I wanted to be a blacksmith, and later on they kinda had a night school out there at Wells, through the Corvallis high school, I couldn't make a successful weld hold, so I finally gave it up. But he was the real type, that when you think of the village blacksmith, that was him. And a big, husky man. And a very pleasant man. And his forge was a hand cranked, it was cranked by hand and it had a little whine to it. And he was always humming, or whistling, mostly humming a tune. That was back in the days when there was "Springtime in the Rockies", and "Red River Valley", and that. And I just loved to hear him hum those tunes.

Bob Zybach: Now you mention those two tunes, can you think of any other tunes he hummed?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Off hand I can't. It was mainly those two, and several others. Fred Stump owned the Suver store and a man by the name of Joe James was a clerk in the store. Highway 99 was about a half mile west of Suver, so he moved his store there. Later Mr. Oglesby moved his blacksmith shop also to the highway across from Alfred Flickinger's service station, and they got more business.

Bob Zybach: Is that the store that's there now, Richard's store?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Yes, that was originally the old Suver store.

Bob Zybach: Oh, okay. Now Richard's store then was, Stump owned it originally in old Suver?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Stump owned it and then moved it up there and still owned it for a few years. And then later he decided to give it up. And I don't know if he himself sold it directly to Richards or who bought it. Of course we were moved away from Camp

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Adair by then. And then Mr. Oglesby also moved his shop, so he built the blacksmith shop just catty-corned across the store, the opposite corner.

Bob Zybach: Is there a building still there now, where his shop was?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] I don't believe the building is there anymore. It was for a while and they used it for another business after he quit blacksmithing.

Bob Zybach: What were blacksmith, what would a blacksmith build? What kind of products would they deal with?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] More or less anything with steel. If you broke a part of course the blacksmith without an acetylene welder couldn't weld a cast iron piece. But anything that was regular steel, he could weld it together. By heating it and hammering it and then tempering it. I bought my first car in 1929 and my father traded in a 1924 Model T Ford for a 1927 Model T Ford Roadster. So Mr. Oglesby took the turtle back and built a beautiful wood and steel pickup bed on the Model T.

Bob Zybach: Out of the Model T?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Out of the Model T, yes.

Bob Zybach: And so is that when you would see him would be like working on your dad's stuff?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Yes, yes. Whenever my father would take something down there. Especially when I was a little younger he used to take me along. And later years of course I didn't go along as much because I would be working out in the field. Or maybe he'd send me down to the shop rather than himself. Something welded together or a certain piece made. But he was really my idol.

Bob Zybach: So when you were a little kid, that.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] That's what I wanted to be, a blacksmith.

Bob Zybach: U/i huh. Just like Mr. Oglesby.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Just like Mr. Oglesby.

Bob Zybach: What ever happened to him?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Well, he finally retired, and then I suppose be moved somewhere else, from Suver.

Bob Zybach: Oh, you didn't keep track of him.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] No, we lost track somehow or another. So I don't know when he died.

Bob Zybach: One more question. On the cabin next to the Writsmans, we looked at it and there was

Bob Zybach: walnut trees, and then you remember later that you used that for walnut storage?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Yes, I remember some form of a house there. As I remember it was a log house. But I do remember the Dobrinins. I worked with the Dobrinins quite a little bit, off and on. Harvest time. And they used it to store walnuts in there. And they kept disappearing, I don't know if squirrels got in there to get the walnuts, or rats, or what.

Bob Zybach: I've got everything on my list covered. Can you think of anything else that we haven't?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] No, not right now.

Bob Zybach: Well, I'd sure like to thank you, this has gone really well. Willie, can you think of anything else that you'd like on the tape. I'm just about ready to.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] No, because I don't know nothing about the blacksmith shop. Except the man, I just remember him.

Bob Zybach: Oh, you remember the person that replaced the blacksmith? The boxer. Wrestler.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Oh, the wrestler? Oh yeah, he bought it after.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Yeah, he evidently bought it from Mr. Oglesby.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] And ended up being one of Jake's friends, I don't know how come. He'd come up there and wanted to go out drinking. I think you guys used to go out drinking a lot.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] He lilced to drink and go to carnivals. And then he'd challenge these carnival wrestlers, you see. And we'd go maybe to.. . I think he didn't have any transportation.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Maybe that's why you run around with him.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] I'd take him to the strawberry fair, the carnival over there. Or to Newport at the crab festival or things like that.

Bob Zybach: They had the crab festival in Newport back in those days?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Cause they just started that up again here a few years ago.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Oh, they quit it?

Bob Zybach: Yeah, 30 years I think.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Anyways, whenever he'd come up. Well, when he come up that one night especially he wanted to learn how to milk and I think he was half crocked so he

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: gets behind me instead of setting down. I wanted him to set down and take the cow over, but he didn't. He got behind me and I had to hold the bucket, and he squeezed that old cows tits so hard they just turned white. Well they wouldn't give out any milk that way. And the old cow she kicked, I thought I was a goner. But he just grabbed that leg, that laugh he had tickled me, because he grabbed her you know like that. He could hold a cow leg with one hand he was so strong.

Bob Zybach: He could keep the cow from kicking?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Yeah, she'd hit some, but it couldn't hit you hard, you know. And he'd go "heh heh and he just laughed. He thought it was funny. But I was scared. That was one boy I didn't want to tangle with, no way. I'd want him on my side anywhere I went.

Bob Zybach: Would he have been maybe the last blacksmith that was in this area?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] No, another one finally took it over, and that was Ivers, one of the Ivers. Well, Camilla, I think, Camilla Ivers's husband. Meyer, I think was his name, I don't remember for sure, took it over for a while. I can't remember how long he had it and I think he was the last one.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Sam Suver never worked in the blacksmith shop. He hung around there all the time didn't he, though.

Bob Zybach: I can't remember a blacksmith shop when I was a kid and they must have just ended, maybe World War II?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Yeah, it probably did because Suver went with it.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] I think about that time. Huh?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Suver went with Camp Adair.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Yeah, the Suver area did. There weren't any more customers much. Just east of the highway there was customers, but all the customers west of the highway were bought out by Camp Adair, see.

Bob Zybach: But how about blacksmith just as a profession?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Oh hell, west of the highway was Camp Adair, sure.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Yeah, that was all Camp Adair. The whole cotton pickin' works was.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] So you see that folded the blacksmith shop and the whole works.

Bob Zybach: How about any blacksmith shops they had in Corvallis?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Used to be Dannels in Albany.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Dannels, and that was a good shop. And there were two blacksmith shops in Corvallis.

Bob Zybach: When did they finally go out of business?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] That I couldn't tell you. Dannels went for years after Camp Adair.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Well Dannels did. In Corvallis one of them went out and then the other one stayed for quite a few years.

Bob Zybach: So blacksmithing

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Has gone. It's been gone for a number of years.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Really isn't much blacksmithing anymore outside of like horseshoes.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Well they call them something else, they don't call them blacksmiths anymore. What do they call them?

Bob Zybach: Ferriers.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Ferriers, yeah. It's nearly all electric welding and acetylene and that type of thing.

Bob Zybach: Blacksmiths got replaced with welding shops.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Welding shops, yeah. There's welding shops and ferriers now. Fact is there's a welding shop just down below us here about less than 112 a mile. But he specializes more in aluminum and boat motor welding.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] And the guy right down here 1/2 a mile is a horseshoer.

Bob Zybach: So basically the metal work turned into almost horse shoes and then other metals, like aluminum and stuff came in and replaced the kind of work they would have done.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Yeah, to get anything welded you go to a weld shop now.

Bob Zybach: Need aceiylene torches and that.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Yeah. They don't hammer out plowshares and stuff like they used to in the blacksmith shops.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Now they just I think wear those plowshares. . . oh, they have narrower shears now, replacable blades. And when they wear out they just throw them away and put new ones on.

Bob Zybach: So there's just so much manufacturing, there's different kinds of metals and dtfferem kinds of heating processes.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] And they use, I think they called it "Studite", I don't know what it is, to weld on the face. So it was so blooming hard you could just plow and plow and plow until it wore out.