8.. Hilda Olson

Bob Zybach: Did you know any of the Staats family in there at that time?

Charlie Olson: No.

Bob Zybach: When Airlie was there, do you remember any businesses? We found an old business called Kozy Nook Egg Farm. Did you ever hear of any thing like that?

Charlie Olson: No.

Bob Zybach: So, back in that area before the. . . when the Liggetis lived there had they lived there for a long time?

Charlie Olson: They had been there quite a while before I realized it because they went to that Airlie school. And when they first started to come over there to Soap Creek they were not very old. I wasn't very old. But as we grew up, it seemed to happen every year they'd get into a ruckus over there and get kicked out and they'd come to Soap Creek. They'd walk over the hill. It was quite a ways, quite a walk.

Bob Zybach: Would they go to the Airlie School, or the Berry Creek School, or the Savage School?

Charlie Olson: I don't think there was any Savage Creek school, I never heard of it. There was Airlie. I don't think they had a Savage Creek or a Berry Creek school, it was Airlie.

8. Hilda Olson

Bob Zybach: Okay. What year did your mother die? We're kind of going back now, back to your stepmother. But when did your mother die?

Charlie Olson: Hm?

Bob Zybach: When did your mother die?

Charlie Olson: My mother lived quite a while. She was 92 years old. Do you remember the date?

Mrs. Olson: [Mrs. Olson] I think it was '45, but I can't say for sure. But I think it was.

Bob Zybach: So did your folks become divorced then, and your father become remarried?

Charlie Olson: They were divorced. And she had bought a little place. I shouldn't say little, it was 444 acres, and it had been logged off. It was up above Wren. And it, I think it was valued at $2.50 an acre. And my sister had married a fellow by the name Bill Winney.

Bob Zybach: I think you told me before. He was the turkey farmer?

Charlie Olson: No, she started to raise turkeys. Bill was a kind of a beast. Just a kind of a beast. And he started to try to go with Hilda when she was about 14, and my brother

Charlie Olson: stopped that and told him to just stay away from Hilda or he would fix him so his mother wouldn't know him. And he knew that he meant it. So he stayed away from Hilda. But later on, Hilda got a job. When she grew up she got a job as a stenographer with E.E. Wilson. And E.E. Wilson owned a whole lot of this Camp Adair west of there. Now, that is later, but he at that time was just one of the oldest lawyers in Corvallis. But Bill bought a little place next to his father's place out on Oak Creek. And he started to clear that with this surplus World War I powder. $2.25 for a box. And it was good powder. I used it here. And he tied his little dog to a stump, set a charge of powder underneath it and lit the fuse and then took off. His father told that on him. And he didn't deny it.

Bob Zybach: Did he do that because he was just cruel?

Charlie Olson: I don't know. Just because he was a beast. And anyway, he painted for a living. His father was a painter, and he painted for a living but he wouldn't join the union. But he would charge union wages, and that way why he made money doing it. And he told me, he had his own secrets, you know, just sign up quite a lot of them and then you are just too busy to get on them until after it rains. And after it rains it won't take as much material. You take a contract, you know for so much, and you furnish the material. But it won't absorb much after it gets watersoaked. He thought that was smart, you know. But I didn't think so. But he disappeared, was gone for quite a while, and Hilda was working for E.E. Wilson, and suddenly, something happened so that she got word that he was in an apartment in Corvallis, and in pretty bad shape. And she went up to see him. And when she came up there she called Anderson, Doc Anderson. She went to the phone and called Doc Anderson. And he came up and he went to the phone right away and called an ambulance and said "Get him to my hospital as quick as you can." And he operated on him for a mastoid.

Bob Zybach: A what?

Charlie Olson: Mastoid. Mastoid, right back of the ear. And while he was in the hospital, Anderson told Hilda, UJ don't know. If I got it all, he'll be all right. But it was so close to the brain if it goes on there'd be no hope." But he had gotten it. And he got all right, and he stayed in the area. And after a while, why, he started to come and see Hilda. She was working. My brother was dead. And he somehow induced her, and that