12.. Olson Family History

Charlie Olson: this home that we had here. This was 63 acres, then I had this Chapman 40 here that joined this, and that joined the whole thing. I logged, and continued to run the school buses until the timber was gone on those 40's, and then I sold them to Starker. I sold because he had some back of it and he wanted a way out. I sold all of it except ten acres over here, and on that 10 acres I built a house for my sister. And that is still over there. But there is a Bee man by the name of Williams that has it now.

12. Olson Family History

Bob Zybach: I don't know if you want to answer this on the tape or not, but when you said you had a step mom I assumed that your mother had died. But then your folks got divorced while they were living on this place here. Can you say the reason that they got divorced and maybe how your father met your stepmother?

Charlie Olson: Well, there was a kind of a . . there was quite a little bit of misunderstanding there. It was 7 years before he got enough money so he could bring them over here. And my brother grew up that first 7 years with nobody but my mother. And when he came over here, I already told you that he was a little bit inclined to walk around with a chip on his shoulder. That didn't start after he grew up; he grew up with it. And when he got here, of course, he just kind of wondered, what am I supposed to take orders from this guy for. That created quite a lot of friction. And he left home pretty early, and then of course my mother had a little tendency too, to kind of want to quarrel, and she would, she would keep pestering him until she'd get him mad. And he got pretty tired of that at times. I can remember my sister was a little bit older than I and she could see through it a little better than I. I remember when she was crying one time and said, "Why don't you leave him alone? You know that he'll get mad after a while when you keep nagging at him."

Bob Zybach: So then they just kind of didn't get along.

Charlie Olson: Well, that's about all that I can tell you on that. He and I always got along. And my sister and I always got along. And my mother and I as a rule got along, and she and her mother got along. But there was some times when it was funny, she'd get a stick about that long, she'd keep it in the wood box. And one night there was something funny, I don't know what it was, just some little thing in a newspaper or a funny

Charlie Olson: paper. And we started to laugh. And she wanted us to shut up. We tried to but, as hard as it was, and then I looked over at her and she happened to be looking and we couldn't hold it, we started to giggle again. And she went for that stick. We shut up. So, there's a quite a lot of little things. After I got older I began to realize a little bit more and a little bit more, and when a kid. . . I didn't side with him, I just didn't side. But if a kid will side with his parents when he's a kid, then he should side with his mother, really, naturally. There's no question.

Bob Zybach: How did your father meet your stepmother?

Charlie Olson: I don't know just how that happened. Probably in the paper. I think it was probably an add in the paper.

Bob Zybach: Because I was thinking he was pretty isolated and lived far away from everybody and then. Was she a pretty nice person, did you like your stepmother?

Charlie Olson: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. She had her characteristics, all right. And some of them was very, very odd. If there was any kind of a doings everything had to be just exactly so. She worked for Hoppy. She worked for them over in Europe. Mazur.

Bob Zybach: Mazur?

Charlie Olson: Mazur. You probably call it Mauser. She worked for Mazur.

Bob Zybach: What did she do? What was her job?

Charlie Olson: In his home, not in the factory. It was in the home.

Bob Zybach: So she was like a domestic or something?

Charlie Olson: I think his home was just a normal home but it was in the upper brackets, you know, and everything had to be just so. And if there was any special occasion, why every piece had to be different. And she was up on all of that. So very strictly up on that.

Bob Zybach: What did she think about living way off in the woods in Oregon after that then?

Charlie Olson: Well, I don't know.

Bob Zybach: How old was your father when he got remarried.

Charlie Olson: He was probably 60.

Bob Zybach: And how old was your stepmother, about the same age?

Charlie Olson: Oh no, she was probably 45.

Bob Zybach: You never told me what happened to your brother. He left home when he was pretty young, and where did he go live?

Charlie Olson: He started different projects, and most of them, and toward the latter part of it, it was just trying to farm, small farm. And he had 52 acres out of Albany, about 3-1/2 miles north of Albany, out there by Fir Grove. And he raised pigs and he had several cows and after a while he started in with red angus. He had twenty head of red angus. They were not registered, but they were capable of registration. And that's what he was doing when he died. I stayed with him and worked down there in that area quite a little while and at that time there wasn't any automobiles much, but he had a pretty nice little buggy. And before Camp Adair went in there was 2 lakes on this 52 acres, and to get to the house you had to go across one of them, and it would wash that buggy clean. It was always nice and red and clean. And that little mare he had on there was just about as broad as she was long, and pretty pokey, but you'd have to touch her up a little with the whip. When we'd get into Albany, we had to get into Albany once a week you know to buy grub, and when we went into Albany he figured we'd look more prosperous if we had a cigar. And he got some of these little Murials and he'd be smoking them. He wanted me to start but I wouldn't do it. And that got him started to smoking. And he hadn't smoked before. But he got started. And after I got away from there and went to work different places, I think he probably smoked quite a little bit all by himself you know, kind of pass time away.

Bob Zybach: He never got married or anything.

Charlie Olson: No. And he got pneumonia. And of course he went to Albany for a doctor there, and in those days there were no hospitals, so the doctor would come out. And he wouldn't cross that water, it was too deep you know. He'd walk across on the foot bridge. And he took care of my brother for a while. And then my brother called my mother, and she came down there and she got another doctor. And this other doctor gave this one hell that had been there. He wondered why he would leave a man in that condition. And he said, "It would get my car muddy every time I go out there." That was not a very good excuse but he used it. But this one that my mother got, had to take one lung out. He had pneumonia, and pleurisy, and that one lung was gone too far, so that he had to take it out, but he got all right. And he told him never try to smoke. And he went on for quite a while, and that just all went fine, you

Charlie Olson: know that one lung got as strong as two was before. And he was perfectly well. So he just got started again, started to smoke.

Bob Zybach: Just killed himself

Charlie Olson: And the first thing he knew there was something wrong. He didn't want to go to the doctors in Albany anymore. So he drove his little car over to Corvallis and went to the County Physician. I don't remember his name. And that guy gave him a shot and things started to happen. And he called Doe Anderson, this doctor called Doe Anderson. And Doe Anderson came down there and he called a ambulance and said, "Get him to my hospital as quick as you can." He was the only one, he had the only hospital in Corvallis, Doe Anderson. And then he notified me and I went in and he said, "Is your brother married?" and I said no. "He hasn't got a family?" and I said no. He said "I don't know if I can help him. He's farther along than anybody except Noland's." Noland had a boy named Tom, Tom Noland, I think that was his given name. And he said he was in bad shape, and he said "I did bring him out of it." But my brother was a little bit too far along, he almost told me what was bound to happen. And it happened.

Bob Zybach: Did your sister have any children?

Charlie Olson: No.

Bob Zybach: So your children are the only descendants from your family? How many grandchildren do you have now?

Charlie Olson: I can't tell you. Grandchildren and great grandchildren. Ted married a woman, a widow. And that widow had 4 kids. 5 kids, she had 5 kids. And Ivar married a young woman, first, she was a catholic. And things didn't go to smoothly on account of that catholic religion. And they had one boy, and then they separated, and then he married another woman and they got along okay, but for some reason after a while why it got kind of tiresome I guess, and they separated. They had one kid. And he married another woman, he's married to her now, and I don't know how many she had, I think 3. I think she had 3 boys, and she may have had a girl too. I can't keep track of all of them. And of course they have grown up now, and a lot of them have had kids. And the people that was here yesterday, that was Melvin's, that was our first boy's kids. I don't know how many kids they had.