1.. Family History

Part I. August 8, 1990 Interview

1. Family History

Neil Vanderburg: My, both sets of my grandparents, [Elton Dorr and Dorothy Louise Rose Vanderburg, and William de Ruchie and Nellie Wilson Rose] were quite well to do. My mother's family had servants. And she had never cooked or washed a dish until she got married, so

Bob Zybach: Okay. Let's see. This is Neil Vanderburg. We're at 530 NW 15th on August 8, and we're talking about his family history. So we start with your mother's family, and they are well to do. Do you know who your great grandparents were on your mother's side?

Neil Vanderburg: No I don't and it can't be traced because my mother was born in Canada and you can't trace your family tree through Canada unless you are one of the people in there so my daughter [Mary Stone] has not been able to go back. My grandfather and grandmother were both French [Editorial Note: These are Neil's great grandparents. A few of Neils other memories regarding family history contain minor errors. Please refer to Appendix A for a detailed history and genealogy

Neil Vanderburg: over from France, into Canada, and my grandfather's name was William de Ruchie Rose, changed to Rose after the family came to the United States, and my mother's name was Dorothy Rose. But they, he did a lot of investing in real estate and they were financially capable so that they went down into the Buena Park area which is down by Knotts Berry Farm, they had a whole city block there for their home and their servant's quarters. I have seen it but it is now in part of a freeway. And anyway they would go down there in the winter time and in the summer time they went back to Canada each year. So my mother went back and forth and she never became a citizen of the United States actually, except through marriage. My mother had a brother who was about her age who was, we called him Bud Rose, his name was Clarence, and he was an artist and a painter. He and my mother were, oh, about 7 or eight years older than their three younger sisters. And I don't, I'm not positive whether they had the same mother or not [They did.]. My grandfather had three different wives through death, he never had a divorce, it was through death, but anyway there was a gap between the two older ones and the three younger ones. Strangely enough, the three younger ones are all still alive and they are up over 85 now, so

Bob Zybach: So your mother was one of the two older ones?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah, Bud and she were the oldest ones.

Bob Zybach: Now your great grandfather and grandmother Rose both were French?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah, but they came from, one came from northern France and one came from southern France, and they could hardly understand each other in their French language.

Bob Zybach: So they met in Canada?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah. [Story deleted here: See Appendix A]

Bob Zybach: So your sister is the one doing a family history.

Neil Vanderburg: No that's my daughter [Mary (Vanderburg) Stone].

Bob Zybach: Daughter is doing a family history.

Neil Vanderburg: My sister [Ruth (Vanderburg) Monroe] lives up in Canada now. She loves it and lives up the Kamloops area.

Bob Zybach: Is that where your grandparents are from? The Kamloops area?

Neil Vanderburg: They were on north another 150 miles or so, and she went on up to where they had lived. I have pictures of the mine that my dad took. Whether I could find them after the move or not, it would be a little hard probably. Anyway, that about covers my mother's side.

Bob Zybach: Now when they were in Canada, then they came down to the United States, do you know why they moved down to the Knotts Berry Farm area?

Neil Vanderburg: I think probably for climate.

Bob Zybach: So they had just gotten tired of Canada. . Do you know what year they moved down to the

Bob Zybach: United States?

Neil Vanderburg: I understand my mother was born Christmas before the turn of the century. Seven days before the turn of the century. And I understand that her first trip to California she was two years old, supposedly. But they made that trip back and forth and I think probably they didn't like the winters in Canada. And they had the money so they didn't have to stay up there in that. . . cause that's pretty far north there and pretty cold, and inland far enough to make it colder yet.

Bob Zybach: So she was born Christmas Day, 1899. She had an older brother?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: And that would have been by your grandfather's first wife. Then about 1901 the family started going back and forth between Canada and the United States. So when did your grandfather's first wife, [See Appendix A] your grandmother, when did she die?

Neil Vanderburg: I. . . let's see I would have to figure back by my. . . one of em died about, around 1920 [Feb. 2., 1918], right in there, because when she died, my aunt Esther came to live with us, and she was in the home when I was born. So I was always like her son, because she later had three daughters, so I was always really important to her, because I was her son, and am to this day, and that's another story, of course.

Bob Zybach: That would have been one of her younger sisters?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah. That was her youngest sister.

Bob Zybach: Now, if somebody wanted to get the genealogy from your daughter, what is her name and address?

Neil Vanderburg: Her name is Mary Stone, and she lives right here in Corvallis, and the easiest way to get ahold of her is she operates the Bible book store [Christian Supply Store] here in Corvallis across from Fred Meyers there on Fillmore Street.

Bob Zybach: And she's got the genealogy of your family?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: So anybody that wanted to find out when your grandparents were born, when they got married, when you kids were born, where your parents. . . where they lived, she'd be the person to talk to.

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Good, that'!! save us some tape space here.

Neil Vanderburg: She has traced my father's side to a Vanderburg that came across, and well at that time it was three words and "h" on the end of our name.

Bob Zybach: Now when your great grandfather came back out to California, was your grandfather already born, or was he a native of California?

Neil Vanderburg: I have no idea back in that history. You know, my grandfather had a brother. And I met him one time when I was probably 5 years old. And that's really all I know about my, on my grandmother's side, her mother was still alive, she broke her hip when I was probably 3 years old, and I remember her in bed, that's all I know about anybody further back than my grandfather and grandmother. My grandfather and grandmother [Lester and Jennie Hiserodt Vanderburgh}, if you put them in a shower and got 'em soaking wet, and put them on the scales, the two of them together wouldn't weigh 200 pounds.

Bob Zybach: Small people?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah, my grandfather was 5' Il", my grandmother was. . . or I mean 4' 11", my grandmother was 4'9".

Bob Zybach: Wow.

Neil Vanderburg: I think the most riy grandmother ever weighed was 84 pounds.

Bob Zybach: And those were the Vanerburgs.

Neil Vanderburg: That was the V. derburg side. And so they were all . . everybody was quite

Neil Vanderburg: surprised that no e of us ended up that small. As you can see, I'm not small. But I do have 2 daugh ers that are only 5'2". But. .

Bob Zybach: Now Vanderburg, your randfather, may have been brought over with his father to California,

Neil Vanderburg: Very likely. [See Appendix A]

Bob Zybach: Or he could have been born there in California.

Neil Vanderburg: Well you see my dad . . . yeah, he was probably born in California because my dad was born in 1896, so 1876, it'd been probably . . . I think my granddad was at least 30 when my dad was born, so that wouldn't go back to 1949, so.

Bob Zybach: Or 1849.

Neil Vanderburg: I mean 1849. So there had to be a generation in there, so.

Bob Zybach: So he'd be native CaIfornian quite a ways back.

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Now then, your grandmother, what was her maiden name?

Neil Vanderburg: That was Heisert.

Bob Zybach: Do you know how her family got to California?

Neil Vanderburg: I have no idea [See Appendix A]. I know that the Heisert family was kind of more bullish than the Vanderburg side, because my dad had a cousin and he was always restless in church, and so his mother asked my grandmother how she kept my dad quiet in church, and she says "I just reach over and pinch him." So the next Sunday, well, while I'm talking here I'm thinking I'll come up with my dad's cousin's name, but I haven't anyway, right in the middle of service he just stood up and he says "Now you quit pinching me!"

Bob Zybach: So it didn't work for that side of the family.

Neil Vanderburg: No, not at all. But I knew him and he was that way. But anyway, then all of my dad's children, he had six, and five of them were born in California, and my youngest brother was born out there at Berry Creek.

Bob Zybach: So there's six kids in your family.

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Then your mom, from about 1901, she's going to California during the winters and going to school there. And your dad, when was he born?

Neil Vanderburg: 1896.

Bob Zybach: So he was just a few years older than.

Neil Vanderburg: Four years.

Bob Zybach: How did they meet?

Neil Vanderburg: I think they probably met at school. Because in these annuals I see both of them.

Bob Zybach: But he's a few years older than her.

Neil Vanderburg: He's a senior and she's a freshman.

Bob Zybach: I see. So, when did they get married then?

Neil Vanderburg: They got married in 1917. [May 1, 1918]

Bob Zybach: So she was just about graduated from high school?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah. She was a year out of high school and of course this wa, my dad went into the service in 1917. See he was, well he would have been 21 en, but he, I don't know, he was going to college I think or something and they ap iarently didn't draft him until, I believe it was 1917, and he was drafted. And they ot married about the time that he got drafted. And he spent his World War I time up in Washington in a sawmill. And it was a sawmill because his eye sight was very oor. Actually, he was a wonderful accountant, and you could read his figures from cle across the room when he wrote 'em. But he had one eye that was blind and act ally he worked for Union Oil Company when I was real small as an accountant and he had to give up because his eyes were really going down hill and they didn't ha e the doctors they do now. And I remember when I was about 4 years old, well one ight he was working

Neil Vanderburg: graveyard and my mother was doing something so he took me to work with him, and his job then was storekeeper in Union Oil warehouse, ordering parts and all the valves and all the stuff they use in the well drilling down there. And that was his job. He put me to bed on a bench there but I had one eye open watching what was going on all the time 'cause I was always a mechanic from the time I was a little bitty person. I was interested. Now, I got lost, where am I?

Bob Zybach: Let's see. Your mom and dad got married, and then he got drafted in the war and sent to the sawmill, but to back up just a little bit, what did his parents do for a living? Your grandmother's were wealthy real estate.

Neil Vanderburg: My grandfather on his side was into real estate, too. And he bought homes, fixed them up and sold 'em. He was a good carpenter and painter and had a good eye for what he could make money at. And he really got creamed in the Depression because he had a bunch of houses sold on contract and people didn't make their payments, so they lost 'em back to him and he lost 'em to the bank, and so he went from a rich man to quite a poor man. However, he did have 160 acres of walnuts in downtown what is now Fullerton, just right off of Chatsworth, and when my grandmother died, before she died, I was up to see her one time, and Chatsworth was four-lane street, probably 50 mile an hour street, and she'd walk out her back door and just walk right over to Alpha Beta market right across that four-lane highway and never look either way because she was just walking the back place there. She never realized that the town had built up and she thought she was walking on the farm. And I was very surprised she lived to die of old age, but.

Bob Zybach: On the Vanderburgs, how many kids were there?

Neil Vanderburg: In my dad's family there was Clarence, his older brother, and his sister Velma, and him.

Bob Zybach: Were the three of them as small as their folks?

Neil Vanderburg: No. Velma was. Velma was very small. And she was almost totally blind before she died. They all had glaucoma and they didn't know what to do about it in those days, and so it took their sight, and, yes she was small. But my dad was about 5'7" and so was Uncle Clarence, and that was smaller than average but big enough so I couldn't wear my dad's pants when I was in the eighth grade.

Bob Zybach: So, he married your mom, and then he got drafted. Do you know what town that sawmill was in that he served his time in?

Neil Vanderburg: Well, he was in the Vancouver Barracks.

Bob Zybach: In Vancouver, Washington.

Neil Vanderburg: That's where he lived, and they transported him to the mill, so I suppose it was probably down along the Columbia River. Vancouver Barracks isn't in Vancouver, though, is it?

Bob Zybach: Well yeah, basically, but they had the spruce mill, say in Toledo, Oregon was controlled out of Vancouver Barracks. So they had the whole spruce division going, I think, from that area.

Neil Vanderburg: Well I can't say where he.

Bob Zybach: But he was stationed at Vancouver Barracks and he worked in a sawmill out of there until the war ended?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: And then, then what did your folks do for a living?

Neil Vanderburg: Well, there was one other thing that might be of interest. My mother got the World War I flu. .

Bob Zybach: Oh, that influenza epidemic of 1918?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah. And she almost died, and she was pregnant with my oldest sister [See Appendix Al. So they decided they had to take the baby to save her life and so they did, and my oldest sister lived. And at that time she was the smallest baby that had ever lived on record.

Bob Zybach: Is there any kind of clippings or newspapers in your family about that?

Neil Vanderburg: No. My dad said she'd fit into the palm of his hand and her head would come up to about here. And he wasn't a very big man. And so she was pretty premature. But anyway, that was one of the highlights of their early marriage. My mother, when she came to, she didn't believe she had a daughter, and she didn't know it for a week or two for sure until they could finally bring her in to see her. But she did recover from the flu.

Bob Zybach: How many children. .. was that the first child then?

Neil Vanderburg: That was the first child.

Bob Zybach: Then how many more children?

Neil Vanderburg: There was three girls older than I am, and then me and then my sister that's in Canada [Ruth] and then my youngest brother who is an electrician out here at Leading Plywood in Philomath.

Bob Zybach: Oh, so you have got quite a bit of your family in the Corvallis area now?

Neil Vanderburg: I have a sister in Washington. My second sister [Wilma] died many years ago and that is the one whose husband married the daughter of the first forest ranger in Oregon.

Bob Zybach: Oh, okay. It's a.

Neil Vanderburg: Orval Cummings.

Bob Zybach: Okay. He's the one that took the deer into the Smith area, the Greenberiy Smith area.

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah. He took them in there apparently about 1934. He got a couple fawns. He worked for Doc Howard in Corvallis. Doc Howard ran a bunch of sheep and my brother-in-law lived up in the Alsea area and herded sheep for Doc Howard, made fence and so forth, and he, when we moved to Oregon we were pretty hard up so he decided we needed some help eating and so he took my dad up there on the south fork of the Alsea River with a pitchfork and cork boots and he brought back about 30 salmon and smoked them and since they're not traceable, I can tell that story. But we had smoked salmon that year to winter us over because we were really hard up.

Bob Zybach: Let's go back to 1918, World War I, and your dad came home. Was he there when your oldest sister was born?

Neil Vanderburg: No, my oldest sister was born in Fullerton. My next oldest sister Wilma was born in that area some place. Then my dad bought a ranch out in the Mojave desert out there by Lancaster, and it had an artesian well on it. And my sister Audrey was born there, and the story on that was that no telephones, of course, and my dad got in the Model T and headed for town to get the doctor and he hit a chuckhole and the wheel went like this and the Model T tipped over and by the time he got it tipped back over on its wheels and got the doctor and got there my sister was already born. But anyway, and then they moved to Baldwin Park where I was born, and I don't know what he was doing at that time.

Bob Zybach: What year were you born?

Neil Vanderburg: I was born in 1923.

Bob Zybach: So in just five years there he had. . . do you know what he was doing while he was still

Bob Zybach: living in town?

Neil Vanderburg: Oh, he was tied in with Union Oil Company, I believe, from the time he got out of the service until we moved to Antelope Valley the second time, which was in 1929.

Bob Zybach: And that's the area in the Mojave Desert?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: How big a place did he buy there?

Neil Vanderburg: The first time he had 40 acres right on, near on Dry Lake. But I think he worked in town for Union Oil, I don't think he farmed that. Then, when I was born in Baldwin Park, he was farming. That Baldwin Park of course is all city now. It's between Los Angeles and San Bernardino. Then he moved to Chino, when I was fairly, pretty young, and he left Chino when I was two. My mother one time realized that I had a fantastic memory and she asked me what I could remember furthest back. And I told her, well, I could remember my dad out plowing with a team of horses and they had these pushers that they pushed the laundry in when they boiled it. I was riding one of those for a horse and I had a black and white and brown dog and I was following my dad down the furrow. I said there was a big corral there, I think it was probably a bull pen and some cows, but that's all I can remember. And she says, well, she says "That was Chino and we left there quite a bit before you were three years old." So, anyway...

Bob Zybach: What kind of crop was he raising?

Neil Vanderburg: He had milk cows. He had a big dairy there. And he [his cows] got hoof and mouth disease and lost the whole thing. And so then, from there he went to Brea, California, and he was back working for Union Oil Company then, that was the time when I remember sleeping on the bench at Union Oil. And, by the way I can drive right up to the house we lived in Brea and we lived there when I was four.

Bob Zybach: The house is still there then?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: And you can remember where it's at?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah, my wife and I when we went on our honeymoon, we were driving through Brea and all at once I made a turn, and she says "Where in the world are you going?" and I said "I think this is the street I used to live on." Drove right up and I says there's the house. When I was four years old! So anyway, then in 1929 of course my grandfather lost about everything he had and my dad kind of took the tumble with him. And I do know that my dad before he got married bought 40 acres and planted it to an orange grove, and he made quite a bit of money off of that when he sold it, but he could have made more money off of it because it was right in the Disneyland parking lot now. I told him he should have kept it and he says "I couldn't have paid the taxes on it all those years."

Bob Zybach: How about the . . . so your grandfather Vanderburg lost pretty much everything in the stock market crash in 1929?

Neil Vanderburg: Well, actually, it wasn't the stock market, it was real estate loss.

Bob Zybach: Was that kind of related?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah, it was all related, everything fell.

Bob Zybach: How about your grandfather Rose?

Neil Vanderburg: Uh, I don't really know. He died just about 1929 [February 11, 1930]. Cause I was. well he died jUst after we moved to Lancaster. And we moved to Lancaster in '28 I believe it was. And we just got moved up there and my folks took my sister and I