F.. The Dodson Place

Bob Zybach: Had they lived here for quite a while?

Neil Vanderburg: Well Gilbert and his dad lived over at this next place, where the Mulkey's moved in, and there was also a Gene Ennis and they farmed this hillside here where the Christmas trees are on this side of our place. And he, they farmed over there, and after the old man died the family just kind of disintegrated, and went their separate ways and Gilbert ended up here. Gene Ennis was kind of interested in my sister Audrey who was just older than I am. And when we were thrashing one time, well my mother made some biscuits and she stacked them very neatly in a pyramid, and they used their knives instead of forks, and the only thing forks were good for was to stab the slice of bread with and Gene stabbed the biscuits and the biscuits scattered all over and we all had biscuits in our lap! And he was embarrassed!

Bob Zybach: But they ate with knives?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: And so they were kind of primitive, in.

Neil Vanderburg: That's the way, I guess, people from Germany or some place, it was quite common that they ate with knives. The only thing they'd use, they'd put honey on their knives to eat peas and roll the peas on with their fork or spoon. But the knife was the utensil that they put in their mouth all the time.

F. The Dodson Place

Neil Vanderburg: The Dodson place, I think you went up this road here. You couldn't see their house from the road. But there was a mailbox out at the road that said Dodson on it. And the only time I was at the Dodson place, there was a stray dog came in and my cousin and I trained it to be a pretty good cattle dog. But it would always run away at night and so one night we chased it and we ended up at the Dodson place. And the dog was the Dodson's dog, and when they found out we were training him for a cattle dog they tied him up so he couldn't come back! But Kenneth Dodson was out trying to get their cows in and he was kind of mad cause the dog wasn't there. And we'd been herding cows with his dog all afternoon.

Bob Zybach: Now, their place is over the hill here, and then up on the left, going over these Christmas trees next to some younger fir, maybe 20-25 years old, to the east there, that's the old road through there?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah. And the house that was in front of the Dodson place was right up on this knob here.

Bob Zybach: What was the name of this house, who lived here?

Neil Vanderburg: I don't know. I think it belonged to the Dodson's.

Bob Zybach: But were people living in it?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah. McCoys, the first people I knew that lived in there were the McCoys. And you're gonna see pictures of the McCoys, and the McCoys they had about. . . well they had a kid every year, I mean Mrs. McCoy was nursing one and carrying another one in her belly all the time we knew her and I think they had twelve kids.

Bob Zybach: Okay, we got to the point where the kids were in school.

Neil Vanderburg: Okay. There was one thing about the McCoy kids. All their names started with M. So we had Myrtle, Marvin, Melvin, Mary Jane, Max, Mabel . .