K.. White's Place

Neil Vanderburg: No, I. . . how do I want to put this anyway. I was the most handsome boy above the 3rd grade.

Bob Zybach: Best looking guy in town, anyhow.

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah. You bet.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Can you think of anything else through this area here?

Neil Vanderburg: No, I think that pretty well covers it until we get across the creek and we can get up there and we can kind of point out some other things to you when we get up there.

K. White's Place

Neil Vanderburg: There was a house right in here,

Bob Zybach: Now we're going east towards the barn that' still there, just on the south side of Berry C reek.

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah, and that was where the Cornutts lived when we first moved here. And then Forest Tandy's brother Elmer moved into the house. And then one of the Bennett Brothers that had the mill up here lived in it for a short while. And then old man White that did the witching moved in here and apparently he bought some acreage because he built that barn.

Bob Zybach: So that barn was built by White.

Neil Vanderburg: That barn was built by White. Probably in 1939 or so.

Bob Zybach: Okay, so about every year there for a while, somebody else was moving into that house?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah. But anyway, he built that barn there and he had a horse. And I don't know what the situation was because this was Smith's property and Smith pastured sheep in here, but the year Mr. White moved in here he planted that and took hay off of it and we, I helped in baling the hay, of course, we didn't have balers that would feed themselves, we had to bring the hay to the balers and pitch it in, and we had buck rakes, and we would go along and pick up all the shocks and push up to the baler and then a couple of fellows would stand there and pitch it into the baler. But it was a couple weeks work to bale all the hay that he took off of there. He got a lot of hay off of that field. So I don't know if he rented that from Smith or just what was done but they baled that hay and sold it.

Bob Zybach: Prior to that time there wasn't. . . this was just only pasturage. There wasn't any

Neil Vanderburg: It was pasture. And of course the school Sat right there at the other end of that. There's a base marker up here on the left hand side of the road. Survey marker. And if I remember right, that marker was on the west or the northwest corner of the school. It was there then, of course, they had those there for years. But that's, that's where the school sat, was right in there just this side of the hill there. But then, it was this side of the fill actually. This road here is a road that went back to Hanish's and went back to Bennett's Mill. And you went right along Hanish's fence line, and then up a real steep hill, like maybe that one there. With that old Dodge that I had when I first started hauling slab wood, it was in the low hole and give her all you had to get up that hill, empty. And when I came down the hill, put it in low gear and put on all the brakes you had and come down. And I stacked the wood right here, just inside where the fence is now, and I stacked over 100 cord of wood in there. And one morning I came down that hill and there was a bridge about half way down, had quite a bit of slope to it. And I had it in low gear, and that was after I got the '33 Chevrolet, and I

Neil Vanderburg: had it in low gear and putting on the brakes pretty good, and all at once my motor quit turning and away I went, and I got to the other end and then my motor started turning and I realized that bridge was frosty and I just slid across it. And I was scared!

Bob Zybach: That's when you were about 15.

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Now this road here, back to Hanish's and went up the hill, and then the other road went back up Savage Creek up there, did those connect back there anywhere?

Neil Vanderburg: Oh

Bob Zybach: Or did this road here connect with the road that went over to Dickey's?

Neil Vanderburg: No, there was no connection between Hanish's and Dickey's road. Can't think. . . I believe that you could get across there someplace, because Mr. Hanish went up on this side to his timber, and I went up Savage Creek to his timber. But I don't know if the roads joined or just how I got across there. I know that there was a pretty big canyon that we across, and my dad took the team up there one time. King and Prince, like Donald said, you never forget the horses names, you might forget your wife's name. But anyway.

Bob Zybach: King and Prince was your family's horses?

Neil Vanderburg: King and Prince were our horses, and they were a great big team of horses, and we took them across that bridge and Prince got pretty scared and he doggone near pushed King over the side and it was about 30 feet to the bottom. So we were pretty antsy. 1 don't remember why we went across that bridge, but I think we were trying to get up to the Chaffm place. I think we had some stuff at the Chaffin place. We were going to come in from the back side of the Chaffin place to get in. Going across that bridge.

Bob Zybach: Was this the, on the left here, was this the driveway that went into the house here, or was that just a farm driveway there.

Neil Vanderburg: Well, there wasn't any gutters beside the road then. And I'm sure the house set right in these trees. These trees were smaller, but you could just drive off the road and right in to the house, you know, I mean. I can't remember for sure, there might have been a garage there where that tile goes across.

Bob Zybach: But then between here and the base of the hill, was only the school. And from the school all the way down to the hill there where the Folks lived there wasn't any houses or anything?

Neil Vanderburg: No, no houses at all except for the White's and the Tandy's back this way.

Bob Zybach: Now, back behind the school there, there are some fruit trees in through there. Were those there then?

Neil Vanderburg: I don't remember.

Bob Zybach: Okay, how about over on the mill side. Were there fruit trees there?

Neil Vanderburg: I can't say as I remember that either. But I was gonna tell you, up there where it looks like there's a car or something up there, you may know what it is. That's where the old barn used to set that belonged on the Smith place that was all put together with wooden pegs. It didn't have a nail in it anyplace and that was the only protection that Smith's sheep had in this whole area whenever the weather got bad.

Bob Zybach: So that main barn there?

Neil Vanderburg: And it was a big barn.

Bob Zybach: And now you said that weathered the '37 snow.

Neil Vanderburg: It weathered the '37 snowstorm and then a windstorm came along later and blew it