11. The Wells School

Velma Carter Rawie: the day and I'd take the kids with me and take their little dump trucks and stuff and put them at the end of the furrow. I'd see them every time I came back. They'd just haul dirt and have a ball playing in the dirt all day with dump trucks and loaders. . . You know bow kids play with toys. It was a good life.

11. The Wells School

Bob Zybach: We were talldng about school before we started recording this. When you were growing up, your mother was involved with the school?

Velma Carter Rawie: She was chairman of the school board.

Bob Zybach: For the Wells school?

Velma Carter Rawie: Wells school.

Bob Zybach: Was the Gingle's school still in existence then?

Velma Carter Rawie: I don't think so. I never knew or saw a Gingle's school.

Bob Zybach: Eve,ybody came into Wells school?

Velma Carter Rawie: Everybody came into Wells school.

Bob Zybach: What was the school like?

Velma Carter Rawie: It was a two room school and it had a big stove in the room and then it had sort of a big metal shield around it, a reflector type, so kids couldn't get to close to it, you know. It set out quite a ways around the outside of the stove so no kids would get burned.

Bob Zybach: Would all of the grades be in the same room?

Velma Carter Rawie: No, there was two rooms. 1-4 and 4-8. .. . outside toilets, a play shed, and a shed where if any of the kids rode horses, they could tie their horses up and feed them.

Bob Zybach: Was the school right in town there?

Velma Carter Rawie: Yeah, it was right.. . It would be the equivalent of probably two blocks from Grandpa's store. I always said that Grandpa gave away more stuff that he ever sold in the line of cookies or candy or else the kids just helped themselves. When school was out, the kids .. . and in the center of the floor he had a rack that had cookie jars in it with the metal lid that fit up, you know. They just automatically got themselves a cookie. I mean, they weren't stealing! That was just the way

Velma Carter Rawie: that it was done.

Bob Zybach: Would they take four or five or just... ?

Velma Carter Rawie: Oh, I imagine that some of them did.

Bob Zybach: And your grandfather, that was fine with him?

Velma Carter Rawie: Yeah, if they abused that fact, I can remember Grandpa saying, "We've had about enough," or something of the sort. But, one or two cookies was just alright. As I say, he gave away more stuff than he sold sometimes but, invariable, on Halloween they always put his buggy on top of the outhouse at the depot across the street. And he had to pay the same kids that put it up there to get it down the next day. [Laughter]

Bob Zybach: So it was almost like a tradition? Ah ha. Would that get him upset?

Velma Carter Rawie: Oh no, he just took to for granted.

Bob Zybach: Here's Halloween and my buggy is going to be on top of the outhouse?

Velma Carter Rawie: Because at the deport, you know they had an outhouse and his buggy.. . I wouldn't say that. . . Yeah, I can remember that every year... I don't know how long that went on but I know for quite awhile. Of course, he had one of the first Model T Fords. I wish that I still had it. That would be really an antique.

Bob Zybach: Yeah, the other schools in the district, say the kids that went to Tampico or Soap Creek or Mountain View or Berry Creelç was there any kind of competition? ... baseball or... ?

Velma Carter Rawie: No, there wasn't anything like that.

Bob Zybach: Scholastic competition?

Velma Carter Rawie: There was a spelling bee I guess but that was just amongst our kids. I don't remember of any outside activity, of any competitiveness between schools.

Bob Zybach: Or even visiting? . . . school plays or... ?

Velma Carter Rawie: No.

Bob Zybach: Uh huh. So it was all. . . Each one was kind of isolated? Each Community... ?

Velma Carter Rawie: Yeah, Wells certainly was. We had one program a year and that was a Christmas program when the whole community came. It was a big deal. It had a big Christmas tree. When we were talking about Jakie Rohner [Jacob Rohner. See Monograph # 6].. . I remember that one year the Rohners didn't make it to the Christmas program because one of the girls ran her finger, making sausage you

Velma Carter Rawie: know, through the grinder. I can't think which one of the girls it was. But anyway, somebody at the Rohner family cut their finger off with a food grinder and they didn't make it to the Christmas program. I haven't thought about that for a long time either.

Bob Zybach: Now, the Rohners were Swiss...

Velma Carter Rawie: . . and they were Catholics.

Bob Zybach: Oh, Catholics. Was that something that they were know for?

Velma Carter Rawie: Oh yeah, they went to Corvallis to church very religiously.

Bob Zybach: Did other people think that that was odd?

Velma Carter Rawie: No, nobody.. . yes, not the religion, the Rohners were a little different. Now, don't misunderstand me, they didn't dress quite the same and they had home haircuts, well I had a home haircut too, but they were a little different. Wonderful people. Good as gold. Their dress or whatnot. . . They were just German or Swiss. . . and Mrs. Rohner, I don't think spoke much English.

Bob Zybach: Were there other members of the community that were from Europe or that had...

Velma Carter Rawie: No, they were the only ones that I recall. They were a very strict family I think. Mr. Rohner, Big Jake, had a brother here in Corvallis that was a veterinarian for years, Doc Rohner. There were two girls, Selma and Nellie, that were about my age I think. Jake was a little older and then a lot of young ones, Elmer and Eddie. . . I can't think who all of them are.

Bob Zybach: Buddy?

Velma Carter Rawie: [Inaudible] But as I say, they were quite strict. Even their dress sometimes was. I would call it old fashioned maybe. I'm not saying anything against them. They were lovely people but there was a difference in their family life I mean in their... kind of a cultural difference? Yes, that is right!

Bob Zybach: They had a lot of heritage from Europe.

Velma Carter Rawie: That's right.

Bob Zybach: The rest of the community, it sounds like, were pioneer stock

Velma Carter Rawie: .from pioneer stock.

Bob Zybach: . . second and third generation.

Velma Carter Rawie: Yeah, but the last couple of years.. . We have a picnic out at Helmick park for the people from the Camp Adair area and the Suver area.

Bob Zybach: Oh, so Wells does get back together?

Velma Carter Rawie: Oh yeah, and this summer Jakie, he was Jakie because his dad was Jake, and all through school Jake was Jakie and he is still Jakie to me, he came out to the picnic last year and I was so happy to see him. He has the most beautiful brown eyes. I mean I still. . . I remember that. He was so happy. I see him quite often around town or I used to I don't go downtown as much anymore. But I saw Robert McClain and oh, there are just an awful lot of people. The Barzees were all there.

Bob Zybach: That is interesting that that community stayed together even though the war disrupted it.

Velma Carter Rawie: Uh huh. It's our, Robert McClain's wife, what is her name?

Bob Zybach: Yvonne [(brown) McClainJ.

Velma Carter Rawie: Evonne. She sends out notices eveiy year. She is kind of the instigator of keeping it going. It is real fun to go back and we have a potluck dinner and there are a lot of people there.

Bob Zybach: How did you pick Helmick park? Why didn't you go to Sulphur Springs?

Velma Carter Rawie: Well because Sulphur Springs. . . there isn't much out there. There are no tables or anything else. There hasn't been for a long time anyway. I haven't been to Sulphur Springs for a long time myself. Helmick park, primarily this was from... Evonne was from the Suver community which was just north of Wells about five miles on the railroad track to Suver, so as I say, she's the one that has kept it going but it is. . . the picnic is for the old timers from the Camp Adair area and the Suver area.

Bob Zybach: Now this year will be the fiftieth anniversaiy of Camp Adair. Are you planning anything special for that?

Velma Carter Rawie: I hadn't. . . nothing has been said that I've heard about that.

Bob Zybach: Hospital Hill is near the Ed Blake place, the school [OS U] owns that now and there is some talk of developing some sort of an interpretive display...

Velma Carter Rawie: What school?