12. Hamen Lewis

Bob Zybach: Oregon State.

Velma Carter Rawie: Oh yeah.

Bob Zybach: . . some kind of an interpretive display about Camp Adair. Fifty years coming up and it was an important event in the community's life and of course the school... We've got Dunn Forest that was all inherited from that era. What kind of theme in an interpretive display could be used to represent the Wells community or Welisdale? What kind of things would be good representations of that community?

Velma Carter Rawie: Well, I would think the Carters were the mainstay of the Wells community. If I could get those pictures like of the store and of the postoffice, was all one, that I took out to the Benton County historical place. They could be used I would think.

Bob Zybach: And so the school would. .. because you're done with these other pictures... ?

Velma Carter Rawie: picture of the school and a picture of the store and I think that there was one of the depot. And they were pictures about [inaudible] . . . the same idea.

Bob Zybach: So you think that photographs of the old community would be good... ?

Velma Carter Rawie: Well, that would be the type of thing. I have some old.. . see I've got an old... maybe you ought to turn that thing off.

12. Hamen Lewis

Bob Zybach: Let's see, we are back in town and talking about the postoffice. One person that I'd like to go back to was Hamen Lewis, a lot of people mentioned Hamen Lewis. When you were kids you were warned not to go near him. What was the reason for that?

Velma Carter Rawie: Well, we should be .. . not let him entice us into his house of something of that sort. He was kind of a character but as I. . . a rather interesting thing, when we bought this place it was a part of the original Hamen C. Lewis Donation Land Claim.

Bob Zybach: Did you know that when you bought it?

Velma Carter Rawie: No, not until after we bought it.

Bob Zybach: And so you can remember the man that had this Donation Land Claim?

Velma Carter Rawie: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: What was the reason that you weren't supposed to go into his house, was he...?

Velma Carter Rawie: He had a tendency to want to handle little girls.

Bob Zybach: Oh, and so they warned you about that?

Velma Carter Rawie: Yeah, and so we just weren't ever. . . He would sit on the porch and he'd always want you to come and sit on his lap or something of the sort. And I'm not saying that he ever did, but in those days we were warned, as people are today, to just don't do things like that.

Bob Zybach: A lot of people I talk to say that back in the old days people were nicer, better, but it sounds like really people were kind of the same in certain ways.

Velma Carter Rawie: In some ways, yeah. He was a loner. I don't remember that he... I know that he had two grown sons Ralph and somebody else. They would be my aunt's age. I got.. . you know they used to send cards with pictures on them that were postcards, like you'd put a penny stamp on them, but they had pictures. . . . I got some in there from Lewis, Ralph Lewis, to my aunt because they were about the same age and grew up in the town of Wells. But as I say, it was always interesting, I thought, that when we bought this place that it was part of the Hamen Lewis DLC.

Bob Zybach: Now, other than being warned not to go too close, what would he do for a living?

Velma Carter Rawie: Mr. Lewis? I don't know! He never did anything all the years that I knew him.

Bob Zybach: Just hung out at the store?

Velma Carter Rawie: Uh huh, but he must have some money from someplace. It was a big old house that he lived in. Filthy dirty inside. When he would get sick, my grandmother would go down once in awhile and fix him something to eat. He was just kind of weirdly.

Bob Zybach: What would he talk about?

Velma Carter Rawie: I don't remember he'd sit and cross his legs and this foot. Isn't this funny but I can remember that foot [inaudible] .. . dirty. His clothes got pretty dirty.

Bob Zybach: Everybody mentions him. They say it wasn't Herman it was Hamen and...

Velma Carter Rawie: It was Hamen, Hamen C. Lewis.

Bob Zybach: And he made an impression on everybody?

Velma Carter Rawie: Yeah, I'm sure he did. He did on me. I mean, I was always told. . . and when I

Velma Carter Rawie: got a little older I worked behind the counter and that's where the till was and I was always told never, when Hamen was in the store, should I get cornered behind the counter. That was just something that we didn't do.

Bob Zybach: Now, do you know of any case of him actually doing something?

Velma Carter Rawie: No, I don't. But apparently someplace along the line there must have been something done. That was why it was impressed on all of the younger girls especially and even the boys weren't supposed to go in his house. I can remember that too.

Bob Zybach: So he's done something... ?

Velma Carter Rawie: Someplace along the line there was a reason for it because people didn't ordinarily pick up on that sort or thing. It wasn't a story that was told without some ground. It wasn't malicious gossip in those days. There was a reason for it.

Bob Zybach: And so the kids... Now, did people... Other than keeping their kids away from him, would people ostracize him or treat him different?

Velma Carter Rawie: No, he wasn't social at all. He wasn't social. He wore an old hat. He was a big man, a real big man. And even Mother Rawie, I mean she didn't. . . Grandma Carter, that's who it was, I was thinking about Mother Rawie, Mother Rawie was on the other side of the story. I shouldn't get into that. She was "Mrs. 5x5," Ralph's mother was. She resembled my grandmother quite a bit, is why I said that. But Grandma Rawie never took any chances with him. It was just something that people didn't do.

Bob Zybach: They just gave him his space? Were they afraid of him or...?

Velma Carter Rawie: Oh, I don't think that he was malicious. I mean, in that sort of a way, he had a thing for young girls. That was the warning that we had.

Bob Zybach: That is something though that when you were growing up you knew people that had actually crossed the Oregon Trail and had settled on Donation Land Claims. Did people have any of the sense of that? Did they give special credit to their ancestors or to local people that had crossed the Oregon Trail?

Velma Carter Rawie: Well, I think that in older days everybody was brought up to respect their elders a lot more than they do now.

Bob Zybach: Was that seen as a special type of event though, that maybe set certain elders away from