14. Local Schools and Wildflowers

14. Local Schools and Wildflowers

Bob Zybach: Uh huh, you talked about schools and then didn't relate to them much but you knew their names. Did you ever hear the Mountain View school called Drum school?

Velma Carter Rawie: It has always been the Mountain View school as long as I can remember. But as I say, I never even. . . I guess you'd call me naive as a kid. . . I never even knew about Mountain View school when I lived out of... [Wells].

Bob Zybach: Is that right?

Velma Carter Rawie: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: You'd never heard of it?

Velma Carter Rawie: No, I mean...

Bob Zybach: How about Beriy Creek school?

Velma Carter Rawie: No, I didn't. I don't remember ever hearing anything about Berry Creek school or I didn't care anything about it if I did when I was going to school, when I lived out there. Suver or Tampico... well Tampico wouldn't have a school.. . Soap Creek? [School] No, there was a school at Tampico.

Bob Zybach: Oh, that's right.

Velma Carter Rawie: I don't remember the Soap Creek school up there until it was made into a museum type thing. It was kind of a funny little old building up there but I don't remember it being a school. Tampico, I remember it was there on the corner where about three roads come together there.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember any stories about Tampico?

Velma Carter Rawie: No, but there seems to be. . . I don't even know what I heard. . . I won't even say it because. . . but it was kind of a ruff and tumble sort of place. I don't know. Was there a saloon there or something in the area?

Bob Zybach: There was the. . . Arcade Saloon (Tampico) was there. You always hear people remember it as a rowdy place but nobody can remember exactly why.

Velma Carter Rawie: As I say, and this would just be heresay of what I've heard because I don't know anything about it.. . I remember the old school sitting there on the triangle and they used to have hay in it after it quit being used as a school. I don't remember anything about.. . What was the other one?

Bob Zybach: Beny Creek [School]

Velma Carter Rawie: No, I don't remember Berry Creek.

Bob Zybach: This is an odd question, do you remember any jackrabbits?

Velma Carter Rawie: We had a few jackrabbits.

Bob Zybach: You did?

Velma Carter Rawie: [Inaudible] bunny rabbits.

Bob Zybach: Were they bunny rabbits or jackrabbits?

Velma Carter Rawie: Jackrabbits are those big, long eared ones aren't they?

Bob Zybach: Yeah.

Velma Carter Rawie: No, I don't remember any of those. We had the little ones that came in and ate the garden but not a jackrabbit per Se. . . . like they have over in eastern Oregon.

Bob Zybach: Now on Soap Creek, you mentioned going to Sulphur Springs, the Luckia,nute, but Soap Creek went up through that area north of you, how come you never went there?

Velma Carter Rawie: There was no Soap Creek up there close to Wells.

Bob Zybach: Didn't it go north up by Suver up there?

Velma Carter Rawie: I can't think of it. There would be. . . Maybe there was a little creek that ran up through there but I don't remember that it was called Soap Creek.

Bob Zybach: Now, Calloway Creek, that came in the Bowers Slough doesn't it?

Velma Carter Rawie: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Okay, so that is why you wouldn't go to...?

Velma Carter Rawie: No, I don't. . . and I never. . . This was always the Soap Creek area out there were Sulphur Springs is, to me, that's Soap Creek. I don't remember it being any other place but up there. I lived out there for an awful lot of years.

Bob Zybach: So as it went east of Coffin Butte, you don't have any idea where it went?

Velma Carter Rawie: I don't know what happened to it.

Bob Zybach: So, you think more of the valley then?

Velma Carter Rawie: Yeah, uh huh.

Bob Zybach: On Hospital Hill, do you know where that is at?

Velma Carter Rawie: No.

Bob Zybach: Okay, that's the hill in back of the Ed Blake place and it became Hospital Hill because of Camp Adair, so that wasn't the old name for it. It's where the reservoir for the town of

Bob Zybach: Adair Village.

Velma Carter Rawie: I know where Ed Blake lives.

Bob Zybach: But you don't remember the hill there?

Velma Carter Rawie: No, I don't remember. I know where they live out there. I got a picture down in the basement of their house. It was just a print.

Bob Zybach: An old picture of their place?

Velma Carter Rawie: No, not of their place, but it was a picture out of their house when they moved to Corvallis. The Blakes where real good friends of my mothers and they all belonged to the Mountain View Grange. Ed and Lottie Blake were.. . She was a school teacher.

Bob Zybach: Where did she teach school at?

Velma Carter Rawie: I don't know, but I think that my dad went to school to her. Not very long because he never went past the fifth grade. Of course he couldn't walk to suit the teacher and I guess his daughter kind of got a little bit of his. . . I went to school, I don't mean that, but I am pretty set in my ways. I don't do something just because it is being done. I mean, [Laughter]

Bob Zybach: So, your dad didn't see eye to eye with the teacher in the fifth grade and called it quits?

Velma Carter Rawie: And so he just walked out and he never went back.

Bob Zybach: Now, fake Rohner didn't finish much beyond that but he said that in those days a farmer didn't need to know much except how to farm.

Velma Carter Rawie: Yeah, that is what I remember. In fact, my oldest boy, David, who is 52 now, walked home from school when he was in second grade and when he left he told the teacher that there was just too much to do on the farm and he was going home. She called me up and said that, "David is on his way home and he says that there is just too much to do on the farm and that school is a waste of time." I said, "Don't worry, he'll be back tomorrow." She said, "Well I figured that." [Laughter] He walked from where Franklin school is down there by Fred Meyer's, the old Franklin school by Fred Meyer's, and he walked home packing all of his books. When he got home I said, "What are you doing home?" He said, "I came home because there is too much work to do out here to spend time in school." I said, "Okay, but you are going back to school tomorrow." "Yup." I

Velma Carter Rawie: never made an issue of it. That was all that was said.

Bob Zybach: So he is pretty independent?

Velma Carter Rawie: Oh yeah, and he is still independent.

Bob Zybach: Now you said that you were kind of the same way but you made it through High schooL

Velma Carter Rawie: Oh, I went through High school and I went to Business College. I'm not a social climber. . . you take me for what I am or you leave me alone. That was the way that my dad was and that's the way David is. He has lots of friends and has done very well but he is his own person.

Bob Zybach: Uh huh. This is backing up a little bit, but when we were talking about the wildlife, I forgot to ask about wildflowers on the fann.

Velma Carter Rawie: Oh, buttercups and, well I called them flags, wild iris, and that sort of stuff, and then you went up on Coffin Butte. . . We always had to go up there in the spring time. We could find ladyslippers...

Bob Zybach: Oh, so you went up to Coffin Butte for the ladyslippers?

Velma Carter Rawie: Oh yeah.

Bob Zybach: Would all the kids do it or would the adults do it?

Velma Carter Rawie: No, I would go because my aunt and uncle lived up there on the side of the Butte so I could walk over there and cross old [Hwy] 99 and then I could walk the sheep trail over and come into my aunt and uncle's house from the back side of it. It would be on the east side of Coffins Butte where they've dug it all out now. I'll never forget one time when I was a little kid and I walked up there and when I came home I took home a little lamb. Mother said, "Where did you get that little lamb!" I said, "Well mother, it was lost. It was up there asleep all by itself! Well, you know how a mother Eve will leave it's baby to sleep and it will go off to eat and I was sure that mother had gone off and left it and it was going to die and so I took it home. I marched right back with it. I had to go back all by myself and take it back up the side of the hill. [Laughter]

Bob Zybach: How old were you then?

Velma Carter Rawie: I must have been seven or eight years old.

Bob Zybach: Are you ... You said ladyslippers and you were going to say birds.

Velma Carter Rawie: birdsbills and, we called them cat's ears. Have you seen those little gray