Soap Creek Valley · Monograph #10 · 16 of 33

15. The Dust Storm of 1931

15. The Dust Storm of 1931 of Velma Carter Rawie — printed pp. 71–72 — recorded March 19, 1991 at the home of Velma Carter Rawie, Corvallis, Oregon. Every printed page has its own permanent link.

Zybach, Bob 1994. Velma Carter Rawie. A History of the Carter Family and the Town of Wells, Benton County, Oregon: 1845-1941. Soap Creek Valley History Project, Monograph #10. Oregon State University Research Forests and College of Forestry, Corvallis, Oregon: 130 pp.

p. 47 = printed page 47 of the original book; the link on each page number is a permanent address you can send to anyone.

Provenance

From: #10 Velma Carter Rawie
Narrator: Velma Carter Rawie
Recorded: March 19, 1991 · the home of Velma Carter Rawie, Corvallis, Oregon
Interviewer: Bob Zybach
Printed pages: pp. 71–72
Original: http://www.nwmapsco.com/ZybachB/Oral_Histories/Soap_Creek_Valley/10_Rawie/Zybach_1994.pdf
Accessioned: From Bob Zybach’s upload, 23 August 2026

Headed 'March 19, 1991 Interview' (printed p. 1). Tape-change markers are printed at the end of tape 1, side 1 (p. 15), tape 1, side 2 (p. 31), tape 2, side 1 (p. 47) and tape 2, side 2 (p. 63); the transcript continues to p. 78 with no further marker. Much of the session is spent looking through Mrs. Rawie's family photographs and scrapbook, and at a 1936 aerial photograph. No extant cassette is listed in OSU's archive (per SCARC OH 006 finding aid).

p. 71

[Withheld from this edition pending review. The page keeps its printed number and its permanent link, so a citation to it still lands here.]

p. 72

Velma Carter Rawie: just don't have in this country, but really they lived. . . We could see their house from our house but their house burned and we didn't even know it until they came and told us after it was all over with.

Bob Zybach: How long did it last?

Velma Carter Rawie: Oh, as a kid it just seems that it lasted for an awfully long time. It probably lasted two or three days.

Bob Zybach: Oh, a long time.

Velma Carter Rawie: Yeah, it wasn't just something that went through and...

Bob Zybach: Did people have any idea? Was there any stories about where it was coming from?

Velma Carter Rawie: No, I just remember that awful dust storm when Mox's house burnt. As a kid, that is what I remember. I associated their house burning with the dust storm.

Bob Zybach: And that was right on the base of the Butte there?

Velma Carter Rawie: Yeah, well they were up kind of up . . . They weren't right down along the Highway. They were up the road that went to the Rohner's place and then you turned off of that through a gate and went up to their house.

Bob Zybach: Uh huh. Do you remember if the dust was any particular color or anything?

Velma Carter Rawie: It was dust colored. [Laughter] And you couldn't breathe. I mean, it was Well, it was the only time that I have seen anything like it. As I see things in movies and whatnot now, I always think about it because it was bad.

Bob Zybach: Uh huh, was there any stories about where the dust came from?

Velma Carter Rawie: No, I don't remember anything about that. Everybody was glad when it was gone but there wasn't much discussion of why or where or. . . as far as I was concerned.

Bob Zybach: Did it leave any deposits around town?

Velma Carter Rawie: No.

Bob Zybach: It just kind of blew through and blew clean?

Velma Carter Rawie: Blew in and blew out. The houses were especially dusty inside, I mean. . . but there wasn't. . . I don't remember a lot of wind, a driving wind with it, but it had to come in on the wind but it wasn't a tornado type of a wind or something like that. The dust had to come in in the wind but it wasn't a violent wind storm as I recall.

Speaker attribution inferred from typography where the printed page prints only Q and A.

How to cite this item

The first line is the citation as it is printed in the original. Use it when you cite the work itself. Use the second when you cite this page.

As printed: Zybach, Bob 1994. Velma Carter Rawie. A History of the Carter Family and the Town of Wells, Benton County, Oregon: 1845-1941. Soap Creek Valley History Project, Monograph #10. Oregon State University Research Forests and College of Forestry, Corvallis, Oregon: 130 pp.
This page: Rawie 1994. 15. The Dust Storm of 1931, pp. 71–72. America's School Trust Library, The Zybach Collection. https://schooltrusts.org/collections/zybach/soap-creek/m10-rawie/15-the-dust-storm-of-1931/ (accessed 2026).
Cite this passage: Rawie 1994, p. 71 — Monograph #10:71
https://schooltrusts.org/collections/zybach/soap-creek/m10-rawie/15-the-dust-storm-of-1931/#p71 Swap 71 for whichever printed page you are quoting: every page number in the margin is its own address.
Permalink: https://schooltrusts.org/collections/zybach/soap-creek/m10-rawie/15-the-dust-storm-of-1931/
Original PDF: http://www.nwmapsco.com/ZybachB/Oral_Histories/Soap_Creek_Valley/10_Rawie/Zybach_1994.pdf

More on citing this collection: How to cite the Zybach Collection.

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