Part IV.. January 4, 1990 Interview

Part IV.

January 4, 1990 Interview

[Interview conducted by Bob Zybach and Phil Hays at the home of Bessie Murphy, Valley View Drive, Corvallis.]

Bob Zybach: We 're at the home of Bessie Murphy, north of Corvallis and doing an interview and the first question I would like to ask you is when you first moved to Corvallis and why you moved here?

Bessie Murphy: I moved in 1900 with my family when they left Clatsop County and came here.

Bob Zybach: And where did you first move to?

Bessie Murphy: Crescent Valley Farm.

Bob Zybach: And who owned the farm?

Bessie Murphy: Heavens, I don't know. I was only five years old.

Bob Zybach: Did your father buy it?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, he bought it.

Bob Zybach: Oh, I see and then was he a full time farmer?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: What crops did he raise?

Bessie Murphy: Well, in those days, we didn't just specialize in one crop. It was a family farm that we raised everything, we were self sufficient on the farm. And he raised hay for the horses and cows and some grain, wheat mostly at first and oats and then we had a garden which was a great deal of our food, because a lot of things we could keep for through the winter.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall the names of the farmers that lived adjacent to you?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes, the one of the west was Old Witham and he was from an old time family.

Bob Zybach: Was he living on the William donation land claim?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know about that. I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't know.

Bob Zybach: Was he the same type of farmer, self sufficient?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. And then going still farther west, there was one by the name of George Stoneback. He had a little . . . rather hilly little farm and he didn't have very big variety of crops and then to the east toward the highway, there were several different ones that ended up with the Holbrook family. And my brother bought it from them. At that time we were grown. And he bought that from Mrs. Holbrook. Her husband died.

Bob Zybach: How big were these farms?

Bessie Murphy: Papa's was 200 [acre] and the Holbrooks were 50, the Witham was probably 200 or more and Stoneback was probably 100.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall the farms to the North?

Bessie Murphy: Not so good.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall any families in the Soap Creek Area?

Bessie Murphy: No, I don't know.

Bob Zybach: Say the Marc/cs or the Olsons.

Bessie Murphy: I've heard of them, but I didn't know them.

Bob Zybach: The Wiles.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, I've heard of all of those.

Bob Zybach: Carters?

Bessie Murphy: Wouldn't know the Carters.

Bob Zybach: So, your adjacent neighbors were the people that you knew best?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Did you know anyone from the Locke family?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, we knew them.

Bob Zybach: Did the Witham or the other families that you mentioned have children your age?

Bessie Murphy: No, the Witham girl was older than me. Then on the south toward town was the King family from the Kings Valley family.

Bob Zybach: Solomon King's family?

Bessie Murphy: Sol's descendants. And that was a large family. And I started out with them when I first went to school, there was a little school down on the highway. One little building and we all went there. Had to walk. . . I had to walk two miles.

Bob Zybach: What was the name of that school?

Bessie Murphy: Sunnyside.

Bob Zybach: Sunnyside School?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: It's not there anymore is it?

Bessie Murphy: No. No, in about two years the district. . . was taken into the city district, town district and I had to go there and then I had to go three and half miles, so I got to ride my pony.

Bob Zybach: What happened to the Sunnyside School?

Bessie Murphy: It was made into a private home. . . residence. But that wasn't the original, the original was torn down.

Bob Zybach: So the Sunnyside School you were going to was a newer school and then after they stopped using it they turned it into somebody's home?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: And then what happened to it?

Bessie Murphy: Well, you see when I first went there it was a little old pioneer version of it, it was just a little one room building.

Bob Zybach: About 1907 or 1908?

Bessie Murphy: No, before that.

Bob Zybach: 1905?

Bessie Murphy: I was six in 1900 and I started school when I was seven and that was torn down and the new one was built and then two years later it was taken into the city.

Bob Zybach: Oh. Then when you went to school, you had to walk those two miles?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Was there a road or.

Bessie Murphy: No road in those days.

Bob Zybach: Just across the fields?

Bessie Murphy: You bet. You go on somebody's right of way, there were right of ways. You had to go where the owners said you bad to go.

Bob Zybach: So if somebody made a diagonal across their field or they made you follow a fence line..

Bessie Murphy: That was naughty.

Bob Zybach: You could destroy crops or get muddy or.

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Get into trouble.

Bob Zybach: How come you didn't ride your pony to Sunnyside School?

Bessie Murphy: No, I didn't.

Bob Zybach: Why not, too many fences?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. And I didn't have a pony then.

Bob Zybach: Did anybody run cattle or anything that would make it kind of dangerous going across certain

Bessie Murphy: I don't remember any cattle, but that was a hazard. No, when I went to town to school, I rode the pony.

Bob Zybach: What was the pony's name?

Bessie Murphy: Belle.

Bob Zybach: How long did you have her?

Bessie Murphy: Years and years.

Bob Zybach: So the whole time you went to school you rode Belle to school when you went to town?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember when you graduated?

Bessie Murphy: From high school in '14.

Bob Zybach: And then. . let's see f I recall, you worked at home for a few years before you went to college?

Bessie Murphy: . Yes.

Bob Zybach: When did you start college?

Bessie Murphy: I'm not so good on dates.

Bob Zybach: Was it a four-year degree?

Bessie Murphy: I think I stayed home four years from high school to college; that would have been '18 or '19 I started to college.

Bob Zybach: During World War I?

Bessie Murphy: I guess it was. But I don't remember all of these.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall what you did on the farm for fun when you were a young girl?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, I jumped on that pony and went all over the place, explored, went to Sulphur Springs and around the hills That was my main fun.

Bob Zybach: What was the main route to Sulphur Springs?

Bessie Murphy: Lewisburg Road, that's the only road here when we came. The public road. All the rest were right of ways. And then you see in 1905, '04 or '05, the community put in Highland Way. Then we could get to town without right of ways and gates.

Bob Zybach: Before Highland Way was put in was there a road or a track in that general area already?

Bessie Murphy: No. Just right of ways.

Bob Zybach: Did they line up into similar alignment to what was

Bessie Murphy: No, we couldn't go on Highland Way, there was no way. We went down to the highway here where the school is. . was.

Bob Zybach: What was the name of the highway at that time?

Bessie Murphy: The right of ways didn't have names

Bob Zybach: No when you went to the highway.

Bessie Murphy: Oh, ninth street.

Bob Zybach: That was the highway. Was it called ninth Street?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. That's the way we left town on ninth street.

Bob Zybach: Is that. . . did you go through where the Owens. . . what was it, Applegate?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, I'll tell you that.

Bob Zybach: Did you go through that?

Bessie Murphy: Owens on this side of us, Mr. William Knotts was the owner and resident there. And Owens was one of his children or grandchildren or great grandchildren . . . child owns it now. And we . . . he let us have a route through his place for awhile on a certain place and he changed it. And that went along the fence from the corner of my father's place on Highland Way but before Highland Way got put in, we went down to the highway, the line of Mr. Owens'

Bessie Murphy: fence on the south side of it.

Bob Zybach: On the south boundary?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Where the opposite the property where the hospital is on the south side of it, as you go out ninth street a little way, I mean the highway here, as you go out there and come to that ridge.

Bob Zybach: That the hospital is on?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, the other side of the hospital, along the line of the fence, of the Knotts place or the Owens now. You can still see the tracks going west along the fence and turning to the right or south, you can see that turn just before you get to the highway.

Bob Zybach: Those are the tracks that preceded Highland Road.

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: And those. . . that would be the main route to town. . . before 1905.

Bessie Murphy: Yes. That was the right of way that we had a right to go on.

Bob Zybach: Would all that south traffic have a right of way on that or was that an east - west route.

Bessie Murphy: That's east - west.

Bob Zybach: Did that have a name to it, that right of way or just called it the. . .?

Bessie Murphy: You just call it by the name of the owner of the property.

Bob Zybach: Owens right of way.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: And those tracks are still there

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: and they predate 1905?

Bessie Murphy: No, not 1905, they don't predate it, they date that.

Bob Zybach: When was the last that those tracks were used?

Bessie Murphy: Well it probably was 1905, but the road didn't get put in so it could . . . it was usable that first year that they made it, only in spots. Little sections. Yes, probably 1906 until that old right of way was dumped.

Bob Zybach: Was that the remains of that right of way, that you know?

Bessie Murphy: That's all you can see, yes.

Bob Zybach: Did you pay much attention to when they stopped using a road how maybe the vegetation filled in, what types of plants began growing in the old road or.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, I was more or less observant of it because I was interested in it.

Bob Zybach: Can you kind of describe what you noticed with that?

Bessie Murphy: Well, weeds and grass come pretty soon. And the nice flowers like spring beauties that he has a picture of, they didn't. . . they were a little more delicate and harder to do anything I mean, they are more liable to be not able to compete with the bad stuff, weeds and things.

Bob Zybach: Are you calling weeds, exotic plants brought into the area?

Bessie Murphy: Weeds, some of the wild mustards, and things in the daisy family and buttercups and dandelions and those things. They are very prolific and they take over.

Bob Zybach: When you went to Sulphur Springs, was that just a destination a place to turn around and come back or did you do things when you got there?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, you see that was a public picnic ground because of the springs. Public used it quite a bit in those days. Went there and camped. It was considered . . . you see, that was very in those days the natural mineral springs were very popular. And this wasn't so popular because people didn't like water so well, it's the soda springs that were popular.

Bob Zybach: Are there any soda springs around here?

Bessie Murphy: Not right around here. There's one at Cascadia, it's just where they were, but people did camp here. When we came here in 1900, that summer I remember my grandfather and his family was out there camping at those springs {Sulphur Springs]. And we went over there and visited one Sunday.

Bob Zybach: How long would people camp --for a day or two or week?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, they'd camp a week.

Bob Zybach: Would they do anything besides drink the water?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know what they did. I explored of course, that's what I'd do, and I did drink the water because I thought if I came that far I should drink some of it.

Bob Zybach: Oh.

Bessie Murphy: I didn't care for the taste too well.

Bob Zybach: It must of helped you, you're pretty healthy several years later. That's what they always claimed would happen.

Bessie Murphy: Maybe that's the secret of it, I don't know.

Bob Zybach: Maybe we'll get more people going there to drink the water now.

Bessie Murphy: Grandpa had a tent and was camping there and of course, when we went there was no such a thing as a car at that time so we had to go with a surrey with a fringe on top and two horses and that was quite a trip over that Sulphur Springs Hill, it's pretty rugged, pretty rough.

Bob Zybach: Had that road been in for quite awhile?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Could people take bicycles over the road or would they hike in without buggies?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes. All kinds of ways or they'd go horseback.

Bob Zybach: Would very many people be there at one time?

Bessie Murphy: There were quite a few that Sunday, I remember, camping.

Bob Zybach: When. . . who 's land was Sulphur Springs located on?

Bessie Murphy: I think I've read about that but I don't remember. I know there was one man who owned by the name of Baker. I just can't remember the names.

Bob Zybach: Did they have any kind of camping tables or structures?

Bessie Murphy: I don't remember of it, there may have been, but he did have. . . one of those people that had it, I don't know if it was Baker or not, but he had fixed up a croquet grounds.

Bob Zybach: Would that be where the meadow still is, maybe?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. I think so. And then when the army was here [WW II, Camp Adair], they had fixed up quite a bit. I remember there were big tables, when we'd go there horseback we'd feed our horses oats on the table.

Bob Zybach: But you don 't remember any houses or structures of that variety there?

Bessie Murphy: No, I can't. That's not to say there might not have been.

Bob Zybach: How about at the Springs, some people say that there used to be a concrete fountain there?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Vandals broke it up.

Bob Zybach: Do you know how. . . about how tall that fountain was?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, as I remember it was as tall as this table.

Bob Zybach: About three feet?

Bessie Murphy: I think so.

Bob Zybach: Did it have much force? Right now it just barely bubbles out of the ground.

Bessie Murphy: No, it just bubbles out.

Bob Zybach: Were there any benches or anything built around the fountain?

Bessie Murphy: Well, no, but there was some benches and tables and things when the army was here.

Bob Zybach: Around the fountain?

Bessie Murphy: No, not around the fountain, near the fountain.

Bob Zybach: Was the field any larger at that time?

Bessie Murphy: I don't remember about that.

Bob Zybach: The hills, did they look any different?

Bessie Murphy: No,

Bob Zybach: About the same?

Bessie Murphy: About the same.

Bob Zybach: Were there. . . was the timberline, the meadow line on those hills facing west. . . do you recall if that was any different or have you noticed any changes through time?

Bessie Murphy: No, I don't remember of it.

Bob Zybach: So it's always, for the last ninety-five years it's been about the same?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: That's reassuring. How about the plants in the field, have you noticed many changes in those plants?

Bessie Murphy: No. There was lots of interesting wild flowers in the area and I'd go around and spot some of them.

Bob Zybach: Are they still there, most of them?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: So that area has pretty stable variety of grasses and flowers through time?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, I would say it has. And there was some there that are more or less rare like the. what's the name of that, there were several orchids, but I was think of that one . . it's in the buttercup family, oh, shucks. I can't think of it.

Bob Zybach: If that area's now starting to be used more again, it's stopped for a number or years, and now people are starting to botanize in the forest more, that's what Marlene [Finley] was working on. Do you think it's a good idea for some of those plants that aren't too common to be identified and have people look at them or do you think it's better just to avoid those areas and try to keep that infonnation privileged?

Bessie Murphy: Well, I just wouldn't know, because so many times they end up. . . people don't understand how to take care of them and they end up being ruined.

Bob Zybach: Do you think f there were signs there to tell them that this is a rare plant, don't ruin it, that this would be good or bad?

Bessie Murphy: Well, it all depends on the person, some people would dig it up and take it home and of course, it would never, practically never, live.

Bob Zybach: One of the things I was hoping to ask is plants that were rare or unusual in this area where you've seen them or maybe they've been exculpated or maybe where they are still there, but I'm also, since other people will be able to see this maybe it's not a good idea to identify exact locations [people would misuse the information.

Bessie Murphy: That's the trouble, there's always somebody that spoils it all.

Bob Zybach: Have you seen any plants in the Soap Creek area or Sulphur Springs or Dimple Hill or. . . you call it, Locke Point?

Bessie Murphy: Locke Hill.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall any plants that you've seen in those areas that maybe aren't so common anymore or maybe disappeared?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. You know, the Sisyrinchium doglasu....grass lily,yes.

Bob Zybach: If you use Latin that's all right, Phil [Hays] is the interpreter.

Bessie Murphy: Have either one of you been up the Columbia Gorge in the spring when they're thick. thousands of them . . . just thick masses of those?

Bob Zybach: Yes, but I've never noticed them.

Bessie Murphy: Well, that's too bad because I only saw two in my lifetime in this area.

Bob Zybach: And you haven't seen any. . . have you seen any recently?

Bessie Murphy: No.

Bob Zybach: What was the name of them?

Bessie Murphy: It's a grass lily, it's a dainty thing that the leaves are much like grass, it's kind of flat. And the lily is about an inch or little better in diameter, I think, and on a little a dainty little stem and the wind. . . any little breeze will make it shake and it's very dainty and pretty. I'd call it a . . . I think it's a different name for it's a color. It ought to be, but I don't know what they call it. To me it was purple.

Bob Zybach: More of a crimson?

Bessie Murphy: No, not crimson.

Bob Zybach: Purplish red.

Bessie Murphy: It's beautiful and dainty, and I don't know why it's so scarce here. If two of them could grow why couldn't more.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall where they were located?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, you bet.

Bob Zybach: Do you want to put it into the record? Maybe you'd get more people looking for them and find some, got some clues.

Bessie Murphy: One was on the road going to Sulphur Springs in the south and bare face of that hill.

Bob Zybach: Of Lewisburg Saddle?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Hill. Is that hill still bare today, the same area?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know whether the trees have covered it or not. I've noticed that some of those bare spots on those hills are not so bare, the trees are closing in a little.

Bob Zybach: What do you think about that, do you think that's endangering plants by having those trees move into those bare areas?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes, because the plants out there in the bare part, can't be happy in dense forests.

Bob Zybach: So, what would your preference be, f you owned that land would you start taking those trees out of there and making room for the plants or do you think that the trees are worth it?

Bessie Murphy: The trees are worth it.

Bob Zybach: What's the reason? Why do you prefer the trees over the

Bessie Murphy: Oh, I don't prefer them. I'd just as soon have the flowers myself.

Bob Zybach: But it were your land, you 'd still have trees on it.

Bessie Murphy: I'd probably leave it like it is. And the other one was in my father's field, one corner of the field had not been cleaned out and made into a crop. And it was in there, at the edge of that in the grass at the edge of that field where it got plenty of sun.

Bob Zybach: So it's a plant that requires a lot of sunlight?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, it don't want to have any shade at all.

Bob Zybach: In your father's field, that would be flat moist area and up on the.

Bessie Murphy: No, it was on a little hill, it wasn't perfectly flat.

Bob Zybach: Southern exposure again?

Bessie Murphy: Southeast exposure, yes.

Bob Zybach: So a real dry area and sunny?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Dry for the Willamette Valley?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Oh, is that area, is that hill still there?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, but it's made into a field.

Bob Zybach: It's been plowed since then?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes. That's where I . . that was sad for me. .

Bob Zybach: When they plowed that?

Bessie Murphy: Because that was the only one except the one on the hill that I ever saw, and nobody could think when they were cleaning that corner out to take that plant up on a shovel with a lump of dirt and plant it somewhere else.

Bob Zybach: One thing I'm hoping to accomplish with that is to ma/ce sure that those lypes of things don't happen accidentally again, f there are plants that are rare or endangered, particularly in the forest or on the crop lands or on the highway right of ways, that we can recognize those locations. The one on the hill, that would have been along the old grade, the one that was used in.

Bessie Murphy: It was off the road, it wasn't on the road, but I went up there on my pony on the road and then I went off to investigate that hill.

Bob Zybach: And that hill would have been to the west?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, southwest from the road.

Bob Zybach: Southwest. Did you ever go back there looking for that plant?

Bessie Murphy: I think so, but I don't remember particularly when I left all that.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall any other plants that you noticed that aren't here anymore?

Bessie Murphy: Well, we all know, Phil and I and a lot more of them that these strawberry pinks [Silene hookeri] are getting very, very scarce. There used to be more of them.

Bob Zybach: And Phil knows where those are located now?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Oh, yeah, we should speak of the orchids, they were especially prevalent over at Sulphur Springs. . . around Sulphur Springs. And one Cypripedium montanum. somebody, people [Smiths] we know out south of town actually got them to grow in their yard and they're doing wonderful. By the way, I've got a picture.

Bob Zybach: Cypripedium.

Bessie Murphy: Large orchid.

Bob Zybach: So you've got some pictures?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: I might have to describe these in the microphone because. . and that's the one we're just discussing. That's Florence Smith's, would that be related to Greenberty Smith or Joseph Smith, Alexander Smith?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know. They're old timers out there, Van could tell you, her husband.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] It's that corner of Smith Loop and Highway 99W, a white house there. Okay, so that's south of town, near Greenberry.

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Now you see these have stems about, wouldn't you say, about a foot and a half high? And they have big leaves like this and you see the long.

Bob Zybach: These used to grow out at Sulphur Springs?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Do they still grow out there?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know, because I can't go anywhere.

Bob Zybach: I see, you '11 leave that up to me and Phil to look for them.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. And the blossoms have this big. . . pouch like a moccasin. And it has purple veins, these leaves . . . these veins, these are parallel veins . . . leaves, that's how you describe a leaf like that.

Bob Zybach: Now this is still growing out at the Smith's now?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, in their yard near a big maple tree, but not too heavily shaded by it.

Bob Zybach: So we could take and possibly reintroduce these back to Sulphur Springs if they 'ye been removed?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, but there's not much use.

Bob Zybach: Why not?

Bessie Murphy: Well, they'll disappear by some vandal.

Bob Zybach: Oh. Do you recall other plants in the neighborhood that you looked at, that through time became scarce or disappeared?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes. I can't remember their names. I was going to tell you this other orchids . . but . that is the best one, that is the most beautiful one they have in Oregon. There's one up in the. . . now here's what happens to things, up here on the little hill of the old cemetery.

Bob Zybach: Locke Cemetery?

Bessie Murphy: Locke Cemetery Hill There's an orchid that instead of having and being big like this and having a beautiful flower, it was a slender little stem about this high.

Bob Zybach: About afoot?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. And it was put. . .the flowers were put on the stem so they looked like. . . see if I can fmd it, smell that.

Bob Zybach: Skunk cabbage.

Bessie Murphy: Here we are, and here's the other orchid, I believe that's right side up, isn't it, Phil. Oh, see they're put on like cross stitch, that's interesting.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Habernaria elegans.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Habernaria elegans. That's one on my list, I think.

Bessie Murphy: And anyway they grow up there, and they're not as fussy about where they grow as these and in the spring, early in the spring . . early before decoration day, I've been up there and . I saw one growing between an edge of a plot, but when I went back on decoration day, the caretaker had mowed if off.

Bob Zybach: Will that kill the plant?

Bessie Murphy: Well, no it may not, but it's pretty hard on it to take all its leaves.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall the plot it was next to?

Bessie Murphy: It was near my brother's. Well, you see they don't teach about nature to kids anymore, or even high schoolers. People ought to know more about these, they ought to be taught more.

Bob Zybach: Well, one thing we're trying to do with this information is take kids out in the forest and find some of these plants that you 're going to describe, so I think they think the same thing as you, that they ought to teach them more.

Bessie Murphy: But how can they make an intelligent decisions about anything that has to do with plants if they don't know anything?

Bob Zybach: You've got me. You're preaching to the choir.

Bessie Murphy: Well, I'm kind of irked about some of those things.

Bob Zybach: Well, the three of us here. . . did they used to teach botany, did they used to teach.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, I took it in high school.

Bob Zybach: And they took you out in the field and showed you the plants?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, not very much of it.

Bob Zybach: How about when you went to college, did they do better?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes, that was better. Doc [Helen M.] Gilkey was my teacher.

Bob Zybach: He would take you out on field trips?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes, we went on field trips.

Bob Zybach: Where would the field trips be?

Bessie Murphy: Most anywhere around.

Bob Zybach: Sulphur Springs?

Bessie Murphy: Probably did go there once, I don't remember for sure.

Bob Zybach: Would you look mostly at flowers or trees or grasses?

Bessie Murphy: It was mostly plants, and she took us on longer trips to sometimes4.

Bob Zybach: Overnight?

Bessie Murphy: No, not that way. There's the pink I've been talking about.

Bob Zybach: Oh, that's pretty. What's it called?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Silene hookeri. I think I've got that one on my list too.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] If you ever run across one you'd know it. Are they . . . have you seen them

Phil Hays: [PHIL] I've never seen a picture that did justice.

Bessie Murphy: No, I haven't either.

Bob Zybach: This is a red dot?

Bessie Murphy: See the little red dot?

Bob Zybach: Yeah.

Bessie Murphy: Where's my

Bob Zybach: Mimulus alsinoides?

Phil Hays: [Phil] This guy used to grow up on Dimple Hill [referring to Silene hookeriJ. This is on the Dimple Hill.

Phil Hays: [Phil] I don 't kzzow anymore now that they 'ye put a road through there people running their trucks all over the top of it. I haven't seen it for a couple of seasons.

Bessie Murphy: You see you hold this up to your eye and you bring this up and when it's just right, you can see real . . [referring to Mimulus alsinoides]

Bob Zybach: Where are these located at?

Bessie Murphy: Where is that place

Phil Hays: [Phil] You took those out on Alsea Road.

Bessie Murphy: Oh.

Bob Zybach: Are there any local here?

Bessie Murphy: I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

Bob Zybach: Now, Phil was saying these used to be on Dimple Hill [referring to Silene hookeril

Bessie Murphy: No, not this. This is the one down here in the valley.

Phil Hays: [Phil] It's [Silene hookeri] on the hill.

Bessie Murphy: It is? Fine. This other one [Sisyrinchium douglasiil is about this high.

Bob Zybach: About a foot.

Bessie Murphy: And the blossom hangs over like a bell. This [Silene hookeri] doesn't, this is up flat, its face is up to the light. Grows differently.

Bob Zybach: Is it pretty rare?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. You bet it is.

Bob Zybach: Do you know where any plants are.

Bessie Murphy: I used to when I was growing.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Was the pink [Silene hookerif real common down in the valley then?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, but not thick. But it was much more common than it is now.

[Footnote] We had flowers on the table as we talked.

Bob Zybach: What do you think caused it to be removed?

Bessie Murphy: Well, part of it was the making fields out of the pastures, plowing it up, that's one thing. And another way's eliminating the place where it grows, I don't know what all.

Bob Zybach: If. . . so in areas where people are plowing, do you think certain areas should be maybe set aside to let some of these plants return or do you think they could return?

Bessie Murphy: Well, it's very . . . do you want to see these Phil? This one here is a spring flower. And it's leaves are edible.

Bob Zybach: Is this a spring beauty?

Bessie Murphy: Some of them call it that, but it isn't supposed to be. What do I call it?

Bob Zybach: What should I start calling it? Call it a Montia pefoliara.

Bessie Murphy: Perfoliata.

Bob Zybach: Perfoliata?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, it's a different family The real spring beauties [Cardamine pulcherrima} that are in the mustard family. . . cabbage family and this is a different family, can't think what it is.

Bob Zybach: This grows in the west side fairly common, doesn 't it?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, it grows in my yard. It's easy.

Phil Hays: [Phil] It's called miner's lettuce [Montia perfoliara.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, that's it. I was trying to think of it. Miner's lettuce and this is edible, leaves are very edible.

Bob Zybach: Are you familiar with any of the plants maybe that the Indians used for food?

Bessie Murphy: You bet, you bet. That's one of my . . oh, where's .

Bob Zybach: Where did you get the information that the Indians used them?

Bessie Murphy: Mostly out of a book.

Bob Zybach: So f somebody had a good reference book as far as what the Indians used, they would have the same information you had?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Bessie Murphy: Here it is, there's the famous bitter root [Lewisia rediviva] of the Indians.

Bob Zybach: That's bitter root.

Bessie Murphy: And it doesn't grow in this side of the mountains.

Bob Zybach: Just the east side?

Bessie Murphy: Just where it's dry.

Bob Zybach: How about the soap plant that's in Southern Oregon, could Soap Creek have been named after the Soap plant? Are you familiar with that plant?

Bessie Murphy: I've just heard of it.

Bob Zybach: But not around here?

Bessie Murphy: No, do you know anything about it?

Bob Zybach: Did you ever study any of the grasses, the native grasses?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Are they still fairly common?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, there are some native grasses yet, but you see the farmers have brought in so many foreign crops of grasses -- just changed things like ever and they spread.

Bob Zybach: Do you think there's a way to keep those grasses from spreading or do you think it's all right that they're spreading?

Bessie Murphy: No, might as well spread, they're good grasses.

Bob Zybach: Don't they create a lot of competition for the native grasses or the wildflowers?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes. Yes, they do.

Bob Zybach: But you don't think that's a particular problem?

Bessie Murphy: Well, you can't help it that I know of.

Bob Zybach: So you have just become resigned to their fate?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, that's the word.

Bob Zybach: Oh, how about some of the areas that they are managing for timber or they are using for pasturage, if they used different practices, maybe if they didn't plow or rotated crops would that be a way to encourage or retain some of these plants?

Bessie Murphy: I suppose, I don't think they do much plowing, do they? I don't think they do.

Bob Zybach: I don't farm.

Bessie Murphy: I don't believe they do much plowing.

Bob Zybach: So when they plowed before, it wasn't a real frequent thing, is was just enough to disturb the.

Bessie Murphy: From the top of the ford was a field that was being put into crops.

Bob Zybach: So they 're not growing so many crops anymore?

Bessie Murphy: No. You know what's happened to the family farm, don't you?

Bob Zybach: Yeah.

Bessie Murphy: Getting extinct.

Bob Zybach: Yeah.

Bessie Murphy: And that's too bad.

Bob Zybach: You think that's a better living situation for people, the family farm?

Bessie Murphy: Well, it was certainly better for poor people, than being on charity.

Bob Zybach: Yeah.

Bessie Murphy: You had to work like a horse.

Bob Zybach: Would they do any poaching in this area to supplement their diet or would they. . . was it strictly growing crops and.

Bessie Murphy: Well, you see there were seasons that you could shoot pheasants and grouse and deer and things and they were more plentiful and the wild geese and all of that. And they had some of that. But on a family farm, you had a great variety of crops including chickens, and geese, and lots of things to eat.

Bob Zybach: So you weren't dependent on wild game or fish to supplement your diet?

Bessie Murphy: No, and you could raise things in the garden like beans and peas and corn for hominy and all those things that you could keep through the winter. And then can what you couldn't keep dry.

Bob Zybach: Do you think family farms. . . are there too many people today to have them, or do you think it would be good to have family farms maybe just so.

Bessie Murphy: I certainly do, and have a sensible class to teach the children a little bit of agriculture and include a little botany.

Bob Zybach: So would you do that at high school level or college level?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, high school if not eighth grade, the younger you catch them the better you can do.

Bob Zybach: Oh, after you got out of college, what did you do then?

Bessie Murphy: Well, for a couple of years, I guess it was, I stayed on the farm and helped the folks and then I got married.

Bob Zybach: After you got married, where did you live?

Bessie Murphy: Well, we lived first on Kiger Island and I guess we just. . . oh, I think my husband had his job then, worked at the post office.

Bob Zybach: Oh, your husband worked for the post office?

Bessie Murphy: And he didn't have time to really farm, but we always had a garden.

Bob Zybach: So on Kiger Island.

Bessie Murphy: That was good ground, wow!

Bob Zybach: Did you have any trouble with flooding?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, not much then that I remember of. Of course, there were some times when there was too much water over the road.

Bob Zybach: Did you. . . no problem with your landlords or anything?

Bessie Murphy: Not that I remember of.

Bob Zybach: How long did you live at Kiger Island?

Bessie Murphy: Not more than two years I don't think.

Bob Zybach: And then where did you move?

Bessie Murphy: Then we moved to . . . some property that my mother had, my grandfather had. That's where I ended up.

Bob Zybach: North of Corvallis?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: And then you remained your married lfe at that location?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, my husband [Phillip G. Fleischman] died young though and then I had to go to work. And I went to work with something that I could with my botany. I went to work at the seed lab.

Bob Zybach: Did you have any children?

Bessie Murphy: I had two daughters.

Bob Zybach: So you were raising two daughters by yourself?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: And working at the seed lab?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: What was your job there?

Bessie Murphy: Test the seed samples that come in, you have to test them for what the weed seeds are in what other kinds of crops and the percentage of all of those.

Bob Zybach: So you had to identify the seeds and count the numbers and figure out percents.

Bessie Murphy: Well, one of the workers did the percentages. My part was to just figure out what. identify all that was in the sample.

Bob Zybach: Did you ever notice any trends through time as you start getting more of certain types of weeds or cleaner grass seed?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, yes, we got different stuff and that was something that would come in and hadn't been here naturally. But I don't remember any particular one.

Bob Zybach: Did anybody keep records of that, what years that certain types of seeds started.

Bessie Murphy: Well, they may have, I don't know, they should have, but I don't know.

Bob Zybach: Do you know who would know? Do you still have contacts at the seed lab and they could look at old records?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. I could. If I could do it I would.

Bob Zybach: I'm willing to do it, I'm young and I've got time.

Bessie Murphy: All right.

Bob Zybach: You 'd have to give me a name or two names.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, I'll give you some names

Bob Zybach: Okay, just don't want to do it for the record? Maybe somebody younger than me will listen to this tape and they'll get excited about it. Do you recall any names or Phil would you know who to check?

Bessie Murphy: Well who ever. . .1 don't go back and visit at the seed lab, I don't know what's going on now, but I know some of the older ones are getting older. I attest to that. But the. . . who

Bessie Murphy: was the manager then is still living and she'd be a good one to ask.

Bob Zybach: What's her name?

Bessie Murphy: She's Mrs. Jensen, Louise Jensen . . . Louisa Jensen. Can't think of her husband's first name.

Bob Zybach: Is she still here in town?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. You can fmd her in the phone book.

Bob Zybach: Okay. When. . you said when you were younger you used to go out to Sulphur Springs, what

Bessie Murphy: .

Bob Zybach: other places would you go with your horse?

Bessie Murphy: Well, that's about far enough, but I have made longer trips out. . . like I'd go out south of town and visit some friends that were farther than that. I'd have to stay over night though.

Bob Zybach: Would you go around Dimple Hill or Coffin Butte?

Bessie Murphy: I don't remember that I ever did, I suspect that the fences kind of hindered that. I don't know why I never did.

Bob Zybach: Do you call it Dimple Hill? I've heard it call it Mitzie Points, I think, and you called it Locke Hill.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, you see he was the man who owned it when we first came here.

Bob Zybach: Locke?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. And he bought a strip of land off of the south end of my father's place to have a road [Lester Ave.] in. So we had the little dillies with that.

Phil Hays: [Phil] Now, is that the one that was also called 1V6 Hill?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: So it's had all kinds of names?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Phil Hays: [Phil] Chip Ross Park now.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, but that was Locke's Hill, that's all we knew it as when I was a child.

Bob Zybach: And now it's Chip Ross Park?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall any of the other hills around here that their names may have changed or.

Bessie Murphy: Well, this biggest one out here was Vinyard's.

Bob Zybach: Vinyard's Hill or Vinyard's Mountain?

Bessie Murphy: Just called hill then.

Bob Zybach: How about Bald Hill, did they call it another name other than Bald Hill, like old Ba/dy or. . . do you recall?

Bessie Murphy: No, I don't recall. They were usually named for the person who owned the most property on them like that. That's why Locke's Hill is called that and Vinyard's Hill was called that after Mr. Vinyard, he was a professor at the college.

Bob Zybach: So it wasn't named after a crop it was named after a person?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: How about Soap Creek, between Soap Creek and Berry Creek where they've got. . . called Smith

[Footnote] The current "Dimple Hill" was called "Jackson Hill" when Bessie was a child. What she calls "Locke Hill" was also called "Dimple Hill." It was called "IV Hill" later, and then became Chip Ross Peak. "Mitzie Point" is the old "Jackson Hill."

[Footnote] It was called "IV Hill" because the two valleys on the face of the hill look like the letters "I" and "V" from Corvallis (from the south). the valleys also looked like "dimples."

Bob Zybach: Key or Smith Hill, Poison Oak Hill.

Bessie Murphy: I don't know anything about it.

Bob Zybach: Do you know Forest Peak?

Bessie Murphy: No.

Bob Zybach: So those hills two ridges back you're not familiar with?

Bessie Murphy: No.

Bob Zybach: Did. . when you went to Sulphur Springs on your horse, did you take a route from your family

Bessie Murphy: .

Bob Zybach: farm across some right of ways and you took the old grade on Lewisburg Saddle, do you recall any parts of that old grade that are still visible?

Bessie Murphy: The original route over the hill as I hear has been changed. And I hadn't been over it in a long time. See, I can't drive anymore and hadn't any horse. So, I'm dehorsed.

Bob Zybach: How about routes to the coast? Would you go along the hills towards Philomath or would you follow pretty much the same route that's there now or would you go over William Hill f you were going to Philomath?

Bessie Murphy: I'm trying to think. Pretty much like it is now, but I don't remember exactly. Well, it's pretty much like it is now. I've been out there on horse.

Phil Hays: [Phil] South of Philomath Out of Beaver Creek. Oh, okay.

Bessie Murphy: The dahlia farm out there.

Bob Zybach: There was a dahlia farm, it's not anymore is it?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes. Mrs. Vida R. Bullis is running it.

Bob Zybach: How long has it been a dahlia farm?

Bessie Murphy: Jimmy, must be twenty years or better.

Bob Zybach: And that route would be pretty much where Highway 20 is now?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know it by it's numbers.

Bob Zybach: Did you have a name for that road then?

Bessie Murphy: It was just Beaver Creek.

Bob Zybach: Beaver Creek Road?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: From your place, was there a name for the road over to Beaver Creek Road?

Bessie Murphy: Well, Highland Way as far as it went, but you see that's on the southwest corner of town and town didn't come out so far in those days.

Bob Zybach: So you'd take Highland Road into town and then from town you 'd go out to Beaver Creek Road?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember the name of the road from town to Beaver Creek Road?

Bessie Murphy: Well, the Philomath Highway.

Bob Zybach: Philomath Highway, okay. And the college was out there. Was Philomath quite a bit different In those days?

Bessie Murphy: It was smaller and the Corvallis wasn't nearly as wide.

Bob Zybach: So you could say pretty much rural farm countiy?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, you know when my grandfather [Crees] was farming his two hundred acres it was in the middle of Corvallis [Today's Corvallis]

Bob Zybach: When he was farming it?

Bessie Murphy: And he quit farming in . . . he began fanning in '71.

Bob Zybach: Eighteen seventy-one?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Was. . . do you know who's donation land claim he was on?

Bessie Murphy: I don't think he took it up, no, I don't know the name of it.

Bob Zybach: How long did he farm that land?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, until after. . . about the turn of the century and he moved to town just before the turn of the century and retired.

Bob Zybach: Do you know what crops he raised?

Bessie Murphy: It was all level then, so I imagine he raised an awful lot of wheat. There's a while there where Oregon just raised wheat until it wore the ground out.

Bob Zybach: All the farmers raised wheat?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: I've heard that it depleted the soil because they raised so much.

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Do you know when that started happening, when the soil started getting worn out?

Bessie Murphy: Well, when . . . about the '70's because my other grandpa came here in '74 and he found it completely depleted.

Bob Zybach: So maybe from the 1850's to the 1870's, about twenty years in there they just wore the soil out?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: And then. . . what crop did they change to after they quit raising wheat?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know. I know my father began raising rye grass for hay.

Bob Zybach: Did you raise that on.

Bessie Murphy: And grandpa raised. . his hay was Timothy. .

Bob Zybach: So rye grass and Timothy would grow in poorer soil than the wheat?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Did they deplete the soil with that after awhile or.

Bessie Murphy: No, they didn't seem to have, they rotated more. Different field.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall any of the amounts that they used to get off the wheat, how many bushels an acre or some . . . how did they know they were depleting the soil? Could the weather have been changing for bad for a couple of years and they got excited and blamed it on the soil?

Bessie Murphy: I don't think so, no. Because when grandpa [Gragg] came he rented a farm down by Amity, near his daughter, she'd come in '64. And he had very bad luck, very poor crops, so he rented a different farm and it was the same thing. He tried three of them and the same thing.

Bob Zybach: Worn out?

Bessie Murphy: Worn out. So then he went to Clatsop County and took up a donation land claim and it was covered with big trees.

Bob Zybach: Timber and Stone Act or something like that? Would that have been about 1890 that he did that or 1895?

Bessie Murphy: Before that. . . . Oh, '78.

Bob Zybach: When he went to Clatsop County?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Then did he log that?

Bessie Murphy: No, he was too old, he retired.

Bob Zybach: Retired among the trees?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. No, they went out, you see, he was way back in and it was an awful job to get there and he and grandma went to a little town where they would have more conveniences. Little town of Mayer.

Bob Zybach: What kinds of crops did your father raise? I think you told me.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, he raised hay and he raised some wheats, and oats in the fields that way. Then he put

Bessie Murphy: in the first walnut orchard in this area.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember what year, about?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, I was in high school, that was before 1914.

Bob Zybach: Are any of those walnuts still there?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes.

Bob Zybach: Where are they?

Bessie Murphy: On the old farm home.

Bob Zybach: So those walnuts they were put in about eighty years ago?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. And they're kind of sad because nobody does anything for them anymore.

Bob Zybach: Who owns them now?

Bessie Murphy: Floyd. . what's his name . . . Anderson, Floyd Anderson, used to be the assessor.

Bob Zybach: Would could be done to them to help them out?

Bessie Murphy: Well, they should have been pruned and taken care of somewhat as they go along or they're pretty sad. Then after. . . you see, he got the English walnuts and planted them and then when they began to bear he found out that he had a poor variety. That they got the early frost . . . late frost. So he bad to graft them to a more hardy strain and the next thing he did, he took walnut from the old walnut tree and raised seedlings and planted them and then grafted them to the English. And that's all there, but it has no care.

Bob Zybach: And that's the first walnut orchard in the area, so it's got some significance as far as local crops?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: And you 'd like to see them fixed up and maintained?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, he had the place just tip top. Never been taken care of since he died.

Bob Zybach: Are you familiar with other orchards in the area, or plantings or.. were there apple orchards, that you can remember when you were a kid?

Bessie Murphy: Well, yes. All the farms had an apple orchard, that old orchard that's there now is over a hundred years old.

Bob Zybach: Do you know who planted it?

Bessie Murphy: No. Some pioneer.

Bob Zybach: Which apple orchard are you talking about?

Bessie Murphy: On my father's place.

Bob Zybach: So when your father got it, it already had an old apple orchard on it?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, and he pruned it up and got the dead limbs out and all that and then he sprayed it for. at that time the coddling moth had been around and laid her eggs and ever apple had a worm, so he had to spray for that.

Bob Zybach: What did he spray on them?

Bessie Murphy: The spray had sulphur in it, I don't know what it was called, but I do know that it had sulphur, you could smell it. There was an awful lot of work to farming by that time. An awful lot of vermits and insects and all kinds of things.

Bob Zybach: Do you think there's the same vermits and insects in the 1870's when they were raising wheat?

Bessie Murphy: No, I don't think so.

Bob Zybach: Do you think they came in because of the crops or. . . ?

Bessie Murphy: No, telling why, they just. . . they just getting around then by that time.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall any in particular. . . you said coddling moths, was that something just came in one or two years..

Bessie Murphy: No, they came in to stay, they're still here.

Bob Zybach: Do you know when they first came in?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know whether they came in my grandfather's era or not, they sure were in Papa's.

Bob Zybach: How about other insects or maybe small animals or birds?

Bessie Murphy: Well, the animal that was the most destructive to crops was moles and gophers.

Bob Zybach: Were there more gophers then?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. My father had a line of traps out most of the time.

Bob Zybach: So gopher trapping was kind of one of the chores for subsistence farming?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: What other kind of animal control., would you have problems with skunks in the hen house?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, you would if you left the door open at night; they shut the door.

Bob Zybach: How about coyotes or raccoons?

Bessie Murphy: No, didn't see either one of them. They came in later.

Bob Zybach: Coyotes and raccoons?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Where did they come from?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know.

Bob Zybach: But they weren't around this area, after awhile they started coming in?

Bessie Murphy: I think maybe. .there may have been some in the hills, have you heard, but you know this winter I've heard coyotes yelling.

Bob Zybach: This winter?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Over that way somewhere, some faintly.

Bob Zybach: How about black bears?

Bessie Murphy: No, no bears.

Bob Zybach: I was cutting timber on Misty Point and a black bear chewed on my chain saws just a few years ago. Three years ago they were right next to the valley. How about deer, has the deer population.

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: .got larger or smaller?

Bessie Murphy: Well, I don't know, but.

Bob Zybach: Can you remember different kinds of deer, were there any white tailed deer here then?

Bessie Murphy: I don't remember of it, of course at first I was too little to pay attention. I know my father didn't hunt much. He'd get a grouse once in awhile and during China pheasant season. They used to be thick. Then somebody brought in fox and he went to work and reproduced and they ruined the Chinese by getting their nests on the ground.

Bob Zybach: So there 's foxes in here now that are wild?

Bessie Murphy: There was for awhile, I don't know if they're still there.

Bob Zybach: And those are what you think killed off the ph.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, you see the pheasants' nest is on the ground, just duck soup to the foxes.

Bob Zybach: Why did people bring in foxes?

Bessie Murphy: They didn't have any more sense.

Bob Zybach: Just. . for hunting or for pets.

Bessie Murphy: . I don't know why, but it was ridiculous to bring it into this area where it was getting more settled all the time and agricultural.

Bob Zybach: So somebody somewhere brought in foxes and for awhile there's a lot of them, do you remember about when that was?

Bessie Murphy: Well, it was after I was grown, I know that.

Bob Zybach: So it was a scandal type thing?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Everybody's got pheasant hunting and suddenly everybody's got foxes.

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: How did they control the foxes, what did they do with them?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know. I imagine some of the farmers shot them.

Bob Zybach: How about opossum?

Bessie Murphy: They came later, and I've had my times with them. They're very persistent and they got under my house and I had a whale of a time getting them Out. I finally douched them out and into a big cage thing and then I used my little pistol on them.

Bob Zybach: Just killed them?

Bessie Murphy: That's the only thing to do.

Bob Zybach: You don 't like opossums?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, they're too destructive. Eat everything and chew things. Very great nuisance.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember when they came into this area?

Bessie Murphy: Well, I had my troubles after I came here and that's oh, twenty years ago.

Bob Zybach: So, were they here in the 1920's?

Bessie Murphy: Not that I know of.

Bob Zybach: So you didn't notice them really until about twenty years ago?

Bessie Murphy: I didn't have anything have any dealings with them then, you see, I wasn't. . . I was on the farm then and if there were any opossums around I didn't ever see them. Of course, we had dogs and the dogs would have scared the opossums.

Bob Zybach: How about beaver, were there beavers on any of these streams through here, beaver ponds -- were they common?

Bessie Murphy: I don't remember of it, they're such little streams. I don't remember of it. Some of my friends in Alsea had beaver trouble and a few others have, but I never did.

Bob Zybach: How about did your father fish or are you familiar with fish in the streams around here?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, there were trout, my brother and I fish, but there wasn't much for a grown up.

Bob Zybach: Just small fish?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, small trout, we thought it was fun.

Bob Zybach: Were you fishing Oak Creek, or.

Bessie Murphy: No, the streams on his place, a little .two little streams.

Bob Zybach: Did they have names?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, I named them.

Bob Zybach: Two little. . . what did you name them?

Bessie Murphy: Well, one, the land it flowed through was kind of clay and gooey and I called it. . . what was it called now, it had to do with the ground, and the other on the north end was different soil and stuff and there are lots of periwinkles, so I called it Periwinkle Creek. Cave In, this one in this end kept caving in, kept washing.

Bob Zybach: Are they still there?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Are they still called.

Bessie Murphy: I don't know what they're called. I don't know what they're called anymore.

Phil Hays: [Phil] Across from the high school.

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: So do you think they still have fish in them?

Bessie Murphy: They wouldn't have much, but they might have a few in them, I doubt if they're. . we had some nine or ten inches when we're kids.

Bob Zybach: Those are worth. . .

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes. We thought it was wonderful.

Bob Zybach: Did you notice many -- were there more ducks or geese in those days, wild ducks and geese?

Bessie Murphy: There were . . . yes, flying over, but they didn't land here. But I saw enormous bands of geese migrating, you know, and then for the last few years you don't see hardly any or hear them. I heard some this winter, but they're not big bands like they used to be.

Bob Zybach: When did that start changing, do you remember?

Bessie Murphy: I wasn't looking. I don't know just when they was -- just came to my attention and now it's just recent years.

Bob Zybach: On the way that the changes have come from wheat to hay, when they went to that what did they use for the taxes, how did they generate money to pay the taxes on these small fanns?

Bessie Murphy: Well, they fed the hay to the cows and milked the cows.

Bob Zybach: So it was milk, that's what a lot of farmers used for their income was milk, they were dairy fanns?

Bessie Murphy: Part of it, you see, they had a variety, a farmer just can't depend on one thing unless it's big.

Bob Zybach: Apples and eggs and hogs?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, a little bit of everything.

Bob Zybach: Did people raise sheep?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Papa had some sheep. Sheep and cattle and horses, goats.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall any of the other apple orchards, were there quite a ftw apple orchards, are there any cherry orchards in those days?

Bessie Murphy: We had a cherry orchard and made some money selling that too. I don't remember whether big orchards, they all had orchards when I was a child, but I don't know whether they were removed or what. I don't get out among them where the old neighbors used to live.

Bob Zybach: Would there be pickers, like would Siletz Indians come across to pick or kids pick?

Bessie Murphy: No, neighbor kids mostly, and me and my brother.

Bob Zybach: So, mostly the kids of the farms that did that the harvesting.

Bessie Murphy: They were there to work.

Bob Zybach: Were there any hired hands to help out?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, Papa always had a hired hand, he had too much to work by himself. I helped him out a little bit in . . . when he was planting crops, I would drive a three horse team to the rake, harrow I mean. To cover the grain after he sowed it.

Bob Zybach: Would that be sowed by machine or hand?

Bessie Murphy: He usually sowed it by hand, but he had a little hand machine with some of the grains he would sow with that I remember, but I think most of it he threw it by hand. I noticed he had a sack on his left side and he'd throw this and bring his hand back and get another handful, he had a system you see.

Bob Zybach: He had a rhythm?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. And he had me rake, I mean harrow over to cover the grain because sometime there'd be a big flock of blackbirds or crows would descend and pick it up.

Bob Zybach: How would you keep them out of there?

Bessie Murphy: Well, you don't.

Bob Zybach: You just have to let nature have.

Bessie Murphy: Well, if you rake. . . harrow it over.

Bob Zybach: Oh, Isee.

Bessie Murphy: with the birds, you cover it up, they wouldn't get much of it. I've done all the different things on the farm.

Bob Zybach: Why do you think there's not so many farms anymore?

Bessie Murphy: Well, I don't know why for sure, but I think it's too bad.

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

Bob Zybach: Oh, the A/ax?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Where did it sink?

Bessie Murphy: On the west coast here somewhere, I don't know.

Bob Zybach: Then from Astoria they moved down into this area?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, no, they moved into a little, . . oh, first they went to Amity where my aunt lived who had come ten years before.

Bob Zybach: In 1864?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, they went there.

Bob Zybach: Was she from Missouri?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Was there a reason she came right after the Civil War?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: What was the reason?

Bessie Murphy: Well, a bunch of them were coming, a bunch of her relatives, her family and some of her relatives and neighbors and they came in a wagon trail with oxen.

Bob Zybach: Oxen wagon trail?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Did they come by the south route or the north route?

Bessie Murphy: Don't ask me, I wasn't there.

Bob Zybach: Nobody told you?

Bessie Murphy: No, I wished I had known about those things. I would have asked her when I could.

Bob Zybach: She was still alive when you were young?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes. My aunt Sophronia.

Bob Zybach: Sophronia. So you actually knew somebody that came across the Oregon trail by covered wagon?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes. And I've known others too but I can't remember.

Bob Zybach: Was she the first one of your relatives that came here?

Bessie Murphy: The first one that came. And when she came and her family, grandpa wanted to come, but grandma wouldn't. So ten years later the grasshoppers ate them out in. . . oh, Kansas not Missouri, Kansas. The grasshoppers ate them out and grandma was willing to come then.

Bob Zybach: Had her fill of grasshoppers?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Just mined them, had them two years.

Bob Zybach: Did she ever regret it? Did she like it out here when they came here?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes.

Bob Zybach: Now that was your father's family, right.

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: And then how did your mother's family come here?

Bessie Murphy: Grandpa caine. . . oh, Pennsylvania is where they lived. Mama was born in Pennsylvania. And they came out here in. . goodness sakes, I can't think of the year. She was born back . there in . . . oh, it was '71.

Bob Zybach: 1871?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. He came to this farm that was surrounded by town later.

Bob Zybach: So even when he was still farming the town grew up all the way around him?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Wasn't he under pressure to develop ii' or sell it for money?

Bessie Murphy: No. He didn't sell it money.

Bob Zybach: Did people offer to buy it?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know, he didn't want to sell it. He rented it.

Phil Hays: [Phil] Is that the one down on Grant?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. And then you see,

Phil Hays: [Phil] With the Crees house.

Bessie Murphy: Yes. That big old house is still living, but it isn't white anymore. Painted it an icky color.

Bob Zybach: You'd like to see it white again?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. And I'd like to see it have a decent setting, it's crowded in among houses.

Bob Zybach: So you think it should be moved?

Bessie Murphy: It's been moved, you see.

Bob Zybach: Oh, I see.

Bessie Murphy: In recent years a man bought it I suppose for speculation and he moved it to a place where it isn't fit for it.

Bob Zybach: It's out of context?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Phil Hays: [Phil] Where was it?

Bessie Murphy: Sixteenth and. . what's the other street? .

Bob Zybach: So they moved it into a bad location and painted it an icky color?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Maybe because of it's age, maybe sometime in the future somebody can move and restore it.

Bessie Murphy: I wish somebody could.

Phil Hays: [Phil] Is that picture she's got on the wall in there, is that down on sixteenth?

Bessie Murphy: Will you go get that.

Bob Zybach: That's one thing I want to ask you later on is do you have good photographs of the early days of the farms or of the local hills or your family in the early 1900's or late 1800's?

Bessie Murphy: Some, just some. I'll hunt it up.

Bob Zybach: What I'm curious, is sometime at some later date would it be possible to borrow those and take photographs of them for slides?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Are they all pretty much in a single location or scattered around pretty much?

Phil Hays: [Phil] This is it when it was on sirteenth. Picture of the Cree house.

Bessie Murphy: Crees.

Bob Zybach: Crees house and "God Bless Our House" sign was on Sixteenth, do you know what year this is, it doesn't have a. . . oh, wait. . . no it doesn't have a year. It was printed in Portland. 1878.

Phil Hays: [Phil] I'm tiying to figure out what those hills are, that's Timber Hill and that's IV Hill behind it, there 's the ridge up in Dunn Forest. There's an orchard there and fir starling to move in here, fir back up in there.

Phil Hays: [Phil] But most of Vinyard Hill was pretty bare. And so you made this her letterhead.

Bessie Murphy: My kids think it's great.

Bob Zybach: So do I.

Bessie Murphy: Now you see, my father's farm is in these hills back of the bani to the right up Highland Way.

Bob Zybach: So this is your Grandfather Crees and this is Highland Way up here and this would be your father's farm up through here.

Phil Hays: [Phil] Kind of over by. .

Bessie Murphy: Over the hills, over the hills.

Bob Zybach: That's why we're not seeing any trees in that area?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, that's trees.

Bob Zybach: But just up on the ridge there?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Was that mostly oak?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Were they young oak.

Bessie Murphy: A fir or two.

Bob Zybach: Were they younger trees or.

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Quite a bit younger.

Bob Zybach: This is beautiful. What I'd like to do with this at sometime is take a slide picture so it can be projected on a screen and enlarged, would that be possible?

Bessie Murphy: I should think so.

Bob Zybach: If. . . is there. . . I understand there's somebody that's working with you now doing a story of your lfe and working on a histoty?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, I'm not sure what it is, I haven't read it.

Bob Zybach: Okay, you trust that's what she's doing?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Would she be a good person to maybe help you gather some of your old photographs together?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes.

Bob Zybach: Because f you could put them together it would be worth keeping a permanent record, maybe one that the Homer Museum or Oregon State could have access to. . . to see how things have changed in time.

Bessie Murphy: Give me some time to hunt them up.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Well, f you're willing to do it, I would sure be willing to take the photographs and make duplicates for you.

Bessie Murphy: I'll see if I want them.

Bob Zybach: Any pictures of your family and grandparents are just as interesting as farms or old buildings or early Corvallis.

Bessie Murphy: Might be.

Bob Zybach: And she might be a good person to gauge which pictures are.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, no doubt. Now that's grandpa's orchard.

Bob Zybach: So that's one that he inherited . . . or he planted that?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Is this the walnut orchard we were talking about?

Bessie Murphy: No, no, this is grandpa Crees'.

Bob Zybach: And he planted that orchard?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Are any of those trees still standing?

Bessie Murphy: I'm not sure. There's one stood for a long, long time but that was a Belflower Apple.

Bob Zybach: Belflower Apple?

Bessie Murphy: That was an old timer.

Bob Zybach: And it still might be there?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: And it was planted?

Bessie Murphy: Well, he. . .whenever he planted it, I don't know.

Phil Hays: [Phil] You say that was down on Sixteenth and what was the cross street.

Bessie Murphy: I'm trying to think of it, but I don't remember the cross street. Yeah, I may have it written down here, but . . Well, yes he came there in '71, you see and he stayed until '78.

Bob Zybach: Oh, so this picture says 1878 on the background because these trees are older than six or seven years old. So this picture might be from 1890 or 1900.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, I'm not sure.

Bob Zybach: It's a nice picture. It would be nice if somebody bought the house and moved it back and painted it that color again. Is that one of the oldest homes still around here?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, no.

Bob Zybach: There's quite a few older homes?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Some of them have renovated and preserved.

Bob Zybach: Other than riding your horse, did you play with other kids?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes, but you see it's quite a ways between houses and not all houses people had children to play with. But there was one in particular and it was down on Highland Way down this way down the hill And that was quite a little ways to walk, of course, I'd go on my pony if I went but they had to walk. They did come out to the cherry orchard. And they're the ones that gave me my first start of botany.

Bob Zybach: The girls in that family?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: How many were there?

Bessie Murphy: Ten.

Bob Zybach: Ten girls?

Bessie Murphy: No, ten children.

Bob Zybach: Oh, I see. And one or two of them were interested in botany?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes. Several of them. Kings.

Bob Zybach: Oh, the Kings. Soloman Kings 'family.

Bessie Murphy: His grandchildren.

Bob Zybach: How did they get interested in botany?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know, well, they had to make their own fun, most everybody did on the ranch. And they were great on reading books like Little Women, Little Men, Little Women and all those nice books of the times. And they got started on it and they made up their own names for them.

Bob Zybach: For the plants?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: So they started identifying the plants?

Bessie Murphy: You bet.

Bob Zybach: And giving them. . . kind of like your naming creeks, and them naming plants?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. They were just wonderful. And the oldest one lived to be ninety-eight.

Bob Zybach: So, did they drink some of that water at Sulphur Springs?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Well that's., we might have a competitor for Pepsi Cola here pretty quick. When you got together with them did you play games like hide and seek or race horses or.

Bessie Murphy: No, we never. . . not much like that, but the neighbors on the right of my father's place were the Murphys, a fellow related to my husband, just a cousin though. And they had a bunch of kids and they were my age and we would certainly play. In the evenings, lots of times we'd go over there into their barn lot and play their base and all those rough games. One time a little red headed boy, Roy and I collided and I had a black eye for a long time.

Bob Zybach: Just from rough housing?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Running, you know, we'd get so excited about the games.

Bob Zybach: Yeah, would you build tree houses or play catch with a baseball or.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, a little later when my brother got old enough to play ball, we did a lot of that, but we never made any tree houses. But we climbed trees to beat the band especially the shorter trees.

Bob Zybach: So tree climbing and tag and rough housing and horse back riding those were. . .fishing, those were the things. . . and reading?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember any of the books you used to read?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes. I used to get books out of the library and Mama and Papa and I took turns reading them out loud in the evening.

Bob Zybach: Can you remember some of those books?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes and no. There were popular books of the day, popular authors, and I can't say them. I should write that down.

Bob Zybach: You could probably look it up too.

Bessie Murphy: Little Men and Little Women were two of them.

Bob Zybach: That's Alcott?

Bessie Murphy: Yes!

Bob Zybach: Would you go to movies or baseball games?

Bessie Murphy: Wasn't any.

Bob Zybach: No reason to go to town?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes, we had to go to take our produce in and buy what we couldn't raise. See every week we took milk and eggs or they'd perish and we had to drive the old black horse to the. surrey with a fringe on top.

Bob Zybach: That was your produce wagon then?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: And so about just once a week you'd go into town, until you started school?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Everything was different then.

Bob Zybach: You think a lot nicer?

Bessie Murphy: I do.

Bob Zybach: Do you think people were nicer as a result or. ?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, in general I guess not.

Bob Zybach: Same kind of people just nicer circumstances?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Some I read about are not nice. Some are very queer to me.

Bob Zybach: The way things are going?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. I wonder why. One thing that they had to work and be sensible in those days. And there's too much leisure and pleasure now.

Bob Zybach: So you think what you did as recreation as a kid is just about the right amount, and now they do it too much?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Do you think that. . . like welfare or something like that, or do you think it's just absence of family farms or just a bunch of reasons?

Bessie Murphy: A bunch of reasons. Yes.

Bob Zybach: Is that something in the last ten years or something since World War II, or. .

Bessie Murphy: Well, in the last quite a few years but it's getting worse. It really is. Now there's poverty in my day too. There were certain families that never got anywhere, but they travelled

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

Bob Zybach: Where would you go, did you have fireworks?

Bessie Murphy: We had them in the evening, throwing firecrackers. . . yes . . .the kids were always using firecrackers all day long.

Bob Zybach: On the Fourth?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Would there be some community celebration around here somewhere?

Bessie Murphy: Lots of times, yes. That's. . .1 don't know, I don't think they went to Sulphur Springs particularly. It was just on some place here in the area where there was room.

Bob Zybach: And they might have a fireworks display or something?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Would your family. . . was it common for families to go picnicking.

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: . on their own farms or would they go down by the river

Bessie Murphy: Well, no, on their own farms and several. . . . some of their friends from other areas. communities might come or something like that.

Bob Zybach: How about when they were gathering crops and stuff, would they take meals out to the fields and maybe have a family picnics or hired hands. . . set a place.

Bessie Murphy: No, no, come to the house.

Bob Zybach: Come to the house and eat there?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, more comfortable.

Bob Zybach: So they were looking for comfort rather than.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, they worked hard and had a meal and washed up and rested up a little.

Bob Zybach: How long did you work at the seed.

Bessie Murphy: Just about fifteen years.

Bob Zybach: So you would have been forty or fifty years old when you quit working there?

Bessie Murphy: No, I worked until I was sixty-two. . . maybe it was sixty-five, I'm not sure.

Bob Zybach: And then you retired?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: And since that time, you've been devoting most of your time to botanizing or a little bit of your time or ?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. I have a variety. Like him and some of the others we got together about it and call ourselves the "Botany Gang".

Bob Zybach: The Botany Gang, huh?

Bessie Murphy: The Botany Bunch, I guess isn't it?

Bob Zybach: When did this happen?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, several years ago, do you remember?

Bob Zybach: So it's like the Brady Bunch8 or something?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Got thirty-two years there? What did you do between your retirement and the Botany Bunch?

Bessie Murphy: Well, I was always busy .. an old hen with a dozen chickens.

Bob Zybach: Volunteer work or grandkids or.

Bessie Murphy: No, stuff I cooked up myself. Before I moved here, I had a garden and I gardened. But I've been working at my yard here, to get it ready to plant in wild flowers and save some of them maybe. I fmished that job this spring.

[Footnote] Brady Bunch was a popular television show in 1970s.

Bob Zybach: So you're going to put the lawn into wildflowers rather than grass?

Bessie Murphy: I'm not going to try for grass.

Bob Zybach: Trying to keep it out?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, it'll be wild flowers, I've got twenty kinds now.

Bob Zybach: Twenty kinds?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Are they fairly common around the area or some of them unusual?

Bessie Murphy: Well, fairly common. You know what the trilliums are, don't you?

Bob Zybach: Yes.

Bessie Murphy: I've got trifliums and I've got. . . well, it's that one. . . lamb's tongues {Erythronium oregonum].

Bob Zybach: Lamb tongue?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, been seeing it here, well, that's what I wanted.

Bob Zybach: Did you collect wild plants when you were working at the Seed Lab?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, I went with my teacher on a few collecting trips. There, oh, here. See they're like that in my yard now, in the spring.

Bob Zybach: Oh. Did you ever go botanizing on Coffin Butte, that area?

Bessie Murphy: No, that's down that way isn't it?

Bob Zybach: Yeah.

Bessie Murphy: I used to see it, we used to drive by it but I've never got to go up on it.

Bob Zybach: How about. . .1 understand that you've identified plants in the area of the Soap Creek School House?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, they have a yard there and it's full of cat's ears [Calochortus tohniei].

Bob Zybach: Cat ears?

Bessie Murphy: Mariposa Lilies, local kind. And they have a committee to take care of that school house, you know it's a museum. And the one who's supposed to take care of the yard didn't. she's a Japanese girl and she didn't understand what to do, so she mowed it.

Bob Zybach: And they're trying to raise wildflowers there?

Bessie Murphy: Well, it was just thick with them and you see, that takes all the seed pods and no more seeds and the bulbs will run out eventually. So they had to stop that and had her just mow a path.

Bob Zybach: So now they're not mowing it to encourage the wildflowers to come back?

Bessie Murphy: Well, that discouraged it, see, that took the seed pods.

Bob Zybach: Is there still a fairly good variety of wildflowers there?

Bessie Murphy: Well, it just this kind, the cat ear.

Bob Zybach: They were saying that recently they found a fairly rare lily towards the back of the house? Are you familiar with that?

Bessie Murphy: I hadn't heard about that.

Bob Zybach: Just about two days..

Bessie Murphy: That's interesting. I would like to know what kind of lily.

Bob Zybach: That's why I was asking you.

Bessie Murphy: Well, you have to show me.

Bob Zybach: Well, we'll go find it. Lorna Grabe.

Phil Hays: [Phil] She '11 stand right there and say, well, that's not supposed to be there. I think Lorna Grabe 's the one you want to talk to, she's the one that told me about it, she said they just found it. . . I believe within the last year.

Bessie Murphy: I know her, I'll have to call her and ask her.

Bob Zybach: In the notes here, in those days, there were lots ofjack rabbits?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, my, yes.

Bob Zybach: That was a real problem around here, jack rabbits?

Bessie Murphy: Well, I don't know how much of a problem they were, for awhile they were quite thick. I don't know what happened to them. Sometimes they'd get a disease among rabbits or some other animal and it takes them off.

Bob Zybach: So in those days there were more gophers, more moles and more jack rabbits here?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Do you think all this asphalt that we're laying down is what's helping to control them or do you think it's just that they 're not farming any more or do you think diseases maybe came in?

Bessie Murphy: Any of those can help, any of those can be part reason, you see. Various things, no doubt. But there's plenty of moles, I don't know about gophers, but I . . . as I go along the road I see in the field piles of mole and gopher works. There's still plenty of them around.

Bob Zybach: It not so much a problem maybe because people aren't farming?

Bessie Murphy: That's right. You don't want them on your lawn, sometimes they're on your lawn.

Bob Zybach: So they're still a problem some?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes, they can be a problem.

Bob Zybach: How about the way the town's been developing, you got to watch it develop from dirt roads to concrete parking lots?

Bessie Murphy: Dirt roads to gravel roads to concrete.

Bob Zybach: Do you think maybe they've put too much concrete down or do you think that's just one of the prices you pay for having so many people?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes, you have to have it.

Bob Zybach: How about this plan to have a green way plan around the city, do you think something like that is a pretty reasonable idea or.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, probably so, I haven't looked into it, I don't know what. . . don't know much about it yet.

Bob Zybach: Do you think it might be better off to turn it into family farms?

Bessie Murphy: Well, the county all around has good land, now all this land over here that Camp Adair ruined. That could have just as well been made into farms.

Bob Zybach: The flat area, the area around where Wells Station is.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, I've been seeing in the paper about the Camp Adair.

Bob Zybach: They said some of that land was ruined because of all the concrete and pipes of excavation.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, probably so.

Bob Zybach: But you think that their using it for a game farm, do you think it might be better to raise pheasants there or put in a few family farms maybe as demonstrations?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know. If it's got trash in it like cement and the pipes and things, they couldn't do much about fanning it. Perhaps it's best this way.

Bob Zybach: Can you remember when CCC came in here?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes.

Bob Zybach: Was that pretty popular with the people in your area?

Bessie Murphy: No, we just stood for it.

Bob Zybach: Just happened so you lived with it?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Did they create any problems?

Bessie Murphy: Not where I was, but. . .1 don't know.

Bob Zybach: Do you know any people that maybe came here with the CCC and that are still here, liked the area so much they stayed?

Bessie Murphy: No, I don't particularly a person, no.

Bob Zybach: It was just kind of one of those troublesome things that kind of occurred and didn't pay it any mind?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: How about Adair? Was that kind of the same reaction or did people. . . were people more concerned when Adair came in?

Bessie Murphy: I didn't hear much about it. I guess it was the same way.

Bob Zybach: So, even though they had these big development out around Peavy and Camp Adair, they kind of kept to themselves and didn 't attract a lot of people here locally or.

Bessie Murphy: I don't think so.

Bob Zybach: Maybe they had more a tendency to go up to Portland or Salem when they went places than Corvallis or.

Bessie Murphy: Probably.

Bob Zybach: Could it have been that you were just maybe. . . because of your kind of work or lifestyle that you just weren't too much associated with any changes around town?

Bessie Murphy: I guess that's it.

Bob Zybach: As far as you were concerned, you knew what was going on but didn't really change things too much?

Bessie Murphy: No.

Bob Zybach: How about either one of the Wars in general, World War I, can you remember any big changes because of that, a lot less men around or lot of community fundraisers for.

Bessie Murphy: Oh, there was some of that, but I. . in general it didn't upset our. . . or disrupt our lives . much. Got along. . got life here fairly well.

Bob Zybach: Did you have any close relatives die or.

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes. I lost two cousins in one family.

Bob Zybach: So, that was the worst thing?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Some of the boys would go off to war and not come back?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Was there any local celebration after the War, or was there a lot of.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, yes there was. I think there was. Everybody celebrating.

Bob Zybach: How about the Depression. Was that a real sudden thing that upset everybody or poor family farms anyhow and the people kept on as usual?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, well, about as usual, I suppose affected some more than others.

Bob Zybach: Businesses in town, did some of the businesses close down or. . . not paying them for awhile or. sell out?

Bessie Murphy: I imagine so, but I don't know.

Bob Zybach: So life was pretty stable, wars had come, depressions would come, CCC came in and as far as you went just something you read in the newspaper?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. See, the farm . . . I don't know how to say it, but it can absorb a lot of trouble and bother and one thing or another.

Bob Zybach: Pretty insulated about world events . . . or even local events?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. You had your work to do and you had to do in order to live.

Bob Zybach: Did you listen to the radio much?

Bessie Murphy: No, can't be bothered.

Bob Zybach: Oh, do you think you're unusual or do you think that was maybe a lot of people?

Bessie Murphy: Most people.

Bob Zybach: Didn't listen to the radio?

Bessie Murphy: No, they like it, but I haven't got the habit.

Bob Zybach: Oh, I see.

Bessie Murphy: I rather read a good book.

Bob Zybach: So, maybe a lot. [END OF TAPE]

Bessie Murphy: Did you talk to her and know that they used to live in Soap Creek Valley?

Bob Zybach: Yeah. You knew Neva?

Bessie Murphy: I knew the whole family, but Neva was in my grade.

Bob Zybach: So you went to the same school?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, but that's after they moved to town you see.

Bob Zybach: Oh, I see, so do you remember when they moved to town?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, it was around the turn of the century.

Bob Zybach: About 1900 or 1901?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: I see, so you knew them, the Moores, in town and went to school with them and the Kings?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Did they ever talk or go back to the old place on Sulphur Springs?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know. Laura [Moore] has lived the longest I believe and she corresponds with the people that are taking care of the little red school house. She helps them with memories.

Bob Zybach: And I've got some photographs of her but I haven't talked to her. Do you think she would be a good person to talk to about. . . as far as. . . or was she too young when they moved to remember much about Sulphur Springs?

Bessie Murphy: No, because she is older than me.

Bob Zybach: Oh, I see and she's still alive?

Bessie Murphy: She was just a few years ago.

Bob Zybach: And she had a good memory two years ago too?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: I may. . . did she move to Newport?

Bessie Murphy: I think so. At the coast.

Bob Zybach: And one of her sisters was still alive, I think, maybe in Philomath? I'm not really.

Bessie Murphy: It was Laura and Neva and there was a boy or two. Mr. Moore had, in Corvallis, had a chicken hatchery. Oh, I see so That was his business.

Bob Zybach: Sold the ranch and moved to town and opened up a chicken hatchery. Were they. . . did they do pretty good?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. It was considered pretty good.

Bob Zybach: They lived in a house in town then?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. They were living there when I started to school in 1901 or '02, whatever it was and Neva was in my grade. Integrated school, there was no grades in this country school.

Bob Zybach: So, did you like the school in town better or the country school better?

Bessie Murphy: Well, I didn't go to the country school hardly two years. It was a better school in town, of course, I've got to admit that.

Bob Zybach: Got to ride your horse.

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Did you have a May pole or any /dnd of playground equipment, any slides or merry go round?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, they had slides and things like that in town. Nothing out in the country one. We'd play just games we knew like Drop the Handkerchief and Pussy Wants a Corner and things

Bessie Murphy: like that.

Bob Zybach: Do you think you got a pretty good education in the schools?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes, they were good.

Bob Zybach: Got reading and writing of course, how about Oregon history, did they teach much histoty?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, and I like history.

Bob Zybach: Oh, did they teach local history about Jessie Apple gate or Jedidiah Smith or can you remember?

Bessie Murphy: Well, I'm not sure, I've heard of them before so . . . I don't remember whether there was much of that mentioned or not.

Bob Zybach: Still a lot of pioneers alive at that time?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Did they make a big deal out of them, did they have local celebrations for the original pioneers or

Bessie Murphy: No, I don't remember any of it. And it was 1905 before they began to urge to mark the Oregon Trail.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember the man responsible for that?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, Ezra Meeker.

Bob Zybach: Did you know him personally?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, I saw him personally.

Bob Zybach: Saw him, so he was a big hit when he was marking the Oregon Trail?

Bessie Murphy: No, he had to work hard at getting people interested.

Bob Zybach: He's kind of famous. I'm interested in trails and he 's kind of a.

Bessie Murphy: You see in 1905 when the Lewis and Clark Exposition.

Bob Zybach: Did you go to that?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, in Portland.

Bob Zybach: Did you have Coca Cola there?

Bessie Murphy: No. I don't think so. Anyway Ezra . . . we stayed at my aunt in Portland for a few days, we went and Ezra was camped with his oxen team and wagon on a vacant lot near her. And he was on his way back east to Washington to work for getting the trail marked.

Bob Zybach: Was he part of the exposition?

Bessie Murphy: No, no. Just happened to be there, or maybe he did on it on purpose, I don't know.

Bob Zybach: Did you talk to him?

Bessie Murphy: I don't think so, I was just a kid, but I saw him and I heard him talk a little.

Phil Hays: [Phil] He went back East by wagon?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Took him a long time, but he finally got back to Washington D. C.

Bob Zybach: Was he famous then, did people know who he was?

Bessie Murphy: Well, he began being famous, yes.

Bob Zybach: Did you take the train to the Lewis and Clark Exposition?

Bessie Murphy: I think we did.

Bob Zybach: What do you remember about it?

Bessie Murphy: Oh boy, plenty. The main thing that interested me was that pony that had been taught tricks.

Bob Zybach: Trick pony?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Trixie.

Bob Zybach: Can you remember the log house. . the world's largest log cabin? Can you remember the big log cabin they built there?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes, yes, I saw it, yes.

Bob Zybach: What other impressions, is that the first you can remember going to Portland?

Bessie Murphy: No, because we'd go there and visit my grandmother and my aunt every so often.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember anything about Portland in those days?

Bessie Murphy: Well, it wasn't as big as now of course. You could go on the train there. No, I can't remember much detail.

Bob Zybach: Could you take a boat there, did they still have boats.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, we could have done that but it's a lot slower, you know and all that than the train.

Bob Zybach: It wasn't as modem? Would people still take the boat?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know how much it was used. I think it was more for freight than passengers at that time. But when my mother and I caine to Benton County from Clatsop County, I think. was it Portland, I can't remember, to visit somebody, we took the boat to Corvallis, the river boat. And I can't remember where it was a stern wheeler or a side wheeler. I wish to goodness I did.

Bob Zybach: But you remember taking the boat ride?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, I remember.

Phil Hays: [Phil] Other than you and your mother, were there very many passengers?

Bessie Murphy: Well, it was passengers like us, you know, just passengers. Coming up here. . . See we was coming up here because we were moving up here.

Bob Zybach: Moving your freight up that way?

Bessie Murphy: Not all of it. My dad came across the mountains. . Elsie where he lived with a wagon and horses and a herd of cattle. And he hit the road coming up . . . but he was supposed to come across part of the Military Road with that and he hit the road. . . the main road down here somewhere I think around Amity maybe. . . and it took him many days to get up here.

Bob Zybach: So your family was here waiting for him when he got here?

Bessie Murphy: No, we didn't get here until after he had been here a few. . some days.

Bob Zybach: Did he come by himself?

Bessie Murphy: No, he had two or three neighbors, he hired them. . . to help him come with his cattle and things. And he had to get. . . buy food. Oats and stuff for them along the way, and he found some people who weren't very accommodating.

Bob Zybach: What do you mean by that?

Bessie Murphy: Well, they didn't want to sell him anything, this and that and the other. . . I don't know what all. It was one in particular I think, became our neighbor later on. Wasn't much accommodation between us.

Bob Zybach: Hard feelings on the road translated to hard feeling between neighbors?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: See

Bessie Murphy: What?

Bob Zybach: I thought you were starting to say something and I.

Bessie Murphy: No, but I've. . . then you see, I've seen my whole life from then on and what he did to this ranch . . . that old ranch and I'd say it would be a whole lot better if a lot of people now that are at loose ends and don't know what to do with themselves and can't get anywhere if they had a little farm they could work out. But they'd have to be taught something.

Bob Zybach: People don't have the knowledge or the tools to work on the farms anymore?

Bessie Murphy: No, no! And. . . especially if you could fmd a boy that's out of high school or has quit high school or something, he's the one that needs help. Nothing's done.

Bob Zybach: How about the children 's farm home here locally, do you think something like that. . is that what . you have in mind?

Bessie Murphy: No, I. . well, anything to get them started, yes. I don't know how . . . I remember when . the farm home was started, but I've never gone over there and seen how it works.

Bob Zybach: Just not interested or just didn't have the opportunity?

Bessie Murphy: Just didn't seem to have the opportunity. I always was busy.

Bob Zybach: On your father, when he moved into the farm, the soil had been depleted and it had been used for stock, is that common with a lot of the farms around here if they 'ye been depleted, they just switched over to stock?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, or if they .. I don't know why they left it, anyway it's gone back to nature. And it's very, very interesting.

Bob Zybach: In what ways?

Bessie Murphy: For instance, there were two natural springs on the place, wonderful springs, that's where we got our water, one at both ends of the place and when papa fmally got himself a little time to fix up another field, way down to the north end, I remember we all went down there with him that day and around that spring had grown up young ash trees, they were probably as high as this house then and in every one of those ash trees as near as I remember there was a nest that looked like a robin's nest. And there was a . . . I think was a deer mouse. Do you know anything about deer mice? They're pretty grey with a white belly and a long tail. And there was that mouse, I don't know what it was doing there.

Bob Zybach: Every one of those nests?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. And when we went down there, and began to chop them trees, of course, they'd beat it. We ruined their environment and I feel bad about it.

Bob Zybach: Do you think the deer mice had more right to those trees than you did?

Bessie Murphy: Well, it's a shame really. They weren't doing any harm and we were ogres to them. And.

Phil Hays: [Phil] Are you sure it was a deer mouse or could it be something like tree voles?

Bessie Murphy: Now what's a tree

Phil Hays: [Phil] Looks like a mouse, there are a bunch of them and live . . . they make nests in trees.

Bessie Murphy: Well, it could have been, you see, I didn't know. Nobody knew to tell me. I'd like to know because I want to write this up about my father's place.

Bob Zybach: So you're working on a history of your father's making that transformation?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. And things that happened as they appeared to me and. . . at all ages as I grew up.

Phil Hays: [Phil] You say they were grey with a white belly?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Have you noticed, when you were younger can you recall seeing eagles or more hawks?

Bessie Murphy: No. Hawks, more hawks.

Bob Zybach: More than now?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: How about owls?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, there were more owls too.

Bob Zybach: And lots more pheasants?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes. You see the pheasants were brought in about the '90's. And they prospered and they got too thick, I'll say, for years. And now, they're just about gone.

Bob Zybach: I hunted pheasants around here in the 1950's and the '60's even, until 1960's, so it's been pretty recent that they've kind of died out.

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Well, I don't see them, I know there's nothing like they used to be. Maybe some living yet, but nothing like it was.

Bob Zybach: Did the grass seed growers putting all these fallow farms back into production after World War II, could that have removed their habitat, been more problem than foxes?

Bessie Murphy: I don't think so.

Bob Zybach: You think pretty much foxes was..

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, I think foxes were the big. . . a big factor in it. And then another little critter. I'd like to know somebody to ask that knows about these little critters. And this one as I remember was more like a field mouse, it was a little browner but it was about as big as a deer mouse and it had a short tail and it was a fat little thing, you know, shaped like a mole or a gopher but it was a mouse and it lived in this . . . swamp . . . this brush grass swamp.

Bob Zybach: And that's the place you saw it?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. And the only place it could dig and do anything about living would be in the clumps of roots. I'd like to talk to somebody that would know.

Bob Zybach: I think I could probably find out for you.

Bessie Murphy: I wish you would.

Bob Zybach: I've got a friend that's a wildlife biologist.

Bessie Murphy: Oh, goodie.

Bob Zybach: Can probably help you out.

Bessie Murphy: I would like to talk to somebody, about both those kinds of mice.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Bessie Murphy: And another thing about this swamp, I will never forget it, it was below the run off of the spring and always had water, as I remember it never went dry completely and but it was very, very thin scum of water and real fme soft dirt and in the summer time when it was warm that water was wann. And boy was that the most wonderful place to run in bare feet.

Bob Zybach: Oh. What happened to it?

Bessie Murphy: Well, I riled it up.

Bob Zybach: No, I mean is it still there?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, no, Papa. . . here's more Scotch thrift, he sunk a line of tile. . . that ruined that.

Bob Zybach: So he could plow over it?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. I was interested in the aesthetic part of his farming. He was interested in profits.

Bob Zybach: Was it profitable to sink the tile and farm over that or.

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes. It wasn't doing any good except for me otherwise.

Bob Zybach: I see. How many brothers and sisters did you have?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, just one little brother.

Bob Zybach: How much younger than you?

Bessie Murphy: Six years.

Bob Zybach: Six years younger?

Bessie Murphy: Six or seven.

Bob Zybach: So you were by yourself quite a bit?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, really.

Bob Zybach: So places that you would find and play with kind of by yourself and those are the areas that you became familiar with, places such as the spring, or the.

Bessie Murphy: The creeks. Of course, he got big enough to play at the creek too.

Bob Zybach: So those would be kind of your destinations around the house there?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: And then the trees?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Shorter trees than that?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes. Oh, it was a heavenly place for kids if they were inclined that way. And I've got some real great granddaughters that aren't being taught a thing on earth about what grows. They're just little dolls, that's all.

Bob Zybach: Did you know you were in a nice place when you were growing up or did it take your growing up and looking back to realize it was a nice place?

Bessie Murphy: No, I think both. Yeah, I realized it twice. As farms go, some people. . if anything I . don't like, it's a snob that makes fun of farms. But of course, farmers hung together, they were a social group and it was about the same, we didn't have any snobs.

Bob Zybach: How about when you went to college?

Bessie Murphy: No, I didn't notice it, it was in a different environment. All in college and studying, didn't notice much like that.

Bob Zybach: Do you think the courses they taught in college at that time were similar to courses they teach now, I mean, take away computers and some of the modem technology, were the instructors and students

Bessie Murphy: was it a similar level of education or similar. Yes, I think so. environment. Yes. Of course, I enjoyed the botany the best of anything

Bob Zybach: That wasn't your degree was it?

Bessie Murphy: No, I graduated in home economics, the thing I didn't care for. There wasn't much else for a woman to do then.

Bob Zybach: The botany was that necessary for the job at the seed lab?

Bessie Murphy: That helped like everything. I knew the names of things. I didn't have to ask.

Bob Zybach: Did you get more money because of that?

Bessie Murphy: No, I don't think so.

Bob Zybach: Just helped to ma/ce get the job?

Bessie Murphy: Yes it would have, but they took lots of that didn't have any at all. They had to learn it there. Those were good days, I enjoyed the job.

Bob Zybach: Before then you were just . . . pretty much between graduation and starting at the Seed Lab, though you got married and were raising kids, pretty much as a housewife?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Oh, yes, I didn't have any job, of course I was busy. . we had a garden and all that sort of thing.

Bob Zybach: Did you do any botanizing during that time of your life?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. I always played with it.

Bob Zybach: Just go out and hike in the woods and look for things?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Where ever I was. I fmd there's something everywhere.

Bob Zybach: So, even in your lawn or in the garden or..

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Oh. Constantly.

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: How about your children?

Bessie Murphy: Well, they like it, but they didn't go in for it big like I did.

Bob Zybach: Where are some of your favorite places around town? You mentioned Sulphur Springs. Are there other areas that you think are particularly good for botanizing?

Bessie Murphy: Well, they're all good. Yes, I've been up on the face of these bare hills I didn't think about it then but I don't imagine, do you Phil, that there'd be a heck of a lot there, because it would just be hot and dry up there.

Phil Hays: [Phil] . . . early in the spring why it's still. .

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: So you go more on the north side of the hills where it's cooler and moister looking for things?

Bessie Murphy: No, I try to go on all different kinds of places, see, because different plants in different

Bessie Murphy: places.

Bob Zybach: Did you ever map them or keep records?

Bessie Murphy: No.

Bob Zybach: Or journals or anything?

Bessie Murphy: No.

Bob Zybach: Just a good memory?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know how good it is, but I don't remember keeping much of a record.

Bob Zybach: Are there any particular trails that you go on year after year to see certain plants at certain times?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, Sulphur Springs was the best, they're so different over there.

Bob Zybach: So, I know they 're thinking of developing it now and that's a good thing to know is that type of. that's locally a good area.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, it is, I think it ought to be preserved and done something with. It's different.

Bob Zybach: When was the last time you were out there?

Bessie Murphy: Two or three years ago, I think.

Bob Zybach: I'm trying to get Charlie Olson and Wanda Cook, it's the Cooks that bought the Moore place.

Bessie Murphy: Oh. I didn't know any of them.

Bob Zybach: She 's one of the Marc/cs..

Bessie Murphy: Oh!

Bob Zybach: And Charlie Olson up to Sulphur Springs in February and it maybe fun for you to go out at the same time, they're arguing over whether there was a building there or not, they don't know it yet. One says one thing and one says the other.

Bessie Murphy: Well, I can't remember. . . I think there was a building there when we first came. because this man Mr. Baker owned it and he made a croquet grounds.

Bob Zybach: Pennanent croquet?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Oh.

Bessie Murphy: For the customers there and I think there was a building. . . it was just used for storage and temporary camping and things like that, nobody lived there that I know of. There were other people around the Valley, but nobody there that I remember of.

Bob Zybach: So would people pay money to play croquet it was like.

Bessie Murphy: No, he just had it for his guests.

Bob Zybach: Did anybody pay him to stay there?

Bessie Murphy: No.

Bob Zybach: He was just kind of a.

Bessie Murphy: He owned it. just a nice guy and let everybody come and camp there that wanted to? Yeah, I don't know whether the campers had to pay .. those that camped in a tent. I don't know if they had to pay him when they were camped there overnight or anything.

Bob Zybach: I see.

Bessie Murphy: Oh, by the way there was a trail. . . Phil, maybe you know about this, we came in. went over west that way, we came in to the Sulphur Springs on a trail and I remember we'd come . . . several of us go horseback when Camp Athir was here and had built some tables and benches and things. And we'd come in on a trail.

Bob Zybach: To Sulphur Springs?

Bessie Murphy: From the southwest corner

Bob Zybach: From Oak Creek?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: So you took. . . I think that trail is still there, from Oak Creek up and over to Sulphur Springs?

Phil Hays: [Phil] Describe to me again where the trail came from?

Bessie Murphy: Well, you see, I didn't pay much attention and some others in the group knew where to go and I just followed, but it came in somewhere from the southwest but I don't know where we got onto it or anything more about it.

Bob Zybach: And it was during. . . when Camp Adair was there?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, or after.

Bob Zybach: I think I've got a map of that trail. I've got some maps of the trails in the 1930's in that area right up through 1945.

Bessie Murphy: Well, that. . . that must be it.

Bob Zybach: So, just go from Sulphur Springs head across the creek right across from where that little slab was, that concrete marker that says Sulphur Springs.

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes.

Bob Zybach: That's where it came in?

Bessie Murphy: Close there. I don't know exactly.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember when that marker went in there, was it from.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, I remember that.

Bob Zybach: Do you know when they put that there?

Bessie Murphy: No, not exact dates.

Bob Zybach: Was it Camp Adair or the CCC'S or was it there when you were a little girl?

Bessie Murphy: No, it wasn't. It probably was the CCC's or some thing.

Phil Hays: [Phil] Out there on the.

Bessie Murphy: Can't think about where was I. Down there on Kings Road very likely is where I lived longest after I was married, and then when the girls got big enough, we got them . . . got another horse, you see.

Phil Hays: [Phil] So that day you went on over the pass.

Bessie Murphy: No.

Phil Hays: [Phil] You went back out west somewhere?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, we must have come from Kings Road. . I must have been living on Kings Road . then, and went on out Kings Road, I don't remember how we went, but we came out at Sulphur Springs.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember any old roads or trails that might have fallen down. . . California mines road or the Umpqua State Road or Applegate Trail or anything like that?

Bessie Murphy: I've heard of the Applegate Trail.

Bob Zybach: Did you think it went through here?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Did anybody tell you where?

Bessie Murphy: No, that's the trouble.

Bob Zybach: Oh, but you did know. . . you did have an understanding that it came through here somewhere?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Did anybody. . . can you remember anybody that might have told you that, one of the old timers that told you or. .

Bessie Murphy: Yes, and they're all gone.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember any of the people that said anything about it?

Bessie Murphy: I think. . . one special one was my uncle, gave me that.

Bob Zybach: Magnifying glass.

Bessie Murphy: Goes everywhere with me.

Bob Zybach: Oh, but he knew that the Applegate Trail came through?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, you see he was about my father's age, he knew a lot of these old time things.

Bob Zybach: So he was interested in the local history here then?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, because he grew up around. . . he grew up partly in Alsea and partly here. He knew a lot of people. Well, he was. . . gosh, he's been dead for. . . well, now, my husband died when my oldest child was seventeen, late was in the early twenties and I think Uncle gave me that.

Phil Hays: [Phil] Did he use that.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, he used that lots, you see, he did some prospecting. He never made a strike.

Bob Zybach: Gold prospecting glass?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, he used it.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember any of the stories that he told other than mentioning the Applegate Trail, did he mention anything about Indians around here or mention any thing about Civil War days around here or anything of that nature?

Bessie Murphy: No, I don't remember particularly, I wish I'd had sense enough to ask him. You see.

Bob Zybach: Why don't we. . . we've put on. (end of tape)