Part V.. September 29, 1990 Interview

Part V.

September 29, 1990 Interview

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

Bob Zybach: Okay, I think we're recording Bessie, so why don't we start with why you are doing this.

Bessie Murphy: Let's see, how did I say it in the first place? I want to keep the history of this straight.

Bob Zybach: You were talking about the reason you were making your comments, why you thought this was important to get all the details in.

Bessie Murphy: Oh yes, I like history as it is. I don't want history distorted. So I may ask to make explanations so you'll understand what all this is. It isn't as it was as and it's different.

Bob Zybach: Why is it important to you that we understand what it was like then?

Bessie Murphy: Did I say that?

Bob Zybach: Not yet.

Bessie Murphy: Well, important is that I say that I want it right as it was. I don't want it distorted in the telling or anything. Because I can see it as it was, I knew it and I can see it as it was as I look back over my life.

Bob Zybach: You made some comments too about how it's important to you that people not make fun of farmers.

Bessie Murphy: Well I know that was a shortcoming of society. They had those who "had" plenty of this world's good and could have things as they want them, and they got the idea that they were a little better than those who didn't. And that isn't fair. We can't all be rich. We may just as worthy as anybody else. But it was the custom to make fun of something that was not quite as good as what you think you had. It just was that way.

Bob Zybach: So people made fun of farmers back when you were a little girl too?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes. If they could possibly get anything better they wouldn't live as next to nature as the farmers had to. But that don't make them any better. They thought it did, you see?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Did this show up when you were in grade school, between town kids and farmers kids?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, a little bit. But I didn't stick around after school long enough to hear many comments. I got on my pony and came home.

Bob Zybach: That was Belle, wasn't it? No, that was.

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Belle was your pony?

Bessie Murphy: Doris was George's.

Bob Zybach: So one thing I've found out about this. People can 't remember the names of their grandparents or their cousins but everybody knows the name of their pony and their work horses.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, you bet! A horse was very important to them in those days. Because it was its motive power on the farm until the tractors came in. And it's the inventions of labor saving devices that made the most change in the ways of life.

Bob Zybach: What's the biggest change you 'ye seen in your life?

Bessie Murphy: Automobile from horses.

Bob Zybach: That's what everybody says that's lived through that.

Bessie Murphy: You bet.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] What were some other things chat came up on the farm?

Bessie Murphy: Well, there were tractors, gasoline tractors, see that could push the horse out of reach.

Bob Zybach: You said. . . we were talking about Lady Bird Johnson putting all these wildflowers along the Texas highways. And you said it was important that people understand management.

Bessie Murphy: Yes. If they don't manage those plantings and keep them from being overpowered by the undesirable weeds, they won't have anything.

Bob Zybach: Do you think it's good to use chemicals in management?

Bessie Murphy: No, I don't think so. That will kill too many things. I don't know. I think that they will have to organize organizations and do a lot of hand weeding. That's my opinion. But they may figure out some other way.

Bob Zybach: So you think that putting these native plants back is good.

Bessie Murphy: Urn hmm

Bob Zybach: But the native plants.

Bessie Murphy: They're a big price.

Bob Zybach: And that's gonna be a lot of man power.

Bessie Murphy: You bet. That's what I'm doing around here.

Bob Zybach: Now you also said that the farmers had to manage and had to pay attention, that they needed more respect, but one of the problems was, like with your own dad, that they got too focused. That they didn 'tpay attention to aesthetics.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, they lost track of some things that they shouldn't have. In the life. Because there was all the, there was the whole family to do something for. We didn't all just want to work our little heads off. We wanted to make a go of the farm and help him and all that, but that wasn't our sole interest. And my father's type, if you had time after you did all this work, you could do something about aesthetics. And I insist that they're important in the education.

Bob Zybach: Now you also said what you thought was the worst mistake he made. Or the worst thing he did.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. Not considerate enough.

Bob Zybach: You mentioned the one thing he did was what, draining that swamp?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, well, I suppose it was foolish of me to think that because that was good fanning. But oh, it spoiled it awful. Oh, that was a heavenly place, I tell you, for kids to play!

Bob Zybach: So, was he being inconsiderate to you, or inconsiderate to the plants?

Bessie Murphy: No, no, it was a necessity.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] That was part of why it was a poor farm, right, it hadn't been developed?

Bessie Murphy: Or it had been allowed to go back to nature. It wasn't managed good. The springs, for instance, they were allowed to run and spread out and make swamps instead of being made into little streams to run off or something like that.

Bob Zybach: So on one hand there's a problem where you think we 'ye got to learn how to manage everything a lot better to take care of everybody, but on the other hand the price to pay is that we lose nature.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, that's right. Yes, you can't have everything.

Bob Zybach: What's the balance?

Bessie Murphy: I haven't got a word for it.

Bob Zybach: You think we need nature, but with so many people we've gotta maybe manage real intensely, to. 2

Bessie Murphy: Yes, I think so. I think you do have to.

Bob Zybach: That we just can't let nature take her course then?

Bessie Murphy: No, because it takes too big a toll. And those swamps, I can't think of anything those swamps produce economically.

Bob Zybach: How about wildflowers?

Bessie Murphy: Well I mean that would have anything to do with the economy. A very very limited kind of spread of wildflowers because of the environment, it's too wet, only for just certain things. But, oh, but to wade in barefoot! Especially on a hot day! I can feel it yet! [Delighted laughter]

Phil Hays: [PHIL] How old were you when.

Bessie Murphy: I have an idea I was about 10 or 11.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] When they drained that swamp.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] So you had about five years to walk in it.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, that was it.

Bob Zybach: Do you think we ought to have a certain amount of swamps, just for kids to play in? Maybe we can

Bessie Murphy: That's the trouble, life's too luxurious.

Bob Zybach: Too expensive.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Well, it c not too fair that you got to play in them and that me and Phil don't get them.

Bessie Murphy: No, I was two generations back, you see.

Bob Zybach: Oh, I see. I guess you never got computers.

Bessie Murphy: No, you bet we didn't.

Bob Zybach: Well, I think we covered the main points we wanted to cover in the general thing. We could maybe go back real briefly . . . we looked at the photographs and talked about your grandfather's wives. Maybe f you 'd like to talk a little bit about them, or were they in our previous conversation?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Just briefly.

Bessie Murphy: Very briefly. I'd rather they be brief.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Bessie Murphy: Because it was the only one that was bad, and I don't like to dwell on the bad any more than I have to.

Bob Zybach: Well, Phil made the point though, the comment about the Masons. I think that's a good one. Could you tell that story?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, that's record.

Bob Zybach: Could you talk about that a little bit then?

Bessie Murphy: Well, as I said, the Mason's got onto it, when the, some of the Masonic carpenters worked on building grandfather's house in 1878.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] The Crees house.

Bessie Murphy: The Crees house.

Bob Zybach: So, he was living with his third wife.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, but all of his children, you see, from each wife, and . . . well, that was it, they learned first hand what was going on and they could not tolerate it as good citizens. Allow it to happen, to mistreat the children. There were laws against it. And so they told the authorities. I don't know just which branch of the law it would be. If you were to go to report that, I really don't know what you'd call.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Were they living in the house while it was being built?

Bessie Murphy: No.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Or in another house, next door?

Bessie Murphy: The house next door, yes.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] And that was torn down afterwards.

Bob Zybach: And that's the same house that's there now.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] The one that they were building, yes. What kinds of things was she doing that they would take it to the law?

Bessie Murphy: Well, for instance she tied my aunt Irene up to the bed post, naked, and beat her.

Bob Zybach: Oh.

Bessie Murphy: Things like that.

Bob Zybach: Child abuse.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, decidedly! And she was so mean to my uncle that he left home at 16. And I can't understand grandpa being quite so meek.

Bob Zybach: Maybe she tied him up to the bed post and beat him while he was naked.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] That's a little speculation there. [laughter]

Bessie Murphy: Grandpa was a wonderful man! Maybe he didn't have enough spunk, I don't know.

Bob Zybach: Can you remember him?

Bessie Murphy: Oh my yes. He didn't die until 1911.

Bob Zybach: Oh. How about his third wife, can you remember her?

Bessie Murphy: Oh yes. She outlived him Oh yes. But all the girls hated her.

Bob Zybach: How about the grandkids. Did that hate get passed on to the.

Bessie Murphy: No, they either weren't born or too little.

Bob Zybach: Oh, I see. But now, that orchard, that walnut orchard [on Highland Ave. south of Lester Ave.] there? That was the Gragg walnut orchard.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, don't get the Gragg and the Crees mixed.

Bob Zybach: Yeah, and that's what I was trying to do. Was make sure I didn't mix them.

Bessie Murphy: When you are ready for the walnut orchard I can tell you that.

Bob Zybach: Okay, and I think we'll cover that in this. So now maybe is a good time to start going through the transcript from the previous recording. We were just. . . we talked first about George Witham?

Bessie Murphy: Oliver.

Bob Zybach: Oliver Wit/jam, okay.

Bessie Murphy: Well, his family was pioneers. And it might be that it often happens a successful man can't raise sensible kids. Businesslike kids. They just don't amount to a thing. They give them too much luxury. Let them escape real work, let them. . . so they know what they're doing. Because that's the way he acted. I know, some of the other Withams and the old man, his father, were respected by their neighbors. Oliver wasn't much. And let's see now.

Bob Zybach: Why didn't the neighbors respect him? Oliver, what kinds of things would.

Bessie Murphy: Well, for one thing, he was kind of a clown. And he'd a make a fool of you if he could. And he didn't work hard, like most of them.

Bob Zybach: So, at that time, people didn't respect you f you didn't work hard, or f you tried to. . . they made fun of you.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, or if you needed to work hard and didn't. He just didn't have an attitude that was likeable. Let's see now.

Bob Zybach: Now you mentioned that his wife was part Indian.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, but it was never mentioned.

Bob Zybach: People didn't talk about it?

Bessie Murphy: No. But anybody could see that she was. But she was a nice woman.

Bob Zybach: Was there any shame involved in that, that his wife was part Indian?

Bessie Murphy: Well, in a way, yes. At that time there was. It was something that you usually wasn't proud of. And it shouldn't have been! Indians were there first, it was their land! And, give them some education and training, they can turn out to be very good citizens.

Bob Zybach: So without education and training, which they didn 't have before the whites came here, then.

Bessie Murphy: That's right, didn't have the white-type education and training

Bob Zybach: So, by citizens you mean citizens by white standards, then.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. Yeah that's it. Now they thought it was pretty smart to be able to live off the land. Phil and I just think it's fun sometimes.

Bob Zybach: Well, sometimes it's smart to have fin, maybe.

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes! We think so don't we. [Laughter]. No, I had no complaint with Mrs. Witham. But in those days they had funny notions about what was commendable and what was looked down on, so, and being part Indian wasn't part of being good, great. But that's neither here nor there. There's a lot in your private opinion.

Bob Zybach: Did you know any other Indians in the neighborhood, other than Mrs. Witham?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes. I can't think of anyone in particular. But there were others too that were part Indian. It was quite common in those days.

Bob Zybach: U/i huh. How about blacks, do you recall any black people at all?

Bessie Murphy: I don't. . . hardly even saw one. Just practically nothing. Some in the city.

Bob Zybach: By that you mean Corvallis?

Bessie Murphy: I'm not sure, but I think I've seen one or two here. But it would be mostly bigger ones like Portland.

Bob Zybach: Can you remember when you saw your first black people? Was it like a curiosity, or.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, as I remember it was.

Bob Zybach: Can you remember where?

Bessie Murphy: Well, I think it was around Corvallis. I think it's probably in Corvallis. But I . . . they was very very scarce and I just really don't remember much about it.

Bob Zybach: How about Oriental people?

Bessie Murphy: Chinese?

Bob Zybach: Yeah.

Bessie Murphy: That's all I know of was Chinese. Of them.

Bob Zybach: Were there very many in Corvallis in those days?

Bessie Murphy: Not very many, but some. And they mostly worked in I believe in restaurants. What's that story somebody told me? Somebody. . I don't remember the circumstances, I think a . story was told. That there was black man in the crew of workers. It may have been farmers, I don't know. Anyway, they came in to lunch and had to wash up at the old pitcher pump. And the little boy of the family had never seen a black man. All eyes! And that guy noticed it. And when he got through scrubbing, he turned to the little boy, "Am I any whitah?" Scared him!

Bob Zybach: So this was around Corvallis when you were a little girl?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, and somebody told that. You see, I never saw it happen, or didn't know who it happened to, but I heard that told. And it surprised the little boy so he jumped. And, let's see, about other. . . Oh, any other form of colored skin, negro and Chinese, I can't think of any others.

Bob Zybach: Just a few Indians.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, but they were .

Bob Zybach: Mostly .

Bessie Murphy: They were, what do you call it, they belonged here. They weren't foreign. And let's see. Now what was this dumb thing? Oh, we had lots of foreign people. I mean from other countries. That came here and settled. For instance, in Clatsop County where I was born there was just oodles and oodles of Finns and Swedes and Norwegians. Lots and lots of

Bessie Murphy: them.

Bob Zybach: One thing I've noticed in doing these oral histories, is the Tortoras were from Italy, the Rohners were from Switzerland, there seems to have been a lot of Gennan, Swiss, Italian people that came around the turn of the century.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, yes, they were coming in pretty good.

Bob Zybach: Do you know the reason for that?

Bessie Murphy: To better their financial condition. Their economic condition.

Bob Zybach: Well we were having a major depression here in the 1890's, but a lot of these people seem to have come about that time.

Bessie Murphy: Hmm. I don't know about that.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember the Tortoras?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: What can you remember about them?

Bessie Murphy: That they were Italian And I can't remember whether I saw any children my age, I remember middle life -- Tortoras in middle life. And they seemed to be nice, decent people.

Bob Zybach: How about the Rohners? Do you recall them.

Bessie Murphy: Well, I knew of them, of course. They were in business. What was that business? That wasn't the veterinarian, was it? Gosh, I'm not sure. But they were in some kind of business. People patronized them. We assimilated them anyhow.

Bob Zybach: Were the foreign people that spoke with different accents or different languages were they treated any different?

Bessie Murphy: No, except some people laughed at the funny way they pronounced things. They had to have their jokes about them, but they accepted them.

Bob Zybach: Let's see, let's. . . why don't we go back to.

Bessie Murphy: What do you want to do here?

Bob Zybach: Yep, we're on to. . . see you've got up here, you've got Mitzie Point.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] I put that on there. Okay. And Dimple Hill. That was a question I had. I talked with Edna Weise, and she says that Dimple Hill, what they call Dimple Hill now, used to be called Jackson Hill.

Bessie Murphy: No, Locke's.

Bob Zybach: It was called Locke's Hill?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] No, no. Careful. Locke's Hill was where Chip Ross park is now, right? IV Hill? She said Locke's Hill became, was Dimple Hill, and that became IV Hill. Yeah, cause see you, you 'ye gotta be careful on using Dimple Hill. Because that's. . . she remembers Locke's Hill, which is IV Hill, which is Chip Ross Park.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, I can't keep up with all the modem names and changes!

Bob Zybach: Well, right around 1940 I went through the maps and I found all these changes happened. And Edna Weise, I had the long talk with her, and she said the same.

Bessie Murphy: Now, she'd be more likely to get it right because I am getting forgetful. And she has a much younger brain than I have.

Bob Zybach: But you can remember Dimple Hill being called Locke's Hill?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, because he's the one that owned it!

Bob Zybach: Okay, and Chip Ross Park, is that Locke's Hill?

Bessie Murphy: Chip Ross Park goes clear around me, and I never did get caught up with it's history.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] We went out there, you and Francis and I went up there one day to have lunch or something, and there were signs all over the place. . . in fact a couple of years ago when it was so dry? And there were signs that we couldn't go in there because it was posted by the forest

Bob Zybach: department. Do you recall that? Because all we could do was go to the parking lot there.

Bessie Murphy: Hmm

Phil Hays: [PHIL] It was up behind, it was up the hill behind where your father's farm was though. That was Locke's Hill. Did you ever hear the name Jackson Hill?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, sure. That's a different one.

Bob Zybach: Do you know where that was?

Bessie Murphy: Let's see. And that was up Jackson Creek, the one that runs south of the High School, where is it, over here some where. And the Jackson's had left the community as citizens, as neighbors. Before we came.

Bob Zybach: So you don 't remember the Jacksons?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, there was a couple, I think they were old bachelors. And they came out, they walked Out from town. They'd moved to town, and they'd walk out of town almost every day to the farm. And it was just not far from that 01 Witham place. Up the street a little. But I never met the . . . oh, yeah, I knew Mildred Jackson, she was in my grade. But I never met her parents.

Bob Zybach: Do you know which hill is called Jackson Hill?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, I think I do. But I have to be where I could point it out.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Was it somewhere around Jackson Creek?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, off to the southwest, I think Not very far.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Did you ever go up there on your horse?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. And we had one neighbor on up the creek. But they, but the creek stayed in the ravine and the neighbor was on the side of the hill; that was Mr. Stoneback.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Which side of the hill?

Bessie Murphy: North.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah, there's a lot of open land up in that Jackson valley.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. It isn't good farm land at all. Mr. Stoneback didn't get to first base farming.

Bob Zybach: What nationality was he?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, he was just a mixture American.

Bob Zybach: Uh huh. Stoneback, though.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall a family named Robinson in that area?

Bessie Murphy: Well, that was earlier generation. Yes. I never met the person. Now, my mother knew a lot of these old timers in the generation before me. Robinson and them.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] What did Stoneback farm up there?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, he didn't have a very big farm and he didn't have much open ground, it was mostly trees. And it was not rich at all. And he just existed.

Bob Zybach: Was he on the Robinson's old place?

Bessie Murphy: I really don't know. That one has to be looked up in the County courthouse.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] When you went up to Jackson Hill, how did you go from the farm?

Bessie Murphy: Well, I don't remember if I could go on my pony or not. And if I didn't, I walked.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Do you remember anything about it back when you were a kid?

Bessie Murphy: No, I don't. It didn't seem to leave an impression.

Bob Zybach: Okay. That was about half my questions, right there. I was going to ask about the Knott's too, but I think we're in here, so as we go through the pages here we can probably get the Knotts and the Owens a little bit.

Bessie Murphy: Now, we gotta be awful careful about the Knotts. Remember, this man has descendants still living.

Bob Zybach: Now, that goes back to the first settlers, the Knotts. They were at the same time as the Robinsons. Do you recall any of the older Knotts then?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know whether that was the Knotts we knew, that was there when we came, or whether it was his father. I don't know.

Bob Zybach: What can you remember about that family?

Bessie Murphy: Well, he was an awful nice man. But he didn't have family help or any other kind of help. And he didn't get much of anywhere with his farming. And his wife made a little silly sissy of his boy instead of teaching him to be a rugged little helper. For heaven's sake, everybody was talking about it.

Bob Zybach: When you say making him a sissy, was it kind of like some of these pictures we've been looking at.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah!! Lotta hair and girl clothes and all that rot. And just making him his attitudes and everything sissy instead of making him rugged. And a helper for his father on the farm.

Bob Zybach: We looked at a picture of one of your uncles or cousins that was dressed up in girl's clothes?

Bessie Murphy: No, that was my aunt's neighbor.

Bob Zybach: Oh, it was a neighbor.

Bessie Murphy: And I used to play with him when I'd go to visit her.

Bob Zybach: Now, did that hurt him when he got older? When he got older, did that hurt him?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know what became of him. But I don't think so. I never heard of it. I don't know whether they moved away or not. But anyway his father had a bakery at that time, in Corvallis.

Bob Zybach: Now, we were talking about Dear Abby, how she had a column in the paper about a woman who was ruining her boy by.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah!

Bob Zybach: But you said it was pretty common when you were a little girl.

Bessie Murphy: Yes! My land, it was the style! Crazy style. [Laughter]

Bob Zybach: How many families do you think raised their little boys as girls at that time?

Bessie Murphy: Well, those that I knew wasn't more than two or three, but I heard of others and I've heard of lots of. . . I heard it commented about, it was just done.

Bob Zybach: Would people that didn't raise their little boys as girls think that that was a bad thing?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, very much.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Where did they get the idea?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know.

Bob Zybach: Did they do it before the 1890's?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know how far back it went.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember when they stopped doing it?

Bessie Murphy: Well, it don't sound like they've stopped yet. [Laughter] Well, my little brother didn't get raised that way. He got to be taught to work. And I did too. I didn't mind working. But I wanted some other thing along with it.

Bob Zybach: So when the Knotts or the families that did raise their boys as girls, you think that they did that, they didn 't teach the kids to work enough, was one of the problems.

Bessie Murphy: Oh yes, it was one of the problems. Most definitely. And a farmer, most farmers, and any other poor people, can't afford to make sissies of their children and give them money like a rich person, luxuries. It just can't be done. They haven't got it. So they better teach him how to live without it.

Bob Zybach: So it wasn't just that they. [END OF TAPE]

Bob Zybach: I don't know if we got that in there, but I hope we did.

Bessie Murphy: Now there's the Kings. Nobody could be poorer. But nobody could have been more wonderful than the family.

Bob Zybach: Now that's the Sol King family.

Bessie Murphy: His grandchildren.

Bob Zybach: They were fairly poor then?

Bessie Murphy: Oh yes. Hard to have 10 kids. Cost something to feed 10 kids. But they were just wonderful kids. They were the ones that got me started on botany.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Well, how did they get started?

Bessie Murphy: They had to make their own fun. And those kids would go out and make a game of it. And it just worked great, just worked great.

Bob Zybach: So a lot of the interest you got in nature was from the Kings and a lot of the interest they got in nature was strictly because they didn 't have money.

Bessie Murphy: That's right. They had to make their own fun and they had the brains to do it. And, now, I could have lived there 100 years and my folks would never have taught me anything about botany. They didn't know much in the first place in botany. But you see when they were so busy and had such problems of their own, business problems, that isn't the right word, what is it, economic problems. So busy with that they don't think much of wasting time on aesthetic things. They think it's wasting time.

Bob Zybach: How important do you think aesthetics are?

Bessie Murphy: They are very important in the right amounts. Can't go all that way, of course. But there ought to be an introduction to it, some introduction. Some kids have natural ability. And when they get a little introduction to something they can get onto it and go on from there.

Bob Zybach: How about college, is that too late?

Bessie Murphy: No. It'd be fme if they had the money to get to it.

Bob Zybach: Do you think people taking, like I took forestiy, do you think I should be taking classes in aesthetics, do you think that would be a good thing for kids?

Bessie Murphy: No, no. You can mix it in.

Bob Zybach: Just with other classes, not.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: I see.

Bessie Murphy: But, people like my dad just thought it was nonsense. But see there was 19 kids in his family. Of course some of them died in infancy. And they didn't have much money for aesthetics. So you've got to teach them that it is important but they have to get mostly for themselves. And so the King kids did. And they turned out something wonderful. Every last one of them. Of course the oldest boy, he had to go to the first world war. And he didn't come back till late in life. He'd had enough work on the farm.

Bob Zybach: Ah ha! He got a chance to get out.

Bessie Murphy: And the oldest girl she got to be a teacher when she was in her late teens, and she felt so sorry for her mother and the rest of the family, she spent her whole life helping them. Just stayed single and was a teacher. She was just wonderful. She lived to be 98.

Bob Zybach: Wow.

Bessie Murphy: The rest of them married, I don't think there was any more bachelors or maids. One of them just my age, we were great pals. And they did not have time to run around and play much. They made education or some use of it out of the play. Like the botany. They learned from things and they didn't have any books, they couldn't get the scientific names so they made them up. You bet your life.

Bob Zybach: Well, I think we talked about it before, but I want to make sure we got that in there. We were talking about ethno-botany, and you were talking about making up names, and we were talking about a plant called 'twooly britches, Hydrophyllum capitatum."

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Was that a made up name?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, I guess so. It started as far as I know with my paternal grandmother. She learned that it was good to eat, so she used it instead of chard. She didn't have any, I suppose she had some chard in her garden sometimes, but this was free and there to pick. And good to eat, so she used it.

Bob Zybach: How important were wild plants to the pioneers?

Bessie Murphy: Well, pretty important. Because at first they didn't have the place to make a good garden, and they could use these wild things. But they didn't know how lucky they were, that they had it. And then later on, when things were more easy, everybody had as much as everybody else, they looked down on the wild ones. That makes me mad.

Bob Zybach: It was kind of like looking down on farmers maybe, looking down on the poorer ltfe style?

Bessie Murphy: All those things have their proper place and they ought to be appreciated.

Bob Zybach: So when they got enough money then they stopped eating.

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yeah.

Bob Zybach: Wild plants.

Bessie Murphy: And here we eat it just for fun. Just to show we can pick the right ones!

Phil Hays: [PHIL] I have some yampah [Perideridia ore gana/ at home I was gonna bring you and forgot it.

Bessie Murphy: Oh? Where did you find it?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Oh, it grows all over the hills out here, and there's a lot of it this year.

Bessie Murphy: Really.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah. A lot of it.

Bessie Murphy: What do you know.

Bob Zybach: Do you like yampah?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, you bet. I had the most wonderful steak dinner once, over in eastern Oregon with some friends, relatives of my son-in-law. He got the steak and he cooked it. He cooked the whole works in fact. And I dug the yampah. And they liked it! It is one of the best one, wild plants, don't you think so? More to it!

Bob Zybach: How about camas [Camassia leichtlinii]?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yeah. That's fine too. But we don't have much of that.

Bob Zybach: What do you think we. . . do you think we should grow it for people to eat, so they know what it tastes like?

Bessie Murphy: Well, not necessarily. But if we insist on eating it, we ought to also raise it, because it would soon deplete the whole country of it.

Bob Zybach: Can you think of any good camas patches?

Bessie Murphy: Not in this valley.

Bob Zybach: Are they mostly gone?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. In eastern Oregon there's patches of them. Lots.

Bob Zybach: How about the orchards? We were talking about those, and we mentioned the Gragg walnut orchard. You wanted to talk some more about that.

Bessie Murphy: Do you want to get that now?

Bob Zybach: Well, let's maybe go through this.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah, you keep distracting her. Okay, yeah, let's go on with the transcript here, and we'll come back up on it.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Go through those and see if there was anything there you want to. Yeah.

Bessie Murphy: Well. This hasn't many corrections.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Page 2.

Bessie Murphy: [Reading from transcript] "There were several different ones that ended up with the Holbrooks. And my brother George bought it from them. By that time we children were grown, and we bought that from, and he bought that from Mrs. Holbrook. Her husband had died, and she had six kids." "How big were these farms?" "Papa's was 200 and the Holbrooks was 50. The Withams was probably 200 or more, and Stoneback was probably 100." . . . "Do you recall any families in the Soap Creek Area?" "No, I don't, except Sam Moore who soon moved to Corvallis." At the turn of the century, yeah. And I didn't know the Marcks or the Olsons, but I'd heard of them. And Neva was in my grade.

Bob Zybach: That would be Neva Olson?

Bessie Murphy: Neva Moore.

Bob Zybach: Neva Moore? Okay. Was that Neva Lauridson?

Bessie Murphy: No, she never married.

Bob Zybach: Oh, okay.

Bessie Murphy: The Wildes. Yes I knew Francis Wildes. And I think she was in my grade. I knew she came from out north here somewhere. I heard of Carters, wouldn't know the Carters, but that name is familiar.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember a Grandma Carter?

Bessie Murphy: No. All I remember is Grandma Frazier.

Bob Zybach: Oh, that Frazier Creek is named after?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes.

Bob Zybach: Now can you tell me about Grandma Frazier?

Bessie Murphy: You bet. Shall we do it now or later?

Bob Zybach: Sure, might as well do it. I don't think we 'ye got her in the transcript, I don 't think we mentioned her before.

Bessie Murphy: Well now, before we came here, the Fraziers, when Mr. Frazier was living, lived in this area, farmed in this area. I don't know where his farm was but I presume it was up there off Tomlin loop on Frazier Creek. I presume that's where it was. Anyway, I didn't know him. But after we came here, Mr. Frazier was dead. And Grandma was living with her single son, Jim, and Sam was married and living with his family, and they both lived back in, along Frazier Creek, on what is called Tomlin Loop now. And I would go riding around sometimes on my pony and stop in. And she got to telling me pioneer stories. And she sure told me a dilly. And I'd heard of it in history. She had come out in '57 in a wagon train, ox teams. And her girlfriend and her family were along. When they came to Utah, the girlfriend and some more people divided the train, and went south to California. And the Fraziers came on to Oregon. And they got in to the Mountain Meadow Massacre in Utah. And you know that thing tried to be; an awful lot of people tried to keep it hush hush. Not let it get out, and all the facts known. But it was, that kind of fixed it. Because the people who fought the whites were dressed as Indians and fixed up as Indians, and they weren't, they were Mormons!

Bob Zybach: The Mountain Meadow Massacre was Mormons dressed as Indians?

Bessie Murphy: You bet.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] And it was the girlfriend's part that got into it.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. And she was, her whole family was killed.

Bob Zybach: Her girlfriend's family was killed during that?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Now, this is Mrs. Frazier? Grandma Frazier's girlfriend.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: And can you remember any details that she described from that massacre?

Bessie Murphy: Well, like the one's that killed them were dressed as Indians, and they weren't. And evidently somebody lived to tell some of them, because she said that the baby was shot from her mother's arms, things like that.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Grandma Frazier wasn't there. They came north.

Bessie Murphy: They came north.

Bob Zybach: So she must have come by way of the Applegate Trail.

Bessie Murphy: Well, I'm mixed up on those trails. I don't know the route.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Did she give any, did Grandma Frazier tell anything about the trip from Utah here?

Bessie Murphy: Not particularly. Evidently it was nothing spectacular. But I don't know about the trails. I wish I did.

Bob Zybach: Did she talk about Klamath Falls at all, or southern Oregon, or Eugene?

Bessie Murphy: No.

Bob Zybach: So you're not sure what route she took?

Bessie Murphy: No.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Remember any other tales she told?

Bessie Murphy: Have I told you any? [To Phil]

Phil Hays: [PHIL] I remember that one, but I don't remember others.

Bessie Murphy: That was the main one.

Bob Zybach: What was the reason that the Mormons dressed as Indians? What was the reason they were attacking the wagon train?

Bessie Murphy: To blame it on the Indians!!

Bob Zybach: Why did they want to do that?

Bessie Murphy: Why shouldn't they? They didn't want the world to think they did it!

Bob Zybach: Oh, so they were just simple thieves, and they were just covering their tracks.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah! [very emphatic]

Bob Zybach: They weren't trying to get anything politically going against Indians or anything.

Bessie Murphy: No, no, no. You couldn't get much political going with Indians in those days! They didn't take to politics!

Bob Zybach: Can you recall any of her other stories, about maybe when she first got here?

Bessie Murphy: No, I wish I did. But that was before and right at 18 -- 1905. Yes, if I'd have been a little more historically minded, I would have had her tell me about when they lived there, you know. How life was and all that. But I didn't. I missed a lot things.

Bob Zybach: Did you know any other pioneers that have crossed on the Oregon Trail? Have you talked to any others?

Bessie Murphy: Who have I talked to? Not right now I don't.

Bob Zybach: Okay. So Grandma Frazier is the only actual.

Bessie Murphy: One that I'm sure of. And her two sons were two of the men that helped put in Highland Way. That had to be done free by the citizens. But in a year or two, they moved on. I don't know where they went or anything. Never heard of them again.

Bob Zybach: The Fraziers.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: And so, there are no Fraziers around anymore?

Bessie Murphy: Uh uh.

Bob Zybach: So they helped build Highland Way and then shortly after that.

Bessie Murphy: Then they beat it.

Bob Zybach: So it was about 1907 or 1908.

Bessie Murphy: No, more like 1906. Yeah, I'd like to have kept track of all of them.

Bob Zybach: Did Grandma Frazier leave with them?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: I see. So you are one of the last people around to know the Fraziers. At least while they were here.

Bessie Murphy: Urn hmm

Bob Zybach: Okay, I've got you digressing again here. On page 2.

Bessie Murphy: Well anyway, that's about all of page 2.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Bessie Murphy: Hummm. [Reading transcript] "The Witham girl was older than I. Then on the south toward town was the King family from the King's Valley family of Solomon King." I wonder if I ought . . where's my pen. Thank you. Hadn't I better say this through their . son Abe?

Bob Zybach: Through Abe King? Well, one thing we can check on the genealogy, or like you say, we can check on land ownership patterns.

Bessie Murphy: I know that Abe was their father, and Abe was Solomon's son.

Bob Zybach: Oh, I see, so that Abe King. . . well that's one.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Abe King 's farm down there near where you lived. That's the advantage of having this tape recorder going, too. You don't have to write it, you can just say you want to make that point.

Bessie Murphy: Okay.

Bob Zybach: So Sol King was on Abe King 's. . . his father was Abe King from the King's Valley Kings, and then he named one of his sons Abe King also.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. Well, the one from King's Valley was Solomon, and Abe was his son.

Bob Zybach: Oh, I see.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] And then it was Abe 's children you played with.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, it was Abe's children, Solomon's grandchildren.

Bob Zybach: Do you know anything about the politics then? I'm assuming if his name was Abe, he was named after Abraham Lincoln.

Bessie Murphy: No, I don't know who he was named after. I don't know.

Bob Zybach: Did you know anything about the Mount Union people being. . . any civil war stories from around?

Bessie Murphy: No, I don't remember any civil war stories.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Page 4.

Bessie Murphy: [Long pause as she reads] Now why didn't I put what it is? "Just a little one room building. Don't know when it was first built." The school.

Bob Zybach: Here's page 5.

Bessie Murphy: This seems to be all pretty good.

Bob Zybach: You've been pretty thorough in your comments here, too.

Bessie Murphy: "You had to go where the owners said you had to go." "If somebody made a diagonal across their field, they made you follow a fence line." That was naughty.

Bob Zybach: What's that? The diagonal across the field?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Did you ever happen to get chided for that?

Bessie Murphy: No. Because I couldn't go with my horse, I had to walk, and I didn't do any harm. And there were no crops in that pasture where I went.

Bob Zybach: Now that's. . . we were talking about the field, the road that come off by the [Good Samaritan] hospital. Is that the right-of-way?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Now, when you went to school in Corvallis, you went right over the ridge into town, didn't you? Or did you go out to Highway 99 and down?

Bessie Murphy: I went 99.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] You did?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. It sort of parallels the road that goes in.

Bob Zybach: So you took that route out.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, just walking. But sometimes, quite a lot of times, we diagonaled out into the pasture instead of keeping along Mr. Knott's fence. Because here came the King kids down this way. We met them.

Bob Zybach: Oh, I see, so you'd meet with the King kids.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] So they would come down then the north side of the hill to join that same route to go down to the highway?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Okay. Well, why didn't you just go across where their place was and on down into town and to the south?

Bessie Murphy: No, we didn't go to town. We went to that little school.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Oh that's right, that little school. Okay.

Bessie Murphy: And when we did go to town, at that time, you see the road was put through that papa and Tressure and all of them made.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Oh that one. Do you recall anybody named "Drum" or "Stout" that was in that area?

Bessie Murphy: No, I've heard of them.

Bob Zybach: Okay. I think they 're back with the Robinsons.

Bessie Murphy: Probably.

Bob Zybach: Yeah, they're earlier. Let's see, we're on page 6 here. So, "Yes. Four years." You've added, before you went to college, okay. I think people will be fairly clear.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, well I hope so. I thought I had them fixed so they made sense.

Bob Zybach: Now where you 'ye crossed out things, like here we're on page 7, and you've put in other words, is that a correction or you just don't want these printed?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, that's a correction.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Bessie Murphy: Here, for instance: "Mr. William Knotts," and it has two t's, "was the owner and resident there. And Tom Owens was one of his grandchildren. And owns the place now." Because his mother inherited it or got it somehow. And he inherited it from her.

Bob Zybach: Now, when we come across these crossed out areas, would it be all right just to put your comments in parentheses, so somebody reading it knows that that's been pencilled in later?

Bessie Murphy: Well, unless you just.

Bob Zybach: Oh would you prefer having it just look like a book? We'll do it however you want.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. Well, you do whatever you think's best there.

Bob Zybach: Okay, we'll just use. .

Bessie Murphy: "And we. . . he let us have a route through his place for a while on a certain place and he

Bessie Murphy: changed it." See we went through his woods back of the Holbrook place. Then he changed that and it was clear over out by Berry Hill toward the Hospital.

Bob Zybach: So the landowner could tell people. . . he couldn 't keep you off the land but he could tell you which route to take through it?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Do you know why he did it?

Bessie Murphy: No, he couldn't keep us from going through if we couldn't get through otherwise.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Why did he change it? Do you know?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know. For one thing, the surrey wheels were cutting quite good ruts. And it come out right close to his house and used his driveway up and down the hill And it might be we was cutting it up too much. I don't know.

Bob Zybach: Did it create any animosity or ill feelings when he changed it?

Bessie Murphy: I don't think so.

Bob Zybach: Okay. It just was his right to tell you which way to go on it.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Bessie Murphy: "Where the opposite the property." I don't know whether that "the" needs to come out or not. "Where opposite the property where the hospital is on the south side of it."

Bob Zybach: I'll circle that one right there. That could just be a typo on the part of the person doing the transcription.

Bessie Murphy: Well, might be something else should have been written, I don't know. "As you go out ninth street a little way, I mean the highway here" down here, "as you go out there and come to that ridge." Now, what's that?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Where the hospital is. Yeah, I think we're talking about going out to Ninth street to the ridge on the hospital there.

Bessie Murphy: "Yes, the other side of the hospital, along the line of the fence, of the Knotts place." Some of them goes east on the top of the hill on my father's place, Owens now. "You can still see the tracks going east along the fence and turning to the right or south."

Bob Zybach: So, those tracks are still there?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: And that would be Knotts 'first route that he put through the property?

Bessie Murphy: The second route.

Bob Zybach: The second route. Okay, that would be.

Bessie Murphy: I want a piece of paper. I want to make a drawing.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Now we 're drawing on the back of page 7 here.

Bessie Murphy: Now, on this I'm gonna put a dot. And that's at the top of the hill above the old farm where my dad's place comes. And then here's Locke's Lane. He sold off of his place to Locke.

Bob Zybach: Okay, so from the top of the hill at your dad's place, Locke's Lane is going due east.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Bessie Murphy: Now, Locke's Lane follows Mr. Knott's line fence.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Then that would be going west.

Bessie Murphy: Highland Way, there's Highland Way coming along there. And here's . . . I'm making awful faint lines. And on this side of the fence is where I went down. See, I walked along the fence. But when Mr. Knotts didn't want us to go in his woodsy place anymore, and we had this road, oh no, before we got this road, he let us go down along his fence where I walked. But there had to be a gate here.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Where was the school?

Bessie Murphy: Down here on the highway, edge of the road.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] So it was off in the direction toward where the hospital was.

Bessie Murphy: It was on the south side of the road going to the hospital.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Before you came to the ridge or over the ridge?

Bessie Murphy: Well, the ridge was . . where am I? .

Bob Zybach: Okay, here's the top of your dad's hill, and here's

Bessie Murphy: Oh yeah, here we are. The ridge I'm talking about comes out to the road and abruptly stops. But we were here to where we're going. Now these were the lines where I used to walk, it's the track that we went. And when we come to this ridge we had to turn like this, on the west side of the road, you see. And it's right around this turn where you can see those tracks yet.

Bob Zybach: Now, where would the hospital be now, compared to those tracks?

Bessie Murphy: Back up here somewhere.

Bob Zybach: Okay, so this is right before you get to the road, where this turn is?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, the road goes by here.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Highway 99.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. And that's where you see the tracks. And then this ridge abruptly stops here somewhere, I guess it's just down to the level, I forget how it is. But that's where we had to go, around that turn.

Bob Zybach: When did he make you start going this way?

Bessie Murphy: Not very long. . . sometime between 1902 and 1905.

Bob Zybach: So these tracks then would be from 1902 to 1905 when these were put in there?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Starting then.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, about that time. And they've been there ever since.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Is this because of the. . . you were saying the surrey cut into the ground.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, but somehow this track. . . I guess when they made the highway wider they cut off the end of it or something. It stops abruptly, you look at it next time you go by.

Bob Zybach: Do you know where those tracks are, Phil?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] No, they should be just right south of the ftnce line there, though, right?

Bessie Murphy: Mr. Knotts's.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah, you went along Mr. Knotts '5 fence line, but.

Bessie Murphy: When we. . . yes, yes.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] On the north side or south side?

Bessie Murphy: It would be the south side.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Oh, okay. Yeah.

Bessie Murphy: But, I think when you can see it, you can see how that little ridge, it's a ridge here, it's a little hill, it soon disappears into thin air.

Bob Zybach: Is that ftnce line still there?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Well that's along the north side of the farm, right?

Bessie Murphy: No, this is Mr. Knotts's.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] I mean the south side of the.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, this is Mr. Knotts's. This is Highland Way.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Bessie Murphy: And we could not go to our school with horses or, well. . . because there were gates, and they're usually big heavy miserable things and I couldn't open them. But when I went to town, you see, I could go on the highway. No gates. Then we had no need to go this way.

Bob Zybach: Did people just stop using that, then?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Highland went in.

Bessie Murphy: 1905.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] So you only used that for a few years down there, then.

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

Bob Zybach: This might be the last. . . we found ruts going back probably to the Applegate Trail days, but these might be the only ruts that were for surreys and only from surreys that are still left in the County. I can 't think of any others.

Bessie Murphy: Well, there may be of course. I couldn't make that statement. But I still look every time I go by!

Phil Hays: [PHIL] . . . since the last surrey went through those ruts, right, and you can see what happens. But there's still a sign there, then it shows the wagon track will hang around a centuty. I mean it wasn't wagon track even, it was just a surrey.

Bessie Murphy: It was a real steep little pull. Just a real steep little pull.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] So you had to come down in there and then turn and go up over the steep pull.

Bessie Murphy: There was no. . . after we got around that turn we were down on the highway level.

Bob Zybach: Do you think that wagon, that iwo years of surrey travel through that one little area had a permanent impact on the vegetation?

Bessie Murphy: Just where the track is. But you see the weeds are coming up the track. I used to be able to see it a lot plainer. I'm trying to remember . . . if my father went over that ridge with his wagon. See we didn't use it many years, then Highland Way was opened. And that was a devil for the horses, just an awful pull.

Bob Zybach: Highland Way was.

Bessie Murphy: No, the tracks. Highland Way had some pretty good pulls, but not as bad as that. Now I can't remember, when it was, or which way we went, but I think it was after Highland Way was put in. But it may have been before it. That Papa used to sell wood in town to the people for their stoves and things. And I tell you that's a slow job. You can't go out of the walk. And it takes you all day to take a load of wood to town and come back. And so he used fill up two wagons, and put the old team on the second wagon, and I drove it. Because you see those horses were trustworthy. And he took the young frisky ones. And I don't know whether we went around those tracks or Highland Way, which it was.

Bob Zybach: Now, the route that was older, the one that Knott had you stop using, are there any traces of that track?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, I imagine there are, but I haven't been in there since.

Bob Zybach: Do you know which way that goes?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, sure.

Bob Zybach: Can you describe it?

Bessie Murphy: [Laughter] Well, you see the Holbrook place. It belongs to my nephew now; we had to go through it. And then we came to Mr. Knotts's oak woods, which his house was surrounded with in the back. And go through that. Out to the driveway that he used for his home.

Bob Zybach: That's still there now?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. As you get acquainted with .

Phil Hays: [PHIL] That route is still there. When we went out there a couple of years ago, and Frances [Stilwell] and I walked back there. That old road comes through. It goes from the gate, it would be Holbrook now, it makes a bit of a gentle S turn before it comes up where the house was.

Bessie Murphy: Uh huh. You saw it then?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yes.

Bessie Murphy: Well, I haven't been back to see it.

Bob Zybach: And that's the old.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, that was the old route.

Bob Zybach: I think that's the one the pioneers used when they hit Jackson-Frazier wetlands and went up and connected to the Highland Road.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] That's going back to 1850's. Well Highland Road wasn't there then. Hilltop Road was about in there in 1853.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] But it wasn't a road, per Se. Not in our sense, no.

Bessie Murphy: What have I got to say about that?

Bob Zybach: If you 'ye got anything to say, now is the time.

Bessie Murphy: Well, I don't quite understand what the question is.

Bob Zybach: Okay, what I was trying to explain is the 1853 maps show Hilltop Road where Highland Way is now. And then it showed a route going out around what we call the Jackson Frazier wetlands, back in 1853. So people traveling out of Corvallis that hit those wetlands, went up the route we've been talking about, and connected to a road that was called Hilltop Road. In 1853. And that's what became Highland Way in 1905.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] So what did they do, they went up sort of like up where Highway 99 is now till they got to sort of the ridge the hospital is on and then turned west to go around that marshy area down there? Yep.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] And so then they would go out off toward where her father's farm was? And through Robinsons. And then, the routes we're talking about are really old routes.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Back up towards Lewisburg then?

Bessie Murphy: What was that about Lewisburg?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] He's saying that when the wetlands down there got too wet, they would turn off up the ridge there where the hospital is now and head out toward your father's farm, just loop around the whole thing to the west. And then come back to Lewisburg and go on. The old route in there, where all those old marshes were, were described as lakes and slews and marshes, that was back when the Stouts and the Robinsons and the Cooks lived there, and so that route that you were taking before Knotts changed your route, that was the first wagon road through that area, back to the 18. . . You were saying you wish you knew where those old routes were, you were on them according to the old maps.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] But that would only have been used when it was wet, and everything was flooded, right? Yeah, as a connector road. But the upper road would have been used all the time.

Bessie Murphy: Well, I would have thought they would use Lewisburg Road. That's the one that goes to Sulphur Springs.

Bob Zybach: Yeah, they would have used that, and they would have gone through Mulkeys and Withams property, and part of Walnut, but then people coming north of town from Corvallis along what became 9th Street, zf it got too wet they'd have to cut over to that road. So that's how they would cut back up on that.

Bessie Murphy: They couldn't come out 9th Street and hit Lewisburg Road at Mountain View then.

Bob Zybach: Only when it was too wet. Otherwise they could. That's an old route through there. But when it's too wet they 'd have to cut up the same route that you were taking to come to school. They would have to take that up to go to.

Bessie Murphy: They'd have a job; they'd have some gates to open.

Bob Zybach: Yeah. [Pause]

Bessie Murphy: Oh, let's see.

Bob Zybach: Page 8.

Bessie Murphy: What do you want to talk about?

Bob Zybach: Anything you see in there that you want to change or add or subtract, or. .

Bessie Murphy: "Did you have a name to it, that right of way, or just called it the. . ." Answer is "you just called it by the name of the owner of the property, Knotts, or Griggs, or whatever." "And those tracks are still there." That's what we were talking about. "And they predate 1905. Yes."

Bob Zybach: And I think you've added a lot of good detail to it.

Bessie Murphy: "It probably was 1905 but the road didn't get through so it could. . . it was usable that first year." Oh, that's Highland Way. . . that they made it, only in spots. Little sections. Yes, probably 1906 until that old right of way was dumped." "Was that the remains of that right of way, that you know?" "Yes."

Bob Zybach: Okay, and page 9?

Bessie Murphy: "That's all you can see, yes." "Did you pay much attention to how when they stopped using a road how maybe the vegetation filled in, what types of plants began growing in the old road or. ." "Yes, I was more or less observant of it because I was interested in botany." "Can you kind of describe what you noticed with that?" "Well, weeds and grass came 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." "Are you calling weeds, exotic plants brought into the area?" "No, really. Weeds, some of the wild mustards, and things in the daisy family and buttercups and dandelions and those thistle things. They are very prolific and they take over." "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?" "For a while in earlier days, families camped there and picnicked on weekends. 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. In later years it fell prey to modern vandals."

Bob Zybach: Phil, you had a question there on Sulphur Springs. The, calling a plant "ladyslipper"?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Mountain ladyslippers. Like out at the Smith place.

Bessie Murphy: One of the rarest things we had.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Cvpripedium montanum. But that's a different. . . because I've talked to quite a few people since I talked to you last, and they said, well, the ladyslippers grow in with the old growth and the ladyslippers are real important and they talked about ladyslippers that are still off the side of the road on the way to Mary's Peak, but that's a different flower isn't it?

Bessie Murphy: I think those are the little pink one's aren't they?

Bob Zybach: But so, okay, is there some clarification on this?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah, you remember the big white ones from up at Sulphur Springs, though, don't you?

Bessie Murphy: I have transplanted a few to my mother's yard, and they all died, and I'm sorry.

Bob Zybach: Sony for transplanting them or sorry that they died?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, because I didn't know that they wouldn't live then. "Are there any soda springs around here?" "No, not that I've heard of this side of Sodaville."

Bob Zybach: Okay, here's page 10.

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

Bessie Murphy: Sunday with horses and surrey of course." "How long would people camp, for a day or two or a week?" "Oh, they'd camp for a week sometimes." "Would they do anything besides drink the water?" "I don't know what they did. I explored of course, explored for wildflowers. There were special ones in that area. And I did drink the water because I thought if I came that far I should drink some of it. It was supposed to be good for one's health. Didn't care for the taste too well." "It must have helped you, you're pretty healthy several years later. That's what they always claimed would happen." "Maybe that's the secret of it, I don't know." "Maybe we'll get more people going there to drink the water now." "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." "Had that road been in for quite a while?" "Yes." "Could people take bicycles over the road or would they hike in without buggies?"

Phil Hays: [PHIL] When you were going up there, did you start early in the morning, or how long did it take you to go over to Sulphur Springs.

Bessie Murphy: Oh, I didn't go till after breakfast.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah, but that's a farmer's breakfast. How early is breakfast?

Bessie Murphy: Kinda early! And that'd take all day.

Bob Zybach: Now, Charlie Olson said that when that road came out over Lewisburg Saddle there; he's 95 and Wanda Cook is 95, and they both lived out in that area and I've talked with both of them. And there 's some contention about when that road went in there. But he said that the road angled out, it came through Sol King's place, and went out past the walnut orchard. Would that be the Gragg walnut orchard that he was talking about? The old road that.

Bessie Murphy: Gragg walnut orchard didn't go in until 1914.

Bob Zybach: 1914. Was there another walnut orchard out in that area?

Bessie Murphy: No, no papa's was the first.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Now there's a walnut orchard on Soap Creek Road, on the Govier's place. Do you know anything.

Bessie Murphy: Goviers, yeah I know the Goviers. Not well, but I know of them.

Bob Zybach: Uh huh. Do you know anything about why people were putting walnut orchards in or what earlier orchards there could have been?

Bessie Murphy: Well, because there weren't enough to supply the market here then. It would have been a good cash crop you see.

Bob Zybach: So it was a cash crop. But the home orchards that people had, apples and pears.

Bessie Murphy: There was no. . . this was english walnuts. All the walnuts in those orchards were the old fashioned black walnut, and the butter nut. But they never had a big orchard, just one or two trees.

Bob Zybach: So that was the difference between a commercial orchard and a family orchard.

Bessie Murphy: Uh huh. In those days a family orchard was just one or two trees and black walnut.

Bob Zybach: How about, we found a chestnut tree in one of the old orchards.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, somebody would bring in a chestnut tree. We never had one.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Back to the idea that you were coming in from Soap Creek, after you went over the pass and came down then, it would come out by your father's orchard.

Bessie Murphy: Not until 1905. It went on down to Mountain View and the highway.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] At Lewisburg Road, yeah.

Bessie Murphy: At Lewisburg Road.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] But then after. . . now one of the things that you mentioned once before that I'm not clear

Bob Zybach: on, after Highland went in, how would the route from the pass, coming down the hill, was Highland pretty much where it is now?

Bessie Murphy: Oh yes.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] 0/cay. So they would come right down off of the hills and angle over to where Highland is. Or would they take the Lewisburg Road out and turn down Highland.

Bessie Murphy: No, it was no connection between Lewisburg Road, north of the high school, and Highland At that time, there wasn't a road.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] So Highland, really then, went off up toward the pass?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, angled northwest.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah. Across where the high school is now. Or north of there?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, no on papa's road, on the way it is now, yeah.

Bob Zybach: Well, there's a question I have on that then, too. Where did it cross the creek, Jackson Creek? And where did it cross Frazier Creek, and how did it cross?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. Map.

Bob Zybach: Okay, we're gonna draw a map on page 11.

Bessie Murphy: Let's see. Jackson Creek comes out of the little Jackson valley. Wiggles around, I won't wiggle it. And

Bob Zybach: On the upper left hand side of the page.

Bessie Murphy: Mr. Stoneback's place was up here. And the creek was down here in the valley. And let's see. My distances won't be right. But anyway, north of the Witham place it turns south, almost right corner, and a bridge.

Bob Zybach: Right there at Withams?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. And Withams house is up here.

Bob Zybach: Okay, so this is Stonebacks in the upper left hand corner? And Williams is south?

Bessie Murphy: Wait a minute, wait a minute, I should put that in first. He was back up here.

Bob Zybach: Oh, so Withams off the page here?

Bessie Murphy: No, Witham is on the page and Stoneback is off.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] But he was north of the creek?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. He was north of the creek yes.

Bob Zybach: Okay now, where the creek turns real sharp and this bridge is in there, was that an old bridge?

Bessie Murphy: Uh uh! They hadn't put that in yet.

Bob Zybach: Did people. . could people cross there before they put the bridge in? Was there a natural

Bessie Murphy: .

Bob Zybach: crossing or anything there?

Bessie Murphy: As I remember the banks were pretty high. Be a devil of a job to cross.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Was that just to get into Withams place or on up. to Stonebacks as well?

Bessie Murphy: Well, this turned here.

Bob Zybach: Okay, so when people came up before the bridge was built, they would have to come up past Withams and towards Stonebacks, come way back up the valley there to get across the creek?

Bessie Murphy: Let's see now. Humm. I don't know. Huh. To go to Stonebacks you had to go straight up from the bridge, and then you turned this way to go to Toilmans And Fraziers.

Bob Zybach: Toilnians and Fraziers were north of Stonebacks.

Bessie Murphy: Oh yes. Huh. I didn't leave enough room on my paper.

Bob Zybach: But we could say the old route maybe went by Withams, came up the creek to Stonebacks.

Bessie Murphy: No, it never followed the creek. Oh it did follow the creek in a way. But it was quite a little ways from the creek up here.

Bob Zybach: So it'd follow up along the base of the hill then, above the creek?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Okay. And then it went to Toilmans?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, but the road went to Toilmans, yes.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Bessie Murphy: I wish I'd have started down here.

Bob Zybach: Well, we can start over.

Bessie Murphy: I'd better. Yes. Going in front of my dad's place the road [Crescent Valley Drive] went straight west.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Bessie Murphy: Then it made a turn around the little pasture where Mrs. Witham picked strawberries in. Then it turned to the left and went through the gate and ended at Withams. And up Jackson Creek.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] So that's the road.

Bessie Murphy: Yes. And it has to go farther west and turn to the north and go up a hill and to Withams.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Bessie Murphy: And then, now this is the. . . Jackson Creek should be right along in here.

Bob Zybach: So it crossed Jackson Creek right by her strawberry patch in here somewhere?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. There's the bridge.

Bob Zybach: Now was that a real old crossing in there, or did they just build that crossing?

Bessie Murphy: I can't remember about it. Because there's no highway, this wasn't used. . . they all went up Lewisburg Road to get anywhere up there.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Okay now, where. . . put your father's farm there, and then where did the new Highland Road go?

Bessie Murphy: Oh [mumbling] then down here a ways and then north to Toilman's lane, and Frazier Creek.

Bob Zybach: Was the new route?

Bessie Murphy: Uh huh.

Bob Zybach: Okay, but the old route went way on back to Withams and stuff first.

Bessie Murphy: No, that one was just private. Stoneback and Witham.

Bob Zybach: I see, so Stoneback and Witham were the only ones that used that, other people didn't go that way. Okay.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Now when they built Highland, that's what I was wondering about, when they.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, down here the roads.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Okay, now where did the road come down from Sulphur Springs from the pass? How did that connect?

Bessie Murphy: Well, that just went straight through to Mountain View. As Lewisburg Road.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Okay. Just the way it does now.

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Then when they. . . how did they connect it with Highland?

Bessie Murphy: Well, they couldn't do it here, there was no road there for years and years. Well, a road came off of it to come down past Toilmans. [This sounds like the current Crescent Valley Drive.] Well, I guess ours went up to it, yes, Highland Way. It was very crooked, you see. Yeah, Lewisburg's close up here, and this crooked road runs into it. Then when this road was put through from Lewisburg, I mean Lewisburg Road, it hit Highland. Then they was pretty well fixed for roads.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] When did they do that?

Bessie Murphy: I can't remember what year. It was quite a bit after this one.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] So when you went up to Sulphur Springs then, you went off up this road and then up past Tollman 's place? That s' what 1 was getting at.

Bessie Murphy: No, I had to hit Lewisburg Road to get to Sulphur Springs.

Bob Zybach: So you went all the way out to the highway? Then up to Lewisburg?

Bessie Murphy: No, no, I got in here somehow. Because there's a Mr. Morse lived here on the corner of Lewisburg and. . . and what would be. Oh, Highland Way. There was a private road, or some kind of road, you see. The neighbors could get in and out.

Bob Zybach: Their name was Morris?

Bessie Murphy: Morse, M-o-r-s-e.

Bob Zybach: Oh, okay.

Bessie Murphy: And she was Mrs. Toliman's sister. And Toilman's were the ones that had the 17 or 18 year old girl that got killed with a Model T. She didn't treat it quite right, and it jumped around and fell over.

Bob Zybach: When she was only l7or 18?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: So there's the Toilmans, the Morses, the Stonebacks, the Witliams, and the Graggs?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Bessie Murphy: And you see Papa's farm took up a lot of it down in here when they had houses, I don't know if they are yet or not. And over here on this side. All along Lewisburg Road there was a few houses.

Bob Zybach: Were the Fullers still in there then?

Bessie Murphy: What?

Bob Zybach: Fullers?

Bessie Murphy: Don't remember them.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] So when you rode out and you were going toward. . . you were gonna go out to Sulphur Springs and you got up to Highland Road, where you joined on Highland, okay? No, not Highland, Lewisburg,

Bessie Murphy: Lewisburg road, yes.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Don't pay any attention to what I say, just what I mean. Okay, when you got up to Lewisburg Road then, would you have to turn left or right?

Bessie Murphy: Left.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Okay, and then you 'd go back up toward Fraziers, where Grandma Frazier lived, for a ways?

Bessie Murphy: Well, she lived, I left her on the left in the valley, little gully or whatever you call it.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] You go to the left and then you hit.

Bessie Murphy: But I don't go left there, you see, I go farther up.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] And then you would sort of follow the road that goes up over Sulphur pass now.

Bessie Murphy: Oh yes, I followed that Lewisburg Road, which took you over the pass to Sulphur Springs.

Bob Zybach: Okay. I think that's pretty clear then, too. A lot of those routes you were taking are real old routes of course. That's why I'm trying to get these sorted out.

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Well I guess I wandered around quite a bit. Now, when we came to Frazier Creek, another bridge had to go across that.

Bob Zybach: Is that in the same location where it is now?

Bessie Murphy: I think it is [on Crescent Valley Drive].

Bob Zybach: Okay. And you don't recall any older crossing there, or any old wagon crossings on Frazier Creek or anything like that?

Bessie Murphy: No, because there weren't any public roads of course. There wasn't much of anything.

Bob Zybach: So those bridges were built by the landowners?

Bessie Murphy: I suppose there was some built. But, when they put Highland Way through, they were County.

Bob Zybach: Okay, so the County built the bridges at that time.

Bessie Murphy: I'm not sure. I think they did, but the people may have had to, because you see the County was busted. Far as having any money to help us at all. They told us we had to do it ourselves.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Mien they built Highland Road, you've got it drawn coming up here, now your father's farm was right here, house was right here, wasn't it?

Bessie Murphy: No, it's . . . Oh yeah! This road.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Okay, so when they built Highland Road they came up that far. How much further did they go, or did they go past your farm? Mien they built it?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. Down the hill, turn left. . . some of this was then used partly, I think.

Bob Zybach: So Highland Road was taking at least sections of private road and then improving it.

Bessie Murphy: Urn hum. Yeah, it did some of that.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] But it did turn left at the farm?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, down here at the corner.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Okay.

Bessie Murphy: This is...

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Oh, okay. Now I understand. That's that same old road that's in there. Where I took you off to the side there and showed you that camas.

Bessie Murphy: Did I do this one7 [Referring to transcript pages]

Bob Zybach: Yeah, I think so. Now we 're on to page 12 here.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah, unless, I would say unless there is something on the page you can glance at there, and that you really wanted to comment on, you probably should just leaf through the pages.

Bessie Murphy: All right. "I studied botany in high school and the Sulphur Springs area was a good place to study rare species." We may have to have one session of catch-ups.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Well, we want to make sure that we've got a real good thorough. . . like you say, the history has got all the details in there, so it's gotta satisfy you first that it's got everything in there and in the right order.

Bessie Murphy: "I just wouldn't know, because" . . . oh, you ask if. . . evidently you asked about not exposing delicate species to too much public pressure. " . . . have people look at them or do you think it's better just to avoid those areas and try to keep that infonnation privileged?" I do, cause they just ruin it.

Bob Zybach: So you think that because there are rare and endangered species, that those areas should just be a few people know about them, just kind of monitor them. You said the people that should know about these rare plants or endangered plants should be friends, you mean friends of.

Bessie Murphy: Friends of the plants.

Bob Zybach: The plants. Not necessarily friends with each other. Okay. Can you define friends of the plants? What would be your definition of that?

Bessie Murphy: You'll have to help on that. Conservationists.

Bob Zybach: Conservationist, do you think that's different from a preservationist?

Bessie Murphy: Well, no, not really. I think they mean the same thing, wouldn't you?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Well, in this case, yeah. The idea is to prevent the species from being exterminated.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Let's see, we're still on page 13.

Bessie Murphy: "I am also . nowadays they're are protective reserves for native plants and even state laws to protect them."

Bob Zybach: I think when you don 't have many comments we did good.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Let's see, page 15? 16?

Bessie Murphy: I noticed there were several places that there wasn't much change.

Bob Zybach: This might be a good point to make a comment. What was your overall impression of this earlier interview? Do you think everything was covered fairly well and pretty thoroughly?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, just a few places that had to be smoothed up a bit.

Bob Zybach: So your impression would be that somebody reading this would get a pretty accurate idea of what you felt was an accurate presentation of the history?

Bessie Murphy: I believe so.

Bob Zybach: Good.

Bessie Murphy: "Saw it go under the plowshares." Now this, here's something I should tell. This place where I saw the second Sisyrinchium, on the face of that hill

Bob Zybach: Coffin Butte?

Bessie Murphy: "except the one on the hill saddle", now that doesn't identify it very well.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah, that's why we've been trying to figure out where that hill is.

Bessie Murphy: I think it's one that lived there on the mountain Sulphur Springs Road goes over. Probably has a name, but I don't know.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] It was. . . now there is a, as you are going up Sulphur Springs Road, there is essentially that long ridge that goes east and west. You go up and over the pass and back down the other side. But there is a little nob of a hill that sits off the side of the main ridge there.

Bessie Murphy: As you are going that way, would it be on your left?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Right.

Bessie Murphy: Well, I don't know. I imagine it is. That sounds like the position it is in, and I could go with my horse.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah, you'd be able to. . . in going up the road when you got almost to the pass, now, there is a road that goes off back down to the back side of that hill. Now when you went up there you just went up straight to the hill though, didn 't you?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. I had to make my own trail.

Bob Zybach: Now there's an old wagon road in there that I found the route of the old wagon road over Lewisburg Saddle. But it's different from the new road. When you went over with your horse though, that would be different from the old wagon road. Is that correct?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] But when they went up with the horse and surrey, though? That's the road that I know of

Phil Hays: [PHIL] And that wasn't in the same position as it is now? Nope.

Bessie Murphy: They changed the Sulphur Springs Road from when I used to go.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] So do you remember. . . how did they change it, how is it different?

Bessie Murphy: Well I don't know just how it's different, but it's different.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Could it be that you started up the hill a little bit fi4rther west than you do now? Because you know we're looking at the road a minute ago that you were showing, that comes up to the west of where Sulphur Springs Road comes in now, and joins Lewisburg Saddle. So that's what I was trying to get at, because see in the back of my mind I've been thinking this road has moved. And that's the reason I was asking you questions to see f you could remember how it was different then from the way it is now.

Bessie Murphy: No. I couldn't.

Bob Zybach: The older road was to the west?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah. And at the base of the hill is maybe even a quarter mile.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] See that's the thing, that little nob hill that I was talking about, the old road used to go back down to the west side of that and loop around it I think. Now there was a skid road or something down there, maybe, I don't know. But just, I've wondered, I've tried to figure out how you went from your house up over to Sulphur Springs, you know, simply for this reason, to try to figure out where it went up.

Bessie Murphy: It went up to the left of where Highland Way goes into Lewisburg Road.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Now that's the old Highland Way, the way it was before they built that extension out to Lewisburg Road that's there now, right?

Bessie Murphy: That's right.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Well that's what I'm trying to find.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, let's see.

Bob Zybach: Is this plant here then that's kind of in relation to that route, is this a fairly rare plant?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] This is what this is all about, see, we're trying to figure out. . . I'm looking for a piece of paper to draw on myself

Bessie Murphy: Oh, I could get you a piece?

Bob Zybach: Let's see, you 're drawing on the back of page 89.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] I'll draw on the back of page 89. What I wanted to do was.

Bessie Murphy: Excuse me a minute.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Okay I'm gonna turn this back on.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] This is. . . your dad's farm was right here, and the original Highland came up and then turned there and then went off out here, right?

Bessie Murphy: Urn hmm, urn hmrn

Phil Hays: [PHIL] And then this is Lewisburg Road. And so they put in this new piece sometime after that.

Bessie Murphy: Well, Lewisburg Road's down here a ways, it isn't too close. It comes from Mountain View, straight through.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Right. Okay, so the old Highland sort of went off here somewhere, but it didn't go all the way up to Lewisburg Road originally, right? There was some kind of.

Bessie Murphy: Yes!

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Oh, it did?

Bessie Murphy: Oh yes. Because there was a farm or two.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Okay, so that was the reason. That was the idea, they came up here and then came out and crossed Jackson Creek. This is where the strawberries were?

Bessie Murphy: Urn hmm

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Okay.

Bob Zybach: Then this would be where the school is now.

Bessie Murphy: No. Over here to the right a little.

Bob Zybach: Yeah, it was out west was where the school was.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, north of the creek.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] 0/cay, so now. You came up and you joined Lewisburg Road. So, from that junction, which way did you go f you were going off over to Sulphur Springs, which was off out here? This is where the road is today.

Bessie Murphy: Is it?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah, but it.

Bessie Murphy: Well, it went from here.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah. From this junction?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: And then it just started heading straight up the hill?

Bessie Murphy: Well, it went on to Sulphur Springs Road, wherever it is.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah, well, that's why we're trying to decide where Sulphur Springs Road was back then.

Bessie Murphy: Well, it was left of where I got into there.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] So you went to the left.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Okay. Now, you don 't remember any details?

Bessie Murphy: I don't remember the details and the turns and things.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Any of the scenery? Well, the question is now, where you found that little Sisyrinchium douglasii, do you remember generally where it was?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, well I'd got to get up to the highest part of Sulphur Springs, the pass, I'd got to get up there. And then I've got to go around the left of the big hill.

Bob Zybach: Big hill to the left of the highest point of the pass?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, the one you can see from out there somewhere. That's fairly open on the front.

Bob Zybach: Urn hmrn. On the south.

Bessie Murphy: Urn hmm.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] How far. . . about how. . . any idea of distance?

Bessie Murphy: Oh yeah, not too far.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Not too far, as in a mile, half a mile?

Bessie Murphy: It was probably a mile, but I'm not sure.

Bob Zybach: But when you are saying the highest point, are you talking about the pass or the highest point going towards the pass, or the highest point past the pass?

Bessie Murphy: [Laughs] Let's see now. The highest point in the road. Is that what you mean?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Well, you said something about the highest point when you were headed up. You would go up to the pass, and then go around to the west around the highest point, or something like that, to get to where the Sisyrinchiuni were.

Bessie Murphy: Well, the open face of the thing where the Sisyrinchium was, was probably not particularly much more climb for the horse, than the road. And when they put in the new road to Sulphur Springs, I'm just wondering if it includes them, if it eliminates them, the high part, or what. I didn't like it when they changed it because it balled me all up.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Well I wonder f it's just that that place, the meadow, where that was, is just overgrown with trees now. I mean you've been around a long time and that was a while back and the trees have moved in on so much of that.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, I suppose.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Maybe that's just why I can't find it. Okay. Just to clarify one point though, when you 're going, you say you went up to the highest point,

Bessie Murphy: What I meant, I went to the open face of that south open face of that hill.

Bob Zybach: Okay, that you're crossing over to go to Sulphur Springs.

Bessie Murphy: No. I followed the regular road that goes to Sulphur Springs and then went to the right, but this I had to come back to the south.

Bob Zybach: You had to come back to the south?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, and then go back again.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Did you go down hill any on the way, do you remember, or just kind of wander along the ridge?

Bessie Murphy: It seems fairly parallel.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] And you weren't following a road or anything were you, you were just riding along.

Bessie Murphy: No, I was just riding along where I could ride.

Bob Zybach: So you were riding parallel on the south side of the ridge from Lewisburg Saddle.

Bessie Murphy: Urn hmm. And I'm not sure what you call Lewisburg Saddle.

Bob Zybach: Well, the pass.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] You used the term the pass, when you'd go over the hill on to Sulphur Springs? Charlie Olson lived there, and he called it the pass. And the Cooks called it the pass. I don 't think it had a name back in those days.

Bessie Murphy: I don't think it did.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] But it was just sort of, what you call the high point when you are going up the road and went over and started back down?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah. So you'd get to there and then ride out west. Cross country out west to the meadow. Or wherever you could get to.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, it wasn't very far.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Okay.

Bessie Murphy: Now I remember Charlie Olson, you say he was 95 when?

Bob Zybach: I'm not sure of his birthday, but he was born in 1895.

Bessie Murphy: Well, he's a year older than me. No, a year younger. And who's the other one who was 90 something?

Bob Zybach: Wanda Cook, she was a Marcks. And she's 95, too.

Bessie Murphy: I remember the Marcks a little bit. The name, and we'd see them go by on the road and all that. But I never lived near them. Just never got really acquainted.

Bob Zybach: Let's see, we're on to page 18 here.

Bessie Murphy: Looks pretty decent.

Bob Zybach: You want. . . I see you 'ye got a "yeah" changed to "yes ". On the transcript would you just as soon have it say "yes"?

Bessie Murphy: I'd rather say "yes". And we mustn't say "well" so many times.

Bob Zybach: Cross out some of the "wells." Wanda Cook made the exact same remark. She said, "I didn't realize I said 'yeah' so much, and I know you said it too, I want those changed to 'yes 'es."

Bessie Murphy: Good! I'd like to talk to those people myself.

Bob Zybach: One interesting thing you might be interested in is how amazingly close some of these things are. People about your age want to say "yes" instead of "yeah." They always remembered their horse, and they think the biggest change was the automobile.

Bessie Murphy: You bet your life! [laughter] It really was.

Bob Zybach: Okay, page 19. Looks like you 'ye got some changes down there on the bottom. [Pause] One point, that marsh that your dad filled in, and now this plant we're talking about up on the hill at Sulphur Springs, those are both Sisyrinchi urns.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Sisyrinchiums. Well, wait a minute, she didn't find the one on the farm in the marsh.

Bessie Murphy: No, I didn't fmd any flowers.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] No, it was on, up under a tree on the hill, right? The first one you saw?

Bessie Murphy: What about the tree?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] The first little Sisyrinchium, it was on the farm?

Bessie Murphy: Oh! Yeah. It was in the little section of oak grubs. Not this thick, dense shade, but not out in the field.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Hmm. That's what Helen Gilkey said about the one she found out on Coffin Butte. Same thing, it was growing right on the edge of, in real open small oak trees.

Bessie Murphy: So that was

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Maybe that's why I never can find them. I keep looking out in the meadows, maybe I ought to be poking my nose in under an oak tree.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, you ought to look in both places!

Bob Zybach: That's what Bill Atkinson noticed about Carson Prairie, he said, well, we're worried about all this encroachment of the trees, but it looks like most of the flowers are growing underneath the oaks.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Well, he got there at the wrong time of year. I think they were hanging on for dear life as those oaks were coming in.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] I think it's the other way around. Doug fir that's coming in up there, not oaks. Yeah? Well we noticed all the chukar mallow and all those, that oak was just filling in that last portion of prairie there.

Bessie Murphy: I've got a planting of a. . oh, what's this thing called? Trientalis. What's that's common . name? Starflower. Out here in my yard and I didn't know it for a long time. There was a quite a growth of snowberries. And I cut the dang things down and there was my planting of those. And then the fir trees all around they made high shade. And they seemed to be existing all right on the high shade.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] How did you get the starflowers?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know! They were there!

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Because the seeds are so small.

Bessie Murphy: I'll say they are.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] They don 't make very many seeds per plant per year, you know.

Bessie Murphy: No! But there's a planting. Hmm. This Habemaria, it was put on like cross-stitching. [Sighs] Well, that's all there is to that.

Bob Zybach: Okay, now page 21.

Bessie Murphy: "Hookers pink" is "Strawberry pink." Now that's one thing that

Bob Zybach: Okay, ready to go over to 22 here?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. That was much more common, much more. That's another thing I've noticed. The disappearance of some things. Or the scarcity of them. They were fairly plentiful when I was a kid.

Bob Zybach: Which was?

Bessie Murphy: Well, several things. One was the strawberry pink.

Bob Zybach: Strawberry pink was a lot more common?

Bessie Murphy: Oh yes.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Did you call it strawberry pink when you were a kid?

Bessie Murphy: Urn hmm.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Okay.

Bessie Murphy: I suppose the King kids told me.

Bob Zybach: And now it's called, what's it called now?

Bessie Murphy: Well, it's called by its scientific name more, and that's . . . can you say it, I can't think of it.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yes. If you hadn't asked me. [Laughter] Silene hookeri. And that's what you were calling Hookers pink now?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] It's called Hookers pink, strawberty pink, indian pink, let's see. There's quite a patch of it up on one meadow, and the person I work for has taken steps to follow essentially Phil's recommendation that we create a better environment for it, and start preserving this.

Bessie Murphy: Good, good, good! [Delighted]

Bob Zybach: A lot of the work that we're doing with you is aimed directly for that, is idenufying these older plants so that we can preserve them and maintain the colonies.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] You once said that you remember a lot more of them in the valley when you were a kid.

Bessie Murphy: Oh yeah.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Of Hookers pink.

Bessie Murphy: Urn hmm

Phil Hays: [PHIL] There 's another one I haven't been able to cultivate.

Bessie Murphy: That's it, we . . . it hasn't ever been studied, about the idiosyncracies of some of these things, and we need to know.

Bob Zybach: Why do you think we need to know the idiosyncracies of these plants?

Bessie Murphy: Well, for instance, this big Cypripedium, this big ladyslipper, there is something about that, something about its growth, that I didn't know a thing about, and that's why it died when I moved it to the wrong place. You see, we need to know those things or we'll ruin all of them!

Bob Zybach: So you think that if we don't know about how to maintain or grow certain plants, that by not understanding that, that we run the threat of destroying a lot of plants.

Bessie Murphy: Oh yes. All of that kind, at least.

Bob Zybach: Not trying to put words in your mouth so much as clarl:fy in my own head what point you're making.

Bessie Murphy: Now, another thing that we're noticing is the animal life, a lot of it is scarcer. See when we first came in here there weren't so many people, whereas there's hunting. And I don't suppose there's very strict laws about not hunting. But we soon made certain things scarcer by not conserving, or being careful with them. And one of them was the native grouse. But I've got some of his feathers!

Bob Zybach: So most of the native grouse are. . . there's not so many now.

Bessie Murphy: Oh, my, no. And they've gone farther back in the woods. And when we came they were roosting in our orchard.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] So they were down in the valleys then.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, bet your life.

Bob Zybach: What did they call them?

Bessie Murphy: Well that was the common name. I don't know any other name. Do you?

Bob Zybach: Just grouse?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. But it wasn't the Russ grouse. It was a different kind, smaller. A little smaller.

Bob Zybach: Did you ever hear them called pheasant?

Bessie Murphy: No, we left that for the China pheasants.

Bob Zybach: Okay, just the China pheasant was the only thing you called pheasant.

Bessie Murphy: Urn hmm. And they at one time were thick. And then some fool brought in foxes. And that was the end of the pheasants. Because the fox got their nests on the ground. They didn't know half what they thought they knew or they'd never have brought a fox around.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Do you remember blackberries?

Bessie Murphy: Do I!! You bet!

Phil Hays: [PHIL] What kind of blackberries?

Bessie Murphy: Well they were just the little ones, I don't know any other names, just the small type of wild blackberry [Rubus uvsinus]. That was the good one.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] The native one.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. That was one. And then people brought in himalayas [Rubus procerus], and what's that other big one?

Bob Zybach: Evergreen?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. Oh, no no. That was native

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Himalaya and the lance leaf, the real divided leaf one [Rubus laciniatus].

Bessie Murphy: Yes, and they got.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] When did that happen?

Bessie Murphy: Well, I think at that time I was a young married . . . I wasn't a kid anymore. And it got loose from civilization. It

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Would have been in the teens, then, right?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: So people brought that in around maybe World War I?

Bessie Murphy: You know, I didn't know I was gonna have to talk about the times. [Laughter] I don't remember the dates. But it runs in my head that I was about . . . the kids were little, you know.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] So how old were you then?

Bessie Murphy: That was . . . between 30 and 40 I imagine.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] That's when the blackberries were brought in?

Bessie Murphy: Well, not the ones that are here now. I mean the good ones.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] The himalayas, you know.

Bessie Murphy: Those kind, yes.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] When you were between 30 and 40.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah!

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Well they've made a lot of headway in a short time.

Bessie Murphy: You bet. Oh, blackberries, well mercy. I have to go out all the time and cut those little ones, you know, the good ones. They come out and they just take over here. I betcha they make runners thirty feet long.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] The native ones you're talking about?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: How about poison oak [Rhus diversiloba]? Can you remember so much poison oak when you were a kid?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yeah. It was in our oak woods.

Bob Zybach: So there's always been a lot of poison oak then.

Bessie Murphy: Oh yes. And I don't get it enough to really matter. But boy, some of my neighbors .

Phil Hays: [PHIL] There was a fellow wrote a letter to the Gazette Times about the blackberries, and he was an old timer, he'd be in his ,nid-80 's now I guess, but he said when he was a kid growing up, he said, he was talking mainly about rivers, the Alsea river, and management along the river, and he

Bob Zybach: said when he was a kid they let the cattle graze right down to the water's edges and we didn't have blackberries all over the place. Talking about these himalayan blackberries. And I happened to think well that's because when he was a kid there weren't any himalayan blackberries around here.

Bessie Murphy: No, no, they got loose from cultivation, you see. And if you let them go, they're just terrible.

Bob Zybach: How about bachelor buttons [Centaurea cyanus]? We didn't talk about that before.

Bessie Murphy: Well, bachelor. . . well weren't they brought in as a garden flower?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah, as a flower garden thing.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. A yard flower

Phil Hays: [PHIL] You told a story about one of the neighbor's wives that put in bachelor buttons, or something. You can repeat that f you want to. Was that in here?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] I don 't know whether it's in there or not.

Bessie Murphy: Well, it was brought in as a yard flower. And I don't know what year, but I think before the turn of the century.

Bob Zybach: I think maybe even back to the 1840's. It was one of the first ornamental flowers brought in I think.

Bessie Murphy: Umm And it is a pretty flower, but. It's the kind that makes itself into a weed. And it's in the daisy family and that's still worse. And. . . now we lived in Clatsop County at first, that was very primitive and unsettled. And one of our neighbors, woman, had some of those flowers in her yard. And my dad saw, and he told her that out in the valley here that was a terrible pest in the crops. And he advised her to destroy it.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Did she?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know. I believe she was peeved at papa.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall how they began controlling it in the valley?

Bessie Murphy: Well, they couldn't control it very well because it reseeded itself so nicely, and it was mostly in the grain. Now, in a garden you could control it. But not in a grain field! You couldn't go in there and pull every last one of them, you couldn't take machinery to do anything, you'd ruin the grain. So there you were.

Bob Zybach: Well, they don't have a problem now. How did they.

Bessie Murphy: Well, I didn't know now. You see, I've lost all track of it.

Bob Zybach: Could it be the quality of seed, or could it be farming methods, or could it be herbicides, or.

Bessie Murphy: Well, herbicides could they use it on the grain that's so close to those things, do you know?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah, since it's not a grass. There are herbicides that would take out everything but the grass.

Bessie Murphy: Oh, well then, it's herbicides that's done it I guess. I didn't know how that was.

Bob Zybach: How about the quality of the seed that the farmers are using now? Or would that have been mixed in with seed because it was growing in with wheat before, would it keep replicating?

Bessie Murphy: Well, it ought to clean out of wheat. It's smaller than wheat, but it isn't any shorter. It might be. Yeah, I think it'd clean out of wheat pretty well. Because they're different.

Bob Zybach: Okay. We're starring to digress a little here. Okay, we're on page 23 and 24.

Bessie Murphy: Did I fmish this? I guess so.

Bob Zybach: This is about the most thorough, and kind of a long slow process doing it this way, but I think we're going to end up with a really excellent result.

Bessie Murphy: I hope so.

Bob Zybach: I think we've got a good start and this is gonna.

Bessie Murphy: Let's see. Question, "Are you familiar with any of the plants maybe that the Indians used for food." "You bet." [Laughter] Quite sure of myself, wasn't I?

Bob Zybach: But you were younger then.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. Well, you see my botany group has been playing with these Indian food plants. We've had contact with them.

Bob Zybach: Who would you recommend as, f you had to point to individuals that know a lot about these plants as Indian food, who, what lypes of individuals would. . . ?

Bessie Murphy: Well, that wouldn't be easy, because it all depends on . . . they had to make a special study of it you see, and I just don't know them well enough.

Bob Zybach: How about books, what books do you think. .

Bessie Murphy: Yes, there are some books that you can find some, quite a bit of that information in.

Bob Zybach: And do you think most of the books are pretty accurate?

Bessie Murphy: Oh yes. Yes.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Do you know anybody in the Corvallis area that specialized in Indian food plants?

Bessie Murphy: No, not particularly.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Bessie Murphy: But there are some. See, when my botany teacher was living, I could get my questions answered!

Bob Zybach: That's why we're asking you, of course, too!

Bessie Murphy: I didn't learn the answers to all of them! [Pause] Now what were we looking at when I said "that's bitterroot"?

Bob Zybach: I think we were looking at some photographs of some plants you had.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah, that's right, you had some pictures.

Bessie Murphy: I found one in eastern Oregon. That I recognized. But I found quite a plenty of yampah. See there aren't so awfully many

Bob Zybach: I think that most of your corrections with some of these older people and with some of the plants we discussed. You were saying, you didn't understand why the, or you didn't think the Indians had very many good plants.

Bessie Murphy: No, you would have thought, really, that they would have seen some worth having, or using, and cultivated them themselves. They just didn't get very far along the trail of civilization at all, did they?

Bob Zybach: Well, they didn't have metal. Do you think that maybe by using fire, that that was a method of cultivation that we 're just not used to looking at?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, I guess. That's right, it isn't. And some of the tribes, I suppose, didn't have good ground.

Bob Zybach: Now those in the Willamette Valley, you mentioned off the tape, that they might have had access to animals. But the ones in the Willamette Valley, from what we know, did exist mostly on vegetation and they did have good ground.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, they could have done something. But they weren't interested in being civilized.

Bob Zybach: Well, but they didn't have metal or domestic animals, or alcohol. So maybe they. . . it depends on what you are calling civilized.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, that's right.

Bob Zybach: Now, they had cainas, and oak, and blackberries and strawberries, and onions, can you think of other plants that they might have needed in addition to that or plants that they could have cultivated better?

Bessie Murphy: Well, it's just too bad that they didn't get contact with the South American Indians and get potatoes and corn. You see, what they had, it took an awful lot of it to make much bulk.

Bob Zybach: So you think that f certain species of plants had been introduced in the Willamette Valley then they could have done better?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, or anybody kind of help them get started on raising some good stuff.

Bob Zybach: Do you think a limitation could have been that they didn't have metal?

Bessie Murphy: Well, I presume that that has something to do with it, because it was awfully hard to work with a stick.

Bob Zybach: Yeah. Page 28 here.

Bessie Murphy: [Pause]

Bob Zybach: 29?

Bessie Murphy: And you see the Indians had always done it this way, and I have great respect for their ancestors. They didn't want to change it so much. What's this? "Yeah, different stuff, and that was something that would come in and hadn't been here naturally. But I don't remember any particular one." Then I thought, "Oh, yes, Tansy ragwort [Senecio jacobaea]." It was a stinker! Oh, about this, oh what we talked about. That papa told the woman to tear it up.

Bob Zybach: Oh, oh.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] That's right. Bachelor button.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. That's a bad one. And there was one other one that he thought he could fight it by digging it up. And that it wasn't so thick. And that was the old man in the ground [Marah oreganus], a wild gourd. And that storage root, it had a storage root you see, big as a wild muskmelon. And he'd dig them up. He kept them pretty well down. [Pause] And that's another thing that was a difference between my dad and some of the other farmers. They didn't bother with these things.

Bob Zybach: As far as controlling the weeds.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, that's right. Of course he worked himself to death.

Bob Zybach: Now, you know that Rohner said that and Marc/cs said that too, they said the other farmers didn't take care of their land as good as dad. Of course, he never lived to see.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah! [Laughter]

Bob Zybach: And both of them said the exact same thing, that their father really knew how to take care of the land, and their father died young.

Bessie Murphy: Urn hmm. My father didn't reach 70.

Bob Zybach: I think they meant younger than that.

Bessie Murphy: "More like 50 years as her [Vida R. Bullis] husband was living when they moved out there." [Reading from page 32] I was just out there the other day and she's got more dahlias than ever.

Bob Zybach: Do you like dahlias?

Bessie Murphy: Well, as a landscape flower. But it's a nuisance. You have to dig it up every fall and store the roots and plant it again in the spring.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] I've got some in front of my house I haven 't dug up and this is the third year they've come up.

Bessie Murphy: Well, you can be lucky on the weather, but you see sometimes it gets you.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Well they're next to the foundation of the house and it probably keeps them a little warmer than they would out there. She couldn 't do that.

Bessie Murphy: No.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] It gets colder out there anyway.

Bessie Murphy: Probably.

Bob Zybach: Page 34.

Bessie Murphy: Let's see. "There's a while there, when Oregon just raised wheat until it wore the ground out." "AU the farmers raised wheat?" And that affected my paternal grandparents movements. They got eaten out by grasshoppers in Kansas, and came out here in their older age, expecting to start over again. They never got started to start! They came out here when the ground was just plum depleted with wheat. After several years they just wheated it to death. And he tried three different rented farms and it all depleted. Then he went out to Clatsop County and found it covered with trees. He couldn't win for losing.

Bob Zybach: Now, one thing I'm curious about, how far south did the wheat crops get grown in the Willamette Valley?

Bessie Murphy: Well, just all over.

Bob Zybach: Were they as far south as Eugene?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, [think so. Everywhere there's reasonably level land you know, not so good in the hills,

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Wonder f that why the farmers around here claim now that you can't grow much in a lot of these places. You hear that a lot. Particularly in terms of the grass seed industry. They say the only thing you can grow out there is grass. I wonder if it's because of past farming practices.

Bessie Murphy: Well, if they haven't done anything to make the land richer, I expect as they may feel the effects of that wheating.

Bob Zybach: I was told by one of my professors that wheat was grown no further south than Crescent Valley. We were on your family 'sfarm, and he said "This is as far south as wheat was grown."

Bessie Murphy: I can't feature that.

Bob Zybach: So you don't think that's true.

Bessie Murphy: I doubt it very much.

Bob Zybach: Good.

Bessie Murphy: But I couldn't stake my life on it. Now, what you call him, Van Smith [a old friend of Bessie], you ought to talk to about that. Because his father and his grandfather farmed.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] At Smith Loop, out south of town. Yep.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] That's right, he would know, wouldn't he. Everybody keeps telling me I should talk to him.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Well you should

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, you better do that.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] And you better do it quick.

Bessie Murphy: And he's interesting to talk to.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Bessie Murphy: And I remember seeing vetch come in.

Bob Zybach: When did vetch come in?

Bessie Murphy: I was grown I think, but I was still home. I hadn't got married yet I don't think. Just around that time.

Bob Zybach: How old were you when you got married?

Bessie Murphy: Twenty. Twenty-four, I think.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Which vetch was it?

Bessie Murphy: Common. Sativa.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Oh, okay. Vicia Sativa. When did hairy vetch [Vicia villosa] come in?

Bessie Murphy: Well, it was later. I don't know how much later. And sativa seemed to be the best one.

Bob Zybach: Page 37.

Bessie Murphy: [Pause] All these farms that had been established at any time at, at least, practically all of them had an old orchard. Now you see that one out there is rubbing 200 years.

Bob Zybach: Now this is /dnd of interesting. We've talked about virtually everything I wanted to talk about except special trees and orchards.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] That one out there, you mean the one on your papa 's place.

Bessie Murphy: Papa's place, yeah.

Bob Zybach: Now, the walnut orchard, are we talking about that?

Bessie Murphy: No, that was put in after 1914. Well, no, I think that's the one he planted and when it bore he found out it was the wrong variety because it nearly always got frosted.

Bob Zybach: Oh!

Bessie Murphy: And he had to graft it, and made it later, much later getting it going.

Bob Zybach: Now, you say all the old places had orchards?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Those were just.

Bessie Murphy: Family orchard of fruit, pears and apples, and everything the family would use.

Bob Zybach: Now the orchard that the. . . so that's different from the walnut orchard?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, yes.

Bob Zybach: Now the walnut orchard we 'ye been calling the Gragg walnut orchard. But the family orchard, would that be?

Bessie Murphy: Where you turn the corner to the left, that's the orchard between the house and the road.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Does that orchard have a name, or was that associated with the family?

Bessie Murphy: That was just our family orchard.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] It was there when you moved.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, it was there you see. And it was an old orchard then, so I figure it's about 200 years old!

Bob Zybach: Well, the first person that moved there, only went there 150 years ago so. . . but it was an old orchard.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] But it would have been planted then, probably with the first people that moved in.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, give or take 50 years!

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Yeah, you couldn't go to Freds and buy apples back then. Do you recall any of the varieties in that orchard there?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. There was a lot of them that were not good at all. But there were some humdingers! There was winesaps, they're wonderful winter apples. And belflowers would come on a little earlier. They're a long, yellow apple. And, what were some more of those?

Bob Zybach: A 20 ounce?

Bessie Murphy: No.

Bob Zybach: Or a blue pied?

Bessie Murphy: No.

Bob Zybach: How about the pears? Was there bartletts?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, and winter nellus, and. . . oh, what was that other pear? I used to know it. Shucks. Well, I'll think of it, but it was a thick, chubby pear. And the winter nellus was longer. And they were good. And then the summer apples, of course, the best one was a gravenstein. And those little red june, solid color red. And it wasn't a big apple, but it was good. And very white meat.

Bob Zybach: Called red june? Do you remember what you used the red junes for?

Bessie Murphy: Well, they came rather early. Just to eat raw.

Bob Zybach: Did you make them into salads?

Bessie Murphy: Salads?!

Bob Zybach: Never had apple salad, huh? Ok.

Bessie Murphy: Yee gods, you couldn't get those old timers to eat a salad! [Laughter]

Phil Hays: [PHIL] So when was the first salad you remember?

Bessie Murphy: Well, after I was married, probably.

Bob Zybach: Never had salad until you were an adult?

Bessie Murphy: Not as a salad. But we had some raw stuff you see, fruit or lettuce. Sliced cabbage. what do you call that?

Bob Zybach: Slaw?

Bessie Murphy: No, we made kraut. Yes, slaw, that would be our main salad. Yeah.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] What did you do with lettuce?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know. I don't remember cutting it up. I don't think we used it very much. I have an idea the slaw was better for us. I'm sure it had vitamin C in it. What was I trying to think of

Bob Zybach: Ttying to think of the name of an old thick-skinned pear? That was real good?

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Or thick, not long and thin, but round. Oh, okay. Okay. Thick shaped pear.

Bessie Murphy: Yes. What was the name of it? Oh, shoot.

Bob Zybach: Oh well.

Bessie Murphy: Go on to the next thing.

Bob Zybach: Okay. We're on.

Bessie Murphy: I have noticed that the older people they were not brought up on salads as you are today. And they didn't want to eat it.

Bob Zybach: Page 39 there. Another thing that's coming out of this. We 'ye got Cecil Compton. We've got 75 old pear and apple trees on 8 different orchards on school properties, and he 's telling use what the varieties are. We're trying to preserve these old orchards.

Bessie Murphy: Good. Have ever met old Mr.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Smith.

Bessie Murphy: Yes!

Bob Zybach: Morris X?

Bessie Murphy: Yes! Boy, he knows the varieties. And there's some, there's another old man, I can't think of now.

Bob Zybach: Okay, page 40.

Bessie Murphy: [Pause] Papa didn't have time to hunt. But he did some. He didn't have time to go on rugged trips and deer hunt. If a deer come along and got in his way, why he might shoot it. But he did hunt pheasants. Cause they were so thick. And he didn't do it particularly for pleasure. He was too busy.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Well did you have problems with deer getting into stuff around the house?

Bessie Murphy: No. I think one reason is dogs. We always had dogs.

Bob Zybach: Did you ever see very many deer?

Bessie Murphy: No, not many.

Bob Zybach: How about beaver?

Bessie Murphy: No, none at all. The little streams out there are too little. [Pause] What's this' [Laughs] I sure explained why those people brought those foxes in!

Bob Zybach: You've got it covered.

Bessie Murphy: [Pause] Yeah, another silly thing to allow. Bringing the dang possums.

Bob Zybach: Let's see, that's 41? Page 42.

Bessie Murphy: Yep, my kid brother and I had fun catching little trout. Nine was a big one.

Bob Zybach: Nine inches?

Bessie Murphy: Nine inches.

Bob Zybach: Guarantee two things, this is one of the best histories that we've got with the school, and it has caused us to go out and talk with a lot of other people, but I think it's gonna be one of the most thorough, too.

Bessie Murphy: I hope so.

Bob Zybach: Yeah, I think so.

Bessie Murphy: Papa wasn't averse to hunting, but he hated to take so much time. From his work. So when they became a nuisance in the orchard, he just had to shoot them.

Bob Zybach: Would they, in those days would they say that he was a "meat hunter," rather than a "sport hunter," or are you familiar with those terms?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, he was a. . . well how did they say that? Oh dear, that isn't right. Food on the table or something of the sort.

Bob Zybach: Oh, I think I know the phrase you are looking for. He hunted basically for the family table.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah!!

Bob Zybach: Yeah.

Bessie Murphy: And when they come near, and got right in your way like roosting in the orchard, why he couldn't help himself. Let's see, "They were dairy farms?" "No, they were general farmers, and also good managers." [Bottom of page 43]

Bob Zybach: Okay, we're on 44.

Bessie Murphy: We're just going to town, aren't we?

Bob Zybach: Well, the last 15 or 20 pages, you have mostly "Yeah" and "Yes ", but you have a few comments.

Bessie Murphy: Boy, this is a bad one. You know, they had a little bit of everything at one time or another, and a good farmer will have many. . . let's see, what's that. . . many irons in the fire, that's another expression. And if you just have one or two things that you've got to specialize in it very much to get anywhere fmancially. And he didn't miss any tricks having some of this and some of that.

Bob Zybach: Well, they say things like "You don't put all your eggs in one basket ", or.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, uh huh.

Bob Zybach: Or would they just practice that?

Bessie Murphy: Practice, what do you mean?

Bob Zybach: Or would they actually have expressions saying to diversify, to have a lot of different crops, and expressions like "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" or would they just, you could tell by the way that they lived that they practiced those things. Or would they actually have phrases that they kind of followed or expressed their beliefs like that.

Bessie Murphy: Well, I don't know too much about that. [Pause] Yeah, that cherry orchard was a little cash crop, but it give us kids, we kids a chance to make a little penny money, too, because people there weren't many orchards and people came and got them. And they would hire us to pick them sometimes, or they would, as I said before, they would ask us to pick them ourselves and ship them on the train to the. . . and they come to the . . . oh, now what am I trying to say? Where the. . . isn't that maddening?

Bob Zybach: Sort of like fruit stands, or something like that?

Bessie Murphy: No. Stations! Train stations! And get their boxes of cherries. We'd ship them that for. And boy we had to get up early that morning! We had to pick them, and we had to go in there with a horse, rig -- slow business -- and put them on the train.

Bob Zybach: Where would they ship them to by train?

Bessie Murphy: To whatever station they wanted! Nearly always out toward the coast, like Kings Valley, and what are some of those? Chitwood, and various stations along there.

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

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

Bessie Murphy: So I consider myself a Christian. So anyway . . . now, what was I going to tell about? Oh, now you see we didn't know, keep up with Aunt Troth's family very well. She's the one that came with an ox team, wagons and ox team, in 1864. And settled down by Amity And she was lots . . . she was the oldest one in the family She was quite a bit older than my father. And her kids were all grown and married and moved, and we didn't move to where we were close enough to visit much. And anyway, about this boy, when he got old enough that he could get away from home and earned enough money so he could get his mouth fixed he did it. And now, my nephew is taking over the genealogy of the family And before he got so busy, they bought them this house so he could move in. They did quite a bit of work on it. And he found this fellow that had fixed . . . He was 84 years old then, I expect he's dead now. That was several years ago. And he went and hunted him up, he was up in Washington.

Bob Zybach: So there's an interview with this uncle, then.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: And that's with your nephew.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: What's his name, so, your nephew's name?

Bessie Murphy: Same as my dad. Gragg. Lee Gragg. He lived with mamma. And I think that was fairly common, in those days. I don't know how it is yet. That what is, is and the Lord made it. And they don't do much about it. Nowadays, most anybody would have that simple operation and make life easier for anybody. And I think it's idiotic not to do it. Well, so, so it goes.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Want to go to page 49 and call it a day?

Bessie Murphy: I noticed how one thing leads to another. Somewhere here I told you about the going to the Lewis and Clark Exposition in 1905. And meeting up with Ezra Meeker. Now do either one of you know about Ezra Meeker?

Bob Zybach: Urn hrnm.

Bessie Murphy: I saw the old fellow and his oxen.

Bob Zybach: You did?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. And there's another thing that was a custom of the times. People drew away from, now how would I say that? Well anyway, they didn't like to be pushed into this and that and the other thing there. Some very good worthwhile things, it took a lot of pushing and prodding to get them to do it. And they objected to even marking the Oregon Trail.

Bob Zybach: There was objections to marking the Oregon Trail?

Bessie Murphy: It couldn't get interest too much, for a long time.

Bob Zybach: Were they against it, or just.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, against it.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] What, just against change?

Bessie Murphy: I guess so.

Bob Zybach: So they thought what Ezra Meeker was doing was not only boring, but it was wrong?

Bessie Murphy: I don't know if they thought it was wrong or not, but they didn't, didn't get hep with it.

Bob Zybach: What did you think?

Bessie Murphy: I thought it was a fine thing.

Bob Zybach: Were there people that saw Ezra Meeker as kind of a hero?

Bessie Murphy: Yes, he became a hero later, too.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Let's see, how old were you then?

Bessie Murphy: I was about, in 1905 I was about 11.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] I'm right. Can you remember the forestry building?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: What about that building sticks in your memory?

Bessie Murphy: Well, it was talked about much, and pointed out that there was lots of big timbers in there from our forest, you know. Made a fuss about it.

Bob Zybach: Was it a big highlight?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, yeah. Let's see, what's this question here? "He kept it and rented it, and his children inherited it whole, and eventually I inherited some. Not much in those days as there was no shortage of land to buy then." Let's see. Might be I'm talking about Grandpa Crees? Yeah. He came in '71. And I read in the paper somewhere, not too long ago, that 1872 was the end of the period that you could be considered a pioneer.

Bob Zybach: 1872?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. If you come later you're not. So he was a pioneer, but he's only just under the line.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] The last of the pioneers.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah. [Laughter]

Bob Zybach: Well, now you can say you've got pioneer ancestry for sure then.

Bessie Murphy: Yes, and the other grandpa didn't come to Oregon till '74, 50 he isn't. But this Aunt Trom did.

Bob Zybach: Ah. Early pioneer.

Bessie Murphy: Now, it's funny. What did I do with that? Oh.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] The pictures.

Bessie Murphy: Now that you've heard about Aunt Troth, maybe you. . . now this was Aunt Lessi's book. And I haven't read any of this Here's Aunt Lessi.

Phil Hays: [PHIL] Oh, okay. I think I understand now, it's a fairly fancy book. More her style.

Bessie Murphy: And this is the old family album, everybody had. Well here, that's Aunt Troth.

Bob Zybach: The one on the left?

Bessie Murphy: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: But you said the one on the right was.

Bessie Murphy: Aunt Susan?

Bob Zybach: Your favorite.

Bessie Murphy: You betcha.

Bob Zybach: What was so nice about Aunt Susan?

Bessie Murphy: Oh, her disposition. She was kindness personified. And she never married, you see the both of them, it ran in their family, they had poor eyes. And she couldn't go to school extensively at all. And couldn't really . . . well of course in those days, women stayed home. But she had, when she could she would go and do housework, or home nursing, or anything she could do, you see, without an education. And her late years she lived with that the family. And I could look back and see where I could have done more for her, and it makes me mad I didn't. And that's what you can see, looking back.

Bob Zybach: This is your.

Bessie Murphy: Now this is grandpa.

Bob Zybach: Okay, Gragg.

Bessie Murphy: And his brother and two sisters, and the old devil.

Bob Zybach: I thought you said she was the grandmother of the devil?

Bessie Murphy: No, was the devil herself! [Laughter]

Bob Zybach: So this is two brothers and two sisters and the other one.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, that's what I understand. And the generation I hadn't seen any of them but grandpa. They came from Pennsylvania.

Bob Zybach: Oh, so he was married the third time before he even came out here?

Bessie Murphy: No, he caine out here and then when his second wife died, about two years later he farmed his children out with his friends and neighbors and went back and married her. And that's something else funny, that hitches up with a custom of the times. He farmed that Lessi out with Hamen Lewis. Hamen Lewis, it's not Hayman, it's Hamen.

Bob Zybach: Hamen? Good. Because I've got it as Herman, too.

Bessie Murphy: Hamen. And she came home with body lice. That was not very common in those times!

Bob Zybach: Body lice?

Bessie Murphy: Lice!! Yes!! Horrible. Now that is looked down.

Bob Zybach: They was looking down on it in those days?

Bessie Murphy: Yes.

Bob Zybach: I see.

Bessie Murphy: Now it wouldn't be as horrified to get them. And I think this is one of grandpa's sisters, but I don't know for sure. Those are cousins, I don't know what degree of cousins.

Bob Zybach: Now who, now this,.

Bessie Murphy: And this is little Arthur Hall. Who was raised like a girl.

Bob Zybach: How old was he raised like a girl, till?

Bessie Murphy: Well, I don't think much longer. Because five years was about the limit.

Bob Zybach: Okay, about five or six, and then they 'd.

Bessie Murphy: Yeah, before they went to school they

Bob Zybach: That was a local family, wasn 't it, the Halls? Down in Corvallis, didn't you say?

Bessie Murphy: Yes. They had the bakery at that time. I don't know who this guy is. That's Mary Francis somebody, a cousin. I've heard of her. See, I acquired this in late life. And that's the little dress I showed you. Well anyway, .

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