3.. The Marcks' Farm

Wanda Marcks Cook: don't meander all over like in Soap Creek.

Bob Zybach: Yeah. I think in Soap Creek they followed the hill sides but in South Dakota they just followed the lines. There are no hills or streams to worry about.

Wanda Marcks Cook: Speaking of that, my dad was so disgusted with the farming that had gone on at that place [Soap Creek] because if there was a hollow place where they . . roses would grow up, sweet briar, roses, they just plow around it. And of course, that area as big as this room and more would be wasted. Well, dad would fill that in and he would clear it out and clean up the fields a lot. And he improved the soil and built the fences. Fenced the whole thing. Split the oak, cut the oaks on the place and split it into fence posts. Of course they would be rotted away now [About 1906 survey - plan to sell lots, rail fences broken down - WMC].

Bob Zybach: Now you're talking about on Soap Creek Valley, not South Dakota?

Wanda Marcks Cook: I'm talking about the Valley, not. yes.

2. Eureka, South Dakota

Bob Zybach: Okay, then..

Wanda Marcks Cook: In South Dakota, he collected and then it was there where they saved their money and then moved west. And I was born the year that they extended the railroad west.

Bob Zybach: Whichwas. .18..

Wanda Marcks Cook: Ninety-five.

Bob Zybach: . . 95. But that meant he came west to Eureka. In Eureka, did he work on the railroad across the United States?

Wanda Marcks Cook: No, he didn't work on the railroad. It was in Eureka when I was a child, that he was collector for the Deere machinery.

Bob Zybach: I see, so he started in South Dakota collecting for Deere Machinery?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Yes.

Bob Zybach: And then he moved out west and kept his job?

Wanda Marcks Cook: And farmed, he bought the farm and moved us onto the farm.

Bob Zybach: In Soap Creek. Okay, so he. . in South Dakota,.

Wanda Marcks Cook: He was working for a company and when he came west he worked for himself.

Bob Zybach: I see, so in Eureka, when he came out to Eureka, California, was he.

Wanda Marcks Cook: (laughter) Not Eureka, California; Eureka. . that's what's confusing.

Bob Zybach: Oh, that's where we're getting confused.

Wanda Marcks Cook: Eureka, South Dakota.

Bob Zybach: Oh, okay. You kept saying Eureka and I thought. . I'm a western boy.

Wanda Marcks Cook: I'm sorry. They were married in Aberdeen and they moved to Eureka and that's where he got.

Bob Zybach: Well, we're back to South Dakota, I thought we were off to Ca4fornia. (laughter)

Wanda Marcks Cook: I never was in California, I never lived in California.

3. The Marcks' Farm

Bob Zybach: Okay, he came out to Oregon.

Wanda Marcks Cook: He came out the year ahead and scouted around looking for a place. And he found

Wanda Marcks Cook: this farm. Three hundred and forty-eight acres for sale.

Bob Zybach: Do you know the name of the farm, what they called it?

Wanda Marcks Cook: It didn't have a name. I don't even know the name of the man they bought from. I was just a kid. Life was just a bowl of cherries.

Bob Zybach: He came out a year ahead of time and found the farm, three hundred and forty-eiglu acres.

Wanda Marcks Cook: Bought it and the next year moved the family out.

Bob Zybach: What year was that?

Wanda Marcks Cook: 1904.

Bob Zybach: And the Glender brothers were already established?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Yes.

Bob Zybach: And I think Goviers.

Wanda Marcks Cook: What's happened to the Goviers?

Bob Zybach: I think there's still some around. I haven't had a chance to talk to them yet.

Wanda Marcks Cook: Well, is that so. Well, I haven't heard the name mentioned at any time in any of this talk, you know, through the years when Hilda phoned me.

Bob Zybach: Now that would be Hilda. . Olson?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Hilda Olson.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Wanda Marcks Cook: It was Alva Govier and Elmer [Govier].

Bob Zybach: Elva and Elmer Govier?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Alva. Govier, I think, is a French name. But their mother [Sadie R. Govier2] was born on an Indian Reservation, but she was not an Indian.

Bob Zybach: She may have been a Metis; a half breed French Canadian?

Wanda Marcks Cook: I don't think so.

Bob Zybach: Oh.

Wanda Marcks Cook: She was. . She never went to school very much. I've heard her say, "I was manied when I was sixteen and I knew as much then as I know now." That gives you an idea.

Bob Zybach: Was that a point ofpride? Was she proud of that or was she complaining?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Bragging. My people always kind of took the attitude, "Well, it's too bad to live that long and not learn anything."

Bob Zybach: That's why I was asking. I'm forty-one and still learning, so f I knew eveiything by the time I was sixteen I would have had to get married too [at 16] maybe.

Wanda Marcks Cook: I'm ninety-four and I'm still learning.

Bob Zybach: Good, I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to be when I grow up so.. If you know everything by the time you're sixteen, that's kind of tough.

Wanda Marcks Cook: (laughter) Let's get back to business.

Bob Zybach: Okay,..

Wanda Marcks Cook: Where are we now. Are we still in South Dakota?

Bob Zybach: No, we're out to the Soap Creek Valley on a three hundred and forty-eight acre ranch.

Wanda Marcks Cook: No fences, a tumble down house. He never even went into the house. He was interested in the land. He could see the possibilities. He put all his energies into revitalizing the soil.

2 See monograph #09 of this series, Eugene Glender, p: 122. Her family name was slightly misspelled in the Benton County Census of 1910.

Bob Zybach: Now what was his name? We haven't gotten your maiden name.

Wanda Marcks Cook: Louis.

Bob Zybach: L-e-w or L-o-u?

Wanda Marcks Cook: L-o-u-i-s, which is a French name and then he had G-u-i-d-e-o. You pronounce it as you please. That's Italian.

Bob Zybach: Guideo.

Wanda Marcks Cook: And the Marcks, M-a-r-c-k-s. That's the German spelling.

Bob Zybach: Oh, okay. Is that the same Marcks family that lives up by Summit? Marcks road?

Wanda Marcks Cook: No.

Bob Zybach: Same spelling, huh?

Wanda Marcks Cook: No, I don't know of any Marcks there. My family is all gone. My mother, father, and my two brothers and my sister all gone.

Bob Zybach: So do you have nieces and nephews from your brothers and sisters?

Wanda Marcks Cook: My sister [Florence Marcks McKay] had two sons [Louis and Philip]. She was brown eyed and a very beautiful woman. Brown eyed, very dark skinned and she lived. . She married a sailor [Philip McKay Sr.], and lived in San Diego all her married life.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Wanda Marcks Cook: She tanned until you would have sworn she was a Mexican.

Bob Zybach: How about your.

Wanda Marcks Cook: And her children were blue eyed. I'm blue eyed and I had two brown eyed sons. Rather interesting. My father had brown eyes and my mother had blue eyes.

Bob Zybach: Yeah, the way it's gone through the generations. How about your two brothers [Raymond and Wallace] did they have children?

Wanda Marcks Cook: No, one of them didn't have children. The older. . my older brother. . He was five years older than I. . had one son and I don't know what happened to him. He was in the service and I really don't know, there was a split up but he kept in touch with my mother for quite a while, but. . I really don't know what happened to him.

Bob Zybach: So, in 1904, most of the original pioneers. . just one or two, they would have been your age, but most of them had died by that point and then the land had consolidated quite often into larger farms.

Wanda Marcks Cook: No, I was speaking about revitalizing the soil, how he plowed just a little deeper. he never wasted a thing. All the manure went out on the land. The straw when they harvest. . when they threshed in the fall, he would have it put where it would be available to the cattle, so they could munch and protect themselves against the rain and what have you. And then after it rotted down, that was hauled out into the fields. And the Glenders had much more land and when the threshing was over, they just burned the straw and my dad would just stand there and just shake his head [in bewildered manner].

Bob Zybach: Well, you were asking why we want to do this history, there's a good point. Right now there's a big debate on burning straw and I've talked with.

Wanda Marcks Cook: But they burned it just to get it out of the way. They burned the straw stack!

Bob Zybach: That's why.

Wanda Marcks Cook: My dad let it rot down and made mulch out of it, hauled it out and put it on the land.

Bob Zybach: Did your dad do any burning at all, say to clear out the forest?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Not one single bit of burning! Everything was . . you talk about your compost piles. That was what this straw was.

Bob Zybach: Composting, huh?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Composting, natural.

Bob Zybach: But when he opened up new fields or jf he had an oak stand that he wanted to convert to pasturage, did he cut and burn those areas?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Well, our farm was not large enough to. The fields to cultivate here and then there was the hill with small [Douglas] fir trees that had matured since. I don't know if they've been cut now but they're ready for cutting. [Brush was burned. Logs used for fuel in fire place and kitchen range. - WMC]

Bob Zybach: How did the small fir trees come in? I've been studying that pretty close. The Indians kept the hills burnt clean and then the pioneers came in and at first they grazed sheep and goats and pigs and other animals on the hill sides but when they started putting in the fences. . is that when the fir trees started growing?

Wanda Marcks Cook: The fir trees were there. There was some fairly large but most of them were about oh, I would say, ten feet. I'm just guessing now. Remember I was a child.

Bob Zybach: Yeah.

Wanda Marcks Cook: I took everything for granted. A lot of oaks there, and my dad cut the oaks, made his own posts, split them with wedges, made his own fence posts and fenced the place.

Bob Zybach: Out of the oak?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Yes. That's the first thing. And we kept. . This was a small operation you know, but it was versatile. We kept the goats. They had a certain run. They kept the brush down on the hill. They were only kept on the hill there. They came around for salt once a week. You could tell the day that the goats would be down and then dad would go out and look them over and check them for foot trouble.

Bob Zybach: Were they angora?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Angoras. And the Mohair. When they sheared, it was the Mohair that paid the taxes.

Bob Zybach: Oh, so what little taxes you had.

Wanda Marcks Cook: Well, they had to. We raised everything that we ate, except the sugar and flour.

Bob Zybach: So you didn't need very much money. What little money you needed was essentially for taxes.

Wanda Marcks Cook: We lived high on the hog but we didn't need money.

Bob Zybach: Can you tell me the kind offood you ate?

Wanda Marcks Cook: I'll tell you one that might interest you. My mother was a marvelous cook, and the Germans cooked with yeast more than they did with baking powder. And she could bake bread like nobody's business in South Dakota. When she came out here, she couldn't bake a decent loaf of bread. She worried and she stewed and she fretted. Soft wheat, you see. It didn't have the gluten in it. [Saved yeast "starter", water from boiled potatoes, "pressed" potatoes - WMC]

Bob Zybach: Oh, the djfference in the wheat. So did she learn how to.

Wanda Marcks Cook: So it wasn't until she got onto that. . . She had to learn all over again to handle that soft wheat.

Bob Zybach: What. . were there any crops that you raised that were sold?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Kept a few sheep, and there was an old. . You'll be interested in this. There was an old orchard on the place. Great big trees, over grown, mossy. And the apples were wormy. Dad kept the hogs in the orchard. When the apples fell they would run and eat it. Well, that did away with the worms. See the first apples would fall. Some very, very beautiful apples.