4.. The Second School

Bob Zybach: Is that orchard still there?

Wanda Marcks Cook: An old timer, they called it a 20 ounce. It was about that big. There was a tree of 20 ounce out on this farm on Sauvies Island where they've collected cuttings. They've got a little orchard out there of all the old apple, varieties of apples. The yellow newton, the blue permaid,

Bob Zybach: Were those apples that you had in the orchard?

Wanda Marcks Cook: In ours, yes.

Bob Zybach: And the blue.. 'What was the last name?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Blue permaid. M-a-i-d I think.

Bob Zybach: What was your favorite apple?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Apples were just apples. We made cider by the barrel. We made our own vinegar.

Bob Zybach: You blended all the varieties. It was just more of the time that they were ripe than the variety.

Wanda Marcks Cook: There was a little room about that wide and long and shelves about that deep, the whole thing was [Begins gesturing with hands. See approximate measurements below] . . . and that's where they put the apples. We put newspaper down and then put the apples in there and kept them.

Bob Zybach: So it was a long narrow room with shelves with fruit on it?

Wanda Marcks Cook: It was the fruit room. The shelves were about that deep.

Bob Zybach: So about..

Wanda Marcks Cook: And that far apart and we just put the apples. . After we picked the apples we put them in there and kept them through the winter.

Bob Zybach: So the shelves would be.

Wanda Marcks Cook: And the walls were insulated with saw dust. [Canned fruit, no electricity, no ice, no refrigerator - WMC]

Bob Zybach: So the walls were maybe. . because this [recording] won't pick up measurements, but the walls were about 8 or 10 inches thick and the shelves were maybe twenty or twenty-four inches long and maybe ten or twelve inches deep and eight or ten inches high, something like that?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Okay, and then the whole fruit room would process other fruits and vegetables other than apples?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Yes. Mom. . then when we got a [cream] separator - why the separator was put in there, because we could keep it clean.

Bob Zybach: How many milk cows did you keep?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Why. . I was the milk maid, seven or eight that I milked every morning and evening. [Turned the separator and sold cream - WMC]

Bob Zybach: And then you had goats?

Wanda Marcks Cook: That wasn't in the beginning, that was when . . that was by the time I was about twelve, thirteen, fourteen.

Bob Zybach: After you've been there for four or five years?

Wanda Marcks Cook: No, see, I was nine . . that's right, that's right.

4. The Second School

Bob Zybach: So about 1909 or 1910? How many families were living in the Valley then?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Well, we'll start with Glenders, then Marcks, then Goviers. . Have you heard about the little house on the Marcks farm that they called "the cottage."

Bob Zybach: No. I'd like to hear about it.

Wanda Marcks Cook: About a mile from our house toward Goviers; Goviers is about three miles. No. About a half a mile from our house but it was on our place. Now, how that happened to be built I don't know. But there was no water in it. They had to carry the water from the creek. It was known as the cottage.

Bob Zybach: Did anybody live in it?

Wanda Marcks Cook: No. The school teachers lived there for a little bit rent free, you know. Dad, as I told you, dad was great for education; he would do anything to educate, you know. To improve the educational system in the Valley.

Bob Zybach: Was he a member of the school board?

Wanda Marcks Cook: He made himself. I wasa kid then, I don't know about. He was a member of the school board.

Bob Zybach: Oh.

Wanda Marcks Cook: Right quick. And he extended the time that school was in session. [school was held four months in the fall, three months in the spring. Dad was instrumental in getting longer terms. - WMC]

Bob Zybach: So he..

Wanda Marcks Cook: And insisted on better teachers, better trained teachers and we walked the two and half miles in the mud. As I say, it never got cold enough to even freeze.

Bob Zybach: You were saying the weather was dUjeren.t and Charlie Olson was saying the same thing. He thinks it's becaiLse they logged off the trees towards the top of the coast range that allowed the wind and rains to come through where there iLsed to be forests.

Wanda Marcks Cook: Well, a lot of difference. . We used to have a lot of fog here in Portland. Fog so thick that you'd. . Are you familiar with the city?

Bob Zybach: Yeah, I lived here up until twenty years ago.

Wanda Marcks Cook: Well, you know this Thirty-ninth and Glisan where the statue of Joan of Arc is. You could just drive around that thing and go back where you started the fog was so thick.

Bob Zybach: Oh.

Wanda Marcks Cook: That was a daily thing.

Bob Zybach: So you think the weather now is a little bit colder but clearer.

Wanda Marcks Cook: It's colder and far more wind, far more wind.

Bob Zybach: Why do you think that happened? Do you think it's jzst one of those natural cycles where.

Wanda Marcks Cook: Well, I don't know. We get a lot more wind from the Columbia Gorge than we used to.

Bob Zybach: Oh.

Wanda Marcks Cook: And of course, now when I first came to Portland, Powell Boulevard, they were cutting the first growth firs along Powell. Out here between here and Gresham, Boring, Troutdale, and Estacada.

Bob Zybach: So, that was still being logged off at that time? I've got maps of Portland from 1851 where there was forest fires within our city limits now. This area here had forest fires. On Soap Creek, were they doing any logging there at all?

Wanda Marcks Cook: No, they had been logging earlier. There was a skid road right close to the school house (Soap Creek).

Bob Zybach: And the school hoiLse..

Wanda Marcks Cook: Do you know about that?

Bob Zybach: There 's. . I know it became a tram road in the 1930's where the school house is now. Is that the same location?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Okay, so you went to the older school. The one they call the Second School.

Wanda Marcks Cook: The old school. The one that's still there and they've painted it red now. It was painted white.

Bob Zybach: The one that's there now wasn't built until 1932, it replaced an older school.

Wanda Marcks Cook: Well, I thought when they built the. . When they no longer used the one that I went to, that's still standing there, but they weren't using it. When they enlarged the district or built a new building they built nearer the mouth of the valley. Down near Glenders. Isn't the school down near Glenders?

Bob Zybach: Yeah, they built.

Wanda Marcks Cook: There was no school there. There was just that old Tampico Tavern ["Arcade Saloon" in Glender] falling apart.

Bob Zybach: Was that the only building left from Tampico that you can remember, the old Tavern?

Wanda Marcks Cook: That and Glender's house, and another house. . Beales, I think their name was Beales.

Bob Zybach: B-e-a-l-e-s?

Wanda Marcks Cook: I haven't thought about it.

Bob Zybach: Now at that time the old tavern, was that.

Wanda Marcks Cook: That little brat that I had to pick up and look after.

Bob Zybach: She was a Beales, huh?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Edna.

Bob Zybach: Now we didn't get that recorded [stoly about having to take Edna Beales to school each day]. You were talking about walking two and a half miles to school, but then after.

Wanda Marcks Cook: That was up the valley until I passed state eighth grade exams.

Bob Zybach: And then you went to high school in Wells.

Wanda Marcks Cook: Yes, I went to high school in Wells.

Bob Zybach: And then you got there by horseback?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Horseback, yes. Well, I was going to say, then when dad got so that we had. really had school in this old building up the valley, they built a shed to shelter the horses and we rode and the teacher rode horseback.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember the teacher's name?

Wanda Marcks Cook: The teacher's name was Blake, Mrs. [Lottie] Blake. I don't remember her given name. They didn't use given names in those days. It was Mrs. Blake.

Bob Zybach: Now the Olsons would have been going to school and also the Moores. The Sam Moore family. Did you know the Moores? They were there right about the turn of the centuiy. They were up near Sulphur Springs, near the Olsons and then.

Wanda Marcks Cook: Well, the Cooks were the nearest and then we called our the place the Sulphur Springs Stock Farm. [The Browns, Smiths, Dorgans, Moore on the hill. - WMC]

Bob Zybach: Now that's after you got married?

Wanda Marcks Cook: After I got married.

Bob Zybach: Was there a name for your follcs' place?

Wanda Marcks Cook: No.

Bob Zybach: Just the Marcks Farm?

Wanda Marcks Cook: No, just the Marcks.

Bob Zybach: Okay, now on the. . I want to get the names of the hills, but when your folks had it there,