6.. Lewis and Clark Exposition

Wanda Marcks Cook: Yeah. Yes, it would have been. I don't know what happened to those things, I suppose my brother got them.

Bob Zybach: Oh. When you moved out west, you said the first Japanese person you ever saw was as you first moved here they were working in a cherry orchard in Portland. The farm you were living on was settled by a Black lady [Lettia Carson] and there was also near Wells, a Black man [Lew Sozahworth] that lived there in the 1870's a couple of the very few Blacks in the Pacific Northwest. Were there any Blacks that you can recall in the community or travelled through.

Wanda Marcks Cook: None whatsoever.

6. Lewis and Clark Exposition

Bob Zybach: Do you remember the first person you saw that was Black?

Wanda Marcks Cook: No, I don't. It might have been when we came to the fair, Lewis and Clark Fair in 1905.

Bob Zybach: You came to that?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Yes.

Bob Zybach: We're working on the bicentennial.

Wanda Marcks Cook: Well, other people that we saw. . We had relatives there in Portland so we came up a few days.

Bob Zybach: Oh. Can you remember the fair?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Oh, yes. That was the first time I tasted a Coca Cola.

Bob Zybach: That was..

Wanda Marcks Cook: At the fair.

Bob Zybach: They still had cocaine in it in those days.

Wanda Marcks Cook: My uncle bought it. Mine was a real cocaine, you betcha. I didn't like it. Stupid me. [Laughter]

Bob Zybach: Just ahead of your time.

Wanda Marcks Cook: My mother's brother was not married at that time. And he was awfully good to us kids, you know. He was. . we hung around him and he was conductor on the street car.

Bob Zybach: Here in Portland?

Wanda Marcks Cook: Here in Portland, and his favorite run was to the Heights. Portland Heights.

Bob Zybach: What do you remember most about the fair? Buying your first coke must have been part of it

Wanda Marcks Cook: one of your strong memories. Well, Uncle bought me that coke, and I remember the Forestry Building. One reason I remember the Forestry Building because after I moved to Portland until it burned down, I bet you there wasn't a year that I didn't go up there two or three times because those huge trees just, you know, those huge logs they were. . I like wood.

Bob Zybach: So the Forestry Building was important to you?

Wanda Marcks Cook: The Forestry Building was important to me. This came from New Zealand, [shows a piece of woodwork]. Look at the workmanship on that. Roy brought me that last year when he came home from New Zealand.

Bob Zybach: My partner [Michael Grice], who's Black [African American], is announced a project to rebuild the Forestry Building for the Bicentennial of Lewis and Clark. He's going to find this fascinating for that reason. That's a beautiful. . I guess it wouldn't be an ashtray, you