A.. The Marcks' Place

Part II.

May 15, 1990: Roy Cook Interview

[Interview conducted by Bob Zybach and Kevin Sherer at the Marcks' house, May 15, 1990.]

A. The Marcks' Place

Bob Zybach: And we're standing facing some new construction on the southwest corner of the house, looking at some shingles. Okay.

Roy Cook: Right. Now, we're facing north, and on the west side . . . Well, there was a porch on this end, on the west end, and we used to have the wash basins out there and got the water out of the spring house, and the spring house set right in, right in here somewhere.

Bob Zybach: Where this driveway is? Would that be.

Roy Cook: Right in there, yeah.

Bob Zybach: Would that little, u/i,

Roy Cook: And we used to set all the milk cans and all that and then keep all the vegetables in the spring house. It was dug out and I think it was stoned up. I can't remember if it was concreted or not. That might be part of it, there, yeah.

Bob Zybach: This . . . but there used to be a spring right here?

Roy Cook: Yeah. That's probably where it was. It was directly west of the house. And there was a boardwalk, and right to the south was a wood deck in here and there was an old cream separator there, because I remember turning that god damned thing till I. making butter.

Bob Zybach: What kind of tree is this?

Roy Cook: Looks like an apple. I don't remember it. This is all grown up to beat hell. It was more or less open, like this. There were very. . . Oak trees were small and there were very few firs.

Bob Zybach: How come you 'd come here on the Marcks 'place? Didn't you grow up on the Cook place?

Roy Cook: Well, I didn't grow up up there. I left there when I was five years old. But we'd come back, you see. And my grandmother still owned this place. My grandfather died. I never remembered him. He died before I was born.

Bob Zybach: What do you remember about your grandfather? Anything?

Roy Cook: I never saw him!

Bob Zybach: Nobody ever talked about him?

Roy Cook: Very little. Her family were, I don't know, they were just not family oriented.

Bob Zybach: How about your grandmother. What do you remember about her?

Roy Cook: Oh, she was a hell of a good cook. And her maiden name was Maurer, M-A-U-R-E- R, I think.

Bob Zybach: And so, when you'd come here you'd be visiting your grandmother then?

Roy Cook: Yeah. For a while.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember. . . Do you know anything about those pine trees up there?

Roy Cook: I don't recall. There were just a few trees. No, no pines that I recall at all. Just a few firs, and they were small. This has been pretty well logged off, or it was open anyhow, there was scrub oak and lotta grass, no blackberries like that at all.

Bob Zybach: Did anybody run any stock up in those zills?

Roy Cook: I don't recall. Vaguely, seems like it, but most of the stock was down below in the flats down there.

Bob Zybach: And do you remember any orchard or anything around in here?

Roy Cook: Urn, no. Seerns like there was an orchard, but I don't recall.

Bob Zybach: You remember this house as being the house that was haunted?

Roy Cook: Yeah, that's the way I recall it. But that's all come out since we left, and my mother brought it up. All of a sudden she remembered and she told rne about it. As I recall, it was this house. It might have been the other one.

Bob Zybach: Okay. I was hearing all these ghost stories down the road, and I wasn't paying any attention until I heard your mom saying it, then I thought well, wait, this is an old story.

Roy Cook: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Is there any. . . Now, yOu said the road coming in here didn't have the cut banks so it was all up and down.

Roy Cook: Yeah, all up and down, just hurnpty-hump, there was no cuts in the road at all. It just followed the ground line. It wasn't contoured at all.

Bob Zybach: But it was about the same basic location where it is now?

Roy Cook: Pretty much, yeah.

Bob Zybach: And then, when it hit the house here, which way did it go?

Roy Cook: It went on west for a ways, and then it swung down and rnade a turn down, there is a big house down in the flats down there. The road's changed now up there.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Roy Cook: But we'll look at that when we get up there.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Now, on the back side, we've got the creamery, the spring house.

Roy Cook: There was sornething on the other side, whether it was the creamery and so on, we'd take the milk cans out of here and churn that goddamned butter, and then there was something on the other side, and I can't rernember whether it was more like warehousy type stuff.

Bob Zybach: So, just storage or something.

Roy Cook: Storage or sornething of that nature as I recall.

Bob Zybach: I take it you don't like churning butter?

Roy Cook: I don't like washing the crank. 9 million parts...

Bob Zybach: This part of the house here, was it painted the same color?

Roy Cook: That was white. White or gray. It was light colored.

Bob Zybach: Looks like they're gonna keep it in shape.

Roy Cook: Yeah. Quite a rig in here. Quite a bit of hardwoods Looks like back east.

Bob Zybach: Yeah.

Roy Cook: Once they get a foundation on there she'll really be in good shape.

Bob Zybach: On this end here, did the driveway come in like this, or was this.

Roy Cook: I think it came in a little bit more down here. It wasn't level, it seems to rne we went uphill to go to the house.

Bob Zybach: Okay, can we stop here for a second? Now, we're looking out. I think that might be Writsmans Hill, unless it's Writsman 's knob which is Baker Mountain. Do you recall anything about the.

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

Bob Zybach: How about these fences here? Were those those split railftnces? Do you recall?

Roy Cook: I think they were. They weren't metal posts, that's for damned sure.

Bob Zybach: How about Soap Creek there Now, you said you fished.

Roy Cook: Pretty much. Yeah I fished down there, but I fished more up above. Because I came, you know, I'd come back periodically. That was in, oh, 1920, 29, long in there.

Bob Zybach: How many fish could you catch in a day?

Roy Cook: All you wanted.

Bob Zybach: Twenty or 30 or 50?

Roy Cook: Well, you never caught that many, because you just caught what you wanted for the house and that's it. You weren't fishing to be fishing, just digging around.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember what kind of trout they were?

Roy Cook: Cutthroat, or something I guess. I don't know. I never paid much attention.

Bob Zybach: Did you ever do any hunting around in this area?

Roy Cook: No. I was too small.

Bob Zybach: Did you ever hear any stories about cougars or wolves or bears, or any kind of wildlife like that? Do you recall anything about the birds?

Roy Cook: No.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Let's see. Can you think of any other questions at this site here Kevin?

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] No, we need to follow up on the structures he was talking about up on Writsman 's

Bob Zybach: Oh, yeah.

Roy Cook: That was just, it's hearsay, but I can remember my dad talking about it. And I can remember my grandfather tailcing about it. Now, maybe it's because they went and ran fences down or something, I don't know. What the occasion was I don't know, but it was up, it was right on top, you see. I was a kid. I was curious. I wanted to go up there, and they'd never let me go, you know.

Bob Zybach: Was it wooden or stone structures?

Roy Cook: Log structures.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Roy Cook: Whether it was a, just logs with no roof or what I don't know. But I sort of gathered it was just a barricade type deal similar to some of those in eastern Oregon, you know, a place where they can get behind or whatever. Now that's assumptive.

Bob Zybach: All these fields out here, those were your grand,nother 's?

Roy Cook: Yeah. Now how far her property ran, I don't know.

Bob Zybach: Okay. But it bordered onto the Glenders was the next...

Roy Cook: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: So the Glenders then your grandmother's here?

Roy Cook: Yeah, and how far it went down that way I don't know. But it wasn't a big place. I don't think it was, like the other places. Like the Cook place.

Bob Zybach: Could it have been 3(X) acres? Don't know, huh?

Roy Cook: I don't know.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember anything else around this one area here that you'd want to get recorded, or that you can remember?

Roy Cook: No, nothing.