F.. The Cook Place

Bob Zybach: Wow.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] That would hurt.

[BREAK]

Roy Cook: I can remember the name. Somebody was always talking about "Junk."

Bob Zybach: Junk Matthews?

Roy Cook: Junk, as if, just something about junk.

Bob Zybach: U/i huh.

Roy Cook: Doesn't tie in, but I can remember them talking about the name.

Bob Zybach: I think your dad or youruncle found his body, according to the stories.

Roy Cook: Well, maybe he's the guy that got tied up in the tree.

Bob Zybach: That'd be up here a little bit further.

Roy Cook: By gum, I think by golly that was right. I think it was Junk that got killed where they peeled into a tree.

Bob Zybach: That'd be right.

Roy Cook: Things are. . . don't look the same now. I'm sort of halfway lost now.

Bob Zybach: Here's an old orchard on our left here. And I asked.

Roy Cook: We're getting up here further than you used to be able to. Oh hell, it was down lower than.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] Out there then, huh?

Roy Cook: No, I mean just below us.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] Oh, just below us.

F. The Cook Place

Roy Cook: It came up and had a real square corner here.

Bob Zybach: Okay, here 's the Cook place.

Roy Cook: Are these people anti-social?

Bob Zybach: No, I think they're real social. But I've never met them. No, I met one of them at a.

Roy Cook: Now, I don't know whether I was born in this house or the other house. One of these two. Here, you want to get out?

Bob Zybach: Yep.

Roy Cook: Right straight in. Down here a little further, I think.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Roy Cook: We came right in through there. And the house sat there, yeah. And there was a couple of little trees in there, and then that was pretty open in there. That hillside was all open.

Bob Zybach: Thai hillside to the west there?

Roy Cook: Yeah, those pictures that I gave you. Some of them are taken right up there on that hill looking down.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Roy Cook: And the old orchard was around the corner there. Yeah, I used to have to take water and slop down to the damn pigs in the orchard there.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] That was a close orchard there.

Roy Cook: Yeah, it seemed like it was a long way when you were pushing a wheelbarrow full of milk cans full of slop. And that barn sat on the other side of the creek down there. The road went down just about where that row of trees is down there, over a little

Roy Cook: bridge, and then you came back this way about 400 or 500 feet and that was the barn and there was a garden right down on this side of the creek right down next to the creek.

Bob Zybach: Was that the Cook's garden? Somebody's garden.

Roy Cook: I think it was Vincent's [Frank Vincent] then.

Bob Zybach: Oh, okay. You talked about...

Roy Cook: But that barn was in use. It was a pretty fair barn. As I remember I beat the hell out of a sheep over there. There was some guy by the name of Porter clear over by Kings Valley. He ran sheep and they had a "P" brand on the sheep, and they'd come over and they'd get through the fence. My job was running the damn sheep back and I got so sick and tired of it. They could find the hole to get into this property but they could never find the hole to get back out. So I grabbed a big piece of board off the side of the barn there and the sheep went past me and I nailed him right on the snoot and knocked him down. I thought I'd killed the damn thing and I was so damned little I couldn't carry him and throw him over the fence and I didn't know what to do and I didn't want to tell anybody so I just walked off and left him. Next day he was gone.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember what. . now that hillside there. . . We got photos of that too. That was pretty bare, too, wasn't it?

Roy Cook: Pretty bare.

Bob Zybach: Did you run sheep up in there?

Roy Cook: Uh, no, dad [Ernest Cook] didn't have many sheep. He had mostly perch [percherons] and horses.

Bob Zybach: When your mom and dad split up, did your dad stay here?

Roy Cook: No, they split up after they left this country. They split up about 1927.

Bob Zybach: Do you know what year they got married and moved here?

Roy Cook: They got married in 1914, I think. '14 or '15.

Bob Zybach: So you were born in 19--?

Roy Cook: '16.

Bob Zybach: 1916. So your dad had just finished up college then.

Roy Cook: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: And, was this house built new at that time?

Roy Cook: No.

Bob Zybach: So this house was already here when your...

Roy Cook: That's my understanding.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Roy Cook: Now, for your edification, on that blacksmith's shop.

Bob Zybach: Maybe I should go up and introduce us here before we talk too much fluffier.

Roy Cook: All right.

[BREAK. Evelyn Weigel, noticing activity, leaves her home and begins approaching us. See Appendix B.]

Roy Cook: Let's see, there was a fence. This structure wasn't here. This was here. The wood shed was here, and there was a lawn in here. And then it went back and right, just to the right of that shed there was a barn.

Bob Zybach: Was that shed there then?

Roy Cook: I don't know. But that's where the barn sat. Seems like there was a little structure there along side of it. And God, I mowed hay in that damn barn until I was blue in

Roy Cook: the face, fighting the yellowjackets when you get up in the loft. And then right in here.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] Looks like an old . . [unintelligible] . right in through here. Yeah.

Roy Cook: Right, right there, there was a long implement shed. Just one story, and just open, you know. And then on this end, right here.

Bob Zybach: South of the house right above the old road cut..

Roy Cook: Yeah, was the old blacksmith's shop. It was. . . we're not more than 20 feet away from it. And the old forge sat out more or less in front of it. It was walled in. And good God, there were 9 million horseshoes and miscellaneous scrap iron and everything else, old wagon wheels and everything else.

Bob Zybach: Let's see, so the blacksmith's shop, the implement shop, the old barn.

Roy Cook: Yeah. It was more or less storage though. They put wagons and buggies and crap mit.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] You don 'r recall this old . . [unintelligible]., back in there though?

Roy Cook: Oh, this could have been the one up in the barn.

Bob Zybach: Looked about right.

Roy Cook: Yeah. There was a fence across here. And you had. . . If you go back in the woodshed you'll find a big bullet hole in the top of it where we shot a rat. We couldn't trap this sucker, we put a regular trap out he'd keep jumping over it. Wood rat. We unloaded on him.

Bob Zybach: Let's see now, these oak would have been here and these fir would have been smaller. Do you remember anything about the timber or the trees or anything through this area?

Roy Cook: Very little. It was a little wooded, but nothing of any size. Not of merchantable size.

Bob Zybach: What kind ofa...

Roy Cook: No pine trees. They weren't there. I don't recall any pine. And the dump for all the bottles and everything was on that side over there by the creek.

Bob Zybach: Well, that would be interesting. So that where the creek comes down then there would be a bottle dump there.

Roy Cook: Yeah, yeah. Just right straight out from the house here. And then the old outer house I think it sat, no, it sat right over in there I think.

Bob Zybach: What are your memories of this house as a kid? Do you remember much?

Roy Cook: Not much. The guy my dad leased it to, when he left in, I can't remember. There was a guy in between Vincent and my dad.

Bob Zybach: Oh, Vincent lived here?

Roy Cook: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember Vincent's first name?

Roy Cook: No. I was gonna say Frank, but I don't know.

Bob Zybach: Okay, so...

Roy Cook: But anyhow, there's, the guy, somewhere in the episode in there. He made moonshine in here and they raided the damn thing and he had his still and so on built in, alongside in the walls, along side the fireplace.

Bob Zybach: Right in here?

Roy Cook: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: So that would have been -- Let's see, prohibition wos '18? '19?

Roy Cook: No, it was after that. It would be in the '20's.

Bob Zybach: Was it in the '20's? Oh, that's right.

Roy Cook: Along in there they had prohibition. And anyhow, why they knocked him over and my dad kicked his ass out.

Bob Zybach: Just because he was making moonshine, huh?

Roy Cook: Well, my dad, I never heard him sing. I never saw him take a drink, and he never smoked.

Bob Zybach: Why did your mom leave him?

[LAUGHTER]

Bob Zybach: So your dad was pretty much a straight arrow then?

Roy Cook: Yeah. But he wasn't probi [prohibitionist], either.

Bob Zybach: What did he do after he left the fann here?

Roy Cook: He worked for Pacific Power and Light, only it was Northwestern Electric initially in 1922, or 1923 I think it was started up.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] It was about the same time Mountain States Power was making a move through.

Roy Cook: Well, Mountain States Power was over in Albany and Corvallis.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] Yeah, we had that down there as far as Coos County.

Roy Cook: Oh yeah, yeah. Bullis [Lee Buffis from Medford. Managed Mt. States Power in Medford in mid-1930s - RC], and so on down there.

Bob Zybach: When did you come back here and log? What year was that?

Roy Cook: Oh, about the time I was in grade school and high school.

Bob Zybach: So that would be 1930, '31?

Roy Cook: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Would the logs go doii to Goviers?

Roy Cook: No, they took them clear down and dumped 'em in the river at Suver. I never did go down there, but we'd drag them down to the landing with the horses. Right over in there somewhere.

Bob Zybach: So you were logging on that side of the hills over there?

Roy Cook: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Not back over here at all?

Roy Cook: No.

Bob Zybach: Okay, because this is where the Vincent property was.

Roy Cook: Yeah, could be. But I was working for Vincent. And we were logging over in there, on that hill over in there.

Bob Zybach: Was it horse logging?

Roy Cook: Yeah. Oh, hell, yes.

Bob Zybach: U/i huh. What kind of trees would you take out? What size?

Roy Cook: Firs.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember the diameters or anything?

Roy Cook: Oh, nowadays they'd be good sized logs. I suppose they were 24 to 30 at the butt.

Bob Zybach: Okay. So they'd be like second growth?

Roy Cook: Yeah, oh yeah.

Bob Zybach: Was there any old growth in that countiy that you can remember?

Roy Cook: I don't recall any.

Bob Zybach: So it would be second growth fir for the most part that was being logged. Okay.

Roy Cook: Although I don't remember any stumps when I was swamping. I don't remember swamping around old stumps, you know.

Bob Zybach: So as far as you know that was young trees that had seeded in on a prairie or something?

Roy Cook: I don't recall any stumps that we had to work around. But I remember some up on the side of the hill up there, and the logs would bounce around.

Bob Zybach: You 'ye got to be careful on me on that topic [evidence of old growth].

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] Okay, so, in reference to the blacksmith shop, the road kind of came in perpendicular from here just off of where the road is now on the...?

Roy Cook: This may have been it, right here. But it seems like it was little closer to the house but maybe not. And there was a couple of fruit trees, there was one there, and there was another one sitting over here. There was a tree there because I stayed in a tent underneath the tree there when I was working for him.

Bob Zybach: So, Vincent was living here and you were staying in a tent?

Roy Cook: Yeah, I was working for them. Just, summers. You know, just summers hire.

Bob Zybach: Were they renting from your dad or did they buy from him?

Roy Cook: I don't know. It may have been a rentlbuy type deal. I really I don't know.

Bob Zybach: Do you know where the road crossed the creek down therefrom the house here? Do you remember how you got down over in that area?

Roy Cook: Oh, up here a little ways there's a little bridge off the side creek coming in from the left. The road stayed pretty much all on this side until you got almost to Sulphur Springs.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Let's see, can you think of anything around here, Kevin? I think we 'ye got the lay of the land, we 'ye got the photographs. Do you remember anything else about this house, or perhaps about your dad that this brings back any memories of?

Roy Cook: Not really.

Bob Zybach: Did your dad and your mom just run this by themselves, or was your uncle. . . Was he involved in the operation?

Roy Cook: They had some, I mean, my dad, I don't think he had any hired help, or if he did it was just seasonal. But Vincent, had a whole mess of people.

[Evelyn Weigel returns to group. - BZ]

Bob Zybach: How many acres do you have here?

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] It's now two acres. And I hear that it was many many at one time. In fact that building over there went to it, just past those bushes. It's in the red barn, just like this, it looks lilce this, and that was . . . went to this I'm sure too, that's a cow barn.

Bob Zybach: Yeah, used to be a big barn.

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] Oh, bigger than that, huh? Used to be a blacksmith shop and stuff in here,

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] About 1852 are we looking at, that blacksmith shop from your list? Yeah, it was either. . . it was between here and South Boundary Road. This part. . . the Applegate Trail came up and around through here somewhere and that one thing we're looking at. This was, what 1,348 acres?

Roy Cook: 1,348, it went clear to the top of the hill there.

Bob Zybach: Over to Sulphur Springs and. . . When Roy was born here it was a little bit bigger.

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] And they picked this spot to put their house out of all those acres? Well, the house was here when we bought it. To my knowledge.

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] So, uh, tell me. And there was another barn across the creek down there.

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] You had lots of cows here, huh? No. I don't know. My dad wasn't a farmer. He tried farming and it wasn't his cup of tea.

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] I did that too!

Bob Zybach: He was a graduate from Oregon College of Agriculture, though, as a farmer. He was a college graduate farmer.

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] Oh, and then found out he didn't like it, huh? Yeah. Well he had hay fever, and so wasn't happy.

Bob Zybach: Hay didn't work too good for him, then?

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] So he bought this place. Yeah. Well, his father bought it from, what's the name, Barnett, or.

Bob Zybach: Yeah, I can 't remember, we just looked at it.

Roy Cook: We've got the old trust deed.

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] Was that the original owner, then?

Bob Zybach: No.

Roy Cook: No.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] It was a Donation Land Claim, wasn't it? I'm not sure the Donation Land Claim was? It might have been Alfred Writsman.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] Well, [Jacob] Moody? Moody, its. . . you've gotta look -at the maps. This is one of the first areas settled in Benton County, about 1840, before Applegate Trail, before the California Gold Rush, before Oregon Territory. Before anything, real early. Earlier than Corvallis.

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] Wow.

Bob Zybach: Wasn't even there then. Wasn't anything. Let's see. Well, we've got the ghost story and we've got you being born.

Roy Cook: The blacksmith shop.

Bob Zybach: The blacksmith shop. . . We were looking for that. And we've got some photos, I'll get some copies f you want.

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] So what year was this house built in? Do you know? I don't know. Prior to 1915. It's my understanding. I'm sure my dad didn't have it built, and that my granddad only had it a year before he sold it to my dad.

Bob Zybach: I'd guess from the structure that's the late 1800's. But it could be older. The Marck place, the one down on the left down there, might go back all the way to the 1 850's.

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] Where's that?

Bob Zybach: The old house on the left that they're working on now, just down by Tampico.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] Putting a foundation in it. Have you encountered any Indian lore or artifacts in this area?

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] None.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] See, part of my responsibility in this [1990 OSU Research Forests] Cultural Resource Inventory is to...

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] No, I haven't. But I haven't done a whole lot of digging. Uh, that side of the house to the creek is just massive berry bush, and.

Bob Zybach: Oh, that's good.

Roy Cook: That's also where all the bottles were.

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] Oh, really?

Bob Zybach: That's the old dump and f it's all blackberries up that's a good sign.

Roy Cook: If you're a can kicker that's a good place to look.

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] Because I've started, and you won't like to hear this, but poisoning.

[End of Tape]

Bob Zybach: Say, 1 turned this back on here, Roy. Do you know where the name Fernhoppers came from? Eveiybody at the College of Forestiy. . . they called them Fernhoppers when you went there too, didn't they?

Roy Cook: Oh yeah. Fernhopper's Ball.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember Peavy?

Roy Cook: Oh yeah, Starkey, and Schroeder, and . . . Starkey, he was one of my professors.

Bob Zybach: How about Starker? T.J. Starker?

Roy Cook: That's what I mean.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] Your bottle dump Roy, was up here?

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] Right behind those trees? Or maybe, between the house and the trees. Seems to me it was right in there.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] That big old oak would have been there.

Roy Cook: Yeah.

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] Well then the chicken house, was that there when you were here? Past the I don't remember.

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] Yeah, that's right, you were only 5 or something when you left.

Bob Zybach: Yes, but his grandmother lived down the road so he'd always be back, then he logged out of here when Vincent was here.

Roy Cook: I logged. Hell, I was in high school for God's sakes!

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] Where was the outhouse in here? Back over here more?

Roy Cook: Right close to where the chicken house is there as I recall. It may have been, I don't know it was just by the house.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] Did uh. . . in your memoly, what we're finding is that outhouses were commonly used as dumps.

Roy Cook: Yeah, I know.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] And is that a common practice?

Roy Cook: My dad didn't drink, so there damn few booze bottles, pumpkin seeds in there.

Bob Zybach: So this would be kind of slim pickins in the bottle department?

Roy Cook: Well, except for when the guy was making booze here, why.

Bob Zybach: Oh, the bottle dump was later than that!

Evelyn Weigel: [EVELYN] Oh, tell me about that. What year was that? It was in the '20's. And the feds knocked him over, the state knocked him over. And he had booze all ditched round the fire place somewhere in the walls or something. And he had a still and the whole smeer. But my dad was all bent out of shape because my dad didn't drink. He wasn't a probi -- in fact, hell, I'd sit there and visit with him and I'd have a drink and it didn't bother him. He died four years ago, and he was 99 and six months.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] That reminds me of this stoly this fellow that's 86, looked 60, and he goes i'm not 60, i'm 80, and he goes, well your father must have lived to a grand old age, and he goes my father's still alive, and he goes well really, well how old is he, he goes oh, about 96, 98, somewhere in there, he started early in 4fe, he goes well your grandfather must have lived to a ripe old age, and he goes well he's still alive in fact he getting married tomorrow. And