5.. Tampico School, Mrs. Montgomery and the Modrell Family

Bob Zybach: Okay so, maybe starting upstream at Sulphur Springs, do you remember anybody living at Sulphur Springs at all?

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] I can't.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] In the back of my mind, it seems like somebody lived just beyond the springs maybe 5 or 600 feet on what was the right side of the road at that time headed - west. Almost in view of the spring but J can't remember any particulars. . .

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] He's probably right because he's brought this up several times when we were up there. But I can't for the life of me remember anything up in there.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember a name like Junk Matthews or William Matthews or a story of a man getting killed in a logging accident around there with a run away horse [Charlie Olson, Monograph #7, pp:71-72]?

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] No, I don't.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] No.

5. Tampico School, Mrs. Montgomery and the Modrell Family

Bob Zybach: Do you remember any structures around Sulphur Springs next to the spring or an old barn that might have been up right before you got to Sulphur Springs?

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] No, I don't remember a thing beyond the Vincent place. The place that we called the Vincent place.

Photo of Vincent Home, taken c. 1914 by Ernest Cook. Photographs of this house also

appear in Wanda Marcks Cook [Monograph #12, p:70-71].

Bob Zybach: Okay, now getting to the Vincent place. .. So, you were there in 1928. Was Vincent living there at that time?

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] We kids went to school with him.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] I couldn't say for sure that they were because I don't recall him in grade school. I remember Bob Vincent later on at Corvallis High School but I think he was quite a bit younger. You see, by the time that I got back out here to Corvallis High School quite a bit of time had transpired. Three or four years and I think that Bob was probably that much younger and he may not have even been in school at the time the mill was out there or if he had then he would've been very young.

Bob Zybach: Do you know? Is that a relative to Dave Vincent that still is in the mill industry now?

Charles Hindes: I don't know for sure.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Charles Hindes: Because at the time, when we first got in there, we had to walk to Tampico School the first two years and we were the last kids on the line for just up the creek and I remember distinctly that when we got home we were at the end of the road. There wasn't any Vincent kids in school at that time. And then, later on as they brought Mrs. Blake in and we established a school short of Elmer Govier's place, I don't recall a Vincent there but I wouldn't say that he wasn't there.

Bob Zybach: Okay. We'll kind of skip to the other end of the valley [from Sulphur Springs] but while we're on school, why don't we skip to the Tampico School. Can you remember attending classes there and do you want to talk about why you shifted school?

Charles Hindes: Very definitely. Norm, go ahead. I have lots of memories. Some not so fond. Go ahead.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] What was that teacher's name?

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Mrs. Montgomery. Her husband worked on the railroad and she lived at Mountain View. Nearer Corvallis. Mrs. Montgomery.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Mrs. Montgomery, yes.

Bob Zybach: So, Mrs. Montgomery was the teacher at Tampico School at that time.

Norman Hindes: Yes. We walked all that time and Dad decided, well, gosh darn it. Doug [step brother] was the oldest one of us and he learned to drive a little bit and so Dad thought, well, heck. It's close to nasty weather and so he let Doug drive and Chuck and I would ride with him. We would all three boys drive with explicit instructions not to squirrel or anything like that, but being kids anyway, we passed everything on the road, you know, and we'd get there. I was kind of an ormery little wart. I always did some kind of a trouble. I put the little, I can't remember her name, girl's long pony tail in the inkwell.

Bob Zybach: So, people really did do that.

Norman Hindes: And so she [Mrs. Montgomery] sent me out to get some switches and hell I picked the biggest ones out there. They must have been about that big around and long... .

Bob Zybach: So, they were about, like five feet long and maybe an inch in diameter. So, pretty big whips.

Norman Hindes: Made me come in and bend over and put my hands on my knees and when she got done she didn't have only about six inches left in her hand. But I never bawled. And it never helped my disposition, but of course she moved that little girl away. I never did get her hair back in the inkwell, you know. It just seemed like every darn thing we done was wrong for some reason, you know, and then kids driving the car like that and added to the problem.

Bob Zybach: What was Doug's last name?

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Gilliam.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Gilliam. Doug Gilliam, yeah. He was about six months older than I was. .

Bob Zybach: So, he was about 10 or 11 driving a car to school and you were going about four miles, something like that. .

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Yes. Actually, I think maybe that was approximately 3.8 miles each way. I don't remember that car really. Your memory is better than mine on that because I remember the walk more vividly.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] You remember the old Model T Ford that we got into and we run it down there with the emergency on and I went to get out and urinate on the brakes.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] On the burning brake bands. Oh yes, I remember that, but you know I distinctly don't remember the vehicle. I remember walking rain or shine and snow. As I think back through those years, I think one of the reasons that they had to move us out. . . We were rambunctious kids and, in fact, little hellions. There's no doubt about that. We were kids that lived outdoors most of the time and we were around adults quite a bit of the time, so I think we were a little more mature and a little more prone to get into trouble than a lot of the kids. But, as I think back on those years, I think, bless her heart, that Mrs. Montgomery was going through a change of life. I've observed other women down through the years and I think that part of the problem was hers, as well as ours. But, anyway, the next year after we had completed at least one year at Tampico and possibly two, they got a small house that they made into a school house short of Elmer Govier's place, and hired Mrs. Blake as our teacher. She really turned the corner with us. She was an older, more mature woman and very well versed and had a knack of creating interest. Primarily an historical interest in my brother and I, but a very good teacher. In fact, she's the one that really sold me on higher education. I hadn't been much of a student. Hadn't thought about future schooling at that time.

Bob Zybach: Now, her name was Lottie.

Charles Hindes: Lottie Blake.

Bob Zybach: Hadn't she taught in that area before that time too?

Charles Hindes: Yes, she had been a teacher in the area for several years.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] She was retired and they talked her into coming back and taking over.

Bob Zybach: I think she taught in Tampico in, like 1905, or something.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

Bob Zybach: That's one of the stories I remember. Was she a tall woman?

Charles Hindes: Not overly tall.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] No.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] You know, it's hard to remember when you're a kid. Everybody is tall then, but I'd say that she probably was 5'8"', 5'10''. No, not 5'10''. Probably 5'8"' at the maximum.

Bob Zybach: How many kids then were being taught at this second school?

Charles Hindes: Probably twelve to fifteen.

Bob Zybach: Quite a few of you.

Charles Hindes: I remember the Modrell family. They had three or four boys and there was three of us and so that would be at least six there. Hugo Govier and his sister. That would be two there and that would be eight. A good ten or twelve anyway.