8.. Albert Zundt, The Rohners, and Agnes Dobrinin

Charles Hindes: You bet. Doing all of his farm work. Everything was done in, with guns in place.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember his name?

Charles Hindes: Gosh. I don't. He and a fellow that was a veteran of World War I lived in Airlie and primarily commuted back and forth [His name slips my mind - CH].

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] It was Walter, something. We'll think of it shortly, but they used to drive back and forth and they were primarily livestock people. The Mexican more so than Walt. One time there was a dead cow to be buried. They had a span of mules on the place that they did a lot of their necessary farm work with. The Vandersantens sent my brother and I and the Mexican out with the team of mules and sled to pick up this animal and haul it off and bury it. The Mexican didn't want to do any more work than he had to, so he stood on the back of the sled, reigns in hand. The mules were kind of skittish anyway under certain circumstances, particularly with a dead animal around, and so he finally got the mules around to where they hadn't observed the dead animal yet, but they were close enough that we could start to roll the dead animal abroad. The Mexican standing on the back end holding the line was taut, and all of a sudden, the mules either smelled or saw this dead animal, and they just laid their ears back and they said, eeeahh, and took off. There was a mound ahead of them maybe just 18 inches high, but just enough to act as a fulcrum as this sled went over and it pitched this Mexican in the air about 10 feet and he came down on head and shoulders and six guns out, very unceremoniously on the ground.

Bob Zybach: How old a man was he?

Charles Hindes: He probably was 35, 40 years old.

8. Albert Zundt, The Rohners, and Agnes Dobrinin

Bob Zybach: Do you remember any Indians, or Blacks or Oriental or any other race other. . .

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] No Blacks. If there'd a been any Blacks we'd a known it.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Sure don't. In fact, the only person of what you would say non-American extraction that I remember was a man who was later killed on the cutting crew by the name of Albert Zundt.

Bob Zybach: Okay. So you knew Albert Zundt.

Charles Hindes: I knew Albert Zundt.

Bob Zybach: Can you describe that accident? I've got. .

Charles Hindes: Not really.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] No.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] I just know that he was on the cutting crew.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] He fell. I think he fell the tree. As I remember talking about it, it fell into an old dead snag and it come back on him.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Or a top broke and come back, or something like that.

Bob Zybach: I see. So it was a typical falling accident.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Yeah. I remember Dad helped take him out.

Bob Zybach: Oh. So your father was there when he died'.

Norman Hindes: Oh, yes. Dad was working there too.

Bob Zybach: The Rohners visited him in the hospital so I know that he lived for a day or so after that but and then you don't know anything about the Studachs.

Norman Hindes: I don't know about them. I know Dad helped carry him out is all I know. I didn't know whether he died or what.

Bob Zybach: Did you know anything about his raising mink or were there any stories about Albert Zundt that you can remember?

Norman Hindes: I had no reason to ever know anything.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] No. He was a bachelor as far as I knew and other than the fact that he lived down near Dobrinin's. We used to chase the Dobrinin girl half way home sometimes. The older one. But I never really crossed trails with him other than that. Just the fact that we knew he was a good hard working Swiss man.

Bob Zybach: But did you know that the Rohners were Swiss, too? Oh, you didn't know the Rohners at that time.

Charles Hindes: I think I found out later on when I got to know the Rohners. They had built a new barn after they moved out of this area and they built a residence in the barn and I kind of suspected that they might be of European extraction at that time so I asked Jake if they were and he confessed that they were Swiss people.

Bob Zybach: Now you just mentioned that the Dobrinins, but maybe we can start down the other road here and move toward the mill. Did you know anybody that lived ... Did you know the Sheppard family that lived up just beyond the Dobrinins?

Charles Hindes: No. I don't think so.

Bob Zybach: So Dobrinins were probably as far out of that area.

Charles Hindes: I think so.

Bob Zybach: Now that's Mike Dobrinin. Do you remember his wife's name?

Charles Hindes: Hmm, mmm.

Bob Zybach: Or did you know the parents at all or just the kids?

Charles Hindes: I don't think I had any occasion to know the parents' name.

Bob Zybach: Okay and then the girl. Do you remember her name?

Charles Hindes: Agnes. One of her younger sisters is kind of a delayed classmate of mine from Corvallis High School, so we've talked about the early times there, but other than the fact that she remembered me; I didn't remember her. Primarily because I played on the football team at Corvallis High School after I was going there, so I think the only way that she remembered me was in this connection. She didn't remember me from the Tampico days I'm sure.

Bob Zybach: So then the older girl, you said you chased her.

Charles Hindes: Oh, yeah. She was the, well kind of the older type girl. She was more mature than most of us, and you know kids. If there's anything unusual about another student, why they'd pick on it nght away and particularly somebody that's a little more

Later reading, about Jake and Willie Rohner (John Jacob and Wilma Rohner: Monograph #5) who knew Zundt better, would indicate we may have confused his death with another timber cutter. Zundt apparently was killed around 1935, several years after we left. - C.H.