B.. The Blake Place

Bob Zybach: Okay and that's where you recall that oyster.

Charles Hindes: Yes. That's where I got the petrified oyster shell.

Bob Zybach: On location somewhere near Adair Village.

B. The Blake Place

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Let's get back so we can look in the driveway but I think that house, of course, has replaced the old Blake house, but I think looking at the one walnut tree over there and this oak tree, that that house was almost exactly where the old Blake home was. It may have set back a little further from the road that we're currently standing on.

Bob Zybach: Okay. So we're looking at the number 29173. We're on the old road going back on. This is where Blakes lived.

Charles Hindes: And this road that we're on used to go right into Tampico. I see the sign that says "dead end" now.

Bob Zybach: Well, Ed Blake gave some interviews, like you guys are doing, but he did them in the 1920's and at that time he said he could sit out on the family porch and watch them taking the Indians to the reservation, and so if he's located here instead of [Highway] 99 that tells us that he was going the old Tampico Road, rather than the 99 route. I had no idea that he lived in a different location when he was being interviewed.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Well, wouldn't you say the front porch was out on this [East] side?

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] I don't remember the house in particular. It seemed like the front porch was on the west side.

Bob Zybach: So, you think the front porch was looking east. . .

Charles Hindes: It may have wrapped around the house. It may have been the back porch that I'm thinking about, too.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Yeah. It was a big back porch just like that. I got a picture of Mrs. Blake standing there, when I grew up, on the front porch at home.

Bob Zybach: Now, theres another story in which the Blakes talked about two girls that rode up to their house in the 1870's or 1880's and they stuck their riding crops in the ground and both crops started growing. They're made out of black locust and whats interesting. . . I think we're seeing an old walnut, but are those black locust back there?

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] I kind of think maybe they are.

Bob Zybach: And so theres black locust at the newer homestead so all along we've been marking those black locust, but these are the black locusts. That must've been the story.

Charles Hindes: Yes. This was the original homeplace. Right.

Bob Zybach: Well, then that would make the porch facing west and the back porch facing east.

Charles Hindes: Well, it could've been the back porch.

Bob Zybach: Oh, sure. They could've come up to the back porch.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] The front porch was long clear across here as I remembered it and Ed used to sit out there and Mrs. Blake and they could look out there. . . Ed owned all of that down through there where the big building is now. He farmed that. Now I wouldn't argue the point, Chuck.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Well, we're not arguing.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Maybe you're night.

Bob Zybach: Let's clarify here. We're rewriting history here a little bit. We got the wrong trees marked for the riding crops story for one, and that story was in 1930.

Norman Hindes: That's it right there. I remember her talking about that. She used to be proud of that.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Those are the trees and I think that house is probably very close to the Original location. The original house may have sit back another 20 or 30 feet, but it's very close to the same location.

Bob Zybach: Now, when the Blakes moved over to the other place there, there was already a house there wasn't there?

Charles Hindes: Yes. There was an old run down house as I remember. I don't think it had been occupied for years and I think, if I remember right, they had a man working for him by the name of Johnson, I believe, and I think they turned this farm over to him and they more or less went into retirement and completely refurbished this other house where they both lived when they died. Now, wait a minute. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. They lived there when Ed died. Oh my gosh. Come to think of it, I've got to kind of contradict myself. They finally moved to town because they were living in town when Ed died, and also when Mrs. Blake went to the nursing home, because I took her to Salem from that residence down there about Sixth and Harrison in Corvallis.

Bob Zybach: So from that second house there they went to Sixth and Harrison. Could their hired hand's name have been Johnson?

Charles Hindes: Johnson. It was Johnson.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember his first name?

Charles Hindes: George or. . .

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Something like that, Chuck.

Bob Zybach: Rohner was telling me that a guy named Johnson lived across from the Blakes, but he said he was a hired hand but you think it may have been George Johnson.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] I think so.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Could've been very well.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] I think he was a single man as near as I recall, and had worked for Blakes for years and years and years.

Bob Zybach: So this is only the second time we've heard of this man. This Johnson, so, and this would be the location. Well that's great. They couldn't place it on a map or anything, but now we've got a point on the map and. . .

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] That's it. That's right there.

Bob Zybach: Was there anything when you came to visit the Blakes, here, now, and you said they farmed out the whole area. He was a retired sheriff by that point, wasn't he?

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Well, he was deputy.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] He was the deputy for Benton County.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] And I think he sold insurance too, kind of on the side. I think he was one of these Grange Insurance or Farmers Insurance or something like that. He kind of did that out of his home. He was a man that was a little bit allergic to hard work.

Bob Zybach: Oh. Blake was?

Charles Hindes: Very nice gentleman, but he and hard work didn't gel well.

Bob Zybach: That's interesting. He did a lot of talking, a lot of the history for this area. He kept that alive, but when people talked about anybody doing anything they talked about his wife being a School teacher.