Saturday, November 26, 2011

Thanksgiving Season and more

Thanksgiving reminds me of my connections to the Mayflower, which I will repost here:

James Chilton - Susanna Furner
Mary Chilton - John Winslow
Susanna Winslow - Robert Latham
Hannah Latham - Joseph Washburn
Ephraim Washburn - Mary Polen/Pollard
Japhet Washburn - Priscilla Coombs
Chloe Washburn - Nathaniel Dexter
Lotan Dexter - Ruby Fish
Walter Marshall Dexter - Alida Jane Bennett
Mary Winnie Dexter - Thomas Elbridge Logue
Cecil Elbridge Logue - Rachel Helen Crawford

Francis Cooke - Hester Mahieu
Jane Cooke - Experience Mitchell
Elizabeth Mitchell - John Washburn
Joseph Washburn - Hannah Latham
Ephraim Washburn - Mary Polen/Pollard
Japhet Washburn - Priscilla Coombs
Chloe Washburn - Nathaniel Dexter
Lotan Dexter - Ruby Fish
Walter Marshall Dexter - Alida Jane Bennett
Mary Winnie Dexter - Thomas Elbridge Logue
Cecil Elbridge Logue - Rachel Helen Crawford

Today (November 26th) is youngest brother, Gerald's birthday, tomorrow would have been my father's 104th birthday and Monday is my 64th.  Mom would have been 98 on Dec 6th.

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Sharing one more story, I often wondered why I have had such a fear of drowning - well not really drowning but being in a flood.  Watching the tsunami strike in Japan in March of this year, my memories of the nightmares I had as a youth came back vividly.  I know this fear stems from the winter that Smith Creek dammed up and when it finally broke loose, it flooded our home and forced us to spend Christmas across the river at my Uncle Walt's.  I believe this was 1957 or 58. We had to stay out of our home for several days and for weeks after it was cleaned up and we could move back, there were big puddles of water all around our home - where ever there was a dip in the ground.  

When we moved up the South Fork of the Payette, our home was near the river again, but not on the river plain or on a creek.  The house was placed on a bluff overlooking the river and was well above flood level.  But I still had nightmares that the river would flood over its banks and reach our home.  Other things that did not help this fear was the time my brothers drove into the river on the road to Banks (no one was seriously hurt, but the cars was pretty messed up) and the time that Cyril rolled off the road (while driving home from work), down an embankment and into the river up the South Fork from our home.  One passenger was thrown from the vehicle, one was killed in the accident, and Cyril broke his leg.

The Payette River, swollen by spring runoff and rain.

Japan tsunami

So I no longer have nightmares of flooding, but owning a couple homes with basements that have flooded and having lived through the flooding of our home in the 50's, I know how much damage even just a little water on the floor can do. 

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Back Again, After a Short Break

I think I've written before that the family moved 'across the valley' in about 1960,  but really we moved from above Crouch on the Middle Fork of the Payette River [below on the first map, where it is marked Logue Home - near the present-day Terrace Lakes that wasn't existing at the time of our move] to a leased cottage site on the South Fork of the Payette east of Garden Valley [on the second map, by the present-day Garden Valley airport].  See the following maps.


The top of the first map is pointing west instead of North.  These photos are courtesy of the Garden Valley Chamber of Commerce.

I've also mentioned that my father purchased a house that had been used by the sawmill company for mill workers.  When he secured the leased cottage site on a 99 year lease, he decided to move the building to the new home site via logging truck.  As the truck crossed Smith Creek (the road just went over a culvert that channeled the flow of the water), the truck slipped off the road and the house slipped off the truck.  They had a difficult time getting the house back onto the truck so they could haul it the 8-10 miles to our new place.  I wish I had a good photo of this house.  My dad had to tear off two bedrooms to fit the house on the truck and it took him several years to add those rooms back (along with an in-door bathroom).  I still remember all the cold days having to make that trek outdoors to the outhouse.  And even after the bathroom was added, we kept the outhouse cause whenever it was extremely cold in the winter the pipes would freeze and with such a large family you could never guarantee the bathroom was going to be free when you really needed it.

Eventually dad and the older boys succeeded in adding on two bedrooms - after several years of them (the boys) sleeping outside on a mattress under a canvas tarp in the summers and inside an camp trailer in the winters.  [Being the only daughter - my sister was ten years older than I and had moved out long before this time - I remember spending at least one winter sleeping in the attic on a mattress with barely enough room to dress because you could not stand up all the way up there.]  The camp trailer was purchased for dad to take to the woods in the summers when he was logging in a part of the forest that he could not drive to easily from the house (which was most of his logging jobs).

Cyril and Gerald in front of camp trailer, c. 1960

 
The trailer parked in the woods during the summer.

Sometimes my brothers and I would be able to spend a week in the woods with dad while he worked.  It was fun wandering around in the woods, but we had to be careful because there was logging activity going on - trees falling, caterpillars climbing up and down hills, logging trucks racing up and down the roads.

It is almost Thanksgiving (here in 2011) and as I was going through old photos to try to find something of our old home I came across this photo of Thanksgiving dinner in 1964 or 65.  Around the table, starting directly in front, in the blue/red plaid, is Roger, Adrian, Cyril, Timmy, Christina (on one of her rare visits home - she was living with Great-Aunt Kate at this time), Gerald, Dad (carving the turkey), Mom (can only see her arms), and lastly Great-Aunt Kate (in her late 80s at this time).  I am the one taking the picture and to whom the empty chair belongs.  Missing is my oldest brother Tommy.




The turkey was one of about a dozen that dad had raised that year.  I'm surprised there was no birthday cake on the table, as Thanksgiving was usually a birthday for one of us - Dad's on Nov 27, Gerald's on Nov 26, mine on Nov 28, and Mom's on Dec 6.  So this was a big holiday celebration of us each year.

So have a Happy Thanksgiving and may your blessings be many.