Issaquah History Museums Oral History Interview with Elvin Barlow & Marie Barlow Chandler April 19, 1979

Transcription

1 Narrator: Elvin Barlow & Marie Barlow Chandler Date: Interviewed By: Runa Dahl Track 1 [Accession # B] RUNA DAHL: This is Runa Dahl interviewing Elvin Barlow and his sister Marie Chandler on the 19 th of April, The interview takes place at Marie Chandler s home. OK. When and where were you both born? ELVIN BARLOW: Well, our folks were both born in Finland, and my sister was born in Eastern Washington and I was born right here in 1913, and she was born 10 years before that in Wilbur. MARIE CHANDLER: Wilbur, Washington. EB: Dad [John William Barlow] had a wheat ranch in Eastern Washington, and his health deteriorated to the point where he had to get out of the dust, the alkali dust, and he came over here. MC: One interesting thing is he moved here because of the lake. And he remembered all the lakes in Finland, and so he wanted to be by water. That s an interesting thing. Of course, Finland is noted I ve never been there, but it s noted for lakes. RD: How old were your parents when they came over? MC: Well, our dad was about 10, was he? And then Mother [Wilhelmina Lilledwaw Barlow] was only in her twenties. EB: OK, they met here and were married here in Eastern Washington. My mother came over and worked as a maid, which was a way to get out of Finland for the poorer class of people. You know, they kind of indentured people to work as a maid, and a lot of people did that. That s what Mother did. She worked in Northport, Washington, didn t she, to begin with? 1

2 MC: Yes, well I can t remember. I imagine I was told, but I can t remember when she came. EB: But we had a grandpa that worked at the mines at MC: Carbonado. EB: Carbanado, which is east of here. And Grandma died in Carbonado and one of her MC: One of her daughters. EB: One of the daughters died, and they re buried there in a little cemetery in Carbonado. And Grandpa went back to Finland and remarried, and he lived for years and years. MC: He never did come back. He stayed in Finland. EB: But a lot of the Finnish people were miners and woodworkers well, sawmill workers. It was menial labor. They weren t trained for any profession of any kind when they came over here. They came over to better their lives. They took what was available, and it was all hard work for them, mining and logging, mill work. MC: When Dad and Mother came here, I was two and a half. And my brother [Paul John Barlow] who lives next door was born a month after they arrived here. He was born in August of that year, in July. RD: What year was that? MC: And then Dad you know more about the farm than I do, if that s of any interest. RD: Yeah, that s what [inaudible]. EB: Dad bought a homestead. It wasn t a full 160 acres because the lake takes out a part of it here. He was probably about the fourth or 2

3 fifth owner of the farm, but it had originally been homesteaded in 18 oh 70 or something like that. And he operated a dairy farm here, along with my brother helped for a time, and then I took over the farm in 1933, and operated it for about 30 years. You know, they started to cut it up with roads, and the taxes went so high that they couldn t farm it. MC: All of these roads are on property that was our father s. So there wasn t a great deal left. RD: There s been quite a bit of change then? MC: There were only two houses on the end of the lake, besides our home. EB: My dad learned English real well. And Mother could understand English, but she couldn t talk it too well and so she never there was a little Finnish community right here, probably about what? four or five families right here, and then there were some more about a mile away. And mostly, the women were that way. They never learned to speak English real well. MC: Well, they EB: And they would visit one another and speak Finnish. Some of the men also didn t speak Finnish [English] too well. They got by, like Nick Jaramala [sp?] and Matt Nikko and MC: Of course, they were grown when they came here and they didn t go to school, naturally. So what they learned, they picked up themselves. RD: So did you know Finnish from your mother? EB: Oh, yes. MC: After a fashion. I don t [chuckles] I don t remember it. 3

4 EB: An Americanized version of Finnish, I suppose, but we spoke Finnish with my mother all the time. MC: I found out later that of course, Mother my dad was Swedish. So a lot of the words that we thought were Finnish that I had thought were Finnish weren t Finnish at all, they were Swedish. So I ve been told, when I have tried to say a few words to some of my Finnishspeaking friends. So when we went to school, of course, we spoke English all the time. And we did speak Finnish with our mother, but RD: Do you remember any special customs she brought from Finland? In connections with holidays maybe? MC: Well, Christmas. But I remember having the Christmas tree. And all of the ornaments were, of course, made at home. And candles. And then, on Christmas Eve, we would dance around, or make a ring and sing. And that was in Finnish, but I can t tell you now what it was. I don t know. EB: They kept their church going here. There were two groups of Finnish people, the churchgoers and the ones that didn t go to church. But the folks were always more interested in what MC: Well, they were Lutheran, to begin with. And then they left the church and then went to the Congregational church. And I was confirmed in the Lutheran church. And there were quite a number of young Finnish descendants here to who went. But I don t know what year it was when they joined the Congregational church. That was after I had finished school and was on my own teaching. EB: There was a minister down who lived down on the lake about a mile from here, mile and a half, and he had a rather large territory. He would go clear up into Canada at times to have services. Was that the Lutheran church, then, at that time? Lundell? Reverend [John J.] Lundell? 4

5 And he went clear up to Nanaimo in British Columbia, which was a coal mining center, which had a big Finnish population. And he had several places here in the state of Washington where he would travel to. And this group finally bought their own church, which was I don t remember who owned the church before, what denomination, but it was up real close to where the school is now, up there well, the school has changed so much MC: Would it be the grade school as you RD: By the swimming pool? EB: Yeah, yeah [inaudible] by the swimming pool there was a Finnish church up there for years. RD: Did the Finnish have kind of their own church? EB: Yes. Yes, they owned that church, yes. RD: So was there only Finnish people going there? EB: Yes. They were quite active. They would have in the summertime, several times during the summer, they would have Finnish people from all over Western Washington who would come up for meetings. RD: Sounds like there was quite a community there for Finnish people. EB: Yes. MC: There were quite a number. Not to being with, but later on. EB: I can remember when we had this land along the lake here, and there was a big orchard here around the corner of the lake. And every summer, we d have a big picnic down there, and all the Finnish people would come [inaudible]. There must have been 50 to 100 people sometimes. 5

6 RD: Were there [inaudible] just had the Finnish customs and had Finnish food [inaudible]? EB: Well, the food fundamentally, yes, was Finnish type of food. But customs, I don t MC: I don t remember either right now. EB: They celebrated [Ukon juhla], that s the longest day of the year. MC: Midsummer, yes. EB: Midsummer. They celebrated that every year. Also, just as something besides. I don t know how much of a Finnish custom it was, but every New Year s Eve, we would go to [inaudible] Alilla s house. MC: Uh-huh. EB: And I don t know if that custom was brought from Finland or not, but he would they would melt lead over a fire in a low I don t know what you d call it, but anyway, it was probably a quarter of a cup of molten lead. And then he would dump it into cold water, and this lead would harden instantly, and he would read the fortune of everybody. MC: You know, his daughter, who teaches up there at the community college, she still does that every year. EB: Lila does? MC: Yeah, she was on Channel 9 the last two summers and two winters at Christmastime. EB: Is that right? MC: And they came to her place. And she s the one that you should talk with. RD: Does she teach the customs of [inaudible]? 6

7 EB: Well, that must have been from Finland then. RD: How do you spell his name? EB: Alila, A-L-I-L-A. MC: Two Ls. A-L-I-L-L-A, isn t it? EB: Oh. But he s been gone now for, oh, for 30 years. But the daughter, one of the well, the only remaining one of the family is the one that she was just talking about. RD: Do you know her, Marie? MC: Oh, yes. I see her most every day. RD: What s her name? MC: Her name is Campbell. First name is Aino, A-I-N-O Campbell, C- A-M-P-B-E-L-L. EB: You might give her a call on the telephone. Because she is outgoing and she would love to visit. MC: Oh, yes. She would EB: She lives here in Bellevue. MC: Uh-huh. RD: Do you know her number? MC: Oh, yes. I could call her even right now. I don t know. Sometimes she has classes. Let me call her. RD: Well, no, it s OK. Just [inaudible]. MC: OK. 7

8 RD: Do you think they kept together in the community to keep the Finnish customs and language? MC: Yeah, they did, until 30, 40 years ago, I guess. EB: To this extent, like I told you, my mother couldn t speak very much English and a lot of the other ladies couldn t either. It was just kind of a group [chuckles], you know, they could visit and talk with one another. And they I suppose they kept some customs, like making rugs like they used to make in Finland. There was even a man that made starch out of potatoes. He had a machine, and he copied from remembered how it was made in Finland with this machine. So he put the potatoes in it and he d turn the crank, and it d grind up the potatoes. And eventually, you had dry, powdered starch when it was all done. I don t remember any other MC: Not that was Finnish. I think there were lots of itinerant people going around, you know, but I don t think it was just Finnish. Most of it was soups and things. RD: What about vilii, they call yogurt nowadays? EB: Oh, yeah. [laughing] Yeah, they always had that. They call it yogurt now. It s kind of like yogurt but it was vilii, which folks brought over from Finland, or somebody did. And it was made fresh every day from warm milk MC: With a starter, just like yogurt, if you ve had yogurt here. You must have it in Norway. RD: Yes. MC: Mine even got to the point where they liked it. They used to call it cinnamon bread, which is because I put cinnamon on the top. [laughing] RD: Did you have any special skills or crafts from Finland? 8

9 MC: No. My mother used to weave. I think that s why Claire and I both weave now. And that s where my interest in weaving started, because she did a lot of weaving. Not here. She said she started when she was a girl in Finland. They did all [inaudible] and material used for [inaudible]. And, of course, it was all sheep raised at home, and the wool was carded and the flax was [inaudible] and the [inaudible] was made. So she used to talk about that, and she had quite a number of pieces [inaudible]. RD: Did she still do that over here? MC: No. Except the weaving of rugs, and that was the way to [inaudible]. But not the cloth. I didn t think she had time, you know. They had to do they used to can hundreds of quarts of vegetables and fruit and jams and jellies. They were pretty self sufficient. And we d get [inaudible]. I remember as a child that we d go and buy sacks of sugar and flour. That would last a year. And then, of course, we had our butter and the eggs and produce. So we were really quite self sufficient. RD: I was wondering, when there was such a strong Finnish community, how did you feel as a part of Issaquah, the town of Issaquah, the community? Did you take part in the social life of Issaquah or MC: Oh, kind of. RD: Would you go to all the 4 th of Julys and all the holidays? MC: Everyone was in it, of course. That was one of the big days of the year, the 4 th of July, as I remember. RD: How did you celebrate 4 th of July? MC: [Chuckles] You wouldn t remember, would you? 9

10 EB: Oh, yeah. They used to have a big barbecue, beef barbecue, up there. Of course, that wasn t just the Finnish people, it was the town put it on. MC: Baseball games EB: They d barbecue a whole beef over the coals. And they had footraces and baseball games, whatever. MC: Yeah, but there were a lot of other nationalities. A lot of Polish were there EB: Polish people, yes. MC: Italians. Germans. EB: And Welsh. I know there were a lot of Welsh people that also worked in the mines and I can t RD: The other ethnic groups, were there just as strong groups like the Finnish one? EB: I m sure they did. I m sure they MC: Well, the Swedish did. EB: The Swedish did, yes. MC: There were a lot of Swedish people. Not too many Norwegians. RD: [Laughing] So you d say [inaudible]? MC: [inaudible] RD: They seem to have kept the customs and tried to keep together, and keep the customs somewhat. MC: Well 10

11 EB: The second generation MC: No, we weren t raised that way anyway. EB: We didn t keep up with the customs at all. MC: After they were gone. RD: When did your parents die? MC: When? EB: [19]52 and [19]55. Dad died first in [19]52 and she in [19]55. Our oldest brother [Theodore Barlow] passed away when he was 20-some years old in RD: How many brothers and sisters did you have? EB: There were four of us, three boys and Marie. MC: And our other brother lives right next door. I called him. I thought he might come I can t remember a lot of things. He stayed here. I left after I went to college, and then I was gone and I sort of missed out on this later part, until we moved back here when we built this house. [Inaudible] gone. And by that time, most of the older people were dying out. RD: So your generation wanted to become Americanized? EB: Yeah. MC: Oh, we all it was a case of I taught; I was in another community and I was teaching. And I don t think there were any Finnish there. There were a lot of Norwegians and Swedish people out there. [chuckles] But they, of course, were the second generation, too. And so we drifted away. There was nothing really to keep us together after our parents were gone. 11

12 EB: I think some of the second-generation Finnish people still meet. RD: Who would they be? EB: Oh, like the Ericksons and Larry Nikko and his wife and [inaudible]. RD: Oh, Larry Nikko and his wife, huh? I think that they [inaudible] a lot better than I. I m not involved in the community, I was gone. EB: Yeah, Helen would Yeah, she would be able to pull the files. RD: What s their names? EB: Helen Nikko. Mrs. Larry Nikko. And she could talk a little Finnish language. [loud clattering of equipment of some sort, perhaps the recorder] RD: [Inaudible] So did you ever talk Finnish to your brothers and sisters? EB: No. We d be lost if we tried to talk Finnish. MC: We wouldn t remember words. [chuckles] EB: It s amazing how fast you forget. I couldn t if I hear somebody speak Finnish, I can understand them; but to speak it, I would be lost. RD: Not long ago, Mrs. Campbell had some people from Finland she visited quite often. So she got them down here and [chuckles] all they did when I tried to talk is laugh at me. They didn t understand what I was saying. So they re the ones who told me, Well, you re trying to talk Swedish, not Finnish. [laughing] Because everything I said, they said, was Swedish! EB: That s right. [inaudible] 12

13 MC: [Inaudible] ego [inaudible] the experience. RD: How do you spell the name you just said? MC: Campbell? RD: Uh-huh. MC: C-A-M-P-B-E-L-L. RD: Oh. Where did you go to school? MC: Went to Issaquah and then I went to the University of Washington. RD: How [inaudible]? EB: Well, all my brothers and my sister went to a little one-room school over here and we walked. It was a mile down the road. MC: The first six years. EB: And then they built the school in Issaquah in what? 19? MC: Well, I was in the seventh grade. It must have been EB: About 1916 or so? MC: No, earlier. About the year you were born. EB: [19]13? MC: Uh-huh. EB: And they had a school bus that came out, and it had hard rubber tires on it and wood benches MC: [inaudible] 13

14 EB: Yeah. MC: We bumped along. RD: How big was the school? How many children? MC: Well, when I was graduating, there were 22 or 24 of us, and that was the largest class they d had up until then, and I was graduated in And then your class EB: I graduated in [19]31 and there was 41 or 42 in the senior class. MC: Now, when [Bret?] tells me how many there are, I m just amazed. RD: Yeah. Now, when you were graduating in [19]21, do you remember in the [19]20s when the coal mines going [down?] Do you remember that? EB: Oh, yes. Yes. MC: They were not functioning as much anymore, were they? EB: No. No, they were over the peak; because it was owned by German people, and during the First World War, they well, they just shut it down. But they did try and operate them afterwards. And I can remember there was a union problem, a very strong union problem, and they were bringing in non-union workers to operate the mines. And I can remember some of the kids in my class were from non-union families their fathers were working in the mine and some of the kids were beatin them up. I can remember that very definitely. MC: Of course, that was when I was gone, you see. I went off to school in 1921 and I was gone. EB: There s still a lot of coal under the hills, I guess, but it s very lowgrade coal. Someday, they ll be after it. 14

15 RD: The competition between the union and non-union was, you know, all down to the kids. EB: It was very definite, yes, and that carried on right into school classes. They used to call these kids scabs. Just little guys. RD: Did any of your family work in the mines? MC: No. EB: My grandfather did. MC: Oh, that s right. EB: But my father didn t and none of us did. FEMALE VOICE: Would she be interested in your dad homesteading and clearing land with horses here? RD: Oh? FEMALE: Cleared all the land, didn t he? RD: Yes, if you remember that. EB: Well, he started. MC: How much did he have, 190? EB: Well, it was a homestead, but there was a part of it missing because the lines went out into the lake here. I think there was 135 acres in He cleared it with hand labor and horses. MC: I remember when he cleared all this down here. EB: Oh, yeah. I even helped on that. I can remember [inaudible]. RD: They did it all with horse labor and 15

16 FEMALE: All the early farming, all the hay was cut using horses [inaudible]. EB: That was a kind of a custom that probably carried over from Finland; because I can remember when they put in hay, when all the Finnish people around would come down here and work like the dickens on maybe Saturday and Sunday, and put in hay. MC: Yeah, they helped each other. Whenever there was a house to be shingled, they d get together. EB: Oh, yeah. If somebody was building a barn, why, everybody helped build the barn, or put a roof on a barn or a house. And the women would all bring a lot of food and make a big day of it. RD: So that s how the Finnish people got together? MC: Maybe the others did, I m not aware of EB: No, that was strictly Finnish as far as I can remember. RD: Interesting. Track 2 [Accession # B] RD: And what kind of farming did you do? Dairy farming? EB: Yes, dairy farming. FEMALE: Took the milk across the lake in a boat. EB: Oh, yeah. [chuckles] RD: Do you remember when Darigold came in? 16

17 EB: Yeah. Yeah. It was the Creamery had been operated by somebody else before that, and I don t remember who. MC: Pease, wasn t it? P-E-A-S-E? Something like that. EB: Not the one in Issaquah. But Hans Forster bought the plants and agreed to [inaudible], and that was before Darigold. He even built up the plant there in Issaquah. And he got into problems with the government, and he finally had to sell. And Darigold bought him out. It was that was Alpine when Hans Forster had it. But years and years ago, my dad had one of the first powerboats on the lake. And the closest place for the railroad where he could sell his get his butter into Seattle, or his cream, was across the lake over here. There was a big lumber mill right across the lake here by the name of Monohon. And he used to go a couple times a week and take the cream over from here over there. And the train would stop and the cans of cream would go on the railroad car, and go clear into Seattle to the Turner & Pease. MC: Yeah, that s what I was I [was talking about]. RD: When did he get this powerboat, do you remember? EB: Oh gosh, I don t remember. MC: [inaudible] EB: You would know more about that than MC: Well, to me, it was a great, big thing. [laughing] I realize now it wasn t so big as I remember it. And it had a double-decking, but some kind of [inaudible]. EB: I can remember the roof on it, and the awnings. MC: Yeah, yeah. The fringe, and all the life preservers. 17

18 EB: Yeah. [laughing] RD: So this was a change in transportation? MC: Oh, yes. I remember we used to go up to Seattle, and we would take the horse and buggy, and we would go to where the Newport Shores are, that big development. And we would take the Fortuna, wasn t it, across? EB: And the Leschi and the Fortuna. MC: To Leschi Park, and then take the cable cars up into I even went that way when I went to the University. EB: Oh, yeah. RD: How do you spell Leschi? EB: L-E-S-H-I. It s an Indian name. MC: L-E-S-C-H-I. EB: Oh, there s a C. It s an Indian name. It s a park there in Seattle on Lake Washington. There was a cable car that came over the hill down to Leschi Park that you used to go down to downtown Seattle. By the way, where my house is up there, there s a little raise right beyond my where the car was. That s still part of the old road that went from Issaquah to Newport. RD: To Newport? EB: That was before there was a road to Renton. When you went to Seattle, you had to go through Newport and get the ferry, and from there RD: Did you travel around much to the neighboring towns, or was it just for special occasions? 18

19 EB: Not very often. MC: Just special occasions. When you went to Seattle, it was an allday affair. We d get ready the day before. EB: I can remember going to the Puyallup Fair. That was a yearly deal. Mother would start making sandwiches and cakes a week beforehand. RD: Oh, that s interesting. EB: We d go to the county fair. And once in a while, we d go up to the Pass. That was about the same thing, we would go up there with a picnic lunch. MC: There weren t that many cars around. Our dad had one of the first cars. EB: Yes, he did. MC: Model-T or EB: And a Dodge. MC: He had a Dodge. RD: You still used horse and buggy to [inaudible]? EB: Oh, yeah. I can remember as a kid going there after feed and even groceries, going with Dad in a horse and buggy. Well, he was getting feed, which he couldn t have taken his car. I can remember going down the old gravel road and the MC: It was about 1912 when he got his first car, wasn t it? EB: I wasn t around till [laughing] MC: I know. 19

20 EB: I don t remember much before. MC: No, [chuckles] I m sure. But it was around then. And, of course, our oldest brother, Theodore, he was very willing to drive, I remember. RD: When were you born? MC: EB: Theodore was born in RD: And Paul was born? EB: Paul was born MC: In EB: And I was born in We were pretty well spread out. FEMALE: I remember the day he was born. It was quite a [inaudible]. [chuckles] RD: [inaudible]? You want to tell us? EB: No. RD: So did you have a [inaudible] or not? FEMALE: Midwife. They re going back to it now, I guess. RD: Um we were talking about transportation. EB: Used to wait a good deal. To begin with, I can even remember going to August Hills. Going by the lake and that was on the other side and MC: And then [inaudible] they d go by boat. 20

21 RD: Do you remember the telephone? Were there very many telephones around? EB: Yeah, my MC: [Inaudible] in charge of it in later years. EB: Yeah, my dad and about four or five neighbors started a farmers line, they called it. And to get phone service, they had to build their own telephone line from their homes all the way into Issaquah. And then we got service; they hooked us up. That went on oh, till about 12 years ago, I guess, the farmer line existed. RD: When did they build it? EB: Well, it was the same with the power. In order to get power out here, I had to put up the power line all the way out from Issaquah, then turn it over to the company, Puget Sound Power & Light. FEMALE: And you had to keep repairing it yourself. EB: Well, yeah, the telephone. FEMALE: [inaudible] RD: When did you get the power out there? EB: Probably around 1920, wouldn t you say? MC: It was before I went off to school. [inaudible] EB: No, Dad had to buy a washing machine, too. That was part of that deal. He had to either buy a washing machine or stove or something before they d let you have power. And you got that from the power company. RD: I bet that was a big change for you. 21

22 EB: Yes, it was. It was. Before that, it was a hand pump that pumped water to wash the hands. I washed my hands. Or somebody did. MC: Remember that old washing machine? EB: Oh, you d turn it by hand and [laughing] yeah... MC: And then all those years on a scrub board. RD: I didn t understand how a washing machine worked. [laughing] EB: Well, it was a wood tub on this and it had a crank on the side; and it went through some gears, and there was an agitator in there that went back and forth. Most of it was made of wood. Of course, clothes were all boiled first in a big boiler on the stove. MC: Well, I can even remember doing that. [chuckles] EB: Special laundry room. FEMALE: I didn t really think they had to be boiled. MC: I don t know! [laughing] I got away from that earlier than you did, I think. RD: At first special [inaudible] sauna? MC: A what? RD: A sauna? EB: Oh, yeah. We ve always had it. In fact, I still have it. We ve had, I can remember, about four; and there was one before I can remember. I ve got a picture of it someplace. FEMALE: [Inaudible] below where your house is. 22

23 EB: That was the first one. I don t remember too much about that. But the last one I made was heated by electricity instead of wood. Don t use it too often. I did use it a week ago, I guess. RD: [inaudible] EB: One of them was right up here, well, it d be right under the freeway now. And it was a wood-fired thing. And we used to run down and jump in the lake and go back in and get warm. There were no houses here, not at all in this area. Well, the Jensens and [Haucks?]. MC: Well, the Jensens came later. The Haucks and our home were the only two homes. EB: It was all brush and stuff around here. Didn t bother putting any clothes on. Dive in the lake and run back. MC: I didn t like saunas ever. Everyone has them now. Not just Finnish people, I mean. EB: All the apartment houses and condominiums all have them now. RD: Do you have any special childhood memories or amusing stories? Do you remember? EB: I know it was a big world when I was a kid. [chuckles] We had this great big orchard here with all fruit trees and cherry trees. And this whole lake here to use. MC: Remember what fun we had when we used to get in those canoes and go out? EB: There was an old kind of a canoe. It had been chopped out a log and it had been made by Indians. It was still here. And we used it FEMALE: The Indians used to inhabit this valley. EB: Oh, yeah. 23

24 RD: Did you ever have any contact with the Indians? MC: No. EB: Dad talked about the Indians. Well, he had heard stories, but they were pretty well gone from this area. There was an Indian settlement on the other side of the lake for some time, I guess. Then they moved up by Fall City. FEMALE: Oh, that tribe went up to Fall City? EB: But we found out about some stuff around here. I don t know what s happened to them. RD: Indians wasn t a part of Issaquah when you EB: Not at that time, no. MC: They probably were earlier. EB: There was at that time, in Issaquah, right about where the town is now, there were big hop fields where they used to raise hops. And the Indians from as far away as British Columbia used to come down in canoes and come down through Puget Sound and through Lake Washington and up the slough, they called it, between Sammamish and Lake Washington. And they d come up and they d camp right where the State Park [is]. RD: [inaudible]? EB: No. No, that was before my time. Then, after that, why, the hop growers got some Chinese in here to pick their hops. Because the Chinese had been brought over to build the first transcontinental railroad, and when it was done, why, there were a lot of Chinese out of work. And they were willing to work at most anything, and they hired them to pick hops and the Indians lost their jobs. And the Chinese didn t spend any money in Issaquah, and they had quite a rumpus here and the Chinese [inaudible]. I imagine you heard that story. 24

25 RD: Yes, I ve heard about it. EB: That fell apart [inaudible]. RD: Do people still talk about that? EB: Well, the old-timers do but, of course, nobody there aren t too many old-timers left now. [inaudible] Bush is about 80 years old, 80- some years old. And he s not too well. Outside of that, I don t know of any old-timers. RD: How would you say the social life was in Issaquah changed? EB: Well RD: Was there [inaudible] entertainment in Issaquah [inaudible]? EB: Outside of 4 th of July and Labor Day, there wasn t too much. MC: I don t think so, at least not that we took part in. We [inaudible] to the dances [inaudible]. EB: Some of the lodges, which were not a great number of lodges, which drew their own group of people. Then, of course, they church people stayed to themselves and the lodge people stayed to themselves. RD: Did you take part in any lodges or? EB: Well, when we were farming, I was active in the Grange Lodge. MC: Dad was a member of the Odd Fellows, wasn t he? EB: Yes. We spent a lot of time in the Grange Lodge up here. That was a farmers organization. At that time, there were a lot of farms around here. Now, the farms are all gone. The lodge is still active. FEMALE: There was a grocery store. Wasn t that part of the Grange [inaudible]? Wasn t that a farmers 25

26 EB: Oh, it was started by the people that started the lodge, the grocery store. Well, not the grocery. It was a feed store to begin with. It became a grocery store. It operated till about six, seven years ago. Eight years. RD: How do you see the change that s been in Issaquah, in business and in life in general? Do you think it s for the good or bad or? EB: Someone my age, no. Very impersonal now. Before, you knew everybody. When you went to Issaquah, you knew everyone and you talked to them. FEMALE: I think there were only 370 people or something and that was [inaudible]. EB: At one time, it had been more than that, when the mines were going real good. But then it dropped off and it went way down. Of course, now you don t know anybody when you go to Issaquah, outside of very few people. I can remember laying in bed when I was a kid, and I could hear cars go down the old graveled road, and I could tell exactly who was going home by the sound of the car. MC: By the sound. [chuckles] EB: There were that few cars. But it s very impersonal now. We just FEMALE: What year did they start that stage? We used to call it the stage to Issaquah. EB: I sure don t remember. I can remember it as long as I can remember anything. It was probably around FEMALE: I think so, because I remember going into town on it. Came by the place. 26

27 EB: I can remember the mailbags that you used to get mail in. Big canvas bags. And they used to come out, they called it a star route, didn t they? MC: Oh, that s right. EB: And if you wanted to mail something, why, you put it in this big canvas bag and you the bus driver of the stage would stop or slow down and you d throw it in and he d throw all the bags full of mail to you. Canvas bags. RD: [inaudible] EB: Yeah, they delivered mail for the post office. I don t remember when we got a post office box. MC: I don t either. EB: We got our mail that way for years and years. I wish we had one of those old canvas bags. That d be something. It had drawstrings on the top. RD: Was it a car? EB: It was a bus. [inaudible] passengers [inaudible]. FEMALE: It was the stage, that s all I ever called it. [laughing] EB: Took passengers, and so you d go to Renton. By that time, they had the road open to Renton. And you d go to Renton and you d get the Interurban from Renton to go to Seattle. That was a streetcar. MC: Yeah, you could take that Interurban up to Mount Vernon and [inaudible]. EB: And I wish they had that back again. RD: So maybe more mass transit would be more convenient than [inaudible]. 27

28 MC: Well, there certainly weren t the number of cars. They were few and far between. RD: But they had the cable cars and MC: Oh, yes. Streetcars and cable cars. You could get anywhere in Seattle same as you can now, without having to [inaudible]. RD: What do you think about [inaudible] the town the way it has changed? EB: This town? RD: This town. EB: Oh. RD: Do you like the way it s changed? EB: No, I like to live in the past, myself. I don t like this, but it s inevitable, as close to Seattle as we are. MC: It s going to be worse before it gets better. EB: Oh, yeah. MC: [Inaudible] houses right over the side of me. EB: Yeah, I figured they were drilling out here by your place the other day. MC: They re making elevation studies [inaudible]. EB: [Inaudible] something about apartments or condominiums. MC: Maybe that will solve my problem. FEMALE: Just move in one! 28

29 MC: That s what Joe and I always used to say when [inaudible]. RD: I don t know what else [inaudible]. EB: No, I suppose I ll think of things after you re gone, but I just [chuckles] I just can t think of anything [Tape recorder turned off] RD: Now, can you tell us about the [inaudible] for Issaquah schools? MC: Will you excuse me? I ll go see if I can find it maybe. RD: OK. But maybe you can talk about when you made the annual. EB: The first one that was really published was in We decided to put an annual out. It was during the Depression, when there was no money around at all. And it happened to be my job to go around and visit the businessmen in Issaquah and ask for donations. I have no idea how much money was required. But we managed to get enough money to put out the annual. I ve still got my copy. I don t know if the school has it. RD: How was it made? EB: By a commercial printer. And it didn t have a hard cover, it just had a fairly heavy cover, but it wasn t a hard cover. RD: How big was it? EB: Oh I don t remember how many pages, but it was probably a half-inch thick. RD: Did you have lots of pictures in it? EB: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Photographs and 29

30 RD: and sports? EB: Oh, yeah. FEMALE: [inaudible] RD: Cheerleaders. [chuckles] Did you have that in that time? FEMALE: They had a class ring. EB: Oh, yeah, that had gone on for years. Everybody had a class ring. It s been published every year since RD: What were you? Business manager? Right, you were raising money. How many people were involved in making the annual? EB: Well, that was the group, there in the picture, so probably 10 of us, I guess. RD: Uh-huh. EB: I remember they made a mistake on one page and the printer printed all the books back and collected the MC: I think it s over in the cabin. [inaudible] RD: How did you make that the first time? MC: It was typed. The pictures were pasted in. RD: And you had to do that for every [inaudible]? FEMALE: [inaudible] There were only one or two who [inaudible]. MC: I think Carmen [Ek] Olsen has one. EB: Oh, is that right? 30

31 FEMALE: [inaudible] EB: Well, it d be around [inaudible]. MC: They would be in the cabin. I kept them all over there. RD: Were all the students involved in making the annual? MC: Yes. [inaudible] FEMALE: Interesting. We were very proud of [inaudible]. RD: How many calendars did you have to make? EB: One, probably. [laughing] FEMALE: [Inaudible] our pictures were taken by a professional. EB: The group pictures? FEMALE: No, the single pictures. EB: Oh. FEMALE: I don t remember who it was. MC: [inaudible]? EB: No. MC: [inaudible]? RD: So did you have lots of sports and things at the school when you were there? MC: Yes, they had girls basketball. I never played basketball but [inaudible]. I remember the basketball team. They had baseball for boys, basketball, I guess. 31

32 EB: Football. MC: Football. I wasn t into sports [inaudible]. And I think we had a play. EB: I think Paul was in a class play. MC: Yeah. [inaudible] RD: So, there seems to have been activities at the school [inaudible] a few students. MC: [inaudible] EB: Oh, yes. RD: How big was that first annual, do you know? MC: How many pages, do you mean? RD: Uh-huh. How many pages? MC: I can look for it and let you borrow it. I wouldn t know where to look for it tonight, but I ll let you borrow it. RD: [inaudible] MC: [inaudible] RD: Oh, yeah. [laughter] MC: What s your telephone number, if I find it? FEMALE: Marie, you should be [inaudible]. EB: Historical Society. I m going to donate that abstract of the title to the farm up there. MC: I would think that would be very 32

33 EB: That d be a real lots of well, they call it an abstract title. Instead of the deed to the property, when you buy FEMALE: [inaudible] shouldn t have anything [inaudible]. EB: In those days, when you bought a piece of property, every legal document that was ever involved in that farm, there s a copy of it in this book. And it traces this homestead back from the original man, somebody from Oregon that no, no more from The Dalles, Oregon that homesteaded this. And then who he sold it to, and who they sold it to. And they mortgaged it. At one time, this farm was lost because they couldn t pay a $400 mortgage. END 33