Dean Beauchamp Oral History Interview, November 13, 1982

LUCY SKJELSTAD: This is Dean Beauchamp of Umapine, Oregon, right? And do I understand this is your family's original land clam?

DEAN BEAUCHAMP: Yes.

LS: Did it precede...they probably had the claim before the donation land claims at the time it was approved?

DB: The donation land claim was after his volunteer service.

LS: That was your grandfather?

DB: Yes. That was my grandfather Beauchamp.

LS: Why don't you tell me just a little about your grandfather Beauchamp, and then we will go back from there.

DB: All right. Well he came here from Montreal with the wagon train to the gold rush days in '48 in California, and the story was that I got was from my grandmother and her brother that they didn't care much for pick and shovel work 00:01:00and he was a wheelwright by trade and got acquainted with some men from the Willamette Valley that were down seeking their fortune.

LS: A lot of them went.

DB: And so he went back into the Willamette Valley and started with them trucking or hauling grain and food, beef, to the starving miners down there. They were starving.

LS: You know the Willamette Valley I understand supplied most, much of their food too.

DB: They didn't have anything there but gold and sand. So how many trips they made I don't know. But on one of those up the Willamette Valley he joined the volunteer force to come up here and put down this Indian rebellion after Marcus Whitman's massacre, and he stayed on with that.

LS: Were there several continued uprisings after that time?

DB: Oh. yes they were running pretty wild after that over the Walla Walla Valley.

LS: The Whitman Massacre was in the 1830's or in the '40's?

DB: 1847.

LS: OK, right so then they continued uprising after that?

DB: Yes.

LS: So that would have been not too long after he came to the mines and then came up to the Willamette Valley.

DB: Yes. He came up into the Willamette Valley right away after '49 I guess and somewhere in the early '50's.

LS: So that was in the early 50's.

DB: And then they come up in here with the Volunteer Force in '54. 1854.

LS: And that was when he met your grandmother?

DB: No. When they were discharged after they rounded up the Indians they went to the Fort Dalles down there and they were discharged and then he got an 00:03:00application and got a land claim. In 1859 in the new state of Oregon.

LS: The Donation Land Claims were in effect.

DB: And then he got a Donation Land Claim over here on the little Walla Walla River. They lived there for about twenty years. Then when Dr. Baker started his railroads in here to build a railroad from Fort Walla Walla to Wallula why they were running a spool line across his property. And he sold out his land claim to Dr. Baker and jumped down here and bought this ranch here. This was uh what do 00:04:00you call it? Claims that the immigrant...

LS: An immigrant claim?

DB: Yes.

LS: There were provisional claims and then territorial land claims or the Donation Land Claims. Had he bought this from someone else?

DB: Yes. He bought it from Jacob Schwartz. So it's been now hands of the Beauchamp lived on the farm for a hundred years in 1979.

LS: In 1979. So he bought this place in 1879. He was over on the little Walla Walla for several years. Fifteen years or so.

DB: He was over on the little Walla Walla for several years. Fifteen years or so. And he died here. Father and grandmother had it, then my father, now, and it 00:05:00will go to my grandson.

LS: (laughter) That's great. Well how about your grandmother then she was already in this area. Why don't we go back into her family background. What was her father's name?

DB: Her father was a Tilleur. Oh gosh...

LS: Had he also come with the French-Canadians?

DB: No. He came here with the Hudson Bay fur traders. Hudson Bay Company. And he was in here earlier in 1832. And then he married, of course, into the Indians. And from then he had a claim like Bill Olewhitman along the river. When Whitman came he quit the Hudson Bay Company and he worked for Whitman as a millwright. 00:06:00And then when the Indian uprising most all the French and the Tilleurs all left the Walla Walla Valley and went to the Fort Dalles down the river. And they stayed there until everything was quieted down here. And then they came back.

LS: And how old was your grandmother by that time? Did she remember that?

DB: Hardly. She was five years old, four years old when they left the first time to new and barred down the river. And they come back here sometime in the '50's. And Beauchamp was discharged at The Dalles and he come in with that French crew and they tossed him back here and that's where he met and married my grandmother. And he got that claim and so he just started living here. He never 00:07:00went back to Montreal.

LS: Do you know how many children there were on... great-grandparents had the Tilleurs?

DB: Four.

LS: They had four children. And did they all stay in the area do you know?

DB: Well no. Most of them went back to Montana. There were two brothers there and one brother here. Stayed here with his sister. In fact the place he ran for a number of years in the '80's or '90's is at a horse ranch raising horses for the cavalry remount station up here in Washington. And he had an accident as a broken leg so he came down and stayed with my father and they purchased a Shire stallion, registered Shire stallions to upgrade the horses in the country.

LS: How interesting. So they raised horses as a profession for a long time.

DB: They raised horses after that. Draft horses.

LS: How long did that practice continue as part family business?

DB: Up until about 1910 or '12. And then he sold and he went back to Montana and he died shortly thereafter that.

LS: What was his first name?

DB: Cleofas. [Clofus?]

LS: And he went by Fas? (pronounced fas as in faucet)

DB: Oh he was always called Cleofas.

LS: OK let me just check on that.He was your grandmother's brother?

DB: My grandmother's youngest brother. I remember him. I can remember him getting letters from up in there in Montana from his brothers and Cleofas would always read them. He had a pretty good education. He had gone to the school at St. Ignacius. While my grandmother, of course, couldn't read or write.

LS: Was that because he was a boy that he was sent to school and she wasn't?

DB: Yes. She was the oldest one. The rest of them all got an education.

LS: She probably stayed home to help raise the younger ones.

DB: Yes. Then of course she married pretty young. Now her daughter, the only girl in the family that she had, and my father they sent her to St. Mary's 00:10:00school in Walla Walla we lived over on the river.

LS: So all of her children then did get an education.

DB: They all did get their education.

LS: That's interesting. There was a mind for getting an education from the very earliest in the family if her brother had been sent to school.

DB: Well I suppose just because she was the oldest one that had to take care of them. Their mother was gone pretty quick or the father was gone, see Tilleur, her father.

LS: OK. What happened to him?

DB: Well I don't know but he was fairly old because he was here in...

LS: Oh, before he even had his family I suppose he was older.

DB: Yeah. Before his family was even raised. They were all young boys. So they took him back to Montana when he was dead.

LS: Did your grandmother tell you anything more about her parents that you can remember? Like maybe where her mother had come from or anything like that?

DB: No. I don't know too much. Why they gave up here and left here they never even...well along with those French that I understood that lived down below Whitman there never ... they had claims but then a lot of them was never valid or verified.

LS: That was common. I think they took out the claims when they had to do the legal procedure. Sometimes they never did or it would be years before they would find them.

DB: That's why I think they went back to Montana while they had the claim there.

LS: So really then it was just your grandmother and her brother who left here. 00:12:00What was your grandmother like? What do you remember about her?

DB: Well as I say, she couldn't would get those letters and I remember her setting them up and I would sit with them and Cleofas would read to her and she would get all very quick and she had a home in Walla Walla then later and lived there until she lost her eyesight entirely in 1923 I think.

LS: So she lived quite a long time then.

DB: Yes. She died I think in '23. She was very sharp she could count her money. I remember the grocer man in Walla Walla would just get so tickled he would try to get the best of her some way you know and try to short change her and she could tell...couldn't do it. She always had the old pieces I know in her 00:13:00purse...twenties, tens, and fives.

LS: And you remember that; that was what she carried?

DB: I remember those. You bet. And little gold pieces.

LS: So you must have known her quite well if a family has continued to live here all the generations you would have been exposed to being with your grandmother quite a lot.

DB: Quite a lot.

LS: Same as these kids.

DB: Oh yes.

LS: (laughter) That's nice.

DB: We were up in the age of ten or twelve you know we would go and over stay the weekend in Walla Walla with her. And I know that is about the first times that some of these new breakfast foods began coming out, course we always had the old cooked cereal, puffed wheat and puffed rice you know and some of those things.

LS: When did those come out? How old were you?

DB: About that time. Well I suppose I was ten or twelve years old or eight years 00:14:00old about 1910.

LS: You must have been born when? About the turn of the century?

DB: I was born in '98. I'm 84 now.

LS: Well that's interesting....

DB: And she bought that for us.

LS: Oh sure. She was getting a special treat for her grandkids.

DB: She was. She bought those and had them on hand.

LS: Oh that's great.

DB: And I know she was very particular in the meat she bought. The old open butcher shops that you have probably heard of.

LS: Oh. I remember them.

DB: I can remember seeing them. Open front and sawdust floors you know. Big beefs hanging and she always had her choice beef to buy.

LS: She probably knew what was choice too.

DB: And course she regular went to her mass and her duties.

LS: She came from a Catholic background. Were the letters the family wrote back and forth in French? And did the family continue speaking French.

DB: No. That's another thing. She could speak French, but she didn't try to make us speak it. And I never could speak it. The little French I got a hold of is when I went to high school.

LS: Oh that's a shame.

DB: And my father could understand it but he couldn't speak it.

LS: That's common I guess, but it's too bad cause...

DB: They just took up English and she spoke English all the time. But when she would run on into some French person that wanted to talk boy she'd converse with them in French. But she never tried to make us speak it and neither did that ol' uncle. He could speak it too.

LS: Did she tell you about anything that she remembered at the time of the Whitman massacre?

DB: No most of what I got was from her brother. He could tell some stories. And the stories he told me now I have been reading in this paper. This Branch Orchard writes for and he has already put them out in the paper. And the things he said about the uprising here and the conquering of the Indians by the Volunteer Force and then the Army is very much the same things that this Claustiger used to tell me stories. He told me stories that the Tilleur cabin right below Whitman there was used by the Indians. When the Volunteer Force came in they first contacted 'em was down here on the lower part of the valley 00:17:00towards Touchet and Wallula. And they drove them up the valley the Indians. And they found the Indians were using the Tilleur compound and cabin.

LS: As a base.

MA: As a base. And later when they pushed the Indians out then the Volunteer Force used it. It was intact and it had an enclosure.

LS: Was it not occupied at that time by the family?

MA: No. They were gone off to the Fort Dalles.

LS: OK I see.

DB: And he said the Volunteer Force was down to..they had been ousted from the valley, the river valley by Whitman, by the Indians and they were on the rim of the high ground on the north side. They had one little cannon and all that they had left. They had lots of powder, but they didn't have any balls. They were shooting rocks at the Indians down in the brush. And if the US Calvary hadn't 00:18:00come through the area, took the Indians on the back side, the Volunteer Force would probably have been annihilated.

LS: Yeah, that they would have. Well 'Fas must have gotten that from the older people in his family. He would have been pretty young then.

DB: Well, yeah from his father I suppose. Yes he was young and from what he heard of the stories you know. And the same story I have been reading now that's written by this writer in Walla Walla here, Orchard. He's been dabbling in to it and rewriting it.

LS: Well that's interesting I bet that you got it practically second hand. If you heard it from him and he from his father and his father's friends.

DB: And of course he used to tell me some of the vigilante committee that raids 00:19:00through here.

LS: What did he tell you about that?

DB: Well I remember right over here on the Walla Walla River there was a crossing, a fort crossing, in my early day that was when there was no bridge. That was a fort and there was some big large trees. I didn't know what they were. But he said one time they were going into Walla Walla as they went down towards the fort, looked up into the trees and there was two men hanging. Oscillating in the wind.

LS: Did they know why?

DB: Well they had been warned to get out of here. They were caught stealing. And the vigilantes caught up to them. And another story he told me about a man over here south right straight north of here along the slew area. He had been warned to get out of the valley. And he didn't he came back in again. And the 00:20:00vigilantes were chasing him and they shot him off his horse. And he says when they got to him all that was sticking out of the slew or swamp was his boots. And that same story was written last year by this Branch Orchard again.

LS: I suppose they didn't have any means of keeping law and order. When someone was out of line they had to do something about it.

DB: That's right. Of course Oregon then... that's why my grandfather took this claim over in Oregon. He wanted to be out of the lawless state of Washington Territory.

LS: Yeah, I was going to say that was still territory then when Oregon was a state. Sure so they had a little bit more....

MA: Yeah it never become a state until 1878 or '80.

LS: It was quite a bit later than Oregon.

MA: Oregon got its statehood in '59.

LS: In '59 so they were right there. Well tell me a little bit more then about the ranch operation and the claim here. You had raised horses for some periods of time. How about sort of chronologically from the beginning as you know it.

DB: Well after he sold his Donation Claim out over there to Dr. Baker.

LS: That was your grandfather.

DB: My grandfather, Beauchamp. And he came down here and bought this....claim. What do you call them? Oh I can't think of the names anymore. You know...

LS: I'm not sure what the names, what the types of claims were in this part. I am familiar with more from the Willamette Valley.

DB: Well you know people that came in could take up 160 acres.

LS: Right. The Donation Land Claim in about 1850.

DB: No, not the donation, this was...

LS: This was another one after that wasn't it. I'm not sure of the name of that.

DB: It happened in the 1860's or '70's when they, these 160 acre rights were given to people. [outside voice speaks of cash]

DB: Oh, I guess so.

LS: Oh you bought them. It was cash, I see.

DB: Well anyway this Schwartz had this claim in here. Jacob Schwartz and his wife. And he sold it off to my grandfather and I think that transaction was $105,000 whew.

LS: For how many acres?

DB: One hundred sixty acres.

LS: That was 160. Did they, they didn't have it, in the Valley you could get 160 00:23:00per person so that a husband could get 320 together.

DB: That's what it is the Homestead Act. And that's what he did he homesteaded. One hundred sixty acres. Well then my grandfather was able to buy into some railroad to make this into 240. And my father then later bought in forty more.

LS: Did they start right out with the horse racing?

DB: Well yes most everything. There was quite a little orchard on the place. Now I don't know if he put it in or this ol' immigrant.

LS: That would be an old orchard by now. Is any of that still left.

DB: No. It's all gone. My father took it all out. And then he raised horses of 00:24:00course and cattle. Always had cattle. And he later...when they quit the draft horse business, well, he went on with it somewhat but he didn't have a stallion anymore. When his uncle left here why they sold him. That horse has a record here of upgrading a lot of the draft stock.

LS: What was his name? Did he have a...

DB: Bravo. I have a photo of him someplace.

LS: So that was primarily draft horses then.

DB: That's draft horses straight. Later they was of course coming in for lighter boned horses. The Virgens had a station over here they called remount station.

LS: To change horses going through.

DB: Then this ranch become more productive. Then about after my father took over...

LS: What year was that?

DB: That would be about 1900. And he married and started before then about 1897.

LS: How many children had there been in the family then besides your father and his family?

DB: Just one sister.

LS: He and a sister ah.

DB: She married and left here in her early life and went off to Spokane.

LS: So I interrupted you. He took over in about 1900...and what happened then?

DB: Then it went on from there of course just progressing to the dairy then long 00:26:00about 1930 why after I was grown up pretty well we built quite a modern dairy. We began to have things for grade dairy. Pocatello B Grade Whole Milk Dairy. We built a modern barn for it and milking machines. And went on from there.

LS: Where did your milk go to after you produced it? Where did you ship it?

DB: During that time that was the start of the Depression times here then. Then the Preparedness Program went on. The wars began heating up for Second World War. Why milk went to the Walla Walla air base and Pasco naval base.

LS: So what did you do during the Depression times? Was that kind of hang on times? People still needed to drink milk I guess only not so much.

DB: It didn't do much. I drove our beef what we had to Walla Walla at four cents a pound. Wheat was of course around twenty cents a bushel. The grains and the hay well they were cheap too.

LS: What happened to most of the ranchers and farmers in this area during the Depression? Did most of them manage to hang on through?

DB: They did. By dairying and using their own process to develop food.

LS: In other words kind of supplying themselves off their own land and kind of squeaking through.

DB: But there seemed to be a little market for all of it; meat products, grain, and the dairy products.

LS: That's good. So essentially not that many people lost their farms.

DB: No, not right in here. I think mostly the loss of the farms was when the dry land. Because I remember one banker telling dad when I was with him He was the president of the First National Bank of Walla Walla I believe. He said I could step out of the city limits of Walla Walla tomorrow and walk from here to Snake River and never get off of bank property. So they'd foreclosed on that 00:29:00amount. Now I think most of them or somebody got it back again they had to. Now that was the real Depression. What I can remember is one of Alice's friends said we were poor but we didn't know it.

LS: I guess everybody was. And it isn't quite so bad when everybody is.

DB: They weren't hollering like it seems they want to holler now.

LS: Yeah, I was wondering how was it going it going in this current recession or depression as the case may be?

DB: Well we hear it all around though I don't know of anyone being foreclosed out.

LS: So far everybody's getting through it OK.

DB: Yeah, I think so. Such a variety of crop. Now last year my son, Grant, had been trying to grow some grain, wheat. Cropping every year. Course it's all irrigated, and highly fertilized. He almost had a total wheat winter from about 85 bushel the acre the year before he came down about 35 bushel last year. Because of diseased wheats mostly. But he had a contract for green beans. That made quite a bit of money.

LS: So a little bit of diversity seems to be what gets you through.

DB: Diversity right, and the same way know some others farming around here. The carrots, field carrots brought them out. While hay a few years ago the beef went 00:31:00down and they were able to go to row crops and carrots. And last year the onion, you have heard of the Walla Walla sweet onion, they're having trouble over there around Walla Walla. They've got an onion worm, a maggot worm. They moved acres of onions out in here and got some fantastic yields and good onions.

LS: Because it's essentially the same soil.

DB: Well it's not quite as heavy as it is around Walla Walla.

LS: But the onions did really well around here it sounds like.

DB: So it seems like for now this next year I understand right across from Grand Forty there's going to be a lot of onions growing there this spring. (laughter)

LS: We will now have good Oregon sweet onions. When you were growing what kinds of things do you most remember about what you liked to do with your dad for instance. Did you help him with the ranching?

DB: Yes. I did quite a bit I farmed. Course after I got out of high school and then six months in the army then I went down to Oregon State. Then I had the finishing down there. Then somewhere or another I just wanted to get back to the ranch and start doing something.

LS: So how long were you there?

DB: I was there two years, two and a half years.

LS: So 1919 and 1920 about?

DB: But I always had ambitions of going back and finishing.

LS: Well it looks like you did fine anyhow. And Grant went did he go the whole four years?

DB: Yes he did. He's graduated. And was that in agriculture?

LS: No. It was agriculture school, yes. He was a soils major. He graduated in soils with a minor in writing.

LS: Well when you...you said you were in the service. Were you in the regular service in World War I before you went to school; in the Army. Where did you go and what did you do?

DB: Yes in the Army. Well I never got out of Oregon.

LS: Tell me about that.

DB: Well we were trained down there at Corvallis and some at Camp Lewis.

LS: And what was the name of the program that you were in?

DB: It was the SATC. Student army training corps. And that's where it started. And we would go from there right into active service well not active service or combat action as far as we knew our designation about the eleventh of November was where we would pull out was to be Vladivostok.

LS: My goodness. Was that the November eleventh of Armistice Day?

DB: That's right.

LS: The real first one.

DB: So then of course we were just kept there pulled back from Camp Lewis where we were accorded for.

LS: Well did you go to Corvallis then specifically for the army training?

DB: Right.

LS: Before 1919. That would have been in what 1917 or '18?

DB: 1918.

LS: 1918. OK, then you just went back to Corvallis then to school for college work. What did you study there? What were you majoring in?

DB: I was studying agriculture. Farm animal husbandry. I took several courses in advanced business. But it was mostly course in the school of agriculture.

LS: What do you remember about campus life in those days? Did the war affect the campus life at all or the post war?

DB: They seemed to recover when I was down there in the post war. I know the 00:36:00buildings, the fraternities, a lot of them and halls, the girl's halls, were all converted to dormitories. All the windows on old Waldo hall, there wasn't a window I know we used that as our headquarters and of course the whole campus was under sentry booths. And uh there wasn't a window or a door left in Waldo Hall. They were all taken out.

LS: They were? For what purpose?

DB: They just used them as a barracks. They were all men, all boys. I know it was all drafty and cold.

LS: I bet it was but I can't imagine why they would take all the windows out unless it was to get you climatized to cold weather.

DB: Climatized I suppose and I think to uh well breakage probably. I expected all that glass and doors and stuff. Just got broken and they didn't replace it or something. I think the college just stored them all. Waldo and Cauthorn were all done the same way.

LS: And so those were all SATC dorms.

DB: Those were all girl's dorms.

LS: But then they were all SATC barracks.

DB: And the men's gymnasium was all put into men's barracks.

LS: So at that time the campus was all mostly army training.

DB: It was all army training ground.

LS: And were regular college classes still going on?

DB: Some was. The girls still had some classes going on.

LS: Were your classes intermixed or were they all strictly army training?

DB: All off base for any of them.

LS: Straight training so it was being run kind of like an army base.

DB: Like an army containment. Very definitely.

LS: Was there any social life if there were still girls on campus?

DB: There some girls but like I say they were all off base for us.

LS: OK so there wasn't any social life. Well then after the war it was no longer like that.

DB: It was always like that. I tell you I went back there the next day and I was discharged and I went and harvested up here on these hills north of Athena for a big threshing out there. And I made quite a little money that summer, that's when I entered Oregon State.

LS: OK then you came back to Oregon State on your summer money.

DB: And it was in very good shape even though most of the students were quartered around residents all the time, there was no... they did finally finish though barracks of home for boys.

LS: So they had to reconvert the barracks into dormitories. Put the windows back in and what else.

DB: Put them back in and the girls were all back in then. Because I remember going for dates in Waldo and Cauthorn.

LS: So the social life had come back to campus.

DB: It had come back. Dances were on and everything started again right away. And I thought it was remarkable that all those buildings got converted back so fast. I didn't know the life before there of course. And we had of course that 00:40:00year in 1919 a lot of ex-soldiers come in even those city soldiers were veterans you know. They started the old sophomore hazing.

LS: And what happened?

DB: There was too many soldiers and vets there and the sophomores took an awful beating. The college had to finally to step in and say watch this, no more. This is a different thing.

LS: We had a different group of students then when the fellows had been through the war they didn't have to fool around with hazing I'm sure.

DB: They did try to make well the freshmen coming in had to wear the green...

LS: Little green rook lids.

DB: Yes well I wore one.

LS: Even the fellows who were war vets were willing to wear the rook lids.

DB: Even though I was rated a vet I still had to wear one. But they wouldn't allow any more hazing to go on. Because they would take them down and throw them in the Willamette River and finally they found out who was getting thrown in was the sophomores.

LS: So what was the original tradition? That the sophomores hazed the freshmen?

DB: Right.

LS: OK but then after the war a lot of the freshmen were vets and they didn't put up with it.

DB: Some of them had been out of high school for several years.

LS: Sure. They were probably a lot bigger and stronger than some.

DB: Older you know. So they just wouldn't take it. Instead of getting a spanking or a hosing as they called it why uh..

LS: A hosing. Did they actually use hoses?

DB: Sure, why what they did they unbuttoned your tunic here especially on drill days put a water hose down in here.

LS: (laughter) Oh no! So then the men students still wore...by then it was ROTC and were they still in ROTC and wore those uniforms?

DB: Yes that was when ROTC was reinstalled there. I know instead of having that year when I entered in 1919 with my veteran's service I already had the standing 00:43:00of a sophomore.

LS: The military was still required at that time as it was many years later. Did you have to take it all four years?

DB: Right except the veteran didn't have to.

LS: Were they completely exempt or...

DB: They were completely exempt. The veteran was exempt. Because I had a buddy we stayed together and he had served in the navy and he took it the first year at Oregon State. Course he was there before I was there. I visited Oregon State before...before we got into the war. I spent a week down there. I had several 00:44:00from my high school was already going there.

LS: When you traveled then when you went to Oregon State from here did you travel by train or how?

DB: Yeah by train. We had to catch a train out of Walla Walla. I remember a funny thing going there the second year or the first year. We took a trip to Walla Walla and we'd have to go to Wallula and wait for the Spokane Portland train. And it was about an hour wait, and I think there about 25 of them and a lot of were up there around Prescott in Washington and Walla Walla.

LS: Uh huh and they were going down to Oregon State.

DB: Going down to Oregon State instead of WSU. That kind of puzzled me.

LS: Did you ever find out why?

DB: Well they thought that it was a big school down there and it was bigger.

LS: Schools do sometimes get reputations among young people for various kinds of things that attract them.

DB: There were several about a half dozen or so from Prescott out north of Walla Walla. And they had a small high school not any bigger than our high school here yet they were willing to tear down there.

LS: They might have had one of their people go down there and the rest followed or something. That can happen. Well then how did the vets in general fit into campus life. Did they pretty well integrate do you think?

DB: Oh yes I think so. Course the fraternities were going. I had the chance to go into a fraternity but I just didn't want to. And I remember one of my pals lived right across the road from me. He graduated a year ahead of me from high 00:46:00school. And he was in a fraternity down there. Incidentally he went on and later years given a doctorate degree by Oregon State. He was given a masters and a doctorate from Minnesota and become of the acting president of the University of California.

LS: Oh really what was his name?

DB: Harry Wellmen.

LS: He was a high school friend of yours?

DB: Graduated from this high school. And we were pretty close friends in our high school days.

LS: What kind of kid was he in high school?

DB: Well I was never as surprised. I missed him for a couple of years while he was off in the service and I was still in high school. He had a little speech 00:47:00impediment as a little boy and he had completely lost that when I met him at college down there. After he had two years of college and become a very talker. And went on that way. Very nice looking boy.

LS: What kind of things did you do, what was the kind of entertainment when you were in high school?

DB: Oh well we had our games of course. Mostly of baseball.

LS: What position did you play?

DB: I'd pitch until I couldn't throw anymore. I thought I was going to be a major league pitcher one day. I had my visions you know.

LS: Did the towns in the area have teams that played against each other?

DB: Later we had little leagues through the valley. Different little we had a team and a schedule up and a league. We played competitive ball.

LS: Were your teams organized through schools at that time through high schools or what it more like a town team.

DB: More like a town team.

LS: More like a town team where anyone in town could play whether they were in high school or not.

DB: Course the schools just kind of made up their teams they didn't have a league or anything with the other schools but they played with Athena and Western and Touchet down here. But they just got the dates right you know.

LS: Which town had the best team?

DB: Well I don't know. I can remember just after my days here in school..

LS: You were playing for Umapine I assume.

DB: Yes. We were one of the leaguers and they went to the state in basketball and in baseball. When they would be having the tournaments you know. But that of course was sometimes later. The earlier times it was just mostly random catch a date here and there. That was in my time.

LS: Sometimes one team would win and sometimes another. They were pretty evenly matched.

DB: They all competed. We even competed with Milton school which was Milton High School then out in McLoughlin and Pendleton High School all competed against one another. In their track you know and held up pretty good even in basketball later.

LS: Were they playing basketball when you were in school much yet?

DB: No. They didn't play.

LS: Just mainly baseball. I suppose not football either. Had it come into the high schools at that time.

DB: Yes it had but we didn't seem to have any place to play.

LS: That's the thing about baseball all you need is a little bit of a vacant lot.

DB: And course they mainly had their track tournaments between schools. And that was run especially through the grade schools pretty well. The high schools didn't take on so much. Mostly smaller school about all they could afford was the baseball unit.

LS: That's another thing too. Baseball all you needed was a bat and a ball and you could get by. If you're lucky some gloves but if you don't have them you 00:51:00could still play. How about attitudes in this area to Oregon's political scene. Are the people out here pretty conscious to what is happening in Oregon politics? I imagine that it would be a big topic.

DB: Oh yes. I was always quite interested even after I did not go back there very much more. I quite often went down there and attended their games.

LS: You mean the Oregon State games.

DB: Uh huh.

LS: Oh did you.

DB: I made several trips down there. Especially if they were playing Portland.

LS: Would you say most of the people in this area that go to a state school generally go to Oregon State or do maybe an equal amount go to the U of O? Do 00:52:00you have any feel?

DB: Well, they did for a little while. There's always some there. That went down there.

LS: To Oregon.

DB: Yeah. To Oregon State but not to Oregon. And of course most of the girls went to the, what they call the normal school.

LS: The ones that are closer to home.

DB: Yeah. My sister went over to eastern Oregon. But some of her friends went to Monmouth. There was quite a few girls at Monmouth when I was at Oregon State.

LS: Yeah they are now combining the schools of education at Oregon and Monmouth.

DB: But now I don't know. They go with the community colleges now, the closest ones.

LS: Well it's a lot less expensive.

DB: When Grant went to Oregon State I don't believe there was one other boy and he went on to graduate from McLoughlin high I think but he started down here. I don't know as he was the only other one from up in there that was going to Oregon State at that time.

LS: Do the boys of the area generally go on to college or not?

DB: No quite a few about that time. Very few of Grant's went on to college. No I 00:54:00can't remember... Only Scherbert was the only one down there.

LS: They were probably going into other kinds of jobs that don't really require an education.

DB: Yes, there were quite a few jobs opening up. And, oh again we had this Vietnam War buzzing around and quite a few of them went along and enlisted.

LS: Was that a pretty popular. I don't know if that is a good word, but was that a thing that they felt good about doing that they wanted to do?

DB: Well I suppose two of them I know well they just went right on in. They weren't out of high school very long before they enlisted.

LS: What do you think motivated them?

DB: Gosh I don't know. When I look back on it now I wonder.

LS: It's hard to know. I was thinking about the extension service. OSU runs the extension service in all the outlying areas. Is that helpful to farmers and ranchers in the area? Was it something you ever found occasion to go to for instance?

DB: Oh yes, it was...I don't know just what to say about it today. It was very 00:56:00much used earlier on here, very extensive.

LS: I've often been curious in my own about what kind of effect all the kinds of agricultural research that goes on through OSU has had.

DB: I think it had quite an input on it around here I know, cropwise.

LS: Can you think of any crops or projects in particular that might have made a difference in agriculture?

DB: Well I think the thing that's at all some now to a great extent is the fact that most of the businesses today and the producers of the businesses like the chemicals and the seed houses, and the implement companies. Each one of them put 00:57:00out a magazine of their own and they helped to the farmers. They always would want to come out...

LS: So they have gone into quite a production of...

DB: A production of their own. Most every implement company and every seed company, every chemical company offer that service free to you, the farmer. And that has slowed up anymore of the extension. But the extension worked in my earlier time. We used it quite a bit. Especially, it was pushing alfalfa seed production in this area and the fostering of alfalfa beans, the ground bees for use of pollination was used very extensively. Today now I don't believe the 00:58:00extension well in that part they have drifted off and know they are more strictly to the fruits.

LS: And that's not something you have had here at all?

DB: No. They also were working strong and Taylor was the extension agent up here in Milton-Freewater into beef production and feeding. And that went over fairly good and quite a few feed lots were put in here but now there's no feed lots in here at all.

LS: How come?

DB: Well it's got big. There is one down here at Wallula, it's a massive thing it's national.

LS: So it's kind of gone agribusiness. It's gone big not lots of small feed lots but one huge one.

DB: Lots have gone. There used to be one here right outside of Milton, McKieve feedlot and that's all vacant now. And over there at Athena, John Smith and Beamer and that's all buttoned up now.

LS: What effect did that have on area?

DB: Well I don't see that it had an effect at all really. Because the bigger ones just took up the smaller ones and just gradually closed them in. They just quit you know.

LS: So what did those individuals then go to after they closed the feed lots?

DB: They went back to production, like the grain and pea production, stuff like that you know. Most of them, a lot of them got lands under irrigation with deep wells again just year round production of bees, beans, peas, and stuff like that.

LS: Year round production, that's interesting. What times of year are the crops planted and harvested?

DB: Earlier sugar beets were very strong. They went in in early March. That was a long time crop. You worked at it all summer until fall before you're done. Mostly in November. And now that's all gone and our production now is of course grains, hay, and some beef.

LS: Do you do two crops of those a year?

DB: We get three crops, sometimes four. Now going into the row crops pretty strong; carrots, onions.

LS: Are those also year round?

DB: Yes. And now this green beans is hitting us pretty good. They seem to have 01:01:00come in just right to pick up the slack where the one was kind of having trouble.

LS: Where one was going out. What caused the sugar beets to go out? Did other places start producing them?

DB: I think so. Well rotation is one thing. The older crops of beets is about two years and they said three years they go for first. Then they said we've got to rotate. Well we've run out of land. They began to get them into the base structuring. More open, new lands and it went up in there.

LS: They're grown heavily in the Sacramento Valley.

DB: But now the basin, the big sugar refinery is closed you see at Moses Lake. Now there is very little beets grown here in the Northwest at all. It's gone. 01:02:00What takes up the slack from there I don't know. They grew a lot of beets here.

LS: In general when the crops change over is it because for some reason or other the existing crop that is being grown is no longer profitable so they go to something else or would it be because they see a larger crop in something else?

DB: Well probably two ways. Probably the diminishing profit caused them to look around for something else coming that they could work for.

LS: Something else coming on that they could switch to.

DB: I know that's the thing that went with the production of the beets and the alfalfa seed the same way. The alfalfa seed was grown all over here they tried it. Everybody was growing alfalfa so they tried alfalfa seed but some areas 01:03:00didn't produce well enough. They finally localized where the best production was and that's where it is today. It is still grown in the lower part of the valley here. But not around here much. And the beets it's just a lack of land to rotate on I think, the diminishing beet production. And so then they began growing field corn and sweet corn.