Mary Dimick Oral History Interview, May 7, 1991

MOLLY K. MCFERRAN: You were saying about your daughter (and her relationship with Ulysses Grant McAlexander)?

MARY DIMICK: Yes, she was small and, um, she didn't pay any attention to him because he was something special, she just thought he was a nice man and he appreciated that because a lot of people sort of fawned over him because he was a war hero. He was just something special and she knew nothing about that and then he liked that idea so then, um, his wife became ill and she was in Corvallis in the hospital and he used to come and visit at our house when he would come to see her and then eventually she died and he came to our house for 00:01:00breakfast after she had died. He had breakfast and then he went down and sat in the chair and didn't say a word and Anne came up and sat in his lap and he put his arms around her and they just sat there together. She was quiet and he was quiet and after he left to go back home he wrote a letter to her and said, "that was the most helpful thing anybody could have done for me right then, to see that somebody loved me for myself and I wasn't entirely alone anymore although I had felt alone after the loss of my wife that morning." And so after that they started a correspondence and wherever he was he would write to Anne and by the time she was in the first or second grade, they were still writing and she could do her own letter-writing then and he went to the National Republican Convention and wrote her a letter telling her about how foolish the grown people were 00:02:00acting (laughs) and things of that sort, so that was really my main contact.

Then he sold his house at Newport, a huge, huge house and moved into an apartment in Portland and when we'd go up to a football game or something he'd always want us to have lunch with him first or sometimes he'd just invite us up and we'd go and visit him and Anne did not particularly care for steak. I think lots of little children don't because it takes more chewing, but if we would eat out he would always say "and she wants the best steak" (laughs) so Anne would always have steak! He thought he was doing something special. That's mostly the contact, that I had.

MM: That's true, though, that children seem to have a knowledge.

MD: They act more on instinct and what they think rather than what they want 00:03:00somebody to think.

MM: Or what they can get...

MD: Yes...

MM: Well, you answered all the questions that I was going to ask you about that.

MD: And he did give a lot of things to Oregon State, a lot of his war mementos, I don't know if they're in archives or where they are. There was a bust of him. used to be in the MU), but I don't know if it's there. There are cabinets of his things someplace but I don't know where they are.

MM: Yeah, I'd heard a story about that bust being kidnapped or something....

MD: Well. I don't know, I don't think it's there anymore.

MM: I guess there's a lot of folklore about him...

MD: Because he had been coming down here and was a warrior, a hero. So that's why they named McAlexander Fieldhouse, because it was the old armory.

MM: Well, I wanted to ask you, urn, some questions about your life, urn, have 00:04:00you always lived in Oregon?

MD: Yes, I'm a third generation Oregonian. My grandmother was born in Portland (?) in 1854.

MM: And you've never lived anywhere else?

MD: Not to live any length of time, no. I lived in Palo Alto for six or eight months during World War I when my father was in the army and he was stationed there. But no length of time anyplace else.

MM: Where were you born?

MD: In Sellwood, which was then a suburb of Portland now it's part of Portland.

MM: Oh, I see then it doesn't even have its own name anymore.

MD: Well, they call it the Sellwood district and it's mostly antique shops, it's kind of a cute little place now, I don't think the house where I was born is still there.

MM: So, it used to be actually some distance from Portland?

MD: Well, the distances were farther then because street-cars took you places 00:05:00and there weren't as many cars. But it's been part of Portland for years.

MM: Um, I know you spent time on the coast, I wanted to ask you about the Indians. If you had any recollections of...

MD: Um. not a lot of recollections. When we first moved into Portland, every sommer afternoon during the summer, the Indians would come from Siletz and put on Indian dances for the people to enjoy and I remember the men with eagle feathers all down their arms, dancing and waving their arms like eagles and then even the little tiny children would be beating drums and that's the first that I remember of them. And then, at the Siletz reservation my father had, he was a doctor, had quite a few patients there and sometimes when he'd go over to see 00:06:00them I would go along with him and one family in particular had a beautiful home and a lovely yard and then they had cabinets in the downstairs living room.

I went with him once and I waited in there while he took care of whoever was being treated and it was full of old Indian costumes and there used to be a boarding house on Front Street in Newport, which is now Bay Boulevard and in the whole living room of it in a big entry-way, there were cabinets full of Indian things and the ones of those that the family didn't take or that have been preserved are now in the Lincoln County Historical Museum at Newport. But, the Indians were like I guess anybody else. There were some very fine, well-educated, nice people who kept their houses in good condition and sent 00:07:00their young people to universities and then there were like poor, white squatters that would get an Indian allotment and spent their money as fast as they got it and sort of lived in squalor.

MM: Hmm.. So they didn't, uh, they were all basically I guess, civilized, they didn't live in tipis anymore?

MD: No, not at all, I mean some of them lived in sort of shacks, but, no, they, that was, oh, from 1910, the first time we were there on and they were, they were well incorporated with the white people as far as schools went and that sort of thing, but they still did have their tribal dances that people enjoyed seeing and.. MM: These were, these were the people from the reservation, right?"

MD: Mm hmm. One year, my brother who was taking engineering at Oregon State was working for the county and he went, he was over near the Siletz Reservation for 00:08:00several days doing surveying and the Indians put on, uh, they went, getting eels out of the water. They had big fires that they started with pitch and apparently that attracted the eels and the eels swam up the river towards these big fires and they, uh, I don't know how they got them, dipped 'em probably with nets and got the eels in quantity and I think they were going to smoke them, I don't know, I don't remember what they did with them. And another thing that in early times we used to do and I don't remember the name of the game, but the Indian squaws, dressed in long dresses with little hats that they had woven, worn on their head, ah, basket hats, did some sort of a game, sort of like hockey only 00:09:00it had an Indian name. We'd sometimes go and watch them play that game and it was definitely theirs it wasn't something other people made up and they still, at that time, made beautiful Indian baskets and, ah, mother wanted a big laundry hamper, and a friend of hers said, "Well I have good friends over there and they'll probably make you one but they won't sell it to you but if you have some old clothes, I can trade the old clothes for the basket," so. Mother gave them some of my father's suits and other clothing and she went over and brought mother back the Indian hamper.

MM: Hmm.. I wonder why they wouldn't sell them, sort of a pride thing?

MD: I don't know, I don't know. They weren't doing it for money but. if you liked them well enough to give them some clothing then they would reciprocate by giving you something that you wanted.

MM: Hmm.. Do you have any, uh, personal feelings about the Indians being taken 00:10:00over by the white men coming in, do you think they were better off after that happened?

MD: Having all of the white people living here, I don't think that it could have been handled... I don't think they should have been put in the reservations from all areas as they were and I think, um, when they were given land allotments as they were, they should have been given help in what to do, rather than trying to sell them right away and get some money and spend it and not know how to do it. But, um, I think now that they're like any other Americans, more or less, there were none in school with me at Newport but I used to play high-school basketball against Toledo and there were two Indian girls on the basketball team in Toledo 00:11:00and they were treated like anybody else.

MM: Yeah, I haven't noticed any reservations out here but in Colorado, where I'm from there are a lot of reservations out in the desert.

MD: Yes, well in Arizona area there are a lot too.

MM: Let's see, I guess we covered the Indian question. I'd like to ask you some things about your personal viewpoints about some of the things in the world today, compared to when you were growing up. For instance, was there an ecological awareness when you were growing up?

MD: Yes, but it was quite different. We used to go camping a lot and people were always careful only to burn wood that was downed wood or drift-wood or something 00:12:00of that sort, they didn't cut trees. They, uh, would tie their tents tn a post, a tree that was growing, they wouldn't cut it down and they'd always leave their campsites clean. And then gradually, as more and more people came, urn, you could tell that they weren't natives because they would leave their camps in a mess. They'd cut down trees to make tent poles when they could have fastened them to a live tree. So, things went from good to worse and now getting better again. I think for years, people were very cognizant of the fact that they had to take care of what they had and then a lot of people came in too rapidly and thought, "Oh there's so much here we can just do anything we want to with it"and they were not conservation minded at all. Right now I think it's too much of an emotional feeling among both sides. I think the people who are strictly 00:13:00environmentalists can see only one side and the people who are not can only see one side and I think there has to be a happy medium.

MM: Somehow. Uh, did you recycle, I guess you didn't really use the word recycle, but, you know....did you reuse things?

MD: Yes, I think that was a matter, well, not considering recycling but considering thrift and we'd always save, for instance, costumes because you might want those for another play or another Halloween or something of that sort. One family had. in Newport, had a full dress suit with tails and we were so glad they had kept them, because frequently they were needed in a high school play or something and, uh, still I have a hard time not using things. If I have some food left I either put it in a left-over dish or I freeze it to use it 00:14:00later and my daughter says "Mother, if you had a disposal in your kitchen you wouldn't feel you had to save all that food" and I do get the freezer too full but I, that's just because things were limited and you had to use what you had and now things are not limited and people have gotten away from trying to save.

MM: That, and I also feel that things have gotten so disposable, everything's disposable so you don't have to worry about it.

MD: You just throw it away. A friend of mine, when they retired, uh, they were living in Illinois and he took early retirement and they moved out here and they have a daughter in Santa Barbara and a son here. They chose to come here to Corvallis because California was too plastic. Everything, she said, they use and 00:15:00throw, use and throw and she said that Oregon was less that way. So, that's one of the reasons they came here.

MM: Do you remember when they passed the bottle law here? Is that recently, or...?

MD: Oh, maybe fifteen years ago, it's a fair time.

MM: Do you think it made a difference?

MD: It helps people who don't have anything. They gather up the bottles and take them in and get money for them, but if it weren't for that, I think that the people still seem to throw things away. And they do talk about the highways being clean, but they pay people to clean up, and they get lots of bottles and cans as well as other things, so it has helped, but I don't think it has helped as much as they hoped it would.

MM: Well it does seem to me, that I, being from Colorado, we've tried to pass a bottle law there, and there are lots of bottles on the sides of the roads. Here 00:16:00I don't really notice them, so...

MD: Well, you see I've been here all the time, and, and that would make a difference.

MM: Let's see...do you think, there's kind of a new trend now, to be environmentally conscious, and I guess that comes from, like you were saying, now everybody's starting suddenly to realize that everything isn't going to be there forever.

MD: I do object to the things that the environmentalists have done, like putting the sand in machinery, and breaking saws, and things of that sort, the same as I object to them, them holding up the ship and not letting it move because it might collect fish they don't want collected, and that sort of thing. I think they ought to be reasonable about this, 'cause they're breaking another law.

MM: It's sort of an eye for an eye kind of philosophy. You don't drive, do you?

MD: No, I never did drive.

MM: Is there a reason for that, or...

MD: I guess the reason is, actually is, I guess, when I was in school. In high school, when people would have normally been driving, I had three brothers. And we had only one car. And if one of my brothers would have the car and my Dad had to hire a taxi to go, say 20 miles, to see a patient, he wasn't very pleased about it. And I thought, I had lots of friends who had cars and they'd take me, and so I was not going to get his wrath by taking the car when he needs it. So, I didn't learn a thing. And then I came to college and we were married right out of college. My husband taught school at Waldport for three years and then he 00:18:00came back here to do Bachelor's work. So, we didn't have money enough to buy a car, and so we'd been married five years or so. By then we had two children, and I was busy taking care of them. I didn't ever learn.

Then when they got old enough to drive, he was, my husband, was a worrier. And the children were perfectly capable of driving, but it's hard to get out of this little garage and down the back alley. And he would stand at the back window and watch them back out, and watch them all the way. And then when they would come down the street here, he would watch them to make sure that they were doing it alright. And I could not stand having somebody watch me like that if I drove, so I didn't learn. And then after he died, my neighbor next door said "I'll teach 00:19:00you to drive. I think you ought to be able to drive." But I was, I think 74 then, and I thought, no, I was too old and I don't want to be responsible for anything that might happen. I didn't think a person that age would react as rapidly to a situation, if you were just a new driver, as a person would who had been driving for years. So, I gave the car to my daughter.

MM: So, do you just walk everywhere?

MD: Yes, or I occasionally take the bus. The bus is very convenient here. But, I'm fortunate I'm able to walk. I walk at least three miles everyday whether I go any place or not, just for the walk. And I've walked all my life. There used to not be roads that you could go on at the coast during the winter especially. You could walk up to, we owned the land at Fogarty Creek where there was a 00:20:00beach, and we would walk up there and camp over for a few days carrying our packs, and come back. And that was 20 miles. That wasn't unusual to do. I've just always walked.

MM: Can you remember when they put Highway 101 through there? I've always thought it was kind of a shame to have a highway right there.

MD: They called it the Roosevelt Military Highway, and they put It in so that there would be more than one route if there were a war and somebody bombed out the beaches and such and the highway inland, that there would be a route on the coast that would be allright and that they could still travel. So, probably in the 1930's, I would think, but I don't know exactly...! can't remember exactly.

MM: And now It's the R.V. road.

MD: There used to be no bridges even after there was the road. You'd have to ferry from one side of the bay, of each bay so that when...And you couldn't, when we came to college, you couldn't even travel on the road from here to Newport until, I guess, my junior or senior year. But there was a road that you could go on in the winter, in the summer. In the winter it was blocked mostly. But when we first went over, we had to go, we were living in Gresham, we had to go by streetcar to Portland and then from Portland to Yaquina and then take a boat, a big ferry. That's what everybody did for many, many years. And then go to Newport on it. And if you wanted to go farther south, to Waldport, you'd have to ferry to Alsea Bay as well as the Yaquina Bay.

MM: It seems like there wasn't as much of a concern for time then, to get somewhere quickly.

MD: That's true. You were saying something about conservation and I remembered one thing when we moved to Newport. We hadn't been there very long. The roads were just mud roads. And there were some men cutting down some brush and filling a big mud hole. My mother saw those were rhododendron bushes and she went out and laid the law down to them. She didn't know whose property it was but they didn't have any business cutting down all those huge rhododendron bushes to fill a mud hole.

MM: Yes, I went out and tried to talk them out of cutting down all those bushes in front of Horner Museum the other day. They didn't listen to me, though. I guess I wasn't tough enough. How about endangered species? Was there ever any 00:23:00concern about...

MD: No, that's fairly recently. Partly it's viewed as a excuse to get what you want. Like the spotted owl-the people want the old growth saved and so they found the spotted owl to use. No, there seemed to be so much of everything and I don't think people were very concerned. My husband started the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife so he was more concerned with that sort of thing earlier than a lot of people were because he would see someplace where there had been a lot of certain creatures and the whole ecosystem had changed because one particular predator or something was no longer there.

MM: How about, you know, that you have a garden. You're really a good gardener. Do you use any chemicals or pesticides?

MD: I do now that he is no longer living.

MM: Oh, really?

MD: He objected, for instance, to spraying apple trees. And I don't like wormy apples particularly. I don't often spray them, but every once in a while a man will come by and say, "do you want your trees sprayed?" And I'll say, "yes." But he objected to that because it would kill good bugs along with the bad bugs. And he didn't like any of the chemical pesticides that might be harmful to people. Some of the things I'd dust on the plants, he would let me use Rhodoron or Pyrethrum but sometimes something else was more effective and I'd use it.

MM: To get back, we sort of touched the timber conflict here in Oregon. I've noticed being a newcomer that, like you were saying, it's either one side or the other. There doesn't seem to. . .

MD: There doesn't seem to be a common meeting ground at all.

MM: Do you think there's hope for that happening?

MD: I think there has to be because if one side wins entirely, the battle is going to continue. They won't just sweep the thing away. And I think it's going to keep lawyers busy for years fighting this side or that side. I think they have to, somebody in authority has to find a common medium.

MM: You don't have any ideas for what that might be?

MD: I don't know enough about it.

MM: I don't either.

MD: They have to know something about what they're doing, not just have a good idea.

MM: O.K. Do you think there are less trees now then there were say, 50 years ago? Or does it not seem...

MD: No, it doesn't seem that way. Some areas, there are fewer, and some there are many more. And, no, it's amazing, oh you go by an area that's perfectly denuded, and it takes such a little while for it to rebuild. And along the coast, for instance, as a place gets cleared, and they want it cleared. It grows up faster than they want it to grow up. It's mostly alders and hemlocks that come after no matter what they've taken up. And they grow amazingly rapidly, and just fill in the whole area quickly. But there may be less harvestable timber in some areas, undoubtedly there is. But they are replanting every place they take 00:27:00it out. So,...

MM: Have they always replanted?

MD: As long as I remember. They used to...no. They haven't always replanted. They used to have to leave one tree every, I don't remember how big, but an acre we'll say - how many trees they had to leave, seed trees. So that the trees themselves would reseed the area. And then they found it was more efficient and the trees grew more rapidly if they grew them in nurseries and then went out and planted them. So, It's not always been that way. But they did practice taking care of them even before they get the nursery seeded.

MM: Good business. You don't want to deplete your supply.

MD: Yes, if you take away everything you have, you have nothing left and much of the land Isn't good for anything else anyway. And so the sooner they can get 00:28:00trees growing, the better.

MM: So, you're not an advocate for one side or the other?

MD: No. Each side has some good points. But I don't like the animosity and the dirty tricks that some of them play, one side or the other. As I say, it just becomes emotional, rather than common sense.

MM: Chaining yourself to the tree.

MD: [...] And it's mean to put spikes in trees that you know are going to be cut because someone working in the mill could be killed.

MM: They're just trying to support their family.

MD: When our younger son was finishing high school and he didn't see any reason he should go to college when friends of his were going right to work in the mill 00:29:00and making more money than his dad was, and so we said, "fine. You go to work in the mill this summer then, if that's what you'd like to do." And so he pulled a green chain in a mill that summer. And the man next to him, well, he did die ultimately, but he was very badly injured by a piece of metal that was in a tree and that they had missed. And the noise was so terrific that he couldn't, Ken couldn't even hear when he came home. He decided very definitely he did want to go to college.

MM: Oh gosh. What did you say, a green chain?

MD: Yes.

MM: Is that just..

MD: As the lumber comes through, you have to pull it off.

MM: Oh, I see. That would be pretty dangerous.

MD: And the saws are so noisy that he'd come home and you'd have to yell at him to get him to hear because of that high noise all day.

MM: Did he go to school here?

MD: He did his earlier work here, and then he got his doctorate at the University of Arizona.

MM: Do you think the economy here in Corvallis and in Oregon has gotten better, or worse over the years?

MD: Oh, it's better than it was during the Depression time, very definitely. Yes, I think it's better. There are many more tourists that bring money in. And there are a lot more people. And there are businesses that didn't exist. They have to have all these businesses, that's what brings the people.

MM: I guess I better turn this over.

MD: During the Depression here, they had a similar thing to this Measure 5 they told the faculty that so many of them were going to have to lose their jobs. They didn't have enough money to carry on. So they had a faculty meeting, and the faculty people who then had very little salaries, decided that everybody on 00:31:00the faculty would take a 20% cut. And then if they did that, no one would lose their jobs. So, everybody on the faculty took a 20% cut. My husband was then getting $250 a month. So,...

MM: That's pretty considerable.

MD: 20% made quite a difference, because the rent didn't change or didn't go down. But I'm sure the faculty wouldn't do that now. They wouldn't consider taking 20% of their huge salaries in order to keep.

MM: They'd go on strike.

MD: ...other people on. And we didn't have medical, dental or any of those things then either. It all came out of our own pockets.

MM: I wonder why that is? If people have just gotten callous or...

MD: Greedy.

MM: You think it's just pure greed?

MD: Yes. "It's mine. You can't take it away from me."

MM: I've worked all my life for it.

MD: Yes, and I think that another time there was a closer, more of a closer, 00:32:00more of a rapport among the faculty members because the school was smaller. And I think everybody felt, we can't let them go. We can't hurt them. They have a family, too. If we all share, well, it'll be alright. And they also made a regulation that no two people in one family could work for the University in any capacity. If there was one income, those people could get along.

MM: I wonder what created this greed though.

MD: Well, I think people, since that time, living has been so easy. People haven't had to worry where their next meal was coming from. They haven't had to worry that they had to put cardboard in their shoes to keep their feet off the ground. They go down and pay $50 for another pair of shoes. And I think there's been too much of everything and people get used to it. Probably they would have 00:33:00a hard time getting along without it.

MM: And I guess they say there's another recession coming and people should...

MD: Well, more or less.

MM: But I do wonder how many people will, like you said, they're used to having everything.

MD: During the Depression, my father lost money in practice because so many of the patients that he treated had nothing the matter with them. They just didn't have food. They were just living on...one man came and said his wife was sick and she wouldn't eat. He wished Dad would come and see what was the matter with her. And he went, and they had had nothing in their house to eat for three weeks except the clams they had dug. And not even salt. And naturally she couldn't eat them anymore.

And so Mother always kept a case of. oranges, and she always kept a pot of soup 00:34:00on the stove. And they just kept feeding people because otherwise they'd starve. And of course, he didn't ever get paid for those from most of these people. But people now don't realize what it was like for some people in those times. And it doesn't occur to anybody except... there are people now losing their jobs. And it must be very hard for them. They have unemployment which they didn't use to have. But that will run out eventually.

MD: I think perhaps that television has a lot to do with that. People sort of become numb in way because they see it so much and they are so overwhelmed. Perhaps they feel that "what good will It do to help this one person?"

MD: Well, you do wonder. And there are so many people who need so much. And so it's not on a personal, one-to-one basis as it was when you see the people right 00:35:00here. They are your neighbors.

MM: Not on another block, in New York somewhere. O.K. I wanted to ask you, what would you say was the happiest time in your life?

MD: Oh, dear. I've had a lot of happy times in my life. But I think probably when the children were small. I think so. There have been lots of times. I had a happy time this last week when I had a new great-grandson.

MM: Oh, congratulations!

MD: I went to Portland to see him. He was born Wednesday. I went to Portland to see him Thursday. And Saturday I went to Portland to the birthday party of my great-granddaughter, her fifth birthday party. So, having grandchildren has been 00:36:00a very happy time, too. I have six and they are very nice.

MM: Good.

MD: But I think probably the happiest was then. There have been a lot of good times.

MM: You've had a good life?

MD: Yes, I've had a lot of sad times, too, but everybody has to expect that.

MM: If there was anything you can change, is there anything?

MD: I don't know of anything that I can think of.

MM: If you could do it all over again, you'd do it the same way?

MD: I think probably.

MM: You're so healthy, and you have such an active mind. Is there a secret that you have that the world should know about?

MD: My chief aim in life is try to be useful as long as I can. I would not like a stagnating, vegetating...I'm glad for instance, Friday morning until the afternoon, I worked with a group of people cleaning the church kitchen. It needed it badly and I enjoyed the companionship. My kitchen probably needed a cleaning, too, but I thought I was useful there. And sometimes, though, the neighbors have a little boy, nine, and they're divorced, and she works a lot of hours. She's a physical therapist, and sometimes there's nobody to stay with Mike, and he can come over here. I'm glad that I can be useful by letting him be with me. So, no, I've been blessed. I've had a lot of illnesses during my life, 00:38:00but so far right now, everything is doing well. And with modern medicine, they can take care of things that I've had. I had polymyalgia for five and a half years, and if I'd had it when I was young, although young people don't usually get it, they wouldn't have had prednisone, cortisone drugs. I would have been dead a long time ago. But I took that for five years and I'm still normal as normal.

MM: It's amazing, the cures they're coming up with. They still can't cure the common cold though.

MD: Well, as you get older, you have fewer colds. It might be because your resistance is built up and you have been exposed to most of the kinds of germs that cause colds. But I don't think I've had a cold for four or five years. I should knock on wood. I do get flu shots each fall, and I've not had the flu but 00:39:00It just seemed wise. I would be a nuisance to somebody if I were ill. I'm fortunate my daughter lives here. She works part-time and she's very considerate. She telephones when she's here. She's up with her daughter and the new baby now, but she telephones every day to see if I want anything. She'll bring me or take me places, so that's very helpful, too.

MM: So, stay active is the key, would you say?

MD: I guess so.

MM: Well, that's all I have.