Document text
61 °F Forecast | Road Cams Friday, May 27, 2005 Today's News | Shop Our Valley | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery | Contact Us SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Britt Festival Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Health Biz Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley SHOP OUR VALLEY AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Classified Place an ad TOP JOBS EXTRA Ashland News NIE Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Moving here? eSouthernOregon CUSTOMER SERVICE FAQ's Advertise with us Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend February 20, 2005 Grandma’s teapot adds new link to family past By PAUL FATTIG The tiny teapot isn’t priceless China that would draw gasps at the Antiques Roadshow. No doubt some would smugly observe the fragile container would barely hold two cups of hot water. But the pearl porcelain with an iridescent patina drew a gasp from me. "That was your Grandma Fattig’s — she gave it to me when I was a little girl," Grace Hudron says. "She was a wonderful lady. "Your grandma handled that very teapot," she adds. "I want you to have it now." Since our paternal grandparents — Jonas and Harriett Viola Fattig — died before my three brothers, sister and I were born, followed by our dad’s death when we were urchins, our paternal ancestry has largely been a blank slate. Advertisement Perhaps that’s why I’ve always been fascinated by history, both local and global, family and foreign. That and the fact a few out there periodically question my parentage. But I figure we better know where we are going if we know from whence we came. What’s more, my grandparents, who arrived in Jackson County in the late 1880s and eventually homesteaded in the Applegate Valley before moving to the Illinois Valley in the early 1920s, are a fair representation of early-day arrivals to our region. Gold Hill resident Frances Brown called out of the blue on Tuesday to tell me about a woman who was a friend of my grandparents. It seems Frances and Grace were old friends whose roots intertwined in the Illinois Valley. Perhaps it was just a coincidence that Frances called the day before the 44th anniversary of my dad’s death in 1961. Like Frances, Grace turned out to be a real hoot: friendly, funny and quick as a buggy whip. Grace Lewis Hudron was born Dec. 26, 1916, in the Lewis family ranchhouse in Holland, a remote community a dozen miles southeast of Cave Junction. She still lives in Holland on property she and her late husband, Joe Hudron, bought in 1940. She is the descendant of pioneers, including the Holland family who founded her hometown in the late 1800s. "I was born up on the old ranch just up the road, about a quarter of a mile from Grandpa and Grandma Fattig’s place," she says. She pauses to describe the two, who were staunch members of the Dunkard faith, a Baptist persuasion. He was apparently tall and lanky while she was built a little closer to the earth. "Now Jonas, he never swore," Grace continues. "I can still hear him visiting with my dad. "The closest he ever came to saying ‘By God!’ or ‘Damn!’ or ‘Hell!’ was ‘By goll!’ " she adds. "And that was when he was really upset. ‘By goll!’ he’d tell my dad." At least one of his grandsons could have taken lessons from him in swearing off cussing. By goll! "Now Grandma Fattig was a good cook — I ate at their farm many times," she says. "Your grandma and my mother (Katherine) all belonged to the garden club. They’d all fix lunch when it was their turn to entertain. Your grandma made the best sweet buns I ever had. Oh my gosh, they were good." Unfortunately, grandpa didn’t have refined eating habits. "First of all, everything — and I mean everything — went on his plate," she says. "Meat and potatoes and gravy and vegetables. If there was dessert, it was piled on there, too. Then he’d chop it all up together." She stops talking to chuckle at the memory. "It just irked Grandma Fattig to no end," she says. "But he was a good man, not a mouthy man at all." They were good neighbors, she recalls. "In those days, when they would do the threshing of the grain, two or three neighbors would stack the grain loose, then the wives would cook the lunch and dinner," she says. Come harvest time, her father, James Lewis, would contact the lanky fellow with the curious eating habits. "My dad thought he couldn’t thresh without Grandpa Fattig and E.N. Cooke," she says. "That E.N. Cooke was a horse man." That would be Edwin Nathan Cooke, my maternal grandfather who also died before me and my siblings were born. Yep, small world. "E.N. never touched a whip to our old team, Babe and Dan," she says, then adds, "It was all horses in the early days." She and Joe bought their first car shortly after getting married on Oct. 12, 1935. "We had a ’29 Ford roadster with a little rumble seat," she says. "We paid $75 for it." That roadster took them to local dances. "Joe and I, we went in for the fiddlers," she says. "That’s my kind of music. There’s violinists and then there’s fiddlers. I’ll take the fiddlers every time." They’d kick up their heels over at the nearby Bridgeview Grange hall, she says. "Yeah, I wouldn’t be happy anywhere else," she says. "There are a lot of memories here." Including those contained in a priceless little teapot. You can reach Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback Free Music Downloads Conference Calls - $50/Month Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker, Trunk, Footlockers home equity loans helzberg diamonds Distance Education Diamonds Online Poker Auto Insurance Mesothelioma Slippers Student Loans tcg student loan consolidation teleconferencing Website Design & Marketing Memory Foam Mattress w2 forms Mortgage Calculator Free Home-Loan Referrals Payday Loans Advertisement s