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�Alice� puts face on area�s past You can almost picture the shadowy youths gathered on the dark hillside overlooking the cheerful winter lights of Jacksonville. And you can nearly hear them whisper and giggle in their mischievous huddle behind the veil of falling snow. Their tracks in the snow have long since melted, but a written record was left by Alice, one of the conspirators. "Monday night we put five sleds together and twelve of us piled on," she writes. "When we got halfway down, the tail upset, and we all piled up together. "Such scrambling . . . there was, but no one hurt," she continues. "It is very dangerous that way but, believe me, there is scores of fun in it!" Ah, the trouble Jacksonville residents could get into when they and the 20th century were young. The light-hearted anecdote was contained in a warm letter written by Alice the cold winter day of Jan. 17, 1913, to O.P. "Ole" Shoemaker, postmaster at Newport. The 11-page letter, penned in flowing longhand, was among miscellaneous papers donated recently to the Oregon Coast History Center in Newport. Historian Steve Wyatt is the center�s curator. "She includes some great details that witness what life was like in Jacksonville," Wyatt says. "She goes into detail about the snow, about some of the local residents, about her life, even how the post office looked inside. Those first-hand accounts are what make history interesting." It gives us � newcomers and most old-timers alike � an intimate peek over the shoulder of someone who was there. It puts a face on Southern Oregon�s past. The writer was likely Alice Hoefs, a member of a large Jacksonville family, according to Carol Harbison-Samuelson, library manager and photographic archivist at the Southern Oregon Historical Society. The historical sleuth came to that conclusion after comparing observations made in the letter with old records and newspaper clippings. "It�s an educated guess, but it seems to fit," she says. "It just seems to make sense." At the time, Alice Hoefs, born in 1889, was about 24. She had a sister, Edith, who is mentioned in the letter. There are several other clues, including the reference to a gathering at the "preacher�s" one night, followed by a sleigh ride. Old clippings refer to those meetings. Back in Newport, Wyatt also did a bit of sleuthing. Prior to being appointed Newport postmaster in 1910, Shoemaker worked for Southern Pacific Railroad, a job that would conceivably have brought him to the Rogue Valley, Wyatt said. Wyatt has his own Jacksonville connection: his late father, Mike, was born in Jacksonville in the early 1930s. Mike Wyatt served as mayor of Roseburg. Alice Hoefs was 58 when she died on June 28, 1948; Ole died at age 69 in 1931. Neither ever married. The Southern Oregon Alice knew was likely a pleasant one. "For the most part, that era was a very prosperous time nationwide," Wyatt says. "Oregon was making a transition from a farm economy to an industrial economy. It was also a fairly peaceful time." A fellow named Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, had just been elected president. A conflict that would become World War I was brewing in Europe. But life was still a sleigh ride for residents in one tiny Southern Oregon town. "Almost all of Jacksonville�s population is on the hills of nights � greatest fun ever!!" Alice writes, noting there was 6� inches of snow on the ground. Back home, her canary was keeping things lively. "This morning dad got up at 5 o�clock and turned on the electric light and it (the bird) began to sing," she writes. "Of evenings I�ve got to throw something over the cage or he�ll start up singing." Alice, who would become Jacksonville postmaster in 1928, writes fondly of the plants in the post office tended by then postmaster John F. Miller. "One thing that takes my eye is a beautiful lemon tree just simply crowded full of lemons," she writes. Yet all was not pleasant in Alice�s world. "Our postmistress Mrs. Miller died a week to the day before Xmas," Alice writes, later noting she had temporarily taken over the job for her husband because of his drinking problem. "Her baby and her both died, and the baby was laid in her arms and both buried together," she adds. "It made Xmas a very sad one . . . seemed as tho� everyone simply loved her." As they likely did a letter-writer named Alice. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.