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Ma Howlett loved to watch people eat By Bill Miller Jan 08, 2023 12:15 AM A A “Had a quilting bee the other day,” Sarah said. “I believe everyone in Eagle Point was here — almost. And, yes, I had them all to supper. Folks are jolly when you get them together that way, and I like to see them eat.” Sarah Elizabeth Howlett, known affectionately as “Ma” Howlett, was owner and cook of the Sunnyside Hotel. She and her husband had seen the need for a good hotel and opened its doors at the end of 1901. (I wrote about her husband, “ Alfred, and the kindhearted editor ,” in the June 12 column last year). Even after Alfred died in 1924, Sarah continued to run the hotel and cook meals for her guests and anyone else in the area willing to pay 25 cents a meal. “Maybe if I didn’t like to work,” she told a reporter in 1929, “I wouldn’t have done so much of it. But I was always happy working — especially cooking. … I can remember when I made my first batch of bread when I was just a tiny tot.” Born Dec. 31, 1847, in Missouri, Sarah was 4 years old when she crossed the Plains with her parents and two sisters in 1852. It was then she began her fascination with watching people eat. “I can remember many things that happened on the trip,” she said. “I remember the way they used to draw around campfires at mealtime. I used to sit and watch those big, husky men eat.” Before the family reached Oregon, her first brother was born and died in their covered wagon. The baby was buried near The Dalles. They settled on a land claim near Oregon City, where Sarah grew into her teenage years, and when she was 15, she met a Methodist minister, Alfred Howlett. They married July 16, 1863. After their marriage, they spent two years between Jacksonville and Grants Pass, before being sent to Yreka, California, where Alfred preached and taught school while Sarah took care of their growing family. In 1865, they returned to Southern Oregon for good. It hadn’t been an easy life, but Sarah would never complain. Before moving into Eagle Point, they spent 18 years running sheep and cattle on 900 acres south of town that would later become the Ala Vista Orchard. With Alfred always preaching, much of the work fell to Sarah, who worked harder than any field hand — 16-hour days of plowing, mowing, pitching hay, tending to animals and taking care of the children. A week before one of her 13 children was born, she was up on the roof of their home hammering down new shingles for half a day. She lived though the tragedy in 1881 of watching five of her children suffer with diphtheria and all die within two weeks. As she continued to reminisce with the reporter, the somber mood began to change, and a smile fought its way back to her face. “Of course, it wasn’t all sadness and hardship,” she said. “We had jolly times, too. There were taffy-pullings and the corn-husking bees and dances, too, and I cooked for all of them.” “Young folks now-a-days,” she said, “couldn’t stand the work I did, but they don’t have to. They’ve got other work to do. If they do it as well as we did — and as willingly — maybe they’ll live longer than we did.” At age 88, Sarah’s work was done. After her death, April 4, 1936, she reunited with her husband and eight of her children in the Antelope Cemetery. Writer Bill Miller is the author of six books, including “Spanning the Defiant Sea. Women Pilots Dare Atlantic Air.” Reach him at [email protected].