Document text
t.
Accession no.
W9669
Date received
10 /10/40
Consignment no.
1
Shipped from
Wash. Office
Label
Amount 6 D
(incl. forms
A -I))
WPA L. C. PROJECT Writers/ UNIT
Form -3
Folklore
Title River town life
Collection (or Type)
Place of origin..Partland,_._alligOR._ Date 3/28/39
Project worker Manly Manister
Project editor
Remarks
Form A Federal Writers' Project
Circumstances of Interview Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Darly E. Banister Date Mar 28, 1939
Address 2071 S. W. Park Ave.. Portland, Oregon
Subject River town Life
Name and address of informant
Joseph Brough
Treves Hotel, 11th and Stark Streets, Portland
Date and time of interview
-Place of interview
March 28. A.M.
Treves Hotel
Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant
Mrs. Belle Veatch. Rainier. Oregon
Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you None
Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
The hotel in which Ur. Brough lives is situated about two blocks from
the Elks Building on Eleventh Street. The informant occupies a single room,
very clean and neat and hung with nifty pictures, illustrating from left to
right, the acne of nudity in white skin. The place in representation of a
Chinese Paradise, with a very choice specimen of Indian extraction, clothed
with a feather in her hair. Very soothing.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
W9669
Form B
Personal History of Informant
OREGON FOLZDRE STUDIES
Name of worker Manly M. Banister
Address
2071 S. W. Park Ave., Portland
Subject River Town Life
Federal Writers' Project
Works Progreso Administration
Date Mar 28, 1939
Name and address of informant
Mr. Joseph Broup,h
Treves Hotel. Portland
Information obtained should supply the following facts:
1. Ancestry 6. Occupations and accomplishments with dates
2. Place and date of birth 7.
3. Family 8.
4. Places lived in, with dates 9.
5. Education, with dates 10.
Special skills and interests
Community and religious activities
Description of informant
Other points gained in interview
1. French-Canadian
2. Born in Michigan, Sept 12, 1879.
3. None
4. Came West in 189, lived in Rainier subsequently, and all up and
down the Columbia region of Oregon and Washington.
5. Education: I year of schooling at Castle Rock, and 2 years
following in Rainier. Went to work at age of 12.
6. Was a logger, greased skids to begin. First kid that ever
sold newspapers in Castle Rock. Carried shoeshine kit until 25.
orked for S. P. S. Railroad. Now conductor on freight trains
for same line.
7. 8. 9. Mr. Brough is a very large man with a bluff demeanor but
of jolly disposition. He looks French-Canadian, as he is.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
Form C Federal Writers' Project
Text of Interview (Unedited) Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Manly, M. Banister Date Mar 28, 1939
Address 2071 S. W. Park Ave.. Portland, Oregon
Subject River Town Life
Name and address of informant Mr. Joseph Brough
Treves H otel. Portland. Oregon
Text:
There were only two of us (dance callers) on the river in the nineties
who could call the "lancers" or changes. I did quite a bit of it --just about
every Saturday night. There were a number of different calls and I will have
to do a lot of tall remembering. I used to call for what we called the "whore-
house dance" in those days. It was a waltz --something like the shimmy nowadays.
lihen I was twelve years old I wont to work in a logging camp greasing
skids behind a bull team. I remember the fellows used to send me for foolish
things if they could, but sometimes I was wise. Like when they sent me into
town for a meat -augur. That was at about two o'clock in the afternoon, so I
just took the rest of the day off and let them think I was hunting. But I bit
all right when I was sent after a Ifcross-haul"--that's -where two skidroads came
together and cross each other.
Then I went to work in a sawmill and sawed ties for the A C road,
from Goble to Astoria. I also worked on the grade driving mules for that out-
fit...and heel I certainly got lousy in one of those road camps.
But about those dance calls, there was one call wont like this:
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).
Brough--Form C 2
First couple lead to right,
Birdie in the cage...
Three hands 'round...
Birdie hop out, craw hop in,
Three hands 'round.
You say that to the first couple while they go through the motions, then
lead on to the next couple until all four couples had got through. Then
there was another quadrille change that went like this:
Honors to the right,
Honors to the left,
Swing left hand lady,
And all promenade.
This one was sung while the first was shouted or chanted. Every other
dance was a quadrille in those days. The only dances we had were the
quadrille, round dance, Schottische, and polka.
In '98 it was the vogue to wear high collars of linen or cellu-
loid. They say the Weeses came out here with only a celluloid collar among
them, but they are certainly well fixed now, from money they made in the
logging business.
For music at the dances, there was generally a couple of violins.
Sometimes there was an organ, if anybody in the neighborhood owned one and
they could borrow it. They played the ordinary popular music of those days.
I remember once another lad and myself went down to a hopyard
dance at Olequa where a bunch of Indians had got together. Well, they asked
us to call for them, but I wouldn't do it. This friend of mine stepped up
and said, "All right, I'll call you a dance," and he started out:
Brough--Form C 3
fflFour bucks in the middle,
Four squaws outside,
The remainder of the rhyme is unprintable but was in terms clearly
understood by the Indians. Boy, we lit out of there right now, with
that whole band of Indians after us. They ',Imre plenty mad.
I used to fish down the river near Pillar Rock, Washington,
and I remember once they had an Indian funeral. In all that district
they could only find one white man who could read enough to read some-
thing out of the Bible, and it wasn't me. I didn't learn anything until
I taught it to myself after I was twenty-one.
They had lots of camp meetings those days, too. After the
preaching, there would be a dance, and this usually broke up in picked
fights --no gang stuff, it was man to man. It was what passed for fun at
that time.
Form D
Extra Comment
Federal Writers' Project
Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Manly M. Banister
Address 2071 S. W. Park Ave., Portland
Subject River Town Life
Name and address of informant Mr. Joseph Brough
Troves Hotel, Portland
Comment:
,Date Mar 28. 1939
Mr. Brough is quite willing to help, but somehow he says he
can't seem to get his remembering to work, because it was all a long
time ago. However, he says if he remembers anything he may think worth
while, he will jot it down and bring it into the office.
He gave me the following name of a retired Switchman of the
SP&S for possible railroad material:
Dan C. Cummings
2821 S. E. Franklin
(Address from City Directory)
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).