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Form A
Circumstances of Interview
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Federal Writerst Project
Works Progress Administration
/Tame of worker Howard M. Corning Date May 24, 1939.
Address Project headquarters, Elks Building, Portland
Subject Life and Fo1kways of the Old Aurora Colony
--.1%=,
Name and a:Mress of 3rformrL7It Mr. WilliaM Kralle
Aurora, Oregon
Date and time of interview itE 9 12, in the afternoon of each day.
Place of interview Front porch and side -yard pf hisApzejaaea,_
Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant
Mi._22bart J.Hendrioka4Aragon_;Aataamon, Saiam, nreenu.
Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
First visit.
Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
A small red -brown bungalow built probably twenty years ago on the site of
the old Kraus pioneer house burned down. The house, which stands in the edge of a
cherry orchard, with several barns and a wood lot behind it, faces toward the north
and the roadway. Between the two a wide ravine g-llies the property; the visitor
entering by the front gate reaches the house by crossing a badly weathered board-
walk bridge, none too secure. A very gorgeous pink English hawthorns tree was
in bloom in the side yard when this interview was made. The property is situated
about a half -mile west of the business center of Turora, in rolling farmlands.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
Form B Federal Writers' Project
Personal History of Informant Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker
Address
Howard M. Corning
Elks Buildinz;, Portland, Oregon.
Date May 15, 1939
Subject
Life and Folkways of the Old Aurora Colony.
Name and address of informant William Kraus, Auroras.Donald Road, Aurora, Oregon.
Information obtained should supply the following facts:
1. Ancestry 6. Occupations and accomplishments with dates
2. Place and date of birth 7. Special skills and interests
3. Family 8. Community and religious activities
4. Places lived in, with dates 9. Description of informant
5. Education, with dates 10. Other points gained in interview
1. Father, Michael Kraus.
2. Missouri, 1855.
3. Three married children.
4. Missouri until 1865; Aurora until 1878; Prineville until 1882; Aurora since then.
5. Bethel, Missouri, and Aurora colony schools.
6. Farming, entire life.
7. Formerly played French horn in old Aurora Band.
8. Public spirited; no longer religious, as formerly.
9. Has every typical old German characteristic, white-haired and kindly of
eye. Converses in very good English with few German idioms. Walks slowly
and is slightly stooped; about five foot seven inches in height.
10. Thinks well of his forebears but is not particularly lauditory of the "old
times." Be speaks with a slight German brogue.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
William Kraus Form B page 2.
Our biggest occasions, while Keil was living, was oelebrating his
birthday and the Fourth of July. We'd have music and dancing and big picnics
at the park. Sometimes we danced at the park and sometimes at a hall down near
where the drugstore is new. Keil's birthday was above our biggest time. That
was on March 6. We'd have lots of singing.
We had a good music leader. Professor Finck, yes. That's his old plea'
up there on the slope. Can you see the roof there through the tress? It has the
original shingles on it yet. It's in pretty bad shape now. You know his son
Henry was a great authority on music. BO was art. Yes, I remeMber him.. Hs
went to Harvard.
We had another good music man, Ehlen. My wife was one of his girls.
Eli Keil's sister married one of his boys. She lives at Canby --have you seen
her? She's older than Eli, she aught to be able to tell you some things you want
to know.
No, I don't seem to think of much right now. There used to be plenty
of standing water around here in the winters. When we dug the millrace back of
my place, that carried some of it off. Then we have tiled a good deal of the land
around. When they first started to tile I didn't think it would do any good, but
it did. It takes some of the water off just as soon asit falls and if there is
any left standing it keeps taking that off; it doesn't stand in the ground the
way it used to before we had the tile. The Colony had a dam back of my place a
ways, you know; that was for the millrace.
In those early years there was a stage route through town. They had a
station here. They had a station every twelve miles; there was one at Salem, at
Gervais, here at Aurora, at Oregon City, and then Portland. They changed horses
at each place. The stage made the run from Portland to Salem in a day and always
stopped here at noon. People, as well as the stage drivers, liked to eat here.
That was all changed when the railroad came through.
William Kraus Form B page 3.
No, the mail route didn't go through the lower part of town. It vent
over the hill there back of Finok's place, a little to the northwest. We walked
up there for our mail.
The religious life of everyone here was in the hands of Dr. Keil. BB
directed it. When he died it died. Yes, we've always been Republicans hereabouts.
No, there was no distillery; we didn't make liquor.
You see, I came here after the colony was pretty well established. Then
as I say, I vent to Prineville in 1878 and when I come back everything was changed,
the colony life was gone. So I don't remember much about it. You ought to talk
to Ws. Beck, over in town; she knows. (Note. Ws. Beek had already been questioned,
but claimed that her memory was failing her so badly that she scarcely remembered
any more. She refused to talk.)
The old buildings over town? There's the old newspaper office, and the
house across from Arthur Keil's store. You have pictures of those? Well, let's
see. Oh, that big building on the east side No, that wasn't a store. (Chuckle)
That was Keil's old ox barn. The Hurst's have a trucking service there; they fixed
one end of it up for a residence.
Well, if you come back may be able to think of something else, I don't
know what.
sEcar INTERVIEW, Why 12.
I don't remember any German medicines that we used. The Doctor (Keil,
undoubtedly) used a little machine; he put in on the arm here (forearm); it pricked
the skin. It WAS used for most everything smallpox, different things. Oh,
don't know what it MOS called. I don't think it had an American name, the German
name was wschr;pfen machine. I don't know that it drew the blood, but they used it
a lot.
William Kraus Form B page 4.
Yes, there were some shops in the old colony. There was basket weaving.
My wife's father Henry Ehlen handled all that. Be did lots of weaving. They
wove with oak splints. I can show you a bushel basket he made. Vie use it for
a kindling basket, we've used it for fifty years. Wait, I'll close the door.
You go on around. I'll show it to yqu.
See it there in the woodshed? They don't make them that good any more.
About 15 years ago a fellow came through selling some he had made. We bought
three of them. But they are all worn out now. This one is still good. qilen
made all sorts of baskets.
Yes, the colony made their awn clothes and furniture, and I guess they
had a glove factory.
You're right, the earliest school was held in a little building up in
the colony oark. But that was a private school, mostly for the Keil children.
The public school was built later. I went to the public school.
No, I don't remember just when rural delivery came; later than in the
eastern parts, I know. After 1900.
I don't recall hepring Eli Keil tell that story (see 71i Keil irtor-
view for incident of German and Irishman at time of building of railroad). But
I know old Balladay used Chinese workers when he first started grading for the
tracks. You can see the grade he started at the back of my place, only 300 or
400 feet from here, in those trees. It was too law and below high water. Be
had to begin all over, building higher up. Later there were some other naticn-
alities worked, but I don't know what ones. aell, I remember there was an
accident to a work train just north of town once. The oars were spilled over
into the ditch and some of the crow were killed. Maybe they were Greek, I don't
knew; the way they talked was all Greek to me.
Yes, in those days we all worked the roads. All the able-bodied mon.
William Kraus Form B page 5.
If you were under 50 years you had to work two days each year. Then there was
a pole tax of $1 for each man, I think. Besides that you were taxed $1 for each
$1000 of property assessment.
Mieh I could tell you more about the colony. It's no secret with me.
Form C
Federal Writers Pro,-; ect
Text of Interview (Unedited) Works Progress Adminis-urFsidon.
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Date
Vey 24, 1939
Address___projaot_aosdvaru.rol_Ake_stttuutttr_perb"2tft__
Subject Litm-and-Eakmaig-a-tha-0241-J4~4,Agony.
Name and address of informant
Text: FIRST I-:'nRVIEN, May 9.
If you would ask me a few questions-- just what it is you want to know
maybe can tall you some things. Early oustoms? Well, I remember as a boy we
youngsters used to ride horses for pea threshing. The peas were thrown an the
ground and the horses tramped the peas out with their hoofs. One fellow
threshed on his barn floor but mostly it was out on the open ground. No, I don't
remember what kind of peas they were. But we boys enjoyed it.
Yes, my parents were members of the Aurora Colony, but I was born baok
in Missouri. My folks came to Oregon in 1865, so you see they came later than
the first colony members. I attended the colony school. I remember we had wn
old professor. But he made a mistake in his teaching. Be taught German all
morning and English all afternoon. German was all right to talk to our awn people
but everybody around us was talking Entlish. That didn't give us a right chance.
aim I got older I joined the Aurora band. You know we had a fine band,
fine music here. I played a cornet. I don't know what became of it, I went to
Prineville in 1878, just after Dr. Keil died, and when I came back in 1882 the
band had broken up and things were badly scattered. don't know who got my horn.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).
D
EL:tril Comment
Name of worker
Address
Subject
Federal Writers' Project
Works Jay e6ress LArAinistration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Howard M. Corning ,Date May 24, 1939
Project Headquarters, Elks Building, Portland
Life and Folkways of the Old Aurora Colony
Mr•Wiam
Name and a,dres ina'ormmt lli Kraus
Aurora, Oregon.
Comment:
The informant is tho oldest living member of the old Aurora Colony,
a full and detailed history of whioh is to be read in the book "Bethel and
Aurora," by Robert J. Hendricks. Growing into manhood in the latter days of
the colony's existence, Er. Kraus grew out of interest with colony life at the
time of the death of its founder and leader. Moving away for a time, he came
back to Aurora after the colony, as a comcnnal enterprise, had been discontinued.
His viewpoints, therefore, seem unbiased and objective; he is a realist, not a
romantic. At 33, he is genial. Life has not ill-used him.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).