Document text
Date *4:
received
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Consignment no.
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Amount
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Form -3
Collection (or Type)
03-04.4,00NG
Place of Date
Project
Project editor_
Remarks
Form A
Federal Witeral Projeot
Circumstances of Interview Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker William C. Haight
Address
1225 SW Alder Street, Portland, Oregon.
Date January 4, 1939
Subject Girlhood Life In Portland, 1860-76.
Name and address of informant Miss Etta Crawford, Imperial Aims
Apartments, 14th Jefferson Streets, Portland
Date and time of interview December 26 and 29, 1938
Place of interview Miss Crawford t5 Apartment. 504.
Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant
Howard Corning, 400 Elks Building, Portland,
Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
none.
Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
The Imperial Arms, an apartment house, is a five -story, red brick, with white
marble columns. The entrance is attractively landscaped with green shrubs
natural to the Northwest. The hallway and foyer is in paneled wood. Attractive
and pleasant. Miss Crawford's apartment is a four room one, situated on the fifth
floor, near a fire escape. A small hallway leads into the "parlor." Windows open
out onto a balcony from this roan where several boxes for flowers are arranged.
This room is filled with furniture of the period of early Oregon history. The
furniture is an inheritance from her father and mother, who settled here in 1843.
of particular note is a chest of drawers. The color is a sort of burnished copper,
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, eaoh bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
W13915
Form B Federal Writers' Project
Personal History of Informant Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKURE STUDIES
Nana of worker William C. Haizht
Address 1225 SW Alder Street, Portland, Oregon.
Subject Girlhood Life in Portland, 1860-76.
Date January 4, 1939.
Name and address of informant Etta D. Crawforda Imperial Arms Apartment.
14th Jefferson Streets, Portland.
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. Plaoes lived in, with dates 9. Description of informant
5. Education, with dates 10. Other points gained in interview
1.
Miss Crawford is the daughter of Medorem Crawford, pioneer settler who came
to Oregon in 1842. Further back than this she refused to talk.
2. Demands and exercises the ladies prerogative of refusing date of birth, also
information that might give an approximate idea.
3. Her father and nether were married April 12, 1843 at the Mission House on
Mission Prairie. They moved to Wheatland, where her father had a farm. Their
son, Medoram was born there. He is supposedly the first boy of American parent-
age born west of the Willamette river. This son was later a Brigadier General,
stationed in Washington, D. C. He was a graduate of West Point. From Wheatland
her father and family moved to Oregon City, in 1845. Here, with his yoke of
black oxen he freighted goods around the Willamette Falls, establishing the
first public transportation system in Oregon. In 1852 he bought a farm, near
Dayton. There were 10 children born to this union. Six grew to maturity. Her
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
tad the number to which the material refers).
Form B cont'd 2.
father attended the meeting at Champoeg, May 2, 1843, when the Oregon pro-
visional government was organized. He represented Clackamas county in the
legislature of the provisional government, in 1847-48. In 1860 he was
elected from Yamhill county to the legislature. He was collector of internal
revenue from 1863 to 1868, and appraiser from 1871 to 1876. In 1876 he return-
ed to his farm near Dayton, Oregon, where he spent 16 years making this place
into a model farm.
Mr. Crawford was an active campaigner for the ection of Col. E. D.
Baker, to the United States Senate, from Oregon. In 1861 he went east to
visit relatives and on his way back to Oregon he was assistant to Captain
Maynadier, in charge of troops escorting emigrants to Oregon. In 1862 he
again went east, and President Lincoln appointed him assistant quartermaster,
with the rank of Captain. He was assigned to escorting emigrants across the
country.
4. She refused to give dates or exact places. In Oregon, North Central New York,
and Washington, D. C. were places mentioned.
5. Graduate of St. Helens Hall, in 1876. A remarkable, intelligent woman, with
little thought of the past and vivid interest in the present.
6. Refused to give any information. Vitally interested in politics and at one
time was a member of the Oregon Precinct Committee for the Republican party.
Occupation mainly, I presume, keeping house for relatives.
7. An economical housekeeper, and interested in symphony music, Pro -American
meetings, REPUBLICAN PARTY, politics, hates Nazis, Fascists, Communists;
tolerates Democrats because believesin liberty.
3. Community interest only political, mad only slightly religious.
Form B. Cont'd. 3.
9. Pert is the ward for Etta. Well preserved features with a lovely skin.
Brawn eyes that dance with the merriment of life. Approximately five -feet
four. Delicate hands and feet. Coquettishly tosses her head sideways and
looks at you smilingly. Spry, alert, intelligent.
10. Her philosophy of life can be summed up in two statements: "No matter haw
big the hurt, it's how you take it that counts"; and "Do the best you can,
with what you have, wherever you are". Her sense of humor is most enter-
taining. Thinks the youth of today lacks certain qualities that are necessary:
courage, fortitude, ambition. Glad that she doesn't have to start out as a
young person in the world today.
Form C
Federal Writers' Project
Text of Interview (Unedited) Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker William C. Haight
Address 1225 SW Alder Street
Date January 4, 1939.
Subject Girlhood Life in Portland, 1860-76.
Name and address of informant Etta Crawford, Imperial Arms Apartments.
14th and Jefferson Streets, Portland.
Text:
I have lived from the covered wagon days to the airplane. I think the
most striking manner of showing how far we have progressed is throOgh the mode
of transportation.
The idioms of the day when I WAS a girl were picturesque, colorful, and
to the point. Most of it, although not really vulgar would be better not
repeated. I insist on this right as a lady. (A few of the phrases she used
were quaint to my ears). She said that the trouble with people today is that
everyone has "a ditch to dig, and they have to dig it alone, and they won't do
it."
In speaking of a friend of hers who sold Bibles for a living, she
said, "he didn't have any more religion than a cat, but he always asked the
people's blessings before he started his sales talk." She described this young
man as "smart as a trap" In speaking of an early acquaintance, she said:
"I used to desk with her in school at St.
Helens Hall. Poor thing, she went out
because of death".... Next spring, she said, she was planning on going East to re-
visit friends and see the New York World's Fair, before "my toes are in the ashes".
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).
Form C Cont'd 2
Of course, the early social life in Portland, as far as I was personally
concerned, was rather limited. I WAS then a little girl, not more than fourteen or
fifteen. Of course, now it is different, but in those days a mother knew every-
thing that her daughter was doing. You bet she did, or else there was a plenty
hot time around the house.
For amusement we girls would have little parties. For the most part they
were informal. There was little elaborate entertaining although occasionally some
one would entertain for us elaborately.
I remember our parties used to consist mainly of kissing games, such as
forfeit, postoffice, and other such trash. You see, most of my family and friends
were Methodists, and they did not for the most part believe in dancing as an
,(entertainment. My mother did believe in it despite the fact she was a Methodist.
She rightly termed dancing as a good method of teaching her daughters poise, grace
and charm.
The dances we used to dance were the "Waltzing Quadrille", a beautiful
dance, and "The German". The German dance was an expensive dance. It called for
favors for everyone and someone had to call it off. There were elaborate figures
danced. Sometimes it would be around a Maypole with the favors tied on each
ribbon that was tied to the Maypole. Not often did we dance this one though,
because it was such an elaborate performance.
However, we waltzed and polkaed, and the strenuous but hilarious square
dances were always in high favor. Another dance, I can't spell it, I believe it
is French was called the Gavotte or something similar to that name.
To attend these dances, which were always given in private homes, we
always got a special invitation by card. The hostess would send her compliments
to you and invite you to attend. She mould always name a boy that would come and
Form C Cont'd 3
take you to the party, and mould see that you were properly escorted all evening.
We really didn't have dates. Mother considered we were too young. Rightly, I
think. I don't approve of this present-day manner of traipsing around half the
night. None of the boys that attended me to the dances were on calling acquaint-
ance.
I remember one boy took me home from a party. Finally we were getting
close to my house and I said this is where I live. "Is that so?" he said, obvi-
ously relieved of the necessity of having to take me any farther. "Yes", I said,
"it is the identical place." I was horribly distressed because I wasn't sure I
had used the right word. I simply could hardly wait until the boy left, until I
could find the dictionary and see if I had used the right word.
Some of the girls would get to go on boat trips, up and down the river;
but my mother felt that I was too young for such pleasure. The boys that could
have taken me wouldn't anyway, because they referred to all girls my age as "trundle
bed trash."
I don't remember any of the early superstitions that were going around.
Oh pool there were those about Friday, and crossing in front of a funeral train,
and such trash, but they did not play any part in my life. My family were a highly
practical group of people. They didn't pay any attention to such things. It's why
I don't have any imagination, I guess; we never heard fairy stories, or any of the
fanciful things of life.
I remember a joke that we used to get a great deal of fun out of repeat-
ing. It had to do with the early newspapers. You know, if you have seen them,
that the outsides were covered with advertisements of the patent medicines, and
patent articles from the outside world that had no connection with our life; most
Form C Cont'd 4
of it trash. Well, we used to say, that if we didn't like anything it was like
the newspapers, patent outsides and no insides.
Form D
&Ara. Conuaent
Federal Writers' Project
Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker William Baight
Address 1225 SW =or Street. Portland, Oregon.
Subject Girlhood Life in Portland, 1860-76.
Name and address of informant Miss Etta Crawford
,Date January 4, 1939.
Imperial Arms Apts., 14th and Jefferson, Portland.
Comment:
The informant is an utterly charming woman, active mentally and
physically. Her sense of humor abounds. She has an infectious lady -like
giggle that is often slightly smothered with one covering hand.
She is vitally interested in politics. Rather tolerant, because
she does believe in a democracy. Granted that it could function better with
Republican control, but that the Democrats have shown the may for the conserva-
tives.
She feels that America is now awakened to all of its dangers
foreign, domestic. Those Nazi spies, the Lima Pan-American conference, and
other such moves of the government, have given her a new lift. She feels that
America is again on the right road.
Her doubts are plentiful of the younger people's attitude towards the
world, but supposes they will work it out all right, though. Her nephew, obvi-
ously, is a white hope in that direction.
Her interest in the interviewer was keen. Her judgment on his career
was, "Well, everybody might as well hang up their fiddle, until you get this bee
out of your bonnet."
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).
Form D Cont'd 2.
She spends little time in retrospection. Although WAS rather de-
lighted with the opportunity, for a short while, to travel down memory lane.
But her past is lost in the rush of the present.
Miss Crawford has an intelligent approach to all problems, although
she has a lack of understanding of poverty, presumably because she has never
faced it.
She has few friends. Would rather spend her time listening to the
radio, reading the daily newspapers, and attending Republican party meets and
Pro -America meetings. Vitally interested in symphony music. Miss Crawford and
her neighbor have developed a system of acquainting each other with a good radio
program, when it is on. Without the effort of leaving the apartment and running
to the other's door, one of them will knock on the dividing wall. One knock means
one station, two another, and so on. This is convenient. She also has a set of
signals that provide for her neighbor down below. Sometimes she calls down the
commodities lift, to acquaint her lower neighbor of a radio program.
Her energy and activity is amazing, considering the number of years she
has obviously lived.