Document text
Accession no.
Date received
16 //01V 6
Consignment no.
Shipped from
Label
Amount
1710
71?
WPA L. C. 'PELOJECI
Form -3
Title
UNIT
Collection (or Type)
CLIY24-10,44,40-714._
JA4a711) -Wt-tted4-/; ailtek
144-ern.avo..
Place of origin.Pao.-,Lkary Date .a1.249-7
Project worker_aa-A-4-1
Project editor
Remarks
W 1226
Form A
Circumstances of Interview
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Sara B. Wrenn
Federal Writers' Project
Works Progress Administration
Address 505 Elks Bldg., Portland, Oregon
Subject Pioneer Life and Personal Dream Lore,
Date January 12, 1939.
with attached articlej "Black i.e Among Indians and Pioneers."
Name and address of infermrint Minerva Theseing Oatfield
Oatfield Road, Oak Grove, Oregon.
Date and time of interview January 6, 1939
Place of interview Home of informapt at above address.
Name mid address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant Mrs.
Truchot, Oswego, Oregon
Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you None.
Description of room, house, surroundings, etc. Attractive, Comparatively
modern home, located on portion of donation land claim purchased by her husband
from the original holder, Capt. Orin Kellogg. The two-story dwelling sets back
from the highway (Oatfield Road) some two hundred feet, in a pleasant garden, with
vines climbing over the inviting verandah; a raw of big, old cherry trees stand
guard like soldiers along the walk. The surrounding acreage is farmland. A barn
and outbuildings for domestic animals is at the rear.
Inside, the house was comfortably furnished in the usual better -type
American manner, with a bright fire burning in the living roam fireplace, before
which a huge police dog and small Persian kitten stretched in cozy amity.
(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 FOLIURE STUDIES
Name of worker Sara B. Wrenn Date December 8, 1939
Address 505 Elks Building, Portland, Oregon
Subject Pioneer Life and Personal Dream Lore,
with attached article, "Black Magic Among Indians and Pioneers."
Name and address of informant Minerva Thessing Oatfield
Oatfield Road, Lake Grove, 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. Hanovarian German.
2. Yamhill County, Oregon, January 7, 1852.
3. Father, Johan Beinrich Thessing; Mother, Amanda Melvina Hardison.
4. Oregon always.
5. Public schools and home governess. Late 50's and early 60's.
6. Housewife, and as assistant to father, Dr. Thessing. Assisted in obstetric cases.
7. Fairly skilled as physician's assistant, though only training was that received
from father. Interested in writing, with some achievement in short story fiction
field some years since.
8. Joined Episcopal Church, but liberal as to creed. Member of White Cross
organization that was later merged into the Red Cross. Member of
grange. Always interested in civic affairs.
9. Small and slight, with masses of dark gray hair. Somewhat frail in ap-
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
Minerva Thessing Oatfield Form B 20
pearance, with evidence of past beauty of delicate type. Evidence of
considerable intellectuality, now slightly impaired by age.
10. A charming old lady, full of anecdotes of the past, whose daughter, Mrs.
Hart, was most helpful in furnishing information of the kind sought.
Form C Federal Writers' Project
Text of Interview (Unedited) Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker
Address
Sara B. Wrenn
Date December 8. 1939
505 Elks Bldg., Portland, Oregon
Subject
Pioneer Life and Persona Dream Lore
Name and address of informant Minerva Thessing Oatfield
Oatfield Road, Lake Grove, Oregon
Text: I was born in Yamhill County, but I remember when as a child my father,
Dr. Thessing, sometimes brought me to Milmaukie (near Portland) on his business
trips. Milwaukie then was only a pioneer post in the wilderness. There was the
old flouring mill, two saloons, two churches, two stores, etc. Along what was
Main Street hogs wallowed in the mud during the rainy season, and dried themselves
by rubbing up against the houses along the sidewalks; while the tinkle of cowbells
could be heard all night.
Many of the early foreign residents were opposed to spending money on
civic improvements, so anyone forced to be out at night carried a lantern to avoid
the holes in the planking and avert a broken leg. When Mrs. Seth Lewelling-of the
famous cherry family-- circulated a petition throughout the county, that horses,
hogs, and cattle should be kept off the streets, she was severely censured for doing
something considered as strictly a man's prerogative. Incidentally, among the
farmers there was a tacit agreement that the result of the petition would in no
-way affect the highways outside the city limits, and none of their wives signed
without their husbands' permission.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).
Minerva Thessing Oatfield Form C- 2.
With the establishment of the Lewelling nurseries, Milwaukie began to
develop a plaoe in Oregon's early history. It became a gathering place of various
cults and people of culture and progressive ideas, including those studying political
issues.
Back of that, I remember, the law was largely Judge Lynch. A shooting
scrape called for but three or four years' imprisonment, while horse thieves
were promptly hung if caught. Law suits were rare, and differences over line
fences were often settled by a .44 Colt, where one at least of the participants
usually lost permanent interest in corner stakes. (This is overstatement. Ed.)
Differences between man and wife were adjusted by calling in the preacher,
thereby avoiding litigation, alimony and a lawyer's fee. If one vented to talk to
somebody in Portland, he or she took a day off and vent there. With neither gas nor
ether, if you had a tooth pulled you sat down an a wooden bench and yelled to high
heaven from the time the pliers or "bullet mold" was inserted until the molar VW
out. I think my father brought the first dentist outfit into the country.
I used to help my father. With no training in the present day sense, I
knew as a young girl a lot about obstetrics. I've helped a lot of women through
childbirth. The only baby that did not survive died because of pre -genital trouble,
over which there was no human control. We had a big library, with, of course, many
medical books, and I was hardly able to read before I was going through those,
learning from both text and illustrations. Mother thought it was terrible, but
if
father said,f was so interested and could keep my knowledge without prattling about
it he saw no reason why I should not avail myself of his books. Be might have been
a modern father in his views.
The railroads came, and by and by the doctors, quack and otherwise.
People who had been always well began to be sick. Those who could afford it
vent to hospitals and had whatever they could spare out out or lopped off, as
the case might be. Those who couldn't afford it are still alive.
Minerva Thessing Oatfield Form C 3.
At that time Portland was a wide-open town. One-third of the downtown
buildings were said to be saloons, with accommodating rooms overhead. All
these places paid tribute, with little effort made to enforce the law. Every
onoe in a while a raid was made, and sometimes an old man or a Chinaman
too slow in reaching the back passage during the lengthy and benevolent rattling
of the door handle by the police were caught.
Men became rich and some became poorer. I knew Ben Holliday well, that
"wonderful old buccaneer of the West," whom Henry Villard describes as "coarse,
illiterate, boastful and cunning." He did not seem all those things to me. He
was very fond of his family. His daughter, Jenny Lind Nary, was a great friend
of mine. She had a 4600 gun, I remember, and I had a little old cheap thing, but
I could hit anything I aimed at, and she couldn't hit a barn door. She wanted a
title and her father bought her one, a little count from Paris. Then he gave her
a house as a wedding gift. In the building, Tudor and Gothic plans of architecture
were submitted, but Ben would have none of them. Tudor and Gothic might be all
right, he said, but he didn't know the firm and they shouldn't have any of his
money. Hull Squire had built his house, and they should build his "dotter's."
Finally, however, he was influenoed by Jenny Lind Nary and her husband and gave in on
the type of her husband's ancestral home, but balked at the old tapestries. "Tear
down those old rags on the wall; they are full of dust and they stink." Only after the
decorator had convinced him of their value in pounds sterling did he see beauty,
bragging often afterward about the artist chaps who came to see his gal's house.
Old Oren Kellogg, from whom my husband bought the 640 -acre donation land
claim, of which all this about us is a part, was a character. He had an irascible
temper. Once when he was sitting in front of our fireplace, examining his gun,
and looking down the bore, the thing went off. By a miracle neither he nor any-
one else was killed or even hurt. But haw he swore "Shoot, damn ye," he shouted,
"Shot your damned head off." He never seemed to realize he no longer owned the
place after selling, but muld come out with a crowd of men to hunt over the land,
Minerva Thessing Oatfield Form C 4.
exclaiming and explaining as he led them about, "This is damn fine land. I let
it go for nothing." And to my husband, "These are damn fine men --brought 'am
out to hunt and stay awhile --damn fine men all of 'am." They struck me as a
pretty rough lot, most of the time, and we certainly didn't enjoy his hospitality
of our premises.
Ed Kellogg, a younger brother was a sleepwalker. One never knew where he
might be encountered or what doing at night. Once he got up and in his night
shirt went out to the barn and saddled and bridled his horse. Then, leaving it
tied in the stall, he took his rifle and went down to the rail fence, a distance
of some four city blocks. And there he was found the next morning, sitting on
the fence, fast asleep.
That big kettle out there on the porch is one may husband's folks used
in coming across the plains, in 1860. It had a cover and a big ladle, but those
are gone. (The kettle is iron, about two feet in diameter and 18 inches deep, and
rests on four short feet). They used it for every sort of cooking over the camp-
fire, including bread -baking.
Yes, we used to dance a lot in early days. All square dances, and when
we had nothing else to keep time to, we clapped our hands in rhythm. Often we
used a comb with paper over it, in the manner of a Jews harp. If you were clever
at it you could make fair dance music. The children were put to bed, and when they
wakened and cried, the fathers and mothers took turns holding them, leaving the
other one free to dance.
Riding was one of my chief pleasures. I always loved a horse. We used
to have a stallion at home that was vicious about biting. A stable boy had
prodded it once with a pitchfork and it never forgot nor forgave. But it would
let me come in its stall and I would feed it a bit of my bread and syrup, keeping
the tidbit on the flat of my hand, as father taught me, and it would take it up as
Minerva Thessing Oatfidld Form C 5.
gently as possible, with never a nip.
MS used to attend revival meetings in the early days too. Probably we
some of us young folks --enjoyed them as much as the dances. Angelo and Peter
Hardison were two scamps. They would act as solemn and pious and maybe they
would be scheming all sorts of deviltry. Once when they were sent to meet the
preacher, and either set him on his way or bring him home-- it doesn't matter
much-- they got him ahead, out of sight: then in the dark they chased him up a
hill and pursued him, yelling for help, under the idea he was beset by highwaymen.
Later, to all intents and purposes, they reappeared an the scene and rescued him.
When shouts of "Glory to God" and "Amen" were shouting from all over the
room, and people were filing up to the mourner's bench, while the preacher was ex-
tolling everybody to "Came up and be saved", those two rascals would hold the hymn
book and sing the loudest of anybody, the gospel hymns of "Come to Jesus", or "River
of Jordan". "River of Jordan" always seemed to be in the only available aisle, and
everybody seemed to be wading down its length as they thronged to the mourner's
bench.
The old MoNary donation land claim is just down the road a short dist-
ance. The old house, the photograph of which I am lending you, was destroyed
only a few years ago. In the early '60s a murder was committed there that scared
the whole countryside. A woman named Mrs. Hager, two daughters and a son were
living in the house. They were supposed to have quite a bit of money hidden away,
at least the girls bragged about it. But as it transpired the son had taken what-
ever amount there was and invested it in a business elsewhere. Anyway, one day
when the woman, Mrs. Hagar, had been left alone, one of her girls come home and
found her out in the yard in front of the house, with her head nearly cut off. I
can see and hear that girl now, as she came shrieking down the road on her horse,
Minerva Thessing Oatfield Form C 6.
screaming that her mother had been killed. It was an awful sight, and everything in
the house had been turned inside out by the murderer as he hunted for the money. Even
the feather beds were pulled to pieces and feathers were everywhere. A number of
men were arrested, but it was years after, when amen was tried and condemned for
another murder, that he confessed to six, among them that of Mrs. Hagar.
To go back to the Kelloggs, you may be interested to learn that Capt.
Orin Kellogg, of the Kellogg donation land claim on which we are now, brought the
first Masonic charter across the plains to Oregon. It hangs today in Lodge No. 1,
at Oregon City. His first wife was an Indian woman squaws, we called them then.
They called her Old Lady Kellogg. She was quite religious. She died riding home
from church died sitting on her horse. It was said she must have been dead at
least fifteen minutes when they found her, quite upright on her horse.
A number of the first Kelloggs were buried out here in a little family
burial plot. Later they were moved, I think, to Lone Fir Cemetery. When the
bodies were disinterred the ground was very wet and water dripped from the boxes
that were placed in a farm wagon. It was a dismal sight --the loam -covered boxes
and the water dripping from then down through the cracks of the wagon -box. I for-
get haw many there were of the bodies. As the wagon behind its slow -moving team
moved along the muddy road, it passed a stranger who asked for a ride. The men
in charge were agreeable, telling him to climb in behind, which he did, and the
sight of the boxes roused his curiosity. He asked what was in them. When the men
told him he just gave one wild leap over the side of the wagon, and was gone. They
didn't see hide nor hair of him again.
Yes, I knew most of the pioneers. I have been an ardent suffragist all
my life, and all the women interested in that movement were friends of mine, among
them Abigail Scott Duniway and Doctor Mary Thompson. Both of these women were
pioneer workers in the suffragist movement. They worked hard too, but they never
Minerva Thessing Oatfield Form C 7.
got along together. Dr. Thompson was a very handsome woman. I remember once
when a group of us were standing talking together at a Chautauqua meeting at
Gladstone. Dr. Thompson was in the group. When Mrs. Duniway joined us, she
Dr. Thompson immediately drew apart, and Mrs. Duniway, with her keen sense of
satiric humor, murmered soto voce, "But she doesn't fail to turn her handsomest
side."
You ask about some of the oldtime homely duties of the housewife. I
never settled down to many of them if I could hire somebody else to do them.
Of course there was the soap -making, but that is done even today, only they can
buy the lye now, which was the slaw part. First there was the hopper, a crude
troughlike wooden affair, with a flat bottom, that could be of any size, and with
a sort of spout leading from the bottom at one end. If soap were made in the winter,
the hopper had a rude sort of top or roof, to keep out the rain. A. mistlike rain
would be all right, but a downpour would simply wash the ashes away, because this
hopper was for the purpose of making the lye. In the bottom of the hopper, straw
was laid and on that the ashes were thrown
water was sprinkled on the ashes from time
the spout into an iron kettle, created the
always oak ashes. Then, if in summer,
to time, and the residue, 'running from
lye. Anything but iron would be eaten
by the heavy strong stuff. When it would eat a feather it was considered strong
enough for the final process, the
able which was added from time
remember hearing it said that the
anything but maggot skins. Some
making day a long time.
In my long life of 87 years, I do not recall when I did
combining with grease any sort of grease avail
to time as long as it was eaten by the lye. I
lye made in that manner would absorb just about
of the grease used, you see, had been waiting soap
not have premoni-
tions. Not dreams, I was never fully asleep. Often they were more vivid when I
Minerva Thessing Oatfield Form C 8.
was ailing, and often they were of no interest to me.
One day a sister, who had been with me during a severe illness, left for
home. Her way led through a dense wood and my husband accompanied her. That night
I saw her horse tied to a tree, as it whinnied repeatedly for its mate. A heavy
rain was falling. These horses were not gentle, so I told of my dream. When my
husband returned he said my sister had laid the reins on her horse's neck while she
shook the oiled silk tied over her hat. Flapping out the silk scared her horse,
which instantly reared and threw her. She would not remount and my husband tied
the horse, leading his mount with her for the little distance that remained.
In the matter of the Hagar murder at the old McNary house r All the men of
the neighborhood were out looking for the murderer, while the frightened women and
children gathered at my house. Toward morning, tired out, I laid down to rest, and
at once a picture rose before me a framed picture of a rather good-looking, sandy
haired man. I spoke of this at the time to a friend, Mrs. Fanny Neal, who now lived
in Portland. Some years afterward my husband came home, bringing the Weekly Oregonian.
As he opened it I caught sight of the front page and exclaimed, "Why there is the
picture of that man I saw in my dream the night after Mrs. Hagar was murdered!" He
replied, "Never mind, I'm hungry (1 WAS placing supper on the table). You are always
seeing things." Presently he looked up and said: "Its the picture of a man who
was hanged recently, who confessed, among other murders, that of old lady Hagar. His
motive was robbery."
Another premonition is something I shall see as long as I live. One night
I saw a great ship rant asunder, break up and go down. I saw Elbert Hubbard and his
wife clasp hands and go to their cabin, but I did not hear what a survivor said of
Hubbard's wife's remark, *ffell..there seems to be nothing to be done." It WAS the
most awful scene imaginable. Just then my daughter called, *Flake up and turn over,
you have nightmare again." I described my dream but slept no more that night. Next
Minerva Thessing Oatfield Form C 9.
morning the world was horrified by the tragic fate of the Lusitania.
Still another premonition, which I think saved my life, occurred in
Portland at noon. One of my sons had married a second wife. I had never seen his
wife. I was walking up Rhone street to my son's house. It was a hot day and my
feet hurt, so I walked in the street near the curb. Suddenly, as if by an invisible
hand, I was jerked up on the sidewalk just as an auto whirled over my path. I knew
the first wife's walk well, and the Presence kept step until we reached her late
home, then I was alone. I returned to my own home to find my son and his lovely
bride there. Afterwards I told this incident to the first wife's children and
other relatives.
My father made a wide study of all physic forces. My mother, who chanced
upon some of my hidden poems and tragedies, pronounced me a little "queer", but my
father told her I had a triune personality, which in the "evolution of the soul"
completes the triangle connecting this world with the next.
Form D
Extra Comment
Name of worker
Address
Subject
Federal Writers' Project
Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Sara B. Wrenn
505 Elks 1310z.. rOrtlend, Oregon
P*
,Date January 12. 1939
Name and address of informant Minerva Thessing Oatfiell
Oatfiald BAAA- Oak fasara*
Comment:
Mrs. Oatfield proved one of the most interesting informants this
interviewer has yet encountered. An educated woman of educated parentage,
and a woman wtose avocation, if not her vocation, has been writing and
jotting down the incidents of a long colorful life, she has much to di-
vulge and relate. Due to her advanced age her mind wanders at times, skipping
from one highlight to another a handicap that was considerably lessened by
the enthusiastic cooperation and aid given by her daughter, Mrs. Hart.
Practically a day was spent in securing the foregoing material. More
is promised, whenever another visit can be arranged.
(See attached article "Black Magic Among Indians and Pioneers."
Published in the Oregon City Enterprise, August 19, 1937.)
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).
Form C Federal Writers' Project
Text of Interview (Unedited) Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Sara B. Wrenn Date January 12, 1939
Address 400 Elks Building, Portland.
Subject Black Magic Among Indians and Pioneers. (Published article.)
Name and address of informant Minerva Thessing Oatfield
Oatfield Road) Oak Grove, Oregon.
Texts
I have been asked to explain why, when hostilities broke out between the
whites and Indians, that we were never molested, although others all about us
were burned out, their stock taken and they were murdered.
Well, when the first drugs were brought to Oregon City, my father, Dr.
Thessing at once bought up all the arsenic, strychnine and other poisons, besides
leaving an order to let him know first if more came. This store sold the neces-
sities of life, such as whiskey and tobacco and doctor's supplies, of course,such
as quinine for use in this fever and ague district of dense timbered and undrained
land, with the old-time accompaniment of podophIin and gambage, calomel with all its
forms of mercurial treatments for disease among the ignorant, tomato -red squaatcalico,
and yellow bandanas, beadssetc.
POISON PUT OUT
On dark nights my father put poison in small bits of meat, scattering it in the
forest near our home. In the morning, the usual hordes of Indians came about begging
for a little Copia (coffee) or a bit of sugar or bread and molasses, While yet dark,
he would go out throwing up scraps of white/With scalps and ears of wolves scratched
upon them, would repeat terrific German words which my mother said sounded like a
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).
Form C Cont'd 2.
a witch's incantation, which he assured them it was, added that the same spell
would kill anyone who displeased him, but that as he had come to live among his
red brethern and loved them, that they need not fear him. Needless to say he
did not share his secret with anyone.
The chief of this tribe wished to make a peace pact with Dr. Osborne (see
Frances Fuller Victor's "History of the Indian Wars") proposing marriage with
his oldest son to the doctor's baby daughter, when old enough. This the doctor
contemptuously refused.
BETROTHED TO SAVAGE
The chief then made the same proposal to my father. My mother was horrified,
but father, foreseeing retirement to the reservations in the future, consented on
account of the risk in incurring the enmity of these resentful savages.
When the heir -apparent was brought over to look over we four little girls, two
dark-skinned with jetty braids, two fair, with blue eyes and long golden curls, true
Haaoverians, I fell to his choice.
The future bridegroom wore a necklace of bear claws, below a dirty face, with
eagle feathers in his unkempt braids. My brunette sisters did not attract him, they
were only squaws. So I was sternly taken in hand by my father as to my future be-
havior.
The bridegroom did not allow his little sisters to play with us, though they
might look on. In hot weather these little boys were attired in the simple costume
worn by our first parents in the Garden of Eden, but the little girls wore a bit of
skirt of old calico or inner fibres of bark, all seams in Indian sewing being folded
over and sewed down on the outside with thread made from deer sinews.
Form C Cont'd 3.
NATURAL AS PIGS
These savages were as natural as little pigs, but I never heard or saw one
do anything vulgar. This boy was called "Cub", as he was not yet old enough to
retire into the mountains, there to fast until he dreamed of something that would
determine his future name. He VAS about my own age of eight years, and one day
we raced our ponies as fast as they could go, playing mar and shooting into the
trees we were circling, he with arrows and I with an old Colt with blank cartridges.
He could shoot under his horse's belly with only a toe visible over its back a
feat I could never acquire, much to his derision.
This day he told me that when I was his squaw he would cut off my long golden
hair to fringe his buckskin shirt and pants. Even at that early age I had advanced
ideas of women's rights and promptly told him what I would do to him, fearless of
the beating he promised me.
One day they came to play and my mother gave us each a piece of sorrel pie, and
the young devil swallowed his whole, but offered to hold mine if I mould run in and
get him another one. This I did, but there was no more. He had gulped mine down.
INDIAN BOY CLAWED
I flew into a rage and left the print of 10 claws on his face, pulled his hair
and kicked him and pounded his face. He fought like a demon, with the disadvantage
of being taken entirely by surprise. My mother and a hired man rushed out and
separated us. They were much alarmed, knowing what the consequences might be, while
my flame went bellowing home. Indian boys never shed tears.
Soon my father came home and the chief and a following of braves appeared
demanding to know why I had dared to lay sacrilegious hands upon the son of a chief.
He was told the cause, and that I had been severely punished, and that white squaws
did not know any better.
Form C Cont'd 4.
My father hastily tendered the chief a bottle of the best bourbon (forbidden),
and treated the others with a half mat of black island sugar, and a couple of loaves
of home-made bread, thus the dawning difficulty was amicably adjusted.
The fate of these and many others, although not by warfare, nor reservation, I
shall write in a subsequent chapter.
(Published in the Oregon City Enterprise, August 19, 1937.)