Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Melrose Family History’

Working Man Blues

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 24, 2015| 10 Comments »

A little less than 99 years have passed since my great uncle was living in the Willamette Valley and trying to put himself through college. 1916 was a rough year for finding the right temporary job, and so he missed out on a semester. He detailed his struggles in missives to his parents back “home” in Wisconsin.

Wages, board, and “hospital fee, of course”…

001

Eugene, Ore. Nov. 18, ’16

Dear Folks,

           I didn’t write last week because I didn’t know where I would be by the time you would get the letter.

          I am going up in the mountains near here to work in a saw-mill. The wages are $2.00 per day and board is $5.00 per week with a dollar hospital fee, of course.

         I worked today for Harvey’s and made a dollar putting in wood. I can’t begin before Monday at the mill, so I am not going out until tomorrow afternoon.

002

      I noticed that the old maids have gone out of business. I guess they couldn’t run the place without my help.

       I saw Longworthy in Portland and he told me that Jim Hess was married to a widow who had a place near his homestead. He told me last summer that he intended to build up his place. Queer way to do it though.

       The University is a lot larger this year than last. Prof. Reddie isn’t there any more. He is with some theatrical company now – I think on Broadway.

      How much money could you let me have on a 20 year endowment life insurance policy? I understand that they go at nearly face value. There will have to be some scheme like that if I get through much more school, I guess.

     While I was in Portland I looked around for a job. I found some good propositions but they wanted a permanent employee. The Y.M.C.A. offered me a job teaching German and superintending dramatics, but I would have had to have waited a couple of weeks for it, and they wanted me to work there the full year. The ship yards wanted men at 32 cents an hour as soon as their lumber came, but that meant waiting too.

003

     Garfield Johnson is working for a wholesale grocer firm. He gets $75.00 per month for 9 hours work per day with Saturday afternoons off and two weeks vacation per year on full pay. That is pretty good for a kid!

       I had a letter started to you while I was in Portland but I wont send it now. I wasn’t feeling good and it sounds too blue.

       My address will be the following.

Dale D. Melrose

Mabel,

Ore.

Read Full Post »

Canada to Camas

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on October 21, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Fall of 1916 could best be described as the term Dale Melrose, 21, took off from college. It wasn’t from lack of trying to find work, as evidenced by his letters. He had a strong work ethic, but the work wasn’t there. If it was there… well, I’ll let him tell his own story, in his own sarcastic voice.

001Portland, Ore. Nov. 2, 1916

Dear Folks,

     Well I got back again and am feeling a lot better than I did in Canada, except for a cold in my lungs. It is raining a nice drizzle here so I hope to get over my cold soon.

    That trip to Canada was not very profitable after paying what I owed and my fare down here, my total assets amount to about $60.00. If I cannot get a good job <lasting> until after Jan 1st, I cant see how I am going to go to school.

002

   I will dig in from now on and try to make enough to carry me by working again. By that you can see that I have made nothing by my trip, in fact I have lost. I could have gone to school at the first of the year and by working, could have made it after a fashion. This way I lose a whole semester.

    I have signed up on a job in a rock quarry down the river. The fare from Portland is $.25 by boat. Pay is .30¢ per hour and board is $4.75 per week. I ought to make a little on that job by Xmas. I will keep this letter until I find what address I will have Saturday Night.

    I came up to the quarry yesterday and we got there about six oclock. About 1/6 of us were shipped out and we wanted supper. They wouldn’t give us any, and worse still, they put us in a bunk house that was full of “crumbs”. We left within 15 minutes and came to Camas which was only 3 miles away. Three of us got work on the streets here and the rest beat it.

003

   The wages are $2.50 for 8 hours. Board and room will come to about $6.00 per week. I may stay if the weather stays good, but it is time for the rains now so I suppose I cant make much.

   Dad maybe you think that the Oswego job we had was a bad one, but this quarry has it skinned so badly that there is no comparison.

    This is a great life. I’ll never make a school stake at this rate.

    Write to me here. I may be here a couple of weeks.

Your son

Dale D. Melrose

Camas, Wash.

 

Read Full Post »

Dale Becomes a Dishwashing Expert

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 6, 2015| 1 Comment »

0012

Tonight, as I transcribed Dale’s letter, I began to hear his voice: the Mid-west “twang” and his sense of humor seem to emanate from him. His folks are still in Portland at the time of this writing (my brother pointed out that they probably traveled by rail and so did not go through Walla Walla to visit Dale). The First World War is still five months away and a world removed from Walla Walla and Dale.

 

“Prentiss Hall, March 13, 1914

Dear Folks,

    I got your letter this morning and will answer right away. I hope the weather has warmed up some back there, because the cold is liable to bother you when you get home.

   We gave the German play last night and afterwards went to Kroesche’s house and had a feed. I had a fine time, because they all talked German and told stories about the old country. I got an invitation to come up to Kline’s this afternoon. I am going up you bet. I have a notion to get him to give me a little special work in German if I can arrange it reasonably.

    I have a job for a week or soagain (sic) at St Paul’s School again. I am pretty good at dishwashing now. I do not have to spend so long a time as I used to. The grub is not great stuff, but I manage to live on it somehow.

    I am getting along good in Greek, and German. I had right to get about 90% in each one. Math is going good this semester, and Physics is fine; I worked a problem the other day that no one had worked alone for three or four years.

    Psychology Class has not met for a week, but I think I got about 90% in the test we had at the last meeting. English is all right. I must make a speech next time on the subject: “The Freshman’s reading of poetry”. Bible is really better under the sub. professor than under Drexy(?) as far as facts go, but I guess Penrose does make it more interesting.

    I didn’t get any suit, and I am going to try and get along without one this spring, as money is no common thing around this neck of the woods. I don’t know how money gets away so fast, but everybody seems to have the same trouble. One guy from Boisey who lived her for a while spent close to $200.oo between the 1st of Jan and the 1st of March. I guess that is going some eh? He wasn’t a frightful sport either, but he had most of us outclassed.

    Well don’t work too hard when you get home. I will be back before long, and I will show you how to wash dishes. I hope you will write soon, and tell all the news. I must quit and go down to dinner at the school.

Dale D.”

I could not find a good list of professors at Whitman College* in 1914 (I’m sure there is such a thing) to verify the names Drexy and Penrose (there is a Penrose Library). Kline’s and Kroesche’s are also hard to track down. However, I was able to tie down what St. Paul’s was: St. Paul’s School for Girls.

*I have a friend whose husband works at Whitman College and I shall be emailing her to see if he has any insights on these names.

I wonder how it went over when Dale returned to the homestead and fulfilled his promise: “I will show you how to wash dishes.”

Read Full Post »

Whitman College – Dale’s Next Adventure

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 4, 2015| 1 Comment »

002001I know where Dale went after the summer of 1914 – he enrolled at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. His correspondence back home to the family in Wisconsin picks up in February of 1915, and includes a report card. Postage was $.02.

Prentiss Hall, Feb. 27 1915

Dear Folks,

I suppose you are just starting for Portland when you get this. You can write to me before when you get my next letter so that I can tell where to address the following ones. I suppose you will stay at Meridean until you can go home though. You will have lots of sport telling yarns to the folks back there. All I want to go back to that country for is the fin I can have telling yarns to those folks.

We are having fine spring weather up here. I guess that winter must be about over with. You will kind of miss the Oregon spring when you hit the East in a snowstorm wont(sic) you?

I will send the card back now that I have the averages.

Whitman won the championship in debate over the University and Washington State College last night by two unanimous decisions.

Tell John that he is going to learn German next summer. I have several german(sic) books that fellows have given me and I think that I will get grammar a great deal more firmly in mind by teaching it to someone else. John can learn a foreign language a great deal better and easier now than he can later.

Well I hope you have a good trip, and that you do not get home in the middle of a blizzard. I must close now and write to Brown.

Dale Dale Melrose

Dale was five years older than John. He would turn 20 in March of 1915; John (Grandpa Melrose) would be 15 a few months later.

My curiosity is piqued as to why the family is traveling to Portland, Oregon, when Dale is in Walla Walla, Washington. There were no freeways, but surely… Walla Walla is eastern Washington and they would not be so far away if they took US 30 across. Conversely, if they took US 10 and than 295 south from Spokane, they would go right through Walla Walla.

NatlPtoP_1927_mapOf course, I am overlooking that they were probably traveling west to visit Uncle Ern, my great great grandmother’s brother.

Read Full Post »

1912 Letters from Dale

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 3, 2015| Leave a Comment »

The letters from 1911 and 1912 amount to four total. The bulk of Dale’s letters were written from 1915-1917. All I have from 1912 are a letter and a postcard and the postcard isn’t even from Dale. There’s nothing from 1913, and only one letter from 1914.

001002“Newberg, Ore. Jan, 18, ’12

Dear Folks,

       I just got your letter this morning and will answer right away, though I suppose you have got my card long ago. I have got exempt from tests again so I get two half holidays. I bought a raincoat the other day from a fellow here, it is a good one and I got it cheap it only cost $(?).50 and he had to pay ten dollars in Portland for it about two months ago. The botany is all right but I cant use it in school for the state course is taken in an all together different books and of course you can’t use any other.

Say do you think that I had better drop Latin as it is not a required subject unless you intend to graduate and the only thing that it helps is to learn other languages such as French, Spanish, Italian and the like, which after you get Latin it is no trick at all to learn them.

Some of the guys around here have got the habit of coming up to my room when I am out nd getting in through a window or through the door with a pass key just everlastingly stack bedclothes and stuff around, they never break anything but, if I ever catch any of them up here I will teach them a lesson, maybe I will set the Marshal to watch it. It sounds funny to hear about 30 and 40 below when you can run around in your shirt sleeves and see green grass and vines, moss and stuff. I am coming good with my music I can play quite a few tunes on her already. Uncle Ern has a chance to trade his place here for a farm in Missouri and is thinking pretty strong of doing it if he can. Well I will have to quit for this time,

Dale Melrose

P.S. Write and tell me what you think about Latin. D.”

I do believe he really means botany in this letter, unlike the previous letter.

I think the cost of the raincoat was $5.50, but it’s hard to make out.

I especially love his comparison of winter in Newberg vs. winter on the Melrose homestead in western Wisconsin!

003

No. 5 AUTUMN SCENE IN CITY PARK MEDFORD ORE.

ON “THE ROAD OF A THOUSAND WONDERS”*

(Image was altered to go with the note on the back of the postcard, below

004

Postmarked: Mar. 14, 1912, Medford, Oregon & Mar. 18, 1912 in Caryville, Wis.

Mrs P.G. Melrose

Caryville

Wisconsin

R.F.D.

“The little girl marked X is Vivian on her way to school~taken in Dec. We are looking forward to seeing you this summer. I have been working since Sept. but will probably be through by May. With best wishes (???)

I’m not sure who the postcard is from or why it is in this collection. A cousin? A friend? I did look up the “Road of a Thousand Wonders” and it was “the route of Union Pacific & Southern Pacific from Omaha to San Francisco.” overlandrouteto00compgoog_0003(Found in Internet Archives)

I do know that “Uncle Ern” was Mary Brown Melrose’s older brother, Ernest Linwood Brown.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts