USA > Oregon > Oregon, pictorial and biographical > Part 23
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On June 8, 1856, Mr. Lee was united in marriage to Miss Marilla Huntley, whose birth occurred in one of the central eastern states. Her father was among the pioneers of Oregon and crossed the plains with ox teams in 1847. Her stepmother died during the journey
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and is buried near Willow Springs. By the father's first marriage nine children were born, of whom Mrs. Lee is the only one now living. By his second union was born a son, who is now living on a ranch on the north fork of the Coquille river. Mr. and Mrs. Lee became the parents of four children: Sylvia C., who passed away in the twentieth year of her age; Alva, born January 12, 1859, who is now managing and operating the home farm; Milton R., of Myrtle Point; and one who died in infancy.
Since her husband's death Mrs. Lee has disposed of his harness shop and given the homestead over to the managment of her son. She herself has bought a very fine home in Myrtle Point and is now living in that district, where she is well known and widely respected.
Politically Mr. Lee gave his allegiance to the republican party and was always intelligently interested in the affairs of his com- munity although he never sought public office. He was a member of the Christian church and an active worker in religious circles. He labored diligently during his life and his efforts were rewarded by continuous and rapid success. Since his death others have followed where he led the way, and the agricultural resources of Coos county have gained by his activities, and his many friends in the district are richer by the memory of the life he lived.
B. A. Owens-Adair
Dr. B. A. Owens-Adair
R. B. A. OWENS-ADAIR (Autobiographical). I D was born February 7, 1840, in Van Buren county, Missouri, second daughter of Thomas and Sarah Damron Owens. My father and mother crossed the plains with the first emigrant wagons of 1843, and settled on Clatsop plains, Clatsop county, Oregon, near the mouth of the great Columbia "River of the West," within the ceaseless roar of the mighty Pacific. I was then very small and deli- cate in stature and of a highly nervous sensitive nature and yet I possessed a strong and vigorous constitution and a most wonderful endurance and recuperative powers. These qualities were inherited, not only from my parents but my grandparents as well. My grand- father Owens was a man of exceptional financial ability. He owned a large plantation in Kentucky and had many slaves and many stores throughout the state. He was a grandson of Sir Thomas Owens, of Wales, of historic fame and my grandmother was of German descent. Small in stature but executive, she took full charge of the plantation in my grandfather's absence which was most of the time. She was the head of her household as well. Everything came under her capable control. She was the mother of twelve children. All grew to matur- ity, married and went on giving vigorous sons and daughters to the young and growing republic.
My grandfather Damron was of equal worth. He was a noted Indian fighter. He was employed by the government as a scout and spy during the wars with the Shawnees and Delawares. He per- formed many deeds of bravery and daring. He killed that noted Indian terror "Big Foot." He shot him in "Cumberland Pass;" but the most daring feat of bravery was his rescue of a mother and her five children from a band of Shawnees. For this the government pre- sented him with a silver mounted rifle valued at three hundred dollars. Grandmother Damron was of Irish descent and noted for her great beauty.
My father was a tall, athletic Kentuckian, served as sheriff of Pike county for many years, was appointed as deputy at sixteen. It was said of him, "Tom Owens was not afraid of man or devil." Mother was of slight build but of perfect form. She weighed ninety-six
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when married at sixteen. Mother inherited her father's courage and bravery. She was the mother of twelve children and lived to have passed her four score years and ten (ninety). Brother Flem was my constant companion. He grew rapidly and soon overtook me in size; but I was tough and active. Not until I was twelve did he ever suc- ceed in throwing me. One day he came in with a broad grin on his good-natured face and said, " 'Pop' told me to go to the barn for two bundles of oats for the horses. Now the first one down will go for the oats." Instantly the dish cloth was dropped and we clinched. I had noticed for some time that he had been gaining on me but I could not take a "dair" and he had not yet thrown me. Round and round the room we went, bending and swaying like two young saplings, till seeing his chance he put out his foot and tripped me. I fell and my mouth struck on the post of a chair which broke off a piece of one of my front teeth. Poor brother picked up the fragment of tooth, burst out crying and ran off for the oats. He had just learned this new accomplishment in wrestling which he had kept secret from me to his life-long regret, for in those times and parts dentistry was almost an unknown art. It was eighteen years before I could find a dentist who could repair the injury. Dr. Hatch, of Portland, did the work for ten dollars. I was more than glad to have the ugly gap filled with shining gold. It remained for thirty-five years and was perfect when extracted. I have saved it for a souvenir in remembrance of that particular tussle with my good brother, not the last by any means. We were constant companions and I was a veritable "tom-boy" and gloried in the fact.
It was the regret of my life up to the age of thirty-five years that I was not born a boy, for I realized early in life that a girl was ham- pered and hemmed in on all sides, simply by the accident of sex. Brother and I were always trying our muscular strength, and while in my thirteenth year I bet him I could carry four sacks of flour, two hundred pounds. We placed two sacks on a table and two on a box and I stood between. Brother placed a sack on each of my shoulders and then I managed to get the remaining sacks, one under each arm. Then while he steadied the two on my shoulders, I walked off triumph- antly with the four sacks.
In the year of 1847, after the Whitman massacre, my father was preparing to go with the Clatsop volunteers to fight the Indians. When all was ready and father stood in the midst of his weeping wife and children, a Mr. McDonald, who was working for father, stepped forward and said, "Mr. Owens, I am a simple man! I have no one to care for me but I am poor. Give me your outfit and money
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for my expenses and I will go in your place." Yielding at last to the entreaties of his family, father finally consented and Mr. McDonald went in his place, but he never returned. He was killed. We have always remembered him gratefully, believing he might have saved our father's life. At least he gave his own freely.
I was the family nurse and it was seldom I did not have a child in my arms and more clinging to me, when there was a baby every two years. There was no end to nursing, especially when mother's time was occupied from early dawn till late at night with inside and out- side work, she seldom had time to devote to baby except to give it the breast. When the weather was fine we fairly lived outdoors, I haul- ing baby in its rude little sled or cart, which bumped along and often bumped baby out but which seldom seriously hurt and never killed. With a two-year-old on my hip and a four-year-old clinging to me to keep up or more often on brother Flem's back we went playing here and working there during all the pleasant weather. When it rained we ran to the barn where we could swing, play hide-and-seek and slide down the hay mow. Many times I have carried the children to the top and with baby in my arms and the other two clinging to me we would slide to the bottom, to the great delight of all.
I was fond of hunting hens' nests and usually found them. One afternoon I crawled under the barn. I knew there were eggs there. The ground was hard and smooth, and near the barn floor about the center, I found a nest full of eggs. I squeezed under so I could reach and gather them in my apron. I could not turn around so I began to slide out backwards when passing a sleeper a knot caught between the waist-band of my dress and the first button. Try as best I might I could not get loose. Brother was waiting outside and when he found I could not extricate myself he ran for mother. Father was away from home and mother knew the only way to release me was to break the button hole. Lying there on my face, wedged in, I could not reach the button or break the button hole. The big barn was full of hay which would have taken several men at least a day or more to get down to the middle of the barn and to have tunnelled under would have taken as much time. Mother told me to push myself forwards, sideways and backwards, with all my force. After a long time I suc- ceeded in tearing out the buttonhole. As soon as I got clear of the sleeper I reached back and unbuttoned all my buttons to make sure I did not get hung up again. Now being free, I soon backed out to freedom, bringing my eggs with me. That was not the last time I crawled under the barn for eggs; but I had learned a lesson and I
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never went into a tight place like that again without preparing myself to leave all my clothes behind, in case I got hung up on a knot or peg.
When I was twelve years old, a teacher came to teach a three months school for our neighborhood. His name was Beaufort. School-books were very scarce. Sometimes whole families were taught from one book. All children over four attended school. Chil- dren did not remain babies long in those days, when other children came so fast to crowd them out of the cradle. Boys and girls of fourteen and fifteen were expected to do a full day's work on the farm or in the house, and the younger ones were taught to be helpful and to take care of themselves. The teacher was a fine, handsome young man. He kept himself clean and neat and trim and did not seek the company of the young men of his age, and they naturally disliked him. He boarded at our house and we children walked two miles to school with him daily. He was very kind to the children and they were all very fond of him. He would often take two or three little tots or as many as could hold on to him and then run races with the larger ones, to the great delight of the youngsters who thought they had won the race. I simply worshiped my handsome teacher who taught me so many things. He taught me to run, to jump, to lasso, and to spring upon the horses backs, all of which I greatly appreci- ated.
One time there was a picnic at our house, it being the largest and best house on Clatsop. The young men began to joke and guy our teacher about his white hands. He took it good-naturedly, but finally said, "I will bet you two hundred in cash, my watch and chain and all I have against one hundred and whatever you can put up, that I can dig, measure, and stack more potatoes than any man on Clatsop." This stirred their blood and touched their pride and they accepted his challenge. He was to dig, measure and stack, sixty bushels of pota- toes in three stacks in ten hours, he to select the ground. My father said to Lagrand Hill who was then working for him and whom I married two years later, "My boy, take my advice and don't fool your summer's work away! I have been watching that young man for three months. He is as strong as a bear and as active as a cat;" but like the others he needed no advice. He bet his watch and two hundred sheaves of oats on the issue. Mr. Beaufort selected Mr. Jewett's potato patch, near the county road. The day before he staked off the ground and smoothed off the spots on which to pile his potatoes. The day was bright and beautiful. Everybody was there, including Indians. It was a genuine picnic. Everybody came provided to stay all day and see the fun. The hour being near at hand, the teacher removed
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his coat, vest, and long, blue, handsome, Spanish silk scarf and hung them on the fence. Suspenders were unknown in those days. He then loosened his leather belt and taking off his boots he encased his feet in a pair of handsome beaded moccasins, then draw- ing on a pair of soft buckskin gloves over his soft white hands, he picked up the new hoe from which he had sawed off about half the handle and stepped to the middle of the plot. When the time keeper called the hour, he took off his hat and made a graceful bow, and stepping across a potato hill, with a foot on each side of it, with two or three strokes of the hoe he laid bare the potatoes and with both hands scooped them into the half bushel measure. It did not require more than two or three hills to fill the measure. Then with two or three elastic leaps he emptied it on one of the places. For two or three hours he kept the tellers busy, then he took it easy and laughed and joked as he worked, and finished long before night. That was a red letter day for our handsome teacher. He had raked in watches, rings, scarf-pins and about all the spare money the young men and some of the old ones had. After he had finished he turned several hand springs and when he reached the fence, he put his hands on the top rail and sprang over and that was a revolution in potato digging on Clat- sop. All the whites dug with a long-handled hoe and the Indians used a stick or their hands, crawling along on their hands and knees. That was a good lesson to the Clatsopites. He left in a few days and we never heard of him again, but his memory is always fresh in my mind.
He was in my young, crude and barren life, a green, flower-strewn oasis, with a fountain of cool water in its midst. I was but twelve years old, small, perfect in form, health and vigor. Brother Flem towered far above me and sister Diana, "The Clatsop Beauty," was taller than our mother. My love of my handsome teacher knew no bounds. Sister Diana said I was always tagging him around and mother scolded me saying, "You ought to know that he must get tired of you and the children sometimes." But I found many opportunities of being in his society and I always improved them, especially as mother was so over-worked and she was glad to be relieved of the care of the baby and two younger ones. Taking my brood, I would seek out my friend who invariably met us with a welcoming smile for he had learned to love the two tiny girls and the big fat baby, who returned his affection. He would catch up one of the older ones, toss her above his head in such a way that she would rest across his shoul- ders with her little arms around his head and then he would take baby and hug her up, and taking the other tot under his arm we would be off
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for a race and how we did enjoy it. The children would scream with delight and my own happiness was no less deep. Often we went to the field where my father was cultivating or ploughing, and many times did he lift me lightly to the back of the near horse and handing me the baby and seating one of the others behind me, with one on his shoulder he would walk beside with his hand upon us to keep us from falling. Father liked him too, and was always glad to have him with us. It was a sad day when he left us. First he bade father and mother good-bye and then the children. He snatched up the baby from the floor, tossed her up and kissed her. I was trying to keep back my tears. He smiled down on me with his handsome blue eyes and said to mother, "I guess I'll take this one with me!" Mother said, "All right, she is such a tom-boy, I can never make a girl of her anyway." He took my little hand in his and I went some distance down the road with him. Then he said, "Now little one, you must go back. You are a nice little girl. Some day you will make a fine woman; but you must remember and study your book hard and when you get to be a woman everybody will love you, and don't forget your teacher, will you?" He gathered me up in his arms smiling and kissed me and then set me down with my face toward home. I ran back and seeing the children on the fence looking, I ran around back of the house in the garden and hid and cried a long time. Of course they all laughed at me and oftentimes when I was rebellious and wayward, which was frequent, I would be confronted with, "I wish the teacher had taken you with him," to which I never failed to answer promptly and fervently, "I wish he had too."
About this time a Mr. and Mrs. McCrary moved in on the adjoin- ing farm. Their little home was just beyond a pretty little grassy hill, not more than a quarter of a mile away. I did not like the man but I fell in love with his tall splendid wife. She was older than my mother and very different from her. She was tall and fair but not pretty in form or face; but she was one of the most beautiful and admirable characters I ever met. To me she was beautiful, for I loved her always. No child could have loved a mother more than I loved this pure, noble woman. It is said that love begets love, and surely it did in this case for she returned my love with a true mother love. She was not blessed with children of her own. This affection remained unbroken through her long, subsequent life of nearly fifty years, and now looking back I can realize that the lovely example of her beautiful life has had much to do in molding my own and I doubt not that of many of the characters of those around her. They had but two small rooms, scantily furnished, but everything was immaculate and she with
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her hair combed smoothly back, her white kerchief pinned smoothly. over her bosom and with her kind words, sweet smiles and sweet and winning ways, was a fitting and charming mistress of her spotless, little home. My mother was a neat and tasteful woman; but she said Mrs. McCrary always looked like she came out of a bandbox.
I always managed to visit my friend once a day and often several times. Whatever might be my task, I would finish it as soon as possi- ble that I might slip off and fly to Mrs. McCrary's. It did seem like flying for my feet scarcely touched the ground as I ran. I received many scoldings for running off, and was told that grown up people did not want to be bothered with children; but unless I was positively forbidden I went. She always seemed so glad to see me and had so many pretty and pleasant things to say to me that it was no wonder I loved her. She seldom visited and never gossiped. She was a reader, but books and papers were scarce in those days. She always treated me as if I was a little lady. She would say, "Your visits are just like bright, sparkling, refreshing sunbeams to me." If a button was gone from my dress or apron, a pin went in and she would say, "Now that looks so much nicer." Sometimes she would say, "I am going to comb out those lovely braids of yours." She would take down my hair, which came half-way to the floor, and then the little glass from the wall, holding it that I might see how pretty it looked, waving over my shoulders, saying, "We will just wait a while, it makes you look so like a fairy." Sometimes she told me fairy stories while she taught me to knit, crochet and sew, all this time talking and draw- ing me out, correcting my mistakes, with such delicacy, that my super- sensitive nature was never wounded. She infused such a charm into everything she did and said, that I was not only interested, but anxious to learn. She impressed upon my mind in the most positive language just how the things should be done and showing me by example, and having me assist when possible and always excusing my blunders. If she was making biscuits, she would have me stand by while she showed me every step. "Now you take so many cups of flour, so many cups of milk, so much butter, so much salt and sugar for so many persons and when you knead the biscuits, be sure and do not get the flour too near the edge of the board or it will get on the floor and you must stand a little back or you will soil your apron. Do you know I have seen women who would wear an apron all the week and then it would not be as mussed as that of some women would be in one day. Some women have a place for everything and keep them in place while some women keep their things haphazard and never know where anything is. They make themselves a great deal of work, and have a
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harder time. You will never be that kind of a person, for your mother is a good house-keeper." Was it any wonder that I loved that wise, good woman? I was as wax in her hands. Could I have been under her influence till I reached maturity instead of one year, I could and would have escaped many hardships and sorrows of my life.
After many years I returned to Clatsop and heard that Mr. McCrary was dead and Mrs. McCrary was spending the winter in Astoria. I went at once to see her. Oh, what a joyful meeting was ours and with what interest and emotion did we recall and rehearse the past! She was the same grand woman. Hardships and griefs of which she had suffered many, seemed to have made her more lovely and saintly. She said, "Well, I am getting old and you are young and fresh with the bloom and beauty of womanhood upon you; but I can see much to remind me of the little barefooted girl who brought me so much pleasure the year I lived near your father's," and she laughed heartily. Again we parted and years came and went. I became a physician, married, and went to live on my "Sunnymead" farm, on Clatsop. One dark night a messenger came with a lantern saying, "Mrs. McCrary is suffering dreadfully with an abscess. Would I go?" "Yes, by every fond recollection, by every tie of grati- tude and affection, yes, I will go." A walk of a mile and a half over the rough roadless tide land brought us to the Lewis and Clark river where horses were awaiting us, then a three mile ride brought us to our destination. I administered an opiate and lanced the ulcer, applied a hot poultice and hot water bag and she was soon comfortable. Then she said, "How good God is to send you to me in my troubles. I do not regret my suffering so that it brought you to me. Now I want you to get right in bed with me. I am ashamed to be so selfish not to let you sleep in another room after such a hard trip; but if you had given me a bushel of opiates, I could not sleep. I am so hungry for a good long talk." "Do not think you are depriving me of anything, for I am as anxious as you for such a talk," and we did talk from 2 A. M. to breakfast time, living over much of our past lives from my early childhood. A few years later she came to Clatsop to visit friends who owned my father's old donation land claim. While there she was attacked with pneumonia and for a time I despaired of her life. She calmly said, "I know my time has come! I am ready and anxious to go. I have lived beyond my usefulness. You are doing all you can and I do not blame you; but I feel that I ought to go now." But her time was not come. She recovered and went to Portland to live with her adopted son whom she had raised from infancy. I saw her there frequently.
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In 1899, just before moving to Yakima, Washington, I called to say good-bye. On seeing me she arose to her feet and met me with her heart warming smile. "I see you are reading the Oregonian," I said. "Yes, I spend much of my time in reading. If I could only remember what I read. My memory is just about half across the floor. You see that is about the length of it." "Never mind your present memory," I said, "your past will not desert you, and the good you have done in this world will linger long after you and I have been laid to rest." The pleasant and cheerful way in which she alluded to her loss of memory illustrates the wonderful charm and beauty in which she invested life, so that all its rough, unsightly and annoying features were sure, under her sunny way of presenting them, to become less disagreeable and often charming. To me her examples have been helps and blessings throughout my life. That was the last time I saw that grand, noble woman, one of God's masterpieces. Her walk in life was lowly; but sunshine and flowers followed her and illumined her pathway. No one came in contact with her without being made better.
An amusing occurrence took place when I was about thirteen. Father had a little, ugly Welshman working for him. This man had been trying to make love to me for some time and notwithstanding my scornful rejection of his attention and positive rude treatment of him, he persisted. One morning I was washing. In the room under the stair-way were several barrels, half-filled with cranberries. That little imp, knowing I was there and watching his opportunity, slipped up behind me as I was stirring down the clothes with a long broom handle. He threw his arms around me and hugged me and tried to kiss me, then jumped back and laughed triumphantly and tried to escape by the open door; but like a tiger I leaped between him and the door and gave him such a whack with the broom handle that he staggered and rushed under the stairs and plunged his head in the cranberry barrel, thus presenting a fair field for the strokes which in my fury I laid on thick and fast with all the strength I possessed. He screamed and mother hearing the disturbance ran down stairs and had to actually pull me off by main strength. When I got his head out of the barrel he sputtered and stammered and could not utter a coherent word. In towering contempt I exclaimed, "You little skunk, if you ever dare to come near me again, I'll kill you."
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