USA > Oregon > Oregon, pictorial and biographical > Part 26
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is now. We were there for study and we received the benefits by visiting the great hospitals and medical schools of the countries through which we traveled and attended their clinics. While in Munich we were being shown the masterpieces in castings. The guide opened the door and ushered us into a large circular room known as the Amer- ican department. The central figure was a heroic statue of Washing- ton on his great white charger, carrying the flag of his country. Around him were grouped the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and there was our martyred Lincoln striking the fetters from the black man. That sight, so beautiful, so real, so moving, was enough to stir the blood of the coldest American. For months I had not seen "Old Glory," and her bursting upon our view, floating over all, the images of all we held nearest and dearest on earth was too much for my impulsive nature. Forgetting time and place and oblivi- ous to all around me I rushed forward and fell upon my knees at the foot of the "Father of His Country," and gave vent to my pent up feelings of joy in exclamations of "Oh, My Country, My Country, My Flag." I was brought suddenly to my senses by the warning voice of Dr. Hill. "Mother! Mother! These people cannot under- stand one word of English and no telling what kind of trouble you will get us into." I sprang to my feet looking behind me expecting to see the gendarmes coming to take charge of me. Instead I saw a picture I shall never forget. The door was filled with great, broad smiling faces, showing more plainly than words that they thoroughly understood the situation and heartily sympathized with the loyal American. As we passed out they further showed their appreciation and approval by bows and smiles. Dr. Hill said, after passing out, "Well I never did see anything like it. Mother is always getting into scrapes but somehow she always comes out on top."
Dr. Hill became homesick before the trip was nearly ended, de- claring he would rather go home to his sweetheart than to see all the countries in the world. I gave him five hundred dollars and his return ticket and he lost no time in getting back to Goldendale and getting married. Upon reaching London I found many letters, one from a dear friend, begging me to come to her. I, like Dr. Hill, was homesick. Three years was a long time. When I landed in New York the custom collector demanded seventy-five dollars on my surgi- cal instruments which I purchased in Paris. I said, "I am a physician and these are for my own use. Here are letters from United States senators, governors, doctors, and the president of the University of Michigan. If you take my instruments I will employ a lawyer." He said, "You sit right here. You will have to pay that duty." He
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was gone two hours. He said, "Take your things and go on!" I speedily obeyed, glad to get out of his clutches. In a few hours I was on my way to San Francisco. On reaching Portland, I found a carriage waiting to take me to the bedside of a patient, as all pas- sengers names were telegraphed ahead. That was surely an auspi- cious beginning. I was delighted to get home and to get to work. My purse was depleted. I had but two hundred dollars left. Within twenty-four hours I had secured nice rooms over my old friend's, Dr. Plummer's drug store. A few days later a doctor whom I had known and greatly admired called upon me. His home was in Roseburg. He said, "I cannot succeed in Portland, I am going to sell at auction. I have many things you will need. Come to the sale?" "Why doctor, I have just come home. I have no money." "No matter, you can have everything I have without a dollar. You will soon earn enough." "But I do not know that." ""I do! I only wish I was sure I could make half as much. In less than six months you will be making six hundred a month." I was astonished for I knew he was in earnest and yet his prophesy came true. I had for so many years been struggling, cling- ing to the slippery ladder and fighting for an existence making head- way surely but so slowly that I could not realize that there was so much within my reach.
Hundreds of incidents might be recorded to prove my success dur- ing the next few years and words could never express the satisfaction and happiness it brought me. One morning a woman pale and trembling came into my office and said, "I have been sick for many years and the doctors say I cannot be cured. I have heard so much about you that I have come to see if you could give me any relief. We have paid out nearly all we have to doctors and I know if you cannot help me you will say so." Whom should this invalid be but my old Roseburg rival. I gave her a warm and cordial reception say- ing, "I earnestly hope I may be able to help you." I found her case ulceration of the bladder. I said, "I can help you. I will treat you for two or three weeks and then teach you to treat yourself and if you will follow my directions, I have faith that your health will be restored." With tears of hope and gratitude she said, "No one can or will be more faithful or obedient than I will be. When shall I come again?" "You are not able to come to my office." "But it is so far out to my son's and we are so poor." "That makes no difference. I am going to take you in my carriage and will go to your son's every day and treat you till you are ready to go home and don't you worry about my bill, either.". She broke down and said, "Oh, you are heaping coals of fire on my head; but I do want to tell you that I always had the greatest respect for you." "Now I do not look
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at it in that way. If you had not gone out to Roseburg and goaded me on by showing me how little I knew about millinery I might have been out there making poor hats and bonnets yet. A friend once said, 'If I wished you to be two and one-half inches taller I would attempt to press you down and you would grow out of sheer resent- ment.' So now you see my dear friend, you have been all along my good angel in disguise. I owe you a great debt of gratitude and I intend to repay it with interest," and I did. Her health was restored and from that hour arose a friendship between us that lasted till her death only a few years ago. We exchanged photographs.
When asked, as I often was, why I did not marry, I always replied, "I am married to my profession," and I was honest for I was in love with it; but the time came which is said comes to all that I was ready to add to my name that of another. Col. Adair and I were married July 24, 1884, in the First Congregational church of Port- land. The church was filled with invited guests, many coming from Roseburg, two hundred miles distant. When we left the church the street was filled with friends and uninvited people and as the carriage rolled by many called, "Good-bye doctor! Good-bye!" After a month in San Francisco and California we returned and I took up my work where I left off. At the time of my marriage my yearly income was at least seven thousand dollars. My husband was of a bright and happy disposition and optimistic, always among the clouds and rarely got down to terra firma. There were no shadows in his picture and my love of him knew no bounds. At the age of forty- seven I gave birth to a little girl baby. Now my happiness knew no bounds. A son I had, and a daughter was my great desire. For her my plans were all made. With her nurse I would take her on all my rounds. She should imbibe the love of the profession not only from her mother's milk but by constant association as well. She should have all that I possessed and all that could be added; but ah, how little we mortals know what is in store for us and well we do not.
"There is no flock how ever watched and tended But one dead lamb is there. There is no fireside how so e'er defended But has one vacant chair."
In 1898, being mentally and physically sick, my husband urged me to go to North Yakima, Washington, for the holidays with my son and his family. I went and the high altitude and change worked
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like magic. I confided my troubles to my son and he urged me to leave the farm and come up there saying, "I know you can make one hundred and fifty dollars a month and that is better than going behind that much." I said, "I will come." He smiled because he knew what that meant. When I reached home I said, "I have decided to go to Yakima. We will sell off all the stock, pay on the debts as much as we can and rent the farm." He looked at me in amazement saying, "My dear, consider well before giving up our home at our ages." "I do not consider that we will long have anything with a twenty-four thousand dollar mortgage at eight and ten per cent."
On April 6th we landed in North Yakima. In one week we were settled in four rooms and three days later I performed a one hundred dollar operation and so business came as of former years, and in six and one-half years I realized twenty-five thousand dollars from my profession alone.
In October, 1905, I retired from practice. I closed up my busi- ness, ordered my good horse, "Pride," hitched to my buggy and drove seventy-five miles to The Dalles over the mountain. My friends tried to dissuade me. Said it was too late and dangerous. I was not afraid and made the trip without a mishap and stayed two nights with friends. My whole trip home was a real pleasure trip, besides I made thirty-five dollars more than expenses. I retired from practice for several reasons ; first, that I might complete a book, "Dr. Owens-Adair -some of her life experiences;" second, that I might take up a work that had been near my heart, "The Purification of the Human Race Through Propagation by Preventing the Birth of Defectives through Sterilization."
For many years I held the office of heredity and hygiene in the state Woman's Christian Temperance Union and for over thirty years I have been working along those lines and now that there were thousands of medical women in the field I felt that I might step out without being missed and I could be free to devote my time to the work that few women would care to take up. In November, I sailed for San Diego, California, that I might be free from care and devote myself to completing my book. December 5th I arrived, found my dear friend of forty years on the dock awaiting me. We were soon in her cozy little wren's nest. I began my work at once, she doing all the typewriting and assisting me in many ways. When the book was all in manuscript I said, "Now we will take a few days for sight- seeing." I took a buggy and drove to Mexico and then to several beach resorts about San Diego, and gathered shells on California's lovely sea-shores. We saw the old adobe house where Romania,
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the heroine of that beautiful story was born, and many beautiful things in that lovely climate. Then I started for San Francisco, had a few hours with dear Mr. and Mrs. R. R. Monroe. Never did San Francisco look more beautiful. Next month, April, she was being consumed by quakes and fires. I was soon at my Sunnymead farm amidst chaotic confusion, neglection and destruction everywhere. The barn was unsafe and the house unfit for occupation. The rats made night hideous. My fine young orchard had not felt the pruner's knife for seven years. The big woodshed where so many cords of wood used to be stored was gone. The last board had been used for fuel. My beautiful lawn and flower beds were overrun with briers and brambles. The sight was sickening.
Had I not been inured to hardships and struggles all my life I should have succumbed, but "can't" has ever been unknown to me. There was but one thing to be done, to put my shoulder to the wheel and say "I will," as I had so often done. More than twenty-eight years have passed since I plighted my marriage vows. Many sorrows have been interspersed with the pleasures of my married life and dur- ing all these years I have been as active and determined as in my former life. I have never flinched from any undertaking and I hope I never shall, to the day of my death. But often during these later years I have looked back over my past life, not with a shudder but to gain strength and courage to meet the financial difficulties that had accumulated and threatened to engulf me. But let me draw the curtain and shut out all of the terrible ordeals through which I have passed during the last six years. Suffice it to say that I have lived through it all and still have my health, and my mind is unencumbered.
I have saved sufficient from the fortune that I had made to make me comfortable, with care, the remainder of my life. I have three lovely farms side by side, "Grand View," "Sunnymead" and "Park." The buildings are all within calling distance. I have reserved ten acres of my Grand View farm which contains a fine old orchard. Nature has made this one of her beauty spots for an ideal country. home. I can sit on my porches or look from my windows and see all that is going on over my farms. The county road runs six hundred feet in front of my doors, where everything goes on a beautiful macadam road. The lordly Columbia a mile away, in front, on which the traffic of all nations comes and goes. I can see every craft from a fishing boat to a war ship as it comes and goes to the great Pacific. At my right, five miles away is Astoria, the oldest town in Oregon. At my left, one and a half miles is Warrenton, Flavel three miles, Hammond four miles, and Fort Stevens five miles. Across on the
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Washington side is Fort Columbia, Fort Canby and Cape Disappoint- ment. Oh, what a grand panoramic picture! And this is my home where I expect to spend my days. And I shall try to enjoy everything as it comes and goes. I love to see the horses and cows as they come and go to and from their barns, the colts and calves as they play and feed on the green meadows. Just now I see fifteen pretty young pigs racing around in their lot near Park barn. There is a pretty stream full of fish winding along among my farms with the grass growing to its water's edge. There the ducks and geese love to swim, making love and raising their young. My home is surrounded with flowers and shrubs. Behind the house is a long wide bed, bordering the vegetable garden, filled with beautiful old-fashioned flowers, reminding me of my girlhood days and "mother's garden." Among these loves I hope to receive my friends. I am strong and vigorous. I can mount my horse from the ground and ride as of old. I drive one or two horses. My dear old Pride now past twenty, is sometimes as gay as a colt. He and pretty Lady are my drivers. They know when I take the reins and they obey my voice. I do so love them! Can I ever give them up for a mobile! Certainly not, for some time to come. And here in my home, surrounded with nature's own beauty and home comforts, I am prepared to vigorously prosecute my special work, now so well known as, "Dr. Owens-Adair 'Human Sterilization Bill of Oregon.'"
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Mr and Mrs. G. W. Washburne
Don. Charles dalesley Talashburne
ANY and varied are the interesting incidents in the M life history of Hon. Charles Wesley Washburne, who has twice made the long and arduous journey across the country from Iowa and the Mississippi valley to the Pacific coast. During the period of his residence in Oregon he has been closely and prominently identi- fied with agricultural interests and has become the owner of much valuable property, having today between two and three thousand acres of land in Lane county. He has also been a prominent factor in the public life of his community and has served from his district as a member of the state legislature.
Ohio numbers him among her native sons, his birth having occurred in Gallia county, September 13, 1824. His parents were Robert and Eve (Roy) Washburne, the former of English descent and the latter of Wales. According to the laws of England, an elder brother, Isaac, inherited all of the grand-father's property, leaving Robert, the youngest son, without patrimony. He crossed the Atlantic, made his way to Ohio and afterward settled near Springfield, Sangamon county, Illinois, where he died in 1840, having for about a year sur- vived his wife who passed away in 1839.
C. W. Washburne was reared in the states of Ohio and Illinois, and in 1849 when twenty-five years of age joined a large company en route for the gold mines of California. They selected for captain one Ikenberry, who had crossed the plains to Oregon in 1847. They passed over the Missouri river at St. Joseph and on reaching Blue river thought they saw buffaloes, but on nearer approach these proved to be Indians who ambushed the company. The white men scattered, agreeing to protect themselves as best they could and capture as many Indians as possible. As the red men approached they talked to them and told them they were a large company. The Indians seemed peaceful yet camped that night a short distance away with the inten- tion of killing the party, but fearing that there was too big a company they did not risk an attack. While hunting near Chimney Rock Mr. Washburne killed an antelope and, cutting out the hams, threw them over his shoulder and started back to camp. The morning being warm he had left behind his coat but ere he reached camp a terrific hail-
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storm came on, pelting him unmercifully. At length he laid aside his gun and meat and started on a run for camp. Arriving there he found that the storm had caused the teams to stampede and that the axle of Captain Ikenberry's wagon had been broken, which caused the party to lay by until a man passed carrying an extra axle which was purchased. The oxen were recovered two or three miles away and some of the party also went back for the antelope meat upon which they all feasted.
On one occasion the Ikenberry party was passed by a company with horses and fine equipments and big wagon beds, being supplied with stoves. Their supplies had been shipped thus far by boat. The company called "good-by" and laughed as they passed the Ikenberry party, who, however, said that they would see them again. In a couple of weeks they overtook the company who had cut their wagon beds down and lightened their loads. It was now the turn of the Ikenberry party to call out "good-by" and ride on. For the second time they were passed by the other company and then once more it was their turn to ride on in advance of them. By that time they had abandoned their wagons, previously cut down to two wheels, and packed their horses. On this occasion some of the company joined the Ikenberry party, who found them whole-souled, honorable men and to one of them Mr. Washburne sold a horse on time, receiving the pay after they arrived in California. The party proceeded over the trail of the Mormons and on reaching the Sierra Nevada mountains a number of the young fellows thought they would climb to the highest peak and look over into the Sacramento valley, but when they had scaled the heights they saw mountain stretching on mountain as far as the eye could reach. After building a fire they made tea, ate their luncheon and ran all the way down hill to camp. They then proceeded over the long moun- tain range, the way being at once so difficult and steep that they had to lighten their loads. At length they reached Hangtown and after- ward Sutter's mill, whence Mr. Washburne and his partner Mr. Mor- row proceeded to Sacramento where they sold their oxen and wagons. From Coloma they proceeded to the middle fork of the American river and in the middle of the stream began digging until their heads were almost under water and they had to give up.
Mr. Washburne next joined some old acquaintances and began mining in Humboldt canyon in the north fork of the American river where they found a pot hole, but after spending thousands of dollars did not meet with success. The Indians killed their pack horses while wintering on Canyon creek and prices were so high that sugar, flour, coffee and hay were sold for one dollar per pound. They next
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went to Grizzly canyon and in the fall of 1850 took a steamer from Sacramento to San Francisco from which point they proceeded by a sailing vessel toward Panama. One of the interesting incidents of that trip was that a whale followed them staying close by the vessel. Their progress was so slow that they changed their plans, continuing by the Nicaraguan route making the overland trip in a stage, which was a two-wheeled affair, the wheels being cut from logs with holes bored in for the axles. The covering was of rawhide and the stage was drawn by two yoke of oxen, one driver sitting in the front of the stage and punching the animals with a spear while the other held the leader rope. They proceeded across Lake Nicaragua in a sailing vessel and when on the opposite side hired two natives to take them down the San Juan river. On the lake trip they passed the first steam propelled boat that navigated on Lake Nicaragua which was being brought up the river by Americans and when the steam failed they would pull the boat with ropes from the bank. At that stage of the journey Mr. Wash- burne became ill with a fever and against the doctor's advice proceeded on his way, the sea voyage, however, restoring his health. After arriving at New Orleans they became passengers on the steamer Wide West. At St. Louis the ice was running in the river so that they could not proceed farther and then bought a wagon and team, driving to their home in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.
Mr. Washburne's intention was to return west the next spring but decided to spend a year at home and during that period there occurred an event which had to do with his whole after-life. At a spelling con- test held between the Bradford and Washburne schools Catherine Stansbury and her sister Ann both carried off the honors, Catherine spelling down her sister at the last. On that occasion Mr. Washburne formed her acquaintance and on the 23d of November, 1851, at Pleas- ant Hill, they were married. Mr. Washburne then purchased a farm but was not content to remain in Iowa and after a year sold his prop- erty and outfitted two wagons for Oregon, one of which he turned over to his sister Jane and her husband, R. S. Roberts. His eldest brother, James W., also outfitted two wagons so that they brought all their relatives with them excepting one sister who died soon afterward.
On the 21st day of March, 1853, the start was made and after traveling through Iowa and Missouri they crossed the Missouri river on Sarpee's steam ferry below St. Joseph. At Elk Horn river they were delayed by high waters and at the Platte river were in a terrible storm of hail and rain, the water standing a foot on the ground for more than an hour. They burned their tent poles for no other fuel was obtainable and that night slept in wet beds. To cross Wood river
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the men lashed two wagon beds together to serve as a ferry, and the women washed and baked, and sunned the loads. They passed many little prairie dog towns and as they proceeded they saw many graves along the way that had been dug up by the coyotes. When near Chimney Rock the eldest child of Mr. Washburne was born and the daughter was given the name of Ruth Ellen. After leaving the Platte river they were nearly choked by sand and alkali dust and when they reached the Sweetwater river they, indeed, thought it an appropri- ate name. In that locality they passed snow near which they picked lovely flowers, resembling cypress. The hills were very steep and on the descent they had to hold the wagons to keep them from upsetting. On a fork of the Bear river the crickets proved a matter of great curiosity to them, the ground being literally covered with them. They were of a red color and as large as mice. The Indians dry them, pound them to a powder, mix them with berries and bake this for bread.
In camp on Snake river the party were in want of good water yet over on the opposite side they could see clear springs of water pouring over the banks from under-ground rivers. At Devil creek the Indians attempted to stampede the cattle and got away with an ox. The next morning Mr. Washburne was looking for it, standing up in the stir- rups, he saw an Indian whom the white men surrounded and captured, but they could get no information from him and on being turned loose the fellow started away as hard as he could run. They continued over the old route and on the highest hills looked down in the Grande Ronde valley where they could see the Indian camps. At Umatilla river they bought the first corn and potatoes at an Indian garden and coming to an Indian agency saw the first house in two thousand miles. They proceeded over the Cascade mountains by the Barlow route and in, going down the steepest mountains tied trees to the wagons while Mrs. Washburne led the horse and carried the baby. On reaching the Willamette valley they saw trees weighted down with red apples and it seemed to them a paradisiacal spot. They proceeded up the valley to their claims two miles west of what is now Junction City, arriving November 9, 1853. Within a week's time Mr. Washburne had cut and hauled logs from the banks of the Long Tom river and had a roof on his little cabin into which he moved his family. That night it began to rain and never ceased until the waters had risen from the foothills to the highest ground. Of both parties crossing the plains with Mr. Washburne in 1849 as well as in 1853 there is now no one living but himself.
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