Historical image courtesy of EOU's Pierce Library A photo from the collection of Glen McKenzie shows mail being delivered by horse and buggy.
News Contact: Laura Hancock
541-962-3585 | lhancock@eou.edu
Story By: Stephanie Brookhart | Journalism Intern
16 June 2009
LA GRANDE, Ore. (EOU) - Rural eastern Oregon's vast, rich heritage is being shared first-hand with members of the community through the voices of longtime residents. Eastern Oregon University's Pierce Library has added an oral history database collection to its archives that includes recollections ranging from trading with American Indians to the arrival of the first automobile in Union County.
Oral histories are interviews documenting actual experiences conducted and recorded by a historian. The historian is responsible for verifying and analyzing the content and putting it into proper historical context.
A substantial undertaking by Eugene Smith, former director of the "Union County, Oregon History Project," to collect and record a collection of 179 oral histories has been underway for more than 30 years. An English professor by trade, Smith was bitten by the history bug while teaching at the University of Washington where he researched and published a book, "Montlake: an Urban Eden," about the community he lived in.
Upon retirement, Smith and his wife Marsha moved to La Grande.
"My wife grew up in Union County," Smith said. "By the time we decided to retire here and after I published my book, I was primed to do more history work. Oral histories are really important. People are dying off and taking all of these great memories with them."
Thus began the formation of the "Union County, Oregon History Project."
"We had two goals for the project," Smith said. "First, we wanted to do as many oral histories as possible, and second, we wanted to create a community encyclopedia. The second part of the project proved too much for us."
Students from EOU participated in gathering interviews for the main project, which concluded this year.
The project is funded by a grant obtained by Smith from the Meyer Memorial Trust. Additional funding, including in-kind donations, came from Pierce Library, the Union County Cultural Trust and the EOU Foundation.
Smith donated the collection to Pierce Library in March 2007, but he began making the recordings in the early 1970s. Newspaper clippings, photographs and the recorded interviews have now been captured and digitized. Transcription of the recordings is ongoing and a test website has been developed by Pierce Library to make the content available online. A project with this large scope involves not only obtaining the recordings and transcribing them, but dealing with copyright issues, gift deeds, developing a database and indexing material as well.
Sharon Porter, an assistant professor of education at EOU, undertook the project as part of her masters studies in library science through Southern Connecticut State University. Prior to teaching in the College of Education, Porter worked at Pierce Library as a library technician. Through her work and studies, Porter began the development of the database as a digital library.
"I can't remember when this project first captivated me," Porter said. "I have never been interested in history, but as I studied digital libraries I came across many regional collections of history. It clicked that those projects could serve as models for putting all the information gathered by Dr. Smith into digital form and open to the public to see and hear."
Porter worked with Pierce Library staff using several different software structures in order to convert the audio interviews from analog to digital format and then writing hypertext markup language to allow for the audio to appear with the interview in text form. Photographs were scanned, then associated with each record and tagged so the database would recognize keywords users type in.
"I am still very passionate about this project," Porter said. "It says a lot about the regional commitment made by Pierce Library and EOU in preserving and protecting this collection for future generations of this great valley."
The project is still a work in progress. Karen Clay, director of Pierce Library, said the work is gradual.
"We rely mostly on volunteer labor to add to it," Clay said. "Our staff will be involved as time permits, but that time is limited."
Clay also said that although the database now is centered on the oral histories, there are a number of local historical materials, additional photographs in particular, that will be added to the collection over time.
The database is a wealth of information that uses personal accounts to record the lifestyles of residents in the early 1900s.
Some of these voices include Bessie Knapp, who was interviewed in 2002 at the age of 98. She regales the weekend dances held at the old Hoffman dance hall on Morgan Lake Road.
Jeanette Baum, who was interviewed in 2003, gives a detailed history about the origins of Stange Manor, built in 1924 by August and Priscilla Stange. Baum and her husband, David, were the second owners after the Stanges and raised their family in the home.
Gerda Brownton shares her razor-sharp memories of Hen Party trips, Great Decisions club meetings and the activities of several more civil, social and educational organizations she was involved in during the 1930s and later.
Recollections of contacts with American Indians in the area are common threads throughout the histories. Louise Dodson remembers her father trading with tribes as they passed through or camped at the family ranch.
A detailed first-hand account of the changes in agricultural and irrigation practices in the valley comes from Wilfred Hamman who has been farming the region for the past 70 years. Laurose Hibberd, an Elgin native, recalls what life was like on a farm during the Depression and World War II.
Claude Anson was born in Island City in 1911 and is descended from a pioneer family. Anson's grandparents came to Union County after the Civil War and homesteaded an 80-acre parcel for farming. Anson's grandson still farms that parcel, along with 320 more, today.
Some of the recreational activities the interviewees participated in as children are very different from today. Does ice skating on Hot Lake sound impossible? Stuart Zuagg fondly recalls doing something close to that impossibility.
"There was a standing joke that if you went ice skating on Hot Lake, you didn't want to break through or you'd burn your feet," Zuagg said. "There is more than one pond or lake there and only one of them is hot, so the other ponds would freeze over and we ice skated on them."
Zuagg's adventures on the ponds occurred after the sanatorium burned in 1934. He was seven years old at the time of the fire.
From stories about the arrival of household electricity and indoor plumbing, to bottling milk and harnessing horses to plow the field, Grande Ronde Valley residents are a wealth of historical color.
To listen and read their stories visit http://pierce.eou.edu/ohgr/.
Eastern Oregon University - One University Boulevard - La Grande, OR 97850-2899 - Phone: 541-962-3672
