The Latah County Oral History collection documents the social history of the area and its people, concentrating on the period from 1890 to 1940. The collection consists of individual life histories and community traditions, and attempts to be representative of the occupational, geographical and ethnic groups within the county.
The oral history project was sponsored by the Latah County Museum Society with funding from a grant by the Idaho Bicentennial Commission. The interviews span the years 1971 to 1976.
This finding aid is based on and reproduces parts of the "Guide to the Latah County, Idaho Oral History Collection," by Sam Schrager. Latah County Museum Society, [1977].
Containers of the tapes and transcripts (some are draft copies) are indicated. Summaries are in box 20.
A few interviews not included in Sam Schrager’s guide were added at the end of this finding aid.
Entries within the guide are arranged in the following manner:
Interviews and transcripts are available online through the
The collection is open to the public. Researchers must use the collection in accordance with the policies of the University of Idaho Special Collections and Archives.
Consult Head of Special Collections and Archives on permission for use.
Latah County, Idaho Oral History Collection, MG 415, Special Collections and Archives, University of Idaho Library, Moscow, Idaho.
The Latah County Museum Society donated audiocassette tapes, transcripts and summaries of the interviews to Special Collections and Archives of the University of Idaho Library in 1987.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.
Moscow, Bovill, Fortynine Meadows 1883
Parents came from Oregon and Indiana (1893); family lived in the McConnell mansion (1900-1936).
County assessor, teacher, postal clerk, timber homesteader.
Family's Bovill homesteading. Cooking for firefighters (1910). Governor McConnell's family. Purchase of mansion. Family's pet bear. Backwoods humor.
Timber homesteading at Fortynine Meadows; loss of claim. Relationship with parents. Victorian manners and dress. Methodist church and revivals. Prohibition. Family cars.
Family life in the McConnell mansion. Father's medical practice; his friendship with Nez Perces. Mother's poor health and optimism. Family move to Moscow. Reading club. Bovill fishing.
Mansion grounds and parties. McConnell family background. College experiences. Singing career.
Women homesteaders in the timber. Experiences of 1910 fire. Friendship with father. Dr. Watkins family. Carrie Bush and Mary Borah.
Potlatch River, Juliaetta 1898
Came from Lookout, Idaho (1916), where parents had moved from Minnesota.
Manager of family produce operation, teacher, farm wife, state legislator (1949-1950).
Experiences in Midwest logging camps as a girl. Family adversity and development of Idaho ranch. Schooling and teaching. Favorite horse. Homestading rough land near Juliaetta (1918).
Significance of teacher to community. Midwiving at childbirths. Decision to marry. Longings of pioneer women. Native and imported plants.
Lay missionary work at Lapwai Methodist Church. Selling school consolidation to communities. Family truck gardening and turkey raising. Work as state legislator. Homestading experiences. Helping tramps. Ethics.
Bovill, Elk River 1886
Arrived in 1907, two years after emigrating from Sweden.
Assistant logging superintendent, camp foreman; employed by Potlatch Lumber Co. for 44 years.
First experiences in America. Beginning work for Potlatch. Preparing Elk River millsite and townsite (1909). Foreman for 350 men. Severe flooding of St. Joe River (1933).
IWW strike of 1917; improvement of camp conditions. Fighting 1910 fire. Relationship to crew. Elk River life. Childhood on a Swedish estate. Weyerhaeusers.
Serving in forestry unit in France in World War I. Drinking and liquor control in camp. Log chutes; donkeys and horses. Depression logging.
Work as walking boss. Hiring and firing men. Relations with workers and management. Woods routine and variety. Laying shay lines.
Unsuccessfull IWW strike of 1936. Gyppo logging. Accidents. Camp life; cooks and flunkeys. Wood animals. Retirement. Inflation.
Burnt Ridge, Troy 1902
Parents emigrated from Sweden and settled in the late nineties. Helen Anderson's husband.
Farmer.
Hard times in Sweden and Duluth. Play and fights as a boy. Getting started as a farmer. Canyon logging; horse team hauling. Joe Wells. Father's craftsmanship.
Depression trials. Rural scholls: strictness, teachers, decline. Harvest work as roustabout. Early sawmilling. Chores.
Burnt Ridge, Troy 1904
Parents were Swedish settlers who came via Missouri (1906).
Farm wife.
Tuberculosis and other sicknesses. Growing up on the farm. Women's work. Father's strictness.
Good and bad teachers. Neighborhood happenings. Party gatherings. Economizing in the depression. Naivete of young. Shopping in Troy.
Nora, Troy 1889
Parents came from Sweden (1888).
Homemaker, housekeeper, harvest cook.
Dry Ridge, Troy 1894
Parents were from Sweden and Norway (1886).
Logging teamster.
Working in the woods: pay reduction, blowing-in, World War I. Big Anderson. Youth on family farm. Troy as logging and trading center.
Onaway 1908
Came from northern Italy in 1931.
Homemaker.
Adaptation to America. Subsistence living near Trent, Italy; local interest in America. Depression struggle. Coal mining in Wyoming; settling in Potlatch. Other Onaway Italians.
Onaway, Potlatch 1901
Emigrated from northern Italy in 1920; came to Potlatch in 1927.
Fireman in the mill.
Texas Ridge 1886
Moved from Illinois with family as a child.
Farm wife.
Rural childhood experiences.
Hatter Creek, Princeton 1901
Moved from Winchester, Idaho area (1924).
Farm wife, sawmill worker, cook.
Hatter Creek, Princeton 1894
Moved from Nebraska with family in 1913.
Lumberjack.
Logging life. IWW strike for better conditions. Deputy Pat Malone; preacher Dick Ferrell. Trading and neighboring in the depression. Advantages of Idaho farming over Nebraska. Problems with bosses.
Playing jokes on neighbors: shivarees and chicken stealing. Feuding. Keeping peace at town dances. Secrets of water witching and well digging. Decline of land through misuse.
Lumberjack ways: East Europeans, camp conditions, poker, characters, fights. An incompetent doreman; good and bad management.
Depression experiences: hardships, selling produce, parties, canning, credit. Her work: sawmilling, clearing land, cooking. Woods work. Home improvements. School plays.
American Ridge, Kendrick 1898
Parents were homesteaders from Michigan (1885).
Farmer.
Farming: routines, threshing, economy, changes. Neighborliness.
Potlatch, Deary 1894
Parents were Deary area homesteaders.
Engineer on WI&M Railroad.
Unsafe railroad bridges; a major derailment. Support of IWWs and hoboes. Family homesteading. Joe Wells family.
Brush Creek, Deary 1886
Came from Norway with family, who homesteaded in 1891.
Farmer, carpenter, logger.
Herding cattle in meadow rangelands. Experiences with Nez Perces. Family homesteading. Neighbors. Construction of WI&M. Father's accident and death.
Winter surveying with Bill Helmer. Taming an outlaw horse. Impressions of cultural groups. Family farming and grazing methods. Homesteaders' poverty. Oxen logging, wild cattle, and sheep grazing. Deary townsite.
Hunting experiences of a sharpshooter. Game animals' habits and history. Early Elk River. Surveying methods.
Joe Wells family. Two killings. Impact of Potlatch Lumber Co. Signs of weather, planting, and reproduction. Fruitless mining operations. Spring floods.
Bovill, Moscow 1909
Parents moved from Kansas c.1890.
Nurse, homemaker.
Slabtown and Collins. 1914 fire. Advantages of moving to Moscow. Becoming a nurse.
Moscow 1900
Came from Boise to attend the university.
Editor of "Moscow Daily Star-Mirror" and "Daily Idahonian." (1926-1966)
Dean French and university social relationships. Faculty, students, and school traditions. Limited oportunities for women. State education. Work as Boise city editor.
Role of small city newspaper. Coverage of local issues. Boosting Moscow. Relation of college to town. Moscow banks in the depression. Frank B. Robinson and Moscow's newspaper rivalry.
Moscow, Washington D.C. 1870
William J. McConnell, her father, first came in 1879 from the Boise Basin and was elected Idaho governor (1892); she came with her mother from Oregon (1888).
Wife of Idaho Senator William Borah.
First dinner at the White House with Teddy Roosevelt; her gown. Senator Borah. Her kidnapping as a baby. (Interviw recorded in Beaverton, Oregon for radio broadcast; donated by Sister Mary Christina).
Cameron, Juliaetta 1881
Family came from Germany via Kansas (1892).
Farmer.
Farming in two depressions. Getting started as a farmer. Father's carpentry. Kansas dugout. Rural innovations.
Farm life in the 1890's. Anti-German activity in World War I. Labor organization; hoboes.
Moscow 1895
Grandfather was a Moscow doctor (1887) trained in Missouri; Father came from Scotland (1889).
Novelist, homemaker.
Historical and family background of novels. Sources of writing in childhood. Grandmother and aunt. Moscow mores. Development as a writer. Reading of three true sketches of early Moscow. (Recorded by Mrs. Brink in California in response to taped questions).
Troy, American Ridge, Kendrick 1906
Parents' family came from Germany; father was born at Genesee, mother in Kansas.
President of First Bank of Troy, where he worked for forty-seven years; chairman of school board.
Learning banking at Kendrick; offer to work at Troy. Advantages of one-room schollhouse. Father's death. World War I and anti-German sentiment.
Troy bank and community support in the depression. Victory during Bank holiday. Farm economics and bank policy. Banker Ole Bohman. School consolidation; work as school board clerk.
Roles of small town banker. Credit and confidentiality. Country youngsters. Moonshine and dances. Early banking experience. Family struggle.
Confidence of Troy bank in local people. Bank resolution of depression crisis. Relations between banker and examiner. Frank Green. Local entertainments.
Robberies of the Troy bank. Local attitudes toward wealth and prospering. Country-town differences. Santa Claus. Student loans. Causes of 1970's depression.
Viola 1886
Nurse, homemaker.
Bovill 1896
Emigrated from Yugoslavia in 1913.
Lamberjack.
Protecting a killer at Elk River. 1914 Bovill fires. Bad logging accidents. Bootleg whiskey and Pat Malone. Discrimination against East Europeans. Father's return to Bosnia.
Moscow 1896
Parents' family came from Illinois and Missouri and homesteaded (1870's); he moved to the Coeur d'Alene district as an adult.
Electrician.
Town social events. Moscow businesses and proprietors.
Deary, Bear Creek 1892
Parents were Swedish homesteaders (1880's). William Burkland's cousin.
Operated garage and service station, town marshall, secretary-treasurer of highway district (37 years).
Family's water powered mill. Early Deary, fires and decline. Boy's work and fishing. Marshall's work. Depression debts.
Bear Creek, Deary 1887
Parents were Swedish homesteaders (1888).
Farmer, logger.
Bear Creek homesteading: instability, trading, getting by. Teaching and meetings in Bear Creek school. Why families left Sweden.
Neighboring supplanted by town life. Beginning of Deary. Homesteaders' struggle. Harvest work. Runaway teams.
Woodfell, Princeton 1890
Family came from Michigan (1888).
Farm wife.
Family halfway house at Woodfell. Subsistence living. Hoodoo miners and local economy. Early towns.
Courtship. Mother's schedule. Dresses. Coming of industry.
Fourmile Creek, Viola 1893
Parents were born in Scotland, came from Kansas and homesteaded (1888).
Farm wife, pea processor, harvest cook.
Nursing in a field hospital in France in World War I. Women's work in harvest and processing. Farm self-sufficiency. Viola Community Club. Impact of Adventists. Effects of school consolidation.
Happenings in Viola community. Family experiences. (Interview donated by Marilyn Chaney).
American Ridge, Kendrick 1903
Grandfather came from Kansas and homesteaded (1888); mother was from Missouri.
Farmer.
Farming practices. Joint-owned threshing machine. Forms of neighboring. Rural schooling and chores. Plentiful game. Raising apples. Kansas farming.
Festive get-togethers. Moonshine. Weather and farming. One-room school. Thieves. Early homesteading.
Fights and local politicking. Farm co-ops. Depressions. Desire to secede from Idaho. Neighbors.
Bovill 1906
Parents came from Minnesota (1905).
Homemaker, store clerk, logging camp flunkey.
Flunkeying and lumberjacks. Social life of Bovill. Mother's work. Loss of Slabtown house in 1914 fire.
Burnt Ridge, Troy 1899
Parents were Swedish immigrants who settled in 1891; he left the area as an adult. Willa Carlson's brother-in-law.
Teacher, census bereau officer.
Family interrelationships on Burnt Ridge. Rural school and farm work. Changed attitudes of second generation. Father's socialism and religion. Non-fraternity education at the university. Troy killings.
Tuberculosis among the young. Careers of second generation Burnt Ridgers. Influence of canyons on countryside. Nora Mission Church. Farming methods.
Big Meadow, Troy 1899
Came with family from South Dakota (1912).
Teacher, homemaker.
Rural school: games, get-togethers, teaching. Chores and play; animal pets. Cultural barriers with Swedish community.
Community activities: picnics, parties, school programs. Opposition to school consolidation. Older girls' work.
Big Meadow, Troy 1906
Family came from North Dakota (1912).
Logger, farmer.
Farm life as youngster: school, work, play and entertainments. Ice making. Threshing. Local fires.
Woods living: lumberjacks, work, women in camp. Halloween pranks. Shivarees. Buttermaking and cream. Home remedies.
American Ridge, Troy 1896
Parents came from Missouri (early 1890's).
Teacher and farm wife; author of manuscript on Latah County history.
Disappearance of a buttermaker. A veiled lady. Boarding in Lewiston as a girl. Fortune telling experiences. Prescience.
Marshall Hays and family. Fannie and Al Roberts. J.P. Vollmer, the millionaire. Schooling and reading as a youngster.
Disappearance of Mae Downing. Last account of Winnie Booth. Moving a grave. Death of children from tuberculosis.
Social and political views of American Ridgers; racial prejudice and regional divisions. Family adversity: typhoid, house fire, trouble with hired hand. Suspected vigilante hanging. Electioneering. Kendrick fire of 1904.
Teacher's responsabilities to the community. Mother-in-law's nursing. Views of cultural groups. American Ridge lore.
A country girl at Lewiston Normal: working for keep, sophistication of city elite. Difficult ranching experience. Family prune dryer and cider press.
Beaverton (Oregon) 1899
Nun. She helped care for Mary McConnell Borah at the Maryville home.
Stories Mary Borah told about her life. Mary Borah's last year.
Potlatch 1886
Came from the Midwest in 1904. Rosie Clark's husband.
Farm laborer.
Coyote hunting. A pet coyote. Training a horse.
Elk River 1904
Native of Manitoba, he arrived in 1923.
Printer.
Elk River 1908
Father emigrated from Germany, mother was raised in Denver; they came to open a meat market (1912).
Teacher, homemaker.
Growing up in Elk River. Town social life and cultural groups. Apprenticeship of a printer; Elk River print shop. Tramp printers. Leaving Elk River; loss of mill.
Deep Creek, Potlatch 1893
Family moved from Missouri (1899).
Kitchen worker, farm wife.
Family farm life. Fears as a girl. Community Fourth of July.
Paradise Ridge, Moscow 1900
Father emigrated from Ireland and became the area's first Presbyterian minister (1880); mother was from Victoria, British Columbia.
Teacher, farm wife; local historian, frequently addresses groups and aids researchers.
Nez Perce trails and use of area. First white people in county. Place name origins. Why Moscow got the university. Arrival of Clydes with Pennsylvania Dutch (1877). Governor McConnell's bankruptcy (1893). Meeting Ida Tarbell.
Father's ministry. Eliza Splading and Nez Perce religion. Family homesteading; mother's interests and isolation. Farm wildflowers and wildlife. Love of school.
Killing of Will Steffen for Dr. Watkin's murder. Double suicide of Winnie Booth and Dr. Ledbrook. Folk beliefs. Early politics. The 1903 compilation of North Idaho history. Stories of Shorty Hill.
Play parties. Outdoor children's games. Women teaching. Awkwardness of courting. Chatauquas. Auctions.
Famous North Idaho women. Subservience of women to husbands. Women and prohibition. Her teaching experience; choice of marriage over career. Depths of the depression. Rural electrification.
Ignorance vs independence for young women. Children's lives and troubles. Difficult marriages. Pioneer sickness. Nez Perce myths. Bedtime stories and lullabyes.
Women's life in country compared to town. Women's civic achievements in Moscow. Women's teaching opportunities. Family size. Church activities; atitutes about dying. Social relations at university. Anti-German actions during war; Klan in the 1920s. IWW's in harvest. Frank B. Robinson.
Nez Perce lore and craft objects. (Presentation given to young people at the McConnell Museum).
Synopsis of
McConnell mansion history. (Presentation given at McConnell mansion to Northwest History Group of Faculty Women's Club).
Moscow 1897
Singer and voice teacher; taught at the University of Idaho.
Troy 1890
Parents came from South Dakota (1890).
General laborer.
Marshall Hays: his unpopularity and murder. Joe and Lou Wells. Driving supply wagon east of Troy (1906). Beauty of Bovill townsite.
American Ridge, Juliaetta 1902
Parents came from Nova Scotia in 1890's.
Farmer.
Moscow 1887
Came to South Idaho from Nebraska (1907), and after marriage to Orofino and Moscow.
Teacher, homemaker.
Teaching methods in a one-room schoolhouse. Teachers' moral example for community.
Kendrick 1899
Parents came from Pennsylvania and Kansas (early 1890's).
Banker.
Local fires. Weather and transportation. Wild game.
Fourmile Creek, Viola 1880
Family moved from Junction City, Oregon and homesteaded (1887).
Farm wife.
Family homesteading: farm produce and 1893 wet harvest. Viola events and settlers. Religious and social gatherings. Typhoid; smallpox. Getting married. Canadian homesteading (1912-1937).
Palouse, eastern Washington 1879
Family homesteaded in the 1880's. Ada Crow's husband.
Farmer, carpenter.
Driving horses across eastern Washington. Batching in a dugout as a boy. Rattlesnake lore. Fighting claim jumpers.
Rimrock, Genesee 1904
Father came in 1878 from the Willamette Valley, Oregon.
Farmer and warehouseman.
George Peopeoptalkt's friendship with family. Jackson Sundown. Local rodeos.
Cameron, Park, Agatha 1907
Father came from New York City, mother from Missouri (c.1900).
Teacher, farm wife.
Community functions of school and church. Teaching in rural schools. Working for board. Difficult living at Park. Childhood on homestead. Father's struggle as an orphan in the West.
Potlatch 1892
Emigrated from Greece to the Northwest in 1909, and settled in Potlatch in 1914.
Trimmer at mill, laborer.
Working and living for Greeks in Potlatch; their social separation from Americans. Railroad labor in eastern Washington: boxcar living. Growing up in Dedemah. Departure of Greeks from Potlatch during depression.
Loboring in the Northwest: language barrier, foreman-crew relations. Sending father back to Greece. Ten hour day at Potlatch. IWW radicalism. Getting ahead in America.
Work as trimmer in mill: disagreements, foremen, sign language, accidents. Greek living arrangements and lack of security. Company profits. Prostitution.
Brother's paranoia. Surviving the depression. Slow advancement in sawmill. Greek bachelors. Visiting Greece after retirement.
Bovill 1900
Grew up in Minnesota; came after completing training in Chicago (1919).
Nurse, homemaker.
Nursing experiences in Bovill hospital. Decisions as a first aid nurse. Becoming a nurse despise opposition. Value of hard work.
Elk River 1885
Emigrated from Klitsos, Greece in 1909.
Sawmiller, logger.
Extra gang slavery. IWW victory. Dismantling of Elk River mill. Leaving Elk River.
Genesee, Lenville, Driscoll Ridge 1888
Parents homesteaded after emigrating from Norway via Astoria (early 1880's).
Farm wife.
Parents' struggle to build farm. Mother's death; caring for family as a girl. Enjoyments and neighboring. Genesee. Why parents left Astoria. The thirties. Pioneering of Driscoll Ridge.
Princeton, Moscow 1882
Came from the Camas Prairie (late 1920's).
Farmer, moonshiner.
Moonshining. Decline of morality.
Grey Eagle District, Genesee 1897
Parents came from Nevada and Nebraska (1890's).
Homemaker.
Family and neighbors in childhood. An Indian-white family. Dances. Life on the farm and in Genesee.
Cow Creek, Genesee 1888
Family arrived in 1893 from Norway.
Farmer.
Division of creek by two Lutheran churches. 1893 wet harvest and depression. Family farm life. Genesee stores and moving of town. World War I experience. Homesteading on Coeur d'Alene reservation.
Hog Meadows 1893
Parents came from Minnesota (1892).
Railroad worker.
Pioneering on Hog Meadows; father's troubles. Girls' work. Killing a bear.
Viola 1893
Parents came from Iowa before he was born.
Mail carrier; president of Idaho chapter of Rural Letter Carriers Association.
Delivering mail in rough conditions. Shoeing and working with horses. Responsability of the mails.
Bovill 1900
Grew up at Nez Perce, Idaho.
Teacher, homemaker.
Life of single teacher in the twenties. Bovill social activities. Teaching methods and experiences. Town characters. Depression in Bovill.
Rural Moscow 1894
Family moved from South Dakota in 1902.
Farm wife, housekeeper; author of
Home life as a girl. Mother's influence on household. Exclusion of women from animal husbandry at university. Fleener family's plains crossing (1852).
Working out before marriage. Life during threshing season. Father-in-law's homesteading near Moscow (1870's). Controversy over identities of Wild Davey and William Drannan. Home remedies.
Dry Ridge, Troy 1899
Parents were Swedish homesteaders (early 1880's).
Farmer, logger.
Survival of frontier homesteaders. Support of IWW despite opponents. Local strong men.
Destruction of land by fertilizer and logging. Olson family threshing; Wells family. Dry Ridge cemetery.
Genesee 1896
Parents came from Minnesota in the 1880's.
Operated general store.
Follett's store. Flourishing and decline of Genesee. Socializing in town. Problems with credit. Genesee banks. Moving of townsite.
Cedar Creek, Kendrick 1893
Family came from Kansas (1895).
Farm wife, cook for woods crews, doctor's assistant, store clerk.
Canning and baking; feeding family and guests. Neighborhood sharing and visiting. A lazy family. Local religious life. Mother's farm work, and her own.
Her work to make ends meet. Raising children. Neighborhood life. Severe winters.
Paradise Ridge 1887
Lola Clyde's brother.
Worked for woods produscts corporation; poet.
"The Poet of the Palouse" reading thirty of his poems.
Genesee, Paradise Ridge 1890
Daniel Gamble's brother.
Farmer.
Stories of Shorty Hill: his brother's lynching; murder on the Twenty-One Ranch. Wild Davey. Hemesteading near Elk River (1912).
More about Shorty Hill. Harvest work as a boy.
Potlatch 1884
Came from Pennsylvania in 1910.
General manager of WI&M Railroad for 33 years; lobbyist for North Idaho lumber interests in state legislature.
Selection of Potlatch for the lumber mill and townsite. Advantages of company town. Shipping resources on WI&M. Relations with other railroads. Working west from Pennsylvania. Problems of logging in Idaho Mountains. Decline of Potlatch.
Company operation of town of Potlatch. General Managers Deary and Laird. Dealing with the IWW. Company policies during the depression. Attitudes towards workingmen. Potlatch Japanese. Lobbying experiences. Weyerhaeuser family.
Harvard, Spring Valley 1903
Came with family from Seattle, Washington (1919).
Farm wife.
Harvard, Spring Valley 1901
Parents came to the Washington Palouse country from Ontario and Iowa (c.1890).
Farmer, laborer, boilerman.
Meaning of neighboring. Work and play. Hoodoo miners. Old Palouse River road. Father's farming.
Farm life versus city life. Tenacity of local people. Farmers' reliance on Potlatch mill. Selling milk in the depression. Mistreatment of Indians.
Equality of farm families. Rural view of Potlatch. Marrying and raising children. Working-out while farming. Search for a missing man. Huckleberrying. Home remedies.
Struggle to be an independent farmer: part-time farming, loss of farm in the thirties. A new start. First jobs.
Potlatch Ridge, American Ridge, Juliaetta 1904
Roy Glenn's brother.
Oil deliveryman.
Farm self-sufficiency; farming equipment. Juliaetta and Kendrick. Dr. Ruffle. School and dances. Tramway.
Texas Ridge, Fix Ridge, Juliaetta 1906
Parents came from Oregon (1893).
Farm wife, farmer.
Texas Ridge, Potlatch Ridge, Kendrick 1903
Family came from North Carolina (1904).
Auctioneer, farmer.
Farm living as youngsters. Boundary disputes. Developing farm as a rentor. Tension with German community during wars. Early Kendrick and Leland.
Moscow, Washington, D.C. 1899
Moved to Moscow to attend university; father homesteaded near Rosalia, Washington.
Lawyer, state legislator, U.S. Congressman, chairman of Interstate Commerce Commission.
Prohibition in the county: moonshining, drinking and evangelism. Arson and robbery cases. Teddy Roosevelt's Moscow speech (1911). World War I at university; working through school. Family move west; father's fight against rustlers. Naming of Moscow.
Moscow court cases. Successful enforcement of prohibition. Depression in the county. Serving as legislator and congressman.
Bovill 1913
Parents emigrated from Alsace, France and operated Bovill's mercantile store.
Homemaker.
Father's friendship with Nez Perces. Return to France as a child; mother's adjustment to America. Fires in Bovill and Kendrick. Tent meetings. Home remedies. First World War. Town characters.
Avon 1886
Parents homesteaded (c.1885), coming from California and Kansas via Cheney, Washington.
Homemaker, mica cutter, cook.
Homebound life of rural women. Neighboring. Homestead poverty. Work at mica mine. Wells family. An Avon murder.
Potlatch River, Juliaetta 1900
Came with family from Bland County, Virginia in 1907.
Farm wife.
Potlatch River, Juliaetta 1900
Came with family from Bland County, Virginia in 1902.
Section man on railroad, farmer, poet.
Homesteading in Potlatch Canyon. Goodness of Nez Perces. Flooding of Potlatch River. Railroad work at Arrow Junction. Cedarville settlement.
Family and community traditions from Virginia. Settling of Arrow by Virginia kin and neighbors. Her experiences as a youngster. Religious life. Misuse of blacks and Indians. Disputed strips of reservation land.
Adversity: house fire, quarantine, making do. Courtship. Her work. Foster and Adams as promoters. Aunt Susan. Hoboes. Southern witches. Religious differences.
Moscow, Troy 1879
Born in Iowa, she lived in the Dakotas and Montana before coming in 1925.
Editor, cook, nurse's aid, columnist; leader of Women's Christian Temperance Union.
Editing
WCTU work: jail visiting, charity, temperance conversions. Editing newspaper despite opposition to businesswomen. Boarding students. Feeding the hungry. A woman's struggle through college. Women's suffrage; early politics.
WCTU crusade: protests in saloons, taking the pledge, Frances Willard. Family ties and self-reliance. Salvation Army selflessness. Caring for sick. Misuse of volunteer work in World War I. Childhood experiences.
Life roles and responsabilities of rural women. Views on child rearing and divorce. Preachers, revivals, and the Sabbath. Teaching and homesteading in Dakotah and Montana. Attending university in her eighties.
The management of marriage. Opposition to divorce. Fundamental values. Working as a woman. Overabundance of wealth in America.
Juliaetta 1905
Parents were raised in Denmark and Iowa, and came in 1908.
Teacher, homemaker.
Working at Juliaetta cannery. Local cherry industry. Teacher training and experience. Town church and social life; rivalry with Kendrick. Hard times.
Princeton, Onaway 1894
Family came from the Midwest via Nebraska (1910).
Homemaker, grocery store operator.
Family's search for a new home. Attending Ursuline Academy. Teaching experience. Church activities; Reverend Dick Ferrell. Loss of store in the depression. Onaway.
Bovill 1886
An Irishman, he came from England in 1916.
Scaler and treating plant operator at cedar pole yard.
Lumberjack humor: tales of Bill Deary, Bill Helmer, Pat Malone and others. Bear stories. Experiences as Scoutmaster. Bovill electric plant and movie house. Cedar pole work.
Origins of Lumberjack nicknames. IWW radicalism and blackballing. Refusing to join Four-L's. Spokane employment offices. Dick Ferrell; Axel Anderson.
Helmer, Moscow Mountain 1900
Parents probably came from Utah in the 1890s.
Logger.
Work on Park sleigh-haul and McGary Butte fire. Good ecology of early logging methods.
Big Bear Ridge, Deary 1896
Parents were Swedish homesteaders (c.1890).
Farmer, logger.
Farming with horses. Hard times for farmers. Logging for Potlatch. Farmer opposition to IWW.
Working out as a boy. Fires and early growth of Deary. Joe Well's logging operation. Piling lumber. Grave digging.
Big Bear Ridge, Jansville 1894
Parents were Norwegian homesteaders (1890's).
Farmer.
Homesteading and local happenings. Frontier hardships in Montana.
Grey Eagle District, Genesee 1911
Parents came from North Carolina in the late 1880's.
Farmer.
Father's management of Genesee's largest farm operation. Rotation of crops and livestock. Hired hands. Rural isolation; chatauquas. Choice of farming career.
Moscow 1897
Father's parents were among the county's first settlers, coming from California in 1871; mother was from Indiana.
Homemaker, cashier.
Tomers' pioneering. Relations with Nez Perces. Selection of Moscow Cemetery site. School and reading as a girl.
Viola 1905
Grandfather first came to the region with Captain Mullan's Army outfit (c. 1858); parents' families both moved from Oregon (1876 and 1880).
Homemaker.
Family adventures, migration and settling. Viola events. Cattle herding experiences. Indians. Chinese miners. (Tape recorded by Mrs. Hardt for her brother, Glen Palmer, who was the doner.)
Fourmile Creek, Viola 1901
Parents came from Sprague, Washington area (1901).
Farm wife.
Social life: games, dances, revivals. Chores and staples. Move to Canada. Childbirth.
Moscow, Troy 1900
Moved from Colorado (1928).
Clerk for Psychianna.
Frank B. Robinson's integrity and his relations in Moscow. Working for Psychianna.
Harvard 1898
Came with parents from Pennsylvania in 1900.
Logger, farmer, trapper.
Trapping bear, coyotes and mink. Changing population of game animals. Lumberjack life: risks, fighting, drinking. Family's work. Corporate control of country.
Genesee 1900
Father came from North Carolina (1888); mother's family came from Wisconsin (1881).
Soil conservationist.
Bovill 1900
Grew up in South Dakota and Saskatchewan.
Depot agent at Bovill (1925-66); school board chairman, mayor, justice of the peace.
Bovill's way of life. Experiences as depot agent and judge. Relief in the depression. Lumberjacks and extra gangs. Pat Malone. Leo Guilfoy's humor.
Railroad work and anecdotes. Local attitudes toward Potlatch Lumber Company. Conflict over school consolidation; problems of running town. CCC's. The depot clock.
Cow Creek, Genesee 1893
Mother was raised in Norway, father in Wisconsin. They arrived in the 1880's.
Farm wife, harvest cook.
Cook wagon at harvesttime. Family farm life. Division of Cow Creek by two Lutheran churches. Young people's socializing. Early Genesee.
Big Bear Ridge, Little Bear Ridge, Kendrick 1884
Family came from California and homesteaded (1886).
Teacher, farm wife.
Relations among settlers. J.P. Vollmer's bad loan practices. Early communities.
Big Bear Ridge, Kendrick 1910
Son of Florence Ingle. Grandfather was a homesteader from Tennesee (1883).
County commissioner for 20 years, farmer.
County school consolidation. Community life on the ridge. Father and grandfather. Depression and bank closure. Growing up; attending the university. Attitudes as a public official.
Lapwai 1885
Mother was Nez Perce; father moved from Asotin County, Washington (c. 1890).
Farm wife.
Nez Perce way of life. Nez Perce Christian hymns.
Park 1900
Parents were Norwegian homesteaders (c. 1890).
Horse teamster, sawmiller.
Handling teams; balky horses. Logging accidents and narrow escapes. Foremen; incompetent partners. Abortive IWW strike of 1936. Pay and production. Closeness of homesteaders.
Burnt Ridge, Troy 1895
Parents were homesteaders from Sweden (1884).
Farmer.
1893 depression; J.P. Vollmer. Early Troy.
Rural Moscow, Moscow 1887
Family came from California (1903).
Farm wife, dressmaker.
Driving horses from California as a girl. Women's farm life. Attending the university. Dressmaking.
Cameron 1897
Parents were German homesteaders (1886).
Farm wife, hotel and house maid.
Family work and neighboring. Anti-German wartime sentiment. German Lutheran Church and language. Feeding threshing crews. Work at Portland's Multnomah Hotel.
Troy 1901
Came with father from Sweden in 1910.
Worked at firebrick plant for forty years.
Work for firebrick company. Early Troy. Father's life.
Moscow 1892
Parents were Swedish immigrants who moved from Minnesota (1882).
Accountant.
Killing of Dr. Watkins. David's Store.
Thorn Creek, Genesee 1890
Mother's parents (Tierneys) were the first white settlers of the Genesee area, coming from Kansas in 1870; father emigrated from Ireland (early 1870's).
Farm wife, waitress.
Family pioneering. Settlement of Thorn Creek. Fear of Indians. Early farming and threshing; 1893 wet harvest.
Raising geese. Father Cataldo. Rosenstein's kindness; Vollmer's foreclosures. Genesee.
Growing up on the farm.
Bovill area 1898
Family moved to Spokane from North Dakota (1905).
Head cook in lumbercamps between the two world wars.
Running logging camp kitchens. Quality of food; art of camp cooking. Problems with cleanliness and help. IWW winning of decent conditions. Gyppo cooking and conflict with union. Bovill restaurant in wartime.
Hog Meadows, Bovill 1901
Parents came from Minnesota (1892). Albert Justice's wife.
Logging camp flunkey, homemaker.
Work of flunkeys. Attitudes towards women in the camps; good and bad horses. Family homesteading struggle.
Flunkeying and logging camp practices. Isolation and home life. Selling huckleberries.
Cedar Creek, Southwick 1868
Homesteaded alongside parents, after moving from Illinois (1889).
Farmer.
1893 depression. Getting settled; help from neighbors. Political views of 1890's. Entertainment. Land clearing. Kendrick.
Developing the homestead. Pioneering ways. Available work.
Struggles of homesteading. Opening reservation to homesteading. Coming west.
Burnt Ridge, Troy 1899
Parents were Swedish homesteaders (1890).
Farm wife.
Pioneer hardships. Religious traditions.
American Ridge, Juliaetta 1889
Came with mother from Nova Scotia in 1898.
Farmer, cowboy.
Farming on American Ridge. Early impressions of Idaho. Cowboy work. Nez Perces on the Potlatch. Juliaetta. Preaching and schools.
Helmer, Harvard 1902
Parents came from Pennsylvania before he was born.
Logger, woods blacksmith and maintenance man.
Old logging terms. Tangling with a crazy man. Tricks and jokes.
Jansville, Helmer 1898
Family came from Iowa and homesteaded on McGary Meadow (1893).
Logger, operator of dance pavilion.
Jansville store on the Lawrence homestead. Beginning of Helmer. Operating a popular dancehall. Timber homesteaders. Gyppo logging for Potlatch. Joe and Lou Wells.
Neighborliness and poverty of homesteaders. Local inventors. Cattle on open range. Working when young. Malker Anderson.
Helmer 1898
Parents came from Kentucky and ran pioneer store at Helmer.
Farm wife, operator of dance hall pavilion.
Juliaetta 1890
Moved from Wyoming with family (1906).
Store clerk, minister of United Brethren Church.
Local church history and revivals. Children's Day. Nez Perce Christianity. Discrimination against Nez Perces. Alexander's Store. Foster School of Healing.
Hog Meadows 1907
Logging camp flunkey, homemaker.
Potlatch 1899
Family came in 1906 after living elsewhere in North Idaho.
Grocer.
Potlatch town and mill. Father's medical practice. (Interview donated by his son, George Lepard.)
Moscow 1910
Came to Spokane from China in 1920.
Restaurateur.
Moscow 1905
Came to Walla Walla from China with his father in 1911.
Restaurateur.
Reasons Chinese came to America. Their fathers' early American experiences. Growing up in Walla Walla. Cooperative truck gardening. Herb doctoring in Spokane. Family structure. Subsistence farming in China.
Role of Christianity in adapting to America. Loans and debts. Running Moscow café in the depression. Return to China in 1929. Spokane Chinese community. Tongs.
Separation of families. Her immigration to America. Chinese community building in Walla Walla. Social controls within community. Life of truck gardeners.
Discrimination in the twenties. Universities' social activities for Asians in Moscow and Pullman. Restaurant work. Fate of people returning to China. Youth in Walla Walla.
Kendrick, Cedar Creek, Leland 1894
Family moved from North Carolina (1888).
Operator of mercantile store.
Running general store. Family livestock business. Father's freighting. Junk business.
Kendrick fire (1904). Tramway and brick factory. Ice cutting.
Leland as a thriving town. Failure of family fruit ranch. Starting business in Kendrick. Early Kendrick; Gene Chinaman.
Kendrick, eastern Washington 1903
Parents came from North Dakota and homesteaded near Quincy, Washington (1902).
Extension specialist for Chelan County and Washington state; homemaker, teacher.
Youth on a drought-stricken homestead. Family holiday customs. Mother's character. Family move to Pullman. Attending Washington State College.
Work as home extension agent in the depression. Conditions of Chelan County people in the depression. Work as state clothing specialist. Teaching at Culdesac; other jobs. The Long house. Kendrick's hobo. Long mercantile store.
Historical roses of the Kendrick area. (Presentation prepared as project of Hill and Valley Garden Club, with accompanying slides.)
Palouse 1895
Moved with family from Illinois in 1904.
Farm wife.
Juliaetta, Lewiston-Clarkston 1906
Father, a New York Irishman, was manager of Juliaetta cannery; mother came from Oregon (1884)
Operator of greenhouse and beauty salon, teacher.
Limited opportunities for women. Local Jewish families. Books and culture. Southerners in the West.
Grandparents' experiences and attitudes; old standards of morality. Lives of prostitutes in Lewiston. J.P. Vollmer and early Lewiston wealth. Dr. Foster and Juliaetta. Mother's sickness as a girl. Cannery and war shortages. Family politics.
Progressive upbringing in a close family. Openness and equality in the West. Development of Clarkston townsite by proper Bostonians; Clarkston society. Ku Klux Klan; race prejudice. German Catholics. Mother's work as Tribune correspondent.
Cannery management and role in Juliaetta life. Work of beauticians in Lewiston. Unpleasant teaching experience. Abuses of children's welfare. Closeness to father. Lewiston Jewish families.
Spokane, North Idaho 1892
Came from Pennsylvania in 1915.
Employment agent, camp foreman.
North Idaho 1908
"Roy Martin" is a pseudonym.
Hobo, lumberjack, laborer.
Panhandling. Riding freights. Friendships with partners. Wintering with wealth in Spokane. Camp-inspecting. Floating population. IWW protection of workers. Woods, mine and harvest work. Serving in Phillipines.
Importance of IWW. Good-hearted prostitutes. Hoboes and freight hopping. Employment sharks.
Kendrick 1897
Family came from Missouri in the 1890's.
Dentist.
Practicing dentistry in Kendrick. Kendrick foundings, fire and flood. Hard work as youth. Chinese in Kendrick. Masonic Lodge. Advantages of small town.
Lapwai 1888
Parents were early settlers of Dayton, Washington area.
Homemaker, worked in post office and store.
Lapwai 1889
Learned trade in Pennsylvania; came West in 1905.
Blacksmith.
Len Henry, the famous liar. Blacksmith work and inventions. Shop fire and depression survival. Attitudes towards Nez Perces. Aunt Kate MacBeth and Jenny Barton. Lapwai's decline.
Gold Hill, Potlatch 1907
Came west from Pennsylvania in the twenties.
Gold miner.
Discovery of Gold Hill gold (1861). Gold Creek rush (1868). Gold rush life. Carrico family mining. Persecution of Chinese miners. Lost Wheelbarrow Mine. Park Shattuck's mining experiences.
Dowsing for gold. Stories about local miners. Promoters. How gold spurred early settlement. Gold mining in the twenties. Dredging the Palouse River. Nature of gold miners.
Bovill 1912
Parents came from Minnesota (1902).
Geologist; author of The Trees Grew Tall (1972), Bovill area history.
Bovill's nature as a logging town. Causes for its decline. Deputy Pat Malone. Mother's hard workday. Gathering historical material; appeal of the past.
Moscow 1885
Came from Vermont (1914).
County deputy and sheriff (1922-1955); famous university football booster.
Impersonating lawbreakers. Trackdowns and arrests. Prohibition drinking and moonshining. Policing strikes: resisting bribes. Cooperation among lawmen. Prisoners and county jail. University football.
Bovill, Princeton 1899
Father came from Oregon in 1882.
Homemaker.
Bovill family. Beginning of Bovill; first businesses.
Lewiston and vicinity 1895
Parents farmed near Nezperce after leaving Kansas (1898).
Owner of Morgan Brothers, food and equipment distributors.
Elk River, Potlatch 1887
Came from central Canada in 1907.
Drugstore operator, homemaker.
The T.P. Jones's. Elk River drugstore. Lumberjacks. Town social activities and isolation. Devasting impact of mill removal. Elk River before the mill. Potlatch mercantine store.
Potlatch 1903
Father was sent by company from Wisconsin (1908).
Sawmiller.
Deathes in mill accidents. Working at the mill. Social life. Good work of IWW's. Foreign groups. Wartime prejudice against Germans.
Lewiston, Clarkston 1906
Mother's family came from Missouri (1886), father from Nebraska (c.1894).
Farm wife.
Bovill area 1887
Came from Wisconsin in 1908.
Logging clerk, scales and cedar pole inspector.
Life of single lumberjacks: hard work, honesty, blowing-in. Jungling up; camp inspectors. Stories of Weyerhaeuser brothers, Dick Ferrell and Big Gil. Eccentric camp cooks. Playing tricks in camp. IWW's.
Moscow 1890
Parents were Swedish homesteaders (1886).
Head cook at Hotel Moscow, teacher; author of
Moscow beginnings and existence as a pioneer town. Homesteaders' relation to Moscow.
Swedish Christmas. Indians and other cultural groups. Homestead economics; father's railroading.
Cameron 1898
Parents were German pioneers who came from Minnesota in 1901.
Farm wife, teacher; author of
Family stress on education and equality. Life in a German community. Games, dances and literaries. Patriotism and tensions in First World War. Attending and teaching school.
Harvard 1888
Came from Deer Park, Washington to work on building of WI&M railroad (1904).
Laborer.
Early settlement on Palouse River. Arrival of Potlatch Lumber Company. Logging, river drives, foremen; contribution of IWWs. Harvard's beginning. Hoodoo mining ventures. An ostracized family. Bee trees and trapping. Evil of corporations and politicians.
Cow Creek, Genesee 1889
Family came from Iowa (1900).
County commissioner for eighteen years; farmer.
Threshing and farm practices. Locating in the area. Building family home.
Juliaetta 1895
Came with parents from Kentucky (1903).
Teacher, farmer, farm wife; author of manuscript history of Juliaetta.
Foster's hospital and Juliaetta's decline. Father's undertaking business. Abraham Adams. Juliaetta: celebrations and fires. Spiritualists. Dislike of teaching.
Dry Ridge, Troy 1895
Parents emigrated from Sweden and homesteaded (1889).
Thresherman, operator of gas station and car dealership, sawmiller, miner; Troy councilman for 24 years.
Legendary local characters. Why parents left Sweden; Varmlanders come to Troy. Getting by on the homestead. Family copper mine and brickmaking. Neighborhood criminals. Decline of opportunity; ruin of country by erosion.
Food and water on family homestead. Clearing land. Road building. Homestead ethics. Town of Nora. Tramps.
More local characters. Impact of depression. Blaming smut fires on IWW. How environment shapes people. Unusual personal experiences. Social problems. City council.
Threshing on the ridges in the twenties. Difficulties selling cars. Service station during depression. Struggles of homesteaders. Work in small sawmills.
Pleasant Hill, Troy 1897
Father came from Sweden (1884), mother from Norway (1887).
Cook, pea processor, housekeeper, homemaker.
Cooking for sawmill and threshing crews. Life of country youths. Marriage. Spokane housekeeping. Mica cutting and pea picking. Depression.
Deary 1920
Moved from central Idaho in the early forties.
Homemaker, teacher, camp flunkey.
Deary 1910
Teacher.
Deary 1906
Father was a Swedish homesteader (1890's).
Foreman, scaler, logger.
Living in a lumbercamp. Pleasures of flunkeying. Violent Pierce strike (1936). Lumberjack nicknames. Unmarried women teachers. Father's mistreatment of Sweden. Depression hardships.
Deary 1906
Parents came from Minnesota and homesteaded (1907).
Teacher.
Teaching and teachers' authority in small communities. Choice of career and training. Entertainment for young. Play and chores on homestead. Decline of small towns.
Troy, Nora Creek 1891
Emigrated from Sweden with family in 1903.
Teacher, homemaker; author of manuscript on Troy area history.
Family comes to America: hard life in Sweden, decision and preparation, the journey. Father's homestead. Schooling.
Moscow 1908
Grandfather was an original founder of Moscow, moving from eastern Oregon (1871); father came from Montana (1877).
Teacher of English and physical education in college and high school; homemaker.
A.A. Lieuallen's move to Moscow area. Loss of cattle in winter of 1873. His operation of Moscow's first store. Naming Moscow. Early town events. Closeness of university and town. Family experiences.
Inequality of women in work and marriage. Deficiencies of early college teaching. Mother's character. A divisive revival. Flu and Red Cross in World War I. School, reading, Campfire Girl activities.
Elk River, Lewiston 1903
Came from Italy in 1920.
Sawmiller, lumberjack.
Company pressures; importance of union. Lumberjack unity and woods life. Elk River in the twenties. Depression hardships. Life near Florence. First years in America.
Bovill 1906
Parents took a timber homestead after coming from Wisconsin (1905).
Homemaker, raised cattle and silver fox.
Family values and closeness. Fire of 1910 on homestead. 1914 Bovill fire. Community solidarity. Catholicism in Bovill. East European lumberjacks. Mildred Wells. Hunting. School consolidation; Bovill's decline.
Dry Ridge, Troy 1887
Philip Asplund's sister.
Farm wife, housekeeper.
Childbirths. Childhood experiences and fears. Farm food and visiting. Mother's work. Town trips. Housekeeping in Spokane.
Deary, Texas Ridge 1889
Moved from Minnesota with family (1904).
Operated Deary store and farmed.
Deary townsite and fire. Problems of a general store. Old homesteaders. Two murders. Family moves. Potlatch manipulations.
Deary 1893
Came from New York after marriage to Albert Pierce (1920).
Homemaker, operated grocery store.
Town fire (1923). Problems of running store. Dislike of farm living. Boarding people.
Genesee, Salmon River (1903)
Father's family came from Wisconsin (1881), mother's from Kansas (1894).
Livestock operator.
Introduction of purebred Herefords by Platt brothers (1896). Livestock operation at Genesee and Salmon Rivers; hardship in winter of 1919. Salmon homesteading. Settlement of Genesee area. Horse show and rodeo. Livery business.
Genesee, Salmon River 1907
Specialist in U.S. Department of Agriculture; author, poet and local historian.
Palouse 1888
Came from Missouri with parents.
Harvest cook, farm wife.
Cooking for harvest crew. Art of shocking and threshing grain.
Viola 1913
Parents came from Colfax, Washington, and from the Coeur d'Alene district (1912).
Farmer, lumber grader.
Making a living in early days. Neighboring. Self-doctoring. (Interview donated by Marilyn Chaney).
American Ridge, Troy 1896
Emigrated from Eikefjord, Norway (1913).
Farmer.
Experiences as a newcomer. Growing up in Norway. Connections to Idaho.
Starting farming as a rentor. Increasing land holdings. Depression and demise of small farms.
Park, Central Ridge 1888
Parents were Norwegian homesteaders (1890); he is Edward Swenson's nephew.
Farmer, logger.
Mother's death. Woods work in winter. Raising crops and hogs. Hard living at Park (1924-32). Serious accidents.
Running away from home. Struggle with a bad neighbor. Family homesteading on the ridge. Country dances.
Courtship with wife. Farming for others. Sack sewing in hard times. Work as a boy. Dangerous grade to Clearwater River. Wild Indian ponies.
Father's strictness. Fighting as a boy. Education in Spokane and Moscow. Farming on Central Ridge. Division of father's estate. Moscow in the thirties.
Park, Alberta, British Columbia 1905
Moved to Idaho with husband in 1933.
Farm wife, teacher, nurse's aide.
Parents' backwoods marriage. Her isolated childhood. Women's culture. Single teachers' social life. Laboring in Alberta; subsistence farming near Wainwright. His father's healing powers. Pleasures of city living.
Struggle on Alberta farm in the twenties. Choice of life as a farm wife. Her religious awakening. Contrasts between Idaho and Alberta. Ukranians in Alberta. Birth control information. Portland in World War II.
Women's work and families. Her religious sect. Fights and hunting. Rural living.
Park, Alberta, Central Ridge 1890
Helmer Ringsage's brother.
Farmer, laborer.
Troy 1885
Family came from Minnesota (c. 1900).
Road foreman, brickyard worker, logger.
Neighbors' squabbles and peculiar behavior. Two murders by spouses. Wildman of Burnt Ridge. Moonshiners' troubles. Woods work during 1910 fire. T.P. Jones.
Local characters. Lawlessness around Troy and Grangeville. Wild pets and animals. A visitation.
Troy 1898
Came from Grangeville, Idaho area.
Farm wife.
Big Meadow, Burnt Ridge, Troy 1893
Family came from North Dakota (1912).
Farm wife, harvest cook, housekeeper.
Work as cook, housekeeper and farmer. Women's responsibilities at home. Childbirth and children's ignorance. Neighborhood entertainment.
Bovill 1907
Homemaker, store clerk, logging camp flunkey.
Moscow 1894
Parents came from Utah (1892).
Homemaker, teacher, clerk at David's Store.
Parties, circuses, sleighrides. Consumerism in Moscow. Women's volunteer work in World War I. Father's monument business. Prohibition sentiment. Town visiting.
Schooling in Moscow. Interests as a girl. Limitation of career opportunities. Mother's poor health.
Friendship formation in Moscow. Young people's socializing. Relations within family. Courtship and marriage. Work experiences. Church activity. Social luncheons.
Moscow 1893
Family came from Wisconsin in 1902.
Manager of men's clothing department at David's Department Store for nearly forty years.
Learning the clothing trade. Working for David's. Credit and competition. Moscow business climate. Bringing scouting to town. Ragtime band. Growing up in Moscow.
Building character through scouting. Origin of Moscow golfing and country club. Innovations in men's department. Frank David's psychology of selling. Competition among service clubs. Chatauquas and circuses. Mother's student boarders.
Frank B. Robinson and Psychianna: his relations in Moscow. Mrs. Robinson. End of Psychianna.
Johnson, Troy 1891
Parents came from Sweden (c. 1870).
Nurse at Gritman Hospital, homemaker.
Nursing experiences. Growing up on farm; food preparation. Nursing training. Early Moscow and Troy. First cars.
Bovill 1896
Father came from the South and was Potlatch assistant superintendent; mother came from New York (1880's)
Head mechanic for Potlatch Lumber Company, miner.
Bovill endangered in 1914 fire. Narrow escape of fire crew. Lumberjack entertainments. Big Red's murder. Early logging camps and fluming. Moonshining and Pat Malone. Weyerhaeuser success.
IWW, poor conditions and company tactics. Suffering of families in the depression. Bill Deary; Hugh Bovill.
Hoodoo and swamp Creek mining. Company control of independent loggers. East European lumberjacks. Arson and murder in Bovill fire. Gambling and moonshine. Strong men.
Experience as CCC camp superintendent. Mistreatment of men by foremen. Bovill at its prime. Failed mining claims. Company monopoly of cedar.
Bovill 1884
Byers Sanderson's brother.
Maintenance man for Potlatch Lumber Company, photographer.
Stories about Bill Deary, Pat Malone, Mrs. T. P. Jones. Local killings. Life in lumbercamps and early Bovill. Houses of ill-repute. Force in the classroom.
Elk River 1893
Arrived from Sweden in 1912.
Millwright, lumberjack.
Tales of a liar, a single man and moonshine. Impact of mill removal. Elk River Japanese. Malker Anderson. Emigration from Sweden.
Shacking up for winter. Hunting in and out of season. Whiskey and sporting girls. Jericho Mine. Trapping mink. Work as CCC camp foreman. More characters.
Potlatch Ridge, Cameron 1901
Families came from Missouri and Iowa (1880's).
Farm wife, harvest cook, housekeeper.
Hard work on farm and in harvest. Childbirth. Parents. German ways. Caring for children. Housekeeping.
Juliaetta, Kendrick 1892
Parents emigrated from Austria; father homesteaded adjacent to Juliaetta townsite (1879).
Operated local telephone company and theatre; district representative for Washington Water Power.
Beginnings of telephone service. Founding of Juliaetta. Produce and cannery. Work for electric company. Family pioneer experiences. Nez Perces. Jobs for boys.
Tramway operation. Train wrecks and floods in canyon. Subsistence farming. Town socializing. Cannery work.
Juliaetta, Kendrick 1891
Herman Schupfer's brother.
Operated local telephone company and theatre; helped manage electric service.
Early telephone service and tramways. Anti-German sentiment in wartime. Foster's hospital and Adam's wheat. Experience versus education. Juliaetta cannery. Porter enterprises.
Early moviehouses, radios and cars. Right-of-way disputes. Juliaetta flour mill. Melon thieves. Trains in Potlatch canyon. Telephone and electric service.
Aspendale, Moscow 1894
His was one of the few black families to settle in the area; parents grew up in Mississippi, came in 1899.
Warehouse superintendent for Latah County Grain Growers; farmer.
Family background. Life at Fort Smith, Arkansas. Pioneering at Bluestem, Washington (1898). Father's struggle to establish a farm. Work and play as a boy. Joe Wells family. End of small farming.
Experience in a segregated unit in Europe during World War I. Acceptance in high school. Brother's career in Virginia; father-in-law's pioneering. Family hay baling operation.
Independence of family as farmers. Dealing with job discrimination. Supervising men as warehouse superintendent. Meeting wife's family. Flu epidemic. Father's hunting.
Parents' teachings. One-room country school. Store purchases. Country people in Moscow.
Minimal effect of prejudice on family. Socializing in the neighborhood. Farming in hard times. Work as superintendent. Entertainment as a young man. More about Wells family.
Moscow 1901
Came to Moscow to attend college; father was mayor of Boise.
English professor at University of Idaho (1931-66)
University of Idaho in 1920: domination of fraternities; events, traditions and characters. Youth in Boise.
George Morey Miller, English professor.
Rimrock, Genesee 1885
Parents were Norwegian homesteaders in the 1870's.
Farm wife, store clerk.
Family pioneering and childhood experiences. Family illnesses and deaths. Early Genesee. Her courtship.
Moscow Mountain 1886
Family came from Virginia (c. 1890).
Woodcutter, farmer, moonshiner.
Moonshining experiences. Impact of prohibition. Cutting cordwood. Fighting. Poker.
Making moonshine. Stool pigeons and bribes. Arrest. Houses of ill-repute. Crooked gambling. Saloons.
Bovill, McGary Butte 1892
Came from Missouri with parents, settling in the area c. 1900.
Homemaker.
Wagon journey from Rexburg to Parma. Family homesteading at McGary Butte. Moving west; living in Laramie, WY; move to Troy.
Charlotte Bovill and family. Arson and murder in Bovill fire. First Bovill school (1907). Get-togethers. Raising children; getting married. Community church. Ladies of the night.
Birth of first child; lore of childbirth. Death of baby daughter. Learning sewing and needlework.
Evacuation of Bovill in Beal's Butte fire (1914). Mrs. T. P. Jones' role in Bovill. Husband's work for Potlatch. Raising children.
Problems in early marriage; dealing with drinking. Bovill plays; separate social clubs. Family religion. Baby's sickness. Amputation of a leg. A selling contest.
Timber homesteading: one family's struggle; mother's miscarriage; development of a home.
Troy 1885
Parents were homesteaders from Kentucky (1884).
Farmer.
Art of horse handling. Homesteading in the Grand Coulee country (1907-19). Caring for her family as a girl. Home remedies. Self-sufficiency. Early events around Troy.
Troy, Moscow Mountain 1892
Family came from Iowa and homesteaded (1898).
Farm wife, harvest cook.
Potlatch, Lewiston 1895
Emigrated from Dimalis, Greece (1912).
Sawmiller, operator of shoeshine parlor.
Millwork and opportunities. Greek community in Potlatch. Life in Greece. Coming to Potlatch. Sending money to Greece. Purchasing shoeshine business in the depression.
Moscow 1902
Father first came in the 1880's; parents moved from Kansas in 1900.
Ran delivery service, laborer.
Family view of Will Steffen's killing (1901). Life as an apple harvester and dishwasher in eastern Washington. Family farm. Moscow moonshine and other amusements. In the Marines in China.
Varied work experiences. Moscow livery stables, freighting and pool halls. Parents.
Clearwater River, Bovill area 1903
Came in the mid-twenties; father had a farm and sawmill in Quebec.
Lumberjack.
Clearwater River log drives: wanigans, pilots, drownings. Tramp lumberjacks; wide open towns. IWW's and direct action. Foremen and gyppo logging.
IWW Strike of 1936: murder of pickets; arrest and blackballing. Strikes on the job. Lumberjack sociability. Picking timber on river drives; fluming.
Riding the rails. Jungles. Blowing-in. IWW community; support for 1936 strike in Pierce. Jail and blacklisting. Girl friends. Depression in California. Prostitutes. Fights; gambling.
Potlatch 1899
Came with parents from Wisconsin in 1909.
Maintenance foreman and lead man in Potlatch mill for forty years.
Potlatch as a company town: housing, store, script. Rowdy Midwest logging towns. Bad lumbercamp conditions. Company role in area development. Immigrant labor.
Early working conditions in Potlatch mill. Attitudes towards foreign workers. Mill joking and sign language. Operation of mill equipment.
Laird and Deary as general managers. Weyerhaeuser and rags-to-riches theory; ambitions of young. Potlatch baseball. Mill products and car loading. Town whistles.
Unionizing: IWW versus company; millworker gullibility; his involvement. Worker aspirations. Foremen-crew relationships. Gyppoing. His work.
Mill safety problems. Company management of town. Cooperation in the depression. Worker stagnation; character of Nob Hill. Power transmission in mill.
Troy 1895
Parents emigrated from Sweden to Minnesota then to Latah County in 1900.
Warehouseman, carpenter, brick plant worker.
A mean marshall and a mean teacher. July Fourth and other community pleasures. Harvest work. Desire to come to America. Clearing land. Drinking in prohibition.
Moscow 1883
Grandfather, Peter Carlson, was the first Swedish Lutheran minister in the area (1870's).
Teacher, pea processor, homemaker.
Grandfather's works and closeness to God. Stories about swearing and religion. Teaching experiences.
Park, Alberta 1883
Family emigrated from Norway and homesteaded (1891).
Farmer, carpenter.
First years of homesteading at Park: locating, building, surviving. Community construction of road to Troy. Appearance of valley.
Park back country: wild game, camping, Nez Perces. Building church; celebrating Christmas. Homestead work. Saloons. Lack of opportunity at Park.
Nilson, a foolish miner. Mail service to Park.
Relationship of children to parents. Community socializing and religion. Problems with church doctrines; spirit experiences. Farming struggle near Wainwright, Alberta (1918-1925). Decline of Park.
Dry Ridge, Troy 1899
Came from Torsby, Sweden in 1928.
Farm wife.
Adaptation to America. Life in Sweden: family's religion, social classes. Lore of America in Sweden. Family connections to Troy. Her journey to Troy. Banker Ole Bohman.
Family divisions about emigration. Oppression of poor in Sweden. Food shortage following World War I. Logging in Norway and Idaho. Work of Swedish women. Owning a farm.
Dry Ridge, Troy 1901
Came from Northern Sweden in 1927.
Logger.
Avon 1889
Family came from Iowa in 1888.
Farm wife.
Courtship. School and entertainment. Subsistence farming.
Park, Elk River 1892
Father was a Norwegian homesteader (c. 1890).
Ran drayline, did road maintenance, farmed.
Homesteaders around Elk River. Prosperity of Elk River; devastating impact of mill removal. Settlement at Park. Moving from Elk River.
Hatter Creek, Princeton 1896
Parents settled in 1880's; mother was from Willamette Valley, Oregon.
Woods clerk and scaler.
Local persistence in 1893 depression. Unspoiled pioneer country. Art of scaling and clerking. Murder of Chinese miners. Mother's jobs.
Foreign workers and conditions in Potlatch logging camps. Unreasonable IWW demands in 1917 strike; his role as Four-L representative. Tricks of log scaling. Medicine show come-ons. Courtship and marriage.
Hatter Creek, Princeton 1902
Dick Benge's sister; Hershiel Tribble's wife.
Farm wife.
Teenage years: dances, teachers, work. Settling in Idaho. Neighborhood closeness.
Harvard, Hatter Creek 1906
Parents moved from Spangle, Washington (1911).
Teacher, farm wife.
Family life. Parents' view of school and dances. Getting settled at Harvard.
Hatter Creek, Princeton, Potlatch 1903
Parents moved from Kansas (c. 1894).
Sawyer in Potlatch mill, farmer.
Retaliations against Potlatch Lumber Company arrogance. Winter logging. Gold Hill gold; father's mining and bad mining stock.
Sympathy for Indians as a boy. Murders of Chinese miners and a tramp. Persecution of an ex-thief. IWW sabotage to pressure company. Gypsies; bootleggers; the Klan. New-fangled machinery. Demise of forest wilderness.
A boy's adventures on horse, bicycle, sled and skates. Competition with a friend. Motorcycling. Coming of cars. Working in Potlatch sawmill: sources of conflict in the crew; art of running saws.
Her work as a "servant girl" on Potlatch Nob Hill. Class snobbery and self-made men. Dating and marriage. Depression days. Gas rationing. Relation of country people to Potlatch.
Elk River 1882
Raised in Wisconsin; came via eastern Montana (c. 1918).
Homemaker, kept boarders, worked in hotel.
Working at Elk River. Goodness of IWW's. Recovery from tuberculosis. Homesteading in eastern Montana. Klan; bootleggers. Closure of mill. Good life at Elk River.
Paradise Ridge, Genesee 1905
Lola Gamble Clyde's sister; Tom Wahl's wife.
Teacher, farm wife.
Grey Eagle District, Genesee 1911
Father's family came from California (1879), mother from the Willamette Valley, Oregon (1890).
Farmer, research engineer at Washington State University.
Relations between hired help and farm families. Butchering bees. Winter work and isolation.
Teaching and rural communities. Relations with Nez Perces and blacks. Family farming life. Early homesteading; J.P. Vollmer.
Bovill, Moscow 1890
Byers Sanderson's sister.
Head clerk in department store, logging camp flunkey, homemaker.
Flight and loss in the 1914 fire. Work as an early woman flunkey. Christian rebirth. Sunday school teaching.
Family closeness. Clerking a failing business. Meeting husband. Divine healing. Bible study; Ladies' Aid. Opposition to swearing.
Moscow 1896
Parents came from Illinois via Texas (1910).
Mail carrier, laborer, farmer.
Working career. Short course at university. Family background.
Moscow 1878
Moved from North Carolina in 1902.
Laborer.
Troubleshooting for a Moscow bank during depression. Chicanery of Harding presidency; fall of Woodrow Wilson. Republican domination of Idaho.
Joe Wells in North Carolina. Decision to leave North Carolina. Men who became wealthy.
Harvard 1893
Parents came from Massachusetts and New Jersey (1877).
Homemaker.
Palouse River town life. Entertainment for young. Woods camping. Homestead practices.
Moscow 1891
Della Johnson's sister.
Homemaker, store clerk.
Mother's skill and determination. Family's horse drive from California; loss of horses. Development of Penney's Store chain.
Genesee, Coyote Grade 1906
Father's family came from Wisconsin (1878), mother's from Michigan (1892).
County commissioner and civic leader; homemaker.
Pioneering ways and hardships at Genesee. Father's family pioneering. Family background.
Growing up on the family farm: reading, music and pen-pal club. Farm animals and orchard. Mother's frailty as a pioneer. Nez Perce families. Jane Silcott; Brocky Jack.
Heart-in-hand and Indian-white marriages. Pride in housekeeping. Washdays. Family hardship in World War I. Genesee culture, stock show, stores.
Close ties among Genesee families. Stories of people buried near Jain family plot. Family Republicanism. Honoring war veterans. Town bells. Farm water supplies. Old Kentuck.
Great aunt’s independence and homesteading. Grandparents’ pioneering. Parents’ struggle to establish farm. Family politics.
Avon 1902
Grandfather was first homesteader in Avon area (1884), coming from Indiana.
Farmer.
Princeton, Palouse 1887
Parents came from Missouri and homesteaded near Princeton (1886).
Farm wife.
Keeping and raising children; closeness of family unit. Community get-togethers. Home doctoring. Difficult farming experiences. Lack of conveniences. Girls' work.
Interviews not included in Sam Schrager's guide: