The beginning for me, Juanita June Hack, was on March 31, 1911, in Eugene. Oregon.At that time Eugene was very small city, today in 1988 it has a population of over 105,000. My father was a carpenter and builder,having come west from Nebo, Illinois because of health problems and hoping a change of climate might help him. Mother was born and raised in Jasper, Oregon. She had been a schoolteacher and consequently had high expectations for her children when they reached school age. My first sister, Wilma, was born in 1912, followed by Audrey Edna, then Margaret. Mush sadness came to our home with Edna's death in 1921 due to complications from measles. In 1923 Shirley was born and was a great comfort to Mother and Dad and somewhat eased their grief over Edna,1 am sure. Dad had built a four-bedroom home in Jasper, and we lived there until 1924. Hills Creek was just behind our house so we spent much time playing there as it was quite shallow and we had been warned to stay from the deep places. In those days children were safe to roam, go wildflower picking in the woods, etc. We also spent many happy hours riding our black pony, Rupert, and Wilma and I rode him to school,a little one-room country school with a pump in the frontyard where we could get a drink of water. In the summer we went: barefooted and the dirt road was hot when we walked to Grandma Hill's house, about a half mile awayAs I think back it seems that Christmas was the very special time of the year, as it is now for most children. Our house had a high ceiling so we could have a nice tall tree, and one year Wilma and I went with Dad over on the butte and helped get the tree and carry it home, quite a distance. Out tree was trimmed with paper chains which we had made, strings of popcorn, and real candles held in place with special little holders with a clamp on the bottom to hold then on the tree. On Christmas Eve it was a gorgeous sight to see, the big tree all aglow with dozens of twinkling lights. How we kept from burning down the house I will never know. Grandpa and Grandma Hills would walk up the road to our house that evening with a basket with little gifts in it and enjoy the evening with us. Somehow my father always had to go to the barn to see about a calf or something, and while he was gone SantaClaus would come. 1 always felt bad that Dad missed seeing him every year. During my freshman year in high school Mother drove me to Springfield tend came for me in the afternoon, a round trip of about twenty miles. This was a lot of driving every day, especially since she had to leave three younger children, the youngest under one year old, at home until she got back. Wilma was only eleven, and she couldn't leave for school at Jasper until mother got home. All this was just too much, timewise, and also expensive. Therefore it was decided we would move to Springfield in the summer of 1921. With this move I had a new experience, riding the streetcar to Eugene, and it certainly was a convenience as Dad drove the car to work and without the streetcar we would have had to walk or stay home. High School wasn't much fun for me as I was only twelve years old, and knew no one in this city school. Finally in my senior year things improved, I had made friends and I had my first serious boyfriend. After graduation and one year in business college I worked part-time Bell telephone, then had a steady Job with Lang and Company, wholesale Grocers.
Lloyd and I were married February 19, 1930 during the Great Depression and money was very scarce. I was earning $70.00 per month doing typing, filing and general office work, and driving to Eugene each day. We were living in Pleasant Hill in a little three-room house on a farm we were hoping to own. It had no electricity or running water, the water had to be pumped from a well in the yard, carried into the house and heated on the wood cookstove. We had kerosene lamps and an outhouse. I rememberr using Curtis bath water to wash his little garments, then using the same water to mop the kitchen floor. Carrying water takes time and strength. Out first two children were born there.
In 1933 when Joyce was three months old, we lost the property and had to move. We went to Big Fall Creek and lived in a cabin owned by my parents and Grandpa Hills, we had a pleasant two months there in the forest. Before winter we moved back to Grandma Awbrey's house for a short time before we moved over to Jasper, to Grandpa Hack's house where I had grown up. Living conditions were about the same as at Pleasant Hill but it was there I got my first washing machine, a maytag with gas engine and a wringer. Bill was born in this house, all our children were born at home as the doctor would came out from town in those days.
We were still in the depression and times were very hard. Lloyd didn't have a steady job but he cut wood and hauled it'to town to sell. I could go to town with $5.00, buy the groceries we had to have and have a little money left for other shopping. I remember being in town at noon and Lloyd insisted I get a hamburger and a milkshake because I was nursing one of our babies. The total cost of this repast was 25cents but we couldn't afford any for him. He was allowed to kill two deer each year, also he caught lots of fish and shot pheasants and ducks or we wouldn't have had enough food. when Curtis was starting to walk I wanted so much to get hardsoled shoes for him. I managed to save $2.50 for some nice little laced-up leather shoes but I felt very extravagant. All three children wore then and I still have then now.
In 1937 we managed to build a two bedroomhouse on some of Dad and Mom Awbrey's land. They were getting too old to farm so they divided up their land in four portions for their four children, Lloyd, Vena,Homer and Cleona, keeping ten acres far themselves and the two-story house where they lived. We got twenty-seven acres. Each paid $25.00 per month for the land which was all Mom Avbrey felt they needed in addition to their Social Security.
In 1950, at Christmas, a very great sorrow cane to us with the death of our beautiful seventeen-year old daughter, Joyce, from polio. That was before immunization was available. At the time it seened as if I couldn't possibly endure it, but with the Lord's help I managed. She and I were so close and did so many things together it took quite a while to find arly Joy in living. She was a devout Christian and it was a comfort to think how she was enjoying Heaven.
When Mom Awbrey died in 1957 Dad Awbrey wanted us to buy the ten acres, which we did for $7000.00, and he continued to live on the property until his death in 1964 The old house had burned In 1959 and he continued on there in a small mobile home. After his death we began preparations for building a new house, which we finally completed and moved in it Oct. 16, 1969. How wonderful to have a modern, warn, comfortable home, complete with a furnace and dishwasher. I felt I wanted to sleep on the beautiful carpet, something new to our way of living. For our old house I had braided some wool rugs made from used garments I bought at Thrift stores, usually for 25 to 50 cents a piece. I ripped then apart, washed them, cut strips, turned the edges over and stitched them on my sewing machine, braided them and sewed them by hand with linen thread. We used the largest one on the living room floor, otherwise we had linoleum everywhere. So often I have wished we could have had this nice new hours when out children were growing up, but it wasn't possible. We had lots of good times in the old house, family dinners, picnics in the back yard, and young people who case to stay with us for awhile.
I will never forget the way bill and Kathy shared their children with us. They are our only
grandchildren and each sumner as they become old enough they would come and stay with us. LLoyd had so nuch enjoyment from taking then fishing and they caught
a lot of fish. He still talks about it. We have had the joy of seeing our children and grandchildren turn out well, and now the pleasure
Delayed Birth Certificate
Death CertificateDad grew up on a farm in Eastern Oklahoma. His father raised cotton, plus food for the family. His father also worked at jobs as a brick layer when he could get work. His father didn't think an education was important so all the kids would work in the field in the spring, summer, and fall. Cotton wasn't picked until about November, and all the kids would really work hard so they could go to school before the Christmas Party. At the party all the children got a small sack of nuts and candy, so this was a really important occation. The kids were paid 1 cent a pound for picking cotton. Dad used the phrase of working "from see to can't see" otherwise known as sunup to sundown. At times during the depression, he stomped silage in a silo for one dollar a day. That was done usually in July or August, and it was a 10 hour day. Dad only got to go to school for 9 years, at about 3 months out of the year. He loved to learn anything new, and it was always a joy to him when someone would teach him things, or when he could figure out how to do something. With the help of his father-in-law he was able to build a nice home in the late forties. He loved to go camping, and loved to watch football and baseball. And most of all, he loved his family. He enjoyed his grandchildren, and when he would come to visit he would take them to the store and buy them goodies. He would usually take along a few other children and buy them goodies too. He died too young from a brain tumor, but what time he had he lived with zest.
Kathy Awbrey
My mother was raised on a farm in Eastern Oklahoma. There wasn't much in the way of material things, but there was plenty of good plain food and love. Her mother was an excellent cook, and with the chickens and pigs, and milk cows, they had enough to keep them growing strong and healthy. Mom remembers walking to school one day with her brother Ralph when a Copperhead snake bit her in the ankle. Ralph got her home, and they started to town to the doctor. The car broke down, and the rest of the trip was taken in the back of a hay wagon. Mom said her ankle was swollen to the size of a basketball the next day. When mom and dad married, they had no money but lots of hope. And with that dad went to work up in Iowa at a farm. That didn't work out and they went to Colorado where dad worked for the Santa Fe railroad as a gandydancer. He did odd jobs with there was no work. Finally he got a job with Everett Marshall at his dairy farm in La Junta. They lived there several years, until the beginning of 1943 when they decided to go to Oregon. They had heard that there were good dairy farms in Oregon. Dad was 4f so the military was out of the question. When I went to school, mom worked as a school cook. She was very talented. She not only was an excellent cook, but had a beautiful singing voice. She could also play the piano. We had very little money, but she could take an old coat apart, turn it inside out and make a new coat for me. She also would draw me paper dolls when I would run out of the boughten ones. She was always there when my sister or I needed her. When my sister was killed, she gathered strength from within and kept going. She stood firm through Dad's cancer surgeries, treatments, and death. When her father died, she took her mother in to live with her for eight years, until she too died. When she was in her 60's she took up oil painting, and produced some absolutely gorgeous pictures of mountains. She also learned how to use a computer, and has spent the last 20 years doing family research, and now searches on the internet. In the last 20 years, she has travelled to Australia, Africa, Europe, New Zealand, Thailand, and China. She has also taken cruises to Alaska, the Caribbean, down the St. Laurence River to New York, and white water rafting on the Rogue River. She has a wonderful sense of adventure still. I am very lucky to have such a mother.
Kathy Awbrey/ May 2000