Family Memories
By Eva Charity Urie Steves
Written in 1994

I was born in Houlton (now West St-Helens) Oregon to Ethel Jennie Wonderly Urie and 
Clyde Ferdell Urie on December 9, 1907.  I am told I was a very colicky baby and cried 
most of the waking time.

The first home I remember was in Fort Stevens, Oregon, in a cabin.  Dad did cement 
work for the bases of the guns that protected the mouth of the Columbia River in 1909.  
They would practice shooting off the guns, which made a great BOOM and shook the 
place like a 7.0 earthquake.  I was standing on a chair, reaching for a pincushion, when 
one went off and it scared me so,  I dropped to the floor crying.  Mother tried to comfort 
me.  Of course my sister Hazel cried too.  So when Dad came home for the evening meal, 
Mother had two on her lap, both crying.

Mother told me that we moved from there to Rainier, where Mother and Dad built a 
home up on the hill, which was then called Kentucky Flat.  We lived in it while it was 
still being built.  This is the home where Alma, Ruth and Roy were born.  While their 
Mother and Dad moved great boulders, some so large they buried them.  They used the 
stones for a fence.

While living in Rainier, a neighbor girl would come and take baby Ruth to her home for a 
few hours.  Unknowingly, they had whooping cough and Ruth got it and brought it home 
to us three older ones.  Mother never undressed, but she nursed us, night and day.  
Grandma Wonderly finally came to help out, but she got sick everytime we did.  She 
settled by doing the cleaning, cooking and general housework, while Mother had no relief 
from nursing.

Grandpa Wonderly got an acreage as payment for a horse, in Delina Oregon.  (back of 
Rainier)  Dad thought he would like to have a horse and cow, so sold the Rainier home 
and moved to a country house (shake) at Delina.  I started school at the age of 6.  I had to 
wait until Hazel was eligible age to enter school.  She had been crippled by Polio, when 
we lived in Rainier.  She could walk only on the side of her foot, instead of the sole, of 
her right foot.   Dad was on the school board in Delina.   They entertained the teacher 
often.

It was here that I was sent for a pail of milk to Mother’s brother, Ira’s place.  Dad took 
me there, and then he and Ira went to work harvesting.  Aunt Etta gave me the pail of 
milk.  She asked me if I knew my way home.  I said I  did, but when I went out the gate, I 
turned the wrong direction and walked and walked and walked.  I got tired and began to 
cry.  A man walking on the road asked me my name and where I got my milk.  He 
directed me back to Ira Wonderly’s place and sent me in the other direction.  In the 
meantime, Mother got worried for I had been gone for hours and Roy was crying from 
hunger.  She put him on the floor with blankets around him and instructed the older girls, 
Hazel and Alma to  “don’t touch, but watch”.  She had to find me.  I saw her in the 
distance and cried for joy.  She was disgusted at Dad for being so thoughtless with a five 
year old (almost 6).

While in Delina, I remember the land was nothing but stump land where they had cut 
timber.  Dad and Mother had to grub up those tree roots before they could have a garden 
or pasture for animals.  They worked night and day on those stumps, burning and 
digging.  They finally got a patch big enough for a garden.

We had a cow after a couple years and the gypsies would come up the road and stop, 
asking for a “wee bit of milk for their sick baby”.  So one day Alma, Hazel, Ruth and I 
were playing outside and decided to be gypsies.  So we blacked our faces from the black 
off the burnt stumps and then went knocking on the door.  Mother answered the door and 
there stood four blacken faces, asking for a “wee bit of milk for our sick baby’.  I had 
light brown hair.  Alma had golden curls.  Ruth’s hair was a darker brown and Hazel’s 
was a light light brown.  Mother had to laugh, and then she told us she would have to 
clean us up.  So she got serious and set us on a chair until she could heat water for a bath 
and washing our hair.  Water had to be carried from the spring, about 200 yards away.  
That afternoon we got the scrubbing of our lives, with a scrub brush.  She had a hard time 
getting the pitch soot off our skin and out of our hair.

It was here that Alma went, with a pail, to the spring for water and fell in.  She came back 
with wet clothes and no water in the  pail.  She was scared of the water bugs, skipping 
about on top.

I was named after a girl missionary in China, and my Dad’s sister Charity, and his 
grandmother Charity Baker.  My first sister was named after Witch Hazel.  My second 
sister was named after both mother- Alma and Ellender, and my third sister after a cousin 
of Mother’s (Ruth Little).  My brother Roy after a friend admired, and his middle name 
after Dad’s sisters husband, Philip.  A cousin of mothers suggested the name Dorothy.  
Brother Ed was named after both fathers, John H. Urie and O. Edward Wonderly.  
Brother Gilbert Wendell,- we girls had a hand in that naming.

Hazel was an expert in remembering names, and poems learned in the lower grades.  
Crafts, especially knitting.  She judged at the fair and earlier won prizes for her work at 
county and state fairs.  She also taught knitting in her home and for the college extension 
in St-Helens.

Alma is talented as a seamstress.  She won a prize on a suit she made and modeled.  
During retirement, she made dolls, bears, and clowns for church sales and PEO Bazaars.  
She started sewing at a very young age.

Ruth is talented in entertaining, decorating tables and heading committees. She also 
worked as a reporter for the home newspaper.  She won a radio (our first) by getting the 
most subscriptions to the local paper.  The rest of us tried to help but was too timid, - not 
Ruth.  She loved to meet the public.  That was why she and her husband, Chester, was 
successful with their variety store in Myrtle Point, Oregon.
Roy was very active and mischievous.  He felt like a loner among so many girls.  He was 
a curious boy.  At an early age he took an alarm clock apart and then got it running again.  
One day he asked Alma to listen to the alarm and put it to her ear.  Somehow a curl got 
tangled into the spring of the clock and pulled out the roots of the hair before Mother 
could get it out.  She had to cut the hair.  He liked fixing things. Cars, machines, 
anything.

Dorothy was very social minded.  She loved to play basketball.  In adult life she painted 
ceramics, fired and glazed them in spite of arthritis in her hands.  She liked the newest, 
attention catching styles of her day.

Edward, as we called him, was very talented with meeting and managing people.  Also 
with machinery, making pictures with his power saw, during his retirement years.  He 
spent years managing a paper mill in Camas, Washington.  He even managed his baby 
brother, to work for him when growing up.

Gilbert was able to go to college one year.  Then he married and purchased a half interest 
in a grocery business.  He has spent his life meeting people and solving problems among 
the help.  He was always following Ed around.  He is very gentle and tender hearted.

We spent almost 3 years in Delina.  Mother and Dad was again persuaded by Grandpa 
Wonderly to move to a ranch he had 12 miles northeast of Corvallis, Oregon.  Uncle Ira 
and Aunt Etta had already moved to the newer house on this farm.  There was another 
two-story house on another section of the land. Mother worked all day and all night  
making little short pants, vest and coat from an old suit that was given to her, so Roy 
would be dressed properly.  She had made the girls dresses from old adult dresses prior to 
this.  The next day we were to go by train to Corvallis from Rainier.  They took animals, 
bag and baggage, all at the same time.

This house had a well under the back porch with a big pump, to pump water up, for use in 
the wooden sink.  This was early 1914.  We lived there until 1918.  Grandpa and 
Grandma Wonderly came to stay with us for two or three weeks.

We got our schooling in a one-room school, with all 8 grades.  We had a number of 
teachers.  The one I remember most was a retired college professor.  Mr. Pratt.  He would 
put his glasses on the top of his head and forget where they were.  Alma would make 
faces and get the students laughing.  So he made her follow him about as he taught the 
older ones.  But then she would do things behind his back and he would quickly turn, 
trying to catch her, as the students roared.  He sent Alma and I to the coatroom, where we 
sat on the floor.  I was to teach her to read.  Sometimes it worked and sometimes she  
would be stubborn.  I suspect that was a time of peace for the teacher and he had the 
attention of the other students.

We walked to school about 2 miles, or maybe more.  Mr. Pratt drove a one-horse buggy 
to school.  We would cut across sheep pastures climbing over stiles at each fence line, to 
the road going to school.  Mr. Pratt felt sorry for Hazel and would pick her up at the stile 
near the road.  One foggy morning Hazel went ahead, as usual, and got lost in the dense 
fog.  She ended up at the farmhouse of the owner whose pasture we crossed.  We yelled 
her name but couldn’t find her.  When we got to school and she wasn’t there.  Mr. Pratt 
sent older boys out and they met the neighbor bringing her to school.

Mother fixed the best lunches.  Dried prune whip with whipped cream.  Lots of times the 
goodies were eaten on the way to school.  It took an hour to walk to school.  One time 
Alma ate hers on the way.  I told her if she did, I wasn’t going to share mine at lunchtime.  
Sure enough she begged me to share, and I wouldn’t.  She was more careful not to eat it 
all, the next time.

It was here that Grandma Wonderly taught Hazel and I how to crochet, Knit, quilting and 
tatting.  Ruth was always out with the horses, which pleased Grandpa Wonderly.  When 
we complained about her not taking her turn, setting the table or sweeping, Grandpa 
would take her part by saying she was helping him.

Mother and Dad worked in the hay fields and harvesting grain.  Alma, Hazel and I would 
have to do chores in the house then go to the field to help stack the sheaves of grain for 
the thrashers.  It was a lot of work compared to the cutter binder that puts grain into the 
sack as it cuts (a Combine).  It was hard work and I got sick headaches in the hot sun.  
Mother tried to protect me by sending me in the house early to prepare something for 
dinner, or other tasks in the house.

Dad was an inventor.  He figured out if there was water on the hill above the house, 
which was the pigpen.  He put a windmill there to pump water to the house.  A well was 
dug and a windmill to pump water.  He piped water to the wooden sink and bought a 
water tank for the kitchen, so we could turn the faucets on and get hot and cold water.  
Now we didn’t have to prime the pump and carry water to the kitchen to a side iron 
reservoir to heat water on a wood stove.  We still had to bath in the wash tubs.  Mother 
heated water and put a large wash tub.   Bathes the youngest first and on up.  The oldest 
was last, all in the same water.  Men would clean in cold water before meals.  We had 
outside out houses, which were cold places to sit.  In the winter they were almost 
impossible.  The slop jar came in handy but it had to be emptied, sometimes twice a day.  
Every bedroom  had an earthen pody pot.  Those were emptied in the early morning, 
along with bed making.

Mother and Dad paired us off in double beds, in a large upstairs room.  Alma and Hazel 
slept in one, Ruth and I in the other.  There were nights Ruth would cry with the earache. 
I had to get up and put oil on cotton and get it warm by the lamp chimney and put it in 
her ear, so we could all sleep.  There were times we would have pillow fights instead of 
going to sleep.  Also times I would read instead of sleeping.  The other girls would tell on 
me because they couldn’t sleep with the light.  Many times, she came up and spanked all 
four girls.  She didn’t know who started the fuss or fight or giggles.  

Ruth had appendicitis, after eating blackberries and was rushed to the doctor.  He 
suggested mineral oil and no fruit with seeds.  Mother’s nursing brought her through that 
ordeal.

Mother set a teakettle on two sticks of wood, on the floor and Roy pulled out the sticks, 
upsetting the hot water on his legs.  They had to drive 12 miles again to the doctor.  
Again our precious Mother nursed him through that ordeal.

Dad’s brothers were working in the shipyards during the war.  They suggested he come 
and get a job loading boats docked in St-Helens.  So we moved in January 1918 to 
Houlton (West St-Helens now).  The only place available was an old building that had 
housed a saloon, with one big room and wooden slivery floors.  Dad laid tarpaper over 
the floor and hung on ropes to hide bedrooms.

We were told that Hazel and I could begin fourth grade as we were ahead of our class in 
the country school.  But we lacked the knowledge of poems they required and our time 
tables were faulty.  So instead of going ahead, we were put back one grade.  This really 
hurt our pride.  Our second grade class was up stairs over a store.  The stairs was on the 
outside of the building, just a couple of building from where we lived.

Mother would mop the tar paper to try to keep the place clean.  It was here that Dorothy 
was born on February 21, 1918.

As months passed Dad kept looking for a better place.  Finally a family moved out of a 
house on Vernonia Road, near McBride School.  This place was lousy with bed bugs.  
Dad had to repaper the bedroom for they were in the wallpaper.  They sprayed and did 
everything they heard of.  Finally got rid of them.

We all got the chicken pox when we lived here.  This broke our perfect attendance record 
for school.  We also got the measles, including Mother.  She was really sick with them.  
We also had the mumps and Dad got the small pox, but Dad was completely covered.  
We also had chicken pox.

We lived here until they were able to clean an acreage across the road.  It was a dump and 
swamp.  Dad dug a 36-inch deep ditch to drain the water.  They hauled off loads of junk 
and dug holes to bury some.  Then they built a batten house on the back leaving the front 
for a real nice house to be built later.

Often we would have to brush snow off the bunk beds before getting in at night.  Ruth 
and I had to sleep on the top bunk with Alma and Hazel on the bottom.  It was easier  for 
Hazel to be on the bottom, as we had to climb, as it were, a ladder to get into ours.  It was 
always harder to make the bed too.

It was here that Ed and Gib was raised.  Edward was born here and Gilbert in Dr. Ross 
Hospital.  I gave Edward his very first bath after birth, under the instructions of Mother.  
After his birth she got infection and was taken to a Portland hospital, where she almost 
left us.  She was their three months.  Grandma Urie first took Edward, only a few days 
old, then Grandma Wonderly.  Dad had to work and I was instructed to run things.  I was 
15 years old when this all happened.  Dad appointed each one a task to do one week, then 
we rotated.  I was able to do my work and oversee the rest and go to school.  Our 
property was only about 200 yards from the school ground.  I could hear the bell ring and 
run for school in time to march in with the others.

One time Roy and Ruth got into a fight.  Ruth grabbed a stick of wood to his him, when I 
came on the scene.  I took the stick away from her and was going to punish Roy.  He ran 
over the back chicken yard and over the fence.  He was gone for about an hour then came 
back and got his punishment anyway.  He was such a big tease and irritated his sister to 
no end.  He had no brothers he could play with.

Alma was such a help.  We all went to church and Sunday school in a little church in 
Houlton.  Grandmas took care of Ed during our school days and weekends we took care 
of him.  One time as we were going to church, about 8 blocks away, Roy was pushing the 
buggy and running.  He upset the buggy bur fortunately the blankets protected the baby.  
After that we wouldn’t let him push the buggy.  Finally Mother was well enough to come 
home.

Mother took in washing while we went to high school.  Washing the towels from the gym 
at the high school, as well as the laundry for a bachelor.  I had to stand and iron 12-20 
shirts, which was two weeks laundry for the bachelor.  She finally got a mangle to iron 
the flat pieces.  Before that we took turns doing the hand ironing.

We had electricity by this time, but still an outhouse.  There was on room for a bathroom.  
Finally Dad figured he could put a small tub, sink and toilet under the stairs.  They had 
built an upstairs to the house.

Dad did plumbing for people during our hard winters and deep snow.  He also did 
papering walls for hire and always did a good job.  So he was always busy.  The 
shipyards had closed after the war and shipping went to Portland and Longview.  When 
the  shipyards closed Uncle Harry and Uncle Jack moved their families to Longview and 
worked as longshoreman there.  Dad decided not to follow his brothers but found other 
things to do.  He did plumbing and carpentering or handy man  for the public.  He was 
fixing the roof of the 3 ½  story McBride School when he lost his footing and fell.  He 
landed on the hard packed ground, feet first, which broke his back, the bones in his feet, 
his legs and dislocated his  hip.  He was rushed by ambulance to a Portland hospital.  He 
wasn’t expected to live but had an excellent doctor.  The doctor was the same one that 
saved Mother’s life.  They repaired what they could.  He spent months in the hospital and 
the doctor said he would never walk again.  But Dad was so determined, in spite of the 
pain he went from a wheel chair to crutches for walking alone.  It took years, but he did 
it.  He was on state compensation.   They sent mother a check for $35. Each for her and 
Dad and allowed $8. For each child, up to 4 children. Nothing for the rest.

When Dad was injured, the United Methodist Church people brought us a huge collection 
of Grocery staples which helped us for months.  Mother and Dad had always given, 
helping people, but it was hard on our pride to have to receive.  Mother and we children 
had a crying time, to think, people cared.

It was this that caused Mother to take in washing and ironing.  The older children baby-
sat and did house work for people during the summer.  We picked logan berries, 
raspberries and strawberries.  I didn’t pick strawberries for I would get sick headaches, 
stooping over in the hot sun, so I did housework.  Alma and Ruth made good wages 
picking strawberries.  Hazel and I stayed with the other berries.  Dorothy picked 
strawberries as well, when she was old enough.

Dorothy was Dads favorite.  Also Grandpa Wonderlys who brought her peanuts.  
Dorothy called Dad “Popsy”. He would give her little favors when he could.  When she 
was a baby creeping, she would roll down the steps to meet Dad when he came home 
from work.  She never bumped her head once.

During this time Grandpa Wonderly purchased a Model T Ford.  We used it to get grain 
for the chickens we were raising at the time.

We got our milk in gallon milk pails, from a neighbor almost half a mile up Bachelor Flat 
Rd.  It was a chore Alma and I had to do.  Hazel couldn’t walk that far.

When Hazel was in the 7th grade she had surgery on her foot at the Shrinner’s expense, 
through Mother’s cousin, who was a Shrinner.  The doctor took a ligament on one side 
and put it on the other so she could walk on the bottom of her foot instead of the side.  
Her right arm and foot were smaller than the left because of Polio.  Sometimes one of the 
children at school tried to knock one crutch from under Hazel.  That would make me mad 
so I would beat them up, if I could catch them.  Hazel would be standing, watching a 
game and some boy wanted attention and try getting it that way.  By the time she was in 
high school she was walking without crutches.

We went to high school at John Gumm.  Two miles from home.  Dad would take Hazel to 
school in the Model T Ford, but Alma and I had to walk.  By this time the M.E. Church 
had united, so we had to walk down Despain Hill to church as well as school.

We went through hard winters with sleet heavy on trees and wires, so they broke.  
Chickens froze on the roost at night.  We had some winters with deep snow.  As years 
past, snow became less and we had more rain.

After Dad was hurt I had to drive the car.  Mother and I changed tires and cranked the car 
to start it.  I had to get the one hundred pound sack of feed for the chickens.  I wasn’t 
strong enough to put it on the back of the car so backed the car up to the high loading 
zone.  The lady and I rolled the sack onto the car.  When I got home, Mother and I rolled 
it off the car on to the wheelbarrow, where we could handle it.

I and Marvin Jewel had charge of the young peoples service at church.  He was in the 
same senior class in high school as I was.  I was also teaching a class of 12-year-old girls 
in Sunday school, and had been for about 4 years.

I met Mother Steves, Carl, Howard and Edith Steves when they started to go to church in 
St-Helens, instead of the Sunnyside M.E. in Portland.  Carl went out with Elizabeth first, 
then Lillian VanNatta.  Then he took me out to a show and church.  By that time Howard 
and Edith had moved to Portland and Mother Steves had gone to them.  Howard had 
become depressed and Mother seemed to soothe him while Edith stirred up his anger.

Carl was driving truck for Farney, a local route Portland to St-Helens and by ways.  He 
delivered general merchandise as well as bottled drinks.  He asked my Mother if he could 
get his morning and evening meals with us.  That way he found out what king of cooks 
we were, and whether I wanted to join that family.  We were married June 10, 1928 in the 
St-Helens M.E. Church.  He was hard working.  His finances went to keep his mother and 
helping each of his sisters.  Edna, Ethel, and his brother Howard.  So when we were 
married he borrowed money to pay Rev. Johnson and we could go to Condon to the 
wheat field, living or camping during a very hot summer.  He drove truck, hauling wheat 
to the grainery.  Then we went to Cloverdale, Oregon where he hauled logs to the mill.  
Then we moved to Portland where Carl worked for a printer,  Mr. Foster. He worked on a 
press where you had to set the type.

That summer Ethel visited us for a week and unknowingly gave us the itch.  We both got 
rid of it with drastic medications.  Lillian was born that October.  We went to Mother and 
Dad Uries place from there and stayed a few months.  Carl got on as Janitor at McBride 
School.  Lillian did a lot of crying.  With Mother Uries help, Lillian finally got food that 
satisfied and the crying stopped.  The crying was Upsetting Mothers family.  The girls 
tried to study and rest for the next day’s work.   Mother interceded Grandpa Wonderly to 
let us move into his place, on Columbia Blvd, near Milton Creek.  He wasn’t there but a 
day or so.  He stayed in Yankton, on his ranch where he had goats, horses, and chickens.  
We stayed there for some time until we could rent Grandpa Uries little house on bachelor 
Flat Road, on the West End of his property.  It was a little three-room house.  The only 
cooler we had was a north side screened in small back porch and a small screen cupboard 
on the wall.

We would take Grandpa and Grandma Uries daily paper to them.  Sometimes it would be 
before Lillian had her nap.  She would be busy, all the time.  Grandpa would say,  “she 
hasn’t had her nap, has she?”  We left to give them peace.