At Jorvik
Yesterday, two totally unrelated events converged and seguéd in my mind into a grand and impossible fantasy. First was the arrival (several weeks after it was sent) of a postcard from members of the Mystery Book Club who were on a visit to England. Second was a visit to Middle Village/Station Camp at McGowan – a ‘field trip’ with the visiting Cuzzins.
A month or so ago, as the book club (in which I was a founding member and a founding drop-out) were preparing a long anticipated trip to the UK, they mentioned that York was on their itinerary and Nyel and I said (as you do to friends off on an enviable adventure), “Try to visit the Jorvik Center while you were there.
That’s over-simplifying, of course, because we couldn’t think of what the place was called – only that it was a Viking “experience” – sort of a historic Disney ride which was created back in the 1970s on the site of an archaeological dig. We had visited there in the mid-1990s and had a clear memory of the place, if not its name.
The Jorvik center came about when a factory in downtown York was demolished and excavations to the site by the York Archaeological Trust revealed the well-preserved remains of the timber buildings of the Viking city of Jorvik. In addition, workshops, fences, animal pens, privies, pits and well were discovered, along with durable materials and artifacts such as pottery, metalwork and bones – even wood, leather, textiles and plant remains. All in all, over 40,000 objects were recovered dating from about 900 AD.
After recovery of the artifacts, the Trust excavated part of Jorvik on the site, and brought the Viking village ‘back to life’ with sights, sounds, smells (including those of pigsties, latrines and a pigsty) and moving figures through innovative interpretive methods. All of it has lingered in my mind as a real-life Disneyland ride back through time.
At Middle Village/Station Camp
No sooner had the postcard picturing one of the animated ‘workers’ at Jorvik arrived, than we took Cheryl and Virg to the newest of the National Parks’ Lewis and Clark sites along the river. To compare the two experiences is hardly fair but I just couldn’t help it. How wonderful it would be if ‘our’ Middle Village/Station Camp site could be interpreted by really ‘taking’ visitors on a trip back in time!
The missing ingredient to that fantasy, of course, is money – ten or twenty million dollars, or maybe more, judging by the reported investment the York National Trust made to recreate and interpret the Jorvik site. Even so, our conclusion at the end of our visit to Middle Village/Station Camp was that the interpretive signage could have been much, much better. At the very least, the information (even as limited and repetitive as it was) could have been better written and less biased.
Oh well…
The window crew worked at Tucker and Carol’s from early to late yesterday. They are preparing to install the windows. Whoo Hoo! Progress by leaps and bounds!
Unfortunately, it turned out otherwise. During our first big storm of the season, in November 1979, a number of the windows failed. When Ossie took them apart to see what he could do to remedy the situation, he discovered that they had wicked water because they had not been caulked, among other things!
One of the most useful references I have relative to the history of Oysterville is a book called Oysterville Cemetery Sketches. It was written in 1988 by Marie Oesting and is, essentially, a collection of memories by (then) old-timers about the people buried up on Davis Hill. The illustrations are by Larry Weathers –simple line drawings of the gravestones in the pioneer section of the graveyard.
Last evening we had occasion to see Marie once more. She lives in southern California now and is known by the name ‘Roena.’ We saw her at Clatsop Community College where she was doing a one-woman performance: “Prison Reform Work Then (and now?) A Visit With Elizabeth Fry: 1780-1845.”
The journey was long, difficult and boring and, until the British Ladies Association became involved, upon arrival in the women had nothing — no money, no contacts, no prospects. The British Ladies Association taught the women to quilt so that they would have an occupation during the voyage and a product to sell or barter once they arrived.
We hardly ever step foot onto or off of our east porch. Certainly not in the winter. It leads directly onto a vast expanse of lawn. No paving stones or pathway through the garden. Just grass which seems always wet in winter and always in need of mowing the rest of the year. It is, to all intents and purposes, our ‘back porch.’
became the main thoroughfare and our erstwhile back door became the front. When my folks retired here in the early 1970s, one of mom’s childhood friends came to call and mom was so touched that she came to the old front door – the only person, mom said, who remembered.
My mother, Dale Espy Little, was known for her hats. For the reception after her 2009 memorial service, I decorated our porch with all the hats that she had left behind and invited the women who had come to her “goodbye” to take one/
Even though I was named after my great uncle, Sidney Richardson, I don’t know much about him. I think that’s because his older sister (my Grandmother Espy) considered him a bit of a failure and, too, he was a shadowy figure in the background of one of our family skeletons.
I should have known better than to answer the phone the other night. I was working late on book proofs (well, late for me!) and none of our friends or loved ones EVER calls after nine o’clock. It was no surprise when the man at the other end began the conversation, “You don’t know me, but…”
Earlier this week a big, green, old-fashioned parcel post scale appeared in the west window of the Oysterville Store. Surrounding it are several leprechaun-ish looking creatures and sitting directly on top, weighing in, is a tiny, wooly lamb.
When I asked Cuzzin Ralph to do a little research about Josiah Crouch, I had no idea that I would be presented with the seeds of another book… maybe. It all came about because of an ongoing discussion I’ve been having with singer/songwriter Larry Murante.
Yesterday morning I went calling on our new neighbor Greg Rogers. I had an appointment to interview him for a Chinook Observer article on his plans for the Oysterville Store. We met at his house – the place we all call the Bert and Minnie Andrews House.
Also, according to Bud, the building was moved to its current location in 1907, although Bert and Minnie didn’t move into it until 1919. All that is a little murky in the Facts Department. Although Bert and Minnie and their five children are listed in the Oysterville Census of 1920, they are not listed in the 1910 census. So perhaps they were not the owners of the house in 1907?
(An aside – Tom Andrews’ brother, Sam, was the Oysterville postmaster from July 23, 1895 until his brother Tom replaced him on May 4, 1901. In 1913, Sam took over again and then in July 1918 their niece-in-law, Minnie Andrews, became postmistress. According to Charlotte Jacobs, an Andrews descendent, the issue was probably not one of nepotism but more a question of who could be talked into taking on the job. A case in point is when Tom Andrews was eager to move away from the peninsula. Taking his postal responsibilities seriously, he felt he could not leave Oysterville before finding a replacement postmaster and talked brother Sam into serving a second time. It apparently took Sam another five years to talk Minnie into taking her turn. By the time Minnie retired on July 1, 1945, the Andrews family had collected and distributed mail for the residents of Oysterville for fifty years less twenty-one days. An admirable record!) 