Oysterville Stagecoach, 1885

There’s been a discussion on social media lately about Oysterville’s “good old days.”  I took a look and it seemed to center on cars – a ‘modern’ junker car and a derelict car from the forties or fifties.  There was reference to someone else’s commentary about the “good old days” and, since I write about Oysterville’s past now and then, I wondered if the reference was to me.  And, if so, which time period was I talking about?

At this time of year (from January through April) my focus is usually on the very earliest days of Pacific County.  That’s because these are the months that the Community Historians meet each week at the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum and we tend to talk about beginnings more than about recent history.  I find myself looking back into the Espy Family files for information and documentation about the years before I was born – or my mother or even my grandfather, for that matter.

Albert and Medora in Front of an Early Style Plunger – c. 1905

Those were the days of the stagecoach on the weather beach.  Most households had a barn that housed horses and maybe a wagon and most families had a boat of one kind or another because by water was the only way to travel.  And, for a substantial portion of the year, I am content in reliving and recounting the “good old days” of my ancestors.

On the other hand, as summer approaches and I am out and about more often – down at the bay, walking the lanes, reveling in the old-fashioned flowers that pop up now and then – I tend to think more about the days of my childhood.  Those years were when my own memories of Oysterville began – during the long, lazy summers of the late thirties and early forties.

Bitty Redell, Rodeo Queen and Amber the Horse -1947

There are fewer and fewer of us who remember those days – when Oysterville was a blue-collar, family-oriented town.  Most people’s livelihoods centered on the oysters, there was still a play shed over by the schoolhouse, and you went to the store for candy and the occasional bottle of milk.  Nearly every family with kids had a horse or two. Those were the years of my own “good old days” memories.

I can’t help but wonder what today’s youngest generation of Oystervillians – the grandchildren of our neighbors – will remember fondly seventy-some years from now. Playing whiffle golf and building tree forts and smoking fish in the backyard?  Even going to buy candy at the store?  I hope so.