Seldom does a mule provide as valuable as one Slim and his brother used to help George Horner during harvest. Read on.

The Grant County Historical Society has compiled several volumes of Grant County history. The books are available for purchase at the Historical Society Museum gift shop in Ephrata.

I bought the series in 2009 and secured permission to relay some of the history through this column.

Memories of Grant County, compiled from taped interviews by the Grant County Historical Society.

Today we continue the story of Coulee City, by C.K. "Slim" Jolly, recorded July 13, 1976:

The first man I knew who farmed the area around Pilot Rock was a man by the name of George Horning, a bachelor. I know my brother and I went over there to harvest for him and we took our horses and mules. We were pulling a combine with mules at that time. He was going to cook for us.

Well, now you know, we just about starved to death because it was so dirty we couldn't eat. So our mule injured one of his nice fryers. We rung its neck, and took it in and we had fried chicken. So he said he'd have to fix the barn, so the chickens couldn't get in. But the next day the mule killed one when we took it out to water.

Well, he couldn't have that, and so he wondered if we could take the mule home, and we said no that as long as we were there we had to have the mule. We knew if it didn't kill the chicken we'd never have anything to eat. I was real happy to have that mule.

My father raised a lot of mules and sold a lot of mules and I can remember how difficult they were to handle. I much preferred the horses, but mules could do a lot more work. One of those mules could kick you when you were buckling the hames, they really could. It really wasn't pleasant to be around them.

I went to school in Mold and Ragged Butte. The first teacher I can remember was Genevieve Lamb. I think she was from Montana. Then I went to Mold and St. Andrews and high school in Brewster because of the transportation problems.

There were no school busses in the 1920s and so you would either have to go to Coulee City and stay, as it was a little too far to ride horseback every morning at 12 miles. I could work at Brewster because of the orchards and that was real important to us because in 1920 we still didn't have any money. So I could work and go to school and not cost my folks very much.

Of course, at that time, my mother had passed away in 1919 or 1920 during the flu period, and I was the oldest, so I was the chief cook and bottle washer. As soon as one of my sisters would get old enough for me to tutor her I would teach her to cook and we would work that out together.

We all stayed together and my Dad raised the six of us and didn't do too bad a job. I don't know that any of us has been in jail. My brother has been in the State Legislature since 1957. He is retiring this year, Dan Jolly.

In those days they had to be real hardy souls because the only income you had was once in a while you'd get some wheat to sell and milk from the cows. When my brother and I got a little older, old enough to do quite a lot of work, one of us, either my Dad or my brother or I, would get a job working with a team of horses working for the county building roads or something like that and that would bring a little income.

It was real tough times. I don't know why we stayed, my brother and me, why we didn't just go and desert the ship, but we didn't. We were really needed and we just didn't leave. Any money we made we'd bring home to help support the ranch.

Question: How did you manage that can of cream to send by the mailman?

Answer: The mail route would go right by the road. You'd take the can out there and take a wet burlap and put over it and that would keep it cool by evaporation, that's pretty good air conditioning you know. Of course you'd take it out not too long before the postman came along.

Question: Will you tell us about cream separator?

Answer: Yes, that was quite a job. You had to turn it at a steady rate, just so many turns a minute or you'd get too thick or too thin a cream and it had to be adjusted that way.

Question: Where did your folks come from?

Answer: My father came from Missouri and my mother's folks came from Pennsylvania, they were Penn, Dutch. My mother's first name was Addie.

Question: Did they use binders in that area?

Answer: Yes, binders and reapers and then shocked the hay or grain. Later they came along with the wagon and picked it up to haul to the barn or to the stack. It took a large portion of your crop just to feed your horses and cattle. Sometimes you didn't have any to thresh, but you always hoped.

Question: Was there wild game on those lakes, ducks and geese?

Answer: Yes, lots of ducks and geese, plus lot of white-tailed jackrabbits, sage hens and grouse and some prairie chickens. You know that was a large part of your food supply-the wild game.

Now we begin the story of Hartline, by Kathryn (Kay) Evans, recorded May 9, 1978:

My Dad, Evan Ira Evans, affectionately known as "Doc" to his friends and family, was the oldest child of Steven and Jennie Evans. He was born on May 28, 1891, on the family ranch just two miles east of Hartline.

His ancestors migrated to this country from Aberystwyth, Wales. We are Welsh people and at one time there was an area north of Hartline that was known as the Welsh Reservation. My Dad told me that he won the prize for being the prettiest baby at that particular school, but he was the only baby there.

His parents came west from Jackson, Ohio, Steven coming first, landed in Wisconsin, and there met Jim Hill, who many of you know and who was our Grant County Treasurer at one time. They came west for the free land and my grandfather couldn't have picked worse land than he did in Hartline. I look at that old land today and think no wonder we went broke, land full of alkali and what have you.

Someone asked him why he picked it, so many of his friends went to the North Ridge of Hartline, and he said that in Ohio the bottom land was best, but that wasn't the case in our area. He came· first, and later went back to get his bride, Jennie.

My aunt tells a story that when he went to Spokane for a load of lumber to build their first home before he brought her, it in 1889 when Spokane was on fire. So he had his load of lumber and he backed it into the river, so it wouldn't burn up and went on with his team of horses to earn a little money in helping with the fire, which helped to build the house. So there's good in everything.

There were five children in this family, my Dad being the oldest; Daniel Chester, an attorney, lives in LaGrange, Illinois. He is 85 years old and still goes once or twice a week to his practice in the Loop of downtown Chicago. Rosena, the oldest sister, who taught school for 40 years, her first school in Dupoint, later teaching in Hartline and in her later years in Spokane, a principal of many schools and is now retired and living in our Methodist Retirement Home, Rockwood Manor, in Spokane.

Another sister, Annette Alboucq, was Mrs. Louis Alboucq. Her father-in-law, Leon Alboucq, had a department store in Hartline, which, believe it or not, employed 16 people. It was during hard times and he extended credit, but with people taking bankruptcy that really ruined him. They left Hartline and went to Clarkston and he was so bitter he never ever came back to Hartline.

His son, Louis, who was married to my aunt, farmed for many years in Clarkston Heights. He passed away and Annette also is living in Rockwood Manor in Spokane. The youngest sister was Marianna, who married Johnny Hughes of Almira. He was the son of Griff and Mary Hughes who were old pioneers in that area, and their son, Alan, and family are still in Almira.

My mother and father received their formal education in the Hartline Public Schools. Mother attended the College of Puget Sound, graduating in 1915 and taught for two years before marrying my Dad on August 19, 1917. In 1942 they celebrated their 25th anniversary at their home surrounded by people who loved them and they loved.

My Dad graduated from Washington State University in Veterinary Science in 1915 and was fortunate enough to be able to go back to his Golden Graduation celebration in June 1965, the spring before he died in December. Those veterinary days were not so glamorous as the modern veterinary clinic. The returns were not so good. I can remember he was called out all hours of the day or night saddling the horse, or driving the Model T and going for miles to attend a sick animal and most often without pay.

This also reminds me in the fall of the year, I can remember he would saddle the horse and get young boys to go with him and they would take the horses and often times the cows across the river on the little Seaton Ferry to Nespelem to winter them.

My Dad, I believe, served three terms as your County Commissioner beginning in 1932, this, also, was the interesting beginning days of Grand Coulee. Our favorite trip when we had guests was to take people to the Dam site. It was a thrill to see it take form and, best of all, giving people much needed employment. Many lasting friendships were made lasting to this day that our family cherished.

I was their only child. However, during the Depression, the Children's Home Society came around wanting to put youngsters on the farms for the summer. My folks took a young man who was 11 years old, Eddie Johnson, maybe some of you remember him. So when they came to get him in the fall, big tears ran down his face, so that's all it took. He stayed 37 years until his untimely death of a heart attack.