House and barn fires are experienced hardships, besides the rigors of everyday life in the early part of the last century. Read on.

Wilson Creek area history

The Rev. David H. Crawford compiled and published a history of families in and surrounding Wilson Creek titled, "Family Memories of Wilson Creek Area." The book was printed in 1978, which was the 75th anniversary of the town. David's son, John Crawford, has given permission for those memories to be a part of this column.

Today we continue the story of the Cris Larsen:

Norman (Mick) married Barbara Jorgensen of Milton-Freewater, Oregon and lives on the old home place, where he was born. They have four children, Paul, Keith, Brian and Darla.

Mariane is married to Kenneth W. (Bud) Saunders, a pioneer family of Moses Lake area. Bud's grandparents homesteaded their farm in 1904. They have one son, Steven.

Verna is married to Danver W. Johns of Davenport, and has four children, Marie, Lucille, Robert and Karen. Danver's parents are old-timers of the Davenport area.

Chris married Phyllis Frick of Marlin, now lives in Kennewick and has five children, Ronald, Allen, Bernardine, Debra and John. The Frick family are longtime residents of Marlin.

Chris served in the Army following his graduation from WSU, receiving his Officer's Commission through the ROTC program.

Those early years of farming were a lot of hard work and not much return. A big crop was harvested in 1923 and again in 1928. Then the depression and the 30s when there were poor crops and poor prices. We always had plenty to eat.

Dad said the hardest thing to do was to keep us in shoes, which took cash and cash was scarce. In the late 30s the crops got better and so did the price.

Family hardships during our growing up included the home burning in 1918, when Tom was but a few days old, the barn burned in 1928, the wheat crop hailed out in 1938, plus Mother and Dad were almost killed in an automobile accident at Deep Creek in 1948. Mother was left lame as a result of this accident.

In 1940 Dad was elected County Commissioner and was reelected in 1942, serving 6 years. By law at that time that was all you could serve. He was appointed to fill out the term of State Representative upon the death of J.P. Simpson in 1948. He ran for reelection, but lost in the primaries that fall.

He said he was glad and lucky not to be elected to that office. For many years Dad served on the School Board and also as a Director of the East Columbia Basin Irrigation District. In 1952 he was named the Grant County Cattleman of the Year. We had primarily had milk cows until 1941, when we switched to beef production.

E-mail from Cheryl

Facts from the past gleaned from the Moses Lake Herald, Columbia Basin Herald and The Neppel Record by Cheryl (Driggs) Elkins.

From the CBH on Thursday, July 16, 1953:

Replace water line

State is replacing 3,600 feet of water line at Sun Lake State Park. The old pipe was war-time invasion tubing, which proved unsatisfactory.

New shopping center

Construction begins on an 11-store shipping center in Quincy for Columbia Basin Improvement Co., Inc. Westover & Hope has the general contract for $89,821.   

Herald to print twice a week starting Aug. 11

The Herald is on its last legs as a weekly. Beginning Tuesday, Aug. 11, it will be semi-weekly, publishing two issues a week.

The two issues will come off the press Tuesdays and Fridays and will be delivered to the post office in the early morning both days, so rural route subscribers will receive their copies the same day.

New subscriptions and renewals at the present rate of $3.50 per year will be accepted up to Act. 1. After that the rate will be $4.50 per year. The prices apply to subscribers in the Columbia Basin.

Subscribers who get their papers through the post office will notice their names in green ink on this week's issue. It's done with a new Elliott addressing machine just installed this week.

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 backtrack a bit and then continue the story of Ephrata by Thelma Billngsley Nicks:

Many a wiener roast and marshmallow roast would be held up this creek. It would be a place where youngsters would be taken for a birthday party. Jessie Cyrus had a pond dug out near the choke cherry grove to use for irrigation for an orchard and alfalfa ground. In the winter this pond would be filled and ice cut from it for the ice supply for the town in summer. There was a large ice house built near the grove of trees. This pond would also serve the town as an ice skating pond in winter.

On the creek were willows, brown birch, service berries, wild current, thickets of wild roses, mock orange, silver leaf poplars and others. Lots of vines some of which were the wild grape vines, which the kids liked to smoke.

The flowers were water iris, violets, both yellow and purple. The yellow violets were a prize to find. Blue bells, yellow bells, buttercups, lady slippers, shooting stars, a lovely patch of bird bills above the second bridge and many others.

On the hill across from Maringo Street and across a small canyon was the violet patch. It covered a large area. In the spring we all had to go there to pick violets. And most of us would come home with a tick or two.