4-H was educating youngsters when Donna and Marilyn were growing up. Marilyn liked to bake and Donna was fond of sewing. If Emma was away when the girls arrived home from school, she could expect ...Well, 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 Kreiters by Bill and Emma Kreiter:

I was cook at school for two years. Lifting those big kettles was more than I could handle, so I quit.

Donna and Marilyn were both in 4-H. Donna took sewing and Marilyn cooking, both done real good. Marilyn just loved to bake.

If I would go somewhere and the girls got home from school ahead of me, I could expect cake, pie and cookies setting on the cupboard. Donna wouldn't always help bake, she liked sewing better. They both took piano lessons from Mrs. Ruth Thomsen. Both of our daughters went all 12 years to school in Wilson Creek and both graduated as Salutatorian of their class.

Donna went to Kinnman Business School in Spokane, then got a job in Ephrata at the Security State Bank. Donna married Lonny Battermann, they have two children; Webb and Robin.

Marilyn got out of high school and married Maynard James, they have Three children; Billy, Cindy and Lisa.

In 1966 work was hard to find close to home, so we bought us a small trailer and moved where the work was. We moved to Ione where Bill worked on the Boundary Dam. From there we moved to Ellensburg where Bill worked, on different buildings at the college. Then we moved to Easton. He worked at Snoqualmie, on some ski resort buildings. Then down to Grand Coulee where Bill worked for five years.

In November of 1976 Bill started to work at Coulee City on the Bacon Siphon. On March 4, 1977 he received a pin for being a member of the Carpenters Union for 25 years.

Living in different trailer courts was a new experience and we met some very nice people. We still visit with each other and correspond with the ones that moved on to different states.

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 Herald on Friday, Nov. 25, 1949:

Old Duds? Let the Lions sell 'em

Got any old duds in the storeroom, the attic, the basement, the closet or that trunk?

The Lions Club could use them. The club is to stage a variety sale and bingo party Saturday night, Dec. 10, in the USO Hall. Committee members already are scouting around looking for castoff clothing or other articles which can be cleaned up and sold.

Orville Wilmot is general chairman of the affair, which is being staged as a fund raising project of the club. Among club activities are assistance to the blind and sponsorship of the Boy Scout troop and the school safety patrol.

Every one of the club's 80-odd members will work on the variety sale and bingo party, Wilmot said.

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 Ephrata by Thelma Billngsley Nicks:

My mother's family soon moved into the Bear Ridge country of Idaho. There were five children all under 12.

Grandfather married again. His second wife died and he married the third time. My mother was 13 years old then. She did not get along with this stepmother and went to live with an older sister and other relatives. She also worked.

We thought the reason they moved to Idaho was that game was plentiful and in those days meat was an important food to have. Later she and her sister, Prudy, ran a rooming and boarding house in the mining town of Burke, Idaho.

In 1905 or 1906 mother and her sister filed on homesteads on the Royal Slope. I wish I knew how they came to that decision. They made arrangements to have a homestead shack built and had some furniture put in it.

They had made arrangements to have a man meet them at the train and drive them to their place. It was the middle of the afternoon before they got their supplies and were ready to leave Quincy. They did not arrive at their homestead until the middle of the night.

I guess it was a harrowing experience for them when the driver dropped them off in the dark in a new country and miles from anybody. No sign of life. They did not stay long, just long enough to prove up on their homestead. They later went back to Burke.

My father met my mother at this time. They were married June 27, 1907 in Wallace, Idaho. My father built a new home two blocks from the shop. This was the home I was born in as well as my brother Lemuel.

I was born March 26, 1908, Lem December 10, 1910. My full name is Thelma Beatrice, his Lemuel Walter. Dr. Vail was the Dr. in Quincy then.

February of 1911 they moved to Ephrata. Our home then was on the corner of Division and D. N.W. The new blacksmith shop was next to the alley facing Division too. It was a two story house. The courthouse stands on the block where we lived.

While still living in Quincy my father has told of the big fire in Ephrata in 1909. He and several men used a railroad hand car and pumped their way to Ephrata to help. He was a volunteer fireman then.

I remember, as a small girl, going into my father's blacksmith shop and machine shop in Ephrata. Watching him shoe horses and use the anvil to make horses shoes. It used to scare me and I did not go in often, but would watch through the big doors of the shop. He wore a heavy leather apron, a bib style to protect him from the hot iron shoes and sparks.

Ephrata had a little fire hall on the alley facing Division where the Bureau is now. There were two fire carts; one a small chemical cart, the other a hose-pulled cart.

When there was a fire the first person to reach the fire hall would ring the fire bell, which was built into a small belfry. A rope was used to ring it. The men would go running when they heard the fire bell. The first ones there would grab the handles of the carts and run with them to the fire.