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 begin the story of The McKeehan family:

Murray was a great horseman on his old white horse "Frosty." The time he broke his arm riding up the airport hill was because the hill was to steep even with great horsemanship and Murray slid off backwards over ole Frosty's rear end. Jack and Jill and Murray went up the hill . . .

Murray was also a good bike rider, but J.P. Goeorge Rosenberg didn't appreciate it when Murray and Denny Zundel would flip their handlebars around, sit on them and ride their bikes backwards. George thought they were a hazard and threatened to give them a ticket for reckless driving.

Who remembers seeing Frank on the nightly television news from Spokane "saving groceries" during the flood? He was wading chest-deep in flood water. The ''groceries" he was heroically saving was really his home brew and he was on his knees in a hole to make it look good for he camera. Frank was the first male cheerleader at Wilson Creek High School. In recent years it has become tradition to have male cheerleaders at the high school.

Larry was heartbroken, but with no permanent psychological damage, when younger sister, Laurel, learned to blow bubbles and whistle before he did.

Damage of a more personal nature did result when Murray's 4th of July skyrocket chased Larry all over the yard and finally expoded just inches from his posterior. Mom had to rub salve on it for three days.

Another 4th of July scene has Larry, age 5, asking big brother Leroy, who is sitting in the bathroom, to unravel his lady-finger firecrackers. Leroy used his lighter to burn a knot in the unraveled string and within seconds Leroy is doing squat jumps all over as 50 ladyfingers are exploding in the bathroom and Larry was crying, "You popped my crackers!"

Laurel was the two-arm-breaker-at-the-same-time of the family, climbing trees was one of her younger day hobbies. Having moths fly up her nose was also a mishap for Laurel, requiring a delicate extraction procedure by mom or dad.

Being the youngest of the family with lots of older brothers, Laurel had to put up with a lot of teasing. She was spunky and cou1d usually take care of herself in a fight with one of her brothers.

Leroy was always an avid mechanic. He seemed to be daily working on one of his cars and the backyard at times looked like a used and junk car lot. Leroy was the receiver of distributing the peace citations from Justice of the Peace Rosenberg when he would come back-firing down the schoolhouse hill. Leroy once asked his little brother to back up his car for him. Leroy assumed he could drive even though Larry tried to convince him otherwise. Leroy told Larry to just put it in R for reverse. The car went into reverse right into a tree. Leroy just shrugged and, said, "I thought he could drive."

Cary Mae was the official family bather every Saturday night for Murray, Larry and Laurel. She usually had to chase Murray all over the house and then hold him down to get him into the tub. By her senior year she figured she had read every book in the school library because she couldn't find one she hadn't already read. Saturday was also house cleaning day for Carey and Lu.

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 Columbia Basin Herald on July 16, 1953:

Larson Little Theater group to do "Charlie's Aunt" at Base Aug. 13-14

The Larson Little Theater players, a drama group at Larson air Force Base which recently made a fine presentation of "John Loves Mary," have begun rehearsals on the hilarious farce, "Charlie's Aunt." Their second production is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 13 and 14 at the base theater.

Grant County history

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 begin story of the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project by Jake Weber recorded Nov. 9, 1976

In 1762 Catherine the Great became the Empress of Russia. Her husband, Czar Nicholas III didn't last very long, so she took over. The vast lands of Russia were not being developed so she, being a native German princess, decided to start an elaborate scheme of colonizing the lands of Russia.

Now agencies were set up in a lot of countries and people were induced to come over to Russia. They had some real inducements, they had 30 to 50 years that they could pay for their development and establishment costs, low taxes, and they had no military requirements.

The town of Odessa, Russia on the Black Sea was one of the towns that was established then. A lot of this country around the Black Sea really grew into quite a prosperous area.

I can remember hearing a long time ago of the peculiarities that they had there, they raised a lot of grapes and the year a youngster was born they put up a barrel of wine and put it in the cellar which, the day that youngster got married, they all drank. I'll bet they had a good time.

Time went on and another colonizing scheme was set into motion, which was to colonize the Volga River country. Now the inducements again were a little different than the original ones, they did not require the learning of the Russian language, they could have their own churches, their own schools, they had very nominal taxes and they had at least 10 years to pay some of the costs, which the Russian government charge them, and the other main thing was that there were no military requirements.

From Saxon, Switzerland, Holland, East Prussia and others these people migrated into the Volga colonies by the thousands. One year over 24,000 of them migrated there. Their usual starting place was to take a boat at Lubeck, cross the Baltic Sea, and go to the port of St. Petersburg and then take a long train containing horses just like pioneers did in our country.