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.

These are memories of Grant County, compiled from taped interviews by the Grant County Historical Society.

Today we backtrack a bit and then continue with the story of Mrs. Maeky (Mae) Higashiyama. Read on:

I don’t know if it’s true, but we heard the Calloways became very worried when the Japanese fellas all congregated in his field hashing out the “what to do now.” Coming from Oklahoma, they hadn’t seen a Japanese before and they were sure World War III was being hatched.

Understand a fellow by the name of Layton let them know that we were not like that. We became very good friends and love them dearly. I believe we and the Miyas introduced them to many different types of vegetables as well as rice balls with the black thing around it, seaweed, to their son Jerry who really loves them.

The following year Macky rented land from Mr. Conrad Weber. We have been in Quincy for 30 years and we have been on the same units for 29 years. Mr. Weber consented to buying one of the buildings from Larson Air Force Base in Ephrata, one of the first prefab houses. Alfred and Ren McDonald put in the foundation and Mack and I put the house up with the help of Floyd Oliver, a carpenter. Floyd later became our first weed district supervisor.

Our third child, David Dreger, who started out as an ulcer, was born in March of 1955 in Soap Lake. Quincy didn’t have a hospital then. When David was about 10, his father had taken him into town and he saw kites being flown around. Since it was Sunday, Mack had told him the stores were closed.

Dave remembered a special kite that had been given to us some time earlier, but we didn’t have a cord. He wanted to fly it so badly, all caution had slipped away, and I said I had some. I took out a ball of crochet thread, which I had purchased a few days earlier, which had tinsel running through it.

His older brother tied it on the kite and they both flew it down to the bottom of the field where Dennis staked it into the ground. David came complaining to me that Dennis would not let him fly the kite. Dennis probably was aware of the string’s potential danger and had purposely staked it away from the power lines. Since I was busy preparing lunch and was busy, I told him to go ahead and fly it.

He picked up the kite and, as the kite was in the shape of a parachute and made of plastic, it kept pulling him closer to the house. He may have even wanted to get closer.

The cord did not touch the electric wires, so we were later told, but because of the tinsel had jumped into the cord and Dave took a headlong dive into the wheat field.

Mack was just walking out the door and saw Dave take a dive. He shouted to Dennis who was shooting baskets about 50 feet from the house, to tell David not to play in the wheat field.

When David didn’t move, Dennis sensed something was wrong and quickly ran to him and started mouth to mouth resuscitation. He had read about it in one of the high school classes just the Friday before. He shouted to his dad that David would have to be taken to the hospital.

More from Mae Higashiyama next week.

As Mack got the car, I called the hospital which by then was established in Quincy. David had come around by then and when Dr. Trantow had taken off his shoes there were tiny, round pinholes in the sole of his feet and socks and the smell of burnt material. Dennis was given an award in a school assembly from the Red Cross.

In all the years up to this point, I knew I wanted to have the children baptized. Friends had taken us to the Lutheran Church so in 1957 the children and I were baptized. When I was a youngster, a lady from the Nazerene Church would pick us up and take us to Sunday School. We would learn verses and take part in the programs.

In 1958 when Mrs. Conrad Weber passed away, her daughter Hannah came from Seattle to care for her father and brother. I found a most cherished friend in her and we did many things and went many places together.

I would go with her often to see her aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. George Weber. After several visits with them I said that I just might make a slip and call them aunt and uncle too. Mrs. Weber said that as many nieces and nephews as she has one more wouldn’t make any difference, so for a person who was raised without grandparents, aunts or uncles, you know what that meant. You can understand why my oldest brother-in-law is so special. He was my first relative.