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Frasier Family History

The History of the Frasier Family has been scanned from the book “Tales of Dead Ox Flat,” compiled and published by the Local Progress Club – 1976

I have converted the scans into text for easier reading.

Michael Gribbin

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HISTORY OF THE FRASIER FAMILY

NARRATED BY: HARRY FRASIER – APRIL 12, 1976

My father’s name was Albert B. Frasier. My mother’s name was Kate Montgomery Brown. They were married in Ellis, Missouri, in 1895. Shortly after that they moved to Parsons, Kansas where they ran a livery stable for two years. They moved from there to Oklahoma where they farmed until 1908. While they lived there, my sister Christine (Frasier) DeHaven and my brother Bose Frasier were born. In 1908, they left Oklahoma and moved to Nyssa, Oregon.

The first year my folks lived in Nyssa, my Dad worked for Bill Kanson. He was from Holland. After he worked for him 2 years, Mr. Kanson went back to Holland and rented his place to my folks. My folks farmed that place about half way between Ontario and Nyssa until 1917, while living there my younger brother, Jim Frasier, was born and my younger sister Emma.

My folks bought a place in Cambridge and moved there in 1917. In the fall of 1918, they sold out in Cambridge and moved to Weiser and bought a small place out on the Oregon Side, out of Weiser, about four and one-half miles. About 1 mile and-a-quarter southwest of the Weiser Junction on the Oregon Side.

The main crop they raised at that time was alfalfa hay, They milked a few cows. Later on, my folks got to running cattle in the foothills back towards Huntington.

When I was 21, I rented land from the ditch company and started farming. In 1926, I farmed for three years and I was married to Pearl Johnson from Cambridge. We had two daughters. Joyce was born in 1929 and Fern was born in 1936. We farmed this place until 1936 when I bought the 60 acres where our home is from the ditch company. At that time, we gave $3,000 for the 60 acres. I sold cattle enough to make a down payment of $1,250 and if I’d sold them all, I could have paid for the place in cash. I paid $300 a year and I do not remember the interest, but when I got the place paid for, I sold all the cattle I had but three milk cows. Later on, I got to running range cattle and bought 900 acres of land back of the home place. I bought 40 acres that lay across the road from me. About the time I bought the home place they tried to sell it to me for $2,000, but when I bought it, I gave $6,500 for it. At that time, clover seed was real good and we were raising good crops, and I paid for it in two years.

When we were married, I rented this place and the ditch company allowed me $250 to fix up the old house to live in. It took $200 more to buy materiel to fix it up a little bit but they reimbursed me for my $200. Later on, we sold the house we had fixed up and wanted to build a new one but the wife’s health was bad, and we didn’t build our new home until 1955.

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In the depression, 1920 or 21, the farmers here were all doing quite well. Before the depression was over, there wasn’t over eleven or twelve places on the Snake River District Improvement Company that the ditch company didn’t own. We had a real hard time making a go of it after we bought this place. We burnt a lot of sagebrush and did without most things. I didn’t take any land out of sagebrush. No irrigated ground but there was quite a bit of land here on the Flat, at the time we moved here, that was in sagebrush.

There was no land leveling done at all at that time. It was just like you might say, you’d take it out of sagebrush. We started land leveling here and I think Glen Alders was the first one that did any land leveling and I know it wasn’t long after that, I started land leveling. You wouldn’t know it was the same country, there’s been so much land leveling done here.

I killed one rattlesnake on the home place but I’ve killed quite a few in the hills. I never did get nut one on the irrigated place. When we first moved here, I’ve seen as high as 25 coyotes in a pack here on this irrigated place.

We built the reservoir in Moore’s Hollow in the winter of 1963 and 64 and, before that, we had six or eight years straight hand run, we had floods that did a lot of damage to the irrigated land, but since we built the reservoir, we’ve never had a runoff where there’s any water come down this draw. We just haven’t had the right weather conditions. We haven’t had the snow. We haven’t had the frozen ground with snow on it.

My oldest sister, Ida, was born in Missouri and passed away about 1964. I had a brother and he passed away in ’55 in Eugene, Oregon. Mrs. DeHaven lives in Weiser and my brother Jim lives in Ontario, Oregon. My sister, Ema, lives in Pueblo, Colorado. My father passed away in 1945 and mv mother passed away in 1957. When they moved from Ontario, they moved in a freight car. They hauled their possessions up to Cambridge in a freight car and I don’t remember how they got back to Weiser, I just forgot.

Our oldest daughter, Joyce, lives in Pendleton, Oregon and she has one boy and two girls. Daughter, Fern, lives in Boise and has three boys. I run cattle. I’ve had cattle ever since I was a boy fifteen or sixteen years old until last fall. I sold the cattle out last fall, rented my place, and now I’m trying to take care of the yard and flowers to suit the wife.

This reservoir in Moore’s Hollow was one thing I worked real hard to get started and I was Director of the Road District for twelve years and while I was the Director I’m sure I made some mistakes but we did get a lot of
roads oiled. It’s Road District # 3 and it starts in about half-way between Nyssa and Ontario and runs to the Annex School boundary line, the old Annex School boundary line. Of course, we’re all Annex now. It runs to the North side of my place.

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I bought my first car, I think, when I was twenty. It was a “Model T Ford” and I just had it for about three or four months and sold it to a friend, and after I farmed one year, I bought a new “Model T Ford.” That was the first year they put a door in both sides of the Model T. Well, it beat a team and bob-sled buggy, I’ll tell you that. This country’s done real good by me, I’ve got no kicks at all. I’m real thankful for the way it has turned out for us.

When we were younger most of our entertainment was dancing. We used to go to these country dances and anybody that’s never been to a good old hoedown can’t imagine how such fun, how much pleasure we had at them, that’s all there is to it. I know different couples met at that time and we’ve stayed friends. Here a couple of summers ago, I stopped in at Harold Harts’ to visit Harold when he wasn’t doing very well and his wife was saying she’d sure love to go back to one of those country dances and have that much fun one more time.

I never went to school here. My brothers and sisters went to Lincoln School. It was part of the Annex District. The school burnt down but they went there maybe one or two years. It was off the highway about a mile North of the
highway going to Huntington and just a mile from the Weiser Junction. It set about a half mile down over the hill on the opposite side of the roadway at the bottom of the hill where that house is. That’s all there was then, just one or two rooms—a lot of them one room at that time. The Jefferson and the Lincoln were one room schools. Annex, I don’t remember the Annex. I think it had two. Kids had to walk about two and a half or three miles.

A lot of children rode a horse to school. Fern rode the first year and Joyce started riding a horse the second year. Sure is different to see the school bus go up to the yards to let the school children out. Lots has changed, mostly for the better, I guess.

If you have questions about this page, want to start or join a discussion about it, or add new information, please visit our Facebook Group, “Weiser Area Memories.”

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Also See Tales of Dead Ox Flat
Also See Dead Ox Flat Pioneer Families
Also See Local Progress Club
Also See Dead Ox Flat