Watkins Family History

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WATKINS FAMILY HISTORY

I have a brother, Gilbert, living in Salt Lake and a brother, Fred, that lives in Ontario, and they both went through the eighth grade at Annex School on the Oregon Side. Daley was born in the Mesquite area. Fred was born in the Mesquite area, and I remember at the time, he was born in November 1951. At that time, we had no oiled roads and very few automobiles that could go through. And the night he was born, the closest phone was the one on the Paul Joseph place, which is the place that you live on now. In the dead of the night, my father got up, harnessed the horses, and went and called the Doctor. Then, he went back to the top of the grade which goes down into the Mesquite area and waited there for the Doctor to come in an old Model-T Ford. Then he took the Doctor about a mile to our house with the team and wagon. After my brother came, he took him back to the top of the hill, and the Doctor went on his way back home, and everything was alright. Those were really hard times, but at the time, we didn’t know any different, and that was alright.

The Mesquite road at that time was a steep narrow grade, and if you are ever down in that area, you can still see what remains of it. It was one that you had to be careful on or the horses might slip and fall down. It was real dangerous because if you went off the other side, you were right into a deep slough which was filled with water, and it was quite a ways down there. When it was slick and all, we were afraid to ride the horses up there, and we would get off and lead the horses up till we got to the top of the hill, and do the same when we came home. It was about two miles, and it took us about an hour to ride to school. We would leave a little before eight o’clock in order to get there at nine. It was cold in those winters too. Sometimes 20 below zero. It was really cold.

The Leland Smith family lived in the little house, would be north of the Saket Farm. They were a young couple, and they had, I believe, four children, and three of them just little toddlers. They somehow got away from their mother’s side and wandered to the river and were all drowned there in the Snake River. Of course, that was real bad for everybody. We all felt sorry. They were such a young and nice family. Later, I believe, there was another baby born into the family, and she lost that one. The oldest one, which was older than the three that were drowned, I understand later passed away too. The family later left the community and went back to their original home in Sheridan, Wyoming, and it wasn’t very long until the father passed away, and in a year or so, the mother did too. In a matter of a few years, that family was all gone. It was a tragic thing, and those three little babies are buried here in the Fairview Cemetery just across the river from Weiser. My sister and I go out there usually on Memorial Day, and I guess there are no relatives, and we always manage to put a few flowers on the graves to at least remember them.

Fred went through the eighth grade at Annex School. So did my brother, Gilbert. My father, at one time, was one of the Trustees in the Annex District for a short time until they moved away from there. He attended the social affairs of the schools, and the kids were in the programs and all.

We were never in the Local Progress Club. I know Sarah Joseph and all of them from the past who were good members and very loyal to that Club.

The first car my father ever had was a used car, a 1917 Model-T Ford, and he bought it when we lived on the Gow place. It was one of those old ones with the magneto lights, and if you crossed over a rough piece of road, the road made it hard to travel smoothly in the car. So, we mostly traveled in the day and not over 30 mph.

Later, my father started in the dairy. He always had milked from 15 to 16 cows all the time we were out there, but after we moved down close to the river, then he started the dairy and delivered milk to Weiser. It was the Buttercup Dairy, I guess, for seven or eight years. Except for a few small ones, he was the only dairy in Weiser. He hauled lots and lots of milk. All handwork in those days. I delivered for him sometimes when the boys would have something else to do. I kind of enjoyed it, and that way, I learned where everybody in Weiser lived. He sold out to a fellow by the name of Foster, I just can’t recall, I was gone from home at that time.

My mother was a native Idahoan. She was born in Midvale, in 1890, and my father was born in London, Kentucky, in 1889. He came out west by himself when he was 15 years old and, as I said, worked on different farms until he finally migrated to Midvale and married my mother there in 1903. Mother passed away in December 1970 here in Weiser, and my father is still alive at the age of 87. He’s been in Weiser for six to eight months and is now at the convalescent home down here. For a while, he stayed with my brother in Nampa and came to Weiser to spend his last days.

My husband and I had the Commercial Printers in Weiser. We were married in 1925, and he was a printer and worked until 1946 when we started a shop on our own for the newspaper in Weiser. I met him on the Oregon Side when we were neighbors. His folks lived in a house out there. We operated that business for a few years until his health faded, and we had to give it up. He passed away eight years ago. He loved his work, was a good workman, a real artist.

I have one son, Bruce. He was born here in Weiser and went through all his
grade school and high school here in Weiser. He had seven years of college. He’s now a chemistry lab supervisor for Hanna Mining Company out of Roseburg, Oregon. They mine nickel down there, I think he said there’s only two nickel mines in the United States, and that is one of them. They have what is called Nickel Mountain there. It’s a solid mountain of nickel ore and has been there for about 25 years. He tells me they turn out about 85 to 90 percent of the stainless steel that’s used in that mine.

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From Ora Watkins Rosin