CATEGORY: LATE CHILDHOOD
PHOTO: OLD SHANIKO HOTEL

In the late summer of 1941 we moved to Shaniko, a tiny town twentyfour miles south of Grass Valley in Wasco County.  It was named Shaniko from the Indian mispronunciation of the German name Scherneckau, the first settler.   I was 12 and Mary was 13.  We both wanted to go back to Camp Sherman where mother had taught the year before, but she chose Shaniko for her next teaching position because Mary was to be a freshman in high school and could go by bus to the high school in Kent.  At that time each of the five towns in Sherman County had its own high school.  Also, because Shaniko was so close to Grass Valley, we could return home on weekends if so desired.  Gracie was still in high school there and I think it was comforting to Mother to be nearer to her in her ordeal of living with, and “taking care of,” our moody and darkly depressed father.

Our new town was one rich in history.  It was the end of the railroad, just like those other more famous End of the Railroad towns: Dodge City! Abilene!  For about 11 years from 1900 when the railroad came there, to 1911 when it was out-flanked by another railroad built up the Deschutes Canyon all the way to Bend, Shaniko was a boom town.  It served a vast area: all of Oregon east of the Cascades and beyond into other states, especially for shipments of sheep, wool and cattle, those being the main products of that country.  In fact, during that time it was actually the largest inland wool trading center in the world.  Helen Guyton Reese in her book, SHANIKO– FROM WOOL CAPITOL TO GHOST TOWN, said, “Starting as a tent city, Shaniko soon mushroomed into a great wool-shipping center.  Within a year, it had the largest wheat and wool warehouse in the state and was the scene of huge wool sales attended by buyers all the way from San Francisco and Boston.  In 1904 wool sales of over $5 million changed hands.”  Five million dollars in 1904 would be equivalent of God knows how many millions today.   It was not just the wool trade that blossomed overnight.  Suddenly there were saloons and houses of prostitution on every corner and in the middle of the blocks.  There were at least three hotels, a bank, a fire hall, drug store and a general merchandise establishment with luxury items from as far away as Paris.

The saloons were gone by 1941 when we arrived.  In fact, most of the buildings that had been there in the boom years were gone, many of them burned by the owners to collect the insurance.  The only thing left that resembled a saloon was a tavern that had a service station out front and was combined with a restaurant.  It was owned by Glade Guyton, the mother of one of our school mates, Pat McCullough.  It was a place where sheep herders could come on their monthly pay day and get drunk for a few days, the meager pastime that gave respite to their lonely lives.  There was only one hotel left.  That was probably because it was made of brick and trying to burn it would have been too obvious.  It was on the town’s main corner and its appearance had all the romance of the old west.  Just like the hotels in western movies, it had a porch out over the sidewalk that extended a considerable distance on either side of a corner entrance.  This porch had a railing on top, implying that guests could climb from their second story windows, stand on the porch roof and shoot at whomsoever they wanted from an elevated position.  Indeed, in the early days, the town banker had been shot and killed just across the street from the hotel, and the lobby had a bullet hole in the woodwork giving proof of some other shooting escapade.

Shaniko later became a well-known ghost town but it was still a viable small town when we lived there.  By “viable” I mean we did not have to drive to any larger place to buy groceries and other necessities.  Besides “Glades place,” and the hotel, there was a grain elevator, a railroad station, several large and empty warehouses left over from the glory days and a Round House where the train engine was turned around.  There was, of course, the school house, an impressive structure with a high bell tower in the front and what had been four large rooms before toilet rooms were added.  After that there were only three rooms left.  There had actually been a high school when it was built in 1912.  Now there was only a grade school with ten students, and only one of the rooms was needed: the one with the wood heating stove to keep it warm.

Shaniko had a huge general store and a post office.  There was a real harness and leather shop where shoes could be repaired or a saddle and bridle ordered; but even if one needed none of these, it was pleasant to just step inside, soak up the smell of new leather and glue and talk to Gus.  This was Gus Reeder, Shaniko’s oldest pioneer.  He had come to Shaniko in 1889 when he was 21 and had been both the marshal and the water director for many years, plus, at times, the mayor.  There was almost nothing of importance done in town that he had not been involved with, including the hands-on building of the school house.  One of the stories about him was that, when asked why his mustache was black when his hair was white, he would say, “Because my mustache is 20 years younger than my hair.”

I had just become twelve years old when we moved there.  I was tall, skinny, and awkward.  I was still very much a “wild kid.”  At first, we lived in a place near the hotel in one of three small cabins that must have been an early version of a motel, but outfitted with kitchens.  I remember we lived there at Halloween because Mary and I and two school mates set out from there to go Trick or Treat.  Just as at Camp Sherman, there were two other girls near Mary’s and my ages in the one room grade school.  They were Pat McCullough and her cousin Margaret Olson.  They knew what Trick or Treat was, and we all went together.  It was the first time I had ever heard of Trick or Treat.  My head was practically ringing with excitement.  FREE CANDY????  REALLY???!!!!!!!  WOW!!!!!!!

Then we moved into a small house up near the water tower.  It was owned by a woman named Mrs. Werner and the house had a bath tub of which she was very proud.  She insisted that the bathtub always be cleaned with gasoline because she did not want it to be scratched.  We were very willing to do this, a bathtub being a luxury for us too.  Our house in Grass Valley still didn’t have one and the only bathtub in which I had ever had a bath, other than the small portable tub that we had used when we were very little, was the one in the ranch house where our grandparents lived.

It was in Mrs. Werner’s house while standing at the ironing board in the kitchen, ironing something to wear to Sunday school, on the Sunday morning of December 7th 1941, that the news came over the radio that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.  Just that suddenly we were at war with Japan and also with Germany and Italy.  It only took one devious and hostile act thousands of miles away, and all our lives were changed forever