CATEGORY: LATE CHILDHOOD
PHOTOS:
1) CHRISTMAS CARD TREE
2) CABINS BESIDE THE RIVER
3) THE CAMP SHERMAN SCHOOL HOUSE

In the late summer of 1940, Mother, Mary and I moved to Camp Sherman, where mother had been able to get a job teaching in a one room school.  It was a log school house, which seemed really special.  Not only that, but for the first time in my life I was free of the tension of living with my father.

Camp Sherman was a community of summer homes along the Metolius River in the Cascade Mountains. The reason it was named “Camp Sherman,” was because it was started by people from Sherman County made wealthy by the price of wheat during the first world war. Mother knew all the people who had homes along the river even though most of them were absent when we moved there, it being the end of summer.  And such houses as they were!  Most of them were made of logs or were sided in bark, and many had water wheels on platforms in the water.  Those still in residence had tubs of blooming flowers prominently displayed.  Foot bridges made of logs provided easy access across the river.

I was thrilled to be in the mountains and living in a little house in the woods right beside a beautiful river.  We could hear the river day and night.  The “little house” was a summer cabin, the only  place we could find to rent in this community or summer homes.  Our bathroom was in a separate building at the end of a trail along the river. Our refrigerator was a cooler box sunk into the river at the end of a catwalk. We did have a kitchen sink with running water (cold) and a tiny wood burning cook stove which was the only heat.

I have a vivid memory of the first snowfall. It was presidential election day, 1940. Delano Roosevelt was running for a third term. No president had ever run for a third term before. Mother was an ardent Roosevelt supporter and this was the day when we would find out if the rest of the nation had been listening to her. There was no school on election day, but we had to go to the school house anyway to build a fire and get the building warm because it was to be used as the polling place. We woke up in anticipation of this special day–and gasped in surprise.

The double bed in which Mary and I slept was virtually outside.  Another amenity of this summer cabin was that we slept on a sleeping porch enclosed by insect screen. We could see the ground on three sides. On that morning the whole world was changed. It was white. Our bare feet hit the floor running as we rushed inside where mother had a fire going in the little stove. We ran to the window and stared outside.

Whenever snow had come in Sherman County it had been accompanied by wind. It was a blizzard and we really knew it was snowing. But this was different. Neither of us had ever seen anything like it. This was silent snow. It had come stealthily, “on little cat feet” (Carl Sandburg).  It had crept up in the middle of the night and covered everything with 9 inches of itself.

Camp Sherman was in the pines. I had seen evergreen trees before when we lived in Silvies, but it was so very long ago that I hardly remembered. Now the evergreens all around us were weighted down with snow. It was just like the pictures I had seen on Christmas cards. And here it was, right outside our very own window. We were living inside a Christmas card!

We got dressed in our snow suits and galoshes and walked the two miles to the school house. We walked in the snow. There was not a sound to be heard. Nothing had been over the road before us. It was all ours. Sacred snow. Heavenly snow. Snow from heaven.

VELVET SHOES

Let us walk in the white snow
In a soundless space;
With footsteps quiet and slow,
At a tranquil pace,
Under veils of white lace.

I shall go shod in silk,
And you in wool,
White as a white cow’s milk
More beautiful
Than the breast of a gull.

We shall walk through the still town
In a windless peace;
We shall step upon white down,
Upon silver fleece,
Upon softer than these.

We shall walk in velvet shoes:
Wherever we go
Silence will fall like dews
On white silence below.
We shall walk in the snow.

Elinor Wylie