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Subject: [GenChat-L] Fwd: Aunt Charlotte's book (More floods)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 04:10:31 EST


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Subject: Aunt Charlotte's book (More floods)
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No one can dream of a more Beautiful stream than the Willamette, flowing
as it does through the low, fertile bottom lands. its banks are green with its
tangle of vegetation. its waters are as clear and green as a polished emerald.
(Note: Willamette is taken from the Nez Perce language. Wall means running
water and Lampt, means green.) Willows and cottonwoods and vine maples line
its banks with here and there tall, dark fir trees to lend variation to the
landscape. Patches of rich, green grass slope down to the very water's edge.
There are many islands that are fertile and beautiful beyond my power to
describe, a sleepy, placid stream it is to those who do not know it, to those
who have not seen it as I have when warm winter rains brought a slither of
melting snow from the Santiam and Mary's Peak, carrying the river out of its
banks and spreading it for miles over the low lands to carry death and
destruction and tragedy on its crest.To me the river has been as mysterious
and insensible as an Oriental, as grasping and cruel as a Borgia. Perhaps that
is the secret of the fascination that it has always held for me.The first
settlers saw it as you would and built their houses along its banks, and
pastured their few oxen and travel wearied cows and horses on the islands
where fencing was unnecessary. For the matter of that, people still build
along its banks and stock is pastured on its islands but the people who are
there now are wiser in the ways of the river, they know if the snow is deep on
Mary's Peak, what a warm rain is apt to bring upon them. Even the sound of the
ripple changes and carries a warning, so they listen and watch for signs, that
send them scurrying to gather up the loose stock and move their household
goods into upper stories and they drag their skiffs to moor them at their
doorsteps. Then they wait and watch the water gauges fastened to the pilings.
If the rain is extra warm, the water will come with the speed of wild horses.
The waters came like this in what is still spoken of as the big flood.

My sister, Mary, lived at the Mission house across the river. One morning
her little son came running in to say: "Mother, Mother, there is water all
around the ash-hopper. It was just breaking day. Sure enough, there was the
river right to their doorstep. During the night it had carried out of its
banks and was seething and swirling deep and swift over every foot of the
three miles of low ground between the Mission house and the bluff. Brother Joe
and his hired man, Fritz, ran toward the barn. Horses and cattle must be
loosed, it would give them a chance, that was all that could be done for them.
By the time this was done the water was up to their waists. Neither of them
could swim, so they got back to the house as fast as they could. Mary and the
children were carrying beds, provisions and clothing into the big loft
overhead. The water spread over the floor. They watched it creeping, creeping
up the stairs, no longer clear and beautifully green, it was as thick and
muddy as a stagnant pool, and covered with leaves and twigs and foam. Then a
trickle spread over the floor of the loft. They climbed onto the beds and
other furniture and waited for the end. It was their last stand with the water
coming pitilessly higher and higher. It was just even with the sill of the
loft window when they heard the splash of oars, some friends had remembered
them. The boat came up to the window and took them out.

Everything in the world that they possessed, was taken by the river, a
warehouse full of grain, one hundred head of cattle and lots of horses.
Everything was gone except old Sondray, who was carried by the flood to the
top of a stack of hay in the big barn. When the river went down a couple of
weeks later, there was the old horse, seal fat and snug on his hay stack. He
had all that he could eat and water enough, more than enough, to last him.

People, who pasture the low lands these days, build huge rafts of logs that
are lashed and held together by chains. they keep hay stacked there in
readiness, at the first sign of a flood, the loose stock is driven onto the
raft and corralled there. the raft is moored by chains to deeply rooted trees.
Houses, too are often built in the same way.

The great flood took many lives and there were many narrow escapes. The
Davidson family lived close to sister Mary's, Mrs. Davidson and her children
were alone. She saw the water coming and started to carry things to the upper
story. Thoroughly frightened, with her big family of helpless little children,
she was almost ready to give up when she heard someone say: I guess you need
some help." It was her husband, who had been away for several months, he was
returning home and met the water at the foot of Durban Hill, two miles or more
away. He knew that his wife and babies were in it, so he threw off his outer
clothing and plunged into the water. Higher ground here and there, gave him a
chance to rest and he finally reached the cabin. They were taken off by a boat
that happened to pass that way.

The Pitman family was saved by an even narrower margin. They had climbed to
the rafters and then to the roof, through a hole that Mr. Pitman battered in
the clapboards with his fist, and when a small boat came to their rescue, they
were perched like roosting chickens, along the comb of the cabin. Before the
boat was out of sight, the house had crumbled and scattered over the surface
of the water. And so on boats hurried from house to house in the effort to
save as many lives as they could. But there were some who could not be reached
and some who were never heard of again.

Walt Davies
Monmouth, OR

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