WPA Interviews

Lurwell, Anna

INTERVIEW, October 14, 1938

With Mrs. Anna Lurwell. Mostly concerning her Father, Mr. Gray Rice, pioneer of 1849.

My father was named N. G. Rice but he commonly went by his middle name, that of "Gray". Gray Rice came from Missouri in the year 1849. At this time he was only 19 years of age. That would place his birth date as about 1830. I have almost no records of my father's family and this can give but approximate dates and facts as I picked them incidentally from hearing conversations when I was a small child. My father was a very poor narrator and seldom stopped to tell us children much about his past life.

My father walked practically the whole way across the plains. He was a poor boy and arrived here with almost nothing but he went to work and soon found that he could make his own way without any trouble. However, I have often heard him say that he never wanted to see his sons work as hard as he was forced to work when he was a boy. The first work that father found to do in Oregon was splitting rails for a Mr. Tycer near Brownsville, Linn County. (This was probably Lewis Tycer, a very early pioneer in this section.) After that he did many kinds of work for various pioneers all through this region. From being penniless he soon began to accumulate a little property. As soon as he had a little money saved he took up or bought a claim southwest of Brownsville on what is now known as the "Lower Halsey Road". This land or much of it is now owned by S. R. Daugherty (1938). It is a fine level piece of land but not so rich or well drained as some of the first settlers obtained.

After my father had lived on his first claim for a few years and had accumulated considerable property and livestock he decided that the country in Eastern Washington offered better opportunities for advancement so he sold his place and putting the money into cattle he drove them to the Walla Walla County. It was called Walla Walla County in the early days by now has been divided and the part where father settled is now Columbia County. He remained at that place for about twenty years raising and dealing in cattle.

For a time we lived on a large ranch there, but later we moved to town to live, at Waitsburg, Washington. I remember that while we were living at Waitsburg, father got together a herd of over three hundred fat cattle and drove them to market in Kansas. They were fine fat steers. When father first got them together he held them for a time a few miles south of Waitsburg and they were considered so fine that almost everyone in town drove out to see them, everyone that is except father's own family. When he started the cattle for the east they were very nervous and excitable at leaving their own range and one of the very first days they stampeded and trampled through a settlers wheat and father had to pay heavy damages for the destruction of the crop.

When father sold his cattle in Kansas he received his pay in gold bars.

These he brought home packed in an old canteen and hung on his saddle. I remember that when he reached home he unpacked them and gave them to us children to play with. That was the first gold bars that I had ever seen.

They were perhaps three inches long and perhaps an inch wide. I was very small at that time but I remember them well and was fond of playing with them. I was perhaps three or four years old at that time.

Father lived a very strenuous life in those days. He was out riding the range day after day, and week after week. We would not see him for weeks at a time and he was quite a stranger to us children. He finally became so tired and worn from riding the range that he decided he could carry it on no longer. He sold his cattle and range and came back to the Willamette Valley. I do not know how many head of stock he had at that time but it was a great many. The stock was sold right on the range without rounding it up or counting it in any way. They simply estimated that a certain tract had so many hundred head of cattle and so many hundred head of horses on it and sold them outright according to the estimate without bring them in from the open range.

We came back here to the Calapooia Valley almost sixty years ago, perhaps a little less, I think that it was in 1881 or 1882. Father bought land from David Templeton about three or four miles east of Brownsville. This place where I now live is a part of that land. Later he bought other tracts of land until he finally owned eighteen hundred acres in a single black here.

He was very liberal with us children and gave us everything that we desired.

Until he died I never knew the value of a dollar.

Father lived on this place until the time of his death. Then the eighteen hundred acres was divided among four of his children, I being one of them.

Today not one of his children owns a single acre of that land. Besides the land which was divided among his four heirs in this county he had two other children who were provided for in other ways.

The Reuben Hughes farm situated about three or four miles east of Brownsville, on highway (State) 226 is my father's old home place. That place was also the home of the pioneer David Templeton from whom it was purchased by my father.

My mother's name was Elizabeth Montgomery. She was born in 1842. She belonged to the pioneer Montgomery family of Brownsville. My father and mother were married about the year 1861. They had the following children:

Viola Rice, born in 1862. (Deceased) She married a man by the name of Wolf.

Anna Rice (The narrator) Born 1864. Married Lurwell.

Sophrena Rice, born 1864 (Deceased). Married Roberts.

Columbus Rice, born 1868. Never married.

George Rice. Born 1870. Married Ada Lurwell, (sister to narrator's husband).

A daughter who died at the age of two years. Name was Eva Rice.

Fred Rice. Born about 1876. Lives near Crawfordsville, Ore.

Mary Rice, the youngest. Died 1898.

When my father moved his family from Walla Walla to Linn County, Oregon, we came by wagon. It took us over two weeks to come. We crossed over the mountains in two wagons, one of which was occupied by the family piano. It was a slow, hard trip. My father was worn out by the hardships of riding the range, but after he settled in Linn County he was not entirely satisfied. I have heard him say again and again that "there are ten dollars in Eastern Washington to every one here." My father was very saving and careful with his money. He often went very shabby and poor looking even though he owned lots of property. At one time a stranger picked him up on the Crawfordsville road and gave him a ride. A few weeks later father was walking the same road and the same man again picked him up. Judging from my father's shabby clothes this man took him for a hobo and finally asked him "Don't you think that it would be better to settle down somewhere than to always be tramping the roads?" He did not suspect that he was talking to one of the largest landowners in the county.

The narrator continued concerning herself, "I am seventy four years old. I celebrated my seventy fourth birthday last Sunday. (Sunday, September 25, 1938) I danced around and played the piano and had a high old time. I never have been sick a day in my life. Never had even a headache."

(The narrator is seventy four years of age. She has the appearance of a woman of forty or less. She is very active and alert to current incidents immediately surrounding her. She might well be described as a seventy-four year old flapper with plenty of come-hither in her eye. She still likes to relate all the facts concerning her girlhood and the handsome boys whom she knew. She had not a single written record of her family to which to refer and every fact given was from memory. She says that her mind is just as clear as when she was sixteen, which may be well believed, since it appears that few thoughts have ever entered to becloud it.)

(The following story told by a neighbor of the late Gray Rice, also illustrated Gray's economy and want of show after he had attained some wealth. It was told the field worker by Mr. Lou Tycer, son of the man for whom Gray first worked upon his arrival in Oregon. L. Haskin, Field Worker.)

In the early days the tax collectors traveled around the country collecting as they assessed. They carried their money in saddlebags and would even, at times, levy upon property where money could not be obtained.

At one time the assessor and tax collector called at the Wm. Templeton home while trashing was in progress. He knew most of the men there and soon attended to his business with them. Then he was about to ride on, judging from Gray Rice's appearance that he was a poor laborer and not likely to own property. By chance, however, Rice came near his horse and he asked him, "Have you any property?" Rice answered honestly, stating what lands and stock he owned. When he heard the amount the tax collector almost fell off from his horse in surprise."

Copyright © 2000 Patricia Dunn. All rights reserved. This transcription may not be reproduced in any media without the express written permission by the author. Permission has been given by the Transcriber to publish on the LGS web site.