Applegater September-October 2008 21
BACK IN TIME
Applegate Grange
BY EVELYN BYRNE WILLIAMS WITH JANEEN SATHRE
I recall the first time, probably at
five years of age, going with my parents,
John and Pearl Byrne, to the Applegate
Grange hall for a dance. My parents
and my maternal grandmother, “Lottie”
McKee, had become members of this
Grange. The hall seemed to be the biggest
building I had ever been in. I was afraid
to leave my mother’s side. Then a little
girl came to my rescue. She was Beverly
Mee, my age, and ever so friendly.
We danced together and had a great
time sliding up and down on the slick
dance floor when the music would stop
playing. When refreshments were served
at midnight, Beverly took me to meet her
mother, Martha Mee, who was working
in the kitchen with other Grange ladies.
I also met Beverly’s father, Tom, and her
sister, Barbara. When they moved to
Medford I spent much time at their home,
as Beverly and I went through Medford
High School together.
The Grange had their meetings
in the large Community Hall, a board-
and-batten building on a lot to the south
between Pernoll’s Store and the Applegate
River. Pernoll’s Store was located where
the Applegate Historical Society building
is now and the gardens at Eve’s Café
was once the Community Hall. The
following information came from Ruch
and the Upper Applegate Valley, by John and
Marguerite Black. “The history of this
hall goes back to the first World War. A
so-called Socialist Party was organized in
the area. This group raised money in the
neighborhood and built a meeting hall.
It was not a very successful organization
and they disbanded in the early 1920s.
Three local men, Chester Kubli, Warren
Mee, and Bert Clute, decided to buy the
hall and donate it to the school district for
meetings and programs. They organized a
Community League, which raised money
to help pay for the hall. All kinds of
activities were held, dances being the most
popular. Eventually the school board
returned the ownership of the hall to the
Community League. The League then
gave it over to the Applegate Grange.”
The Appleg ate Grange was
organized September 27, 1930. There
were 41 charter members, among them
my aunt Clara O’Brien.
The Grange was very
active from its beginning.
One of their interesting
projects in 1931 was
the reseeding of “poa
bulboea” grass following
a forest fire that destroyed
parts of Humbug Creek
and China Gulch. The
grass was donated by
C h a r l e y H o ove r, a
prominent Central Point
farmer. Grange master,
Sid Hansen, had his
truck stacked high with
the sacks of seed and
took it to the burned
destination, where many
grangers helped sow the
seed. I wonder if that
seed has replenished
itself and can be seen there today?
The Grange hall became a busy
community center as recorded by Maude
Pool in her “Big Applegate News” stories
for the Medford Mail Tribune, such as a
performance from the Jacksonville High
School of a two-act operetta, featuring
many Applegate students on March 9,
1934. Some of the Applegate performers
were: Frank Mee, Henry Head, Gladys
Byrne, June Peebler, June Provolt, Alice
Madson, Eileen Berry, Lola Fields, Lois
Matheny, Marion Roberts, Jack Provolt,
and Bud Peebler.
The Rogue River Girl Scouts
presented a play at the Grange hall
entitled “Ain’t Women Wonderful”
on February 14, 1935. They also did
tap dancing, songs, stunts, and old-
fashioned quadrilles. On April, 13, 1935
a one-act comedy entitled “Cabbages”
was presented by the Applegate Home
Extension Unit at the Applegate hall.
On June 6, 1935, “Plans for elaborate
observance of Labor Day are under way
here by the local grange. A rodeo and
barbecue will be held on Thompson
Creek, according to arrangements being
made by the ways and means committee
of which Frank Knutzen is chairman.”
The list goes on and on of bazaars, fairs,
political speakers, and almost always with
a dance to follow. Unless, of course, the
dance was the main event.
According to State Grange records,
the Applegate Grange dissolved in 1955
and they surrendered their charter. Why
such an active Grange of 25 years would
dissolve was disheartening. Rumors
abounded, one being the consideration
to build a new Grange hall of their own,
divided the members and the attendance
and membership dropped to where
they never recovered. From John and
Marguerite Black’s book Ruch and the Upper
Applegate Valley: “By then the old building
was so dilapidated it was falling apart so it
was dismantled. In 1989 all that remains
is a vacant lot overgrown with trees and
bushes.”
The Applegate Valley has been
categorized as the lower, little, and upper
portions of the Applegate. Only the
distance and mode of travel in the early
days kept them somewhat apart. However,
their socializing and friendships were
very obvious with their dances, baseball
games, picnics and school functions.
The Applegate Grange added to this
and brought such people as my family
from the Upper Applegate to its many
educational and recreational events.
Memories abound for me whenever
I pass the place where the Grange once
stood. I can still hear the friendly voices,
often with laughter, the dance music,
grange meetings, somewhat boring for me
then, but it is those kind faces who I recall
the most. My heart is filled with gratitude
in having been with these wonderful
people who were once the early settlers
in the Applegate Valley. This community
is still filled with good people, but the life
style has changed to a much faster pace.
Socializing is not the “knock on the door,
come on in,” “you’re just in time for dinner
or supper,” bit. It now seems to require a
phone call first to make an appointment,
and to sometimes have to enter through
a locked gate system. Which is all part of
modernization, along with cell phones,
automobiles, television, computers,
shopping centers, super markets, sports
arenas, fast foods and credit cards.
Don’t get me wrong, I would
not want to change the conveniences
I am now enjoying. What I miss is the
families, young and old, getting together to
socialize as they once did in the Applegate
Grange.
Evelyn Byrne Williams
with Janeen Sathre
541-899-1443
“We cherish the belief that sectionalism is, and of right should be, dead and buried with the past. Our work is for the present and the
future. In our agricultural brotherhood and its purposes, we shall recognize no North, no South, no East, no West.”
“We propose meeting together, talking together, working together, buying together, selling together, and, in general, acting together for
our mutual protection and advancement, as occasion may require.”
“We proclaim it among our purposes to inculcate a proper appreciation of the abilities and sphere of woman, as in indicated by admitting
her to membership and position in our Order.”
—1874 Declaration of Purposes of the National Grange