Pioneering Oregon _ Mv name is Margarei M.,rg.,rci Holes Bur Hui mile I am 9' sears old and I I ive in ' akima, W .tvhington ft P ortlan d Obswrver M a y 22, 1980 Page 5 - r * -X ■ “ ns is m y - | „ , e story,” someol " told io Kathryn Hall Bogle. and ihe rest w ritte n by mysell some years ago. 'Mien I think ol all my hardships and my struggles. | realize there '* u i mans valleys ol disappoint­ ments and the question rises: Is there a reason lo r serving God? Mow I know the answer to that. My ''tisngth and latth h.ise come Irom the Bible and I have reaped a great reward I am proud ol my children. I am comlortableand at peace. Hack in 1920 we were living in a little coast town near (.oos Hay in Oregon My husband and I were raising cattle and hogs lo r our livelihood. We had thoroughbred Poland China hogs, the most beautilul in live counties. One ol them weighed 730 pounds, the nicest hog’ s I have ever known, lo r he would lie down and let all ol our children sit on him. I (trough the tail and winter we sold the pigs m small loads. We had never made so much money belore and we were pleased with our lot. Our family numbered seven then. We owned a tw o-story house in town near the school and a little live room house out in the country. Ihe children thought the country house was paradise. Ihe land was covered with lovely wild (lowers, lerns large and small, and many evergreen trees there were birds, bees, and butterflies and lots ol wild berries. When the tide ol the Hay M r. and M rs Earl W B urdine and ch ildren. L to R A lfre d . V erd ell was m, the children could fish, or go Ion lap) and D elores in bathing, or go boat riding. They were happy all the time, and so were (M a rs h fie ld . O regon 1914) we. A ll this was quite a contrast to what our lives had been in Arkansas where I was born in 1H85, and from Muskogee, Oklahoma where Earl Burdine and I lived when we were married. My husband said he left home w hen he was 14 years old. He was the eldest o f 11 children and his parents thought he should have stayed and helped the family with the farm because, year after year, the family struggled but could not get out o f debt. Earl got a job and sent money home to his mother to help out the family, but still they stayed in debt. As the years passed, Earl and a younger brother rented some land, batched together, made good crops and paid o lt their father’s debts. Everybody in the family was made proud and happy because o f this. Earl was a man ot his word, a very faith I ul worker in the church and he believed in right liv in g , (rouble was, he thought everybody else was the same way. I went from Arkansas to Oklahoma Territory with my sister and brother in 1906. There was a lot ol knotty oak there and my brother worked in the sawmills. I went to keep house fo r him , but I also taught school there. I had always liked to read and had learned to read Irom my older sister before I went into regular school at age six. In our school Abe Grey was the Four of the Burdine girls in 1945 Audrey. Erma Jean. Verdell. and teacher and he switched the legs ol Helen. (Annie not present) anybody who did not know the lesson. I hat way, you learned fast! I liked teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. Yes, my eyes are blue and my skin is fair. My father was Irish and my mother was part Negro and part In­ dian My grandmother was Negro, a slave. My husband was Negro. That brings up a fa m ily joke, about my c h ild re n ’ s b irth cer­ tificates, all dilterent, though they had the same parents. Depended on the clerk who issued each certificate, I guess. On five certificates I am listed as white and my husband is listed as a Brown Indian. One child was listed as white and three were listed as Indian. In M a rsh fie ld , Oregon I was listed as white, my husband was listed as Brown Indian but that child was described as Negro! Lets’ see now. Where was I? Oh Verdell Burdine R utherford and Delores Burdine Goodm an w ith yes, we were living in Oklahoma and their m other. M aggie Burdine started our fam ily there. We had (Photo: Buddy Bogle) started homesteading and, though we enjoyed the easy m ixing and That was enough for me. I had been want to homestead anymore, so he m ingling ot all homsesteading reading books on the western part said, " I don’t think I’ ll go.” people, the climate was so severe o f the United States, and Oregon ” 11 you don’t go, that’s all right that we could not get ahead. seemed the best selection to me. I with me,” I said. "Y o u can stay, Something always destroyed the had read where a couple could get a but I’m going.” crops. We went through some homestead in Bend, Oregon, 320 "H o w can you go? Fare on the terrible drought yeais when you acres ol land, live on the land for tram is $35.00 apiece. What will you could look at a tree standing there three years and own it alter that I do with all these children?” and just see the leaves dry up. made up my mind that Oregon was So many questions and I didn’t The last year we were in where I wanted to go. have the answers. But suddenly I Oklahoma a cyclone swept through Not so, Earl. "W hat do you want had the determination and I knew our property It picked up our house to go for?” he asked me. I told him the answers would come. And they and turned it completely around. again and again. He didn’ t really did. AMERICAN STATE BANK I here was the heap ol wood that had been our house. We had no shelter ol our own I looked at it all and the remaining pieces ol our fu r­ nishings left undamaged by the cyclone, and the solution look shape I was an early women’s lib her, I guess. I took everything that was whole and ran up and down the street and managed within two days to sell enough to buy seat tickets on the train lo r all o l us. My husband couldn’t believe what he was seeing and, up to the hour belore the tram was to leave, he said he was not going. Earl was not unkind, so he said he would take me and the children to the station a lew miles away and he hitched our two horses to the buggy and loaded us all in. On the way he tried to make me change my mind and I tried to gel him to come with us. We were w ith in yards o l the station when I played my final card with my husband. He would have to go with us, I told him, lor there on Ihe platform watting lor us was the man who had bought our horses and the buggy we rode in. And that’s how our family came to Bend, Oregon, to Marshlield and later on to Yakima, Washington. It look us six days and nights to get Irom Muskogee to Bend I had packed enough food for us all to eat on the way out so we did not go hungry, but we were all very tired when we arrived in Bend. Ihe children and I sat on our bags, grips and boxes there at the railroad station until Earl could find a place to take us, at least lor the night. We watched him go down the mam street until he found a barber shop where he could ask questions about work and a place for us. W ithin a lew minutes he came back and dangled a key in Irom ol my eyes. It was a key to a little house we could rent tor eight dollars a month and it was com pletely furnished! We were so excited W hat seemed unbelievable was that a man in the barber shop wanted Earl to work tor him, starting right then, and the house was available. We gave thanks to the l ord and move right in. The Bank that integration bu ilt’ 2737 N E. Union 282 2216 SHOP ■ENOW'S ■R A N D S you k n e w VARICTIKS Uli« SICKS y « u w aw l I Th« f f ••n d liD tt |s » o r« t In T o w n Sm<« 1901 1.1 • • • 0411 M" *'* SSW« a law (4M, a * ».«. «tomaaa • • I«»» • ’ l i * , 1” ’' **> •• * * a « a • la iM — O talM aa • O aa a -» « . . 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