COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL | THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2020 | 7A
Curtis
from A1
life seemed closer to
nature give it an almost
biblical quality.
Curtis was born Mar-
jorie Ann Broszio on
May 24, 1934 in Rose-
burg, Ore., but grew up in
Oakland and Umpqua,
attending Oakland High
School before settling
in Yoncalla in the early
1950s with her first hus-
band, Lyle Lee.
In her humble, hand-
written autobiography,
Curtis details stories of
rationing food and trad-
ing stamps for wares
during the Great De-
pression and World War
II.
There are brief memo-
ries of helping her father
in the logging industry,
heading out into the
forest to help buck and
load timber. In the 1930s
and 1940s, her family
“worked in prunes” and
she describes her mother
as a “prune boss.”
Her
jotted-down
memories jump and
dance from early child-
hood to her teenage
years and back again,
as if to remind its read-
er that all things in the
past are passed; a perfect
timeline doesn’t always
matter when it comes to
remembering.
“The things I remem-
ber doing may not be in
line with time, but I have
wrote them down as I
remembered them now,”
she writes.
Like many people of
the time — and even still
now — Curtis helped
her mother raise rabbits,
which they would butch-
er for meat and trading
resources. As a girl, she
had a pet raccoon named
Geo that would accom-
pany her to school “until
manhood came,” which
is to say the wild animal
became too independent
to tolerate domestication
any longer. There are nu-
merous recollections of
living through extreme
weather, epic storms
and freezes that seem to
render last year’s snow a
mere light dusting.
“I remember a time of
lots of snow,” she writes
vaguely as one of her
earliest memories, likely
a reference to a blizzard
that hit Oregon in the
winter of 1937 and re-
portedly dumped up to
3 feet of snow in certain
areas west of the Cas-
cades.
Most notable, howev-
er, in her many pages of
writings are the genealo-
gies she shares. There are
names upon names — of
children, grandchildren
and great-grandchildren
of her own — and of all
manner of people that
have come and gone
through Douglas Coun-
ty over the more than
half-century.
It is a clue to how Cur-
tis has lived her life. As
a mother, grandmother
and great grandmother,
her maternal instinct is a
part of her DNA and the
legacy of her 85 years is
one of connection to the
people in her communi-
ty.
Curtis worked at the
Yoncalla post office for
23 years after rearing her
own two children, Karl
and Lila, into adulthood.
As anyone who was alive
before email can say,
working in a post office
in a small town like Yon-
calla in that day and age
was an efficient way to
get to know just about
Over the last 65 years,
whether in the post of-
fice or elsewhere around
town, Curtis has been
in the center of Yoncalla
life. She has driven the
familiar to kids of today
— Curtis is a fan of the
game. She can usually
be seen sitting near the
baseline at most Yon-
calla basketball games.
“I’ve been here so long now that the kids that
are in school and that play basketball, some of
their grandparents are the ones that came to
my house as kids.”
— Marge Curtis
everyone. It was here
that her role as town ma-
triarch truly began.
“Kids would come
in and we always had
a dish of candy … and
there was one boy that
was special to me. He
had different houses he
would sleep at — grand-
ma’s house, mom’s house
— and he was a handful.
So, as I got to know him,
I did what I could to help
out,” Curtis said.
While Curtis is some-
times light on detail, it
is clear that for decades
her natural inclination
has been to become the
living embodiment of
the phrase “It takes a vil-
lage.” Years later, a meet-
ing with the same boy
solidified the power and
effect of her approach.
“We went to a funeral
after [the boy] had been
in the service and came
home,” Curtis said. “It
was some of his relatives
and I went to the funeral.
He came over and said,
‘I wan’na thank you for
raising me. For helping
mom.’”
“school bus” (her own,
small pickup truck) for
years, helping students
get to school who would
otherwise not have a
ride. Her door is ever
open to the children
of town, whether for a
cookie, a quick bath-
room break after a short
walk up from the foot-
ball field or simply for
the company of a kind,
familiar soul.
One of Curtis’ favorite
ways to stay involved and
connected is to attend
Yoncalla sporting events,
something she has been
doing dating back de-
cades to the very earliest
days of the school.
“I like sports,” Cur-
tis said. “I’ve always
liked sports myself and
I played baseball and
volleyball. I didn’t play
basketball because they
didn’t have basketball for
girls at my school, really.”
It’s clear that even
without memories of
her own time on the
basketball court due to
lack of access — another
illustration of a past un-
As with most things,
her joy for watching the
sport coincides with her
vast catalogue of rela-
tionships and experienc-
es.
“I’ve been here so long
now that the kids that
are in school and that
play basketball, some of
their grandparents are
the ones that came to
my house as kids,” Curtis
said laughing.
Age and mobility con-
cerns have limited Curtis
in recent years, though
through help from some
of the local teenagers
she was recently able to
travel to Roseburg to get
a new walker, making
attending local events
an easier and more com-
fortable task than it had
become after breaking
her leg a few years ago.
Despite changes in
health and age, caretak-
ing is an inseparable part
of who Curtis is. Even in
her 70s and 80s, she has
had a hand in raising and
looking after the kids
of the neighborhood,
including Ben Simons,
the 19-year-old mayor
of Yoncalla. She doesn’t
appear prepared to stop
any time soon, either.
“Some people collect
all kinds of stuff, you
know,” Curtis said. “I
collect kids. That’s what
I do.”
Curtis’ first husband,
Lyle, passed after a mo-
torcycle accident in 1977
and her second husband,
Everett Curtis, followed
in 2002. Her children
are grandparents of their
own now and some of
them and their families,
like many, have emigrat-
ed out into other parts of
the state and country.
However, as if the sit-
uation were ever any dif-
ferent, Curtis looks out
into all the familiar fac-
es of her town and sees
plenty of family left.
Human life often
seems to move at in-
credible speed, a rate
that grows exponen-
tially with ever-increas-
ing technology. When
someone like Marge
Curtis talks, things seem
to slow down as the con-
versation ebbs and flows
through her decades of
experiences.
There’s no need to
multitask; no need to
check your notifications.
Just ask and listen.
Things have changed.
Yoncalla has changed.
The kids, in some
ways, have changed. But
through it all, there is
Curtis — living a life that
shows history touches all
things, past, present and
future.
And she, perched
there above the school
grounds, is living histo-
ry.
Cottage Theatre presents
January 31 - February 16
A tale
of merry
mayhem
and
murderous
aunts
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ursday–Saturday 8:00 pm; Sunday 2:30 pm. $25 Adult, $15 Youth (18 and un
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