Polk County News
Polk County Itemizer-Observer • December 13, 2017 5A
Darr shares journey ‘From City Lights to Majestic View’
By Emily Mentzer
Get the book
The Itemizer-Observer
FALLS CITY — Deb Darr
lives on a farm in Falls City.
She has animals, tends a
large garden, cans, bakes,
and does all the things a
farm woman does. You may
never guess she was from
the bustling Bay Area.
“One of the nicest things
said to me, I was talking to
somebody not so long ago,
and I was telling her that I
was in the process of get-
ting this book published,”
Darr said. “I said I’m from
the Bay Area. She said, ‘Re-
ally? I would never have
imagined you there.’ So
maybe I’ve made the grade.
Maybe I am accepted as a
farm woman.”
Darr recently published a
book, “From City Lights to
Majestic View,” detailing her
and her family’s journey.
“The book has a lot of
humor in it, especially on
us, because, frankly, we
were the dumbest green-
horns that you could ever
have known, because we
knew zip. Nothing at all,”
she said.
But something had to
change for the Darr family
40 years ago, living in a little
suburbia tract house in the
Bay Area.
“The smog is so terrible, it
just hangs and hangs,” she
said. “And the congestion.”
The family’s house was
situated near a gas station.
During a time of gas-ra-
tioning, the line of cars
waiting to fill up wrapped
around the corner and
blocked the Darr’s driveway.
“We couldn’t even get out
of our driveway to get to
work because people had
come and stayed
overnight,” she said.
The Darrs wanted some-
thing more open, greener,
closer to the earth.
What: “From Cit y
Lights to Majestic View.”
Where: Email darrs-
beachcottage@msn.com.
How much: $20.
EMILY MENTZER/Itemizer-Observer
Deb Darr shares her family’s journey from living in the city to moving to the country.
“We wanted something
that would be more healthy
for us,” Darr said. “When we
moved, we had one child,
and he was a baby then.”
They wanted something
healthier for him, too.
They sold their home and
a duplex in the Bay Area and
were Oregon bound.
“We spent several months
looking at property — and
this was before internet, it
was an all-day thing, going
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from one side of the county
to the other,” Darr said. “We
gave up looking and rented
a property on Levens Street
in Dallas. We figured we
were just going to chill.”
Then she saw a classified
ad in the Itemizer-Observer:
35 acres and a home for
$30,000.
“That seems like nothing
now, but 40 some-odd years
ago, that was still not a lot
— substantial, but it was
something we could proba-
bly afford,” she said.
They went with a realtor
to look at the place. It was a
homestead, with additions
built with what the owners
had, when they could afford
it.
“This place was not like a
custom-built home at all,”
Darr recalled.
The door frame was mis-
shapen. Wires dangled from
the light switch to the lamp.
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The floor slanted, the result
of using burnt timber for
floor joists. The home didn’t
even have a real address —
rather, directions were given
using two broken-down cars
in the field as a landmark. In
spite of all this, the Darrs
were sold.
“We were foaming at the
mouth,” she said. “We could
do this. We had youth on
our side and the burning
desire to make a go of some-
thing that, well, when my
parents came to see it, they
were like, ‘What have you
done!’”
It took some time to calm
her mother’s nerves when
she first visited the Darr’s
slice of backwoods paradise.
Looking back, Darr con-
fides her disappointments
with the decision. Because
of the way the land is
zoned, and decisions of the
Polk County government, it
can’t be parceled out to
leave as inheritance to her
children.
While it’s much im-
proved, 40 years ago, the
Falls City School District
was lacking, Darr said. And,
though it doesn’t seem far
on paper, they are 15 min-
utes from anything — on
backroads. With snowy win-
ters.
“This book could proba-
bly have been three times
the thickness, but I figured
I better get it done, because
I am 67, and only God
k n ow s w h a t t o m o r row
brings,” she said.
Darr wrote the book with
her grandchildren in mind,
so they would get an idea of
what their parents and
grandparents went
through.
“You really learn to de-
pend on yourself a lot
more,” she said. “I think at
times it was frustrating.
There’s so many things you
learn, living and doing, and
the good news is, we plant-
ed and still do plant a really
good sized garden. I do can-
ning like you wouldn’t be-
lieve.”
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