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Voices from Beaver Hill
Beaver Hill Coal Mine and Company Town
1893-1923
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copyright c 2006 by Marilee Miller. This is a work in progress, a rough draft.
PART 2
Family & Community Life
2 - 3 THE KIDS ON THE
HILL
WARMTH,
BEAUTY,
PLAY TIME
Emily Kingsley, a child at Beaver Hill (1921)
When I got ready to leave Scotland, the neighbors all pitched in
to buy me a doll. It had a China head and a kid body. It was a
young girl doll dressed up in a little Scottish outfit. I loved her
dearly! (I guess it was pretty hard for them [the ladies at home to
afford a doll] because of a depression.)
And I remember what happened to the doll. Later on, after
leaving Beaver Hill, I moved to Catching Inlet. Rose McKelvie
(another youngster who had lived at the mining camp) and I
were coming in on a boat [that plied the waters of the slough]. I
had my doll in a cheap overnight case, and when I jumped off at
the [boat] landing the catch came open and everything fell out.
The doll -- its head got cracked. Oh, my heart was broken! [Kingsley-Winsor-5]
Recalling the bitterness of the occasion, Emily (Kingsley) Winsor
still speaks with a strong inflection. No doubt she’d shed more than a
few tears over the loss of her precious companion from the fantasy
realm.
The ladies in Scotland had also given her a ring as a farewell gift –
a plain gold band with her initials engraved on it. But the vogue at
Beaver Hill was different.
The children wore big-g-g, cheap rings from the Five and Dime
store. So I traded mine to Rose McKelvie, just for a little while –
and it just disappeared. Got misplaced. I’ve often thought, “How
terrible of me!” But this big-g-g-g, glass thing – oooh! – it just
looked better to me. [Winsor-Kingsley 5]
But more important than the material gifts was the memory of the
thoughtfulness – yes, and the sacrifice – of the ladies who wanted in
some way to ease a girl’s transitional journey to a new life.
And Emily Kingsley was to find hearts just as kind among the men
and women at Beaver Hill. (In fact, many persons have stressed the
friendliness of that community.)
The weight of their parents’ burdens seemed to rest lightly upon the
children. Toil etched the lives of the miners. There would have been
drabness and poverty, back-breaking work (perhaps followed by idle
periods with interrupted paydays.) Hard drinking, or hopelessness,
may have left marks on some adults. And over all loomed the ever-
present threat of explosions or disasters. Yet it appears as if many of
the children barely saw the seamy, rough atmosphere of a mining
camp.
The children seemed to thrive on the only style of life offered them.
If need be, they created toys --and signs of hopefulness – out of the
very elements of the mother earth. The youngsters, observed their
teachers, were no less, nor more, intelligent than kids anywhere.
[Chappell] Evidently they played the same games, and saw and felt
whatever it is children everywhere see (or want to see), or feel, or
imagine. In fact, they were all social equals in a way they wouldn’t
have been in a regular town, because so few of the families had extra
money for luxuries.
In some instances, they had only a few years – maybe only a few
months – to get to know the meaning of the word father, before
accidents or mining-related health issues changed their lives forever.
However, after they became reflective adults, a number of the children
who once lived “on the hill” agreed that they had been a happy, merry
bunch.
Looking back, even some who lost their fathers in mine disasters
remember Beaver Hill as a place where the youngsters felt warmth and
acceptance. All things material might be stinted, yet most kids grew
up with a sense of family and community strong enough to build on
for a lifetime.
Years later, Emily Kingsley would say, “All in all, I think we had a
very happy childhood. [Though losing father] was very sad. …We
didn’t have much [money]. But I think we were---- (Brother Tommy
Kingsley interrupts) -- “We didn’t know we were poor! That’s half the
battle.” (And Emily smiles indulgently as she adds:) “Children were
just loved in those days.” [Kingsley-Winsor 8]
The kids on the hill – bless their wondrous, unjaded hearts – saw
the unusual or the commonplace through unique lenses. Even their
metaphors of remembrance come out fresh and gleamy.
Thus, a girl of outgoing temperament named Vendla Kiviaha may
be described -- “She was kind of an exotic person, and so was my
mother.” Tommy Kingsley, didn’t mean stunning glamor. To him,
“exotic” means beautiful in appearance, in a wholesome way. [Kingsley 14}
Emily Kingsley (Winsor) shares an equally charming outlook about Vendla’s mother. Nigh on to 60 years since that first meeting, Mrs. Winsor’s dulcet voice reveals still-strong feelings of awe. Surely only a child could have thought of the following comparison.
Mrs. Kiviaha was just beautiful! I used to think she was just
like the tooth fairy, she was so beautiful.
Miner Tom Kingsley Senior had little money for material purchases. But when he finally had been able to bring in his family from the “auld country” of Scotland, he splurged on “Welcome” presents.
Eight year old Emily found a doll buggy waiting for the beautiful
doll she’d brought from Scotland. Young Tommy looked at the
hillside near his father’s house, then at the wheelbarrow, toy wagon,
and Irish Mail flyer (modeled after the pattern of the hand pump cars
used by the railroads.) It took the boy no time at all to decide having a
father present in his life was going to be “great – and all right!”
(Neither of the children had remembered their father except by what mother told them of the man. But the family reunion was certainly a success.)
Emily soon learned little girls possess the ability to “twist daddy’s
little finger.” At the mining village, she saw a fountain pen for the first time in her life. Of course, this marvel fascinated her. Mother said not to write with the pen, lest the girl spoil it. But father said – “Oh, that’s all right.”
The irresistible, inexpensive pen lasted through two or three close
examinations before a vital piece broke off. Emily felt badly then –
and still does – but the pen couldn’t be resurrected.
Tommy Kingsley remembers that if he had free time to spend out
of doors, he usually went down to the mine area to watch the activity.
Many sights could lure the attention of a small boy. Sister Emily
usually went in the opposite direction – back of her own house to play
with the McKelvie girls, Rose and Margaret.
Another child from Beaver Hill, Hugh Brown, loved to hike in the
nearby woods. He knew the lay of all the hills.
And I’d never get lost. You know how everybody, out in the
countryside, has his dog? Mine never left me. Pretty soon I’d get
ready to go home, and I’d say, “Beans, let’s go home.” And then
I’d just follow him.
Being a kid, I never worried about getting hurt, falling in some
hole -- or even an air shaft [from the mining tunnels]. It’s only as
you get older that you worry – “Gee, how am I going to get out of
this mess?” [Brown, 6]
Brown also recalls the ceaseless games of marbles. And Duckie on
a Rock, which the school children played at recess. One person was
“it”. He placed his rock on a mound. Other youngsters took turns at
underhand tosses from behind a line drawn in the dirt. “If I’d knock
the ‘duckie“ off, the kid who was ‘it’ had to put his rock back there
and tag me before I could get to my own rock and then go back behind
the line. If he tagged me first, then I was 'it'." [Brown 21, 22]
Miners’ families tended to be good-sized. So there were usually playmates available They played the usual tag, and hop skip and jump. Adds Alex McKelvie – “Climb trees and fall out and break your arm---"
Although this never happened to him, he knew of several kids who got
hurt that way.
Some children got into fist fights. Hugh Brown admits to being
pretty feisty as a boy. For example, there was an Italian family with
several boys. “And there wasn’t a day went by that I didn’t have a
fight with one of them – [not over difference in nationalities], just kid
stuff. Well, I got into most of my trouble because I was so small [for
my age] and everybody was calling me a midget. And of course my
blood boiled right now and I was ready to go. Now I’ve calmed
down… I was 21 when I got married, and then I growed about four or
five inches in one year. Just sprang up. That was amazing.”
Many Beaver Hill youngsters liked fishing. The most
adventuresome, or those who needed an excuse to be away from home
(and choring!) a while, might walk down to the Coquille River, some
miles away.
However, close at hand, shallow Beaver Slough meandered through
the marsh. Other nearby tiny “cricks” (as most of the kids pronounced creek) proved attractive. Chan Beebe, “using a willow branch for a rod,…at the right time of year…caught hundreds of shiners, or young salmon.” [Chan Beebe, World article]. Other children also went after the small shiners, a thinnish, silvery fish some four to six inches long. [Arnot-Tobin]. [McKelvie]
Apparently the families didn’t know, or maybe didn’t care, about
the warning issued as early as 1904. “Master Game Warden says to
arrest any person fishing for and catching small fish known as
‘shiners,’ it now being decided they are actually young silverside
salmon." [Coquille Bulletin, Apr 8, 1904] For most residents, the scrappy catch, if plentiful, augmented the family’s meager allotment for groceries.
One month Alex McKelvie’s dad found that for a whole month’s
work in the mine, he earned only $5.00 more than what the Company
charged the family for expenses. He said if that was all he was going
to clear, he’d rather just take a day off and go fishing with his son.
[McKelvie]
Claudia Varney (Moore), who lived on a ranch near the mining camp, recalls all the times the kids threw “cow pies” [dried manure] at each other. And in winter, sometimes the ditches froze enough to substitute for tiny ice skating rinks.
Beyond the coal mine area, down near the Conlogue logging camp
at Leneve, but out of sight of the workmen, kids sometimes joined in a
dangerous occupation. Small flat cars often sat on the railroad siding.
With a pole slid against the tracks to derail the wheels, four kids,
lifting together, slid the little cars from the siding onto the main track.
Then they’d hop on the car for a free ride rolling down the hill. They
abandoned the cars wherever they came to rest (still on the main
tracks).
When the train came chugging up the slope to pick up a load of
logs, the kids would hide. The cars would be spotted on the long
straightaway – so there was no danger of the logging locomotive
crashing into them. But of course the train crew had to stop, and
withdraw the car, before they could proceed. None of the youngsters
seemed to be caught and punished severely for their pranks at the
expense of the railroad. [Moore]
Right at Beaver Hill, however, the layout of the trestles, and the major activity, would have kept the children from pulling similar stunts. But no doubt they heard of (and who knows but what they even participated in) the escapades down at Conlogue. Youthful imaginations could dream up other pranks.
The train was three hours late yesterday, owing to an accident
at Beaver Hill. The engine was derailed and some damage done to
it by the displacement of a switch. A boy had been operating the
switch, and as the train approached he was seen to be trying to get
it righted, but failed and skipped, the result being as stated above.
Another engine was telephoned for and she brought the train in.
[Coquille City Herald Feb 13, 1900]
Chan Beebe had a special hobby. He built homemade box traps
and captured, alive, mountain beaver, owls, squirrels, owls, quail, and
any other small critters wandering by. A single large cage housed all
the raccoons, finally numbering seventeen. But they fought each other
ferociously. His father demanded the coons all be freed.
Once I caught a bear cub and kept him on a long rope. One
day he managed to climb a tall pole, and a miner, in helping me to
get him down, jerked the rope too hard and pulled the cub off the
pole, killing him. I felt very bad about that. [World, Sept. 21, 1974]
LABOR,
TEAMWORK,
AND
BEASTS!
The Beaver Hill mine never employed ten or twelve year-olds down in the shafts, as had sometimes happened in the traditional mining practices of earlier times. But families depended on their youngsters helping with chores.
Claudia Varney [Moore], who lived near the coal camp.
My folks believed in everybody pulling their share. They gave
me time to play – but I also had to work.
The Varneys lived on a small ranch adjoining the Peter Tully place
(near Leneve). Between them, the two families owned a wagon and a team -- that is, one horse apiece. It fell to Claudia to go after the “parts” of the team and deliver horses and wagon to whatever spot on either ranch required them next.
This was not play, but work. For the team must be driven even
through heat or storm, and not at Claudia’s own convenience. But
there were side benefits – especially when she called at the Tully
ranch.
Mrs. Tully had one of those shortening cans full of cookies, and
usually pies and cakes set on the window sill. She tried to get me
to wash a window or two in return for some of these ‘sweet
offerings’, but I was wise to her. She was real good to all of us,
and we loved her. [Moore interview]
Children who lived at the actual mine site also had chores. Some
kids “picked slack”, that is, picked up, or scavenged, free coal to burn
in the stoves at home. Marketable coal came in two sizes: lump, and
nut (nut-sized pieces, about 1” in diameter.) Anything smaller was
waste -- it was called coal dust, or slack, or sometimes, slap. [Gilfillan]. The company didn’t want it.
Before being stored in the bunkers for shipping, coal had to be
cleansed of dirt and debris. Hugh Brown remembers that a pump
sucked water from nearby Beaver Slough, flushing it through the coal.
The discharged water found its way back to the slough. Meanwhile, of
course the water pressure knocked off lots of chips. Kids gathered
sacks of thumbnail-sized pieces from the ooze below the discharge
pipe. While not as efficient in burning as the larger lumps, slack coal did heat a room! And it was free – unlike coal delivered straight to the door by the company, for which miners had to pay.
Another place to pick slack was along the tracks where the rail cars
were loaded. “That’s the way we got a lot of our free coal,” says Hugh
Brown. “Some of the coal would fall out of the railroad cars… it
spilled over. …We’d pick up… little chunks.” [Brown 4]
Another chore for the kids -- blackberry picking -- seems to have
been a prominant summertime assignment. Before the mine town was
built, the area had been logged off. Other forest patches had been, or
were being, cleared. Wherever the cutting of high trees removed
dense shade, blackberries grew prolifically. Many a pail full found its
way to home kitchens. No food item so tasty, yet free of commercial
charge, could be overlooked.
Newcomer Emily Kingsley was delighted when the neighbor
children invited her to her first berry-picking expedition.
When I first came here – it was in July – the little wild
blackberries were coming on. The children all told me how, oh,
these lovely berries were in the woods.
So they took me out with them. Oh, I was so excited! And I
had my pan. I was having such a good time taking berries from
here and there. Then all of a sudden, I looked – and there was
nobody around. Everybody had vanished!
Of course, the moors of Scotland did not prepare me! I knew
so little about this new country, and I had never been in a big-g-g
forest before, with trees, and spooky vines.
So then I was frantic. I started screaming and getting
hysterical. Because I thought the woods were full of lions and
tigers----
And then the children all jumped up. They had hidden in order
to tease or frighten me. I don’t think I ever got over that, it was so
terrifying. [Kingsley-Winsor 3]
Emily Winsor is able to laugh at herself now. But when asked
whether she ever went berry picking again, her reply is emphatic. “Well, I had to be very careful!”
Alex McKelvie’s mother canned many gallons of the berries for
winter eating. If he could keep ahead of her kettle, he sold the surplus
to the neighbors. As the oldest boy at home, berrying was not so much
a game as a way to be a provider. Gathering edible wild foods was
practiced by all the McKelvies. And extra cash from any sales, could
always be used!
We picked berries…all summer. And then I could sell them to
the neighbors, too. So we had… not too much time playing. We
worked like mad.” [McKelvie 18]
But possibly the most enterprising berrying enthusiast was young Hugh
Brown. He does some rapid mental calculations to arrive at a total. “I
imagine I picked thousands of gallons up there." [Brown 5, 6]
The berries found by Brown, he says, were an inch long. They
weren’t the tiny breed commonly known as “little wild blackberries.”
Neither did they grow on the much larger bushes of the fat, rounded
Himalaya blackberries or the more pointed Evergreen variety.
Brown boasts of his instincts for finding lush, untouched patches.
His reputation finally grew until townspeople even got to trailing him
to find the best spots for easy picking. In summer, he started off each
morning with two gallon empty pails. In some locations, he figures he
averaged a gallon per hour. His buckets filled, it was time to hike in on the railroad tracks to the McDonald & Vaughn logging camp.
I’d always make it to the logging camp by noon. There were
two women cooks up there who bought them for pies. I charged
50 cents a gallon. That was mighty good money in those days.
Well, I also knew what time those ladies served lunch. You
know, a little short kid – come [all the way] up there with a couple
of gallons of blackberries – they wouldn’t turn him away without
giving him something good to eat! [Brown 5, 6]
Afternoons were reserved for picking the berries his mother, Susan
Brown, required to feed her large family. Come the long slack fresh
fruit season, she opened up her jars of home canning to make delicious
pies.
About as popular as the “berry tales” were the “milk stories”. For
lack of refrigeration at the townsite, the company store did not handle
milk.
Many of the row houses had a small shed alongside, about the size
of a garage, but useable as a small barn. Some families tethered cows
to forage in the tall grass in town. Others belled their stock and turned
them loose to graze. There were no fences to hinder movement. To
have fresh milk one must either keep a cow, or buy milk daily from
one of the neighbors. [McKelvie 14; Brown 19]
Chan Beebe [date].
I had my daily chores. My father always kept a few cows and
delivered milk to the cookhouse and brought back peelings for
cow feed. Father fitted me out with raincoat, hat and rubber boots
because, being so near the coast, the weather was cold and rainy a
lot of the time. [Chan Beebe article World Sept 21, 1974].
Miner Tom McKelvie (dates?) kept a cow – sometimes more than
one – in the lean-to shed. McKelvie had an interesting method of
acquiring his herd. Many another man at Beaver Hill, or perhaps a
nearby rancher, purchased an animal, then neglected it. In some cases
there wasn’t time to care for an animal – but some individuals just
didn’t care about proper treatment. Soon McKelvie would show up,
scolding about the abuse.
Alex McKelvie.
He was such a big man, such a powerful fellow, the men would
be scared of him. So they would sell the cows cheap. After we
had any of those thin old cows for a while, they’d be all tamed
down and fattened up. Then we’d sell to someone else and start
all over.
Young Alex’s duty was to sell the extra milk to his neighbors who
“didn’t have children or didn’t want a cow.” He delivered milk for 10
cents a quart.
Usually there would be bottles left over. Alex would walk to the
Smith-Powers [at one time says Coos Bay Lumber Co, so may have
meant C.A. Smith] logging camp about a half or ¾ mile towards the
Coaledo region.] If he had more bottles than he could carry, one of his
younger sisters went with him. [McKelvie 14]
McKelvie comments – “For us older children, there was not too
much playing. We all worked like mad.” [McKelvie 18]
Ruth Soden (Varney) was not so far past childhood herself when she
moved with her father to a nearby ranch. She often accompanied
Thomas Soden when he delivered his own milk to the Beaver Hill
townsite. Shortly before the mine closed down for good, a road was
built. After this, Soden used an old Ford for his deliveries. He and
daughter Ruth would leave the whole supply at the card room- pool
hall for customers to pick up.
Again, however, Hugh Brown’s narrative tops all the others.
From 1916 until 1920, his mother Susan Brown did custodial work at the schoolhouse. When the terms were in session, “wee Hughie,” as
his mother called him, got up at 4:00 a.m. to help her stoke the fire in
that building. (The coal furnace had to be started up several hours
early to warm the classrooms by the time students arrived.) Once the
coal was burning well, it was time for the boy to round up the family’s
two cows for mother to milk.
The Browns’ livestock roamed where they would – and might be
found a mile or two from home. Usually around milking time they
turned up of their own accord at the little barn. But if they were tardy
– or perhaps Hughie was early – the boy would go looking. Soon he
would hear the proper tone of bells.
When he got close enough, he would call the cows by name. “Come on, let’s go home now.” The beasts always came right to him. Brown adds in all seriousness; “Well, they were pretty exceptional cows.”
[aside: (clipa) CCH Mar 2, 1901. Our people must keep their
cows off the streets [of Coquille] at night. According to our
ordinances, cows must be kept up at night, and horses at all times. + ]
[M. fix if I find more info.] During this time period, it was common
enough practice, even in other towns, to allow cows to roam freely.
[M. Did Coquille have a law against livestock roaming in the daytime
long before BH closed down?]
Hugh Brown, like Alex McKelvie, each morning peddled a few
bottles of milk in town. In the evening, he would head for the
McDonald & Vaughn logging camp; in this way, the loggers had fresh
milk each morning for breakfast.
Brown describes this logging operation as being on “both sides” of
the town of Beaver Hill. At first, wayfarers leaving the mine would
have struck the little camp on a course between the hill proper, and the
later location of what would someday be a leg of Highway 101
between Coos Bay and Bandon. But the highway wasn’t in then.
Eventually, all that region was logged off. Then it was necessary to
make a right turn from the coal operations to “where the logging camp
set up.” Whatever the direction, Brown had only to follow the railroad
trestle beyond the mining camp. [M. 2006. Could hardly be Hwy 101.]
No matter what the weather, each evening Brown trudged out to the
McDonald & Vaughn camp. He remembers the times of wind and rain
and cold. But he always had plenty of warm clothing. “You wore
long underwear from the start of fall. You never took ‘em off till
spring.”
Sometimes his youngest sister would go along to help carry the
bottles. But little Joan was not with Hugh the night he faced his most
unforgettable scrape. However Beans, the “medium sized mutt-dog of
no clear breed,” was with his master -- as always. The dog never
roamed more than a few feet away.
In the winter time, it would be five or six o’clock when we’d
get through milking. Then I still had to take the bottled milk… four
quarts… up to the logging camp. I might not get home much
before nine p.m. [From 4:00 a.m., that was quite a long day for a
kid.] Well, in the summer time I got to sleep till six o’clock.
As I was walking back home one night, I could hear this noise
up in the brush. I didn’t know what it was.
It was awfully dark, and I didn’t have a light. There was just
enough of a moon that I could see eyes shining. Once in a while
I’d get a glimpse of those staring eyes. The animal was only about
five or six feet above me. It could have leaped easy enough, and
that scared the livin’ daylights out of me. I got on the other side of
the railroad tracks just a little bit farther away from him.
In the dark, Brown didn’t dare cut across rugged country; he had to
stay close to the defining bulk of the rail trestles. All he could think to do was to set his empty milk bottles in the brush where they’d be out of his path. At the time, it seemed sensible to pick up a heavy chunk of wood for “protection.” What good he thought a club would do, he wasn’t certain afterwards. Hugh Brown kept trying to motion the dog to the other side so he wouldn’t get hurt. Just as obstinately, Beans stood in line with the predator to keep his master from harm.
“My dog would have given his life for me,” observes Brown. But
well-trained as he was, Beans did not let out a single bark to harass the
animal up on the tree limb.
I didn’t run at all. But I kept moving. Walking down the
tracks where they brought the logs from the camp. Because I
knew that boarding house was down there, where all the single
men [loggers] stayed. I knew I had help down there.
Finally I made it all right, and told all the men. They got out
their lanterns, and I showed them about the last place I’d heard the
cat. They could tell by the paw prints it was an old animal, by the
way it was walking. They tracked it – but they never did get it.
The men said it was just a cougar; that it wouldn’t have
attacked me unless it got pretty hungry. But I didn’t know that!
I thought it was a great big wildcat as big as a house!
All in the line of work! Next day, Brown rescued his empty milk
bottles right where he’d abandoned them. That evening, he again
carried milk to McDonald & Vaughn. But from then on, it would
hardly be surprising if one twelve year old boy did not open his eyes and
ears to their fullest whenever he had to travel home after dark. “Wee
Hughie” had not cared much for this nighttime encounter.
==
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copyright c 2006 by Marilee Miller. This is a work in progress, a rough draft.
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