Interview by Deanna Rommel-Noland
March 18, 1991
(Present were Mrs. Norma Rose Shelton Wills, Mr. Walter Wills, Mrs. Roberta Rommel)
Interviewer's Note:
Mr. Wills' comments are slurred and difficult to understand due to his recent surgery;
this transcription reflects that difficulty.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - We're here with the Wills and I'm going to get them to start. Can I get you to give me your full names and your dates of birth.
Norma Wills - Norma Rose Shelton Wills, and I was born at Mayview in 1905. April the 12th
Walter Wills - My name is Walter Wills and I was born 21 June, 1907.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Wonderful, OK, now, you were both born at home?
Walter Wills - As far as I know.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - What were your parents' names?
Walter Wills - Frank and Cora Wills
Deanna Rommel-Noland - And, they, did they own land down on the river?
Walter Wills - No, they bought a hundred and sixty acres off the road, and he carried mail.
Norma Wills - From Mayview
Walter Wills - From Mayview to Almota, for how many years? Twenty years? Maybe.
Norma Wills - More than that I think.
Walter Wills - Maybe more than that.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Is that right? Wow.
Walter Wills - And you know it was a hard, as far as I can remember.
Norma Wills - And, he used horses and buggy or a hack.
Walter Wills - Now I never, don't record this, I never went to high school. I got me a bag of [conversation unintelligible] and I smoked for sixty years, until I figured that was enough and I quit.
Deanna Rommel-Noland't know you could quit that easy. [laughter]
Norma Wills - Was that all you needed to know about our family?
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Well now what were your parents names?
Norma Wills - OH, mine was Hollis and Rosa Shelton, her name was Dickson. Shelton.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - And they farmed down on Mayview?
Norma Wills - At Ilia.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Oh at Ilia.
Norma Wills - And that's where I lived until I went away to school in Pomeroy.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - You went away to school? You lived with a family in town then?
Norma Wills - Yeah, I lived and worked for my board and room.
Norma Wills - How far away was Pomeroy from where you lived? I mean how long did it take you to get there?
Norma Wills - Was about 23 miles.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - So it'd take the better part of a day to get there.
Norma Wills - Well we had to go with horses. And some of the teachers from Pomeroy taught the Ilia school. And I would stay in there during the week and then I'd come out with whoever came out to meet the teacher. And my brother Wayne would take the teacher half way and we'd meet.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - I see, so you'd get to go home on the weekend sometimes.
Norma Wills - Most always.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Wonderful. Now your parents were both farm families. I mean you were both from farm families. Wheat, dry land wheat farming, or orchards?
Norma Wills - Yes, or cattle.
Walter Wills - It was just a little farm, I mean we had plenty to eat.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - And you two got married in what year?
Walter Wills - long time ago.
[conversations unintelligible]
Norma Wills - We were married in 1925.
Walter Wills - Well how long that's been?
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Don't make me do math. It's Monday morning; don't make me do math.
Norma Wills - 66 years.
Walter Wills - No, it can't be that many.
Norma Wills - Well it is. [laughter]
Deanna Rommel-Noland - He's going to argue with you now.
Norma Wills - He hasn't thought about it, but it is.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Do you remember the riverboats?
Walter Wills - Oh, yes I remember the riverboats. I remember at Ilia, wasn't it. It was down there, the riverboats come in there. Do you remember Cook (sp?) He had that...
Norma Wills - He had the warehouse and some other property too.
Norma Wills - We rented the Cook place.
Walter Wills - Oh yeah, sure.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Now, I know the riverboats, the Spokane, and the Anne Faxon.
Norma Wills - I had cousins that came up on the steamboats, they were called steamboats. And we'd meet them at Ilia. They'd come from Portland.
Walter Wills - They was steamboats.
Norma Wills - They hauled wheat.
Walter Wills - They had to get them up there.
Norma Wills - And the folks in earlier days would order groceries from Portland, there was a company, I don't remember the name of it. And they'd bring these groceries up like sugar, and flour and five gallon cans of honey. That's they way we got a lot of our groceries.
Walter Wills - That was looking ahead.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - OK, I know you've got a list there. Now how many of the tramways do you have listed there?
Norma Wills - Well I didn't count, but I've gone from the
Deanna Rommel-Noland - OK, you just start off there.
Norma Wills - The grain pipe lines was built down Knox way Canyon in Garfield county. It was originally a chute built, made of part of it wood, part of it time, whatever. In 1879, which was the first grain chute, in '79.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Was that the one built by C.E. Truax>
Norma Wills - Yeah, and that's where we lived.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Oh is that right? Down at the bottom?
Norma Wills - Yeah, and this rock foundation, there's a picture in one of the books, is still there when we lived there. When we lived on the Truax place. It was our home for many years. I can't remember how many years, 35 I think. And, of course these all these tramways were built by Garfield county farmers. Did you know that?
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Yes.
Norma Wills - A group of the Pomeroy farmers built a tin grain chute at Kelly Bar. It was called after him. Many were built along the river on both sides, but they didn't prove satisfactory due to friction.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Yeah, beating the grain to powder.
Norma Wills - Then came the bucket tramways.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - The Judkins tramway was a bucket line wasn't it?
Norma Wills - I don't know about down that way.
Walter Wills - Was that the one down below Wawai?
Norma Wills - Which, they had to have sacked wheat. And it consisted of cable, and poles or towers. The buckets were attached to the cable along the way down the hills. And, I think that was in 1925. I'm not sure. One was at Interior, just below Wawai, built in 1890. And was the only one in Whitman county.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Yeah, that's the one that Beth Anne Beale, at the museum, was calling the Judkins tramway.
Norma Wills - I wondered when you mentioned that. We've always wanted to say Interior.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - OK.
Norma Wills - And it was built in 1890, and it was the only one in Whitman county, like I said. It was 1,000 feet of cable held 60 to 70 sacks of grain at a time. The other was at Kelly Bar to replace that old pipe line system. This one had 146 buckets, and they were attached to 2 1/2 miles of cable, and a drop of 2,000 feet. I don't know why the difference. There sacks in these buckets. Then came the cable car tramway. Which was built in 1891. And, it was called the Mayview Cable Car Tramway. The big cable cars were loaded with sacks of barley, which was usually 45 sacks, and wheat which was 35 [per cable car]. But, later that increased, they increased the sacks. These cable cars ran on tracks down to the river base. As the force of gravity dropped the loaded car 1800 feet down to the river edge the empty car was pulled back up to be loaded again, and the process repeated.
Walter Wills - It would pull itself, the loaded car would pull the empty one up.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Right.
Norma Wills - The was used for 51 years. And, it was also built by the farmers in Garfield county.
Walter Wills - Yeah, they got another fortune.
Norma Wills - Now, this is being recorded daddy. [laughter] The tracks of the cable car was supported.
Walter Wills - You don' t mean I got to not gab.
Norma Wills - on trestles and timbers, hush up, [laughter], and anchored into the side of the bluff along the route. The remains of this, have you been out there?
Deanna Rommel-Noland - No,. we're going to go out in about two weeks.
Norma Wills - The remains of this can be seen as you look down and then across from the river on the other side. So we both have many good memories of all this. And, then we've had great tales from our families earlier.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - What are some of the early tales you can remember from your family?
Norma Wills - Well, I don't know, but I've got two of my own. When I was about twelve or fourteen, I can't think.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - So that would have been in 1919, to 1921-22? Somewhere in there.
Norma Wills - Yeah.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Or 1917?
Norma Wills - I guess, it would be about then. My cousin and I, he was from Portland, rode our horses up to Mayview, tied them up to the posts, and went over to the top of the hill. And, asked these guys that was running it, loading wheat, and unloading it, and haul this, if we could ride down. And they let us, which our folks told us never to do. [laughter] And, they let us ride down, and they took off a sack of grain for our weight. We rode down and back on this Mayview Tramway.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - What was it like?
Norma Wills - Ah, a thrill! We didn't have any fear whatever. We go down, and these warehouses at the bottom, Walter has worked at the warehouses, after we moved up to Kelly, or up to the Truax place, and then later on I don't know how many years. A friend of mine in Whitman county and I decided we'd go over and go down the Interior tramway, in this bucket. So each of us got into a bucket and down the hill we went. [laughter]
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Now what year was that?
Norma Wills - I don't know. I suppose that was probably when I was in my teens or there about. So those are the two memories I have of the tramways.
Walter Wills - Your friends still alive isn't she?
Norma Wills - So that's about all I can tell you, except after these tramways quit this warehouse was vacant down there. That's when ...
Roberta Rommel - Yeah, it was vacant when we first moved in.
Norma Wills - We tore that , Norman and Bud, and I think Raymond helped, if I remember right. Helped tear down those warehouses.
Roberta Rommel - Daddy might have, too.
Norma Wills - Yeah, he could have. And, we took that lumber up home and built our shop, and our shed up there. And sold a lot of the lumber. And gathered up the wheat that was spilt, and fed it to our animals.
Roberta Rommel - I can remember when that was being tore down.
Norma Wills - That's when you lived there.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Now Walter, you worked at the warehouses down at the bottom at Mayview?
Walter Wills - Uh huh.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - What was that like?
Walter Wills - What was it like. I, when we first went up there, we didn't have no road. Anyway, how much money did I put in there. We never had no roads. I, the county put up half of it, and I think it was over three miles. [conversation un-intelligible]
Deanna Rommel-Noland - What was your job down in the warehouses?
Walter Wills - Loading sacks.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Loading sacks, off of the tramway into the warehouse?
Walter Wills - Well now,
Norma Wills - They had these carts.
[conversation unintelligible]
Walter Wills - They had to put that on the steamboats, that was the only way to get down.
Deanna Rommel-Noland - Right.
Interview ended.
Return to Interviews
Orlie Arn Hannas • Clarence Kohler
Cecil Rommel • Norma and Walter Wills
Introduction
Geography
• Farming
• Transportation
• Grain Chutes
• Mayview Tramway
Bulk Handling
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Oral Interviews
• Maps
• Illustrations
Acknowledgements
• Comments
