Ella Lillian Olson Interview Audio [transcript]

00:00:00:00 - Ella Lillian Olson: Respect in the way?

00:00:02:26 - Charlene Olson: No. It’s fine. I think it’s fine now. this is Charlene Olsen, and I’m down in Troy, and this is January 30th, and I’m at the home of Mrs. Ella Olsen. And, we’re going to be starting our interview now that, like I said, the first thing we’re going to do is do this first. Note that that I record.

00:00:24:24 - Charlene Olson: And if there are any questions that you don’t want to answer, you know, in the interview, you’re free not to, but I don’t. You know, I don’t think there’s anything at least on this. Let’s see. Your full name is, Ella Lillian Olsen. Marian.

00:00:44:16 - Charlene Olson: It’s, o l s o m. Right. And your maiden.

00:00:49:27 - Ella Lillian Olson: Name was also.

00:00:51:14 - Charlene Olson: Olsen, too? Yeah. Can you told me that when we. Yeah, I spell it the same way.

00:00:56:11 - Ella Lillian Olson: Same way.

00:00:57:00 - Charlene Olson: Oh, and, have you always been called Ella, or did you have any nicknames?

00:01:04:13 - Ella Lillian Olson: No, I guess not for sure. Yeah.

00:01:07:17 - Charlene Olson: And your date of birth?

00:01:09:25 - Ella Lillian Olson: November 18th, 1897.

00:01:14:21 - Charlene Olson: And your place of birth?

00:01:17:04 - Ella Lillian Olson: Five miles. Drive time. It was called Nora. It was a little, place right on the corner, about four miles out. And there was a store, a grocery store and everything there. And the blacksmith shop and the barber shop and the post office and a saloon and some keeper’s house.

00:01:39:17 - Charlene Olson: That really worked like a little town.

00:01:41:04 - Ella Lillian Olson: It was just a little town.

00:01:42:17 - Charlene Olson: Oh, and what was it called?

00:01:43:28 - Ella Lillian Olson: Nora. Nora?

00:01:44:28 - Charlene Olson: Nora.

00:01:47:00 - Charlene Olson: But it’s not there anymore.

00:01:49:00 - Ella Lillian Olson: just the house.

00:01:51:12 - Charlene Olson: And your phone is bought here, is it, is it the same that’s on there.

00:01:56:04 - Ella Lillian Olson: It’s 83536823332.

00:02:00:15 - Charlene Olson: Okay. And your address is Troy. And what’s the name of the apartment here.

00:02:08:03 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well, it’s number one.

00:02:09:04 - Charlene Olson: Number one. Okay.

00:02:10:09 - Ella Lillian Olson: And my box number 214.

00:02:12:08 - Charlene Olson: Oh, okay. I guess that’s what I mean.

00:02:14:17 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah. Okay. 80 83X 71.

00:02:19:02 - Charlene Olson: Okay. And, the location of your first residence in Idaho would then would just be four miles out. Were you born in the house that you showed me pictures of?

00:02:28:26 - Ella Lillian Olson: We were all nine kids born in that house.

00:02:34:08 - Charlene Olson: Is that house still stand?

00:02:35:17 - Ella Lillian Olson: No, they destroyed it not too long ago. But the barn and another ship is there.

00:02:41:03 - Charlene Olson: Because it looked like a really nice. You know, house there.

00:02:43:29 - Ella Lillian Olson: That wasn’t all. It was all.

00:02:46:05 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. okay. The rest of these questions down here have to do with, how you got to Idaho. Well, we know how you got to Idaho because you always lived here. So before, you know, came by wagon or train or something.

00:03:04:00 - Ella Lillian Olson: No, I don’t know. Well, I didn’t come up.

00:03:05:14 - Charlene Olson: No, you did with your favorite parade. And now your mother’s maiden name was what?

00:03:11:17 - Ella Lillian Olson: You know, granny.

00:03:14:23 - Charlene Olson: G r m.

00:03:16:07 - Ella Lillian Olson: M I.

00:03:17:02 - Charlene Olson: L what background with your mother.

00:03:20:13 - Ella Lillian Olson: But she’s born in Norway. She worked in Mulliner, Norway. She was six years old when she came to America. And they settled in Washington, Minnesota. Oh, and then they came to Troy. Well, he came first. Her. Her father?

00:03:37:08 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00:03:37:25 - Ella Lillian Olson: And homesteaded a place about seven miles out of here. I’m out of Troy. And then they cleaned the whole family.

00:03:47:01 - Charlene Olson: So how old was your mother then? When she.

00:03:49:06 - Ella Lillian Olson: And she was six years old. She came from.

00:03:51:08 - Charlene Olson: Norway. And how? By the time she came to Troy, was she older?

00:03:56:14 - Ella Lillian Olson: Do the. I got it written down.

00:03:59:19 - Charlene Olson: How the very matter did your mother, she was always a homemaker. Oh, she didn’t work outside of the home?

00:04:06:10 - Ella Lillian Olson: No, not after she was married. Before that, she worked in Moscow. Oh. What did she do? Housework. Oh.

00:04:16:20 - Charlene Olson: And, you know, the date of your mother’s birth or the year?

00:04:21:03 - Ella Lillian Olson: January 10th? 1877. Well, she just passed away last. Oh. The funeral was a member first. Oh. So she lived to be almost 99 years old And she was in the nursing home and she’d been there for just about seven years.

00:04:39:05 - Charlene Olson: Oh my. That’s incredible. you probably have a good many years left. Oh what is it? They say that that runs in family. You know, I don’t think like.

00:04:48:22 - Ella Lillian Olson: I would want to live that long, but that’s all for.

00:04:51:10 - Charlene Olson: Today. Yeah.

00:04:52:05 - Ella Lillian Olson: Later. You know, you hear.

00:04:54:19 - Charlene Olson: That the her place of first broke with Norway and what was the time.

00:04:58:08 - Ella Lillian Olson: Energy in the war. But you know.

00:05:02:03 - Charlene Olson: What part of Norway do you know where that was? What?

00:05:04:21 - Ella Lillian Olson: It must have been close to the Swedish line up in north, I guess.

00:05:10:29 - Charlene Olson: And her date of death then was 1970.

00:05:14:08 - Ella Lillian Olson: 1976

00:05:15:18 - Charlene Olson: But yeah.

00:05:16:21 - Ella Lillian Olson: So that 29th of August. Yeah.

00:05:20:15 - Charlene Olson: And you know, what year she was married.

00:05:24:20 - Ella Lillian Olson: 1896 December 2nd.

00:05:30:27 - Charlene Olson: And your father’s.

00:05:32:03 - Ella Lillian Olson: Name was announced earlier.

00:05:43:24 - Charlene Olson: Oh, I lost my love for her. And your father’s date of birth.

00:05:48:24 - Ella Lillian Olson: It was, September 27th.

00:05:54:01 - Ella Lillian Olson: 18. Six. Good.

00:05:57:23 - Charlene Olson: Okay. And his place of birth.

00:06:01:00 - Ella Lillian Olson: That was in, Sweden. In them and Sweden. I don’t know what.

00:06:07:09 - Charlene Olson: That’s, that’s in the southern part of it, I think so, because that’s where, my husband’s family’s from the southern part of Sweden, I think. Okay. So I’m not sure. And his date of death?

00:06:22:08 - Ella Lillian Olson: met in May. Right. Make.

00:06:31:22 - Ella Lillian Olson: 20. 90.

00:06:33:06 - Charlene Olson: We don’t really need the exact date. Just the year.

00:06:35:20 - Ella Lillian Olson: What, 1923.

00:06:36:27 - Charlene Olson: 19.3?

00:06:40:06 - Ella Lillian Olson: We just had one grandchild.

00:06:43:01 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. So he, didn’t live to be very old. Be very good for work. You’re right. You’re married. Live so many.

00:06:53:04 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yes.

00:06:53:21 - Charlene Olson: Years and years after that. Yes.

00:06:57:16 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah.

00:07:09:10 - Charlene Olson: And there were nine of you.

00:07:15:00 - Ella Lillian Olson: That was the oldest.

00:07:16:17 - Charlene Olson: Okay. And the names of your sisters and brothers.

00:07:20:20 - Ella Lillian Olson: In the way, it, the way.

00:07:22:09 - Charlene Olson: It goes, you.

00:07:23:00 - Ella Lillian Olson: Know, like my sister’s wedding, I.

00:07:25:25 - Charlene Olson: I, you know, just,

00:07:28:05 - Ella Lillian Olson: Or just the first name or.

00:07:29:26 - Charlene Olson: yeah, just their first names. Okay.

00:07:31:28 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well, there was one that died next to me.

00:07:34:23 - Charlene Olson: Okay.

00:07:35:07 - Ella Lillian Olson: You were two months old when she died. And her name was Mildred. Okay. And then they got another girl. The next one was a girl and that they named her Mildred from that she still live in. She was 75 years old today.

00:07:50:23 - Charlene Olson: Oh today business.

00:07:53:04 - Ella Lillian Olson: Okay. Okay.

00:07:55:22 - Charlene Olson: Okay.

00:07:56:18 - Ella Lillian Olson: And then Morse m a u r I p z March. He’s been here and then Arnold and they’re all dead. Oh they are all the boys Arnold. And then it was, it was.

00:08:15:11 - Charlene Olson: And is she still living.

00:08:17:09 - Ella Lillian Olson: She worked for news in the company.

00:08:19:21 - Charlene Olson: She must be.

00:08:20:13 - Ella Lillian Olson: How old. She’s she’s 68. I was ten years old when she was born. Okay. And then was Melvin. And Aubrey until. And there’s only us three girls left. More went out. They went out? Yep. Well, on the other side of bull in their, camper got to go fishing. And they went in the camper and drank coffee.

00:08:49:07 - Ella Lillian Olson: And then they took a went out, got the limit, both them. And he started getting to get sick. and so he said, I think we better go, he said, and then go back home because he says, I don’t feel good. and so they went back to the camper and, and he said, you drive. And he laid down at the back of the camper, and she stopped several times before they got him to go home.

00:09:12:28 - Ella Lillian Olson: And, then the last time she stopped, he said he kept better, but he says, keep on going. And then she stopped and they just got into all of them. And then he was dead.

00:09:22:19 - Charlene Olson: He did have a heart attack.

00:09:24:01 - Ella Lillian Olson: It must have hit him. And Melvin died from a heart to kill. It was killed down in Coos Bay, Oregon, with, the machine. I think they’re loading the boat. And he’s seen that thing come, and he would hit that other fella, and he just real quick, he’s just like. Like, look at me jump down there and grab that guy out.

00:09:43:11 - Ella Lillian Olson: And it took him.

00:09:44:03 - Charlene Olson: And step that one right before. Fell off. What was his.

00:09:47:17 - Ella Lillian Olson: Name. All right.

00:09:49:00 - Charlene Olson: Oh how do you feel?

00:09:49:27 - Ella Lillian Olson: And I’m all right. Sick. And he died when he was 14 years old. And he died from a ruptured appendix because they didn’t know what to do about that. All that. And I was committed suicide. Oh, so it they all died? Not not old at all? No, really.

00:10:08:28 - Charlene Olson: I got a whole bunch of. Yeah. Just the your three sister. Yeah. Now, your husband’s name was.

00:10:15:05 - Ella Lillian Olson: Wofford w Alfred Willis.

00:10:19:09 - Charlene Olson: Okay. W l f r e d d okay. but. And, what was his date of birth?

00:10:27:20 - Ella Lillian Olson: No. December 1888. We we’re all 18. 18. My oldest son is. Oh. The state Robert’s mother was March 18th. My mother had a sister. Okay. Yeah, I got a I got it then from there. April 18th.

00:10:44:06 - Charlene Olson: 90, the family and his place of.

00:10:47:02 - Ella Lillian Olson: Birth. That’s all. Minnesota.

00:10:49:19 - Charlene Olson: You know how.

00:10:50:08 - Ella Lillian Olson: You see a whooping.

00:10:53:20 - Charlene Olson: And, the date you were married.

00:10:57:26 - Ella Lillian Olson: November 13th, 1920. It’s leap year. And where were you married? In the house where I saw the house. We built an arch in the front room and decorated it with the Oregon Oregonian, you know? Yeah, yeah, pretty decorated that arch. Let’s see your bowels. And there we.

00:11:21:08 - Charlene Olson: Were. Oh, that sounds nice. They started doing that more now getting married, you know, more in homes.

00:11:27:15 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah.

00:11:28:21 - Charlene Olson: And, if he still living.

00:11:31:10 - Ella Lillian Olson: Or he died, it’ll be three years in April.

00:11:35:18 - Charlene Olson: Okay. So that would have been April 1973. Yeah. And what did he do for a living?

00:11:44:09 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, he, worked in the woods.

00:11:49:05 - Charlene Olson: For a locker.

00:11:50:00 - Ella Lillian Olson: As a lodging. And then he got work at the warehouse that made a comic greengrocers and work there, and then he got to be manager of the. But Meister, he was 65. Oh. And then his legs spread out so he quit. Well he was getting Social Security there. And then he did little jobs, like hiring lumber for around town on top of the health care and the working with the rock crusher a little bit here and there.

00:12:17:11 - Ella Lillian Olson: But, he had to quit. and so then that’s.

00:12:23:02 - Charlene Olson: What he did. Yeah. I imagine it was hard for you when he passed away. You’ve been married a good man. Yeah. Two years. It’s an adjustment. I know both of my grandfathers died first, and I know that it’s, you know, hard.

00:12:36:11 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah. You really never get over.

00:12:37:29 - Charlene Olson: No, no. Let’s see. How far did you go in school?

00:12:44:20 - Ella Lillian Olson: I went one year high school. Okay. I went through the ninth grade.

00:12:49:26 - Charlene Olson: Did you ever work outside of the home?

00:12:52:15 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, yes, I worked. I went to, I went to school, then worked for my room and board through the eighth grade and again. And the high school there in Moscow. And then I quit and went to Spokane and got me a job. More housework. I love it, I love it. our neighbor girl up, up there we, we went, we decided we going to go to Spokane and get her housework.

00:13:18:02 - Ella Lillian Olson: And we never been to Spokane and we so there was an had been a preacher that had meetings there and his wife said that she’s gonna write to a girl that she was in that miniskirt living in the basement in there at the church. And she showed me the separate depot. And we were supposed to carry a magazine, I think was a hit with you right beside sometimes or something.

00:13:41:22 - Ella Lillian Olson: And she was to carry the same thing.

00:13:43:22 - Charlene Olson: And you know each other. Yeah.

00:13:45:08 - Ella Lillian Olson: And then we went with her home and stayed with her. And the next day we went out for work. We at the paper newspaper and went to those addresses and look for work. Got work and work Christmas. Then we went home and we had that they.

00:14:05:27 - Ella Lillian Olson: Let me know every had there I think it’s $29 a month. And then I bought it. You have to call and address issues or we were just about broke.

00:14:19:24 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00:14:20:16 - Ella Lillian Olson: Took all that money to pay for it you and me. But we and I took it back to So we went home and then, I got a job. There was another couple. They were. She was cooking, and he was working in the camp. And then they could they recruit. She couldn’t have them want me to come and start working there.

00:14:40:28 - Ella Lillian Olson: So I went.

00:14:41:25 - Charlene Olson: To help cook and things like that.

00:14:44:14 - Ella Lillian Olson: And then, it went on and, and then I got the job to be a cook in the logging camps. And the meal at the meal and Troy Lumber Company there.

00:14:57:14 - Charlene Olson: And then you work for Troy number as still as cooking in their camp.

00:15:03:20 - Ella Lillian Olson: I went up here quite a time. And and then we were going together. Walk. Let’s go get together. Then we went and then the war was on. We went together for five years. and three years before he went to war. And then he came home from the war in January, 19th January, excited to be January 30th, 1919.

00:15:29:27 - Ella Lillian Olson: He came home from the war pregnant. Yeah, because it was over in November. But they kept him there because.

00:15:35:14 - Charlene Olson: He was gone from the war. It was in the World War one.

00:15:39:11 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah. And then, and we went together. We didn’t I didn’t have time to get married because I wanted for work. And he was working.

00:15:48:04 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00:15:48:21 - Ella Lillian Olson: We didn’t get the word but. Kept on working. And then in 1920, 1990 or 19 19 or 1920 I went out on the cook wagon. That lady was telling me about the cook wagon. Frustrated, just reminded me have em, cooked. They’re my sister. I have my sister with me. There. So we cook there. The first year that went fine and came back and went up to the mill, met him there and then between and then in the four they wanted us the 1920 come again.

00:16:26:25 - Ella Lillian Olson: And, you know, we got to the base that year in the cook wagon. It rang. Vendors were black. And they couldn’t ration and they finished it. When they didn’t, he didn’t want to race off because as soon as it rained one day the next, then it took two, three days for sunshine to dry them out so they could start just when they just started running again.

00:16:52:07 - Ella Lillian Olson: Now how did the cook.

00:17:05:15 - Ella Lillian Olson: Work out of such a three year bakery? I don’t what the heck, what group I didn’t think of. Yeah, but we baked and, they come in after breakfast. Sometimes they say we’re going to move in about an hour, and I’d hurry up, set bread. And, you know, with that weight going in that cook wagon when we were moving that bread race, clear out.

00:17:27:15 - Ella Lillian Olson: But time to stop. It was ready to put in the pans. and then we did all our peeling while we were moving and the spouse and whatever we had to clear because it was put on your different time. Sometimes we got there from we had to rush in a hurry.

00:17:42:19 - Charlene Olson: You mean you serve different fields of man men?

00:17:45:14 - Ella Lillian Olson: And you.

00:17:45:22 - Charlene Olson: Looked at the cook wagon around.

00:17:47:15 - Ella Lillian Olson: And I remember the machine got to it. This place we moved to the next place with them.

00:17:51:13 - Charlene Olson: We wake them up.

00:17:53:19 - Ella Lillian Olson: And when it rained, they’d come in for breakfast, and it was about that thick mud on that floor. And we had a shovel, and we just shovel it out and clean the floor before we could do it. And then it moved off the same thing. And then at night and our bedroom was under the cookhouse, and we had to clean that floor before bed and made our bed on the floor.

00:18:19:03 - Charlene Olson: So this was before all before you were married or.

00:18:21:27 - Ella Lillian Olson: Else.

00:18:22:20 - Charlene Olson: Court and your husband then.

00:18:25:00 - Ella Lillian Olson: But he didn’t work there. You weren’t. You were still in the woods and I was down Genesee Turnpike this quick.

00:18:32:26 - Charlene Olson: Or you decide to either when you had time off.

00:18:35:04 - Ella Lillian Olson: And so then, we got through what we didn’t get to, but he sent us home then that was never turned. And they went down and finished that harvest. And we didn’t go the cook, but we didn’t go there. In December they finished. Correct. I never saw 60 year rain. Oh, we went out in August. We started raining.

00:19:04:15 - Ella Lillian Olson: You didn’t do anything right? Right. But we got picked good basin.

00:19:08:22 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00:19:09;17 - Ella Lillian Olson: So that then when we got going, that was whatever we planned. We’d get married November 13th because that was almost like, Oh, that’s so that was your idea.

00;19;21;09 - Charlene Olson: What if after five years of, courting, what made you decide to get married right then? Was it because you had little money put away?

00;19;28;22 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well, I was getting tired of work in the market. Well, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to get married. So I thought, well, I’d be sitting there maybe having some kids and I.

00;19;37;28 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00;19;38;21 - Ella Lillian Olson: You got it. And I look them in surgery. I was home five days. I was 22 years old. Five years old. And and then, got married and we had two boys.

00;19;55;23 - Charlene Olson: Okay. And how old, are you two? What are your children playing? And they prefer.

00;20;03;03 - Ella Lillian Olson: Reno area or Albion. I, I, his manager took the girls up into a bigger.

00;20;14;09 - Charlene Olson: Track.

00;20;14;22 - Ella Lillian Olson: They know if the rose house.

00;20;16;24 - Charlene Olson: Oh, rose.

00;20;17;13 - Ella Lillian Olson: Power of the vegetable. So that when all of.

00;20;21;29 - Charlene Olson: Produce right in my.

00;20;23;27 - Ella Lillian Olson: Form. Oh, yeah.

00;20;27;19 - Charlene Olson: In that and what when when people aren’t.

00;20;30;21 - Ella Lillian Olson: August 18th.

00;20;32;01 - Charlene Olson: Oh. August 18th.

00;20;33;05 - Ella Lillian Olson: 1920

00;20;34;03 - Charlene Olson: One 1921. In here in what people in. In Troy or in your house?

00;20;39;08 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yes. our we bought 40 acres of land when we got married here and there. He was born in that house. But I had a doctor. But my mother never had a doctor for any of us. Like it.

00;20;52;05 - Charlene Olson: Oh, my. So your your father just tell. No.

00;20;55;16 - Ella Lillian Olson: There was an old lady there that went around from house to house.

00;21;00;21 - Charlene Olson: But by the time your generation came along then there were more doctors in another.

00;21;06;07 - Ella Lillian Olson: So and then my second boy was that he was, his name was ma’am, it’s ma’am ma’am. And he’s lost. And, when he was born, June 10th. Okay. At 1923.

00;21;20;22 - Charlene Olson: 1923

00;21;22;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: He was born two weeks after my dad’s funeral.

00;21;25;18 - Charlene Olson: That’s right. He died in 1923.

00;21;28;04 - Ella Lillian Olson: So he had only one grand father. He died? Yeah.

00;21;31;18 - Charlene Olson: From. And your, what did he do in work? And.

00;21;36;11 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well, he’s been working with construction work and and the different things. Now, he was in a car with his doing anything that they help him hurt or he was hurt bad for three weeks that he had, a thing on his, mouth for a while. And then they cut up the hand, put the finger in. Oh, yeah.

00;21;57;10 - Ella Lillian Olson: There it is. No. So you couldn’t talk to him.

00;22;00;16 - Charlene Olson: And you see, better.

00;22;02;03 - Ella Lillian Olson: Be getting better. Well, he’s out of the hospital, but he isn’t very good in some crutches, so. But I didn’t expect to hear, he had broken the hip.

00;22;13;28 - Charlene Olson: When did this happen?

00;22;15;09 - Ella Lillian Olson: Just. Oh, he was, he was in the hospital for seven weeks, and I think he’s been out now for three weeks. So it just happened.

00;22;27;00 - Charlene Olson: That was just happened. That must have been hard for you too.

00;22;29;28 - Ella Lillian Olson: So, he, I didn’t expect him to live the way he looked. And his lungs and inside, they, they had to blow up his lungs. I was just pelvis was broke, his ribs were broken, and his hip replacement.

00;22;46;13 - Charlene Olson: Well, let’s see how.

00;22;47;20 - Ella Lillian Olson: Old is 52.

00;22;49;25 - Charlene Olson: So I wonder if you’ll get that. Be able to.

00;22;51;19 - Ella Lillian Olson: I don’t know. Have you ever mopped anything more about.

00;22;55;06 - Charlene Olson: Do you have grandchildren?

00;22;57;01 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah, I’ve got, six of those six grandchildren.

00;23;02;09 - Charlene Olson: And what are their names?

00;23;06;25 - Ella Lillian Olson: Terry’s the one that’s here, Terry. Old weather almost. Of course.

00;23;11;23 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. That’s right, because you had no girl.

00;23;14;27 - Charlene Olson: so there’s Carrie.

00;23;15;27 - Ella Lillian Olson: Terry, and he lives. He stays here with me. Oh, and 21 year, so. But, he said he’s been under this really happy rotation, right? he’s, flat footed, and I’m kind of halfway quick. and, he isn’t working. He can’t work. He can’t work like other people.

00;23;40;12 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00;23;41;13 - Ella Lillian Olson: But he’s done janitor work and stuff like that.

00;23;43;28 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00;23;45;01 - Ella Lillian Olson: And then Martin’s kids, that was Beverly. And she’s married and lives in Troy, Montana. She had four boys and one girl. And one boy died in this crib there. Oh, so they’re in Montana and then. And her name is Beverly Rebels.

00;24;02;24 - Charlene Olson: Now with that Troy, Montana. Oh.

00;24;07;15 - Ella Lillian Olson: And and then, Martin junior, he is in with the Army, and he made that his career, and he’s married. It’s a boy and a girl. And I got six great grandchildren.

00;24;22;25 - Charlene Olson: Oh, isn’t that.

00;24;24;02 - Ella Lillian Olson: Two of my girls.

00;24;25;22 - Charlene Olson: Are nice.

00;24;26;27 - Ella Lillian Olson: And, And he’s in Alaska. He was just transferred to Alaska in January, and he’s going to be there for five years. Oh, and he signed up. We were sent in there.

00;24;38;15 - Charlene Olson: You may not see him for a while then. No.

00;24;40;20 - Ella Lillian Olson: And his family went with him from. And then it’s, oh, they’re all okay. And he is very young. Fine. And and, Mike, who grew up job John was the youngest John Henry. John. He’s they he’s the youngest and he’s first year high school.

00;25;01;05 - Charlene Olson: Oh, yeah. So you only had one granddaughter? Oh, the.

00;25;04;24 - Ella Lillian Olson: Only one granddaughter.

00;25;06;03 - Charlene Olson: I bet you were tickled when she came along. You?

00;25;08;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: After having what? She was the oldest. That there’s all boys after that and then that here Beverly, she was with the girls of that. And then she had four boys. And then one died. And then she got the girl now.

00;25;21;08 - Charlene Olson: Oh. That’s nice.

00;25;22;04 - Ella Lillian Olson: And, so she finally got the girl.

00;25;25;08 - Charlene Olson: Now, let’s see. Terry is Reinholds boy, you know, and then all the others are marked. And so one just had one child.

00;25;34;03 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, they must have had 7 or 8. but she had diabetes, so they have one buried on the cemetery in Moscow. Diane. She is the only one that went through. And then later she had her all checked lost and.

00;25;51;19 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

00;25;53;04 - Ella Lillian Olson: And then she died. Terry was eight years old when she died from diabetes. Practicing poisoning from. To the person. Oh, she died. And then I’d had kick Terry ever since. Oh. You have.

00;26;08;12 - Charlene Olson: Oh, so you really raised just about.

00;26;12;00 - Charlene Olson: I think it’s good company for you now, though.

00;26;15;02 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well, this place. Yes. You can go get the mail, And then not today. He went to. Because, Marvin had to move. The house he lived in was. Is the lady that headed. He had a room there. Hasn’t paid her rent. The man that owns everything. He’s going to give out a closet now. The chairs are out of there.

00;26;35;16 - Ella Lillian Olson: The first and Marvin had to close their things. Yeah, carry with them to move him to one of these little. It’s a little house is down there. But that least inside her and he’s going to move in one of them.

00;26;50;25 - Charlene Olson: Oh, yeah. Now, how did, women of your generation, find out about, the facts of life and and, childbirth and childbearing and things like that? Did you usually did you think that most of your friends heard about things like that from their friends or from their mothers, or.

00;27;13;06 - Ella Lillian Olson: I suppose the mothers told them.

00;27;16;12 - Charlene Olson: But, I wondered because your mother would have been pretty much in, Victorian sort of. Oh, yeah. So they usually didn’t talk about things like that.

00;27;26;09 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well, she she just wasn’t that. She just told it. We never knew it. She’s going to have another day. When we didn’t know that. But and I got a little bit older, I don’t remember which one of us used to go ahead but and I happened to go in the bedroom and I seen the baby dress, and I thought, oh, is she going to have another one?

00;27;50;18 - Charlene Olson: And yeah, if you were the oldest.

00;27;54;07 - Ella Lillian Olson: So I began to understand a little bit. Yeah. But they never talked.

00;27;58;12 - Charlene Olson: About they never told you anything. You just learn to learn from your, friends or. Or what?

00;28;05;19 - Ella Lillian Olson: We never talked about.

00;28;06;24 - Charlene Olson: You just never talked about those things. And I’ll just.

00;28;09;01 - Ella Lillian Olson: It just just come naturally.

00;28;10;25 - Charlene Olson: To learn it. Yeah.

00;28;13;14 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, yeah.

00;28;14;19 - Charlene Olson: It’s just interesting, you know, a year from now, you did have a day off to go with you.

00;28;20;11 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah, I.

00;28;21;01 - Charlene Olson: Did see him, during the nine months.

00;28;23;27 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah, I went to see. And my mother never had a doctor for any of. She never been in the hospital. Oh, my. Just it is, but,

00;28;32;25 - Charlene Olson: So they did have prenatal care then. I mean, you did go in for checkups and things.

00;28;36;23 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh yeah.

00;28;37;23 - Charlene Olson: I came to the home when you had your baby.

00;28;39;29 - Ella Lillian Olson: Mama and the doctor came to the house.

00;28;43;10 - Charlene Olson: Now you just had to have you not. Are they having more children or.

00;28;47;17 - Ella Lillian Olson: I would have like to, had a girl. But I said I don’t want anymore boys and I said I don’t. This is a good start of our pallbearers. but I didn’t do anything. I just never got anywhere here.

00;28;59;26 - Charlene Olson: Oh. So because back in those days, there weren’t so many different kinds of birth control?

00;29;05;11 - Ella Lillian Olson: No, I don’t know if there was any.

00;29;07;29 - Charlene Olson: Yeah, well, there was.

00;29;09;19 - Ella Lillian Olson: There we go. And all of it anyway.

00;29;11;13 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00;29;12;05 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah, but I never I just got those two boys for two years between them.

00;29;16;25 - Charlene Olson: And then you just never.

00;29;17;21 - Ella Lillian Olson: Gotten to pick up in the morning. But I always wanted every last one that was smarter. I thought, sure that was going to be a girl. I had made in Beverly Maureen because she was born.

00;29;31;21 - Ella Lillian Olson: And that. So then when he got his girl he named her Beverly Lorraine. Just that was supposed to be so.

00;29;37;07 - Charlene Olson: Well, that was nice.

00;29;38;28 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah. That’s how she got her.

00;29;41;05 - Charlene Olson: Oh, you got your granddaughter. You. Yeah. Because a lot of women, you know, in your age group had large families, you know.

00;29;49;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah.

00;29;49;26 - Charlene Olson: Some of them didn’t even want the large families.

00;29;52;10 - Ella Lillian Olson: But they sure had big families at the time. My mother had her kids.

00;29;56;03 - Charlene Olson: Yeah, they.

00;29;56;26 - Ella Lillian Olson: All had up to 11. 12.

00;29;58;21 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00;29;59;06 - Ella Lillian Olson: More than that. Yeah. And if somebody that had just 5 or 6 or something like that, that was oh that’s awful. Okay.

00;30;09;21 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That’s just the way it was I guess.

00;30;13;19 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah.

00;30;16;00 - Charlene Olson: okay. Let’s see. We’re down to interest, hobbies and so forth. I see you do needlework. Yeah.

00;30;25;25 - Ella Lillian Olson: I’m crocheting. That was.

00;30;29;19 - Charlene Olson: is it crocheting? There’s no crocheting on there. Is that what the.

00;31;19;20 - Ella Lillian Olson: Here’s Troy 0 to 91 car. And it was called Vollmer.

00;31;24;03 - Charlene Olson: Oh, they had a different name.

00;31;25;29 - Ella Lillian Olson: And, the Swedes, they got so many Swedes here, they couldn’t say what they called it for. Willmar. Oh, and then looked up and changed it to now, ladies in 1891, stamps on Main Street.

00;31;38;05 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00;31;39;10 - Ella Lillian Olson: And it was nothing but words. The whole thing was why once when we went to live down to Nora there from our place, we went. We had a tramp through the woods.

00;31;53;01 - Charlene Olson: Nothing but words. Yeah. Because now they’ve cleared away a lot of it for living there. And we turn.

00;32;00;02 - Ella Lillian Olson: Now, it’s all in farmland.

00;32;03;17 - Charlene Olson: Yeah I’m thinking that. Yeah.

00;32;07;09 - Ella Lillian Olson: That’s in 1891, 18.

00;32;09;02 - Charlene Olson: 91

00;32;10;12 - Ella Lillian Olson: It was in and enough. 99 and here’s in 99.

00;32;21;08 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. It’s looking more like a town here isn’t it.

00;32;23;23 - Ella Lillian Olson: I mean it’s improved a lot. Yeah.

00;32;25;22 - Charlene Olson: Here’s a big difference on the farm. Yeah. Well it’s really a pretty town. We when we go out today I’m looking out. Yeah. Here. Well we’re right.

00;32;36;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: Down here in the canyon.

00;32;38;13 - Charlene Olson: Down you always lived in either right outside Troy or in Troy. Yeah.

00;32;43;15 - Ella Lillian Olson: Or here’s in 1920.

00;32;45;27 - Charlene Olson: Crime. Wow. It’s really growing. Oh, yeah.

00;32;49;09 - Ella Lillian Olson: And now it’s where your house just kind of heals from over.

00;32;53;28 - Charlene Olson: It’s probably gonna keep growing, too.

00;32;55;29 - Ella Lillian Olson: I imagine, because there’s just people. there are.

00;32;58;17 - Charlene Olson: A lot of, a lot of people who live in a small place don’t want them to change now. They want them to stay small.

00;33;05;06 - Ella Lillian Olson: But they’re just coming in. So, yeah.

00;33;09;27 - Charlene Olson: okay. So.

00;33;11;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah, that’s an interesting book.

00;33;12;12 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. I’m gonna I’m going to read it. okay. So let’s see, we’ve got most of your hobbies down and we’ve got a big list. Is there are there any other things that you like to do with your free time or. Oh, I don’t.

00;33;27;02 - Ella Lillian Olson: Know, I didn’t hear you.

00;33;29;00 - Charlene Olson: Didn’t have any free time.

00;33;30;07 - Ella Lillian Olson: No. Until I start planning Florida. Yeah.

00;33;33;05 - Charlene Olson: Mowing lawns and you’re running. You must be a good cook too. Cooking all those years and be a baker.

00;33;39;28 - Ella Lillian Olson: I guess so, yeah. Oh, yeah.

00;33;44;23 - Charlene Olson: Did you ever have any flowers or anything or any kind of, food at the fair? Did you ever at the county fair? No.

00;33;53;02 - Ella Lillian Olson: I ever brought anything there because it’s too hard to.

00;33;55;18 - Charlene Olson: Get it there. Yeah.

00;33;57;07 - Ella Lillian Olson: Never got it.

00;34;00;09 - Ella Lillian Olson: From over here.

00;34;01;06 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. We do still like to bake or we are.

00;34;04;15 - Ella Lillian Olson: On the topic.

00;34;05;08 - Charlene Olson: All my. Oh, you do.

00;34;07;26 - Ella Lillian Olson: But I got a freezer now. Yeah.

00;34;10;08 - Charlene Olson: Yeah, that’s nice for homemade bread. It’s a lot better than.

00;34;13;26 - Ella Lillian Olson: When I can’t get bake bread. It’s just more you the bigger. Yeah.

00;34;19;11 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. you belong to, I know you belong. You belong to the club that, we came in the door for prosperity. Or, you know, I quit.

00;34;29;15 - Ella Lillian Olson: I quit all that. I couldn’t get in place, but,

00;34;32;25 - Charlene Olson: But I have a church. And which church or.

00;34;35;05 - Ella Lillian Olson: Or the Mr..

00;34;37;20 - Ella Lillian Olson: But that’s just my brother. Years that go back. Oh, that’s when the first when the you know, they sprinkled the kids with baptized.

00;34;45;24 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00;34;46;01 - Ella Lillian Olson: That was and it was a Swedish Methodist church. That’s the oh probably a mile and a half from our place, from the house that that church preacher’s house is still there. That’s banville’s. Well then the lives there and the Swedish Methodist Church and that’s where we were baptized. Oh. And then then that church died and doors down there grew and then they said Lions Club, hope that we’re free.

00;35;18;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: You know our, our mission church. Oh, and there’s where we went to Sunday school and, and I was confirmed in that church.

00;35;26;19 - Charlene Olson: The mission church. What church was that.

00;35;28;15 - Ella Lillian Olson: Affiliated with in.

00;35;29;26 - Charlene Olson: Athens?

00;35;30;21 - Ella Lillian Olson: No, no, it was a Congregational church from Norfolk.

00;35;34;18 - Charlene Olson: I.

00;35;34;26 - Ella Lillian Olson: Think. But they call it there mission from.

00;35;38;19 - Ella Lillian Olson: And then it when I was one week old, that church, they were building it minus one week over a week before Thanksgiving. The first meeting in that church was no Christ giving when I was a week old. Oh my. So that church, that place, that’s a good place. I could move it down here.

00;35;56;26 - Charlene Olson: What’s it called? The Mission Covenant Church.

00;35;59;13 - Ella Lillian Olson: something like that. Yeah.

00;36;01;00 - Charlene Olson: That’s what my husband came here. Yeah. Well, then what happened to that church? I mean, I know the church where what happened to those people died?

00;36;09;19 - Ella Lillian Olson: The oldest just couldn’t go. Go. I guess they couldn’t have a preacher there all just died out. And then, what was left of the members there? Couple of.

00;36;21;22 - Charlene Olson: So I see. So when you were a child, you went to the mission church. And then what happened then? For a period of time, you didn’t work related with the church?

00;36;33;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: No. I know I went to the Lutheran church and I went to the mainstream church, but I.

00;36;37;07 - Charlene Olson: Never belonged in. Oh, yeah. And if your children go.

00;36;40;11 - Ella Lillian Olson: To your arena, if it’s confirmed in the Lutheran church here, and he went to Sunday school when the kids went to Lutheran all the time.

00;36;50;16 - Ella Lillian Olson: And, Martin didn’t get confirmed because that class, they were supposed to be confirmed. And then the minister told them they’d have to go to spring and the whole class quit. So he was he wasn’t confirmed, but ready to work. And so, anyway. Oh, yeah.

00;37;12;11 - Charlene Olson: And then what? How did you get from returning to the campus? Oh, I don’t know.

00;37;16;12 - Ella Lillian Olson: They had some meetings here and they’re starting to talk about in the Bible. See, the truth and that.

00;37;26;28 - Charlene Olson: So then and when was that?

00;37;30;24 - Ella Lillian Olson: That’s in 1954.

00;37;33;16 - Charlene Olson: Oh, yeah. So just within the last.

00;37;35;16 - Ella Lillian Olson: The last few years.

00;37;36;17 - Charlene Olson: Here, year after.

00;37;43;19 - Charlene Olson: We’re affiliated with the church.

00;37;46;12 - Ella Lillian Olson: No, I, I don’t know, I went to the Lutheran church and I went to the Nazarene, but I never belonged to all.

00;37;51;21 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. You did. Your children go to.

00;37;54;05 - Ella Lillian Olson: Your arena was confirmed in the Lutheran church here. And he went to summer school. What the kids went through all the time?

00;38;03;24 - Ella Lillian Olson: And, Martin didn’t get confirmed because first class, they were supposed to be confirmed. And then the minister told them they have to go to spring, and the whole class quit. So he was he wasn’t confirmed, but Reagan was, and so, we went.

00;38;24;27 - Charlene Olson: Oh, yeah. And then what? How did you get from returning to Vietnam or.

00;38;29;01 - Ella Lillian Olson: I don’t know, they had some meetings here and we just starting to talk about it. It was in the Bible program and that’s it.

00;38;39;25 - Charlene Olson: So then and when was that.

00;38;43;20 - Ella Lillian Olson: That’s in 1954.

00;38;46;11 - Charlene Olson: Oh yeah. So just within the last.

00;38;48;16 - Ella Lillian Olson: Last year you’re.

00;38;49;10 - Charlene Olson: Here. You’re an after.

00;38;53;15 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh yeah I belong to the darkness. I was darkness leader for many years.

00;38;56;28 - Charlene Olson: Oh.

00;38;58;14 - Ella Lillian Olson: I just, I can’t get around anymore. So I just kept going.

00;39;02;19 - Charlene Olson: And you did go to the, you were leader of the Dark Society. And did you go to any other groups in town when you were younger?

00;39;09;29 - Ella Lillian Olson: My life was. I went to everything there was. Where was. Yeah. Just go. You know, there’s lots of groups in schools when you have kids.

00;39;17;25 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. And stuff.

00;39;18;18 - Ella Lillian Olson: And the basketball, never was the basketball. And they used to have tournaments during program and for me one afternoon and evening and I went, oh, those games couldn’t stay away. Oh, yeah.

00;39;32;05 - Charlene Olson: that’s, you know, a little town basketball is really. Oh, yeah.

00;39;35;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: But it never ran or played them. Well, they both did the football. Oh, they wanted me to come to one game or you’re going to go to one because I went to one game and I said, never again. I said, I’m not going to be there. When they came here, they got a lot.

00;39;51;03 - Charlene Olson: More violent than Bath.

00;39;52;05 - Ella Lillian Olson: Club than basketball. That’s nice. Yeah.

00;39;56;27 - Charlene Olson: For now. Were you you were married in what year? 1922, 1923. You were married during the depression years.

00;40;04;19 - Ella Lillian Olson: And depression came later. And we lived in that little house there then during the depression. Yeah. And there was no work to be done. And we had the two kids.

00;40;19;05 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00;40;19;18 - Ella Lillian Olson: Just starting school and then they decided they would go put in the silver haired court, but they give them just so many hours a week because there so much people that wanted to work to make it. And they had just so much money to go home.

00;40;38;10 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00;40;39;06 - Ella Lillian Olson: And but then they got food and all we had to do was go downtown here and get got everything.

00;40;45;29 - Charlene Olson: You mean? oh.

00;40;47;10 - Ella Lillian Olson: Pretty. Oh I remember. So we were on the retreat room and so then we lived there were then,

00;40;58;13 - Charlene Olson: How could you pay your rent.

00;41;00;02 - Ella Lillian Olson: Would there be $6 a month rent and couldn’t pay it from. He was a bachelor. He didn’t leave it to fend for anyway. So he didn’t put you out any more. And he died. And the house was stolen. So we had lived there for ten years, and we still owe him $6 a month for several months rent. But you stabbed him.

00;41;21;07 - Charlene Olson: Oh, sure. No, no.

00;41;24;10 - Ella Lillian Olson: You said well fixed. Well, how.

00;41;26;10 - Charlene Olson: Long was it that your husband was not able to find work or.

00;41;30;11 - Ella Lillian Olson: Where he was? Oh, it. I think it’s that summer he worked. it was kind of weird. And, the sewer. And then they built these outside toilets where the parks and.

00;41;45;22 - Charlene Olson: All that was the public works was in the all.

00;41;49;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: And anything like that, but they didn’t get very much many hours to do.

00;41;52;24 - Charlene Olson: It because they had all.

00;41;54;11 - Ella Lillian Olson: They had to have. So, just so much money to go on. Yeah. And how did and then we got the green, had the warehouse bathroom and yeah, they wanted somebody to come down there and work. So he went down and started working there. And then and then he stayed there. And then one day the roof slips down there.

00;42;19;05 - Ella Lillian Olson: That was the hospital doctor Myers and the hospital then. so one day he came up and, he wanted me to come down there and see if I could come down and clean one day a week, wash clothes, one one clean, wash up. After that, he asked of town for something. Oh, do you want me to come on Monday to clean the whole frame or Wednesday if you wash me?

00;42;46;06 - Ella Lillian Olson: So I thought, well, yes, I was glad to go. I went there, worked there. And then we had to move because the house was so open and I kept on working. And pretty soon that place got so full of people that I worked. I washed almost every day down in that hospital. And I went down after suffering down the.

00;43;09;12 - Ella Lillian Olson: I got the close out of the way because that place was just packed with took thousands the comfort workers from all over. And he had beds and the whole and all over. well, he had.

00;43;23;02 - Charlene Olson: Some.

00;43;23;14 - Ella Lillian Olson: And you had a nurse there. Steady. And he had a helper, and they were on their steady. And the women come in there and had their babies there. And that’s where my brother died for rupture. And, and, that place was just home.

00;43;41;08 - Charlene Olson: So that was, during the depression during that.

00;43;44;24 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah.

00;43;45;15 - Charlene Olson: Glad for the extra money then.

00;43;47;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, yeah. And so then I worked there until, and we were his he had two boys and they grew up and got to go to some school and and then Mrs. Myers decided she didn’t want to stay here no longer. She’s going to Seattle. and she took off and the boys took off and left in here alone for a club.

00;44;14;04 - Ella Lillian Olson: So then me. So, So, his house took another demand in that one. He sold it to them, and then we rented it when the tenants was going to move, it wasn’t transferred, so we rented it to 45. It’s really well.

00;44;34;19 - Charlene Olson: Now the World War two. Did your husband have.

00;44;38;27 - Ella Lillian Olson: Reenlisted for four years?

00;44;42;22 - Charlene Olson: And the other one was here.

00;44;44;12 - Ella Lillian Olson: No he didn’t. oh yeah. So he wasn’t there right away. But he was there in Guatemala for about four years around Hawaii.

00;44;57;18 - Charlene Olson: Now that was so hard. Time to then wasn’t after during the war did you think which do you think.

00;45;03;11 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well I don’t know what they were. The depression was the worst of all. It the.

00;45;08;08 - Charlene Olson: Worst than the war.

00;45;09;18 - Ella Lillian Olson: Or that was the worst of all, because you didn’t know what you were going to eat next year. The kids wanted this and that, and you had to have clothes for. And they were going to school. You know what worked? Which way to turn four. And then, they had this people in Moscow. I have never done it.

00;45;30;18 - Ella Lillian Olson: I’ve never seen it. But my sister was working there and she was definitely the hopper was at different points and she said for me to go up there and put my name in and going to see 50 plus older people there, you there.

00;45;47;17 - Ella Lillian Olson: Audience. So I thought, well, there was a whole bunch of us here. We were 5 or 6 in the car that week.

00;45;53;15 - Charlene Olson: And what year was this?

00;45;57;01 - Ella Lillian Olson: well, I don’t know what year it was. It was.

00;45;59;23 - Charlene Olson: But during the.

00;46;01;02 - Ella Lillian Olson: After the depression.

00;46;02;04 - Charlene Olson: After the depression. And I wondered.

00;46;04;10 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah. And, so then we went to pick a at Washburn and Wilson from and we got on the ship that started work at three. Good afternoon. And we worked. All right. So in the night we worked up, I think 40 below zero. And, we’ve come. Ida Paulson was driving her car. We loaded with her, came out there.

00;46;29;08 - Ella Lillian Olson: The car was froze and we had to go and get help. Get that pulled up. When we got out by the cemetery, the car stopped. And then somebody has to against. Oh no. So we was out of this and cars wouldn’t stop. They just drive by. Couldn’t make nobody stop.

00;46;50;13 - Charlene Olson: And I was so.

00;46;51;05 - Ella Lillian Olson: It was so cold. They couldn’t stop me. They they would never get started. Maybe they couldn’t just start somewhere. Yeah. And so finally there was one that stopped and she wrote back, a couple of us went with her and went back in the back. And then we made it home. But and one time going to work, that’s where letting us know what Grover no I don’t it’s up there, brother three here in Moscow of it.

00;47;22;24 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah. And, we were driving on the highway here. This man comes back and right out of his yard. Right back with us. Oh, no. And then Ida Polson was there. Drive. And we rode with her, and we got to work late because we had to get that week. The police got there. We had to wait until we got another car to go in and everything, but nobody was hurt.

00;47;47;20 - Ella Lillian Olson: But we went off to work.

00;47;49;24 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. Oh, no. Stay on the street. Every county do.

00;47;54;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah. well, and then we went to work there, I think because the so sold out or something. Knock them out. Your line came in and I worked there to pay for.

00;48;09;06 - Charlene Olson: Our equipment before they. You really worked a great deal. And you’re.

00;48;12;25 - Ella Lillian Olson: Married long? Oh, yes. And then we had the mica or were the school bus people is where the markup language. And, we cut my job. We lived in that house.

00;48;25;24 - Charlene Olson: There was a lot of women your age have just stayed home.

00;48;29;15 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah, but they had. They were flat out and working.

00;48;32;13 - Charlene Olson: That had to work because those were all lean years, boy.

00;48;36;07 - Ella Lillian Olson: And, we cut my dad. That was hard work for him, because you have to have it just so. And you had to. You got paid, by the way. You couldn’t cut off too much for.

00;48;49;08 - Charlene Olson: Have you enjoyed your things here since 1954?

00;48;53;03 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, yeah.

00;48;54;09 - Charlene Olson: What did you end up? You’re doing a lot since you haven’t had to work cause you’ve been you.

00;48;59;27 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well, I here in the yard and mowing, you know, primarily in the flowers and and all that. And I.

00;49;07;16 - Charlene Olson: Like to cook and bake and.

00;49;09;23 - Ella Lillian Olson: their embroidery. And you were, you ever would come, would make things for Christmas, right. Oh.

00;49;18;07 - Charlene Olson: I recoil.

00;49;19;17 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, I made so many quilts that I made that I so I don’t know, I think I must have made 50 or 60 for the darkness because everybody brought pieces. Yeah, that’s caught up. There was just for pieces. And so I got, I got divorced, I got from tearing all those closed pictures. and it we sorted calls for go to figure went there, you know.

00;49;43;03 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00;49;44;06 - Ella Lillian Olson: And, I got a horse. So I quit all that and I had to go and have surgery in my throat. So I had that Sacred Heart. And what did they do? Where it was during the 72 spoke to the Spokane here. And when I asked them what was there, they say it was a whole lot of crap in there that never it just never got so very just pregnant.

00;50;10;09 - Ella Lillian Olson: So when I was talking or reading or something, I had to put my finger in this hole here. Otherwise I couldn’t. I couldn’t hardly talk. So then I had surgery here.

00;50;21;22 - Charlene Olson: When was this?

00;50;23;04 - Ella Lillian Olson: So. Long enough. Not very long. Oh, about 5 or 6 years old. And I quit all of them at that material and all the quilts. I just had to quit it because I was scared that of course I could take care of them. But it wasn’t.

00;50;43;29 - Charlene Olson: You seemed to be in good health. Now you’re.

00;50;46;10 - Ella Lillian Olson: Over.

00;50;46;28 - Unknown: Better? Yeah.

00;50;52;05 - Ella Lillian Olson: so I’ve made a lot of. Yeah. And,

00;50;59;19 - Charlene Olson: What what advantages you think there was to living in a rural community during your childhood? Well, actually, your whole life, rather than living in.

00;51;09;01 - Ella Lillian Olson: Or. It’s. It was better here at home. And the comfort. Yeah. Because then he had to go out work and I was sitting there alone.

00;51;18;22 - Charlene Olson: Oh yeah.

00;51;19;22 - Ella Lillian Olson: And we had girl power when we had, we had chickens in here and those things happened quickly. Carol. So it was better.

00;51;32;03 - Charlene Olson: But what advantages do you think there are living in a smaller town rather than the big.

00;51;36;07 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, I think it’s it’s, you know.

00;51;39;00 - Charlene Olson: Everybody here.

00;51;40;11 - Ella Lillian Olson: And you can go around and you don’t have to be scared. Yeah. It like in becomes. Yeah, look what happens there. And, never think we can go out any time of night. You don’t think you think that everybody that you.

00;51;54;25 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00;51;55;08 - Ella Lillian Olson: Real or and you know, everybody used to go down on the street and I knew everybody, you know, I don’t know, I never forgot all of you. Yeah. but they’re all crazy enough. Yeah. It was quiet, I know. Yeah, I got acquainted with them. They’re all nice people. So.

00;52;14;15 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. Can you think of any thing, that you and your brothers and sisters used to do for fun when you were children? That’s different from what the kids do today. Or what time did you think of any family experiences when your child or.

00;52;30;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: Or suppose this whatever. we used to go down, once and make a play house. Oh.

00;52;40;05 - Charlene Olson: That sounds fun.

00;52;41;07 - Ella Lillian Olson: I remember, so we used to drag boards down and put them in the trees, came off the trees. So we ate broken dishes, took whatever we got a hold to bring it down to where it wasn’t too far from the house because the woods was below them. And then. And then we, We never had any bicycle or anything like that.

00;53;03;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: Were. And there was no water that was up in that country that you.

00;53;07;14 - Charlene Olson: Would hear if you’re on water.

00;53;08;19 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah. You called it for washing. Sometimes we go out. Was going to do the washing. There was and we had to go get a barefoot water heater before we could walk.

00;53;17;29 - Charlene Olson: Now did you think, three when you were a child?

00;53;22;06 - Ella Lillian Olson: I started school when I was five years old. I didn’t understand English words.

00;53;26;18 - Charlene Olson: And how how what part of your experience was that? You, did the teacher.

00;53;31;19 - Ella Lillian Olson: And we had an old schoolhouse. The old schoolhouse was on that side of our place, and no French. You heard him. He was that my first teacher? I was five years old when I started, and we had three months in the spring and three months in the fall.

00;53;47;13 - Charlene Olson: Now we probably had back to school. So you couldn’t speak English. Goodness.

00;53;52;03 - Ella Lillian Olson: Beginning farmer. no. Well how did he treat you? Well, I don’t know how he could teach us because as soon as we got outside that door, we all come through, and they tried to put a stop to that. We couldn’t talk to. You ever hear in the schoolyard? Oh, let’s see, that didn’t work.

00;54;10;08 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. Can you talk to that home after.

00;54;12;23 - Ella Lillian Olson: All that sort of talk and that’s all talk between us? Yeah, that was a what we talk. And those American kids, they talk sweet. Just as good as we did back then. Since those that after they’ve given, they’re just as good as we did.

00;54;29;04 - Charlene Olson: You still take three oil.

00;54;31;10 - Ella Lillian Olson: Up in the my kids TikToks read first, they learned first. They’ll never forget it. And now in the store, you can talk sweet to those people and they talk to him. He knows what they’re talking about.

00;54;44;25 - Charlene Olson: What do you remember? Did you learn English them when you were in school or.

00;54;48;29 - Ella Lillian Olson: yeah, I guess we must. I must learn that they must.

00;54;51;19 - Charlene Olson: Have learned it because that’s like your car.

00;54;53;02 - Ella Lillian Olson: And then there they were going to be in the schoolhouse, and my dad gave them an acre land up in the upper the north corner of the place. There was some folk who gave them that right here. Of course, he got another it because that’s to make it legal.

00;55;07;17 - Charlene Olson: Oh, yeah.

00;55;08;21 - Ella Lillian Olson: But he gave it to them and they built a new schoolhouse there, Pleasant Hill. and then we went up there to school and, I think the first teacher that was there was his name was Blackie. And we had their first live up here on the roof. We stayed for Trout and Mr. Steele click with them then will find friends initially.

00;55;37;07 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh he was mean.

00;55;40;19 - Charlene Olson: And you then went there. When did you come back to.

00;55;44;03 - Ella Lillian Olson: Go to school. Oh that’s when I was in eighth grade. Is your first grade up there. Then we saw an ad in the star mirror that somebody want work through the morning. You go to school, folks, that we up there in.

00;55;56;25 - Charlene Olson: The ninth grade there before.

00;56;00;04 - Ella Lillian Olson: And so we, then moved as we had since, you know, two inner two kids.

00;56;06;03 - Charlene Olson: We went, all right. Yeah.

00;56;08;21 - Ella Lillian Olson: And they put the first graders down in the probably the third graders just up the numbers up and down. So the teacher would stand there and our friend put that in there. So, this girl that I sat with, she was two years older, and she had already learned the first one to learn what the future was talking about with you.

00;56;31;13 - Ella Lillian Olson: I think she said something in Korean. I didn’t know what to say about understanding her. And so what she said then the research, she said, not in Swedish, of course. If I don’t get up on a stump and keep on turning and turning on that front, he’s going to be like, oh, that’s what he told us. and I got on that stuck.

00;56;52;26 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, damn it, I believed it. Yeah, the whole recess, the 15 minute resale. I went around her, I don’t know, let’s go up.

00;57;02;24 - Charlene Olson: At 3000.

00;57;04;01 - Ella Lillian Olson: Where they know what they had come down from. Oh.

00;57;07;10 - Charlene Olson: That’s funny. that’s a funny story. So did you ever find out that.

00;57;14;04 - Ella Lillian Olson: I did you find.

00;57;14;27 - Charlene Olson: Out then that.

00;57;15;21 - Ella Lillian Olson: No, I never found out. We all. But, I guess I was mad at her. Yeah. So. But some of the other kids, some of them said. But I found out that wasn’t true. Yeah.

00;57;29;03 - Charlene Olson: well, there are a lot of kids, from Sweden. Some Norwegian parents here, although.

00;57;34;18 - Ella Lillian Olson: They were all.

00;57;35;16 - Charlene Olson: So you didn’t feel.

00;57;37;15 - Ella Lillian Olson: out of place? Out of place? they were all Swedes, but in some.

00;57;41;21 - Charlene Olson: Families are in some areas, you know, where we were just all alone and everybody.

00;57;45;27 - Ella Lillian Olson: But you can imagine those poor teachers.

00;57;48;07 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00;57;48;24 - Ella Lillian Olson: We had the have two young girls. It was the one her name was Rosa bore. Oh, she’s just a young, you know, they just started teaching the new seven year old because they didn’t have to go to university. Right. And she was oh, she was younger. And I think some of those two kids. And she would sit there and cry, because she didn’t know what to do with the kids because they took over, you know.

00;58;14;02 - Charlene Olson: Oh, yeah.

00;58;15;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: They couldn’t handle and handle them.

00;58;16;20 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00;58;17;17 - Ella Lillian Olson: And that she was not there at all. She they had to get rid of her and they got her sister Rosa more upset, but she was a little bit better. But she wasn’t very good either. You didn’t see the teacher just had to get right down.

00;58;32;14 - Charlene Olson: Yeah, work right.

00;58;33;17 - Ella Lillian Olson: To show on that. But it would either he gives them a lesson or because then they could give him away.

00;58;39;27 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

00;58;40;24 - Ella Lillian Olson: And what he did it was feels good to them. He took two of the boys. I don’t know what they have done. I don’t remember. But he stood him up on the floor and they had to spread their legs where to? With him? And they kept on their feet till they curled together and come up there and kick them on the hill, crawling up their feet.

00;58;58;21 - Ella Lillian Olson: It makes it.

00;58;59;17 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. And how long do they have to stay?

00;59;01;09 - Ella Lillian Olson: They for half a day at a time. Life. And we just made them stand there. And and they. Oh. Is he good with penmanship? If he didn’t write, I could never learn to make a capital J. I made this tail, and then I could go back and be better that and they were trying to make that J and you couldn’t hear but can take the pen and stick it up on the lawn.

00;59;28;22 - Ella Lillian Olson: You know, or just up. Just tried night and day all night. You got home. Oh you mean you tried? I tried to make that joke.

00;59;38;19 - Charlene Olson: But he sounded a little mean.

00;59;40;02 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, he. Well, I think your have.

00;59;42;03 - Charlene Olson: To the m.

00;59;45;21 - Ella Lillian Olson: that was your.

00;59;46;29 - Charlene Olson: I learned our lesson. Yeah, I guess so.

00;59;50;13 - Ella Lillian Olson: And, Mrs. Smith, listen to him. But they had to be you there. We had one that we like real. Well, her name was, she was from Avon. yeah. This one on the picture. She was. Oh, she was good. But the kids liked it. And she had control over the kids, and she was with me.

01;00;12;21 - Charlene Olson: That’s it. I mean, you can have control over the kids. And still not.

01;00;16;08 - Ella Lillian Olson: As she was good in the way to them.

01;00;18;27 - Charlene Olson: Everything, you know. Yeah.

01;00;20;08 - Ella Lillian Olson: That’s good. And they liked that. Or she could have them.

01;00;24;16 - Charlene Olson: I see your TV. What programs do you like to work? Do you have any favorite? Oh.

01;00;30;15 - Ella Lillian Olson: I don’t know. I watch, I used to watch Barker, but he fell for her and I watched Dial In for dollars from her, and, Oh, I, I don’t watch very much.

01;00;47;05 - Charlene Olson: You don’t have any real.

01;00;49;25 - Ella Lillian Olson: No, I will if the world turns over the one better, Watch that.

01;00;54;18 - Charlene Olson: Really interesting. Yeah.

01;00;56;21 - Ella Lillian Olson: I never start any of those stories.

01;00;58;15 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

01;00;59;19 - Ella Lillian Olson: Just. I don’t want him down.

01;01;01;01 - Charlene Olson: Oh, yeah. Right.

01;01;02;23 - Ella Lillian Olson: But it’s the that, As the World Turns comes on at 1230 and is off at 130, and it just gave me a time I can lay on the bed report, but I sleep half of the time, so I don’t sometimes what’s been good.

01;01;15;02 - Charlene Olson: Yeah, yeah.

01;01;16;25 - Ella Lillian Olson: But anyway, I don’t like anything that particular and I’m not so awful from coverage. Yeah, I just don’t have good radio.

01;01;26;02 - Charlene Olson: You read?

01;01;27;01 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

01;01;28;26 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. But do you like to read? Oh, I don’t know.

01;01;32;26 - Ella Lillian Olson: I’ve been reading, the church papers, but, Yeah. This this.

01;01;47;03 - Ella Lillian Olson: I’m. Yeah, this is a good one. I don’t like that. Oh, yeah. It’s different magazines. Different?

01;01;56;25 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

01;01;58;13 - Ella Lillian Olson: That. I don’t think that’s an it’s paper.

01;02;01;08 - Ella Lillian Olson: It’s some other. But it’s good reading. so I don’t know I don’t read any of these kind of which don’t seem.

01;02;09;12 - Charlene Olson: how do you think, like for your granddaughter or, or grandchildren will be different from what? The kind of life you read. How do you think kinds of things for there?

01;02;19;20 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well, the way it looks from my granddaughter, there was just they had a person in the early days because he’s loud, he’s working with little, you know, Montana and she lives up there and they use a coal mine alarm and she’s way out of it. It’s many miles out of Troy, Montana and in the woods. She lives down the track there.

01;02;40;08 - Charlene Olson: They’re gonna have a lot of the modern.

01;02;42;09 - Ella Lillian Olson: Conveniences or it’s, the way she starts now for. I think she’ll be horseback riding. Yeah.

01;02;50;12 - Charlene Olson: But, I mean, generally, do you think that the young people now will have, a hard life.

01;02;56;05 - Ella Lillian Olson: Or. Oh, I don’t know. It’s hard in a way, because they just can’t get any work. And then it was work after the depression was over at work, and it seemed like it’s been work ever since. It hasn’t been too hard, but now they have put in some machinery that takes the place of man and people. So there’s no work here.

01;03;23;15 - Ella Lillian Olson: And so it’s it’s harder in a way, on account of all the.

01;03;31;18 - Ella Lillian Olson: But I think they get more education.

01;03;35;20 - Charlene Olson: Oh my. That was in the paper then.

01;03;40;18 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh yeah. They were both in the paper.

01;03;42;27 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. you know who made the decisions or how did you arrive at decision making in your marriage.

01;03;52;08 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh I don’t know. It was also I maybe made the most because he was kind of quiet side. So I think probably it was.

01;04;02;06 - Charlene Olson: Just down the.

01;04;03;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: Road. Yeah.

01;04;08;17 - Charlene Olson: What do you think it was easier than or in some way for him to have come first. If you were the stronger one, do you think it would have been harder for him.

01;04;17;28 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh I was so scared I was going to die first because he never had to take care of himself. He was he was just my purpose. And, he could. Oh, I was so scared that I was going. When I got that no trouble. I was just I was going to go get, it was cancer or something, and I died before him.

01;04;42;02 - Ella Lillian Olson: so when are you really. If afterwards, I thought, well, it was sure good he died first.

01;04;47;21 - Charlene Olson: You mean, helpless? In what way? You mean that he couldn’t?

01;04;50;18 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well, yeah. Couldn’t decide anything, I don’t know, he was. Of course, he was getting old. He was 84.

01;04;57;25 - Charlene Olson: Yeah, he was older than I am. What do you think attracted you to him when you recording?

01;05;05;23 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well, it was up there at the point.

01;05;10;07 - Charlene Olson: Where you met him at a logging camp.

01;05;12;26 - Ella Lillian Olson: Recruit. And I was cooking there. He come in. And if that girl that cooked with me there, she that was was her boyfriend. She that was her boyfriend. And he’d come in and then walk would come home to him and, wash dishes. Why, they take the dish towel, dried the dish. And I guess that kind of started.

01;05;36;24 - Ella Lillian Olson: But Warford had a girlfriend. You married so a week and couldn’t go to dinner. Oh and so then I never thought about it much. So then one evening we would go a drive down to church. And that that was going to and courses. Oh my I was going to go and so they asked me if I wanted this my girl friends there, her boyfriend asked if I wanted him in the certain guy.

01;06;08;11 - Ella Lillian Olson: cook out the in the bunk house and I said no I didn’t want it. I said, I just go with you and we do. And so then when we come go driving up the up from the mill up to the road, we never finished coming back from beer. Oh he stopped, he asked if he wanted to go alone.

01;06;29;27 - Ella Lillian Olson: What do you ask me first if we meet offered up in here, should we ask him if he was right? Yeah.

01;06;36;18 - Ella Lillian Olson: And so we went in there and he got in. I am, oh. He went to area a couple more times, and then he quit going there.

01;06;44;26 - Charlene Olson: He started that. You better.

01;06;46;08 - Ella Lillian Olson: I guess so or something, I don’t. And anyway, we come in in the evenings, they come in and they sit inside and talk to us. And that’s how it started. I guess it just kept on going that way.

01;06;59;16 - Charlene Olson: What do you think you liked about him? You must. You know that.

01;07;02;27 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well, he was sort of quiet, and he was nice to him. And I don’t know, something doesn’t come him. And then we went to the war.

01;07;12;27 - Charlene Olson: He was nice looking guy. Yeah. You know, to be nice, I think. Then. Did you correspond with my brother?

01;07;20;06 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, yeah. All the time. I mean, he was in my living room.

01;07;24;08 - Charlene Olson: That must have been hard, too. Not knowing you were going to come back or not. No, we.

01;07;28;11 - Ella Lillian Olson: Didn’t know so many, didn’t have hardly any training and just sent them over there. Gilda. And, But he was, he came back and. And then we started working again.

01;07;41;16 - Charlene Olson: Oh right.

01;07;43;07 - Ella Lillian Olson: And two years more. So that went in the boat.

01;07;47;12 - Charlene Olson: And then after you got married.

01;07;48;20 - Ella Lillian Olson: They always teased me with sweet beer and that’s.

01;07;51;10 - Charlene Olson: What I’m a lobster man

01;07;53;26 - Ella Lillian Olson: That I got the man. Really? Yeah. so I don’t want to hurry.

01;08;02;28 - Charlene Olson: You think of anything else that we might think of or anything that you can think of that you might tell them. If a young woman was going to move to a little town like Troy. Buy who might give her about coming to a small town to live.

01;08;20;19 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well, I think if they have kids, they should go to a small town because they can get married here. They can walk up to the schoolhouse and then the service, they get out of school, or they can run home. And, so it’s, it’s better to be in a rural, fresh like this with being here and there’s no danger.

01;08;41;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: Anybody picking them up? Yeah. You can feel safe that you no harm come and it wouldn’t be a surprise. Yeah, but we were surprised, too. And the bank was robbed.

01;08;52;19 - Charlene Olson: Oh, you’re bank robber?

01;08;54;01 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah, I was robbed. Oh, my. Oh, he locked up Rocky in the back and robbed the bank.

01;09;01;13 - Charlene Olson: Did they catch them?

01;09;03;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah. They got em.

01;09;06;20 - Charlene Olson: So anything else you can think of about your life that the rural woman. Oh I don’t know yet. what do you think about work in these present days. It sounds like you had your share.

01;09;18;20 - Ella Lillian Olson: I have worked all my life. So.

01;09;22;09 - Charlene Olson: What’s your attitude or viewpoint about work?

01;09;26;17 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well, I don’t know. It’s your work, but you got something to do. You’re more satisfied.

01;09;36;27 - Charlene Olson: You think that people look differently work now than they did when you were growing up.

01;09;41;06 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well now it seems like they just leave their kids babysitters and they just want to work. But it’s everything is so high. And they premier have to they’re going to make it. But they never stay home with their babies. They have their babies. And probably in a month they go to work and have a babysitter. Well they never they don’t know what it is to raise their kids.

01;10;02;20 - Charlene Olson: Now when, when you had your baby you were home.

01;10;06;09 - Ella Lillian Olson: When I was home.

01;10;08;13 - Charlene Olson: But then you did work.

01;10;09;22 - Ella Lillian Olson: And work then they were in school then and I was home. I just went for during the day.

01;10;14;20 - Charlene Olson: You were always home before.

01;10;15;23 - Ella Lillian Olson: I was home before that. And same time anyway.

01;10;20;14 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

01;10;20;25 - Ella Lillian Olson: And then when I went to come here, my dad had been picking peas there when they were big. So they can take care of themselves.

01;10;28;25 - Charlene Olson: Or what do you see happening to the children when the mothers go off to work like that?

01;10;34;01 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well, I think they get so surprised that they. If they just won’t be able to live them.

01;10;39;07 - Ella Lillian Olson: Because when the mothers come home their mother just oil so terrible and I’m with the baby sitter. She gets some hit their way. And I think the kids just get ruined. You can see it on some of these ten years old kids, nine, ten year old kids. Just or a rotten baby if they don’t get their way.

01;10;59;17 - Ella Lillian Olson: What. They just sit there and pout.

01;11;03;22 - Ella Lillian Olson: So I think that.

01;11;05;02 - Charlene Olson: You think that parents act as if they were when you.

01;11;07;29 - Ella Lillian Olson: Were out here or were you either because then they could get them then. And the, the rest of us would get scared of government. And I, we tried to do.

01;11;18;00 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

01;11;18;13 - Ella Lillian Olson: But now it’s against the law. Yeah. I don’t think the parents are even allowed to get them. But they can now because they say they beat them up. Well I could easily.

01;11;28;06 - Charlene Olson: Can thank them but just not beat them. Black and everything. But of course back then it was different. They could take them back behind the bar.

01;11;35;16 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, you were you.

01;11;37;14 - Charlene Olson: Do you think, you were pretty strict with your boys? They never would, boss.

01;11;42;05 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well, I tried to be, but you can’t for a while. But then presume that you’re old.

01;11;47;16 - Charlene Olson: For that too.

01;11;48;23 - Ella Lillian Olson: So then they going to stick with her. So it’s an m to that too.

01;11;52;29 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. You get them in the first few years and then.

01;11;56;15 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well till they’re through the grade school.

01;11;58;25 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. When they get.

01;11;59;17 - Ella Lillian Olson: Into high school it’s a big change for her because then they just they just change.

01;12;06;24 - Charlene Olson: Now while they’re reaching adolescence, you know. And then they think they know. What’s that?

01;12;12;01 - Ella Lillian Olson: But during the eighth grade, since, you know, I didn’t know that they could control.

01;12;17;08 - Charlene Olson: I think the parents get their chance. You know, the first they hear the first day grades, and then after that they hope they’ve.

01;12;23;07 - Ella Lillian Olson: Done or.

01;12;24;20 - Charlene Olson: The right thing.

01;12;25;28 - Ella Lillian Olson: But I think that the kids had, a really the first six years of their life is when they get their start.

01;12;32;22 - Charlene Olson: Right.

01;12;33;10 - Ella Lillian Olson: And I think the mothers should be home with the kids, you know, be working. But, you know, but I don’t think you can hardly find a place now where the mother stays home with her baby.

01;12;44;10 - Charlene Olson: Well, I suppose a lot of, like you say, a lot of people, they have to feel they have to if they want to keep them.

01;12;49;07 - Ella Lillian Olson: But yeah, it costs too much. They’re renting or they’re buying. I know they buy a house. They have to have the payments and all the other expenses. If they rent. The rent is so terrible. Yeah, that’s different than $6 a month, I couldn’t think. Right.

01;13;05;14 - Charlene Olson: Well, when you were a child and you were the oldest child, how did you find being the oldest child? Did you find that hard? Did you have to work a lot?

01;13;14;08 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, yeah. That’s hard. It was hard. And I got blamed for things that they do wrong. And they got out of that. I was supposed to look after them and see that they did the right thing. Otherwise, I get it.

01;13;30;00 - Charlene Olson: Did you have to work pretty hard?

01;13;31;14 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, yeah. It wasn’t that my oldest brother, I was seven years old when my oldest brother there was born, and we were she had already had us three girls, and then he was the next year, the fourth one in the in this show, my dad showed me where I had to accept where he helped, which is very rare.

01;13;52;20 - Ella Lillian Olson: And then he told me when the bread got raised up, I should take pieces of it and put it in a pan, you know. But I knew that because I’ve seen my mother do. But I could never shape her. I just couldn’t get them no shape.

01;14;07;04 - Charlene Olson: And you were only seven years old.

01;14;08;15 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah, I was seven years old. And. And she was laying in bed. Hadn’t hit him. And that. And then he said I should keep firing the stroke. Well I hit of course she’d holler at me how we do this and do that. And I tell you it’s hard you know.

01;14;27;03 - Charlene Olson: Yeah I think so.

01;14;28;15 - Ella Lillian Olson: And they ask about they expect an awful lot out of the group and the kids, they’re really mean to.

01;14;37;07 - Charlene Olson: Oh yeah.

01;14;38;22 - Ella Lillian Olson: Because they can do things. And then we just say, no, she did it.

01;14;41;11 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

01;14;42;22 - Ella Lillian Olson: It’s her fault.

01;14;43;22 - Charlene Olson: So you had to do a lot of chores and and.

01;14;46;03 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, yeah. We ran about all the chores here. So when we come home from school, I went right to the bathroom, clean the bathroom and put in the manger. Some got the cows in.

01;14;56;11 - Charlene Olson: Did your milk too?

01;14;58;19 - Ella Lillian Olson: And did that part. My sister started peeling potatoes and cooked supper. It’s she’s baby and she and I went out and we had back to school.

01;15;08;27 - Charlene Olson: Did your where your Were all the children pretty close together. Oh yeah. We grew up. Your mother wanted to have that bond to the family.

01;15;17;23 - Ella Lillian Olson: I don’t think so because they didn’t know what to do with it. Just got of. Yeah, yeah, but she lived to be almost nine, nine years old. To get her.

01;15;26;27 - Charlene Olson: Ready. No it sure didn’t did it. But yeah. Because even in your generation they didn’t have as many children.

01;15;33;29 - Ella Lillian Olson: No, no they didn’t know her.

01;15;37;04 - Charlene Olson: Yeah I wonder why. How they presented themselves from having fun.

01;15;41;12 - Ella Lillian Olson: I don’t know, they, I don’t know. How it was, but we just didn’t get through. Oh, I would have liked to kick them, too. I had a graphic of where I go. Yeah.

01;15;54;27 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. And nowadays most people don’t have. No, they.

01;15;58;17 - Ella Lillian Olson: Don’t have so many.

01;15;59;14 - Charlene Olson: Don’t know.

01;15;59;28 - Ella Lillian Olson: But I think they’re getting ahead more though than they used to.

01;16;03;05 - Charlene Olson: How do you think so.

01;16;04;17 - Ella Lillian Olson: It seems like they have a I know there’s a family that comes. They had some meetings here in Grange Hall on Sunday and I think they have five little ones. Harry Wharton he she needs one. He carries one little brother. So it looks like they’re like the bigger families like you. So I don’t know. But it’s your cost an awful lot.

01;16;26;08 - Charlene Olson: A lot of.

01;16;27;03 - Ella Lillian Olson: Money to raise them because she was so close or so expensive.

01;16;32;17 - Charlene Olson: And back in your days I think different people make do more. I mean, like you saw in your parents.

01;16;38;11 - Ella Lillian Olson: They don’t have time for that now because they work.

01;16;41;12 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

01;16;42;13 - Ella Lillian Olson: And I don’t think any of these younger married women do anything because they don’t have time, because they’re working. They got to keep their job.

01;16;50;06 - Charlene Olson: Did you sew your clothes even entirely once you got older?

01;16;55;00 - Ella Lillian Olson: when I went to bed, it was going to go to the camps. And that’s why I sewed my dresses for my clothes to take with me.

01;17;02;26 - Charlene Olson: What about since you were married?

01;17;04;13 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, yeah. I get all the time. Until just now. Like the later years.

01;17;10;14 - Charlene Olson: Well, let me see if there’s anything I can. You think of anything that might be interesting about, your early life or my first?

01;17;20;13 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, I don’t know.

01;17;26;10 - Charlene Olson: I’ll look and see if I, I’ll. Okay. My phone.

01;17;34;19 - Charlene Olson: When you had your boys, what did you do with the family for any recreation? Or was there any time for that third thing?

01;17;41;23 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well, we, We bought us an old model T for the cars from our market, Ford. And we ride around the country, and we drive around and go out in the woods, so. And we go huckleberry picking going up Saturday night. Stay overnight, sleep on the ground and, and go pick up.

01;18;04;14 - Charlene Olson: You better care for.

01;18;06;16 - Ella Lillian Olson: no I know some

01;18;09;11 - Charlene Olson: You know Indian. Did you make pies?

01;18;12;28 - Ella Lillian Olson: Or. We are. And.

01;18;15;01 - Ella Lillian Olson: Got a lot of them.

01;18;16;22 - Charlene Olson: Did you used to go on picnics or.

01;18;19;11 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah. And then took a creative that. Well, that model T for. He just got too old. And we treated him well for, I homemade radio.

01;18;31;26 - Charlene Olson: Oh nice. Then you could, listen to things at home.

01;18;36;18 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah. That radio runs. Yeah. Because we are up here not very long. Usually I got here.

01;18;48;23 - Ella Lillian Olson: Somebody else is, you know.

01;18;51;00 - Charlene Olson: Oh, you mean, like, all things you have? Yeah.

01;18;54;13 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well, it was, Oh, everything that I didn’t want.

01;18;58;19 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

01;18;59;15 - Ella Lillian Olson: It’s all kinds of junk.

01;19;01;03 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

01;19;01;27 - Ella Lillian Olson: And and the, So the wood stove.

01;19;05;01 - Ella Lillian Olson: It’s been sitting there in that basement for many years there. I think it was there. When we come there, and I got $105.

01;19;13;12 - Charlene Olson: For it, I was going to say a lot of those old things are really worth quite a bit of.

01;19;16;20 - Ella Lillian Olson: Money. And I was up in the house that opened the door. The basement was just full of people put their stuff and they couldn’t just leave it right there. And the basement and and I thought and I heard a baby and I thought, oh no, the next door was rusty. So I tried to clean it off.

01;19;34;26 - Charlene Olson: All the rest.

01;19;36;08 - Ella Lillian Olson: And after all that’s terrible. And I got nervous over it or what.

01;19;42;25 - Charlene Olson: Right. Right. Yeah. well, that’s the way it is with all of your things. My. When my grandma died, my mother, people, you know, they all had a sale. She says now I, I sometimes wish I would never have so many things go but.

01;19;59;08 - Ella Lillian Olson: Well yeah.

01;20;01;09 - Charlene Olson: you know, cause things like that.

01;20;03;04 - Ella Lillian Olson: But it’s just this last year now that those sales come in.

01;20;06;08 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

01;20;06;26 - Ella Lillian Olson: Now, when my mother left her house over there, she lived two years in my apartment basement there before we took her to the nursing home. Then they didn’t have sales, and we let the secondhand man come up with what he wanted, and. And then what he didn’t want with that. Was it because there was no. Nobody wanted to buy it.

01;20;27;06 - Ella Lillian Olson: There was just this last year they had started buying fabric stuff and old stuff.

01;20;31;14 - Charlene Olson: That’s really pretty.

01;20;32;23 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah, that to the house here. but I had baskets in there. I had them in a box. And then, I took them to the sale, although I thought I can get, I thought I had, and I took the five aside to the sale, and I was going to six when I come home, I took them out of the box, and I thought they were $6 apiece.

01;21;01;22 - Ella Lillian Olson: They’re going to be here. I got $6 apiece. I got $30 for five.

01;21;07;07 - Charlene Olson: They’re beautiful. They’re lovely. I wonder where they’re, where they were made, but, boy, they’re pretty rare. They a wedding present?

01;21;16;24 - Ella Lillian Olson: No. Not you. But, I know I can sell and order wedding dresses but I, I, I well I’m not going to drag on leather a dozen of these.

01;21;26;29 - Charlene Olson: Yeah.

01;21;27;09 - Ella Lillian Olson: No because I got five year.

01;21;29;15 - Unknown: And a half for them. But I got a lot of my wedding presents.

01;21;35;05 - Ella Lillian Olson: Where’s our cargo. Oh yeah. Those. Here’s one more of our, of our old wedding.

01;21;45;03 - Charlene Olson: Did you get an idea.

01;21;47;09 - Ella Lillian Olson: In Grange Hall? Oh.

01;21;49;25 - Charlene Olson: Or. Yeah. What? Have you ever. Have you found the biggest, adjustment to be alone after being married to someone for long?

01;21;58;18 - Ella Lillian Olson: Oh, I don’t know. Just goes there. Now, that’s my sister. There’s my sisters. Oh, the only child that she can. And they got all those boys.

01;22;12;18 - Charlene Olson: Oh, my goodness, they’re.

01;22;14;21 - Ella Lillian Olson: Six and they’re 22 at this point. And so then when the last one, she’s going to have the last one where we said, it’s just got to be a girl. And there was.

01;22;25;26 - Charlene Olson: A boy.

01;22;26;15 - Ella Lillian Olson: Another boy. so she had shipped, they had six, and the twins, the one twin is going to school in Moscow. And then he’s been in the Navy and he’s getting schooling, and his wife goes to school, too. And I have a twin. It’s in the year course in the guard. The National Guard. Something down on the coast.

01;22;49;01 - Ella Lillian Olson: And he’s married. And one of the boys is married and lives in, Spokane. And he has two boys and and then the other one goes to school in Nampa there, and one is going to go take a college and, and the other one is finishing high school.

01;23;09;25 - Charlene Olson: If that’s your boy during the war.

01;23;11;24 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah.

01;23;13;06 - Charlene Olson: Yeah. He sent out for him last.

01;23;14;22 - Ella Lillian Olson: Year during the war. Let’s take another one to come here.

01;23;20;08 - Charlene Olson: He the one that was hurt.

01;23;22;04 - Ella Lillian Olson: No, no that’s the one. That’s several stories. And he looks just like that too. If you ever going to search through around have you just. Yeah I miss him because he said look he looks just like he never changed. And he’s 54. And that’s my mother up there that was in the paper. Oh. And when.

01;23;46;01 - Charlene Olson: When you got married. and what did the girls expect from marriage then. Did they just expect that they would get married and have a bunch of children?

01;23;56;25 - Ella Lillian Olson: And I don’t know what they call it, but.

01;23;59;28 - Charlene Olson: You know what you expected or what you expect. Well, I.

01;24;02;22 - Ella Lillian Olson: Expect there’ll be a house full of kids.

01;24;05;07 - Ella Lillian Olson: So I figured I’m going to try to get it home.

01;24;07;10 - Charlene Olson: There was no harm in it. Yeah.

01;24;09;08 - Ella Lillian Olson: And I didn’t want that may work accident.

01;24;12;28 - Charlene Olson: I wanted to a lot of times, the oldest one. You have to take care of so many younger.

01;24;17;29 - Ella Lillian Olson: Than you say. I’m tired.

01;24;19;06 - Charlene Olson: Of that. When you get married, then you don’t want to have them.

01;24;22;03 - Ella Lillian Olson: And the three youngest works at home were boys. And I said, I sure don’t want any boys. and I got two of them. Yeah. So I had sense enough to quit, I guess. So I didn’t have sex anyway. Yeah.

01;24;38;27 - Charlene Olson: Right. Sometimes that happens. She could have more and they could hear me boy.

01;24;43;18 - Ella Lillian Olson: Yeah. But that’s. That’s enough.