HERITAGE WALK

Brother Shangle preached two fine sermons," wrote Aunt Bertha Dobson on June 20, 1934. "I was glad to meet him. Of course, [he and his family] stayed with Sister Ina Dobson. Their place looks so nice, nice lawn, machinery all put out of sight, house o.k., etc., whereas the June's have a Peter Tumbledown place, barn yard full of old machinery, hog house merely standing. Shucks – what's the use? Snuff." [It's enough.]

I know I've written about this previously, but for benefit of review – My grandmother, Ina, and her sister, Bertha, married Jack and June Dobson, identical twin brothers, in Moscow, Idaho, on Christmas Eve, 1892, and proceeded to live in close proximity to one another for the rest of their lives. First they lived in the Potlatch River country above Kendrick, but when the Nez Perce Reservation was thrown open for settlement in 1895, the twins took adjoining 160-acre homesteads on the breaks of Little Canyon in the Clearwater River drainage. And there they lived "happily ever after" – sort of. As you can tell from the above quote, Bertha and June had a harder time of it than Ina and Jack, and while I don't know for sure, I think Ina was the driving force that made the difference. The two homesteads are again one, and one of the benefits is better access to our house "across the top," rather than through a narrow draw.

My half-brother, Chuck, arrived at the homestead for a visit last Sunday (9-13). Chuck spent much of his youth at the farm, working with my dad and other area farmers. Since Chuck is 13 years older than I, I eagerly anticipated the opportunity to tap into his memories of this place and its people. Late in the afternoon, Mike, Chuck, and I walked up the lane to Dobson Road, up the steep Plank Hill, and then at the large pine tree we turned south onto the old access road across June's place. I learned last year that it's important to stay on the road. Otherwise you descend into a gulley with no easy way out.

"Do you remember June?" I asked Chuck.

"Oh yes," he said.

"Well, what was he like?" I asked, expecting at least a paragraph of information.

"Pretty much like Jack," said Chuck. Jack passed away in 1946 while June passed in December 1949, just months after I was born. If Chuck knew Jack at all, it was only briefly, and he probably didn't see much of June either.

"Can you tell us where June and Bertha's house was?" I asked. And Chuck showed us its location at the point where the road turns west toward Jack's place.

Really! Mike and I had surmised the house was in sight of Jack and Ina's place. For one thing, if it had been, they would have had a beautiful view to the northwest. But no – Chuck is adamant. He remembers walking between the two houses. He knows it was at the turn – give or take some feet. We agree it would be impossible at this point, 60 years later, to determine the exact location of the house.

"I don't remember much about Ina," I tell Chuck. "Do you have memories of her?"

"Oh yes," responds Chuck. "Well, she was industrious, always busy. I remember her in the kitchen mostly, doing the washing and ironing. She did a lot of washing and ironing. And I can remember this wonderful bread she made. I remember sitting and waiting for it to come out of the oven, my mouth just watering. It had raisins and cinnamon and she baked it in a round. It was just delicious."

And then I remembered my dad trying to approximate that bread a couple of times as I was growing up. "It's a bread my mother used to make," he said. But unfortunately the result was disappointing, especially to him. "Your dad doesn't make good bread," Mother observed; "he doesn't know how to knead it." Ina had evidently taken with her the secret of her wonderful round cinnamon raisin bread. A search of her recipe box did not yield any recipe for cinnamon raisin bread. KW

[Photo 1 is Ina's house in 1940 while photo 2 is Bertha's house in the same timeframe. Photo 3 is Ina and Bertha sitting in front of Ina's house, July 16, 1922. The other photos illustrate the text. The photo of Chuck and Mike looks across June's fields to Jack's. The last photo is Ina's house today. Chuck waves from the front porch.]