“Dear
Cousins of the Round Robin letters,” wrote my grandfather Julian Dobson in
1939. One of his cousins had started this “round robin,” which means that he
had written his own story and mailed it off to another cousin inviting him to
add his own letter and forward both on to another cousin, and so forth. The
initial letter undoubtedly included a list of cousins and their addresses. Fortunately,
a copy of Julian’s contribution (and also June’s) was saved with the family
letters.
Orofino,
Idaho
Jan.
17, 1939
Dear
Cousins of the Round Robin letters:
I
was born near Deloit, Iowa, April 9, 1864, in the old log cabin. Father had a
fireplace in the cabin. One day when I was in the old cradle asleep a coal
popped out and got on my neck and burned a scar which I carry to this day.
The
first teacher I went to was George Albright. When we came home from school
hungry we would get a bowl of hominy and milk. Mother made the hominy in a big
iron kettle.
June
and I slept in a trundle bed that had wooden wheels. One Sunday when we were
dressed up for church, Tell and Frank [older brothers] put June and me in an
old trunk and pushed us out on an old pond we had made by damming up a small
creek. The Trunk sank and we got a good wetting. So we didn’t go to church that
day.
I
think I was about nine years old when we moved to the farm Father bought of the
R.R. Co. about three miles from Deloit. In the spring of 1884 Gene Patchen and
I came west to Lakeview, Oregon. I was the first one of the boys to leave home.
From Omaha we took an emigrant train to Reno, Nevada. I think it took us three
days and two nights to Reno. People cooked on the train but Gene and I got our
meals whenever the train men stopped for theirs. The seats were just wooden
benches with no cushions. Gene bought a shuck tick in Omaha to put on the two
seats pulled together for a bed. We had no blankets. At one station Gene bought
a dried apple pie of an old squaw but we couldn’t eat it and we threw it out of
the window. When we got to Reno, there was a freight team loaded with
merchandise for Surprise Valley, California, 220 miles farther on our way.
There was four horses and four mules hitched to three wagons strung out. The
team was driven by a jerk line. The driver rode the near mule on the wheel. We
were eleven days making the220 miles to Cedarville, California, where we
unloaded. There was eleven barrels of whiskey on one wagon, and the other two
wagons was merchandise. The weight on the three wagons was about nine thousand
pounds.
The
next day Gene and I walked thirty miles over a mountain to Willow Ranch,
California. While we were eating dinner two men came in and said they were
loaded with four for Lakeview, and we could ride there with them. We sent our
suitcase by stage from Cedarville, California, to Lake View, Oregon. We worked
on cattle ranches putting up hay in summer time, and in the winters we went out
on the desert with a band of sheep. I herded the sheep and Gene done the
cooking and tended camp. June came to Lakeview in the spring of 1887 and after
that we run sheep of our own. The hard winter of 1889 we lost a lot of sheep.
Then we sold out in the fall of 1890 and came to Idaho.
Dec.
24, 1891, I married Ina Dickson near Troy, Idaho. We have six children all
living. Pearl, Myrtle, Earle, Ethel, Vance, and Shirley. When the Nez Perce
Reservation was thrown open on Nov. 18, 1895, Gene, June, and I took up
homesteads. We built the first cabin in this community. We have lived here ever
since, now about 43 years.
Well,
this is about all that would interest you, so I will close with all good wishes
to my cousins.
Julian
Dobson
All
that would interest me indeed!!! If I could sit with him today, I would ask him
a thing or two.
Photos:
If Julian and Junius (Jack and June) weren't identical, they were close to it. My dad paused long in identifying pictures of the two men.
1) Julian Dobson, taken by Earle Dobson, Aug. 5, 1941.
2) Jack and June were the second set of twin born to John and Lucy Dobson. Julian identified this photo as "Mary and Julia Dobson, about 14 - June and Julian about 7, 1871."
3) Julian and Junius -- don't know which is which.
4) Junius and Julian -- I think the man on the right is Julian because I think it's the same tie as Photo 1. However, that's a poor way to identify.
5) The twins are pictured here with their brother, Clinton Metellus ("Tell"), Aug. 5, 1941. Judging by the tie, Grandpa Julian is on the left and Uncle June on the right. KW