“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.
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
10 comments:
And I think a 30 mile bike ride is a fairly decent workout. These guys walked that far and thought nothing of it.
Living in the improved Dobson homestead with hot and cold running water, electricity, a fairly efficient fireplace insert and good insulation (none of which they had) makes me feel like we're pretty soft.
Wow!! Having this letter is wonderful! It's so interesting and informative. Thanks for sharing.
And isn't it the truth--so many questions we'd love to have the answer to, but can't.
Such a wonderful letter! Jam packed with family history. As far as genealogy goes, it doesn't get any better than seeing a person list dates & the travels of their own life. As Mike said, those guys were sturdy.
As far as photo ID, if you'll look at Julian & June, you can see that one has a thicker mustache than the other. The one where they are sitting on the grass shows the one on the left with a nice white fluffy one. The man sitting on the right has one that isn't as substantial. Or is it the light that makes his look thinner?
Kathy, as you know, Mary Jane Dobson, was my grandfather Wedlock's 1st wife. I've never really known which of the twins she is the photos. But I can tell that one girl is thinner than the other. Mary Jane died at age 33 & her sister, Julia, lived to age 58.
With twins, there is always one dominant and one recessive. That can translate into one who is adventurous and one happy with a quiet life. It's pretty clear that Julian was the dominant one.
I hope the Dobson cousins kept up the round robin letters for a long time. An uncle on my dad's side started us on a similar progressive letter thing in the 1980's. We each sent him our letter (a paragraph or 2) and he typed them into a newsletter, copied it and mailed one to each of us. It was full of simple things like garden production, family get togethers & happy news. One uncle (his brother) had cancer. I wondered how the editor would handle the death of his brother in the newsletter. Several months before we lost our uncle, the editor began asking for someone to handle the editing & take over from him. The uncle died and so did our family newsletter. I had my answer about how the uncle's passing would be addressed in the newsletter. It wasn't since the newsletter stopped.
It is true that some questions will never be answered, but now and then a "Leah" comes along and we inch forward a bit on the unknown.
I can see subtleties between the two men but still can't say which is which. The only thing I know is that the man with the "diamond" tie seems to be Julian, but they could still be messing with me. "Here, June," perhaps Jack would say, "you wear the diamond tie today."
My dad told me that Julian was more dapper than June -- fixed himself up to go to town or for meetings. If that were the case, in the snapshot of the elderly twins standing side-by-side, Julian should be the man on the left, but the man on the right is wearing the diamond tie. In fact, on the back of that picture is scrawled "which is dad?" Well, if the children didn't know, I can't say either.
I do think you are right that Julian was the dominant twin.
The round robin letter did come around again, and I'll share that in the next couple of weeks. But, as you pointed out Leah, life happens -- or someone fails to send the letter on.
I believe there's a good chance that the picture of the two sets of twins is correctly identified, since Julian wrote on them himself. The girls resemble one another but don't appear to be identical -- or again,is it the lighting. The girl on the left has a more square jaw.
So funny about the tie. Of course twins would share things. I suppose only the twins mother & the twins themselves knew which was which (or who was whom).
Wouldn't a vest put a man in the category of "dapper/well dressed" in their day?
Remember that even though twins may be identical & look alike when they are born, they begin to look different (if only in subtle ways) as they grow up. Maybe it's simple things like a few lbs. weight gain. Maybe a different hair style for women. Maybe men would have different hair cuts or thicker mustaches. But again, I've seen twins that match hairstyles because they just like the same things.
I'd be interested in hearing stories of the twins changing places & confusing others. Maybe that was done more when they were school age than after they were adults.
In reality, I doubt that the adult Julian and Junius shared their clothes - even a tie. The man on the left in suit and vest certainly appears the more dapper to me, the one on the right rather careless. But who knows what happened on that particular day -- and maybe my dad's perception wasn't exactly correct.
They are remarkably alike despite their age. I'll ask our Gilbert neighbor, who remembers them, if he could tell them apart.
To further confuse the photo ID question, I've received photos with names written on the back directly behind each person. What I mean is that on the back the sender lists the names in the same order as the photo, as if you could read the names from the back through the photo while looking at the front. Does that make sense?
Did the photo of Mary Jane, Julia, Julian & Junius have names listed like that or were the ID's specified as left to right?
I know what you mean, Leah -- a difficult photo identification method.
No, Julian didn't state the identities as left to right -- just their names. But I have two such photos and he was consistent, so I made the assumption that he would use left to right, but it is an assumption.
Any photos of Mary Jane's twin, Julia? She lived in Clearwater county with her husband, Charles Wiley. Julia Wiley died there on 16 Jan 1916.
I think I do have one or two of Aunt Julia. I'll check when I have a chance. And I have pictures of Graham and Cora Wanless.
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