Latah County Oral History Collection

Sam Schrager: This conversation with Walt Curran took place at his home in Genesee on March 17th, 1976. The interviewer was Sam Schrager.

Right out in the field.

Walter Currin: the folks moved up here in 19 two. What about that little place? And they lived there until 1908. And we moved out on the reservation. And I grew up there, and we stayed there until 1929. Out on the farm.

Sam Schrager: Where was it? Where was it? On the reservation.

Walter Currin: About a year Near-Tum Cody. Great. You come up very heavy and do my own after you break up on top. They're coming in. They see the old gray. Don't come now like it used to. It used to come around over the hills in the farmland. There, and it went right through the farm. We had the Indian land and writer demand for the Indians.

And so it made sense, you know, for the farm country out in New, all that room right down there, the choice farmland.

Sam Schrager: What, what makes it so good is because it is lower. It's kind of lower than it is here.

Walter Currin: No, not too much, not too much. It just, just an awful good. Well, all this farmland around here, that farm, that rumor I've got there. Of course, maybe I'm just a little prejudiced. I grew up after. Ever been home back? Got time. I was growing out well.

Sam Schrager: And your father? He had a farm before you went farm there? He'd been a farmer before.

Walter Currin: Oh, yeah. He was farmer over. Yeah. And he moved up here. And the family grew up. And then dad, my brother farmed out there. But for for with Fred Nagle, an old timer around here.

And then my brother got out of that school and then my farm up there.

Sam Schrager: Well, how did that work then. How did you how could you go about renting the Indian land?

Walter Currin: You had to go through the Indian agency and work for they had agency control, the leasing of the Indian land. Yeah. Well, I guess some of the buildings are down there yet and I just need to have some agency there.

Sam Schrager: Over kind of a set up. Was it, was it a long term lease? We'd have.

Walter Currin: Well, you could get a 3 or 5 year lease.

Unknown: Whatever you want. Yeah.

Walter Currin: So you paid you had so much rent in each year. You know at some point you need to rent and that way where you have your lease. For your five years. But it be for whatever the Indian would let you have free agency. There and. So that worked out pretty good. We had 3060. You farmland rendered, very Indian land rendered, and I say 2.0.

So and that was that. And you of course pays for me. Well, creditors come in.

But they were just, coming in when we left the reservation. If you recall, we still farm records.

Sam Schrager: Did you need much, much stock to farm with it? Oh, you.

Walter Currin: Hampton. Just ranch, right. Or big farm? They run a lot of stuff. The average small farm road.

Speaker 4: I see that.

Walter Currin: They had about, you know, we had about goats and all that. Maybe 20 head of horses. That's about the average farmer there. Colts and work horses and saddle horses and stuff like that. And we had some cattle and kind of diversified farming.

So it kept busy.

Sam Schrager: Was there was there a place, to live when you, when you moved over there, was there a place on that where?

Walter Currin: yes. we have any we moved out. Was on Indian land. Well, all the places we lived on here include about that 40 and over the corner range was all Indian like around there. Oh, go on to the corners, carpets and all that down there. Mathews, Williams, older, down west, long central grade there. It's all in the United.

But now it's been bought up by the individuals. Some are still from up here but it's. Been pretty well bought up now. But that.

Sam Schrager: Was it. Was it readily available then. Could you get it. Could you get it easily. Let me to to read. It was there a lot of demand.

Walter Currin: For it and got demand kind of you got it by kind of bidding on land for the agency. The highest bidder would you would usually get it unless the Indian had to say so himself. And we had we rented, George Peele of Italics Land there for nine years. But he was just wonderful. Indian Congress. Did they come?

He wanted us to have it. We just kept it until we left the reservation. And most of the old Indians used to be around when I was a boy out there. It's all passed on now. It's all younger ones now. Are there family descendants got the land. What's left there?

Sam Schrager: Do you, what was George Field tell it like, I heard that he was a really fine man. He was a.

Walter Currin: Well, at one time, I guess he was chief of the Nez Perce tribe. So he was a a nephew of Chief Joseph. So was. If you've heard of this famous writer, Jackson Sundown. Oh, yeah. Well, he was also a nephew of Chief Joseph. And they were cousins. Jackson sent them out, and I knew them all. Fellows. Females were four years old, going out.

The old fellows who come to town on their saddle horses, old man Jordan Matthews and Carlton, all of them little fellows come by a with. I also really got acquainted with them. And every time they come to town, come back by, they'd all have me some candy or gum or something, and and old fellows and I, we were pretty good friends, and then I grew up on them, and they came.

But they're all gone now. So really, I don't know who owns the land now.

Sam Schrager: Well, back then, when those guys were, what would they what would they do? I mean, how how would they, pass the time then.

Walter Currin: Oh, hunting. Fishing. Yeah. Guarding somewhat. Right guard. Some had some horses, some some.

Speaker 4: And they go camping or something. You know, they travel around.

Walter Currin: Yeah. And they let them, but they got off their farmland for of the rent and work. Yeah.

Sam Schrager: It was. Yeah. It was enough for them.

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Walter Currin: Oh they got so some of got so that pretty much draw their rent ahead of time. But this all fell away right here far old Guilford County. Yeah. You know, he almost never draw a heck of a lot. He just lived on what he, he he needed some. He come get a mason over. I don't think he ever drawn over $50 a year on his ranch at any time.

Oh, and he gone by. He and his wife live. Well, it's a house. Just as you hit the river. There on Harry Granger's. You hit the highway here on the river. Had a little house in back up on the point there. Yeah. He had a nice little place. He raised with gardens. They like to hunt fish.

Speaker 4: So, you know, things like that.

Walter Currin: They do.

Sam Schrager: I think it was, him that I heard about that they used to camp up around Bovill.

Walter Currin: Yeah, he used to go up in there and up on the Clearwater. The first time I ever went deer hunting with that old fellow. We took that. His team of horses, you know. Okay. But ended up much in there, and we went up in there. We can't, one night within the day we went up. The next day, evening, we had a deer and an elk apiece.

So he. Well, he was a he'd go through that timber. You'd never hear him. No. His kneecap on. But he was a great hunter.

Sam Schrager: Oh. How old were you about that. Oh, I was,

Walter Currin: I imagine maybe 19, 20, 20, in their early 20s.

Sam Schrager: I think, teaching it out of hunt.

Walter Currin: Oh, yeah? Yeah, he showed me a lot of things about still hunting and everything.

Sam Schrager: Still,

Walter Currin: Oh, yeah. That's. You just, find you good game. Trail and back off ways. He showed me how to do that. Man. Just wait for your game to get to traveling. They come through this game trail. You can get them there. Otherwise, you can sneak through that kind of through that timbered. So quiet you. Could you hear me?

You just get through there and I stampede. Walk right up on him in the timber. There.

Speaker 4: So different than they do nowadays.

Sam Schrager: That sure sounds different than that. And the way I learned. Oh, yes.

Walter Currin: Yeah. Course. That seemed like to them Indians had a way of doing it.

Speaker 4: Their heroes, or.

Walter Currin: They, the great hunters.

Speaker 4: The wonderful things they used to make. They.

Sam Schrager: Yeah, things they used to make.

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Walter Currin: Beadwork. Beadwork. Oh, they were great from a.

Speaker 4: Can be and and Yeah.

Walter Currin: And gloves and great to make these buckskin gloves and jackets and moccasins.

Speaker 4: And they see they made their clothes out of it, out of the animal hide. You know, anything else from the dog? As a dog.

Walter Currin: I don't know. But anyway, they take these little small beads, different colors, and they'd make the prettiest flowers on these gloves and the beadwork bags and stuff and their jackets. The they'd be on that day were great. Or they were finest artist going for that.

Speaker 4: And all their clothes and stuff on animal hides, which is a thing when they grow an animal. I've seen everything it could.

Sam Schrager: I've seen, and that way, you know. Yeah. Is God that that must be a lot of the old work that they still have. Yeah.

Walter Currin: Here. A while back, some of the old time Indian ladies, they was putting on classes, learning the young ones how to do that down there, how to make baskets and buckskin and stuff. And it was, showing them learn the new the trade like the old fellows used to the old Indians. And they were they were great.

Speaker 4: Aren't handed, you know, pretty dark.

Sam Schrager: But, you know, it's kind of funny that nowadays, now, you in front get, Well, maybe somebody who is like, Indian would really go in that much trouble for with a white boy, you know? Yeah. how do how.

Walter Currin: Do I tell you? If they were a friend to you, they'd do anything to you.

Speaker 4: That's the only way.

Walter Currin: If they were an enemy. Well.

Speaker 4: But they do a thing in their world for you. If they. If they liked you.

Walter Currin: That they were great friends about out here. The folks all a lot of them and all the stuff. Why they're offering a big garden and they come to camp there. Some had money, some did, and she never returned from a letter writing stuff. They come back from Huckleberry and and mother don't get for 5 or 6 gallon of huckleberries.

They'd always bring her out a bunch of huckleberry or Indian ladies. And the same way with fishing, they go fishing down on the river and they'd bring fish. They want fresh fish.

Speaker 4: And know what they like to buy. They do anything that.

Sam Schrager: Sounds like they like, they want to like you. Why you think you liked you? Was it because they you shared like that way? Oh, yeah. You had.

Walter Currin: We always treated them right. And, we, Never. We always. Well, frequent guest on the Eagle, but with the other people. And they appreciate what? And like that.

Speaker 4: I never was around and I was scared to death them. But they, you know, they never hurt me. They, you know, just kid, you know, now, I'm not used to it. You know that too, that they didn't bother being a mother.

Walter Currin: But they were.

Speaker 4: Never was around.

Walter Currin: You're treated like you treat an Indian, right? And you treat you right. You you. They're good friends. I still got a lot of friends down there on that. But yet even their younger ones.

Sam Schrager: Where there's some where there's some people that didn't they didn't read them. Well, in those days.

Walter Currin: Well, I don't know. I couldn't say that because I never went around saying that.

Sam Schrager: Well, just when you say if they didn't like you, they really didn't like, well.

Walter Currin: If you done something to them that to make a mad while they were mad and stuff like that. If you've done some jerk or something and and something that hurt him, why no they didn't. Or you if you just treat him, fight and, treat them right. Can you do me a favor? And they do you one thing.

Sam Schrager: what about Jackson? Sundance? Oh, what kind of guy was he?

Walter Currin: Was a fine. Oh, and, boy, he was one of the best bronc riders. He used to come up out there. We lived on the reservation cattle back in, teens in the 20s, they'd have. The talk show was here in a rodeo, and he would come up to him and his wife and family would camp out there, and he'd come in here to the show during the day and back up to his camp.

And he was a fine old fellow.

Yes, sir. But not he'd you get one of the better one for.

Sam Schrager: as far as ride goes, I guess I heard him. He was all over the country. Pendleton.

Speaker 5: He won the world championship. A penalty that's down there.

Walter Currin: Yeah. Oh, he was a dandy and not necessarily need to be around if you ever see him there.

Speaker 4: This time. Malvo. I heard him.

Walter Currin: You killed him with this bill telling George. Bill telling you you were the finest only to be around.

Sam Schrager: Somebody told me about telling how, considering he was, he'd gone and stayed at their place, and, he was doing some random work with him, and. And he was the only one that really said. Well, and your your cooking was great. I enjoyed, I gotta tell you.

Walter Currin: He used to get up in the morning. Little place there on the river, go out and take a swim in the clear water in the late fall, pouring ice. Get out, get on a little horse and come up to the to the right there. And he got there and we were having breakfast and had breakfast with it. And he didn't know while take off, get back to the river.

He used to make jerky and bring it to us. And he was very considered old folk.

Sam Schrager: Was he was, you know, mad this time when he was driving, diving in the.

Walter Currin: River. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was around late 60s and 70 in there. He always took a swim in the polar.

Speaker 4: I don't remember him.

Walter Currin: I never saw him.

Sam Schrager: You bet did, Jackson. So that's everything to you? I think about riding.

Walter Currin: Well, he gave me quite a few pointers. Of course, I don't kid growing up. About that time and I learned a lot from Jackson.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess he was.

Walter Currin: Was lucky he'd write him and I'd get fooled around, get bucked off.

Sam Schrager: Were you interested? Were you interested in that? Right?

Walter Currin: Yeah, I like it, I liked it. I used to break horses in the winter. Yeah. Summertime course. Have to busy with farmers. We farm by horse. I'll have 2 or 3 saddle horses around that. I like messing around with horses, cattle real good.

Sam Schrager: Oh, this, this broke right in it. it was there. Was there much rodeo in around here? Oh, yeah. Kids have a chance to learn about.

Walter Currin: Oh, yeah? Yeah. You take old farm kids. How do you get. Well, they had cattle and stuff, of course. Take it out. Right. Calves and stuff more. You know, on the farm, they all had an idea that they want to ride. So I think, you know, do it themselves sometimes nobody would tell them, just get out.

Oh, lot of fun. They'd get booked off.

Farming different now. It's all machinery. Now it's in the horses.

Speaker 4: You know, thrash machine stuff.

Sam Schrager: Did, did Jackson Sundance ever? I mean, would he fool around on the horses whether or not he was in a rodeo? I mean, you have his own string or anything, you know.

Walter Currin: He had horses, but he never had a rodeo string. He just went and rode and shows.

Yeah, he was he just. He come up there and camp and come here, and he they always go and camp where when he was, he was riding on a 50 beef. Same way all the way Western Pendleton where they had a show where he'd go ride.

Sam Schrager: All that was this, this Jesse horse show. Was that a rodeo town?

Walter Currin: Well, they had the rodeo. And in connection with the horse, show them days. Why, they had to find horses around, draft horse out. Then they'd have. Oh, maybe the they'd have the last day of the show. They'd have a rodeo. And Anthony had some bucking horses around the country way they wasn't at that time. There really wasn't any, special rodeo.

Strange. Everybody out of country, out of horses. And if they hadn't worked auction, they thought it was a good button, or they'd bring him in and they'd drive out. They'd have to show them that way. But they never hired, strain. Like, did you ever string a horse? Like to do it? Loosen it around to put on the shows?

Sam Schrager: But that's what Sundance was here for. To be for that, for the horse show that he'd come.

Walter Currin: Well, he'd come for the worst show on the bronc. He same way with Pendleton. He went down the hill to right there. We didn't have. Of course, now it's more like they have they have these regular strings and come in.

Sam Schrager: Well, to this draw people in from, from, very far and.

Walter Currin: Oh because all these small towns right here was come and oh, we had rodeos here. The Hannah boys used to come in and put on rodeos here. August Campbell, Jett Sams had horses and we all had horses. But he with them put on a show here.

Sam Schrager: I guess he used to do that rodeo in two way.

Walter Currin: Oh, yeah. He had a bunch of horses out here on the rim and him and Chet Sams, they can bring their stock in. So everybody, like I said, had a buck more to bring them. Well.

You know, that made it fun for all.

Sam Schrager: Was there was intellectual on and off for a guy like Jackson Sundance for.

Walter Currin: Well it all depends on what your, what your purse was for Championship. Each little show was had probably a different purse. You know.

Speaker 4: How the Madison had as much I do know I don't know.

Walter Currin: Nothing about, you know.

Sam Schrager: you know, I don't seem to me like you're all that big now either. At some of these guys can ride the circuit. The champion and the national champion could maybe have $50,000, which have so much in there to other. Yeah. Other jobs. Oh, no.

Walter Currin: Well, for the chances they take and the rougher, rough part of it. Why he doesn't do much. Of course nowadays then days you rode a horse to a finish. Now you're riding so many seconds.

Sam Schrager: Your own to a finish. What do you need.

Walter Currin: To work with that? Well, yeah. You know, now they run eight seconds and take whatever it is they let you sit down.

Sam Schrager: Well, how long could a working and so.

Walter Currin: Some of them go quite a ways. I never stuck with Wilbur. Enough of them to go all the way with.

Speaker 4: No I don't know. I'm thing about.

Walter Currin: I guess.

Yeah. They. Yeah. Well, what sport. You never know when you want to get hurt.

Speaker 4: Did you get it right? Yeah, I did.

Sam Schrager: You did you do much road riding yourself?

Walter Currin: And I never run the show too much. I was usually. Oh, I usually work, just pick up my days or something like that. When I never really run the shows too much. Sometimes. Try it.

Out. But I never had the time to get away. To follow the show every on the farm. No work and stuff. So, I never had a chance to get away. Much.

Sam Schrager: Did you ever over at the village show over there to work in it?

Walter Currin: Have. Well, I didn't work and I went over that. Old people tell it one time. Knock you to kid road. No, the race horses. Resources have to show. And one one year he took me over. I had these two. These horses are keeping up on the ranch. He took one of over and took me along with him. We had a good time down there.

Sam Schrager: Which they sure do. Which guy?

Walter Currin: Well, Hayden was on or Bulldog. He's a steer on one side. Well, the dog comes on the other sometimes running in the stock and back on the work, but just right rider off and running up. Pick him up, take the saddle off of him and pick up a rider horse. Quick Buck and are you running in? Pick the horse up, snap him up and take the rider off on back.

You on your horse and then he going over it. He was take that. Take him back in the saddle off him. So.

Sam Schrager: You know we start me. Is this really dangerous a dangerous game? I guess that's because I never been much of a rail.

Walter Currin: You never knew where. What the horses were going to do. Sometimes some of them were trying to figure knock you out of the saddle, and some of them would want to keep on bucking. So you just never knew what the horsemen sounded. Right? So it made. When you went in there, you just took your chances and.

Unknown: Or when you.

Sam Schrager: I just think you holding on. how did you do that? I mean, when you were when a horse was buck. And what was a way that you learned?

Walter Currin: Well, you wouldn't dare. You wouldn't dare go grab the saddle horn or they disqualify you had your your bucking reins and your saddle, and you ride with your balance to the horse, over the horse. So it was just it's a game of its own. Some get good, some never learn.

Yeah. You.

Sam Schrager: I wonder where a guy like some dancer Jackson Sundance will pick it up.

Walter Currin: Well, he told us when he was a kid. Ride buffaloes. Yeah, when he was a kid. See him, know people and go for a good ride or two. But he never rode rodeo. Also mountain. He used to ride buffaloes. He take these, ride these old bulls with the saddle or bareback. Since he's the one who didn't. Show he did what he did when he was from a kid.

At that way.

Sam Schrager: When they end them rodeos, what do they have to go like nowadays? You know, they got all that? some some of them have a lot of carnival Florida, you know, where they have where they have to go with them in that days.

Walter Currin: Well, anything special? Some would have, maybe a little carnival and some didn't.

They just put on the show in the afternoon, usually have a ball game in the morning, baseball the afternoon. Be a rodeo. Sometimes they'd, get a little carnival in fairground Ferris wheel or something like that from sideshows.

Sam Schrager: Really sounds like that.

Walter Currin: Oh my gosh, what a fun. It was a lot of fun. Always give something to do.

Sam Schrager: But you say, like the horses stuff in those rodeos, they worked. They. They were brought in by people, or. I mean, they didn't like it is now. No.

Walter Currin: You know, the first one had ever come in Genesee with a bucking stream was George, the Hanna brothers had in 1929. They come in ahead of time and they kept brought in a bunch of horses. And, anybody had a good bucking horse, they'd try him out. And if he looked like he'd make a good bucker, that either by him or trading another horse for the modern looking horse.

So they they stuck right here all in the two weeks, every. But they made sure they put it on the spot 3 or 4 days short. Yeah. Over the 4th of July celebration would they were they had an awful good string of horses and they were nice horse to work with. George Hannah. You know what I know for that now, he lived down here in the roost in Orchard someplace.

But they did. They don't have this string anymore. He's all he's way up in age now, so he got to go down. It. Oh for that. But he still monkeying around. He like stock him.

Sam Schrager: They give him and they go all around the country. Other place. Oh yeah.

Walter Currin: Wherever they wanted the contract to come in the and string. Why they go in.

Sam Schrager: And that was as a part of the stock show and rodeo that they had.

Walter Currin: Well I mean yeah. See they quit having the stock shows afterwards, but then they had rodeos around in here. I know I wound up with the Hanna boys. I worked with them here in 2019, and I went up with them to, the Riverside Park up there toward college. And wasn't he was in here twice. March, Uniontown, wherever they could.

They don't recommend. Pretty sure why they bring your rodeo stuff here. Put it on, let it.

Sam Schrager: I got it then. I'm not real ignorant about, you know, bucking horse. Oh, yeah. When they used to tell that you're saying that only some horses were would be buggers.

Walter Currin: Yeah, not all of them would be. Well, maybe they'd come out maybe once. Next time they were quit and wouldn't do a thing. And a lot of them are just keep on getting worse. That's where once a string they like to get older, some.

Sam Schrager: Oh, how well were horses cared for in them days? You know, all the farms in stock.

Walter Currin: Well and older and on the individual. Most of them took good care of their stock, and some of them just not quite as good as he they had to because they had to depend on him for their farm work, you see, see and running ahead, a reminder, you know, employment coming back. Come back tomorrow. Yeah. But, all the way from, oh little by over 12 up to 32 had horses up.

On these old ground folk combined.

Sam Schrager: What about, what was the the size of the horses?

Walter Currin: Oh, they'd run far away from or 1210 1617. Oh, yeah.

Sam Schrager: Did they have a lot of different kinds, or was,

Walter Currin: They like that old? There was, Shire Elk and birches were mostly around this country, and that sometimes you just mixed breed, you know, that was the three main group horses they had around.

For the farm work.

On account of the flu epidemic. Well, I was running around out there at the ranch, and, old man, we'd come up. You know what I was doing mucking around after school? I don't want any, because come. So his daughter was teaching. His daughter Joanna was teaching down on the county grade school. Hey, Tommy, come and get my books.

And so I did. I finished the school year down there. There was six of us, five kids, 18. And that was besides the school we had good old school. She was a real good teacher. Joanna was she's passed on now. But it was I had a real good year down there.

Sam Schrager: With it. Where are you? Where did you go to school before in Tennessee? Oh, how what was the difference between a school here? The town and a school entry like that? There wasn't.

Walter Currin: Any difference. Only here in town. We had our one grade, you know, or two grades. And down there we had all the way from the first to the eighth grade. Yeah. We rode a saddle horse. Her brother and I rode from up here on the hill. Then after spring last year was boarding down there with a couple of family.

So then she used to ride a horse down with us two in the morning till school was out and I know just the atmosphere being out in the country, you know, but I right.

Speaker 4: I don't know, one day of school, I know it closed in Kokomo near to.

Walter Currin: Well it was called Genesee right here.

Sam Schrager: We did many people were out here. They got the flu.

Walter Currin: Oh, everybody had it. We lost. oh. Several around here. One man and wife both died within a few hours of each other. All this, an awful lot of died around here for.

Speaker 4: At was the first time I think I shifted that year. I remember.

Walter Currin: You know, I was pretty lucky too that year. But it was bad. Real bad.

Speaker 4: We had to shake it. I mean, and we have Gene Clark. Yeah. Monkey.

Sam Schrager: And you get to play these games when you went down there.

Walter Currin: Oh, yeah. You played any game with you and you get down there. We Mike Sweeney and I, we had two boys from up here on the hill. We played with him down there in games and stuff, but it's always there when you get down. Played stick game and stuff like that. Kids, Indian kids, you know, different little things.

They had stick game. Yeah, they played that. I don't remember how the devil we did play it, but now. But and then they played just same as us kids too, you know.

Speaker 4: They started playing more.

Walter Currin: They like baseball. We play it down there.

Speaker 4: It's friends. And now he was never around, you know.

Sam Schrager: And he's park and the theory.

Speaker 4: I don't know.

Walter Currin: Y'all. That was we had to change.

Speaker 4: Their plans and use the levy area. But I guess it was no real.

Walter Currin: Yeah. If you contact me on my, he can probably give you a lot more history further back than I can go to the farm. Well, he's in his 80s now, and he's an old timer here.

Because I lived out here in the country, I missed a lot of city life.

Sam Schrager: When did you start working in on a farm?

Walter Currin: How old were you when you. Oh, I left 12 years old.

Sam Schrager: When he started on doing.

Walter Currin: Row driving team. How team? Different things in the field.

Speaker 4: A lot of kids used to start in the.

Walter Currin: Porch helping in here, mowing hay, raking.

Speaker 4: So I had to do that. I guess.

Walter Currin: Nothing. Yeah. When I was going to school, I rode from one seven mile out to Genesee here, and Saturdays dad load had me working in the field and my brother said, how act, but take that team and field plow team or whatever you doing? Until I got broke into him on horses.

Sam Schrager: Did you start with just two horses and did you start with the.

Walter Currin: Oh no. We had 7 or 8 head on the game ball, probably six on a Harrow, two on a war machine and a rake and stuff like that. So.

I drove combine several years.

Unknown: With horses and field.

Yeah, I work around push binder.

Walter Currin: And my contractor work.

Sam Schrager: You know, we talk about the Genesee harvest all over this county. I mean, no matter where you go. Yeah. Very hard way out there. Yeah. They say, well, it was, while we were clearing up the land, and of course, we came. Father worked out at Genesee. Yeah.

Walter Currin: They come down here and harvest work. Oh, yes. And and, in the old steam thrash machine days, he the several machines would come from Troy down in this country. But fresh grain. There was a swenson's Albert Hall. Seth. All different ones. Only flammable, different fellows. It had big fresh enough. It would come down here, trace the grain.

They other grain and the whole grain. After they started mining.

Sam Schrager: Mean there was enough market for them to come in from outside with.

Walter Currin: Oh, yes.

Sam Schrager: Machinery.

Walter Currin: Well, yeah. All these, these farmers around here didn't have a fresh machine in their own and frozen come down. It covered all the way from might, say, the Washington I. You go around to the Clearwater guy, would you get all that country in there? You know, traced it, hit it and traced and and he used to stack the grain straight.

And then they went to boil before the heat combined.

It that is a big scope of country and lot of grain here to fresh.

Speaker 4: Yeah. Same to me. This is what they.

Walter Currin: Used to this a lot of.

Sam Schrager: People come in from like harvest. oh I agree harvest.

Walter Currin: Oh yeah. It was a lot.

Speaker 4: Of a lot of Michigan. Yeah. 30, 40 days of harvesting trail. Yeah.

Walter Currin: They. Yeah. Oh, there was lots of, work here for, you know, Christian labor. And they work here, too. Some. And some would stay around, you know, and help with the farm work, help the little farming ones that can handle horses that you that go all to and get to follow some of these farmers at Hiram's or you get to follow working though there was a lot of work around here then.

Speaker 4: But yeah.

Speaker 5: They can right.

Speaker 4: That now.

Walter Currin: That's all gone out. No, it's just, machinery is taking it out.

Sam Schrager: You wonder where it was guys came.

Walter Currin: From all over the country. Some of them are down the lower country, down the river. Finished harvest earlier down there than they do here. like starting down there and, follow the harvest up there, up into here and go up here and then go on north towards Canada and just follow the harvest as they as it went out, they go someplace else where it was later they followed it.

Them.

Sam Schrager: Was it was it tricky to farm on that on the hillsides. Was it fairly steep where you you had.

Walter Currin: Some once and some what? You just had to work your ground out according to your hills. They so are. So you go around the hills and not have to go up the steep hills and stuff like that. But it wasn't too tricky for a while to have a wreck, but not too often.

It was,

More so with Trek to work and work with horses. Go ahead on heavy machinery on there. You had to watch you correct human machinery.

So it wasn't too bad around here. Everybody. The farm, the old good shape.

Sam Schrager: Did you, did your father have a tough time? Make a go at it. The early days of farming. And he did well.

Walter Currin: No, not too bad till. Well, I say, until that depression hit their 29. Was they doing well that way? 31 had depression, was a little bit on the rough side, but we pull through it after Hathaway work. That's when we came back here and we had a place here. We came from riding over there, so we moved back here and I worked on farm work and construction and different things.

And up till, well, my thing into World War Two broke out and things opened up them. Then going on pretty good.

Sam Schrager: What when did the depression make itself felt here?

Walter Currin: Oh started long about in 29 or till might say it was getting a little bit better to for my change to World War two broke out which happened hit us in 41 and Pearl Harbor.

But then things opened up and it went pretty good. Then.

Sam Schrager: Was there 29 when that hit? Did that mean there was no, did off bottom fall of the crop market?

Walter Currin: Well, yeah. So just started going down. Prices got down, time.

Speaker 4: I and money you couldn't do nothing. And.

Walter Currin: Wheat prices went way down or like you're poultry eggs and stuff that went way down to nothing good. Just wasn't any any money. It was about it.

Speaker 4: Oh, who would be death? You know.

Walter Currin: We we pulled through it all. I to my daughter was born in 32 after come back up here and mother was with us. So anyway, we lived through it.

Sam Schrager: Did you ever hear them talk about the 93 depression?

Walter Currin: Correct. Yeah, I heard dad talking about that, but I don't remember all the things he told me. You said it was really tough thing to. Yeah. They were. That's what he was farming over in coal.

14 up here and.

Yeah, that's that's a picture of how they used to sit right here. That's what people call my little horsepower ridge that had no.

Sam Schrager: Engine at all. They going around. Yeah.

Walter Currin: Just like, that, Well, can 12 horses then he had to come. Coming. Rod, run over to the separator from that horses.

That old miller brought the old first car number, and that way they fresh that out for a quick turnaround.

Sam Schrager: Is that when I was thinking about.

Walter Currin: Yeah.

Sam Schrager: Yeah.

Walter Currin: Yeah. You know.

Sam Schrager: Be come from before he came right up to.

Walter Currin: Oregon.

Sam Schrager: Willamette Valley or.

Walter Currin: That's where that come from. That's where that was born. Willamette Valley, I wonder mother came from Arkansas. Back covered wagon corn. most my granddad's homesteaded over. All right.

Sam Schrager: I wonder how you. Your father talked about coal country.

Walter Currin: Did.

Sam Schrager: Well, my.

Walter Currin: My granddad just heard about his opening up, new country over in here. Both my granddad. So I guess drought in this country and that his brothers and my granddad, they brought some broken. Right. You have, cattle with them over there. Granddad homesteaded my granddad. Well, granddad comes. That's right there, echo. All right. Grandpa lupus was about three mile north of homestead.

Sam Schrager: Do you have much idea when you think about when your father might have gotten there from West Charlotte. He was there in the 80s, you say? He said.

Walter Currin: Oh, yeah. 19, 1878.

Sam Schrager: You let him go? Yeah. Be one of the early female.

Walter Currin: Yes. There was no corn or anything in there. Dad, hold first, take a number and go in there. When they built that one building a doctor in there built. And here's the freight from, from Colfax to Lewiston down the hill or and. No, there was no cotton or any of them. Just a few settlers around there.

Sam Schrager: Who freights the supplies, from one to the other.

Walter Currin: Go back down to Lewiston and like that.

Sam Schrager: Did he ever talk about Vollmer or did you? Because I know Vollmer. He had to run the bank here. And in that. Yeah, he was. He did a lot of work closing out story I've heard.

Walter Currin: Well, that's where I guess that's where in the old timers. That's where Vollmer got he started. Had a little bit. Yeah. He used to be a Vollmer bank here and he had a lot of farmland there still so many. Still got some farmland around here, but some of it. And so.

Speaker 4: The farmers. Vollmer. Oh, yeah.

Sam Schrager: So not too well liked by a lot of local people.

Speaker 4: I don't know a thing about them in that regard.

Sam Schrager: I'll tell you, they're he's got a reputation out of Troy in the same way we got Troy was named Vollmer to start with.

Walter Currin: Yeah, that was right. And they changed it to Troy. Yes. Yeah, you bet you did.

Sam Schrager: You ever know the Rosen Stevens?

Speaker 4: Oh, yeah. Oh, yes.

Walter Currin: I know Steve family. They had a store out New Town Genesee and then then the town moved out. They moved in.

Speaker 4: Here. I, I think they still have some land out here someplace, I think. Yeah.

Walter Currin: Silverstein girls. Yeah I know, oh, Jake. Rose. Jean. These way marks the girls.

Sam Schrager: Won't really like.

Walter Currin: Who they were. Nice old folks. I thought they were. Seemed to be nice family.

Speaker 4: I never knew them, but then they. I know they used to say. Oh, yes, I can.

Walter Currin: Remember that.

Speaker 4: Your father used to talk about. I never knew them.

Walter Currin: Yeah. No, nothing. Family followed.

Sam Schrager: Family did. who did your family trade with?

Walter Currin: We traded with. What was Rosenstein then? Folks, we kind of divided our trade between the two stores.

Sam Schrager: They were Jewish, weren't they? Across state.

Walter Currin: Yeah.

Speaker 4: I never knew anything about them in that regard. But I just heard I mean I don't remember. Yeah. And his mother used to take butter or something in there. And your father used to hide it up. So nobody gave it to him.

Walter Currin: You know. They used to, she used to do what?

Speaker 4: She used to make homemade butter. You remember every time his mother brought it in. But he takes him out for himself for my birthday.

Walter Currin: Oh, but better from us and folks, she always had butter and eggs for sale.

Speaker 4: Just imagine a sold for $0.50 a roll. Look what you're paying for it to roll.

Walter Currin: Yeah.

Speaker 4: Okay. You're doing longer.

Walter Currin: Times have changed. Prices are still going up. I don't know where they're going to stop, but.

Speaker 4: Maybe you got to start somewhere.

Sam Schrager: Yeah, well, we got no money left.

Walter Currin: Yeah, we got no money left.

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Walter Currin: I go and get more and more of the country still. I don't know.

Speaker 4: Where they are going forward. We get us out there, get him lot of other.

Walter Currin: Yeah. This election coming up, we'll see who wins. There's you're trying to get nominated. You read all you can read in the papers as.

Speaker 4: Well I know Jack was that one? And more or less they shot that,

Sam Schrager: Yeah.

Walter Currin: Oh, well. And politics for you. Yeah.

Speaker 4: Well, if they don't like it. Russian for of Mike, they don't have the vote, but they don't have to shoot them for the sake.

Sam Schrager: Crazy.

Speaker 4: Sure it is. It's just crazy. Oh, if I did like, if I didn't vote for somebody, I sure as heck wouldn't know. I mean, I would vote for. And I'm hurting worse more than anything.

Walter Currin: So maybe it'll all come out in the wash.

Sam Schrager: Was there much politics around here in the early days? If people in here elections?

Walter Currin: No, they didn't, pay too much attention like they do now. They don't didn't go through all that maneuvering around.

Sam Schrager: When they made votes to get elected, who were out here in the early days, like, oh.

Walter Currin: Yeah, your name is course, now the farms are getting bigger, a little farmers going out, there's getting less people around in living or out in the country. Now that is actual farmers, all these farm places, their houses are right it out to people that's working in other places. But Moscow listed some form, so they just they live here, but they work at a place.

Sam Schrager: That if you find for yourself, it wasn't worth trying to farm after the depression because it took so much land and stuff. Well.

Walter Currin: Yeah, I get about it. It, after a quick I saw the outfit, farm outfit, give mother the money, and I went out working on farms up until I went to work at the elevator. I work for construction and recharges George Galloway. Then I went to work down the Farmers Union, East End, and I guess I was there 25 years.

So then I retired.

Sam Schrager: Wasn't a farmer union around here for from the rather earlier days.

Walter Currin: Yeah, it was established here in 1990 when they started here. Farmers Union, of course, it's much bigger now. They got bigger plants and they're still building out now what a standard work video.

Speaker 4: Okay. So there's a pile of grain out there right.

Sam Schrager: What was it thinking? with it from what you know, you you heard of why they started it in the first place? What was it? Why did they want to have all.

Walter Currin: It was just the start of of farmers getting together in a group. And, that way, way, maybe they get a little better price on stuff by being a group, you know, a co-op. Well, I found it turned out to be a co-op. And time. So like, Union Towns got to grew up in different places. They can. oh.

I don't know why. I guess they get a little better price on stuff.

Speaker 4: I don't know what they were doing that.

Walter Currin: So other than that where it just kept building up big business bigger anyway, which it is still getting that way.

Sam Schrager: I know one thing I was going to ask you about was the river, going down the Clearwater there and going down the great was over, fairly steep grade.

Walter Currin: Yeah, it was a very steep grade.

Speaker 4: They came. They had to wreck.

Walter Currin: I remember the old grade going down. They used to have to rough lock the wagons, make sure to hold on. Really? Yeah. They didn't trust the breaks. A rough lot of wheels.

Sam Schrager: That when you were a kid. Does that mean you.

Walter Currin: you were on a train back to. And you'd love to wheel completely. So you had your break, but then sometimes they'd give away on you. That great was self esteem.

Speaker 4: Yeah. After they fixed it. After it was better before it, you know, on a dirt road. Then I remember the old lost and highway. Oh my stars, I was just riding river and I.

Sam Schrager: Was down there to the river. Very often here we mostly go to can't see.

Walter Currin: Well, of course I never looked over there when that grade was going from Uniontown. Down. We used going down the central grade here all the time. Yeah. And they were horse days. It'd take all day to make a trip down to Lewiston and back down to the room out here where we lived. But, then they put in, the spiral Hartley, and they keep improving that.

Now they're making a grade there. Now, so they've improved a lot. You're driving, getting around that.

Sam Schrager: the river, itself did. Did you ever see that river flood right across the flood?

Walter Currin: You know, I used to have a ferryboat down here. It's folded, you know, you went across on that, or they built the old Spaulding Bridge and then. Oh, yeah, that would get up. You get up over there river over the road, going down the river, and then you get the ice jams. Yeah. They did seem like it's been going down about.

oh. We come back up here from Coleman, 32 and 11 both sides, and lined up garages and different things. Oh, ten, 12 years ago, it, they start sliding down, so. Oh, you're the wrong.

Speaker 4: Oh, my boy.

Walter Currin: That's my son. Or Spokane over here. oh. Yeah.

Speaker 5: Yeah, that's whitefish there.

Sam Schrager: Oh, what was the what did they use to fish with? oh.

Speaker 5: We're Indians, hooked and, worms and stuff like that. Different thing.

Sam Schrager: Because I know they used to have salmon.

Speaker 5: In that area that we.

Sam Schrager: Were sitting in. It, too, was a pass.

Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, that's what they,

Sam Schrager: Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I know some I have.

Speaker 5: But we can, sit down here and talk with the old feller. I used to have to visit pretty soon. Yeah. The fish. Fish? Not the big fish. Right. You take an old wooden limb, we go, and we catch white fish.

Sam Schrager: How come we took such a liking? Was it just to you that he took a such a liking? You personally? Yeah.

Speaker 5: Well, you know, I was in my 40s for. Oh, yes. You know, it was good to the old,

Speaker 4: I always had a call.

Speaker 5: Then you'll probably have to. Good luck to your mother. Good luck. Yeah. We give some roosters low fry and little things like that. It didn't take much. Did you feel like it make you happy? Well, a little, he really got a lot of.

Speaker 4: I don't know what in the world.

Speaker 5: Yeah.

Sam Schrager: What about the marks Martin's got? You know.

Speaker 5: I remember the old Mark. Yeah. It was all Jimmy Carter, Norman, Carl, Johnny Matthews, Cardinal and Charlie and Sam Wilson and all of them old fellows. I was around and northwest. Charlie White and different ones around. That was.

Sam Schrager: Charlie.

Speaker 4: Based on our.

Walter Currin: young Charlie White.

Speaker 5: Oh, yeah. Oh, Charlie was. He wasn't. He was only a half breed, but he farmed on a rambler owner. And then.

His dad was a white, and my mother was Indian. Well, but he went on to found work.

Walter Currin: In thousands of years.

Sam Schrager: Wasn't there a number of instances were that where there was mixed marriage, like. Oh, yes, there is.

Walter Currin: Yeah.

Speaker 4: Well, that's enough with school work. Why, how do you.

Walter Currin: Get mixed up there?

Speaker 4: Quite a bit. I work in oh yeah, I it pretty. Oh yeah. You like that I think part time.

Speaker 5: Yeah a.

Speaker 4: Lot of.

Speaker 5: It. A lot of history down there that I don't know I get it quite a bit. No fuel for Battalion first. I couldn't understand him. Finally. I'm not sure I can understand. He took it pretty broken, you know, he got extremely hard.

Speaker 4: You could well married, right?

Speaker 5: You could get used to him. You could understand. And I like.

Walter Currin: How you go.

Sam Schrager: They read to him. He like to talk about. They were really early days from this time.

Speaker 5: Where he was,

Speaker 4: What was his.

Speaker 5: Name? I get the small boy. I guess when old Chief Jones would made that.

Speaker 4: I heard of the name.

Speaker 5: I don't understand him. And sometimes both their nephew and I. So.

Speaker 4: Well, I was.

Walter Currin: Quite interested in helping them alive, but.

Speaker 5: They. All right. I got acquainted with them at home. Well, I come here. I kind of, pick them up. I mean, you come by and give me.

Speaker 4: Come up and.

Speaker 5: Talk. We always defer. Gunner. What are you a good I gave you stuff and like mother, give them guard and stuff and all that. And they didn't have money. All right, if you did, all right. And you paid her back in retribution stuff, everything. They could think about that money or something.

Sam Schrager: When they weren't burying, was it?

Speaker 5: Usually you say when or where we went up north here, up from long ago. You up near Huckleberry or. Yes. I couldn't raise up in any part of the state. You would go up in there and camp up in here. Who knew who in the state like to come out in it almost after each one of them. Get out with him.

A gallon of berries from a few days. They found the huckleberry through. For what would you do with all in on the farm?

Sam Schrager: Can't sure.

Walter Currin: We didn't have freezers and.

Speaker 5: Stuff like those days, so we didn't have. If you can't that we have.

Sam Schrager: Fruit in Canada, we don't have to worry about, you know. Yeah. We're. Where did you tell him?

Speaker 5: He lived down on the river. Right. That were you down category? That's right. You're telling me. Yeah. You hit the highway right back to your right. A little house on the North Point there. Yeah, I guess it's same for family living there.

Speaker 4: I think we got.

Sam Schrager: Where they say the room. Right. where.

Speaker 5: Does the little rock start? Over. It starts over here about, you know. Well, you know where the highway junction out here. Way out there for you will hit Uniontown. It starts here and runs clear the hill north up here towards Joliet along the river.

Speaker 4: River. I don't see why everything is so pretty big.

Speaker 5: This area.

Sam Schrager: Was it mostly being farm by whites.

Speaker 5: When you were farming? Yeah, it.

Speaker 4: Was going to get a.

Walter Currin: Few Indians try to farm, but they would know very good.

Speaker 4: Farmers. I don't know, say a little.

Speaker 5: Fishing which just mostly rendered and out a lot of them was water, land.

Unknown: And it was so or

Sam Schrager: But

Speaker 4: We're still moving.