Latah County Oral History Collection

Sam Schrager: This interview with Palma Hanson Hove was recorded at her home in Moscow on June 13th, 1975. The interviewer is Sam Schrager.

Of the Genesee Valley.

Palma Hanson Hove: I don't know exactly...

...He was on his own and wanted to go west and sort of worked his way, from Wisconsin until he got, well, he, like I told you before, he logged up in the Blue Mountains for a long time and and drove oxen team and all that sort of stuff. And then I suppose, probably met somebody that was going to Genesee.

Now, I'm just not too sure about this, but I think.

That's the way it was. It seems to me like I heard him say that it was a.

Fellow by the name of Dennis Miller, that he met, and.

He was going to Genesee. And so he went along and got work and and then just liked it there and stayed.

Sam Schrager: And, he had been born in Wisconsin.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, yes. He was born in Wisconsin.

And I expect he was about,

Oh.

I don't.

Let me see if it says anything in my scrapbook about that. It's it's right in there.

And but, yeah, he came out here.

I thought maybe 17, 18, 63. He went to Walla.

Walla in the spring of 1888. And in the fall of 1889, he came to Genesee.

So.

He was lodging with acts action teams for a long time.

Follow the same business here, arriving at the same time.

Let's see.

When Genesee was moving from Old Town, he assisted in moving some of the building with his yoke of oxen.

At,

The old town was further out past the elevators at that time. So he helped move the buildings into, which is Genesee now.

And just goes out. They were married by the Reverend Thomas Guard, which you mentioned one time.

Sam Schrager: And your mother, was born in Norway.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yes.

He was born in,

In a little town in Norway. Well.

At Trondheim, Norway, she was born.

Sam Schrager: Did you ever know why? Her. Why she and her parents, came over to America?

Palma Hanson Hove:

Some of their.

People came first to America, and then, you know, then they'd send for them if they were here a while and had a little bit money, then they'd send for some of the rest of them, and then they'd have to work their their passage out after they got here. It would take quite a few years sometimes if you had a family.

But that's,

They came to, Sioux Falls.

South Dakota.

And just go down from there.

Sam Schrager: Telling. Did her father have to work his passage? Do you know?

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, I'm sure he did. Yeah. Yes. And in fact, I know if you did, but I can't remember. It must have just been,

Cousin or somebody that came first of, of his of my mother's father. And, then they took up the homestead, and then they worked for them until. But I know they lived in the sod house because they didn't have buildings, you know.

So they lived in a side house for.

Quite a few years. And then my first my uncle came out west, and then he sent for his parents, and then my mother came. And so that's the way they did.

You know, they just sent her till they got all the family out here and, they seem to, you know, manage some way. I don't know how they did it, but they did.

Sam Schrager: Do you think Genesee was a very attractive place for people to come?

Palma Hanson Hove: And, there was so much good farmland here, you say. And that was the reason that, and the soil was very good. And at that time, because not my.

Folks.

Didn't take a homestead, that was before they came that they had homestead. Right. But some of the people that that that came.

I bet you, Mr. Hagan could tell you about that. But,

Time my folks came over ready to buy land was. Yeah. There was no more homesteads to get. You'd have to go to the timber for that above try.

Sam Schrager: Isn't that with what they did? Wasn't, didn't you tell me that they who had the homestead.

Palma Hanson Hove: And my grandmother, my mother's parents had the homestead up above Troy, and, they lived there until they proved up on there, like they say, you know, the proved up on their homestead. But while they were there, they, had made shingles and, cut wood, you know, and made their living that way, selling hard.

Working.

Shingles. I can remember the shingle camp real good.

They just get a little hole in the timber.

You know, and then put sort of a roof over so you wouldn't get wet if it was raining.

And they sat under that and made those shingles by hand. I can remember that real well.

Sam Schrager: They decided to, to, live near Troy because they could get a homestead.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yes. That was that.

And my uncle only had 40 acres, but, after they had proven up on their homestead and they were getting quite old by that time way, then they came back to Genesee Valley and, and lived on my uncle's 40. And then, they lived there until they weren't able to live a long. Then they lived with my folks.

It had.

Sam Schrager: Been hard for them as older people to to homestead.

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, and it was hard, but they did it. They had a team of horses, you know, and and they, You bet it was hard. They had a few cows, you know, so they got their butter cream and.

Made shingles and stuff, enough to buy.

Some flour and sugar. And, you know, the other there was no.

Luxuries, let me tell you.

That made their own cheese. I can say those cheese farms. Yeah. I wish to goodness.

You know, that I'd kept some of that stuff. But, you know, when we were growing up and that stuff was around, but that was junk.

Give my teeth for some of those things. Now that you just never even thought about that, someday they would be valuable. I managed to keep.

My grandmother's spinning wheel, for which I'm very.

Thankful.

Sam Schrager: You remember going up there from the trips to the.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah, that would be about, Oh, goodness. How far would it be? Cross road from denim from, Well, we were four miles north of Genesee.

Sam Schrager: And we'd be about 12 miles to Moscow and then to.

Palma Hanson Hove: No, we didn't go to Moscow.

Sam Schrager: That's right.

Palma Hanson Hove: You we went cross road, but I dare say up to where my grandfather was. It must have been 20 miles at least.

And we used to go off.

And ride up there in the lumber wagon. My father would bring wood.

Back, you know, and so like. Yeah, well, that was a great trip to get to go up to the timber. I was.

Sam Schrager: Like, was that was it an exhausting trip for a kid.

Palma Hanson Hove: To go?

You know, in those days it wasn't.

I suppose.

We got tired, but.

Really, we were kids and.

We had a lot of cousins up there to play with.

You know, when we got there, because my uncle.

That is my real aunt and her husband, they had a homestead right next to my grandmother and grandfather. So they weren't up there alone. And then a neighbor of ours, they also had a homestead there. And and they lived there till the kids were big enough to.

Go to school. There was no school up there.

Of course.

They had to go and and try.

Sam Schrager: Can you remember what the country looked like on the on the drive? Was it all settled up?

Palma Hanson Hove: No. Oh, no.

No,

No. Going from drive up to the the timber where they lived, it was just narrow dirt road, you know, and rough and and very few houses, I suppose, I suppose, ever a homestead. So I don't know what a homestead consisted of.

80 or 60 acres or something like that.

Sam Schrager: But in 60, probably.

Palma Hanson Hove: And, you.

Would meet, you know, go by a few places, but.

Not very many. Yeah. It was kind of wild and secluded.

Sam Schrager: But with your kids play and.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, my, there. Well.

I don't know, of course. To us, the just walking down the lanes and the timber and picking flowers and watching them make shakes and all that was,

Was just a thrill.

You know, because, we had never lived up there in the timber, but I remember and my grandmother, they had a log cabin and there was no ceiling, you know, to the rafters. And I remember that I slept on a cot, and I looked up and there was a.

Rat sitting up on one of the rafters. No, I was so scared. Of course, I think grandma said, oh, that they won't hurt you. She said that they're just pets. So it was really kind of fun. I hadn't thought of it for a long, long time.

Sam Schrager: Did you feel that the big difference between it, that being Timber Country is compared to.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, yes. Oh yes, definitely. Because, you know, down there we had our wide open spaces and up there, which is really thick with trees. It wasn't the best timber in the world, but then it was timber that they could make fence posts and, and, shakes and shingles.

And stuff like that out of.

Sam Schrager: So when did they plan it all? Did they have a crop.

Palma Hanson Hove: And.

A no, I think a little bit wild. A little bit of oats in places where it was cleared. Just enough for, for hay in the wintertime. Other than that way, it was mostly pasture, you know, in the summer. No, it was,

Then I ever remember in.

Racing. And if we do anything like that up there, because the ground wasn't clear that much, it was.

Just, like I say, just timber.

Sam Schrager: Was there a very close relationship between the Norwegian community at Genesee and the one near Troy?

Palma Hanson Hove: The people there.

No, no, no, we hardly we didn't know anybody. Hardly. And trial. I guess the folks knew the 1 or 2 families there that, that they had met, but, no, it was too far, you know, to commute between for visiting or anything like that.

Sam Schrager: Unless you were relatives.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah. But we, in the later years, we had relatives living in Troy. But, at the time that my grandparents lived way.

That's as far as we went, was up to their place next to our uncle's place.

Sam Schrager: Where was their place from? Troy?

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, it would be, It would be North.

It's kind of like, above Spring Valley. Up in there. Further north, I think, than Spring Valley.

Sam Schrager: That's still riding the timbered country.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, yes. We owned, my husband and I owned a little place up there in the spring Valley.

For a while, but then we sold it.

Sam Schrager: So I wonder, is there a point if their place is being farmed now or if it's gone back?

Palma Hanson Hove: No, I don't, I don't believe it's ever been cleared for farming that I know.

I think it's just sort of.

You know, has some of that soil was. It was very light. And and then another thing, it's always a late that.

Crops would freeze.

And but as I remember, it was, just a little old that, that my family's raised up there.

Sam Schrager: Well, what was your, your home like where you grew up on, near Genesee.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh.

Well, the house.

Is still there, although do you remember here a little while back where there was an airplane went down? Right. That was. That's where I was born and raised.

And those fir trees that were in the back, my father.

Brought down from my.

Grandmother's place up there in the in the timber and planted, there was a whole row of them for a windbreak.

That's a place that my house is still there.

Sam Schrager: This is on Cow Creek.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, yes.

Well, you know where Fred Horvitz lived?

Well, this was right over.

The fence.

From,

Where they live now that my home was,

Sam Schrager: Was it small when you were just a kid, or had they already built into its present size?

Palma Hanson Hove: No. My father added to it. He built a little home for my grand parents, right up by our place. And right about. Oh, you know, length of the house away from ours. And then after they passed away. What? Then he moved that little house up next to ours and made bathroom and bedroom and.

Stuff out of it. So,

We added some to it, but, my father and, another man built the house in the first place, and it was only just, it was a two story, but.

You know, just.

Not very big.

Although we were ten kids.

Sam Schrager: How did it work? Would there be a bunch of kids and one in each bedroom or.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, yes. Well, we had an upstairs, and I think we had three rooms upstairs, and the boys had 2 or 3 beds in one part, and the girls said, yeah, of course, there was only eight that lived. So, but we always had somebody staying there. My uncle practically lived at our place for years and years, and my cousin used to come there and stay in the wintertime.

And I don't know how they did it, but they managed to somehow.

Sam Schrager: Did you feel crowded when you were?

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, indeed we did.

So proud. Crowded.

All right. But we had what they call a summer kitchen. And, in the wintertime when they put a bed out there too and had a little stove out there to.

Heat it, you know. Are you taking.

This Auntie.

Off.

For crying out?

And of course.

Oh, that's really something.

Sam Schrager: Well, it's much better just for it to be a conversation between us that then it's much freer.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah.

Sam Schrager: Tell us a lot more.

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, well, we seem like in.

Those days you manage somewhere other.

We didn't have.

Very fancy food, but we had plenty.

Sam Schrager: It seems like in the big did most of we most of the family's big.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah. They were. They were big families. Not as big as ours, all of them. But there was a lot of them. Had eight children in their family and seldom anybody had less than 5 or 6.

So you know that I don't.

Now countries go down there. That was used to be 30, 40 kids in that little one room schoolhouse and a teacher had all.

Eight.

Grades. Now, if you don't think they had something to do.

But we got through.

Sam Schrager: Oh, I sure did. I.

Palma Hanson Hove: That's as far as I got was through the eighth grade. But then I did that. But that time I was, you know, between.

14 and.

15, I had to get out and work.

Sam Schrager: Was it hard for the families when, when you were young to get by, too?

Palma Hanson Hove: Yes. It was because my father only had 80 acres. And you didn't, you know, that you had diversified farming. You know, we raised a lot of potatoes and had hogs and.

Cows and stuff like that. But,

Buying 80 acres and try to raise a family and then probably a couple.

Extra away. It wasn't easy. My folks.

Lived there till.

I forget what year they moved into Genesee and my father bought a mercantile store, an interest in it, and my brother ran it. Well, first they bought a farm out of Genesee, Iowa that used to be the old town. And then they sold that, and.

Then they bought into this store, and.

They had an interest in that until my father died.

Sam Schrager: They bought a farm right where Old Town had been.

Palma Hanson Hove: They sold the farm up in the valley and bought this one downtown or down the old town. And then they bought a place right inside the city limits. But it had some ground. So my father had cows.

And.

Milk cows.

And peddled milk there for a while.

And then they moved from there up to the place.

Uptown.

Where they lived until my mother died.

Sam Schrager: When you were young, did he work out very much as well as the work he did on?

Palma Hanson Hove: Well.

Yes. He worked out in, harvest time, usually about town.

That is about all.

You know, the kids were small then, and he had the farming to do himself. And then the kids, when the boys got big enough for them, they got out and got jobs because there wasn't enough land for them to farm.

So they.

My oldest brother went into, oh, my father bought him a big truck and he started in with the rock business and rock pits and, that was what he did all the time. He worked for years for Mexican in Spokane with Rock and Anybodies on, rock pit down by, Lewiston, which he had until he had a real bad heart attack.

Then he had to sell it. So he's gone now to.

And my other brother that was in the store in Genesee, he kind of worked in stores off and on and then kind of like that business.

So then he my father.

For him there in the store.

After he bought into it.

My youngest brother joined the Navy and he never was here anymore. He was back East and Detroit and all over.

Sam Schrager: And it was like it wasn't so easy for to to be able to stay if you didn't have a farm to stay.

Palma Hanson Hove: No, no.

As soon as, say, were old enough, all.

Of us, we, we.

Sort of left and.

And was on our own, which we had to do, but we think that along fine.

Sam Schrager: Did you say that that there was a real difference between, in his feeling about the men working out or the boys and and his daughters working out?

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, yeah. Well, he never would let us girls go further away from home than most glory. Let the boys say, you know, they sort of went out on their own and. But he wasn't he wasn't a stern father. My father was very gentle, but he was very.

Very careful about where his girls were. So we never got very far from home.

Sam Schrager: Was that do you think that was the attitude that most of the grown ups had?

Palma Hanson Hove: Seems seems that way? It seemed like most of them stayed at home or close to home anyway, and so I, I think.

In those days, you know, they were very worldly, I guess you'd call it.

Sam Schrager: How about outdoor work? Did you mind if you did outdoor?

Palma Hanson Hove: No, we didn't have to work outside. No, you never had to work out. Said we'd pick potatoes. You know, in the potato harvest. But that was the extent of our. I never learned to milk a cow in my life, so I really wasn't that good. A farmer's wife. But we, Well, well, one reason, there wasn't that much to do.

And the neighbors helped each other, so really, we didn't have to. When there was haying the neighbors, they exchanged work, you know.

And and, that way we didn't we.

Didn't have to do the same. And I don't think it would have led us anyway, because I didn't think it was.

The girls were. So it just.

Sam Schrager: It's so different than the way people think nowadays.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yes.

Sam Schrager: It very interesting when.

Palma Hanson Hove: It, it was different too, because now, you know, the girls ride trucks and they drive tractors and not that too many worked out I don't think on I guess can harvest any.

But it's a.

Different certainly a different generation.

Sam Schrager: Why do you know why they felt that way about about girls then why they shouldn't do that. Well, men could do.

Palma Hanson Hove: Well. I think the thing of it was that.

They didn't have that much.

Land.

But what the neighbors could help each other and, the girls didn't.

Have to go out and work.

Now, I know of some that, live further out, you know, in a bigger community, let's say. And I know that they had to get out and work and haying and and even shop grain and things like that, but.

Not in our community that in.

That I remember that.

At all.

Sam Schrager: Did he mind you going into town, into Genesee.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh. When were. Oh of course when you got older, you know.

So we were 16, 17 and then we got to go places.

That and when we were little, we hardly ever went to town. I remember one 4th of July, we were going to.

Go to town then. And so my father gave us each a nickel, which was big, you know, and we were so taken. My younger sister, she was lying on the bed, you know, and laughing and talking.

About going to town. And much fun was going to be buried. Dig her up and swallowed it. And I remember she cried for an hour. So finally my dad said, well, he'd give her another nickel, but this. Sure, I got.

Tell it, it wasn't like handing him a $5 bill like they do nowadays to go someplace. And then we sure didn't have much money, but we had a good time. It's a good life.

Sam Schrager: What did your mother do? Well, what were her tasks at the work that she had to do?

Palma Hanson Hove: Well.

You can imagine. Was that many children? My mother was a very good seamstress. So she made all her dresses.

And and, carded well and.

Knitted our stockings and.

And she,

She didn't do much out of work either. Only help. No, because she didn't do that. But that was relaxation for.

Get out of the house.

They all our own bread and.

Well, you know.

Of course, when I started, after I was married to, I did the churning and bread baking and all that, you know, but we learned.

All that from home. So it wasn't hard. But they,

They seem to have time to visit friends and.

They weren't, I don't think as particular.

With their houses as they are nowadays. Maybe. And then I can see my mother down on her hands and knees, scrubbing.

Those bare floors till they were just white, you know, the scrub brush and so they.

Sam Schrager: They weren't as particular, you mean?

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, I mean,

Sam Schrager: In a certain place or something.

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, well, it was orderly, too. Well, I just.

Meant that the their houses weren't that nice, that you had to really keep them up like you do nowadays. You know, if you have a real nice house and don't keep it up, it can be look terrible. But in those days, everybody, they.

They washed and ironed and then, you know, did.

Just like we do nowadays. Only they did it the hard way.

I'm sure you had the heat on the stove and all this and that.

Sam Schrager: When did they have time for visiting?

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, you always had time in the afternoon. Take your kids and go to the neighbors and visit them. They did it to help each other fix.

Gooseberries or pick cherries or.

Something that were always working, or they always took the handwork along. If they weren't doing something.

Oh no, they couldn't be idle, you know, with their fingers.

I don't think I ever saw my mother sit down for five minutes without doing something with her hands. Even up to the time she passed away always did something.

Knitting, crocheting, embroidering, patching. And yeah, they they were busy people, that's for sure.

Sam Schrager: The band in the crew, were they all local people from there or.

Palma Hanson Hove: No. No, not not all with, the transients.

Used to come into Genesee, for the harvest because they paid pretty good money, you know, for.

Men in the harvest field. And, if you needed a man, you'd just go into town and they'd be sitting on a bench there in front of the pool hall or.

Someplace, and and they would hire them to come out. But a lot of them were local people. Of course, a great many of them were. But there were a lot of tensions to.

See for sewing sacks. They almost had to know that was kind of a trade.

And, because.

You had to.

Work fast.

And of course, running a steam engine, too, you had to know what.

You were doing.

And also a thrash machine,

What they call their machine man. So they had to be.

Kind of special. And they got special wages, too. But as far as driving them, the wagons, you know, with the shocks and things like that, with most any kid could do that and pitch bundles.

So and it, it was quite.

A thing when they.

Started with their, headers. Then they ran the headers, you know, and run the, the grain into that and then the combines. Of course, that was the next step.

So it,

I was so sorry. I had a picture of them, our thrashing crew and picture of us girls standing in the doorway. And what ever became of that? I think I burned it when I left Clarkston.

I had so.

Much stuff that I couldn't move everything, you know, and I think I just.

Said, well, that's an old thing. I don't care for that anymore. Now I'd get my teeth for it.

Sam Schrager: I to ask you, when they moved for the wagon, the cookhouse, did you have a hard time keeping everything in place?

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, you had to, you had to tie everything down the dishes. You, you know, you had cupboards for the dishes, and you just had to wire the cupboard door shut so they wouldn't fall out. And, you couldn't cook or anything while you're removing and, you know, like, if you wanted to cook a roast so you'd have it for your supper that night, you couldn't do it because you couldn't keep the fire going when you were moving.

So, oh, yes. We had to pack everything off the table, you know, so it didn't shake off. So that was another added chore we had to do.

Sam Schrager: And men have told me that, that it was a great time of the year because they all had a chance to socialize and, well, the crew.

Palma Hanson Hove: And it wasn't. Oh, yeah, up there.

Sam Schrager: We feel that it was true.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Sam Schrager: I feel like you've been too busy. You have to take much pleasure in the in the conversation in the company, but maybe.

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, of course, so often, when we would, come to a farm, you know, they always visited the cooks in the cookhouse. So we had company quite a bit at the time, you know, just just for the afternoon. And a lot of times we would ask the lady to probably come and eat dinner with us or something if her man was.

Working with the crew and so, it wasn't lonesome at all. And that, it's really quite an experience.

Sam Schrager: I suppose you you would have gotten to see quite a few places that way.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, yeah.

Sam Schrager: Of course, of the season. Yeah.

Palma Hanson Hove: You see that always start way down on the rim, what they call the rimrock because, crops were much earlier there. So they sort of, started down there and then they would follow up till they got up into the valley or whatever, wherever they wanted them to thrash. Nunca wasn't the only one that I had a threshing outfit, but he sure got over an awful.

Lot of ground. And, it went on for weeks and weeks.

And then, of course, if there was a rain, well, then they'd have to stop. And that was always a horrible thing because, they'd have to stop and they'd have to feed the horses and everything. So it was kind of tough on the.

Farmer.

You know, there came a rain, but, and we'd have to feed the man.

Because a lot of them couldn't go home. So it was, it had a, you know.

Had its drawbacks.

But all in all, it was they took it as.

Something they sort of expected.

Sam Schrager: Did he have, your uncle, did he arrange with the the order of the thrashing? Well, in advance of the time, he.

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, they would they would come to him and, you know, see if he could come at a certain time.

And,

And usually then, like I say, we'd start way down on the rim, which is way down below Genesee, you know.

And, just work ourself up towards.

That's the grain ripened.

Way. And a lot of times.

You'd have to go back to the same place again, too, because the grain wouldn't all be ripe at one time, you know, so you'd have to backtrack.

Again. But that was just.

Part of being a Thrasher.

Man. I guess,

Sam Schrager: Well, what did you think of these? People, like, who came just drifted into the area and and out again. Were they very different?

Palma Hanson Hove: Kind of. No, no, they, they were people.

Mostly, you know, people or a single man that, probably sort of followed something like the migrant workers, maybe because, you know, the harvest probably would be over with down in the Pomeroy country and, and around in there. And then they'd.

Sort of follow.

Follow the harvest, you might say.

And,

Maybe they'd get in 30 or 40 days of harvest work, which it paid real well, you know, but they didn't have cars or anything. So how they got from one place to the other, I don't know, but probably, probably walked, I don't know.

Sam Schrager: Maybe copped a freight train.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah. Could be because trains came into Genesee at that time too.

You know. But they, they did they, they more or.

Less followed the.

Harvest like,

The migrant workers now and berries and.

And, well, all the.

Things that they race nowadays, they don't nowadays because they had their combines. And, you know, one man can almost combine, feel all by himself, his, his wife.

Or by the truck where they can do the whole harvest themself. And those days it would take all these men, men.

To get your harvesting done. So it just goes to show, you know, what progress there has been in the last 40, 50 years.

Sam Schrager: When would the harvest start?

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, it would depend on I think.

And I think.

Lots of times it started and,

Oh, probably even the last of July. And then.

Usually it was through August.

And.

Probably all of September. And it would depend on the weather, you know, if we had rain, it would take longer, because I know the year that, my husband and I were married, he was still working with a threshing outfit and, had to lay off to get married because of the rain. So he just quit. He was driving a bundle wagon, I guess, or something.

And that was, 10th of October.

So it would drag out.

Way up until October sometime late rain, you know, but, I think.

Most of the time they were through in September, not before school started by any means, but that didn't seem to make any difference at that time because they.

Hired everything down anyway.

Now they need their kids at home, you know, through harvest.

Sam Schrager: I'm just going to ask you about the, migrant fellows. Did you see the same ones come back the next year?

Palma Hanson Hove: Sometimes they would and sometimes not.

But I know, and.

Often that would be the same ones would come back and work for.

My uncle.

If they didn't live way off someplace, you.

Know, or. But, as a rule, they, they.

Probably were different people that came in. You know, how people are when they're kind of drifters. They just go all over the country. They don't come back to the same place very often.

But there there was always.

Men together anyway. It isn't like it is now. You can hardly get a man that will go out on a farm.

And work, you know. But.

Those days they didn't know anything else. They didn't have as much education.

As they do now. And.

Not so many different jobs.

Sam Schrager: How did you meet your husband?

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, I guess I always knew it. Maybe, I don't know. We only lived. That's five miles apart.

I suppose probably at a dance or something. I really can't remember when I first met him.

Because the folks knew his folks too. And that we didn't socialize because, like I said, at that time, they belonged to the upper.

Church, and we belong to the lower when it was that at that time.

But by the time we got married, what the churches had merged.

That he was just a farm boy and my father thought he was all right. He was a farm boy.

The,

Sam Schrager: Your father liked the farm boys better than.

Palma Hanson Hove: Town. Oh, yeah. He trusted the farm boys and they had kind.

Of funny ideas in those days about.

The boys in town. They call him sports.

We used to laugh.

Sam Schrager: They did? They dress differently and act differently to the boys.

Palma Hanson Hove: On the farm. Well, I.

I suppose so. You know, if you lived in town, you really didn't have very much to do. And then they didn't know how to work on a farm or anything.

And so he kind of thought they couldn't be very much good if they didn't work, know how to work on a farm. Then, my husband sure knew how to work on the farm. You worked in the fields from the time he was 12 years old. They had a big family, too. They had as many children as I folks did.

And I was eight. Maybe. So they all had to work.

Sam Schrager: And he planned on going right on and being a farmer.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, yes.

Yeah. We rented the house, the.

The farm that Fred lived on. His father bought that farm. So, we farmed it, and we lived there 25 years.

And then we moved to try and bought our own farm. After 25 years of work.

We lived there nine years, and then we.

Moved to Clarks.

To my husband died.

Then I moved back up here.

Sam Schrager: How much land did, he rent to.

Palma Hanson Hove: Pay for it? And my husband.

We had, 160 acres again.

And then we bought 160 acres up. I try, but part of that was Timberland.

But we didn't.

Do anything about the timber. We let people come out there and chop wood and haul it off. They wanted it for nothing. What? We didn't. Oh, he chop, you know, some.

For our own use, but we didn't use that much wood.

At that time. You know, we had electricity in.

Although we didn't have an electric stove. Well, we lived on the farm at.

Troy.

Because we did have wood. So we that.

We burned wood in our, kitchen stove.

And I still say that, the kitchen stores were the best. I mean, the wood burning stoves, I could make the best bread and things.

Sam Schrager: What do you think made him better than the electric?

Palma Hanson Hove: I don't know, but maybe it was just.

An idea, but, boy, it seemed to me like I never could bake. Bread is good. And then, like, we had stoves, had it in that wood stove. And I've heard other people say that, too.

But I thought it was about it. I don't know.

Sam Schrager: When did you move to Troy?

Palma Hanson Hove: About when and, 1940. We moved up there and, our oldest daughter, the one that lives here now, she was going to, school. She went to university, and then she went to normal because she wanted to get to work a little quicker. So she took a course in teaching, and, then she taught the home school out there.

Troy.

But they called Miller Trestle.

And she stayed home then for two.

Years and, taught school up there.

Sam Schrager: Well, I want to ask you a little about the the church, when you were young. Now, I don't remember if I asked you if you knew why. The reason was that they had two different churches or what people said was the reason they had two churches.

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, it was because they were belong to different seminars and their teachings were just exactly alike, which was just so little difference that that you know, in those days, they were so strict about their church and everything that neither side would give in until they got a minister that was real broad minded. And he said, well, there is just no sense in two churches standing side by side.

And I think it tells. And in that book, who it was that was a minister at the time.

Of the merger.

Sam Schrager: How close together were these churches?

Palma Hanson Hove: Half a mile, just half a mile apart.

In fact, the one above was right close to where John Hagan lives now. I think maybe he's. Well, no, he is on the on the church land. But it was right, right. Closed there anyway. And then the other one.

Sam Schrager: Do you have any idea what what the differences are or what some differences might be between the sinners and no.

Palma Hanson Hove: But I think if you read that book, it'll tell you I can I can tell you right.

Off because.

I can't remember. But I know it wasn't much.

So, it was just a matter of, I said stubbornness, mostly with, with the older people. And then, of course, as the younger people grew up with them, they could see that, no, it was no sense to anything like.

That, you know. So they finally got together.

Sam Schrager: Do you think that it divided the community over the year?

Palma Hanson Hove:

Sam Schrager: Depending on which church?

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah, it really did to a certain extent. You really associated with the people of Blanqui or church.

Rather than mingle with those above. And a lot of people lived above the upper church to come down to our church. Thing.

So I really.

Sam Schrager: Well, this is historical.

Palma Hanson Hove: Well too.

And to a certain extent.

But I mean.

It wouldn't be of importance to anybody.

Sam Schrager: Well, I don't think I don't need to.

Palma Hanson Hove: Because myself.

Sam Schrager: The facts that are, that are in already recorded, that's, that's the kind of history that no person is going to be able to tell you as well as the records. But when you get a feeling for how people lived and the social, the social life, social history.

Palma Hanson Hove: Is, is.

Sam Schrager: Different. And what happened to one person's life, what happened to many?

Palma Hanson Hove: And. Well, yeah, that's true. That's true.

Sam Schrager: But we were just saying that the, the you said people also people went from above to, above the church to.

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, I mean, yeah, people that belong to the let me call the upper church. And we were the lower.

Church.

That there was a lot of people that belonged to the upper church. So we'd go right by our church to go up there to theirs. And the same there was a lot of people that lived in Blaine at that time that came down to our church, although Blaine at that time had a methodist church and it was a methodist community, but that's been long gone.

In fact, it I must have been quite young. I must have been probably 15, 16 years old when that church was discontinued.

Sam Schrager: When you were about, that age when the two churches combined, weren't you? Wasn't it?

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah, I was, I was the first one that was confirmed. And the new church after they. Yeah. Merged.

Sam Schrager: Do you remember how it was? They merged. Did they, did they build a new.

Palma Hanson Hove: They built a new church. And they sold, their old church up there. And, and I think that they must have sold, no, they didn't sell the parsonage up there because we had a minister lived there. Way after I was married, there was a minister that came and had a big family, and they lived out there in the country, and that that old square building is still there.

You know, it's old windows all knocked out and everything. But that used to be the old parsonage that belonged to the upper church. And then we had a building right back of our church that was a parsonage, and my uncle and aunt that lived up in the timber that had the homestead they bought that after the churches merged and they lived there.

And he was janitor.

Of the church for many years.

Sam Schrager: Or what? Where did they decide to put the new church compared to where the other two.

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, I guess, any kind of the cemetery, they decided to build it there, and it seemed to be the logical place for distance.

For people who belonged in.

Sort of more central. But I think it was most down to the cemetery.

Sam Schrager: Do you think the men would have would would I try to imagine how you could have this community in two different churches? I'm wondering, was religion, a topic of real debate among the.

Palma Hanson Hove: I think it.

Was among the elders of the church. And boy, in those days, they if they were an elder in the church now, they just did not told you what to do and what not to do. And of course, the ministers the same. They had their belief, you know, and and they weren't going to budge either. So it it.

Was a strange thing. We've often wondered how in the world they could do such a thing as to build two churches that close together and, and still be Lutheran churches.

That that's the way it was.

Sam Schrager: And when you were, when you were kids, did you wonder about that?

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, well, I don't think.

We did so much until we got.

Older and.

We just took it for granted, you.

Know? But, cursed with.

Friendly with some of the people in the other.

Churches. Sure. But they certainly weren't.

It wasn't like after they merged and you.

Were just one church.

Sam Schrager: When you were young. What what role did the church have in your life when you were younger?

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, just about the same as, as now, you know, it.

We had our societies and our young people's gatherings and Sunday schools and parochial school.

We always went to parochial school in the summertime at about two weeks of that.

And, and, I would.

I don't know.

It seemed to me like it wasn't too much different than it is now.

See, everything now.

Is on some.

Bigger scale and so much more organized. I guess you'd call it.

That they're the pioneers. They did pretty good, though.

Boy, I tell you, they helped pay the preacher salary too. It wasn't for the ladies aid. They wouldn't have had much because people didn't have money. And you paid the preacher any way you could with potatoes or meter eggs.

Or they were glad to get that.

Even.

Sam Schrager: How did the lady's aid do work on that?

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, we had, we worked, you know, sewing and making things. And then every year they had, what they call an auction sale, and they sold their, their goods, you know, that was for the public. And, and, they made quite a bit of money and but.

That all went up. Almost all of it went to pay the preacher.

Because, well, people.

Just didn't have the money. That's all there is to it.

And it's,

The organist was paid just probably on holidays when they'd have a special offering. I remember they had the baptismal table right by the organ, and you.

Put your.

Cents on and it was only cents. Two, it wasn't dollars or anything. So if an organist got $25.

He or she was well paid. So now you know what they pay him. So, you know, that's just the way the times were.

And they thought nothing of it because they didn't know any different.

Sam Schrager: What were the activities mostly that you did in the church? Was it it has a kid. Do they have a lot of Bible study? Is that the.

Palma Hanson Hove: No, we didn't have anything like that. We just had, our Sunday school and, two weeks of parochial school during the summer. And that was the extent of.

Our.

Of our Bible studies.

Sam Schrager: What was the parochial school like?

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, it would be, like a Vacation Bible school they had and all the churches. Now, you know, and we studied our catechism and Bible history.

We got quite a bit out of that, of course.

But boy, when, when you went to confirmation in those days, you learned every blessed word in that book by heart. And the day of your confirmation, you probably were asked 50 questions out of that book, and you were supposed to know every one of them. So we were drilled the leave. You mean. But nowadays they don't do it that way at all.

They don't even quiz them on confirmation day. They have a little quiz, I think probably a week before in the evening or something. But, they're thorough. I mean, they take.

Notes and they have to.

But we just had to memorize. There was no such thing as taking notes and on asking you about this and that you memorized that.

Sam Schrager: Was in Norwegian.

Palma Hanson Hove: And I was.

The rest of my family, weren't I? The rest of the kids were in English, but at that time they didn't have English in the church. Even. But then after they merged, then they had English services all the time. For a while I believe they had Norwegian one Sunday and probably English three Sundays, because some of those old timers didn't understand English and.

They hadn't learned it.

So for their sake they had one service.

A month and then we didn't language.

Sam Schrager: But it was when they merged that they started using it.

Palma Hanson Hove: Then,

After that, then.

So there was.

Many steps to be taken.

Before they got where they.

Are today.

Sam Schrager: Do you remember your confirmation?

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, very well.

There were just one boy that's. And I and I know they teased us. They said that it looked just like a wedding.

We sat up there in front.

And I was so embarrassed.

Oh. So sometimes I think a lot of the fat boy.

Is still living too. He lives in California.

Sam Schrager: Yeah. So what what were you calling on to do then? At the.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, we had to,

Stand up in front of the church, congregation.

And the minister would ask.

Us questions out of our catechism, and we had to we had answered.

And I did. I never missed a one.

The boy missed 1 or 2 questions, I believe, and that was that. Oh, if it had all stayed with me, I'd be pretty smart today. But I'm afraid I didn't. She.

Sam Schrager: Was there much social, social life in the church? Was that more in the school?

Palma Hanson Hove: Well.

The men didn't have any organizations in the church, but, the ladies were real active, and they had they had big dinners. We had those Norwegian lutefisk dinners down there, you know, in that little tiny parish hall, honestly, had served 3 or 400 people, you know, they'd just have to stand outside and take their turn to come in and eat.

I don't know how we did all those things in those days.

Sam Schrager: What would be the occasion for a live fish?

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, to make money for the church. You know, who built the new church have as many things to be. But you know.

They had to, carpet some hardware and just a lot of things.

And if they depended on the.

Ladies to furnish most of that, which we did.

And that was one way of making money besides.

Yearly auctions that we had.

Sam Schrager: Was one woman, chosen to be the head of the.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah, they had put the color president and their vice president.

And.

Their.

Secretary and treasurer and all those things, and it was well.

Organized. And of course, young peoples, they had the same they had the organization.

That literally and they met,

I think they met just about every two weeks, if I remember. Right. Because, that is about all we had to go to in those days.

Sam Schrager: Would you have parties, have Luther Week or would they, would it be strictly religion?

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh no, no, no, we played games and oh yes, we served. You know, we took turns serving to the.

Young people and. Oh no, that.

Was a real recreation.

I had a good time.

Sam Schrager: With the party games like they played school.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you had to.

Make a lot of our own fun those.

Days, but not.

To get in a car and go to a movie or something like that.

You know, I don't.

Think I went to a movie till I was.

Probably 14 years old.

I'm sure we got to go to the circus once a year, but then we just got to see the parade, not the.

Circus.

But we thought that was a circus, you know, because they had such good parades those days. They just paraded all our animals and everything down Main Street in Moscow.

So when we.

Went to the.

Circus, why, we.

Thought we'd.

Seen it when we saw the parade, which was fine, because we probably wouldn't have been satisfied if we'd known that it did. Think about all those things, man. But the kids you get to do.

And see nowadays.

But I really think we were more satisfied than they are now, because.

Like I said, we didn't.

Know any different.

Sam Schrager: So did school have, much of a much activity, social activity going along when there was most of that around? It was the social life. Well, the church.

Palma Hanson Hove: We had what they call them, had no real. Do they call that.

Something they had in the school?

Sam Schrager: Are you thinking literary and debate?

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah. Literary society. I think they called.

It.

Because I wasn't one, when I was real young. That was after.

A few years.

And, and they used to schoolhouses then to, for.

A lot of, parties like.

Later we, had clubs, we had a club in our, in the Valley that called the Bluebird Club. And we used to put on plays and, and the entertainment and the school houses for our families. And that was fun. Showed what talent we had.

So. We weren't so particular then. Whether we knew.

Our lines so well, you know, or anything. But but we had a lot of fun and and then they sometimes had.

Dances in the school houses and.

Sam Schrager: Was it all right for it for you to dance.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. We danced because our church didn't believe in it then. Oh my. You danced where? That was a terrible thing, but we did anyway. We went to country dances and things.

But I always think about those poor teachers that had all those kids and try to cram in eight grades in the six hours of work. I tell you, they they really had something to do. My sister taught and that, schoolhouse down there and Coal Creek and, I think she had.

I think she had 35.

Pupils and all eight grades that they.

They seemed to get through. And that and those days you had to have what they, call the county exam, you know, for your age to get through your eighth grade. And even after we moved up to Troy, when my daughter taught up there.

Troy, she.

Had eighth graders. And, they had to have the county exam, and they said that her two pupils and one of them happened to be my youngest.

Daughter, too.

They had the highest grades of any,

County kid, you know, that had taken the exam. But I think that was the last.

Year that they had that, and then they'd finally quit with it. But that was in the country school, not in the town. So they didn't have to take those.

Sam Schrager: Did you find the school to be a place where you learned a lot?

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh yeah, I think we did. But you

You had to depend on yourself. Enough luck as a teacher. Couldn't help you too much. But I think that's all right. I think that they do that nowadays too. It's not up to you.

If you want to learn why.

You learn. And if you don't.

Why you just don't.

Because even now they have so many pupils that they don't get too much individual attention. I don't think.

Sam Schrager: I think we school the same kind of life as it is now. As far as being most of the year, was it? Sure?

Palma Hanson Hove: No. We had our.

I think maybe, it might have been only eight months at the time that I went to school, but after I was married and had children, when it was out with nine month.

School and.

But then of course, the families were smaller then and they didn't have so many in that county school. My goodness, I don't know how many Elaine had out there tried.

She might.

Have had 25.

Though. But,

I don't know just any more than that.

Sam Schrager: What did you see winters like when you were cold?

Palma Hanson Hove: Snowy?

My, how were you waded through the snow.

And just some.

Winters seem to be harder than than they are now. Or maybe it was just because we didn't have heated houses and things like they do now. But it was awfully cold. I know we used to wait through the snow to get to school, because we didn't have very far to go, and we had three fourths of a mile, which wasn't.

Far, but it it was.

Kind of tough going. You.

But we made it.

But I don't know.

It seemed like we had four seasons at that time. We don't have that anymore. I remember we had early spring and February and March. They'd be out in the fields.

And I think the.

Seasons have changed.

An awful lot. Now we have two winter and summer. So but then that.

I don't know what causes that.

I'm sure.

That is, I remember we had four seasons and they were.

They were long falls and the winters weren't so long that they were cold.

Sam Schrager: Really. Spring would begin and, I.

Palma Hanson Hove: Think began to get nice in February. March was real nice.

Sam Schrager: That would be nice. I'd like to have.

Palma Hanson Hove: I would do, but I, like I say, the last.

Few years, I know since I moved to Moscow, it's just been from summer, right into winter and winter.

To summer.

Sam Schrager: And you said you knew Jake Rosen. What was he like?

Palma Hanson Hove: His little, short, bald headed fellow. Kind of a red mustache. And you, the typical Jew?

Yeah, I remember him real well. And his wife was. Oh, she was just like a little princess. Little doll, you.

Know, and dark.

And I can see her.

Sitting behind that counter, measuring.

Up goods. You know.

She had kind of a stool. She's,

And she was real cute.

Sam Schrager: With a typical Jew. What do you mean? She had a good business sense.

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, yes. And then they talked. You know, their language was like, you hear the Jew, they pretend like they're talking like Jewish people, but they have a different, kind of a different brogue in a way that they did at that time. I mean, the old Jews, because the young Jews, you can tell them from.

Yeah, there's but then they were. And they were quite proud people. You know, those Jewish people were she was, I can see her. Yeah. She was always dressed so pretty in that girl that was dressed.

Sometimes they went through high school, and you ever.

See, I think. Oh, that girl did. She had three.

Sam Schrager: The girls. You knew the.

Palma Hanson Hove: Girls? Oh, yeah. And I knew their son, too. Max.

Sam Schrager: Were they pretty much like anybody else in the community?

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, yeah.

Yeah, they were. Yeah, they.

I wasn't, you know, we lived in the country, so I didn't know them well, but I knew who they were through the store. But I didn't go to school with him or anything.

Sam Schrager: Did he do much in business?

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, yeah. He had a big business there.

You bet. I don't know why they left Genesee. Probably.

Probably the. I think there was some other Jewish people there too. And maybe when they left, they left too.

I don't know, but they went to California.

Except the son. He stayed in.

Spokane. He had a.

Business up there. Their son was married to a real good friend of mine. In fact, she was our closest neighbor when we were kids growing up together.

She just passed away here just a short time ago, but his.

Family never accepted.

Her.

Too. She was a Gentile.

Which was kind of sad. You know?

Unknown: Not that they.

Sam Schrager: Did you know many of the Indians who lived in. They were part Indians who lived in the country?

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, yeah, I know, yes.

I did, I know.

Oh, not too many that, I knew some.

My uncle.

Had, farm down on the Rimrock and it was right amongst the Indians. And we used to go down there and, visit him, and some of the people would come, but they were mostly half.

Half breeds that, we knew.

But they were just like anybody else. And never, ever.

Sam Schrager: Did that intermarriage come about because they, because of the allotment of the reservation. I thought that they they gave land to a certain amount of land to each Indian.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah.

Yes, I did. Well, yes, I suppose so. You know, the Girl Scout as well as the boys and.

I know of.

Or 2 or 3.

White men that married, full blooded Indians. And I went to school with the.

Girl that her father was white and her mother was full blooded.

But I suppose probably that's how it come about.

Some are more quarter breeds, and.

They were good looking people.

Oh, no. It so long ago.

Some of those that I've even forgotten them.

And you get.

Sam Schrager: Shivery when you got married.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh you bet. Yeah.

On our 25th anniversary too.

Year you began.

That is that. We had that up at try it. Well, they had the party for us down in the valley.

But, we lived up at Troy at.

That time.

And.

That evening this year, readers.

Again. Oh, yes. You that that was.

The thing to do. You know, in those.

Days.

And you had to treat them.

To whatever you had.

Away from a lot of those. Oh, customs.

Sam Schrager: That one seems like a nice one to me.

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, it it was a lot of fun.

Sam Schrager: Sure, but the whole community turned out for chivalry. Or would just be the old, rowdy young kids, you know?

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, no. No, it would be the married couples.

Kids. I don't think the kids really.

Went that much.

I think it was mostly the married folks that when.

Sam Schrager: Did they have to make a lot of noise under your window?

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, yes. There. Bang. And they shoot up in there and they had to carry their tin cans and pound and yell and all.

The,

But everybody was prepared because they knew it was coming, you know, because they did it to everyone. They got married until they went out of style. I don't remember.

Sam Schrager: When you supposed to wait a while before letting him in. Was that part of the deal?

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, they they got to.

Pound it out of their system, and then.

You had to open the door and let him come in, and then maybe the dance or just visit visitor and do something.

Sam Schrager: Is this supposed to be the same day you got married?

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah.

Usually. Or if you went away right away we went away right after we were married and then they shared with us and when we got back.

That they'd get you sooner or later.

This is part of the fun.

Sam Schrager: We did many people plant by the signs down, down. But.

Palma Hanson Hove: My father always planned a potatoes, but, I don't know. It was the dark of the moon or the light of the moon, but it was something you needed. Dark, I suppose so I. I've forgotten now I remember. And the corn the same way I. He always went for the alma. He was great to read the World.

Almanac, you know.

And kind of went by that all that tell you different parts of the country, which would be the best time for seeding and so on and so forth.

Oh yeah. There I think they pretty.

Much went by the sign of when they should plant, especially potatoes and corn. I don't remember the other vegetables too much. I don't think that they made any difference. You planted those from the.

Ground as warm, I guess.

Sam Schrager: Were there stories from the old country that, that that you kids used to get home by?

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, yeah. Yeah, my.

Grandmother used to tell us.

Stories from the country about the nice ness. And she called him this little, little folks. They called him. I don't know whether there was any truth to them. No, it's that it was.

But I don't think so.

Sam Schrager: Probably just old. Old story.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah. I think there were just,

Folk stories.

Sam Schrager: You remember, with a little.

Palma Hanson Hove: O them.

They always came out at night, you know, they'd steal things and so.

Oh, I don't remember all the things she told me now, but.

Anyway, I remember it was they called in the little people or than this.

That's what they were called.

Are the trolls too, you know, they usually were under bridges and he didn't dare to cross the bridge because the troll might get you.

There were just fairy tales. Thank you.

Sam Schrager: She was Norwegian.

Palma Hanson Hove: She was born in Norway. Yeah, my mother was.

Too. Oh, yes, she.

I think she kind of believed in her, I remember. Right.

Sam Schrager: Well, it doesn't surprise me. This is where those kinds of stories were so widely known that.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah, they they really were,

But I don't remember anything in particular.

That, as she told me, only just what we could start with. Fairy tales, of course.

Sam Schrager: Were there proverbs that they taught you.

Palma Hanson Hove: Know.

Sam Schrager: What I mean? Like, haste makes waste and, saves time. Those of you.

Palma Hanson Hove: Where. Yeah, yeah. No, I don't think so.

I really don't think so. Because,

It's been many, many, many, many years ago since we were at the cemetery the other day. And I was going to remember when my grandfather and grandmother died. But I understand that seemed to be in the early 1800s. No no no no, no, I don't mean that really.

19 and the first part of the 1900, yeah.

I think my grandfather died probably in 1901.

Sam Schrager:

Palma Hanson Hove: No.

He must have been older. It must have been later than that, because I think I was.

About, I think I was about 8 or 9 when he died.

I really don't remember. But anyway, I.

Was going to write it down then I didn't.

Sam Schrager: That 1893.

Palma Hanson Hove: The wet year. Which year? Yeah. Well, I guess that was the year I was born. So all I remember is what I was told.

That nobody saved their crops that year.

And it was just.

Almost starvation for a lot of.

People because the crops were.

Absolutely gone. It rained and rained and rained and rained and they just didn't save anything. And I don't know how my folks get along that year, but I suppose, I suppose that, you know, in those days they would give you credit at the story as they knew you were honest. They would give you credit so you could get necessary.

Groceries and then.

Hold you over till the next year. And then you paid when.

You sold your crop the next year. And and so I suppose maybe that's.

That's what they did.

Sam Schrager: Most people would say.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh yeah.

Yeah. That was all through the country that.

Year.

Mr. Drouth or not the drought.

But the wet year and I didn't save, I.

Don't think they said that it even wasn't

Hog feed. It was so badly.

Well started to decay you know and.

And mold so the animals wouldn't even need it.

Sam Schrager: I wonder if that caused many people to leave. They give up on their place. Well.

Palma Hanson Hove: I think they more or less stuck it through, though.

There were a.

Few, you see that, that could take it could stand the loss that it had probably had more land and had little money to.

And, I know my father.

Used to borrow money from, Jake Cambridge. There. Still some of that Cambridge just living out there and. Oh, Jake, he would like to have money. Real low interest. And he helped out a lot of people. But I think he must have had money when he came here because they had a lot of land and they always called him the banker that I know.

He, he let my father have money many times because he knew he had paid by when he could. And I think that he got some money from him that year. So tried to silver, you know.

Sam Schrager: Probably a lot of people might have depended on the few people that did have some, I think.

Palma Hanson Hove: I think they must have. And, I guess maybe too, that, maybe they got a job someplace.

I can't remember whether my father ever went away from home and worked or not. But,

He might have been, because I was just a little baby then. I don't remember what they ever told me or not. And now I wish that I had asked more about my, grandparents and my, you know, descendants way back.

Never thought about it.

Sam Schrager: I know just how it is, because it's the same way with me.

Palma Hanson Hove: I just don't.

Sam Schrager: I.

Palma Hanson Hove: Just don't think.

About it at the time. And now, you know, I just now I have a friend that lives in.

Parks, and she's 95 years old.

And, she was pretty smart. She was a schoolteacher, though, and she said that they moved off the farm like she told her mother and father that they should sit down. And she took notes and tell everything that they remembered as far back as they could remember, which they did. And, you know, she.

Wrote,

Pioneer history after she was 70 years old, took her a long time to write it, probably ten years, but it's in the archives over Poland in a book form.

Sam Schrager: What's your name, Miss Taylor?

Palma Hanson Hove: Phoebe Bloom.

Taylor. And she really. In fact, I have for Pioneer history that she gave me that at. That's all about her folks, her family and on everything. So and, but it was a lot of the things in there about, how the pioneers lived and, and everything in that is really a pioneer of it. Then, of course, that that's over in the Pullman area again, Colfax and so on.

Sam Schrager: Well, how do you think that the people got by? The pioneers lived in, in around Genesee and what you've been told about it, was it do you think it was.

Palma Hanson Hove: Well,

For one thing, you said things didn't cost so much those days. You could buy a yard of calico for a nickel a yard. And it it took very little, to make clothes for your kids and, food and, bread, because we never bought bread. But if you did buy that, it was a nickel a loaf. Butter.

Probably for $0.25 a pound. And, you didn't get too much. But if you had a little bit to sell, you could get a lot for what you raised. You know? I mean, it would.

Buy a lot.

Of course. And, of course, they went through all these tough years again to like, in 32.

Wasn't it, when they had, you know, really, I don't know what you called,

Recession or, depression, depression or whatever, but and then we, of course, went down to $0.31 a bushel.

Sam Schrager: Do you think that most people.

Palma Hanson Hove: But they survived those things, you just simply did without and you ate what you raised on the farm. That's all.

Sam Schrager: What kind of food did you have mostly when.

Palma Hanson Hove: You were young. Well, we had

We raised hogs, we had.

Pork and and a lot of potatoes. My father was a potato farmer. We had a lot of potatoes, and.

We always had milk and cream.

And butter and and fruit and vegetables. And, you know, that's about all you need.

Besides buying flour. And then you could take wheat in and get it.

Round for flour because they had a mill.

Where you could get that done. So really you didn't have to buy.

Much more than sugar and coffee and a few staples like that. But they got along with so little I like I say, or money, but so much more. So it just.

Seemed like I know we never went hungry.

Didn't have what we'd like to have a lot of times, but we never were hungry. And I don't think any people that we ever knew were hungry. So I think it was management with, women.

On their part. And and they conserved everything.

And you made your own.

So then you, well, you just plain.

Did everything that had to be done and made your own quilts.

Carded your own world to put it in. And then.

It was just like I say.

It's such a different way of life.

That you can't compare it.

At all with the way people do now. But, you know, they're kind of getting back to this old stuff, trying to learn some of those arts again.

So maybe it wasn't such a bad age at that.

And like it, of all was.

Said, we didn't know any.

Different. So we were happy with what we had. And with a few people that had more than others. But that's the road down in the valley. It was pretty much the same. Every place. You get along and what you had.

Sam Schrager: Do you think that by the time you came along, things had already improved a lot from what they'd been earlier?

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, I suppose the very first, pioneers, I'm sure, had it pretty rough. You know.

And yet, I.

Don't know whether it could have been much worse than it was when my folks started out either.

Sam Schrager: They really started from nothing.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah. They got in, Start from scratch like this. They, managed to get a team of horses and a couple of cows and a couple pigs, and from then on, you did what you could with them.

Sam Schrager: And I wanted to ask you about when you got married. What what it was like then. Did you have much to start with?

Palma Hanson Hove: You know.

We didn't, no. A his father.

Gave him a team of horses.

And, and, some old machinery and stuff, and we got.

And we got a new stove and two new beds.

And what else was there? Got new.

Some chairs, I guess.

And that was that. And then, we got some things from his folks that they weren't using at that time because they were pretty well to do at that time. And then my father gave us, two pigs. I can see him yet driving those pigs with a stick from his place right across the fence over to where we live.

And,

We started out with just practically nothing, but, he got to use his father's machinery, you see.

So.

We didn't have to buy a lot of stuff right away, and we didn't have a car, so we had been married. Oh, man. I suppose we've been married two years before.

We got a car. No, Model-t Ford. So it was a little tough when we got started doing that. But then at that time.

We had a little.

Backing, you see, because his father helped us.

But we paid.

Him rent just like.

Anybody else, you.

Know? Yeah. We got two thirds of the crop and he got a third.

So but we had.

Quite a scramble to get our kids through college to.

Sam Schrager: Yeah. You start, having kids.

Palma Hanson Hove: Sooner.

Well, our boy, our son was born about 13.

Months after we were married. And then then we didn't have this girl that lives here till five years later. And then a seven years later, we had our youngest daughter.

So,

We weren't burdened with a lot of little kids, you know, one right after the other. But we tried to give them an education.

And, because that's all we could afford to do.

And they helped them quite a bit. My son and, my oldest daughter, Elaine, here, they had a little band that they played, and they went to college. They played for dances and sort of made their spending money and, and,

Sam Schrager: Did you have many young married friends then?

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, yeah. There was quite a few.

Yeah, quite a few.

That's when after we got married, then, we began, you know, kind of organizing these little clubs in one thing and another for sociability and.

That had, we had a lot of good times, too. It wasn't all work, you know, no play.

Sam Schrager: Do you remember Smoltz very well.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh yes.

Yeah. Oh my is.

Good. You know.

That. No. Oh no.

Sam Schrager: What the place was like.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh this or this as we call it ice cream parlor. Yeah. Ed smiled. He was a jolly redheaded guy.

And, he.

Was a typical ice cream man. We called him. Oh, yeah. That was the only place in town that you could go in and sit down and have ice cream and stuff, you know, they didn't, and they were there for years and years and years. In fact, one of their daughters still lives in Genesee. His manager. Roach.

Them? Yeah. Roach the builder. That's one of the small girls.

Sam Schrager: With, the. Was it a big meeting place for the kids?

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, yeah, just something like, Oh. Any place, you know, where they gather now, like,

Well, for the young folks, not too much for folks, but.

It, it was.

Sort of the gathering place where they'd sit around a slide on the benches.

Like that. Father used to say.

I was thinking about that. That was the guys that used to center that small. So they sat there and slide on the benches. They don't do any.

There. And it's really funny. Yeah.

Like Genesee isn't much anymore. You know, they used to have quite a town there. They had 2 or 3 stores and.

Hardware store and drugstore and ice cream parlor, and.

I think they only had,

One pool.

Hall at that time in Genesee.

And it was it was really Clara. And they.

Had,

Herman's they had that store for,

For 50 years where they sold,

Furniture and stuff, you know, but now there's just nothing there anymore.

Sam Schrager: I was going to ask you how your family felt about prohibition. You remember when that came? Well, did away with the drinking?

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, you know, after I read too.

Much about that. Yeah, I remember at the time. But then the bootleggers came in unity.

I remember that. So they sold bootleg whiskey.

But I don't think it affected,

The Valley too much. Not that I remember anyway.

I don't know, as far as my.

Family were concerned, it.

Didn't. I don't know, it might have.

I guess it was.

A lot of people that bought bootleg whiskey that.

Well, my father never did.

Sam Schrager: Yeah. I always imagining that they would, and a lot of people were really glad to see it come because they thought that it would stop the drug.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah, I think that. Oh, yes, I think it was. Oh, you meant how people felt about it. Oh, yeah. I think.

That they were glad when it came.

In. But, they didn't like the bootleggers.

They had plenty of those around.

Sam Schrager: I don't think people thought that was what was going to happen after.

Palma Hanson Hove: They know what it is. No, I don't think so either. You know, it. But I guess it's something that followed, every place after that, it went out. I think that bootleggers just practiced every place. And the valley had its share of the two.

Sam Schrager: Do you know how your mother felt about boating? And she feels about that? She. Well,

Palma Hanson Hove: I really.

Don't. I don't remember that my mother ever voted.

I don't believe she did. If she did, why?

I can't remember it.

I don't think those days that they thought very much about. Oh, surely she must have. But it seems to me like that was always left to the men to do that. I might be mistaken.

I maybe she did.

Sam Schrager: Well, it had they didn't have the right to vote till was 1900.

Palma Hanson Hove: The women no.

Sam Schrager: I just wondered how if she.

Palma Hanson Hove: Well, I thought.

Sam Schrager: About women's rights and that.

Palma Hanson Hove: Kind of. No. Oh, I'm sure she was too busy with with her family to think of anything like that. And, you know, really, in those days, they didn't they didn't think too much about things like that. I remember we just got a paper from the East, and, that's only paper. I remember my father having was a Norwegian paper that was printed in South Dakota, and it came twice a week until, of course, after they Genesee, had a printing press and they kept the Genesee news.

But I don't remember. I don't think they ever had. That is not when I was little. Of course I did in the later years, of course. But, I remember that, that they had this paper that came.

From the East.

And it was in the Norwegian.

Language.

And it had sort.

Of a,

Extra little paper in there that was, serial stories in it. And I know my mother used to just wait for.

That paper to come see her story. It was coming. So they, That's all I can remember about them having any kind of a paper.

Sam Schrager: That would be, a romance or a melodrama.

Palma Hanson Hove: And it was.

A romance.

I'm sure. Yeah, it's a serial, because.

I never read it. Because I could read Norwegian at that time, but I can't.

Even read it anymore.

Sam Schrager: So are you saying that they really. That probably people weren't very interested in politics?

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah, that's what I mean, that, I don't think that they even thought too much about it because, what news we did get came in this eastern paper, and that was probably a week later. By the time they got it up here.

You know, because,

I don't know, I know that we never kept, Spokane paper. Her person didn't have a paper at that time.

I don't think.

Probably did, but I know we didn't have it.

So I don't I don't think that they.

The men talk politics. When they got together, there.

Was talk politics. I can remember that.

Sam Schrager: Politics. Come on. I think they figure.

Palma Hanson Hove: I suppose if they had run the country that be run.

Different at that time, you know, I'm sure that that was it. But the women never talked politics. Never.

Sam Schrager: What did they talk?

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, they talked about their sewing and their baking and their kids and. Just talked about the way they lived, I guess. And no, I'm sure politics was way, way out for them.

No.

Sam Schrager: Well, it's.

Palma Hanson Hove: It's like I say, it's been so long ago that I just.

Sam Schrager: You know, I think what you're saying, and I've heard something like that before, that that's the way it was.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah.

Sam Schrager: Politics and what?

Palma Hanson Hove: Women and men.

Sam Schrager: The one thing that I didn't ask you about, that I was meaning to ask you more about was, what you did when you were young. The long lines of just for enjoyment in your work and the sorts of things you occupied yourself with when you were just working.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh.

I don't know, I really.

Sam Schrager: Don't know what the time with.

Palma Hanson Hove: I guess we were busy helping, you know, our mother and.

But,

I don't remember that. We ever, we lived quite a musical family. We spent quite a bit of time there, singing and.

And.

We get sort of taught ourself, I guess, on the Oregon. And then we finally got a piano and.

The whole family sang. So we did a lot of that. I remember that,

Sam Schrager: Okay. Songs. What would they be?

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh.

No. And be the songs of the day, you know, we had I yes, we had phonographs. We'd get songs that way, I hear them, you know how you dance as they play some of their new songs that were new at that time.

And, and I don't know if they had a choir in that church. Well, was sang in the choir.

But as far as, you.

Know, because we just didn't, we didn't get around to, do anything, go anyplace or do anything much.

Only because right in the neighborhood.

Sam Schrager: Did girls have dolls and play house when you were young, like they did.

Palma Hanson Hove: Well.

I think the only dolls that I remember, I didn't get a, China doll till I was 15 years old.

And, otherwise, we just had rag dolls, and we used to play house, just like kids do nowadays. But we didn't have anything to play with. We made our own little tables, you know, broken glass would be our dishes.

And.

And I remember when, the neighbor kids had come and my father had a nice horse one time that died, and we all put to bed. So we had a funeral for this horse, and we sang and we.

Brought flowers and put on the grave and all that stuff is that stuff.

That you had to think about yourself, you know, I don't think kids do anything like.

That nowadays.

Sam Schrager: And it sounds like you had to use your imagination.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah, we had to use our.

Imagination for anything that we did.

Games or.

Anything. We didn't have any games or anything.

To play with.

Sam Schrager: We there a lot of made up games that you could.

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah. And make games between ourself and.

And of course we have a great going to the neighbors and playing, you know, but we all tend to take the little kids along so that mother could have a little free time to do what she was doing.

So it was.

I never remember of any time that I really got to go someplace and play, that some of the younger kids had to tag along and we had to look after them. But then that was just something that we knew we had to do.

So that was all right. Never even thought about going without.

Having to drag the.

Kids along.

Sam Schrager: Was her day laid out from beginning to end? Pretty much what she'd have to do?

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, indeed. You know, had this day for baking in that day for churning and washing and ironing and because, you know, you'd have to with a big family like that, otherwise you'd just be in a muddle.

Yeah.

And I think that stayed with me, too, because when I went to housekeeping, my I did the very same thing. I had a Monday for washing, Tuesday finding and Wednesday bake bread and churn and Thursday so and so and down the line. And I know on Saturday we always had to, mother those lay out all our clothes for Sunday school in the morning so that everybody knew where.

The clothes were. Oh, you bet it had to be a system.

To it or that couldn't have done it. And I think most of the women were the same way. They had their schedule pretty well planned out.

But they only went to town probably once every two weeks or.

So to buy groceries. And.

So it was an entirely different.

Different way.

Sam Schrager: And I imagine what you're saying that on a day, on a given day, she probably wouldn't have much time to just sit around, be there.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh, no, I.

Don't ever remember. And if she did, like I say, her hands were busy either at the sewing machine or crocheting or knitting.

And she did that after she moved to town, and.

She didn't have so much.

To do, and she still kept busy with.

Her hands. And I'm pretty much the same way. Only now my hands aren't working that good.

After I've broken my knee.

Pretty stiff and achy.

I'm starting in a little bit though. On it starting in Africa and again.

Sam Schrager: Now that's good.

Palma Hanson Hove: So I, I hope I'll be able to do well.

Sam Schrager: This be the first the first thing that you have made.

Palma Hanson Hove: The.

First thing with the needle. But I made some, my hobbies making these.

Dolls.

Over there on the table. Those granny dolls. And I have made,

Those since I been back again.

I've got to keep busy.

It's something.

I'd like to be a helping a little bit in the yard. The thistles get away from my daughter.

They're just.

So thick up here on the hill.

You know? But I can't. I can't do anything yet.

Sam Schrager:

Palma Hanson Hove: I'm scared to death of the gypsies. I know one time we went to parochial.

Sam Schrager: School.

Palma Hanson Hove: And there was a bunch of gypsies came, and we'd have folks who told us, you know, that they might. They might steal kids. And I tell you, we ran till we were so out of breath. So finally we couldn't run any further. So we crawled under the fence and hid in a field because we were so scared that.

Was going to steal us.

But, even after I was married, the gypsies would go through with their wagons and they would always stop and want to sell your lace or trade for food or something. And I remember one time I just threw baking bread mitt always had some story about the grandmother was sick and needed, something special, you know, and fruit.

Or if I could just give them a tent or a jar of fruit or a glass of jelly for their grandmother. Well, that wasn't so at all. That was just their tale, you know? So one time I had just baked bread and I had, oh, probably 6 or 7 loaves of bread there. And so they were not if they couldn't trade me some lace for bread.

So I said, oh, sure, trade. And so they traded me some lace. I don't know how many yards at least I got for three loaves of bread. But that was grandmother then, too. That was a.

Hundred that.

Then after a couple of years. Well, then that was the end of that. I think they weren't allowed to stop in the towns.

Anymore.

And they don't travel through anymore. But they.

Did. They went through there for years.

Sam Schrager: I think they they stole as much as.

Palma Hanson Hove: Oh yeah, absolutely. They'd get into the stores, you know, and they had hundreds of pockets, you know, and their clothes and they, and they would steal. All right. But, I watch them pretty close. They'd come to my house, you know, and in fact, I didn't let them in. I left one lady at that one time because she was going to get bread then for this lace.

But the rest of my went better, man, because they just wander all through your house and everything, you know, if you didn't watch him. But that's the thing of a pastor there.

That was in 1917, I guess the last time they went through.

Sam Schrager: Did you hear about the IWW much? You know?

Palma Hanson Hove: Yeah, yeah, I remember. And of course, at that time, too.

They brought all these boys out from New.

York.

You know, and they planted all these.

Groves and things around here.

Because that, was supposed to be the IWW that they.

Found work for.

But, they had a real camp down there, Genesee.

And they they planted a lot of trees for people, and,

Some of the boys and married some of the local.

Girls and stayed out west. Yeah, they. Oh, they're at a lot of those. All right. Well, that was.

I think that was at the time too. Where there, you know, it was kind of a a recession then too. And, they didn't know what to do with all these.

People in, you.

Know, in towns that were starving.

And everything.

So was that during the Roosevelt administration?

Yeah. He set up those camps CC, CC, cancer. Colon.