[or-roots] Interesting article on early Douglas and Coos County(1879)

[Leslie Chapman]

In my "Audoban Society Field Guide to N A Flowers" it just refers to
foxglove them as of foreign origin.

as to the heroic feat, here is the excerpt from Bob Chambers "My Norwegian
Heritage";

"After Jens' accident, Henry logged on the North FOrk of the Smith River
under the foreman, Milton Sherret (his brother-in-law [actually he has the
relationship confused; Milton Sr. married a 1st cousin of Emma Viola
(Melvin) Hansen]), and here hangs a tale, one of many legendary stories
demonstrating the physical prowess of Henry.

Sherrit's young daugher contracted diptheria that in those days often proved
fatal. As there was no doctor in Gardiner at that time, Henry volunteered to
secure one form Marshfield. This undertaking requird him to rwo down from
the North Fork f the Smith River to winchester Bay (around 25 miles) where
he borrowed a horse from the stage depot and rode to the north side of Coos
Bay at Jarvis Point, hailed a boat and was rowed across the bay to Empire,
walked to Mashfield and secured a doctor. The next day with the doctor in
tow, they made their way back to the logging camp."

[the way I understood the story from hearing it many times in my life was he
made the first round trip in 24 hours. Bob goes on to explain one girl had
already died by the time they arrived and the other girl soon after and then
Grampa took the doctor back in more or less the same manner, hopefully
stopping to rest along the way on the return voyage.]

That heroic feat is supposedly why Emma Viola thought he would make a good
father, I guess since to the grandchildren they had 57 decendant to the
grand children [that I can count, I think I am missing two]

One note not in the book is that Emma (Tucker) Sherrett became something of
a burden for Grandma in her declining years. Our family has a pretty good
history of taking care of our own, even when maybe we'd rather not and in
the "Letters to Grandma" are several from Emma after Milton passed away
thanking her for financial aid and a couple asking for a "little
assistance." In those letters I found other family members were also a bit
of a burden on Grandma, but she bore it well.

Les C


-----Original Message-----
From: or-roots-bounces at listsmart.osl.state.or.us
[mailto:or-roots-bounces at listsmart.osl.state.or.us]On Behalf Of Robyn
Greenlund
Sent: Saturday, February 06, 2010 6:13 AM
To: or-roots mail list
Subject: Re: [or-roots] Interesting article on early Douglas and Coos
County(1879)


OK Les, now you've peaked my interest.....

"Grandpa Hansen made on his heroic but futile ride to the doctor for girls
buried at the mouth of North fork."

More details please....

And I hadn't realized that foxglove was introduced either - one of my
favorite parts of that story. The story does continue and I'm working on
getting it transcribed. It's not as interesting to me as this piece was, but
it does have some interesting tidbits to it.


Robyn
rgreenlund61 at yahoo.com

Interested in Oregon History? Check out my webpages at
coquillevalley.org or genealogytrails.com (Coos & Curry Counties)

http://listsmart.osl.state.or.us/mailman/listinfo/or-roots