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Part 3- Camp at Starbuck
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July 6, Sunday: Nora’s birthday. She is seventeen today. The same schedule this morning – got up early, breakfast as usual (only we had our first dutch-oven bread and boy! It was surely good). After breakfast and dishwashing and bed making were over, Ann and I wrote letters. Nora cut the boy’s hair. I also wrote in my diary book.
After dinner some silly disturbance prevented us from finishing reading and singing, so Papa left us to get some fresh water at the well down nearer Starbuck. When he came back we got in the coupe and rode on up the stream on the road leading to Lookout Mountain. We saw the wonderful, exquisite Gates Mansion. Gates is the owner of the Gates Rubber Co. of Denver and maker of the Gates tires, which we have on the truck. Kittredge is the next small town above us, about three miles up. Past that small burg we came to a house- a dwelling place of some fortunate person- - that was just a dream. I immediately fell in love with it. Its name was “Menah San” an Oriental name, and the whole place, fence, bridge crossing the stream which circled the place, gates especially, bird houses, and everything was built on the Japanese style and order. I just love it, and want to take a picture before we leave.
Well, we went on & soon came to a divide in the road; one leading to Mount Lookout, and the other to “Troutdale in the Pines”, a resort. |
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| We stopped there & watched the people come and go before turning around to go back home. Mama had meat on to cook for mulligan for supper – a soup which is very good and which we enjoyed to the full. Ann had counted the cars which passed by our camp, going both ways and counted 336 in just one hour. Nora counted them when we got back for an hour and got 318. 654 in 2 hours! A great majority of the occupants wave to us and yell something to us -so friendly! I’ve never described our lovely camp yet –I guess it’s because I didn’t think it was so very nice at first, but I now like |
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"Troutdale in the Pines" 1924
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it better than any camp we ever had - even better than at Green Mtn. Falls. It has a clear, cold, swift stream of mountain water as at Green M. Falls only much wider, and swifter. Our car is 5 or 6 feet from the edge of the water, a large pine tree between and shading the whole camp most of the day. The coupe is on the south side of the truck and west of them both is the tent, facing the stream and with its back to the road which is 3 or 4 foot higher than the tent –so people going by look down on our wonderful place and by their looks and gestures, |
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The Best Camp EVER! Right on the banks of Bear Creek.
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seem to envy us. One man tho’t it so exquisite that he stopped and took a picture of our artistic little camp! Oh yes. Our tables. In front of the tent, a little eastward is a stationary table for eight persons, the number or our family –with stumps for chairs. Our folding table we use for every purpose but mostly for putting under the pine tree by the truck, on the edge of the stream, with a brown curtain and a beautiful bouquet of mountain flowers on it, on which to write our letters. Every day and every way I like our camp more & more! |
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July 7, Monday: Got up bright and early for this is wash day. We washed all our khaki clothes and all other clothes that were dirty. I hung the clothes way up on the side of the mountain on little pine trees and native bushes to dry. I was the cook for the washers, too. After dinner all laid down to sleep but me, Mama & Thelma. (Papa had left while we were washing for Denver to get the mail, etc) I washed dishes cleaned camp, made steps going up the bank to the “O-casa” and then Thelma and I took same quilts, pillow and an |
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arithmetic (which I bro’t along to study and polish the rust off) and went across the stream, made a bed under the pine trees and slept until pops came home with a whole bunch of mail. Clarence had got the mail Saturday. That is the reason we didn’t get any when we went up. He had bro’t some hamburger meat so I fried those and Ann and I made Hamburgers while he read the mail. I got a letter from Jim. It read “Hello Vira, Bob it! From Jim”. It was an answer to my prayer – the letter I had written when we were in Blaine. I thought he would offer some suggestion or advice, but no such stuff. Supper over, all us kids went over to the swings and had a nice time exercising. Then we three girls walked up to see the Gates Mansion and talk about it and its occupants. We returned and went to our beds. They had been remade, setting aside the cots and making a bed of pine needles, for the cots were entirely too cold for us Oklahomans! |
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| July 8, Tuesday: Another super fine breakfast of dutch-oven bread, butter and honey. We read and had prayer and then began our days work. Ann ironed the clothes; Nora and I cleaned up the camp & washed the dishes. Papa and the boys worked on the cars and fixed the engines for the climb to Lookout Mountain. Mama fixed the pie dough and we made three lemon pies and a sugar pie –all in the dutch-oven. Then we fixed some beans to bake. The old oven is learning to be useful in its old days. Ann got dinner (beefsteak and gravy) but it start raining as we started eating and most of us moved into the tent to eat. Ann, Nora and Papa ate in the rain. (It didn’t last long.) Then Nora ironed the khaki clothes while papa finished working |
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Mother at her natural task, cooking. A wonderful camp kitchen, a wonderful cook!
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on the car and the rest slept. I read the papers and just was deciding to sleep when Mama got up. A few minutes later Nora finished the ironing and she lay down to sleep. Papa came into the tent and shamed us for lying around sleeping and not writing. He said we must all take our pencils to write to Clara as she had written to us twice since we left there and we had not even thanked her for what she did for us at Arlington. Well that was very naughty of us, but we really had thanked her in our hearts and had liked her more while there than we tho’t possible. Well I just hate to be bawled out and that took out of me all the writing I ever had. But I took my pen and paper and went up on the mountain side and wrote a letter. But it could have been nicer.
Ann and I went over to the swings and swung until Lou came. Olga and Junior were with him, also Olga’s Mother, Mrs. Wuebbenhorst and daughter Constance. They are Germans and she can hardly talk English but is surely a sweet dear old lady. A neighbor of theirs was with them in their new Ford. Lou’s family all ate supper at our camp after dark –lantern & campfire for light –dutch-oven bread and English pudding. After supper we visited and then Ann, I and Papa went in the coupe with Lou’s and neighbors up to Mrs. Wuebbenhorst’s home, ‘Uneeda Rest’, up on the mountainside. Almost up there the new Ford stopped and it took nearly three quarters of an hour to get it started. Then we went on up. Mrs. Wuebbenhorst gave us some Jewish rye bread to bring to Mother and then we came back. I rode w Lou and Olga. Lou told me the Japanese cabin belonged to Mr. Shoals of the Mutual Drug Stores. We got home somewhere near the midnight hour and went to bed. |
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July 9, Wednesday: Papa’s Birthday! Ann wearied of trying to arouse Nora and me, so she got up and had a campfire built and breakfast started when I dressed and came out there. She made dutch-oven bread for breakfast. We read again and soon after began preparing for our hike. It was 9 AM and when we were nearing the Gate’s mansion we remembered the Kodak and Ann went back after it. Nora carried our meager lunch, I carried a quilt to eat our meal on, Thelma carried her sweater and Ann carried the Kodak We followed the road, resting now and then and taking time to examine and scrutinize the “Menah San”. |
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Ann, Thelma and Nora on our way up to Mrs. Wuebbenhorst's house
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When we reached Evergreen we purchased a loaf of bread and a can of tomatoes. We then left the road and went up the little Cub Creek; then across the mountain.
Found a place to eat dinner, and Ann and I went over to Mrs. Wuebbenhorst’s house and borrowed some matches and a bucket for water. We came back via cold spring and ate dinner –then returned the things we borrowed from Mrs. Wuebbenhorst. It was 4:00! We had a difficult time finding our way over the mountain and back to the road. We had two or three offers to ride but didn’t take them.
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I stumbled and fell when a whole observation car full of boys passed us. My, how they yelled and honked that old horn! (The man in the Moon passed us on the road going up.) We left the main road and followed the little by-road –it made Nora and Ann mad, but I was tired of dodging cars - and came home by that way. It was 6:45 when we arrived here and we ate supper and soon afterwards we went to bed, very tired. |
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July 10, Thursday: Got up bright and early for this is Children’s day at Lakeside and all children wanted to go while Nora, Ann & I would go to the museum. But Papa was sick all night long with the sick headache and was no better in the morning. Ate no breakfast nor dinner. Ann washed my sweater and all three of us girls washed our hair. The boys and Thelma worked diligently making a Pike’s Peak and Two Buttes out of sand. After dinner we wrote letters and cards, caught up in our diaries, etc. Papa sat up in the evening, feeling much better. We huddled around the camp fire until bed time and all retired. It was a rather uneventful day except for a Ford bumping into a large touring car right above our camp on the road. Two poor unfortunate boys were in the Ford – its side was badly bumped.
July 11, Friday: Papa feeling much better, got up and ate breakfast of oatmeal and toast with us. After reading and having prayer, Nora and I begin preparing to go to Denver to take in the museum. When we were all ready to go the kids decided they wanted to go too, so Papa fixed a seat in the back of the coupe for them. It was now too near noon to start out so we ate our dinner of pork and beans and apricots. Near noon we started for Denver, Nora, Papa, I and Thelma in the front seat and Chas and Fred on the back seat on their improvised seat. We reached Lou’s about 12:30 . He hadn’t gone to work yet, so he and Papa went down to the bank (Papa needed someone to identify him) and while there Papa got his gold eversharp stolen from him. Arrived at the Museum about 1:00 and on second floor began looking at animals and reading all about them. Next came the 1st floor- Geology and minerals. Brings back the chemistry life to see so many formulas, etc. Papa left us and went down to get gas. When we were on the third floor he cam back and went on through with us. It was almost 5:00 and I was surely getting tired. We went down to Olga’s and she went with us to Piggly Wiggly to get groceries, etc. and it was 6:00 before we left there. Nora decided to stay with Frances and come back to camp with Lou the next day. Then we started home- car didn’t work well but we reached camp about 7:30 or 8:00. As we were tired we went to bed soon.
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| July 12, Saturday: A very poor and restless night I had, trying to solve THE question. After breakfast, dishes washed beds made, Ann made a cake in the dutch-oven. (boy, it was good!). Then I gathered up the scissors, clippers, comb, brush, twine string, cup, etc. and slipped a hint of warning mother, Ann and I slipped off across the swinging bridge, passed the shelter houses, up the side of the mountain and we came to a big, solid rock. And ? with a swink/swank of the scissors, a clip/clip of the clippers, the misery was ended ? my hair was BOBBED. Meanwhile Papa cam home from Starbuck with mail and water and I must now go and face the ?battle? I kept my old khaki lid on until at the dinner table. Mama yanked it off ? but I never got a scolding or nothing. We fooled the evening away and prepared for our Sunday hike, etc. A Chevrolet got stuck in the stream and while all were watching them get out, Ann and I went across the stream to the swings and talked and visited until dark. Lou came and all his family and Nora. They of course were surprised at seeing my clipped crowning glory. They all sat around the campfire, drank coffee and talked and finally retired. Ann and I slept in Lou’s sedan car. The back of the front seat lays back and makes a keen bed, but it made an awful noise when we happened to kick the horn! |
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