While living here, I started making braided rugs and I made enough
of them to cover all the floors in the house. The biggest one
I made for the living room is now at the Pendleton Museum along
with some of our other things. Also during the time we lived
here, Marion lost his Mother. She was a dear sweet lady and we
missed her very much.
The kids grew up as kids are prone to do and began to take less
of my time, so as all women feel at some time or other , I felt
the need to do something a little more constructive with my time
than just to keep house and wait for all of them to come home.
I still had to convince Marion that I wanted to go to work although
I had no real marketable skills except my conviction that I could
do something to contribute more to the family than I was doing
when the boys were almost grown.
I had no idea what I would do but I was almost convinced that
I could do something useful. My next door neighbor, Helen Colvin,
told me that a friend of hers, Betz Metz was working for Dr. Donald
Bixler, an Ophthalmologist, and she intended to quit. I had
no experience in that field, but then I had no expertise in any
other field either. I went for an interview one afternoon and
a few days later he called and told me I had the job. It was
certainly a wonderful surprise. I worked with a really nice lady,
Betty Smith. We had never known each other before but we hit
it off immediately. We really had a lot in common we found out.
She had four sons and I had two sons and we got along just great.
We started out as receptionists but the longer we worked, the
more the Doctor taught us about the field of Ophthalmology and
we assisted in more office procedures, scheduled surgery, assisted
in minor office surgery, kept books and patient records straight,
scheduled appointments and the many other things that comprise
running a Doctor's office. We worked well together and kept things
running smoothly, at least the Doctor didn't complain much so
I guess we did.
During that time Marion started playing golf and I had to learn
in self-defense and we joined the Idlewold Country Club. I never
liked it as well as Marion did but it was something we could do
together and it was good exercise and relaxing after being inside
all day. We made a lot of new friends during that time at the
golf course and had a lot of fun along the way. There are times
when I wonder if we could have spent our time to more advantage,
but we didn't and we certainly enjoyed that time of our life and
what we were doing then.
After we had lived in the house we had built on the hill about
8 years we began to get restless there and decided we would like
to have a big old house (preferably brick) to restore so we started
looking for one. We looked and looked and couldn't seem to find
one that we liked or one that was in a suitable location. At that
time there was a Pool Room uptown where men went to loaf, play
cards and shoot Pool. Marion's Dad went there a lot and he knew
Sport Jordan who had 20 acres at the South edge of Pendleton and
we thought that would be ideal. It was a beautiful place and
we had seen it a lot in the Winter Time when the trees were all
covered with snow and it looked just like a Christmas card.
We asked Marion's Dad to ask him if he would be interested in
selling it. Straud didn't think he would and we didn't either
but when he asked him, he was. It was kind of a long delicate
process, because we didn't want to rush him along and maybe he
would change his mind. We would only go out and talk to him when
he invited us and we gave him the price asked and tried to do
everything just the way he wanted it done so we would be sure
and get it. Anyway we felt bad for him because it had been his
home for so long, he had even been married there, so of course
he was reluctant to part with it. He felt he had other choice
because he could no longer care for it. I think we started the
negotiations about in April or May and we finally closed with
him on July 25, the day Phil and Gretchen got married.
So that began another stage in our lives. We restored that house
to the best of our ability and made some other improvements along
the way, We learned that the original part of house had been
built some time in the 1830's and the front two-story part had
been added on in one of the more prosperous times. We just loved
it there. We did a lot of work on it and thought it was really
a wonderful place to live, and it was. In retrospect, it is probably
the only place that we have ever lived that it would be nice to
have back now that our family is so much bigger.
We collected some antiques to put in it along with some family
pieces that we already had. We had a kitchen cabinet that belonged
to my Great Grandmother that Phil and Gretchen have now and a
game table that belonged to Marion's Great Grand mother, that
Rick has now. We had a hanging light in the living room that
belonged to my Grandmother and a hanging light in the dining room
that Phil and Gretchen now have and a hanging light in the dining
room that belonged to Marion's grandmother that Rick has now.
We also had a marble-topped sideboard that, according legend,
was made by the brother of William Jennings Bryan. The initials
"A.B." appear on the back.
We had some cattle, ducks, a pet rabbit, raised a baby squirrel,
many dogs and a cat. On the North side of the house there was
a pond that was fed by a flowing spring from the front of the
property. First the water fed into a cooling tank that must have
been for milk and then into the deeper part of the pond. The overflow
then went into a watering tank for the cattle we had. It was
so peaceful there and almost always cool in Summer. The pond had
a lot of great big goldfish that had been in there for years.
Another detail, when we went out to talk to Sport, the former
owner, he always insisted that we have a glass of his homemade
wine. It was delicious and he gave us the recipe and the grape
arbor was on the place and we made some wine also.
During the time we lived there, we were on the Historical Home
Tour for the Pendleton Sesquicentennial Celebration. I had some
of my Great-Grandmother's (Rebecca Fesler's clothes, cape and
hat) to wear.
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